O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
For fear of triggering our resident licker of the proverbial I quite like Leon’s Skyr Toolmakersson. It works on a couple of levels.
Wouldn’t be too sniffy at his dad being a toolmaker. I’ve worked with many in the past and toolmakers who run their own business are always self made and come up from the shop floor.
I agree it is quite good, although it fails in the sense that it actually sounds quite complimentary; Skyr Toolmakersson sounds like a warrior from The Last Kingdom, which is too ludicrous cool for Starmer.
Whereas, Kier From HR conjures an image of a slightly sweaty overweight middle aged man in a suit and tie (admittedly normally one he ahs bought himself) with a nasally boring voice.
Which do you think is the appropriate image?
In my last job I got the impression that HR was the preserve of rather earnest young(ish) women.
I ended up having to stay in Berlin a few extra days so only heading home now before the weekend. For something that too 14 years to build it's laughable, there is a solitary bar which is out in the open so not very relaxing, the restaurant selection is absolutely shocking, the highlights being a Starbucks and Burger King or disgusting looking currywurst place.
Speaking to German people all week has really put our infrastructure troubles into perspective. One of the guys was telling me about some roadworks at the end of his road which blocked the way to the main road so he had to navigate a one way system that took and extra 10 mins per journey, the work was supposed to take 4 weeks but after 4 weeks they said they needed more time and got another 4 weeks. Eventually it got to month 6 of the road being closed at one end and the residents got fed up and approached the local council about why the roadworks were still ongoing but no one seemed to be working and it turns out that the council had refused the licence to do a major part of the work to the telecoms company but the national government were handing out fines for the telecoms company not delivering infrastructure upgrades on time. It was the first time I felt an ounce of sympathy for them rather than schadenfreude.
If our administrators are reading this, they will be taking notes, as an example of good practice.
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
Ah ok. I've not come across it.
Anyway, question for you. Why have you become so irritated by his voice? You never used to be. What's going on there?
Yes I agree, voters have elected toffs like Cameron, upper middle class lawyers like Blair, lower middle glass grocers daughters like Thatcher and working class sons of trapeze artists and tool makers and builders like Major and Starmer and Heath. They will elect based on a PM's record. Though the correct answer is Starmer is middle class now with a working class upbringing.
All PMs have been middle class effectively though, though we have had working class Deputy PMs like Prescott and Rayner.
While Cameron was borderline upper class we haven't had a genuine upper class peer of the realm as PM since Douglas Home, who was Earl of Home for 2 years before giving up his title and leaving the Lords to enter the Commons again as PM, you can only be upper class by birth or arguably marriage. Once the last remaining hereditary peers leave parliament there will be almost no upper class members of the Houses of Parliament left, except a handful of life peer appointed hereditaries like Viscount Thurso (who also managed to win a Commons seat once the ban on peers becoming MPs was lifted)
MacDonald was definitely working class when Labour formed their first government in 1924. Less so when he formed the National one in 1931. Perhaps Callaghan too, although there's an argument he was lower-middle class by the time he was elected an MP.
I read Callaghan's biography as part of the "20 Prime Ministers of the 20th Century series". Irish father, English mother, Dad died when he was nine leaving him and his Mum in near-poverty, Callaghan joined the Civil Service, became a Baptist Sunday School teacher, union official, joined the RN, served in the Far East in wartime, became a MP, worked his way up...all the way up. You don't get politicians like that these days. Now it's all PPE grads and [badwords]
Ordinary Seaman to Lieutenant - and not briefly OS as an initial officer candidate but doing it the hard way through Chief Petty Officer while still a youngish one. Difficult prewar, only really possible in war, getting trickier after the war though not impossible.
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
There's been a prolonged squeeze on local government funding courtesy of the Conservatives. This must be factored into any allocation of blame model. It won't generate credible output otherwise.
No, Brum like other places like Woking, Thurrock and Nottingham is nothing to do with the national govt and everything to do with inept local govt management and the residents of those places should pay extra as a consequence of their poor electoral choices. FAFO so,to speak.
They are to do with national gmt - the same political parties. (I'm not sure that's great, but it can't be denied.)
But yes, I was reading that Woking is a big problem. Can't merge Surrey till the deficit is sorted. But that's basically making the poor of the north (and all of us, really) pay for (in this case) a wealthy Tory council's moral hazard.
"However, writing off Woking’s debt would result in taxpayers from across the country being asked to shoulder the burden of a failed investment spree in the affluent home counties after years of austerity for many councils in poorer English regions."
Yeah, I did mention in another post a lot of the blame for Brum (at least not settling the claim when it could) that was down to the local Tory/LD coalition although the equal pay issue f9es back years.
I wonder if, in the case of Woking, like with different parish precepts, they can have an extra charge for Woking residents to go towards the debt. It would be monstrous, for the reasons in that last paragraph, if a poor areas like my own saw taxpayers money taken to write off a debt for this area.
Yes I agree, voters have elected toffs like Cameron, upper middle class lawyers like Blair, lower middle glass grocers daughters like Thatcher and working class sons of trapeze artists and tool makers and builders like Major and Starmer and Heath. They will elect based on a PM's record. Though the correct answer is Starmer is middle class now with a working class upbringing.
All PMs have been middle class effectively though, though we have had working class Deputy PMs like Prescott and Rayner.
While Cameron was borderline upper class we haven't had a genuine upper class peer of the realm as PM since Douglas Home, who was Earl of Home for 2 years before giving up his title and leaving the Lords to enter the Commons again as PM, you can only be upper class by birth or arguably marriage. Once the last remaining hereditary peers leave parliament there will be almost no upper class members of the Houses of Parliament left, except a handful of life peer appointed hereditaries like Viscount Thurso (who also managed to win a Commons seat once the ban on peers becoming MPs was lifted)
MacDonald was definitely working class when Labour formed their first government in 1924. Less so when he formed the National one in 1931. Perhaps Callaghan too, although there's an argument he was lower-middle class by the time he was elected an MP.
Not really, MacDonald was a clerk and private secretary before election, so lower middle class by then. Callaghan too was a middle class tax inspector
People's social class, then and now, inc all the subtle gradations - you are the oracle on this topic, H, if that can be said without embarrassing you.
Thanks, I should really have a column in Tatler
Is the Illustrated London News still going?
I rather thin HYUFD prefers the Gentleman's Magazine with all the hatches, matches and despatches of the posh.
I thought he might like to add comment to the pictures of the Queen.
Someone posted a fun fact on twitter earlier and it is a genuine one.
Sir Kiers voice coach was once married to the legend that is Robin Askwith.
Can you imagine how damaging it would be to your professional credibility to say you were Keir's voice coach and he still sounds so awful. It would be like saying you were Donald Trump's morality advisor.
