The polls are only going one way and I would venture to suggest Starmer's decision to scrap the 28 billion (£140 billion over 5 years) has been accepted as a wise decision and may indicate not everyone has a devotion to net zero
I see no way back for the conservatives and would prefer a May election but I just cannot see anything other than an Oct/ November one
It would be good to see it all over with, but I still think Rishi will hang on until the last minute!
No, because to do so would mean an election campaign that spanned the Christmas holidays - and the fury of the electorate. Autumn most likely I think.
Yes but for the blue team, spanning the holidays is a feature, not a bug, because it negates the other parties' advantage in the ground game by clearing activists from the street. January 2025 is the Tories' best chance.
But all those lefty teachers will be on holiday for a fortnight, giving them plenty of time to campaign.
They are allowing the deconstruction of the Enlightenment - to appease Islam and to satisfy some moronic desire for an equity which cannot happen and is not even achievable, all so they can feel “good”
Thankfully I can flee the UK as this madness burns slow then fast, corroding away everything of moral value
However, I pity my descendants who will have to try and salvage…. Something
'Woke', as you call it, is the natural development of The Enlightenment.
That you can't see that simply shows how unenlightened you are.
How would you define the terms Enlightement and Woke?
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
On the food. Clearly if people are going hungry then a mistake has been made, but I don't think that means you have to order zero meat options. Surely there's a middle ground where there is a choice for those who might want to eat meat, but not so much that non-meat eaters are lefty without - though I'm speaking here as one of those omnivores who tends to avoid meat in a buffet situation, not knowing where it is from, or how long it has been waiting there.
As to woke generally, there is a lot which is simply this generation's treating people with respect, but there is an element, perhaps a product of the way in which people get riled up online, of being uncompromising, impatient, and, ironically, rude about it.
It's as though people forget that it might well be a new idea for other people, that it often takes people a while to get used to new ideas, and a bit of open-hearted patience and the benefit of the doubt can go a long way.
Taking this back to the food example, if a 3:1 meat: no-meat order didn't work, why not try 1:1, or 1:3, before leaping straight away to no meat at all?
He's almost certainly talking nonsense.
Whenever I've seen catering like this it's been the other way round: the meat options go quickly and the vegan stuff isn't touched.
The bigger problem is the virtue-signalling you now get with some organisations/events wanting to make statements by only ordering vegan/vegetarian food for everyone - I'm in a fight with one on this very matter right now. When this happens people leave early, and go and get their own food, don't come again or learn next time to buy and eat their own in advance; and it pisses a lot of people off.
Thankfully, I've done the opposite as an experiment: I organised a team social in a steak restaurant. We had 20 people in there, mostly under 30 years old, with unlimited cuts of beef and steak with red wine, and they absolutely loved it. The two vegetarians had their own thing, but the same fries, creamed spinach, peppers and red wine, and had no issue with it at all.
The Badenoch show rumbles on with grim fascination in the Commons. She now says "full of lies" refers to three claims made by Henry Staunton, recent Post Office Chair.
1. That she didn't apologise to him for finding out about his sacking from a journalist. This should be easy to check: Is there an s apology in the transcript of the conversation that she is about to be made public? 2. That she told him "someone has to take the rap". The absence of of such a statement in the transcript doesn't necessarily mean she didn't say it. 3. That he was told to slow down compensation claims. She has no way of knowing whether anyone said this to him or not.
On her claim that he was sacked for misconduct, this appears to be allegations of bullying rather than an actual finding of misconduct. We should find out if she mentioned any of this in the transcript She had a long list of other complaints about him but these weren't misconduct.
It doesn't appear she's in a stronger legal position after her statement than before.
It does sound a bit hit the law/hit the facts/hit the table, and Kemi B has moved on to stage 3.
Though given that she won't resign voluntarily, and Rishi is in far too weak a position to sack her unwillingly, it doesn't matter all that much.
I wonder also if Staunton has a claim of breach of confidentiality against Badenoch as many of her claims don't appear to address the points he made and there was no legal requirement on her to make these statements.
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
On the food. Clearly if people are going hungry then a mistake has been made, but I don't think that means you have to order zero meat options. Surely there's a middle ground where there is a choice for those who might want to eat meat, but not so much that non-meat eaters are lefty without - though I'm speaking here as one of those omnivores who tends to avoid meat in a buffet situation, not knowing where it is from, or how long it has been waiting there.
As to woke generally, there is a lot which is simply this generation's treating people with respect, but there is an element, perhaps a product of the way in which people get riled up online, of being uncompromising, impatient, and, ironically, rude about it.
It's as though people forget that it might well be a new idea for other people, that it often takes people a while to get used to new ideas, and a bit of open-hearted patience and the benefit of the doubt can go a long way.
Taking this back to the food example, if a 3:1 meat: no-meat order didn't work, why not try 1:1, or 1:3, before leaping straight away to no meat at all?
I don't understand why the meat thing is such an issue. When catering at a work do having only veggie / vegan options allows for a typically cheaper option that has (in my experience at least) less waste (and of course the impact of waste is different for meat products and non-meat products), and also means the actual vegetarians and vegans get enough food, rather than having to share the stuff they can eat with people who will also eat stuff (and leave behind stuff) we can't eat. It's not exclusionary - no one is unable to eat non-meat options. Meat is not an essential - there is no right to meat in every food option. It was also agreed by everyone, meat eaters and not.
It does seem a daft hoo-haa about office snacks FFS. Who cares? If you want a good dinner, go out to dinner.
I care greatly about the arrogance of someone else who has an ideology who presumes to pick on my behalf what I can and can't eat.
The Badenoch show rumbles on with grim fascination in the Commons. She now says "full of lies" refers to three claims made by Henry Staunton, recent Post Office Chair.
1. That she didn't apologise to him for finding out about his sacking from a journalist. This should be easy to check: Is there an s apology in the transcript of the conversation that she is about to be made public? 2. That she told him "someone has to take the rap". The absence of of such a statement in the transcript doesn't necessarily mean she didn't say it. 3. That he was told to slow down compensation claims. She has no way of knowing whether anyone said this to him or not.
On her claim that he was sacked for misconduct, this appears to be allegations of bullying rather than an actual finding of misconduct. We should find out if she mentioned any of this in the transcript She had a long list of other complaints about him but these weren't misconduct.
It doesn't appear she's in a stronger legal position after her statement than before.
It does sound a bit hit the law/hit the facts/hit the table, and Kemi B has moved on to stage 3.
Though given that she won't resign voluntarily, and Rishi is in far too weak a position to sack her unwillingly, it doesn't matter all that much.
I wonder also if Staunton has a claim of breach of confidentiality against Badenoch as many of her claims don't appear to address the points he made and there was no legal requirement on her to make these statements.
All very odd. This needs to simmer some more before it's, or rather someone, is cooked.
PB comments is reading more and more like the Express. That is quite disappointing.
Gee that must be disappointing for you, after your << checks notes >> 73 total comments in PB history
To be fair, comment count is not an accurate barometer of contributions to PB, because apparently some people have had more than one PB identity over the years. Sounds unlikely I know.
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
So 75% don't get the option of meat? Sounds fair...
I agree woke is tenuous, and in reality 'don't be a dick' and 'be nice to people' covers most things. However there is a substance there somewhere. Moving from Christmas to Winterval to be more inclusive (who voted for that?). I think sometimes the issue is culture warriors fighting battles on behalf of others, typically others who don't care. Such as all the non-Christians our there who happily celebrate Christmas, including atheists, muslims, budhhists etc. There is also a tendency to want keep ratcheting a dial.
But hey, its not the biggest issue in the world right now.
Well no, because they tend to leave meat behind uneaten and eat all the veggie options anyway!
I mean, how much of the "Winterval" stuff actually exists out there, though? Like, when I send emails out to students I will typically say "winter break", but that's because that's what it is. I think most people try to "not be a dick" or "be nice to people" and then people with an axe to grind wind themselves up about it for no reason. It doesn't hurt you if I don't celebrate Christmas and don't wish anyone a "Merry Christmas" so why get vexed if I say "Happy Holidays" or, indeed, nothing at all?
Fuck off
We now have a de facto blasphemy law. Not only that, it is a brutal blasphemy law. Offend Islam and you die
There is a teacher from batley who will be in hiding the rest of his life because he dared to show pupils something that “offended” their Islamic religion. No teacher will now ever dare to do this again
That’s a blasphemy law the likes of which we haven’t seen since the 17th century. That is Wokeness, that is what it means, it means the end of the Enlightenment, and useful idiots like you who try to claim it is all a fuss about nothing can go jump in the sea. You stupid stupid cretin
I know it's you and all but it's quite hard to distinguish this from the ravings of a puce-faced old reactionary.
How else would you describe what happened in batley? And how it has turned out?
Go on, have a go
Ah well that's a scandal. But you were going all 'death of the Enlightenment' again. Plus calling people 'cretins' who don't quite see that. Really poor show.
I was only popping in and that's what I saw. It's not I wanted to see, believe me. Maybe it'll be better next time.