Yes I agree, voters have elected toffs like Cameron, upper middle class lawyers like Blair, lower middle glass grocers daughters like Thatcher and working class sons of trapeze artists and tool makers and builders like Major and Starmer and Heath. They will elect based on a PM's record. Though the correct answer is Starmer is middle class now with a working class upbringing.
All PMs have been middle class effectively though, though we have had working class Deputy PMs like Prescott and Rayner.
While Cameron was borderline upper class we haven't had a genuine upper class peer of the realm as PM since Douglas Home, who was Earl of Home for 2 years before giving up his title and leaving the Lords to enter the Commons again as PM, you can only be upper class by birth or arguably marriage. Once the last remaining hereditary peers leave parliament there will be almost no upper class members of the Houses of Parliament left, except a handful of life peer appointed hereditaries like Viscount Thurso (who also managed to win a Commons seat once the ban on peers becoming MPs was lifted)
MacDonald was definitely working class when Labour formed their first government in 1924. Less so when he formed the National one in 1931. Perhaps Callaghan too, although there's an argument he was lower-middle class by the time he was elected an MP.
Not really, MacDonald was a clerk and private secretary before election, so lower middle class by then. Callaghan too was a middle class tax inspector
People's social class, then and now, inc all the subtle gradations - you are the oracle on this topic, H, if that can be said without embarrassing you.
Thanks, I should really have a column in Tatler
Is the Illustrated London News still going?
I rather thin HYUFD prefers the Gentleman's Magazine with all the hatches, matches and despatches of the posh.
I thought he might like to add comment to the pictures of the Queen.
Someone posted a fun fact on twitter earlier and it is a genuine one.
Sir Kiers voice coach was once married to the legend that is Robin Askwith.
Can you imagine how damaging it would be to your professional credibility to say you were Keir's voice coach and he still sounds so awful. It would be like saying you were Donald Trump's morality advisor.
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
For fear of triggering our resident licker of the proverbial I quite like Leon’s Skyr Toolmakersson. It works on a couple of levels.
Wouldn’t be too sniffy at his dad being a toolmaker. I’ve worked with many in the past and toolmakers who run their own business are always self made and come up from the shop floor.
I agree it is quite good, although it fails in the sense that it actually sounds quite complimentary; Skyr Toolmakersson sounds like a warrior from The Last Kingdom, which is too ludicrous cool for Starmer.
Whereas, Kier From HR conjures an image of a slightly sweaty overweight middle aged man in a suit and tie (admittedly normally one he ahs bought himself) with a nasally boring voice.
Which do you think is the appropriate image?
In my last job I got the impression that HR was the preserve of rather earnest young(ish) women.
Indeed it is, though I have worked for a large part of my career in HR and there is a stereotypical male middle manager in HR and Starmer does personify it, so the analogy amused me.
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
For fear of triggering our resident licker of the proverbial I quite like Leon’s Skyr Toolmakersson. It works on a couple of levels.
Wouldn’t be too sniffy at his dad being a toolmaker. I’ve worked with many in the past and toolmakers who run their own business are always self made and come up from the shop floor.
Toolmakers are the elite of skilled tradespeople. If we didn’t have a class system they would be top of the league.
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
For fear of triggering our resident licker of the proverbial I quite like Leon’s Skyr Toolmakersson. It works on a couple of levels.
Wouldn’t be too sniffy at his dad being a toolmaker. I’ve worked with many in the past and toolmakers who run their own business are always self made and come up from the shop floor.
Toolmakers are the elite of skilled tradespeople. If we didn’t have a class system they would be top of the league.
I have never really understood what they do to be honest.
Trump’s going to be over the moon that the critisism of the massive swamp-draining operation is going to someone else, someone who really DGAF and happily gets on with the job.
It’s a big swamp to drain.
Repeating that 'swamp' bs as though it is some form of religious mantra does not make it true.
What is there is no swamp?
The swamp will never be drained in the UK. They will be too many objections from NINBYs, Greens, RSPB, wildlife trusts ….
Yes I agree, voters have elected toffs like Cameron, upper middle class lawyers like Blair, lower middle glass grocers daughters like Thatcher and working class sons of trapeze artists and tool makers and builders like Major and Starmer and Heath. They will elect based on a PM's record. Though the correct answer is Starmer is middle class now with a working class upbringing.
All PMs have been middle class effectively though, though we have had working class Deputy PMs like Prescott and Rayner.
While Cameron was borderline upper class we haven't had a genuine upper class peer of the realm as PM since Douglas Home, who was Earl of Home for 2 years before giving up his title and leaving the Lords to enter the Commons again as PM, you can only be upper class by birth or arguably marriage. Once the last remaining hereditary peers leave parliament there will be almost no upper class members of the Houses of Parliament left, except a handful of life peer appointed hereditaries like Viscount Thurso (who also managed to win a Commons seat once the ban on peers becoming MPs was lifted)
MacDonald was definitely working class when Labour formed their first government in 1924. Less so when he formed the National one in 1931. Perhaps Callaghan too, although there's an argument he was lower-middle class by the time he was elected an MP.
I read Callaghan's biography as part of the "20 Prime Ministers of the 20th Century series". Irish father, English mother, Dad died when he was nine leaving him and his Mum in near-poverty, Callaghan joined the Civil Service, became a Baptist Sunday School teacher, union official, joined the RN, served in the Far East in wartime, became a MP, worked his way up...all the way up. You don't get politicians like that these days. Now it's all PPE grads and [badwords]
Well you could say, even if you think he's a dick, Starmer is one. Working class dad and disabled mum, brother with learning difficulties. Studied law and made it to the top in that, then entered politics.
Which is not to pretend he's some salt of the earth type, just that we romanticise certain things, especially in the past, we don't in the present.
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
I am not a particular fan of the Labour Party, although my criticism of the party in Government would be a different set to yours. However I do utterly despise the most recent iterations of the Conservative Party. Local Government including Conservative authorities were shafted hard by the Conservative Governments through the years of austerity and beyond. There is little sign this lot will be much better. But your pals broke local government. Own it!
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
Ah ok. I've not come across it.
Anyway, question for you. Why have you become so irritated by his voice? You never used to be. What's going on there?
I have been on a journey, shall I say. I was never a natural supporter of Labour, but as a believer in democracy I realise that we have to have exchanges of power, and the Tories, particularly under Johnson, had become terrible. I believe that Sunak was beginning to turn things around but it was too late.
I was therefore relieved that Mr Thicky was out and to begin with I thought Starmer, who had a reasonably impressive backstory (albeit largely within the featherbedded public sector), would probably make a good PM. He has turned out to be shit. When the real test has come it is evident he is at best mediocre. Therefore his voice has become more and more boring, nasally and irritating, but most annoying of all is his complete lack of humility; an arrogance that is normally assumed by people such as yourself to be an uniquely Tory trait.