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
On the food. Clearly if people are going hungry then a mistake has been made, but I don't think that means you have to order zero meat options. Surely there's a middle ground where there is a choice for those who might want to eat meat, but not so much that non-meat eaters are lefty without - though I'm speaking here as one of those omnivores who tends to avoid meat in a buffet situation, not knowing where it is from, or how long it has been waiting there.
As to woke generally, there is a lot which is simply this generation's treating people with respect, but there is an element, perhaps a product of the way in which people get riled up online, of being uncompromising, impatient, and, ironically, rude about it.
It's as though people forget that it might well be a new idea for other people, that it often takes people a while to get used to new ideas, and a bit of open-hearted patience and the benefit of the doubt can go a long way.
Taking this back to the food example, if a 3:1 meat: no-meat order didn't work, why not try 1:1, or 1:3, before leaping straight away to no meat at all?
I don't understand why the meat thing is such an issue. When catering at a work do having only veggie / vegan options allows for a typically cheaper option that has (in my experience at least) less waste (and of course the impact of waste is different for meat products and non-meat products), and also means the actual vegetarians and vegans get enough food, rather than having to share the stuff they can eat with people who will also eat stuff (and leave behind stuff) we can't eat. It's not exclusionary - no one is unable to eat non-meat options. Meat is not an essential - there is no right to meat in every food option. It was also agreed by everyone, meat eaters and not.
It does seem a daft hoo-haa about office snacks FFS. Who cares? If you want a good dinner, go out to dinner.
I care greatly about the arrogance of someone else who has an ideology who presumes to pick on my behalf what I can and can't eat.
Remind me never to invite you to dinner. You'd probably complain about the pheasant casserole just because I chose it and you didn't. I'd want to save you from that trauma.
I once dreamed that a quite superb name for a stripper or erotic novelist was an anagram of my real name. When I woke up it turned out it actually was.
The Badenoch show rumbles on with grim fascination in the Commons. She now says "full of lies" refers to three claims made by Henry Staunton, recent Post Office Chair.
1. That she didn't apologise to him for finding out about his sacking from a journalist. This should be easy to check: Is there an s apology in the transcript of the conversation that she is about to be made public? 2. That she told him "someone has to take the rap". The absence of of such a statement in the transcript doesn't necessarily mean she didn't say it. 3. That he was told to slow down compensation claims. She has no way of knowing whether anyone said this to him or not.
On her claim that he was sacked for misconduct, this appears to be allegations of bullying rather than an actual finding of misconduct. We should find out if she mentioned any of this in the transcript She had a long list of other complaints about him but these weren't misconduct.
It doesn't appear she's in a stronger legal position after her statement than before.
It does sound a bit hit the law/hit the facts/hit the table, and Kemi B has moved on to stage 3.
Though given that she won't resign voluntarily, and Rishi is in far too weak a position to sack her unwillingly, it doesn't matter all that much.
I wonder also if Staunton has a claim of breach of confidentiality against Badenoch as many of her claims don't appear to address the points he made and there was no legal requirement on her to make these statements.
He's certainly not taking it lying down...
This is Henry Staunton’s reply to Kemi Badenoch.
Firstly, with regard to the comment made to Mr Staunton by the senior civil servant to the effect that he was to stall on compensation payments to Horizon victims and on spend on the Horizon replacement so the government could “limp into the election” with the lowest possible financial liability. Mr Staunton stands by this comment which he recorded at the time in a file note which he emailed to himself and to colleagues and which is therefore traceable on the Post Office Server...
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
On the food. Clearly if people are going hungry then a mistake has been made, but I don't think that means you have to order zero meat options. Surely there's a middle ground where there is a choice for those who might want to eat meat, but not so much that non-meat eaters are lefty without - though I'm speaking here as one of those omnivores who tends to avoid meat in a buffet situation, not knowing where it is from, or how long it has been waiting there.
As to woke generally, there is a lot which is simply this generation's treating people with respect, but there is an element, perhaps a product of the way in which people get riled up online, of being uncompromising, impatient, and, ironically, rude about it.
It's as though people forget that it might well be a new idea for other people, that it often takes people a while to get used to new ideas, and a bit of open-hearted patience and the benefit of the doubt can go a long way.
Taking this back to the food example, if a 3:1 meat: no-meat order didn't work, why not try 1:1, or 1:3, before leaping straight away to no meat at all?
I don't understand why the meat thing is such an issue. When catering at a work do having only veggie / vegan options allows for a typically cheaper option that has (in my experience at least) less waste (and of course the impact of waste is different for meat products and non-meat products), and also means the actual vegetarians and vegans get enough food, rather than having to share the stuff they can eat with people who will also eat stuff (and leave behind stuff) we can't eat. It's not exclusionary - no one is unable to eat non-meat options. Meat is not an essential - there is no right to meat in every food option. It was also agreed by everyone, meat eaters and not.
It does seem a daft hoo-haa about office snacks FFS. Who cares? If you want a good dinner, go out to dinner.
I care greatly about the arrogance of someone else who has an ideology who presumes to pick on my behalf what I can and can't eat.
Remind me never to invite you to dinner. You'd probably complain about the pheasant casserole just because I chose it and you didn't. I'd want to save you from that trauma.
Oh shit, well, that's my year ruined.
Guess I'll just stay in and stick on Netflix then.
On this dreams malarkey, I can report that my dream involving Angela Rayner has not (so far) turned out to be prophetic.
"Now, in a dream, our mind continuously does this. We create and perceive our world simultaneously. And our mind does this so well that we don't even know it's happening."
They are allowing the deconstruction of the Enlightenment - to appease Islam and to satisfy some moronic desire for an equity which cannot happen and is not even achievable, all so they can feel “good”
Thankfully I can flee the UK as this madness burns slow then fast, corroding away everything of moral value
However, I pity my descendants who will have to try and salvage…. Something
'Woke', as you call it, is the natural development of The Enlightenment.
That you can't see that simply shows how unenlightened you are.
The trouble is that not many people seem to claiming woke as a badge of honour. However the 'woke' often refers to people who prioritise feelings and not giving offence over telling the truth. I don't see what that has got to do with the enlightenment.
The problem you run in to with this is that the enlightenment is actually quite contested. There is this idea that it means humanity moving forward due to facts, science, reason etc, sweeping away myths and religion; but then there is also all this weird stuff that came with it where you can find some precedents for the "woke".
Certainly there is a strong element of feeling over fact with 'woke' thinking. But I think that facts ultimately win, one way or the other.
They are allowing the deconstruction of the Enlightenment - to appease Islam and to satisfy some moronic desire for an equity which cannot happen and is not even achievable, all so they can feel “good”
Thankfully I can flee the UK as this madness burns slow then fast, corroding away everything of moral value
However, I pity my descendants who will have to try and salvage…. Something
'Woke', as you call it, is the natural development of The Enlightenment.
That you can't see that simply shows how unenlightened you are.
How would you define the terms Enlightement and Woke?
It's a fair challenge because I am never quite sure what is meant by others using the term 'woke' but I will fall back on what I believe was the original meaning, namely: 'an awareness of social inequalities'. (Thus I struggle to comprehend how 'woke', a heightened awareness of social inequalities, is likely to lead to the downfall of western civilisation.)
The Enlightenment for me is reason over superstition; liberty, tolerance, fraternity, equality, and respect for others in place of intolerance, autocracy and inequality.
The Badenoch show rumbles on with grim fascination in the Commons. She now says "full of lies" refers to three claims made by Henry Staunton, recent Post Office Chair.
1. That she didn't apologise to him for finding out about his sacking from a journalist. This should be easy to check: Is there an s apology in the transcript of the conversation that she is about to be made public? 2. That she told him "someone has to take the rap". The absence of of such a statement in the transcript doesn't necessarily mean she didn't say it. 3. That he was told to slow down compensation claims. She has no way of knowing whether anyone said this to him or not.
On her claim that he was sacked for misconduct, this appears to be allegations of bullying rather than an actual finding of misconduct. We should find out if she mentioned any of this in the transcript She had a long list of other complaints about him but these weren't misconduct.
It doesn't appear she's in a stronger legal position after her statement than before.
It does sound a bit hit the law/hit the facts/hit the table, and Kemi B has moved on to stage 3.
Though given that she won't resign voluntarily, and Rishi is in far too weak a position to sack her unwillingly, it doesn't matter all that much.
I wonder also if Staunton has a claim of breach of confidentiality against Badenoch as many of her claims don't appear to address the points he made and there was no legal requirement on her to make these statements.
He's certainly not taking it lying down...
This is Henry Staunton’s reply to Kemi Badenoch.
Firstly, with regard to the comment made to Mr Staunton by the senior civil servant to the effect that he was to stall on compensation payments to Horizon victims and on spend on the Horizon replacement so the government could “limp into the election” with the lowest possible financial liability. Mr Staunton stands by this comment which he recorded at the time in a file note which he emailed to himself and to colleagues and which is therefore traceable on the Post Office Server...
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
On the food. Clearly if people are going hungry then a mistake has been made, but I don't think that means you have to order zero meat options. Surely there's a middle ground where there is a choice for those who might want to eat meat, but not so much that non-meat eaters are lefty without - though I'm speaking here as one of those omnivores who tends to avoid meat in a buffet situation, not knowing where it is from, or how long it has been waiting there.