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
For fear of triggering our resident licker of the proverbial I quite like Leon’s Skyr Toolmakersson. It works on a couple of levels.
Wouldn’t be too sniffy at his dad being a toolmaker. I’ve worked with many in the past and toolmakers who run their own business are always self made and come up from the shop floor.
Toolmakers are the elite of skilled tradespeople. If we didn’t have a class system they would be top of the league.
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
For fear of triggering our resident licker of the proverbial I quite like Leon’s Skyr Toolmakersson. It works on a couple of levels.
Wouldn’t be too sniffy at his dad being a toolmaker. I’ve worked with many in the past and toolmakers who run their own business are always self made and come up from the shop floor.
Toolmakers are the elite of skilled tradespeople. If we didn’t have a class system they would be top of the league.
If we valued them that much, and I do agree they are very skilled, we wouldn’t have happily let most of them die off and the business move to the Far East via eastern Europe and the Iberian peninsula.
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
For fear of triggering our resident licker of the proverbial I quite like Leon’s Skyr Toolmakersson. It works on a couple of levels.
Wouldn’t be too sniffy at his dad being a toolmaker. I’ve worked with many in the past and toolmakers who run their own business are always self made and come up from the shop floor.
Toolmakers are the elite of skilled tradespeople. If we didn’t have a class system they would be top of the league.
I have never really understood what they do to be honest.
Manufacture, modify or refurbish machine tools used to produce products such as injection mouldings, blow mouldings, castings and pressings, for example.
Trump’s going to be over the moon that the critisism of the massive swamp-draining operation is going to someone else, someone who really DGAF and happily gets on with the job.
It’s a big swamp to drain.
Repeating that 'swamp' bs as though it is some form of religious mantra does not make it true.
What is there is no swamp?
The swamp will never be drained in the UK. They will be too many objections from NINBYs, Greens, RSPB, wildlife trusts ….
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
Ah ok. I've not come across it.
Anyway, question for you. Why have you become so irritated by his voice? You never used to be. What's going on there?
I have been on a journey, shall I say. I was never a natural supporter of Labour, but as a believer in democracy I realise that we have to have exchanges of power, and the Tories, particularly under Johnson, had become terrible. I believe that Sunak was beginning to turn things around but it was too late.
I was therefore relieved that Mr Thicky was out and to begin with I thought Starmer, who had a reasonably impressive backstory (albeit largely within the featherbedded public sector), would probably make a good PM. He has turned out to be shit. When the real test has come it is evident he is at best mediocre. Therefore his voice has become more and more boring, nasally and irritating, but most annoying of all is his complete lack of humility; an arrogance that is normally assumed by people such as yourself to be an uniquely Tory trait.
Well spotted
His arrogance is doubly odious because it is
1 a moral arrogance - he thinks he is morally superior
And
2 it is unjustified whether moral OR intellectual. He’s a fucking liar and a hypocrite and not very smart
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
For fear of triggering our resident licker of the proverbial I quite like Leon’s Skyr Toolmakersson. It works on a couple of levels.
Wouldn’t be too sniffy at his dad being a toolmaker. I’ve worked with many in the past and toolmakers who run their own business are always self made and come up from the shop floor.
Toolmakers are the elite of skilled tradespeople. If we didn’t have a class system they would be top of the league.
I have never really understood what they do to be honest.
Manufacture, modify or refurbish machine tools used to produce products such as injection mouldings, blow mouldings, castings and pressings, for example.
They also make bespoke gauges, jigs and fixtures.
The thing I find interesting about Starmer senior is not what he did for a living; tinker taylor, soldier, toolmaker, it really doesn't matter a jot; what I find really weird is that you could be such a nerd that you would name your baby after a politician ffs.
Yes I agree, voters have elected toffs like Cameron, upper middle class lawyers like Blair, lower middle glass grocers daughters like Thatcher and working class sons of trapeze artists and tool makers and builders like Major and Starmer and Heath. They will elect based on a PM's record. Though the correct answer is Starmer is middle class now with a working class upbringing.
All PMs have been middle class effectively though, though we have had working class Deputy PMs like Prescott and Rayner.
While Cameron was borderline upper class we haven't had a genuine upper class peer of the realm as PM since Douglas Home, who was Earl of Home for 2 years before giving up his title and leaving the Lords to enter the Commons again as PM, you can only be upper class by birth or arguably marriage. Once the last remaining hereditary peers leave parliament there will be almost no upper class members of the Houses of Parliament left, except a handful of life peer appointed hereditaries like Viscount Thurso (who also managed to win a Commons seat once the ban on peers becoming MPs was lifted)
MacDonald was definitely working class when Labour formed their first government in 1924. Less so when he formed the National one in 1931. Perhaps Callaghan too, although there's an argument he was lower-middle class by the time he was elected an MP.
Not really, MacDonald was a clerk and private secretary before election, so lower middle class by then. Callaghan too was a middle class tax inspector
People's social class, then and now, inc all the subtle gradations - you are the oracle on this topic, H, if that can be said without embarrassing you.
Thanks, I should really have a column in Tatler
Is the Illustrated London News still going?
I rather thin HYUFD prefers the Gentleman's Magazine with all the hatches, matches and despatches of the posh.
I thought he might like to add comment to the pictures of the Queen.
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
The saga of Noggin the Nog and Nogbad the Bad, with Skyr Toolmakersson as a wise and kindly local Earl aiming to bring peace via discussion.
FPT: I like the idea of draining the swamp -- but I'm not sure how it can be done at Mar-a-Lago, legally. Declare the place a "public nuisance", as can be done in some states? Use eminent domain to seize it?
Suggestions are welcome.
(When Trumpistas talk about draining the swamp, it cracks me up because I recognize so many swamp creatures around him -- and know about the instruction he received from Roy Cohn.)
One of the basic rules of both politics and con-artistry.
The more corrupt you are, the more you have to talk about not being corrupt.
President Trump says he will sign an executive order "ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws."
I wonder what's going to happen with stuff that can't be done by signing executive orders? Improving the economy, controlling the deficit, combatting climate change, ending the Ukraine war, diplomacy in the Middle East, managing the relationship with China, all of this sort of thing?
... especially as he's against doing some of those.
Good point. Perhaps he can spend 4 years just sitting there signing executive orders then. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose.
Surely if we have a split between a Rep Presidency and a Dem house and/or senate in 2 years as will probably happen that will neuter him.
It will but not on the "executive orders" front. The trouble is that he's bound to run out of things to sign well before his term ends so I foresee a "what do I do with myself now?" problem arising. Perhaps he will start signing bits of paper that look like executive orders on tv but aren't. It's a show after all and he needs to keep the ratings up.
Trump’s going to be over the moon that the critisism of the massive swamp-draining operation is going to someone else, someone who really DGAF and happily gets on with the job.
It’s a big swamp to drain.