As to woke generally, there is a lot which is simply this generation's treating people with respect, but there is an element, perhaps a product of the way in which people get riled up online, of being uncompromising, impatient, and, ironically, rude about it.
It's as though people forget that it might well be a new idea for other people, that it often takes people a while to get used to new ideas, and a bit of open-hearted patience and the benefit of the doubt can go a long way.
Taking this back to the food example, if a 3:1 meat: no-meat order didn't work, why not try 1:1, or 1:3, before leaping straight away to no meat at all?
I don't understand why the meat thing is such an issue. When catering at a work do having only veggie / vegan options allows for a typically cheaper option that has (in my experience at least) less waste (and of course the impact of waste is different for meat products and non-meat products), and also means the actual vegetarians and vegans get enough food, rather than having to share the stuff they can eat with people who will also eat stuff (and leave behind stuff) we can't eat. It's not exclusionary - no one is unable to eat non-meat options. Meat is not an essential - there is no right to meat in every food option. It was also agreed by everyone, meat eaters and not.
It does seem a daft hoo-haa about office snacks FFS. Who cares? If you want a good dinner, go out to dinner.
I care greatly about the arrogance of someone else who has an ideology who presumes to pick on my behalf what I can and can't eat.
Remind me never to invite you to dinner. You'd probably complain about the pheasant casserole just because I chose it and you didn't. I'd want to save you from that trauma.
Can I take Casino's place? Pheasant casserole sounds great!
PB comments is reading more and more like the Express. That is quite disappointing.
Gee that must be disappointing for you, after your << checks notes >> 73 total comments in PB history
To be fair, comment count is not an accurate barometer of contributions to PB, because apparently some people have had more than one PB identity over the years. Sounds unlikely I know.
I'm of the view the quality of one's posts is inversely proportional to the number - I'm a good example of that. Your very first post is always the most interesting. From then on, it's all downhill.
The Golden Rule of PB is:
Anyone who posts between Midnight and 8am is SAD Anyone who posts between 8am and 4pm is BAD Anyone who posts between 4pm and Midnight is MAD
They are allowing the deconstruction of the Enlightenment - to appease Islam and to satisfy some moronic desire for an equity which cannot happen and is not even achievable, all so they can feel “good”
Thankfully I can flee the UK as this madness burns slow then fast, corroding away everything of moral value
However, I pity my descendants who will have to try and salvage…. Something
'Woke', as you call it, is the natural development of The Enlightenment.
That you can't see that simply shows how unenlightened you are.
The trouble is that not many people seem to claiming woke as a badge of honour. However the 'woke' often refers to people who prioritise feelings and not giving offence over telling the truth. I don't see what that has got to do with the enlightenment.
The problem you run in to with this is that the enlightenment is actually quite contested. There is this idea that it means humanity moving forward due to facts, science, reason etc, sweeping away myths and religion; but then there is also all this weird stuff that came with it where you can find some precedents for the "woke".
Certainly there is a strong element of feeling over fact with 'woke' thinking. But I think that facts ultimately win, one way or the other.
Much of the 'woke' don't think, they just follow fashion - ironically thinking they're very enlightened and intelligent all the way - and use it to identify themselves against the other side, who they then caricature and attack.
Some Reform voters have decided they quite like this new nutty Rishi and switched to Conservative, but some moderate Conservative votes don’t like nutty Rishi and have switched LibDem, while some LibDem voters have decided to back Starmer’s moderate Labour to get the Tories out, while some but not quite as many Labour voters are dismayed by moderate Labour’s timidity and have gone Green. While the SNP voters watch on.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Now come come, who doesn't relish a delicious nut roast? 😆
Seriously, if someone told me I'd developed a weird allergy to eating meat and fish and would have to get by as a vegetarian then I think I could come to terms with that. Eggs and dairy - vital ingredients in baked goods that are actually edible - are probably more important in my case. But veganism? Yes, the mere word invokes images of puritanical misery.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Apples. Vegan. Oranges. Vegan. Bananas. Vegan.
Never offer people a piece of fruit.
Yeah, but that's not what it is, is it?
No-one mind fruit and salad. Or beans. That's just part of a healthy balanced diet.
Vegan is "plant-based" wank as a main meal - and i use that term very loosely- with such horrors as tofu and it's almost always disgusting. Sometimes, it's downright fraudulent: like trying to pass off a slice of cauliflower as a steak, and causing abject misery in the process.
They are allowing the deconstruction of the Enlightenment - to appease Islam and to satisfy some moronic desire for an equity which cannot happen and is not even achievable, all so they can feel “good”
Thankfully I can flee the UK as this madness burns slow then fast, corroding away everything of moral value
However, I pity my descendants who will have to try and salvage…. Something
'Woke', as you call it, is the natural development of The Enlightenment.
That you can't see that simply shows how unenlightened you are.
How would you define the terms Enlightement and Woke?
It's a fair challenge because I am never quite sure what is meant by others using the term 'woke' but I will fall back on what I believe was the original meaning, namely: 'an awareness of social inequalities'. (Thus I struggle to comprehend how 'woke', a heightened awareness of social inequalities, is likely to lead to the downfall of western civilisation.)
The Enlightenment for me is reason over superstition; liberty, tolerance, fraternity, equality, and respect for others in place of intolerance, autocracy and inequality.
In that case, would 'wokeness' include measures to prioritise support for white working class boys, over other ethnic groups?
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
On the food. Clearly if people are going hungry then a mistake has been made, but I don't think that means you have to order zero meat options. Surely there's a middle ground where there is a choice for those who might want to eat meat, but not so much that non-meat eaters are lefty without - though I'm speaking here as one of those omnivores who tends to avoid meat in a buffet situation, not knowing where it is from, or how long it has been waiting there.
As to woke generally, there is a lot which is simply this generation's treating people with respect, but there is an element, perhaps a product of the way in which people get riled up online, of being uncompromising, impatient, and, ironically, rude about it.
It's as though people forget that it might well be a new idea for other people, that it often takes people a while to get used to new ideas, and a bit of open-hearted patience and the benefit of the doubt can go a long way.
Taking this back to the food example, if a 3:1 meat: no-meat order didn't work, why not try 1:1, or 1:3, before leaping straight away to no meat at all?
I don't understand why the meat thing is such an issue. When catering at a work do having only veggie / vegan options allows for a typically cheaper option that has (in my experience at least) less waste (and of course the impact of waste is different for meat products and non-meat products), and also means the actual vegetarians and vegans get enough food, rather than having to share the stuff they can eat with people who will also eat stuff (and leave behind stuff) we can't eat. It's not exclusionary - no one is unable to eat non-meat options. Meat is not an essential - there is no right to meat in every food option. It was also agreed by everyone, meat eaters and not.
It does seem a daft hoo-haa about office snacks FFS. Who cares? If you want a good dinner, go out to dinner.
I care greatly about the arrogance of someone else who has an ideology who presumes to pick on my behalf what I can and can't eat.
Remind me never to invite you to dinner. You'd probably complain about the pheasant casserole just because I chose it and you didn't. I'd want to save you from that trauma.
Can I take Casino's place? Pheasant casserole sounds great!
They are allowing the deconstruction of the Enlightenment - to appease Islam and to satisfy some moronic desire for an equity which cannot happen and is not even achievable, all so they can feel “good”
Thankfully I can flee the UK as this madness burns slow then fast, corroding away everything of moral value
However, I pity my descendants who will have to try and salvage…. Something
'Woke', as you call it, is the natural development of The Enlightenment.
That you can't see that simply shows how unenlightened you are.
The trouble is that not many people seem to claiming woke as a badge of honour. However the 'woke' often refers to people who prioritise feelings and not giving offence over telling the truth. I don't see what that has got to do with the enlightenment.
The problem you run in to with this is that the enlightenment is actually quite contested. There is this idea that it means humanity moving forward due to facts, science, reason etc, sweeping away myths and religion; but then there is also all this weird stuff that came with it where you can find some precedents for the "woke".
Certainly there is a strong element of feeling over fact with 'woke' thinking. But I think that facts ultimately win, one way or the other.
Much of the 'woke' don't think, they just follow fashion - ironically thinking they're very enlightened and intelligent all the way - and use it to identify themselves against the other side, who they then caricature and attack.
It doesn't get much more sophisticated than that.
Mostly 'woke' is used as a term of abuse by people like you towards people whose views you disagree with and who don't especially class themselves as woke.
Am I woke? It's not a term I use for myself, though I have been accused of being woke on here a few times.
The polls are only going one way and I would venture to suggest Starmer's decision to scrap the 28 billion (£140 billion over 5 years) has been accepted as a wise decision and may indicate not everyone has a devotion to net zero
I see no way back for the conservatives and would prefer a May election but I just cannot see anything other than an Oct/ November one
It would be good to see it all over with, but I still think Rishi will hang on until the last minute!
No, because to do so would mean an election campaign that spanned the Christmas holidays - and the fury of the electorate. Autumn most likely I think.
Yes but for the blue team, spanning the holidays is a feature, not a bug, because it negates the other parties' advantage in the ground game by clearing activists from the street. January 2025 is the Tories' best chance.