Repeating that 'swamp' bs as though it is some form of religious mantra does not make it true.
What is there is no swamp?
The "swamp" is being drained into billionaires' bank accounts...
The swamp was being drained into billionaires’ bank accounts.
Yep. How much public money has Musk had thus far? And how much more will he get?
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
For fear of triggering our resident licker of the proverbial I quite like Leon’s Skyr Toolmakersson. It works on a couple of levels.
Wouldn’t be too sniffy at his dad being a toolmaker. I’ve worked with many in the past and toolmakers who run their own business are always self made and come up from the shop floor.
Toolmakers are the elite of skilled tradespeople. If we didn’t have a class system they would be top of the league.
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
Leon from Camden though - a god - sounds like a god, must be a god. Well apart from the 'Leon from Camden' bit.
Sounds like a dealer. Or a bad hairdresser at 90 quid a pop!
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
For fear of triggering our resident licker of the proverbial I quite like Leon’s Skyr Toolmakersson. It works on a couple of levels.
Wouldn’t be too sniffy at his dad being a toolmaker. I’ve worked with many in the past and toolmakers who run their own business are always self made and come up from the shop floor.
Toolmakers are the elite of skilled tradespeople. If we didn’t have a class system they would be top of the league.
If we valued them that much, and I do agree they are very skilled, we wouldn’t have happily let most of them die off and the business move to the Far East via eastern Europe and the Iberian peninsula.
If we didn’t have a class system, we would value toolmakers more than the sort of people who make money from selling our businesses to foreigners.
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
Yes, but for me it conjures up the image of a Viking warrior from the Danelaw, which is definitely too cool. Keir is too mundane and dull for such a name.
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
Leon from Camden though - a god - sounds like a god, must be a god. Well apart from the 'Leon from Camden' bit.
Sounds like a dealer. Or a bad hairdresser at 90 quid a pop!
Or one of the VERY minor characters from Withnail and I.
Leon from Camden was always trying to pass off toasted banana skins as good gear.
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
Yes, but for me it conjures up the image of a Viking warrior from the Danelaw, which is definitely too cool. Keir is too mundane and dull for such a name.
There’s always Sir Sheer Wanker
The fact he has generated so many insulting nicknames in just a few months is quite something in itself. And not in a good way
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
Yes, but for me it conjures up the image of a Viking warrior from the Danelaw, which is definitely too cool. Keir is too mundane and dull for such a name.
Ironic humour. The beauty of the Skyr Toolmakersson image is that Starmer is the PM most unlike a Viking warrior since at least Major, and possibly Attlee.
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
Leon from Camden though - a god - sounds like a god, must be a god. Well apart from the 'Leon from Camden' bit.
Sounds like a dealer. Or a bad hairdresser at 90 quid a pop!
Or one of the VERY minor characters from Withnail and I.
Leon from Camden was always trying to pass off toasted banana skins as good gear.
Nonetheless memorable
You’d never forget Leon from Camden
That’s probably why you’d make him a minor character in your breakout movie script
Have I ever told my Bruce Robinson story? It’s rather good
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
There's been a prolonged squeeze on local government funding courtesy of the Conservatives. This must be factored into any allocation of blame model. It won't generate credible output otherwise.
No, Brum like other places like Woking, Thurrock and Nottingham is nothing to do with the national govt and everything to do with inept local govt management and the residents of those places should pay extra as a consequence of their poor electoral choices. FAFO so,to speak.
So a prolonged squeeze on local government funding has no impact on the services it provides? How do you get to that conclusion?
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
I am not a particular fan of the Labour Party, although my criticism of the party in Government would be a different set to yours. However I do utterly despise the most recent iterations of the Conservative Party. Local Government including Conservative authorities were shafted hard by the Conservative Governments through the years of austerity and beyond. There is little sign this lot will be much better. But your pals broke local government. Own it!
I don't need to own it. This isn't happening everywhere in the country, just certain parts. I don't walk around my local towns and see this. This is Birmingham, Labour controlled, 13 years now.
As Taz said, there are numerous threads to the 'blame', albeit the obvious one is the people who are doing it. I can accept Conservative governments have a part to play too.
Your kneejerk lazy reaction to entirely blame some fly-tipping on the Conservatives, who are neither in control of the council nor the country, is the expected reaction of someone who isn't willing to accept responsibility.
It's going to be a tough journey for Labour supporters from carping and blaming on the sidelines to accepting responsibility. Especially with a potential self-inflicted recession, home grown inflation and increasing unemployment. Own it!
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
Ah ok. I've not come across it.
Anyway, question for you. Why have you become so irritated by his voice? You never used to be. What's going on there?
I suspect it was coined on here to gender balance the Rachel from accounts insult.
It is odd that Starmer (who I don't have a great deal of time for) is pilloried for his parentage, the donkey, his adenoidal speech and his dreary delivery. This is all very similar to the criticism he got on here prior to the Batley and Spen by election.
Now the same posters falling over each other to call Starmer a traitor we're quite comfortable to see Johnson shake off his minders to attend a party with a KGB officer whilst Foreign Secretary, the same people who cried that Johnson was unfairly attacked for being ambushed by a cake wanted Starmer's nuts for having a curry in Durham.
It is true @Kinabalu that you and I beasted Johnson for putting a border in the North Channel /Irish Sea, whilst claiming his oven ready Brexit deal. For missing Cobra meetings and shaking hands with COVID nurses when shaking hands was off limits, whilst all the time claiming his own "World beating " status for everything he did during Covid. There may be a reasonable charge sheet against Starmer, but it remains slim compared to that of the narcissistic **** many on here idolise.
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
I am not a particular fan of the Labour Party, although my criticism of the party in Government would be a different set to yours. However I do utterly despise the most recent iterations of the Conservative Party. Local Government including Conservative authorities were shafted hard by the Conservative Governments through the years of austerity and beyond. There is little sign this lot will be much better. But your pals broke local government. Own it!
I don't need to own it. This isn't happening everywhere in the country, just certain parts. I don't walk around my local towns and see this. This is Birmingham, Labour controlled, 13 years now.
As Taz said, there are numerous threads to the 'blame', albeit the obvious one is the people who are doing it. I can accept Conservative governments have a part to play too.
Your kneejerk lazy reaction to entirely blame some fly-tipping on the Conservatives, who are neither in control of the council nor the country, is the expected reaction of someone who isn't willing to accept responsibility.
It's going to be a tough journey for Labour supporters from carping and blaming on the sidelines to accepting responsibility. Especially with a potential self-inflicted recession, home grown inflation and increasing unemployment. Own it!
Jenrick makes it all quite clear in that video, for anyone attuned
Yes I agree, voters have elected toffs like Cameron, upper middle class lawyers like Blair, lower middle glass grocers daughters like Thatcher and working class sons of trapeze artists and tool makers and builders like Major and Starmer and Heath. They will elect based on a PM's record. Though the correct answer is Starmer is middle class now with a working class upbringing.
All PMs have been middle class effectively though, though we have had working class Deputy PMs like Prescott and Rayner.
While Cameron was borderline upper class we haven't had a genuine upper class peer of the realm as PM since Douglas Home, who was Earl of Home for 2 years before giving up his title and leaving the Lords to enter the Commons again as PM, you can only be upper class by birth or arguably marriage. Once the last remaining hereditary peers leave parliament there will be almost no upper class members of the Houses of Parliament left, except a handful of life peer appointed hereditaries like Viscount Thurso (who also managed to win a Commons seat once the ban on peers becoming MPs was lifted)
MacDonald was definitely working class when Labour formed their first government in 1924. Less so when he formed the National one in 1931. Perhaps Callaghan too, although there's an argument he was lower-middle class by the time he was elected an MP.
I read Callaghan's biography as part of the "20 Prime Ministers of the 20th Century series". Irish father, English mother, Dad died when he was nine leaving him and his Mum in near-poverty, Callaghan joined the Civil Service, became a Baptist Sunday School teacher, union official, joined the RN, served in the Far East in wartime, became a MP, worked his way up...all the way up. You don't get politicians like that these days. Now it's all PPE grads and [badwords]
Angela Rayner would presumably disagree.
But overall, yes, big reduction in working-class background MPs. Partly reducing social mobility, partly the changing nature of the union movement.
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
Ah ok. I've not come across it.
Anyway, question for you. Why have you become so irritated by his voice? You never used to be. What's going on there?
I have been on a journey, shall I say. I was never a natural supporter of Labour, but as a believer in democracy I realise that we have to have exchanges of power, and the Tories, particularly under Johnson, had become terrible. I believe that Sunak was beginning to turn things around but it was too late.
I was therefore relieved that Mr Thicky was out and to begin with I thought Starmer, who had a reasonably impressive backstory (albeit largely within the featherbedded public sector), would probably make a good PM. He has turned out to be shit. When the real test has come it is evident he is at best mediocre. Therefore his voice has become more and more boring, nasally and irritating, but most annoying of all is his complete lack of humility; an arrogance that is normally assumed by people such as yourself to be an uniquely Tory trait.
Ok, thanks. That sounds sincere although I think you're being too harsh and too hasty. Anyway, we'll get another vote in 2029 and if I'm wrong and he doesn't turn out to be ok, perhaps better than ok, it'll just be the one term rather than two or three. Which will be a shame because somebody, anybody, needs a decade to have a significant and lasting positive impact on the country. You can trash things quickly (Johnson, Truss) but the opposite takes time.
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
I am not a particular fan of the Labour Party, although my criticism of the party in Government would be a different set to yours. However I do utterly despise the most recent iterations of the Conservative Party. Local Government including Conservative authorities were shafted hard by the Conservative Governments through the years of austerity and beyond. There is little sign this lot will be much better. But your pals broke local government. Own it!
I don't need to own it. This isn't happening everywhere in the country, just certain parts. I don't walk around my local towns and see this. This is Birmingham, Labour controlled, 13 years now.
As Taz said, there are numerous threads to the 'blame', albeit the obvious one is the people who are doing it. I can accept Conservative governments have a part to play too.
Your kneejerk lazy reaction to entirely blame some fly-tipping on the Conservatives, who are neither in control of the council nor the country, is the expected reaction of someone who isn't willing to accept responsibility.
It's going to be a tough journey for Labour supporters from carping and blaming on the sidelines to accepting responsibility. Especially with a potential self-inflicted recession, home grown inflation and increasing unemployment. Own it!
Jenrick makes it all quite clear in that video, for anyone attuned
Oh FFS - could you stop this 'if you were as smart as me crap'.
Yes I agree, voters have elected toffs like Cameron, upper middle class lawyers like Blair, lower middle glass grocers daughters like Thatcher and working class sons of trapeze artists and tool makers and builders like Major and Starmer and Heath. They will elect based on a PM's record. Though the correct answer is Starmer is middle class now with a working class upbringing.
All PMs have been middle class effectively though, though we have had working class Deputy PMs like Prescott and Rayner.
While Cameron was borderline upper class we haven't had a genuine upper class peer of the realm as PM since Douglas Home, who was Earl of Home for 2 years before giving up his title and leaving the Lords to enter the Commons again as PM, you can only be upper class by birth or arguably marriage. Once the last remaining hereditary peers leave parliament there will be almost no upper class members of the Houses of Parliament left, except a handful of life peer appointed hereditaries like Viscount Thurso (who also managed to win a Commons seat once the ban on peers becoming MPs was lifted)
MacDonald was definitely working class when Labour formed their first government in 1924. Less so when he formed the National one in 1931. Perhaps Callaghan too, although there's an argument he was lower-middle class by the time he was elected an MP.
I read Callaghan's biography as part of the "20 Prime Ministers of the 20th Century series". Irish father, English mother, Dad died when he was nine leaving him and his Mum in near-poverty, Callaghan joined the Civil Service, became a Baptist Sunday School teacher, union official, joined the RN, served in the Far East in wartime, became a MP, worked his way up...all the way up. You don't get politicians like that these days. Now it's all PPE grads and [badwords]
Ordinary Seaman to Lieutenant - and not briefly OS as an initial officer candidate but doing it the hard way through Chief Petty Officer while still a youngish one. Difficult prewar, only really possible in war, getting trickier after the war though not impossible.
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
No, Nigel F is right. It sounds very strong and swoony. It's the equivalent of that backfiring Labour ad spoofing Dave as the Life On Mars cop. I'd drop it if I were you (although as a Lab supporter I hope you don't).
Has @HYUFD seen the latest polling from Northern Ireland?
Under 50% support for the Union with Britain, only 20% of Northern Protestants would find a victory for Irish Unity in a border poll "almost impossible to accept".
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
I am not a particular fan of the Labour Party, although my criticism of the party in Government would be a different set to yours. However I do utterly despise the most recent iterations of the Conservative Party. Local Government including Conservative authorities were shafted hard by the Conservative Governments through the years of austerity and beyond. There is little sign this lot will be much better. But your pals broke local government. Own it!
I don't need to own it. This isn't happening everywhere in the country, just certain parts. I don't walk around my local towns and see this. This is Birmingham, Labour controlled, 13 years now.
As Taz said, there are numerous threads to the 'blame', albeit the obvious one is the people who are doing it. I can accept Conservative governments have a part to play too.
Your kneejerk lazy reaction to entirely blame some fly-tipping on the Conservatives, who are neither in control of the council nor the country, is the expected reaction of someone who isn't willing to accept responsibility.