I’ll let the PB cliche go… but it also enrages the electorate, which probably eclipses the ground game factor
Why will it enrage the electorate? Either no-one knocks at doors, or the opposition parties knock at doors. The first enrages no-one and the second gets voters angry with the opposition.
The Badenoch show rumbles on with grim fascination in the Commons. She now says "full of lies" refers to three claims made by Henry Staunton, recent Post Office Chair.
1. That she didn't apologise to him for finding out about his sacking from a journalist. This should be easy to check: Is there an s apology in the transcript of the conversation that she is about to be made public? 2. That she told him "someone has to take the rap". The absence of of such a statement in the transcript doesn't necessarily mean she didn't say it. 3. That he was told to slow down compensation claims. She has no way of knowing whether anyone said this to him or not.
On her claim that he was sacked for misconduct, this appears to be allegations of bullying rather than an actual finding of misconduct. We should find out if she mentioned any of this in the transcript She had a long list of other complaints about him but these weren't misconduct.
It doesn't appear she's in a stronger legal position after her statement than before.
It does sound a bit hit the law/hit the facts/hit the table, and Kemi B has moved on to stage 3.
Though given that she won't resign voluntarily, and Rishi is in far too weak a position to sack her unwillingly, it doesn't matter all that much.
I wonder also if Staunton has a claim of breach of confidentiality against Badenoch as many of her claims don't appear to address the points he made and there was no legal requirement on her to make these statements.
He's certainly not taking it lying down...
This is Henry Staunton’s reply to Kemi Badenoch.
Firstly, with regard to the comment made to Mr Staunton by the senior civil servant to the effect that he was to stall on compensation payments to Horizon victims and on spend on the Horizon replacement so the government could “limp into the election” with the lowest possible financial liability. Mr Staunton stands by this comment which he recorded at the time in a file note which he emailed to himself and to colleagues and which is therefore traceable on the Post Office Server...
Staunton doesn't need to prove it, the presumed fact he made a note at the time is at least corroboration. Badenoch on the other hand needs to prove that he didn't hear this plus a whole bunch of other claims she made to support her case that his account of the meeting was fabricated. She also needs to prove he was dismissed for misconduct - which doesn't appear to be the case. All of this is self inflicted. She could have stuck to a bland "We're the ones delivering the compensation, why bother with a useless ex-chairman?".
Badenoch is profoundly, and fascinatingly stupid, in addition to being uber-aggressive
They are allowing the deconstruction of the Enlightenment - to appease Islam and to satisfy some moronic desire for an equity which cannot happen and is not even achievable, all so they can feel “good”
Thankfully I can flee the UK as this madness burns slow then fast, corroding away everything of moral value
However, I pity my descendants who will have to try and salvage…. Something
'Woke', as you call it, is the natural development of The Enlightenment.
That you can't see that simply shows how unenlightened you are.
The trouble is that not many people seem to claiming woke as a badge of honour. However the 'woke' often refers to people who prioritise feelings and not giving offence over telling the truth. I don't see what that has got to do with the enlightenment.
The problem you run in to with this is that the enlightenment is actually quite contested. There is this idea that it means humanity moving forward due to facts, science, reason etc, sweeping away myths and religion; but then there is also all this weird stuff that came with it where you can find some precedents for the "woke".
Certainly there is a strong element of feeling over fact with 'woke' thinking. But I think that facts ultimately win, one way or the other.
Much of the 'woke' don't think, they just follow fashion - ironically thinking they're very enlightened and intelligent all the way - and use it to identify themselves against the other side, who they then caricature and attack.
It doesn't get much more sophisticated than that.
Mostly 'woke' is used as a term of abuse by people like you towards people whose views you disagree with and who don't especially class themselves as woke.
Am I woke? It's not a term I use for myself, though I have been accused of being woke on here a few times.
I agree that it's got to the point now where it's no longer helpful to use, it's too emotional a term and it's too lazy a shorthand, but it does encapsulate someone who wallows unthinkingly in identity politics and sees the whole world through that lens - and causes individual injustice and division a result.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Apples. Vegan. Oranges. Vegan. Bananas. Vegan.
Never offer people a piece of fruit.
Yeah, but that's not what it is, is it?
No-one mind fruit and salad. Or beans. That's just part of a healthy balanced diet.
Vegan is "plant-based" wank as a main meal - and i use that term very loosely- with such horrors as tofu and it's almost always disgusting. Sometimes, it's downright fraudulent: like trying to pass off a slice of cauliflower as a steak, and causing abject misery in the process.
Some vegan food is totally unhealthy. Full of artificial shite. And some is just awful.
Best to eat vegetables that are just being vegetables. Pulses that are just being pulses. But quorn is a decent meat substitute.
The polls are only going one way and I would venture to suggest Starmer's decision to scrap the 28 billion (£140 billion over 5 years) has been accepted as a wise decision and may indicate not everyone has a devotion to net zero
I see no way back for the conservatives and would prefer a May election but I just cannot see anything other than an Oct/ November one
It would be good to see it all over with, but I still think Rishi will hang on until the last minute!
No, because to do so would mean an election campaign that spanned the Christmas holidays - and the fury of the electorate. Autumn most likely I think.
Are we going astronomical autumn?
The winter solstice is December 21 this year.
The start of winter is odd. I think it is 21 Dec. Met office says 1 Dec. Ordinary conversation seems to align it to anytime from 1st November.
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
On the food. Clearly if people are going hungry then a mistake has been made, but I don't think that means you have to order zero meat options. Surely there's a middle ground where there is a choice for those who might want to eat meat, but not so much that non-meat eaters are lefty without - though I'm speaking here as one of those omnivores who tends to avoid meat in a buffet situation, not knowing where it is from, or how long it has been waiting there.
As to woke generally, there is a lot which is simply this generation's treating people with respect, but there is an element, perhaps a product of the way in which people get riled up online, of being uncompromising, impatient, and, ironically, rude about it.
It's as though people forget that it might well be a new idea for other people, that it often takes people a while to get used to new ideas, and a bit of open-hearted patience and the benefit of the doubt can go a long way.
Taking this back to the food example, if a 3:1 meat: no-meat order didn't work, why not try 1:1, or 1:3, before leaping straight away to no meat at all?
I don't understand why the meat thing is such an issue. When catering at a work do having only veggie / vegan options allows for a typically cheaper option that has (in my experience at least) less waste (and of course the impact of waste is different for meat products and non-meat products), and also means the actual vegetarians and vegans get enough food, rather than having to share the stuff they can eat with people who will also eat stuff (and leave behind stuff) we can't eat. It's not exclusionary - no one is unable to eat non-meat options. Meat is not an essential - there is no right to meat in every food option. It was also agreed by everyone, meat eaters and not.
It does seem a daft hoo-haa about office snacks FFS. Who cares? If you want a good dinner, go out to dinner.
I care greatly about the arrogance of someone else who has an ideology who presumes to pick on my behalf what I can and can't eat.
Remind me never to invite you to dinner. You'd probably complain about the pheasant casserole just because I chose it and you didn't. I'd want to save you from that trauma.
Can I take Casino's place? Pheasant casserole sounds great!
We actually had pheasant at our wedding.
Unusual, for the bride and groom to have a good pluck before the ceremony.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Now come come, who doesn't relish a delicious nut roast? 😆
Seriously, if someone told me I'd developed a weird allergy to eating meat and fish and would have to get by as a vegetarian then I think I could come to terms with that. Eggs and dairy - vital ingredients in baked goods that are actually edible - are probably more important in my case. But veganism? Yes, the mere word invokes images of puritanical misery.
Casino has clearly never tasted my lentil bake, which is delicious. There again, so is my tarragon chicken.
I could get by as a vegan if I had to, but it's something I would never choose. It's just too much hard work if you want to eat well.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Now come come, who doesn't relish a delicious nut roast? 😆
Seriously, if someone told me I'd developed a weird allergy to eating meat and fish and would have to get by as a vegetarian then I think I could come to terms with that. Eggs and dairy - vital ingredients in baked goods that are actually edible - are probably more important in my case. But veganism? Yes, the mere word invokes images of puritanical misery.
I've been around vegetarians my whole life. Even had a veggie girlfriend once. Never bothered me once. They respected us, and we respected them.
Vegans? Now, they're on a mission - an ideological mission - and it won't stop until everyone else is vegan, by hook or crook. Because for them they believe they're right and everyone else is wrong.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Apples. Vegan. Oranges. Vegan. Bananas. Vegan.
Never offer people a piece of fruit.
Yeah, but that's not what it is, is it?
No-one mind fruit and salad. Or beans. That's just part of a healthy balanced diet.
Vegan is "plant-based" wank as a main meal - and i use that term very loosely- with such horrors as tofu and it's almost always disgusting. Sometimes, it's downright fraudulent: like trying to pass off a slice of cauliflower as a steak, and causing abject misery in the process.
Some vegan food is totally unhealthy. Full of artificial shite. And some is just awful.
Best to eat vegetables that are just being vegetables. Pulses that are just being pulses. But quorn is a decent meat substitute.
The Lady Whiteadder Diet: eating the turnip as God intended.
Next up: Murder to be made illegal? Cars to drive only one-way on one-way streets? Chocolate to be made of chocolate?
They do indeed need to be banned in schools imo.
Schools already have that discretion.
And it doesn't make a lot of difference because you simply move the issues outside school where they're harder to deal with.
A typical policy to get a good headline in the Mail, but not actually achieving anything.
If you want to improve schools, we start with an unfortunate incident involving the 12,000 civil servants employed directly by the DfE, OFQUAL and OFSTED, a series of hungry alligators and an erupting volcano.
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
On the food. Clearly if people are going hungry then a mistake has been made, but I don't think that means you have to order zero meat options. Surely there's a middle ground where there is a choice for those who might want to eat meat, but not so much that non-meat eaters are lefty without - though I'm speaking here as one of those omnivores who tends to avoid meat in a buffet situation, not knowing where it is from, or how long it has been waiting there.
As to woke generally, there is a lot which is simply this generation's treating people with respect, but there is an element, perhaps a product of the way in which people get riled up online, of being uncompromising, impatient, and, ironically, rude about it.
It's as though people forget that it might well be a new idea for other people, that it often takes people a while to get used to new ideas, and a bit of open-hearted patience and the benefit of the doubt can go a long way.
Taking this back to the food example, if a 3:1 meat: no-meat order didn't work, why not try 1:1, or 1:3, before leaping straight away to no meat at all?
I don't understand why the meat thing is such an issue. When catering at a work do having only veggie / vegan options allows for a typically cheaper option that has (in my experience at least) less waste (and of course the impact of waste is different for meat products and non-meat products), and also means the actual vegetarians and vegans get enough food, rather than having to share the stuff they can eat with people who will also eat stuff (and leave behind stuff) we can't eat. It's not exclusionary - no one is unable to eat non-meat options. Meat is not an essential - there is no right to meat in every food option. It was also agreed by everyone, meat eaters and not.
It does seem a daft hoo-haa about office snacks FFS. Who cares? If you want a good dinner, go out to dinner.
I care greatly about the arrogance of someone else who has an ideology who presumes to pick on my behalf what I can and can't eat.
Well every caterer does that! I’ve been to umpteen work events where the food chosen for me has been inedible. Nothing to do with whether it’s vegan or otherwise.
Yes of course I do whilst you want pro genocide #TelAvivKeith to win
Mainly because like you he is a Tory
You want Labour to lose... and who to win?
NOM with progressives holding the balance of power.
Progressives like who? Your beloved Greens prop up the actual Tories in local government. The SNP/PC are actual and factual nationalists.
Your resentment at SKS for rescuing his party the antisemitic Jezza does lead me to question your allegedly “progressive” credentials. You’re about as socialist as my right buttock.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
I take your point but... what do vegans eat if not vegan cuisine?
Normal. Or they could just eat vegetarian, which has been around for yonks and doesn't have the same dogma.
Personally, I don't rate veganism and feel it has a large element of attention-seeking about it.
But... if you decide any use of animal products is wrong and choose to be a vegan, you cannot eat most vegetarian food as it is likely to have dairy or eggs in it.
So to say a vegan can just eat vegetarian is to decide their own preferences are not important.
On topic, the picture is rather complicated by boundary changes. Kingswood, contested last week, is split three ways for example. The Mid-Beds MP is standing in the new seat of Hitchin (a town that isn't even in Bedfordshire although other parts of the constituency are). Tiverton & Honiton's new MP will lose the former town, and Somerton & Frome's the latter. Etc.
Overall, if it is a 1997-style result, I suspect rather few if any will be regained. 1997 was also complicated by boundary changes, but I think only Christchurch was won back, narrowly... and (from memory) it was the third safest Tory seat in the UK in 1992. Clearly, they often do get won back - but the governing party often isn't staring down the barrel of a terrible result as we get into General Election year.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Apples. Vegan. Oranges. Vegan. Bananas. Vegan.
Never offer people a piece of fruit.
Yeah, but that's not what it is, is it?
No-one mind fruit and salad. Or beans. That's just part of a healthy balanced diet.
Vegan is "plant-based" wank as a main meal - and i use that term very loosely- with such horrors as tofu and it's almost always disgusting. Sometimes, it's downright fraudulent: like trying to pass off a slice of cauliflower as a steak, and causing abject misery in the process.
It has no tofu and is a main meal. Another is a pasta, spinach and mushroom pasta bake.
I love meat: I had a bacon and sausage breakfast baguette this morning before my swim (that *may* have been a mistake...). But it's totally ridiculous to say that vegan main meals are disgusting. They *can* be, but they can also be virtually indistinguishable from vegetarian, or even ones with small amounts of meat.
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
On the food. Clearly if people are going hungry then a mistake has been made, but I don't think that means you have to order zero meat options. Surely there's a middle ground where there is a choice for those who might want to eat meat, but not so much that non-meat eaters are lefty without - though I'm speaking here as one of those omnivores who tends to avoid meat in a buffet situation, not knowing where it is from, or how long it has been waiting there.
As to woke generally, there is a lot which is simply this generation's treating people with respect, but there is an element, perhaps a product of the way in which people get riled up online, of being uncompromising, impatient, and, ironically, rude about it.
It's as though people forget that it might well be a new idea for other people, that it often takes people a while to get used to new ideas, and a bit of open-hearted patience and the benefit of the doubt can go a long way.
Taking this back to the food example, if a 3:1 meat: no-meat order didn't work, why not try 1:1, or 1:3, before leaping straight away to no meat at all?
I don't understand why the meat thing is such an issue. When catering at a work do having only veggie / vegan options allows for a typically cheaper option that has (in my experience at least) less waste (and of course the impact of waste is different for meat products and non-meat products), and also means the actual vegetarians and vegans get enough food, rather than having to share the stuff they can eat with people who will also eat stuff (and leave behind stuff) we can't eat. It's not exclusionary - no one is unable to eat non-meat options. Meat is not an essential - there is no right to meat in every food option. It was also agreed by everyone, meat eaters and not.
It does seem a daft hoo-haa about office snacks FFS. Who cares? If you want a good dinner, go out to dinner.
I care greatly about the arrogance of someone else who has an ideology who presumes to pick on my behalf what I can and can't eat.
Remind me never to invite you to dinner. You'd probably complain about the pheasant casserole just because I chose it and you didn't. I'd want to save you from that trauma.
Can I take Casino's place? Pheasant casserole sounds great!
We actually had pheasant at our wedding.
Unusual, for the bride and groom to have a good pluck before the ceremony.
Next up: Murder to be made illegal? Cars to drive only one-way on one-way streets? Chocolate to be made of chocolate?
They do indeed need to be banned in schools imo.
Schools already have that discretion.
And it doesn't make a lot of difference because you simply move the issues outside school where they're harder to deal with.
A typical policy to get a good headline in the Mail, but not actually achieving anything.
If you want to improve schools, we start with an unfortunate incident involving the 12,000 civil servants employed directly by the DfE, OFQUAL and OFSTED, a series of hungry alligators and an erupting volcano.
No, a brilliant technological triumph for the nation. The first manned landing on the Sun.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Apples. Vegan. Oranges. Vegan. Bananas. Vegan.
Never offer people a piece of fruit.
Yeah, but that's not what it is, is it?
No-one mind fruit and salad. Or beans. That's just part of a healthy balanced diet.
Vegan is "plant-based" wank as a main meal - and i use that term very loosely- with such horrors as tofu and it's almost always disgusting. Sometimes, it's downright fraudulent: like trying to pass off a slice of cauliflower as a steak, and causing abject misery in the process.
Some vegan food is totally unhealthy. Full of artificial shite. And some is just awful.
Best to eat vegetables that are just being vegetables. Pulses that are just being pulses. But quorn is a decent meat substitute.
Yes, and do you now see why people might object to a vegan menu being enforced on them on that basis?
On topic, the picture is rather complicated by boundary changes. Kingswood, contested last week, is split three ways for example. The Mid-Beds MP is standing in the new seat of Hitchin (a town that isn't even in Bedfordshire although other parts of the constituency are). Tiverton & Honiton's new MP will lose the former town, and Somerton & Frome's the latter. Etc.
Overall, if it is a 1997-style result, I suspect rather few if any will be regained. 1997 was also complicated by boundary changes, but I think only Christchurch was won back, narrowly... and (from memory) it was the third safest Tory seat in the UK in 1992. Clearly, they often do get won back - but the governing party often isn't staring down the barrel of a terrible result as we get into General Election year.
I'll be amazed if the Tories don't retake North Shropshire. Even in 1906 they retook that (having lost it in a by-election in 1904).
The others, it depends on many factors. I can actually foresee them retaking quite a number - but then, I'm bearish on a Labour majority.
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
On the food. Clearly if people are going hungry then a mistake has been made, but I don't think that means you have to order zero meat options. Surely there's a middle ground where there is a choice for those who might want to eat meat, but not so much that non-meat eaters are lefty without - though I'm speaking here as one of those omnivores who tends to avoid meat in a buffet situation, not knowing where it is from, or how long it has been waiting there.
As to woke generally, there is a lot which is simply this generation's treating people with respect, but there is an element, perhaps a product of the way in which people get riled up online, of being uncompromising, impatient, and, ironically, rude about it.