It's going to be a tough journey for Labour supporters from carping and blaming on the sidelines to accepting responsibility. Especially with a potential self-inflicted recession, home grown inflation and increasing unemployment. Own it!
Jenrick makes it all quite clear in that video, for anyone attuned
Oh FFS - could you stop this 'if you were as smart as me crap'.
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
I am not a particular fan of the Labour Party, although my criticism of the party in Government would be a different set to yours. However I do utterly despise the most recent iterations of the Conservative Party. Local Government including Conservative authorities were shafted hard by the Conservative Governments through the years of austerity and beyond. There is little sign this lot will be much better. But your pals broke local government. Own it!
I don't need to own it. This isn't happening everywhere in the country, just certain parts. I don't walk around my local towns and see this. This is Birmingham, Labour controlled, 13 years now.
As Taz said, there are numerous threads to the 'blame', albeit the obvious one is the people who are doing it. I can accept Conservative governments have a part to play too.
Your kneejerk lazy reaction to entirely blame some fly-tipping on the Conservatives, who are neither in control of the council nor the country, is the expected reaction of someone who isn't willing to accept responsibility.
It's going to be a tough journey for Labour supporters from carping and blaming on the sidelines to accepting responsibility. Especially with a potential self-inflicted recession, home grown inflation and increasing unemployment. Own it!
Jenrick makes it all quite clear in that video, for anyone attuned
Oh FFS - could you stop this 'if you were as smart as me crap'.
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
Ah ok. I've not come across it.
Anyway, question for you. Why have you become so irritated by his voice? You never used to be. What's going on there?
I suspect it was coined on here to gender balance the Rachel from accounts insult.
It is odd that Starmer (who I don't have a great deal of time for) is pilloried for his parentage, the donkey, his adenoidal speech and his dreary delivery. This is all very similar to the criticism he got on here prior to the Batley and Spen by election.
Now the same posters falling over each other to call Starmer a traitor we're quite comfortable to see Johnson shake off his minders to attend a party with a KGB officer whilst Foreign Secretary, the same people who cried that Johnson was unfairly attacked for being ambushed by a cake wanted Starmer's nuts for having a curry in Durham.
It is true @Kinabalu that you and I beasted Johnson for putting a border in the North Channel /Irish Sea, whilst claiming his oven ready Brexit deal. For missing Cobra meetings and shaking hands with COVID nurses when shaking hands was off limits, whilst all the time claiming his own "World beating " status for everything he did during Covid. There may be a reasonable charge sheet against Starmer, but it remains slim compared to that of the narcissistic **** many on here idolise.
We did too. Those were the days. Ripping into a PM who deserved every bit of it and more.
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
No, Nigel F is right. It sounds very strong and swoony. It's the equivalent of that backfiring Labour ad spoofing Dave as the Life On Mars cop. I'd drop it if I were you (although as a Lab supporter I hope you don't).
I use it for my own amusement because it reaffirms my intrinsic cleverness (“Skyr” is a bland Icelandic yoghurt)
I care not a whit if anyone else uses it, you tiny-dick pinhead
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
I am not a particular fan of the Labour Party, although my criticism of the party in Government would be a different set to yours. However I do utterly despise the most recent iterations of the Conservative Party. Local Government including Conservative authorities were shafted hard by the Conservative Governments through the years of austerity and beyond. There is little sign this lot will be much better. But your pals broke local government. Own it!
I don't need to own it. This isn't happening everywhere in the country, just certain parts. I don't walk around my local towns and see this. This is Birmingham, Labour controlled, 13 years now.
As Taz said, there are numerous threads to the 'blame', albeit the obvious one is the people who are doing it. I can accept Conservative governments have a part to play too.
Your kneejerk lazy reaction to entirely blame some fly-tipping on the Conservatives, who are neither in control of the council nor the country, is the expected reaction of someone who isn't willing to accept responsibility.
It's going to be a tough journey for Labour supporters from carping and blaming on the sidelines to accepting responsibility. Especially with a potential self-inflicted recession, home grown inflation and increasing unemployment. Own it!
Jenrick makes it all quite clear in that video, for anyone attuned
Oh FFS - could you stop this 'if you were as smart as me crap'.
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
I am not a particular fan of the Labour Party, although my criticism of the party in Government would be a different set to yours. However I do utterly despise the most recent iterations of the Conservative Party. Local Government including Conservative authorities were shafted hard by the Conservative Governments through the years of austerity and beyond. There is little sign this lot will be much better. But your pals broke local government. Own it!
I don't need to own it. This isn't happening everywhere in the country, just certain parts. I don't walk around my local towns and see this. This is Birmingham, Labour controlled, 13 years now.
As Taz said, there are numerous threads to the 'blame', albeit the obvious one is the people who are doing it. I can accept Conservative governments have a part to play too.
Your kneejerk lazy reaction to entirely blame some fly-tipping on the Conservatives, who are neither in control of the council nor the country, is the expected reaction of someone who isn't willing to accept responsibility.
It's going to be a tough journey for Labour supporters from carping and blaming on the sidelines to accepting responsibility. Especially with a potential self-inflicted recession, home grown inflation and increasing unemployment. Own it!
This lot have been slow out of the blocks and a repeat of austerity was not what I expected. The continuation Sunak inertia is also a disappointment, but your lot devastated the nation over a slow 14 year car crash, the most notable collision being Brexit. Suck it up winner!
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
I am not a particular fan of the Labour Party, although my criticism of the party in Government would be a different set to yours. However I do utterly despise the most recent iterations of the Conservative Party. Local Government including Conservative authorities were shafted hard by the Conservative Governments through the years of austerity and beyond. There is little sign this lot will be much better. But your pals broke local government. Own it!
I don't need to own it. This isn't happening everywhere in the country, just certain parts. I don't walk around my local towns and see this. This is Birmingham, Labour controlled, 13 years now.
As Taz said, there are numerous threads to the 'blame', albeit the obvious one is the people who are doing it. I can accept Conservative governments have a part to play too.
Your kneejerk lazy reaction to entirely blame some fly-tipping on the Conservatives, who are neither in control of the council nor the country, is the expected reaction of someone who isn't willing to accept responsibility.
It's going to be a tough journey for Labour supporters from carping and blaming on the sidelines to accepting responsibility. Especially with a potential self-inflicted recession, home grown inflation and increasing unemployment. Own it!
Jenrick makes it all quite clear in that video, for anyone attuned
Oh FFS - could you stop this 'if you were as smart as me crap'.
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
I am not a particular fan of the Labour Party, although my criticism of the party in Government would be a different set to yours. However I do utterly despise the most recent iterations of the Conservative Party. Local Government including Conservative authorities were shafted hard by the Conservative Governments through the years of austerity and beyond. There is little sign this lot will be much better. But your pals broke local government. Own it!