It's as though people forget that it might well be a new idea for other people, that it often takes people a while to get used to new ideas, and a bit of open-hearted patience and the benefit of the doubt can go a long way.
Taking this back to the food example, if a 3:1 meat: no-meat order didn't work, why not try 1:1, or 1:3, before leaping straight away to no meat at all?
I don't understand why the meat thing is such an issue. When catering at a work do having only veggie / vegan options allows for a typically cheaper option that has (in my experience at least) less waste (and of course the impact of waste is different for meat products and non-meat products), and also means the actual vegetarians and vegans get enough food, rather than having to share the stuff they can eat with people who will also eat stuff (and leave behind stuff) we can't eat. It's not exclusionary - no one is unable to eat non-meat options. Meat is not an essential - there is no right to meat in every food option. It was also agreed by everyone, meat eaters and not.
It does seem a daft hoo-haa about office snacks FFS. Who cares? If you want a good dinner, go out to dinner.
I care greatly about the arrogance of someone else who has an ideology who presumes to pick on my behalf what I can and can't eat.
Well every caterer does that! I’ve been to umpteen work events where the food chosen for me has been inedible. Nothing to do with whether it’s vegan or otherwise.
Rule of thumb: The posher the buffet, the less edible the food. Cheese and pickle in sliced white - perfect. Little fussy things filled with some sort of gunk - yuck!
Some Reform voters have decided they quite like this new nutty Rishi and switched to Conservative, but some moderate Conservative votes don’t like nutty Rishi and have switched LibDem, while some LibDem voters have decided to back Starmer’s moderate Labour to get the Tories out, while some but not quite as many Labour voters are dismayed by moderate Labour’s timidity and have gone Green. While the SNP voters watch on.
Seen like that, it’s all perfectly clear.
You’re quite right. I wasn’t reading the data. I have the attention span of a gnat
On topic, the picture is rather complicated by boundary changes. Kingswood, contested last week, is split three ways for example. The Mid-Beds MP is standing in the new seat of Hitchin (a town that isn't even in Bedfordshire although other parts of the constituency are). Tiverton & Honiton's new MP will lose the former town, and Somerton & Frome's the latter. Etc.
Overall, if it is a 1997-style result, I suspect rather few if any will be regained. 1997 was also complicated by boundary changes, but I think only Christchurch was won back, narrowly... and (from memory) it was the third safest Tory seat in the UK in 1992. Clearly, they often do get won back - but the governing party often isn't staring down the barrel of a terrible result as we get into General Election year.
I'll be amazed if the Tories don't retake North Shropshire. Even in 1906 they retook that (having lost it in a by-election in 1904).
The others, it depends on many factors. I can actually foresee them retaking quite a number - but then, I'm bearish on a Labour majority.
I’m bearish on who on earth is going to vote for more of the current chaos (without Ed Miliband)
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
I’m a passionate meat eater but there’s plenty of good vegan food (it’s just rarer). I once had an all-vegan working lunch and it was exceptional. You just need to get out more.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Now come come, who doesn't relish a delicious nut roast? 😆
Seriously, if someone told me I'd developed a weird allergy to eating meat and fish and would have to get by as a vegetarian then I think I could come to terms with that. Eggs and dairy - vital ingredients in baked goods that are actually edible - are probably more important in my case. But veganism? Yes, the mere word invokes images of puritanical misery.
I've been around vegetarians my whole life. Even had a veggie girlfriend once. Never bothered me once. They respected us, and we respected them.
Vegans? Now, they're on a mission - an ideological mission - and it won't stop until everyone else is vegan, by hook or crook. Because for them they believe they're right and everyone else is wrong.
I have two vegan people in my team (of 8). Neither are on a mission. One is a complete foodie, happily discusses the finest types of meats etc from his meat eating days. Makes some excellent vegan stuff, which I have sampled. The other I'd known for two years before I found out she was vegan - if asked I might have guessed she was vegetarian from never having seen her eat meat, but I'd completely missed that she was vegan, because she'd never once mentioned it.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
I take your point but... what do vegans eat if not vegan cuisine?
Normal. Or they could just eat vegetarian, which has been around for yonks and doesn't have the same dogma.
Personally, I don't rate veganism and feel it has a large element of attention-seeking about it.
But... if you decide any use of animal products is wrong and choose to be a vegan, you cannot eat most vegetarian food as it is likely to have dairy or eggs in it.
So to say a vegan can just eat vegetarian is to decide their own preferences are not important.
I know. I'm basically saying vegans are being silly, because they are, and I do have a couple of friends who tried veganism but slipped back into vegetarianism for that very reason.
Of course if vegans really do want to stay vegans for ideological reasons then that's up to them, but that's no reason to inflict it on the rest of us.
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
On the food. Clearly if people are going hungry then a mistake has been made, but I don't think that means you have to order zero meat options. Surely there's a middle ground where there is a choice for those who might want to eat meat, but not so much that non-meat eaters are lefty without - though I'm speaking here as one of those omnivores who tends to avoid meat in a buffet situation, not knowing where it is from, or how long it has been waiting there.
As to woke generally, there is a lot which is simply this generation's treating people with respect, but there is an element, perhaps a product of the way in which people get riled up online, of being uncompromising, impatient, and, ironically, rude about it.
It's as though people forget that it might well be a new idea for other people, that it often takes people a while to get used to new ideas, and a bit of open-hearted patience and the benefit of the doubt can go a long way.
Taking this back to the food example, if a 3:1 meat: no-meat order didn't work, why not try 1:1, or 1:3, before leaping straight away to no meat at all?
I don't understand why the meat thing is such an issue. When catering at a work do having only veggie / vegan options allows for a typically cheaper option that has (in my experience at least) less waste (and of course the impact of waste is different for meat products and non-meat products), and also means the actual vegetarians and vegans get enough food, rather than having to share the stuff they can eat with people who will also eat stuff (and leave behind stuff) we can't eat. It's not exclusionary - no one is unable to eat non-meat options. Meat is not an essential - there is no right to meat in every food option. It was also agreed by everyone, meat eaters and not.
It does seem a daft hoo-haa about office snacks FFS. Who cares? If you want a good dinner, go out to dinner.
I care greatly about the arrogance of someone else who has an ideology who presumes to pick on my behalf what I can and can't eat.
Remind me never to invite you to dinner. You'd probably complain about the pheasant casserole just because I chose it and you didn't. I'd want to save you from that trauma.
Can I take Casino's place? Pheasant casserole sounds great!
We actually had pheasant at our wedding.
Unusual, for the bride and groom to have a good pluck before the ceremony.
They are allowing the deconstruction of the Enlightenment - to appease Islam and to satisfy some moronic desire for an equity which cannot happen and is not even achievable, all so they can feel “good”
Thankfully I can flee the UK as this madness burns slow then fast, corroding away everything of moral value
However, I pity my descendants who will have to try and salvage…. Something
'Woke', as you call it, is the natural development of The Enlightenment.
That you can't see that simply shows how unenlightened you are.
How would you define the terms Enlightement and Woke?
It's a fair challenge because I am never quite sure what is meant by others using the term 'woke' but I will fall back on what I believe was the original meaning, namely: 'an awareness of social inequalities'. (Thus I struggle to comprehend how 'woke', a heightened awareness of social inequalities, is likely to lead to the downfall of western civilisation.)
The Enlightenment for me is reason over superstition; liberty, tolerance, fraternity, equality, and respect for others in place of intolerance, autocracy and inequality.
Based on your definitions, how does one thing lead to the other? People were very well aware of social inequalities before the enlightenment.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Apples. Vegan. Oranges. Vegan. Bananas. Vegan.
Never offer people a piece of fruit.
Yeah, but that's not what it is, is it?
No-one mind fruit and salad. Or beans. That's just part of a healthy balanced diet.
Vegan is "plant-based" wank as a main meal - and i use that term very loosely- with such horrors as tofu and it's almost always disgusting. Sometimes, it's downright fraudulent: like trying to pass off a slice of cauliflower as a steak, and causing abject misery in the process.
Tofu is great. But it does taste best with pork mince.
The Badenoch show rumbles on with grim fascination in the Commons. She now says "full of lies" refers to three claims made by Henry Staunton, recent Post Office Chair.
1. That she didn't apologise to him for finding out about his sacking from a journalist. This should be easy to check: Is there an s apology in the transcript of the conversation that she is about to be made public? 2. That she told him "someone has to take the rap". The absence of of such a statement in the transcript doesn't necessarily mean she didn't say it. 3. That he was told to slow down compensation claims. She has no way of knowing whether anyone said this to him or not.
On her claim that he was sacked for misconduct, this appears to be allegations of bullying rather than an actual finding of misconduct. We should find out if she mentioned any of this in the transcript She had a long list of other complaints about him but these weren't misconduct.
It doesn't appear she's in a stronger legal position after her statement than before.
It does sound a bit hit the law/hit the facts/hit the table, and Kemi B has moved on to stage 3.
Though given that she won't resign voluntarily, and Rishi is in far too weak a position to sack her unwillingly, it doesn't matter all that much.
I wonder also if Staunton has a claim of breach of confidentiality against Badenoch as many of her claims don't appear to address the points he made and there was no legal requirement on her to make these statements.