I don't need to own it. This isn't happening everywhere in the country, just certain parts. I don't walk around my local towns and see this. This is Birmingham, Labour controlled, 13 years now.
As Taz said, there are numerous threads to the 'blame', albeit the obvious one is the people who are doing it. I can accept Conservative governments have a part to play too.
Your kneejerk lazy reaction to entirely blame some fly-tipping on the Conservatives, who are neither in control of the council nor the country, is the expected reaction of someone who isn't willing to accept responsibility.
It's going to be a tough journey for Labour supporters from carping and blaming on the sidelines to accepting responsibility. Especially with a potential self-inflicted recession, home grown inflation and increasing unemployment. Own it!
Jenrick makes it all quite clear in that video, for anyone attuned
Oh FFS - could you stop this 'if you were as smart as me crap'.
If it upsets you just scroll past his posts, that's what I do. I find PB a far more amenable prospect for so doing.
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
I am not a particular fan of the Labour Party, although my criticism of the party in Government would be a different set to yours. However I do utterly despise the most recent iterations of the Conservative Party. Local Government including Conservative authorities were shafted hard by the Conservative Governments through the years of austerity and beyond. There is little sign this lot will be much better. But your pals broke local government. Own it!
I don't need to own it. This isn't happening everywhere in the country, just certain parts. I don't walk around my local towns and see this. This is Birmingham, Labour controlled, 13 years now.
As Taz said, there are numerous threads to the 'blame', albeit the obvious one is the people who are doing it. I can accept Conservative governments have a part to play too.
Your kneejerk lazy reaction to entirely blame some fly-tipping on the Conservatives, who are neither in control of the council nor the country, is the expected reaction of someone who isn't willing to accept responsibility.
It's going to be a tough journey for Labour supporters from carping and blaming on the sidelines to accepting responsibility. Especially with a potential self-inflicted recession, home grown inflation and increasing unemployment. Own it!
Jenrick makes it all quite clear in that video, for anyone attuned
Oh FFS - could you stop this 'if you were as smart as me crap'.
If it upsets you just scroll past his posts, that's what I do. I find PB a far more amenable prospect for so doing.
It doesn't upset me, but it renders a PB poster who I like posts rather unreadable.
Furious residents of Britain's second biggest city tell @RobertJenrick they are sick of their areas being trashed while the clean up can take weeks.
Fair play to Jenrick, he actually comes across as normal in that. Looks horrific, how can people live like this?
The Conservatives crashed the car, they are now surveying the wreckage and asking "who crashed this car?"
Yes of course. All Birmingham's many ills, including fly-tipping are entirely down to the Conservatives and nothing to do with the Labour run council who have been in control for the last 13 years.
At some point, Labour and their supporters will have to take some responsibility. I understand it will be hard for you.
I am not a particular fan of the Labour Party, although my criticism of the party in Government would be a different set to yours. However I do utterly despise the most recent iterations of the Conservative Party. Local Government including Conservative authorities were shafted hard by the Conservative Governments through the years of austerity and beyond. There is little sign this lot will be much better. But your pals broke local government. Own it!
I don't need to own it. This isn't happening everywhere in the country, just certain parts. I don't walk around my local towns and see this. This is Birmingham, Labour controlled, 13 years now.
As Taz said, there are numerous threads to the 'blame', albeit the obvious one is the people who are doing it. I can accept Conservative governments have a part to play too.
Your kneejerk lazy reaction to entirely blame some fly-tipping on the Conservatives, who are neither in control of the council nor the country, is the expected reaction of someone who isn't willing to accept responsibility.
It's going to be a tough journey for Labour supporters from carping and blaming on the sidelines to accepting responsibility. Especially with a potential self-inflicted recession, home grown inflation and increasing unemployment. Own it!
Jenrick makes it all quite clear in that video, for anyone attuned
Oh FFS - could you stop this 'if you were as smart as me crap'.
If it upsets you just scroll past his posts, that's what I do. I find PB a far more amenable prospect for so doing.
lol. You literally complain every time I start commenting
Eg your reaction to my Chagos remarks: an endless whine
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
No, Nigel F is right. It sounds very strong and swoony. It's the equivalent of that backfiring Labour ad spoofing Dave as the Life On Mars cop. I'd drop it if I were you (although as a Lab supporter I hope you don't).
I use it for my own amusement because it reaffirms my intrinsic cleverness (“Skyr” is a bland Icelandic yoghurt)
I care not a whit if anyone else uses it, you tiny-dick pinhead
Have you tried Skyr? I wouldn't describe it as bland. Tart as a wasp's anus.
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
No, Nigel F is right. It sounds very strong and swoony. It's the equivalent of that backfiring Labour ad spoofing Dave as the Life On Mars cop. I'd drop it if I were you (although as a Lab supporter I hope you don't).
I use it for my own amusement because it reaffirms my intrinsic cleverness (“Skyr” is a bland Icelandic yoghurt)
I care not a whit if anyone else uses it, you tiny-dick pinhead
Such a "lively intelligence" (I mean it) but wants so much to be thought of as a serious intellect. It's a crying shame and there's no need for it.
But, yes, you keep using it. As I say, I like it. And very clever too!
Trump’s going to be over the moon that the critisism of the massive swamp-draining operation is going to someone else, someone who really DGAF and happily gets on with the job.
It’s a big swamp to drain.
Repeating that 'swamp' bs as though it is some form of religious mantra does not make it true.
What is there is no swamp?
The swamp will never be drained in the UK. They will be too many objections from NINBYs, Greens, RSPB, wildlife trusts ….
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
No, Nigel F is right. It sounds very strong and swoony. It's the equivalent of that backfiring Labour ad spoofing Dave as the Life On Mars cop. I'd drop it if I were you (although as a Lab supporter I hope you don't).
I use it for my own amusement because it reaffirms my intrinsic cleverness (“Skyr” is a bland Icelandic yoghurt)
I care not a whit if anyone else uses it, you tiny-dick pinhead
Have you tried Skyr? I wouldn't describe it as bland. Tart as a wasp's anus.
I have tried it - in Iceland, with yummy Icelandic berries - and I found it bland. But I find all yoghurt bland. But then it’s meant to be bland, I think (with gradations within the blandness)?
Do wasps have anuses?
I used to entertain my daughters (when aged 5-10) with my impressions of various insects and invertebrates possessing ani. Eg “here’s a bee having a poo”
Cracked them up
Probably wouldn’t work so well now the eldest is at St Andrews studying Classics and Anthropology
Can we all just agree: LED lights are rubbish. I'm sitting in a cafe and an LED spotlight is shining in my direction and it's so bright and concentrated that I'm having to use my hand to shield myself. To say nothing of the glare problems caused by LED lights in cars, dazzling drivers in a way that never used to happen with old-style lights.