He's certainly not taking it lying down...
This is Henry Staunton’s reply to Kemi Badenoch.
Firstly, with regard to the comment made to Mr Staunton by the senior civil servant to the effect that he was to stall on compensation payments to Horizon victims and on spend on the Horizon replacement so the government could “limp into the election” with the lowest possible financial liability. Mr Staunton stands by this comment which he recorded at the time in a file note which he emailed to himself and to colleagues and which is therefore traceable on the Post Office Server...
Staunton doesn't need to prove it, the presumed fact he made a note at the time is at least corroboration. Badenoch on the other hand needs to prove that he didn't hear this plus a whole bunch of other claims she made to support her case that his account of the meeting was fabricated. She also needs to prove he was dismissed for misconduct - which doesn't appear to be the case. All of this is self inflicted. She could have stuck to a bland "We're the ones delivering the compensation, why bother with a useless ex-chairman?".
Badenoch is profoundly, and fascinatingly stupid, in addition to being uber-aggressive
So how would you have responded in her position?
And where is the evidence of her being uber aggressive? Forthright yes. You wouldn't be playing on a black female stereotype would you?
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Now come come, who doesn't relish a delicious nut roast? 😆
Seriously, if someone told me I'd developed a weird allergy to eating meat and fish and would have to get by as a vegetarian then I think I could come to terms with that. Eggs and dairy - vital ingredients in baked goods that are actually edible - are probably more important in my case. But veganism? Yes, the mere word invokes images of puritanical misery.
I've been around vegetarians my whole life. Even had a veggie girlfriend once. Never bothered me once. They respected us, and we respected them.
Vegans? Now, they're on a mission - an ideological mission - and it won't stop until everyone else is vegan, by hook or crook. Because for them they believe they're right and everyone else is wrong.
I have two vegan people in my team (of 8). Neither are on a mission. One is a complete foodie, happily discusses the finest types of meats etc from his meat eating days. Makes some excellent vegan stuff, which I have sampled. The other I'd known for two years before I found out she was vegan - if asked I might have guessed she was vegetarian from never having seen her eat meat, but I'd completely missed that she was vegan, because she'd never once mentioned it.
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Woke doesn't mean anything.
How is being a vegan woke?
Woke does mean something, just not the same to everyone. A bit like porn. How do you define porn? Different people get off on different things. Woke is different for different people.
In general things described as woke are not bad in themselves, but there can be unintended consequences.
For instance, you might decide that not enough women are involved in x industry. You might then start only recruiting women to make up the deficit. Is this fair? proportionate? You might be organising an event and insist on vegan only catering, to accommodate vegans, ignoring the fact that most people are not vegan and would prefer a choice.
You might even get hung up on whether a woman can have a penis.
Gonna stop you on the catering issue - I work in an office where about 25% of us are veggie or vegan. We had to stop ordering meat options because the meat eaters would eat the veggie / vegan options but we obviously couldn't eat the meaty options, so we were left hungry and we would have leftovers.
Woke is just "political correctness gone mad" which is just "loony lefties" again. Got to remember the original "loony left" usage was to attack local councils who were advocating for, shock horror, treating queer people like human beings and, gasp, catering to ethnic minorities in their communities. It's always been the same thing - if you argue for equitable treatment of people typically considered the out groups, people who benefit from the inequitable treatment complain and try and make you out as a weirdo.
On the food. Clearly if people are going hungry then a mistake has been made, but I don't think that means you have to order zero meat options. Surely there's a middle ground where there is a choice for those who might want to eat meat, but not so much that non-meat eaters are lefty without - though I'm speaking here as one of those omnivores who tends to avoid meat in a buffet situation, not knowing where it is from, or how long it has been waiting there.
As to woke generally, there is a lot which is simply this generation's treating people with respect, but there is an element, perhaps a product of the way in which people get riled up online, of being uncompromising, impatient, and, ironically, rude about it.
It's as though people forget that it might well be a new idea for other people, that it often takes people a while to get used to new ideas, and a bit of open-hearted patience and the benefit of the doubt can go a long way.
Taking this back to the food example, if a 3:1 meat: no-meat order didn't work, why not try 1:1, or 1:3, before leaping straight away to no meat at all?
I don't understand why the meat thing is such an issue. When catering at a work do having only veggie / vegan options allows for a typically cheaper option that has (in my experience at least) less waste (and of course the impact of waste is different for meat products and non-meat products), and also means the actual vegetarians and vegans get enough food, rather than having to share the stuff they can eat with people who will also eat stuff (and leave behind stuff) we can't eat. It's not exclusionary - no one is unable to eat non-meat options. Meat is not an essential - there is no right to meat in every food option. It was also agreed by everyone, meat eaters and not.
It does seem a daft hoo-haa about office snacks FFS. Who cares? If you want a good dinner, go out to dinner.
I care greatly about the arrogance of someone else who has an ideology who presumes to pick on my behalf what I can and can't eat.
Well every caterer does that! I’ve been to umpteen work events where the food chosen for me has been inedible. Nothing to do with whether it’s vegan or otherwise.
A caterer who does that is consciously choosing to select their catering from a diet that only 2-3% of the population follow. It's pretty extreme.
I'm not arguing for power of veto over everything they select. But you'd expect at least some chicken, maybe tuna, some egg, a sausage roll - some basic range and selection for a normal menu.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Apples. Vegan. Oranges. Vegan. Bananas. Vegan.
Never offer people a piece of fruit.
Yeah, but that's not what it is, is it?
No-one mind fruit and salad. Or beans. That's just part of a healthy balanced diet.
Vegan is "plant-based" wank as a main meal - and i use that term very loosely- with such horrors as tofu and it's almost always disgusting. Sometimes, it's downright fraudulent: like trying to pass off a slice of cauliflower as a steak, and causing abject misery in the process.
Some vegan food is totally unhealthy. Full of artificial shite. And some is just awful.
Best to eat vegetables that are just being vegetables. Pulses that are just being pulses. But quorn is a decent meat substitute.
Yes, and do you now see why people might object to a vegan menu being enforced on them on that basis?
I would be disappointed if that was all that was on offer.
I think a mix of vegan and vegetarian is perfectly acceptable to a mixed audience. I would focus on the cheese and pickle sandwiches in such circumstances.
If anyone thinks I'm going to eat humus they can bugger off.
Full disclosure: This evening I have adopted the "if you are away from home it doesn't count" approach and had a mixed grill.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
I’m a passionate meat eater but there’s plenty of good vegan food (it’s just rarer). I once had an all-vegan working lunch and it was exceptional. You just need to get out more.
I attended a vegan wedding. The food was spectacular, it must be said. Better than most weddings I've been to, probably better than mine, which had a fairly traditional meat and veg main, nicely done, but good rather than spectacular. The one that topped it, probably, was a BBQ on a beach that included meat, but probably three quarters of the dishes were veggie.
The Badenoch show rumbles on with grim fascination in the Commons. She now says "full of lies" refers to three claims made by Henry Staunton, recent Post Office Chair.
1. That she didn't apologise to him for finding out about his sacking from a journalist. This should be easy to check: Is there an s apology in the transcript of the conversation that she is about to be made public? 2. That she told him "someone has to take the rap". The absence of of such a statement in the transcript doesn't necessarily mean she didn't say it. 3. That he was told to slow down compensation claims. She has no way of knowing whether anyone said this to him or not.
On her claim that he was sacked for misconduct, this appears to be allegations of bullying rather than an actual finding of misconduct. We should find out if she mentioned any of this in the transcript She had a long list of other complaints about him but these weren't misconduct.
It doesn't appear she's in a stronger legal position after her statement than before.
It does sound a bit hit the law/hit the facts/hit the table, and Kemi B has moved on to stage 3.
Though given that she won't resign voluntarily, and Rishi is in far too weak a position to sack her unwillingly, it doesn't matter all that much.
I wonder also if Staunton has a claim of breach of confidentiality against Badenoch as many of her claims don't appear to address the points he made and there was no legal requirement on her to make these statements.
He's certainly not taking it lying down...
This is Henry Staunton’s reply to Kemi Badenoch.
Firstly, with regard to the comment made to Mr Staunton by the senior civil servant to the effect that he was to stall on compensation payments to Horizon victims and on spend on the Horizon replacement so the government could “limp into the election” with the lowest possible financial liability. Mr Staunton stands by this comment which he recorded at the time in a file note which he emailed to himself and to colleagues and which is therefore traceable on the Post Office Server...
Staunton doesn't need to prove it, the presumed fact he made a note at the time is at least corroboration. Badenoch on the other hand needs to prove that he didn't hear this plus a whole bunch of other claims she made to support her case that his account of the meeting was fabricated. She also needs to prove he was dismissed for misconduct - which doesn't appear to be the case. All of this is self inflicted. She could have stuck to a bland "We're the ones delivering the compensation, why bother with a useless ex-chairman?".
Badenoch is profoundly, and fascinatingly stupid, in addition to being uber-aggressive
So how would you have responded in her position?
And where is the evidence of her being uber aggressive? Forthright yes. You wouldn't be playing on a black female stereotype would you?
I literally quoted what I would have said in her position.
Badenoch has an advantage Staunton, Davey, Starmer etc don't have. She can pay the postmasters.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Now come come, who doesn't relish a delicious nut roast? 😆
Seriously, if someone told me I'd developed a weird allergy to eating meat and fish and would have to get by as a vegetarian then I think I could come to terms with that. Eggs and dairy - vital ingredients in baked goods that are actually edible - are probably more important in my case. But veganism? Yes, the mere word invokes images of puritanical misery.
Casino has clearly never tasted my lentil bake, which is delicious. There again, so is my tarragon chicken.
I could get by as a vegan if I had to, but it's something I would never choose. It's just too much hard work if you want to eat well.
Same here. Of our regular dinner recipes we have about half a dozen which happen to be vegan but we have 20-30 which are vegetarian, and as many again which involve meat or fish.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
Apples. Vegan. Oranges. Vegan. Bananas. Vegan.
Never offer people a piece of fruit.
Yeah, but that's not what it is, is it?
No-one mind fruit and salad. Or beans. That's just part of a healthy balanced diet.
Vegan is "plant-based" wank as a main meal - and i use that term very loosely- with such horrors as tofu and it's almost always disgusting. Sometimes, it's downright fraudulent: like trying to pass off a slice of cauliflower as a steak, and causing abject misery in the process.
Some vegan food is totally unhealthy. Full of artificial shite. And some is just awful.
Best to eat vegetables that are just being vegetables. Pulses that are just being pulses. But quorn is a decent meat substitute.
I’ll certainly agree with @Casino_Royale on the cauliflower ‘steak’. What a load of nonsense. But yes, some vegan food is decent when not trying to swear black is white.
Comments
Whenever I've seen catering like this it's been the other way round: the meat options go quickly and the vegan stuff isn't touched.
The bigger problem is the virtue-signalling you now get with some organisations/events wanting to make statements by only ordering vegan/vegetarian food for everyone - I'm in a fight with one on this very matter right now. When this happens people leave early, and go and get their own food, don't come again or learn next time to buy and eat their own in advance; and it pisses a lot of people off.
Thankfully, I've done the opposite as an experiment: I organised a team social in a steak restaurant. We had 20 people in there, mostly under 30 years old, with unlimited cuts of beef and steak with red wine, and they absolutely loved it. The two vegetarians had their own thing, but the same fries, creamed spinach, peppers and red wine, and had no issue with it at all.
I was only popping in and that's what I saw. It's not I wanted to see, believe me. Maybe it'll be better next time.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Keir_Starmer
Joint-lowest % of Conservative 2019 voters to say they'd vote Conservative since Sunak became PM.
Westminster VI, 2019 Conservatives (18 Feb):
Conservative 44% (–)
Labour 20% (-1)
Reform UK 18% (-1)
Other 5% (–)
Don't Know 13% (+2)
Changes +/- 11 Feb
Joint-lowest net approval rating we have EVER recorded for Rishi Sunak as either PM or Chancellor.
Rishi Sunak Approval Rating (18 February):
Disapprove: 51% (+1)
Approve: 26% (+1)
Net: -25% (–)
Changes +/- 11 February
Starmer vs Sunak (18 February):
Starmer leads Sunak on ALL 17 leadership characteristics polled, including:
Represents change (48% | 21%)
Cares about people like me (43% | 21%)
Is a strong leader (40% | 24%)
Can build a strong economy (43% | 28%)
Trump: 83%
Haley: 17%
https://www.activote.net/trump-vs-haley-republican-primary/
Instead of which he faces being deselected by SKS
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Andy_Burnham
This is Henry Staunton’s reply to Kemi Badenoch.
Firstly, with regard to the comment made to Mr Staunton by the senior civil servant to the effect that he was to stall on compensation payments to Horizon victims and on spend on the
Horizon replacement so the government could “limp into the election” with the lowest possible financial liability. Mr Staunton stands by this comment which he recorded at the
time in a file note which he emailed to himself and to colleagues and which is therefore traceable on the Post Office Server...
https://x.com/Peston/status/1759649022665441424
Guess I'll just stay in and stick on Netflix then.
Certainly there is a strong element of feeling over fact with 'woke' thinking. But I think that facts ultimately win, one way or the other.
Mainly because like you he is a Tory
The Enlightenment for me is reason over superstition; liberty, tolerance, fraternity, equality, and respect for others in place of intolerance, autocracy and inequality.
Nobody likes that shit. Even vegans look at it with sadness.
The Golden Rule of PB is:
Anyone who posts between Midnight and 8am is SAD
Anyone who posts between 8am and 4pm is BAD
Anyone who posts between 4pm and Midnight is MAD
#TelAvivKeith is minus 12
25 points adrift!
It doesn't get much more sophisticated than that.
Some Reform voters have decided they quite like this new nutty Rishi and switched to Conservative, but some moderate Conservative votes don’t like nutty Rishi and have switched LibDem, while some LibDem voters have decided to back Starmer’s moderate Labour to get the Tories out, while some but not quite as many Labour voters are dismayed by moderate Labour’s timidity and have gone Green. While the SNP voters watch on.
Seen like that, it’s all perfectly clear.
Oranges. Vegan.
Bananas. Vegan.
Never offer people a piece of fruit.
Seriously, if someone told me I'd developed a weird allergy to eating meat and fish and would have to get by as a vegetarian then I think I could come to terms with that. Eggs and dairy - vital ingredients in baked goods that are actually edible - are probably more important in my case. But veganism? Yes, the mere word invokes images of puritanical misery.
No-one mind fruit and salad. Or beans. That's just part of a healthy balanced diet.
Vegan is "plant-based" wank as a main meal - and i use that term very loosely- with such horrors as tofu and it's almost always disgusting. Sometimes, it's downright fraudulent: like trying to pass off a slice of cauliflower as a steak, and causing abject misery in the process.
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/203/education-committee/news/156024/forgotten-white-workingclass-pupils-let-down-by-decades-of-neglect-mps-say/
He is funded by some very wealthy pro Zionist donors though, but I am sure that has nothing to do with his stance on Gaza.
BNP = Barnstable
Am I woke? It's not a term I use for myself, though I have been accused of being woke on here a few times.
Badenoch is profoundly, and fascinatingly stupid, in addition to being uber-aggressive
Best to eat vegetables that are just being vegetables. Pulses that are just being pulses. But quorn is a decent meat substitute.
There again, so is my tarragon chicken.
I could get by as a vegan if I had to, but it's something I would never choose. It's just too much hard work if you want to eat well.
Vegans? Now, they're on a mission - an ideological mission - and it won't stop until everyone else is vegan, by hook or crook. Because for them they believe they're right and everyone else is wrong.
A typical policy to get a good headline in the Mail, but not actually achieving anything.
If you want to improve schools, we start with an unfortunate incident involving the 12,000 civil servants employed directly by the DfE, OFQUAL and OFSTED, a series of hungry alligators and an erupting volcano.
Your resentment at SKS for rescuing his party the antisemitic Jezza does lead me to question your allegedly “progressive”
credentials. You’re about as socialist as my right buttock.
But... if you decide any use of animal products is wrong and choose to be a vegan, you cannot eat most vegetarian food as it is likely to have dairy or eggs in it.
So to say a vegan can just eat vegetarian is to decide their own preferences are not important.
Overall, if it is a 1997-style result, I suspect rather few if any will be regained. 1997 was also complicated by boundary changes, but I think only Christchurch was won back, narrowly... and (from memory) it was the third safest Tory seat in the UK in 1992. Clearly, they often do get won back - but the governing party often isn't staring down the barrel of a terrible result as we get into General Election year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mushroom_and_leek_01458
It has no tofu and is a main meal. Another is a pasta, spinach and mushroom pasta bake.
I love meat: I had a bacon and sausage breakfast baguette this morning before my swim (that *may* have been a mistake...). But it's totally ridiculous to say that vegan main meals are disgusting. They *can* be, but they can also be virtually indistinguishable from vegetarian, or even ones with small amounts of meat.
(*) If I can be bothered to use vegan cheese.
The others, it depends on many factors. I can actually foresee them retaking quite a number - but then, I'm bearish on a Labour majority.
BJO fans please explain.
Kind of nice, I guess.
My starting point, if i was hosting, would prob be a lamb tagine with couscous. And a bottle of pinot noir.
So, my experience is quite different to yours.
Of course if vegans really do want to stay vegans for ideological reasons then that's up to them, but that's no reason to inflict it on the rest of us.
And where is the evidence of her being uber aggressive? Forthright yes. You wouldn't be playing on a black female stereotype would you?
https://youtu.be/tuxKY8Mnpvc?feature=shared&t=80
I'm not arguing for power of veto over everything they select. But you'd expect at least some chicken, maybe tuna, some egg, a sausage roll - some basic range and selection for a normal menu.
If you still didn't get it? Sack the caterers.
I think a mix of vegan and vegetarian is perfectly acceptable to a mixed audience. I would focus on the cheese and pickle sandwiches in such circumstances.
If anyone thinks I'm going to eat humus they can bugger off.
Full disclosure: This evening I have adopted the "if you are away from home it doesn't count" approach and had a mixed grill.
Badenoch has an advantage Staunton, Davey, Starmer etc don't have. She can pay the postmasters.