FPT: I like the idea of draining the swamp -- but I'm not sure how it can be done at Mar-a-Lago, legally. Declare the place a "public nuisance", as can be done in some states? Use eminent domain to seize it?
Suggestions are welcome.
(When Trumpistas talk about draining the swamp, it cracks me up because I recognize so many swamp creatures around him -- and know about the instruction he received from Roy Cohn.)
One of the basic rules of both politics and con-artistry.
The more corrupt you are, the more you have to talk about not being corrupt.
“The more he spoke of his honour, the faster we counted the spoons”
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
Leon from Camden though - a god - sounds like a god, must be a god. Well apart from the 'Leon from Camden' bit.
Sounds like a dealer. Or a bad hairdresser at 90 quid a pop!
Or one of the VERY minor characters from Withnail and I.
Leon from Camden was always trying to pass off toasted banana skins as good gear.
Nonetheless memorable
You’d never forget Leon from Camden
That’s probably why you’d make him a minor character in your breakout movie script
Have I ever told my Bruce Robinson story? It’s rather good
Fire away, as long as it reflects a little bit discreditably on you.
Trump is no longer orange. I wonder when he washed it out... sorry I mean I wonder when the natural aging process took it's course and that that the weird tangerine colour naturally vanished overnight?
Trump is no longer orange. I wonder when he washed it out... sorry I mean I wonder when the natural aging process took it's course and that that the weird tangerine colour naturally vanished overnight?
When he won his last election and being on camera meant less
He’s letting his hair go white, as well. Suits him
Good evening from my holiday cottage at the far North Western tip of Assynt.
From the hill here I can see Lewis, the whole of Assynt and its inselbergs, the coast of Wester Ross and all the way to Skye.
Magnificent. You have been very lucky with the weather. The night sky will be brilliant.
The owner of this place is a fellow of the royal astronomical society and is holding an astronomy club evening tonight in her actual, hut-sized observatory with a massive telescope in the garden. She just popped round to say we’re welcome to come and take a look later.
Good evening from my holiday cottage at the far North Western tip of Assynt.
From the hill here I can see Lewis, the whole of Assynt and its inselbergs, the coast of Wester Ross and all the way to Skye.
Very nice indeed. I realised just recently that I haven’t been up to the Highlands for nearly forty years, and not been to Scotland for over a decade, and then only fleeting visits to Edinburgh or Glasgow for work or party conferences. So, now that May elections look like being cancelled in our patch, I’ve arranged a trip to Skye and back for the spring.
Has @HYUFD seen the latest polling from Northern Ireland?
Under 50% support for the Union with Britain, only 20% of Northern Protestants would find a victory for Irish Unity in a border poll "almost impossible to accept".
Good evening from my holiday cottage at the far North Western tip of Assynt.
From the hill here I can see Lewis, the whole of Assynt and its inselbergs, the coast of Wester Ross and all the way to Skye.
Magnificent. You have been very lucky with the weather. The night sky will be brilliant.
The owner of this place is a fellow of the royal astronomical society and is holding an astronomy club evening tonight in their actual, hit-sized observatory with a massive telescope in the garden. She just popped round to say we’re welcome to come and take a look later.
I am, ina wholesome and positive way, very envious.
Can we all just agree: LED lights are rubbish. I'm sitting in a cafe and an LED spotlight is shining in my direction and it's so bright and concentrated that I'm having to use my hand to shield myself. To say nothing of the glare problems caused by LED lights in cars, dazzling drivers in a way that never used to happen with old-style lights.
No, we can't
Plenty of stupid glaring headlights/spotlights/etc before LEDs.
As with everything else, it needs to be design right. Not thrown together.
I ended up having to stay in Berlin a few extra days so only heading home now before the weekend. For something that too 14 years to build it's laughable, there is a solitary bar which is out in the open so not very relaxing, the restaurant selection is absolutely shocking, the highlights being a Starbucks and Burger King or disgusting looking currywurst place.
Speaking to German people all week has really put our infrastructure troubles into perspective. One of the guys was telling me about some roadworks at the end of his road which blocked the way to the main road so he had to navigate a one way system that took and extra 10 mins per journey, the work was supposed to take 4 weeks but after 4 weeks they said they needed more time and got another 4 weeks. Eventually it got to month 6 of the road being closed at one end and the residents got fed up and approached the local council about why the roadworks were still ongoing but no one seemed to be working and it turns out that the council had refused the licence to do a major part of the work to the telecoms company but the national government were handing out fines for the telecoms company not delivering infrastructure upgrades on time. It was the first time I felt an ounce of sympathy for them rather than schadenfreude.
The new Berlin airport took so long to build that a lot of the equipment they originally installed, like TV screens, were obsolete by the time it eventually opened and they all had to be replaced at huge cost.
Skyr Toolmakersson is a mild insult because it sounds like one of the more earnest, boring characters in the Sagas, the sort of sexless @kinabalu type who tries to stop all the axe-murdering with plaintive appeals to good sense and proper budgeting even as they have eerie secrets of their own
Leon from Camden though - a god - sounds like a god, must be a god. Well apart from the 'Leon from Camden' bit.
Sounds like a dealer. Or a bad hairdresser at 90 quid a pop!
Or one of the VERY minor characters from Withnail and I.
Leon from Camden was always trying to pass off toasted banana skins as good gear.
Nonetheless memorable
You’d never forget Leon from Camden
That’s probably why you’d make him a minor character in your breakout movie script
Have I ever told my Bruce Robinson story? It’s rather good
Fire away, as long as it reflects a little bit discreditably on you.
So this was early 1987 and Withnail was just out and my best friend X (now quite famous in Hollywood but then just a rascal like me) said “hey I’ve worked out where Bruce Robinson lives it’s in Wimbledon let’s go and see him”
I mean wtf?! But we were mad then. Mad and young
So we literally just went round to his big house in Wimbledon and rocked up and buzzed his doorbell (with no warning. And he had no idea who we were) and Bruce R answered the door except he answered it in shorts and tee shirt on a cold night and he had an oxygen mask clamped over his face and he was wheeling an oxygen tank
We thought omg and then he started laughing and we said Hey we love your movie and he said “hahah ok come in” and it turned out he just inhaled oxygen for fun and he gave us a tour of his beautiful house and beautiful wife and beautiful scripts (including withnail!!) and then he said “hey you kids are fun” and he took us round the corner to a curry house and bought us dinner and paid for everything including very very expensive wine and at the end he signed a copy of the withnail script with “more oxygen!” written inside (it became a joke of the whole evening) and I still have it now
And I’ve always thought: what a fucking dude. Two wastrel kids turn up on your door without warning and you have the balls and the wit to turn it into something fun for everyone
Can we all just agree: LED lights are rubbish. I'm sitting in a cafe and an LED spotlight is shining in my direction and it's so bright and concentrated that I'm having to use my hand to shield myself. To say nothing of the glare problems caused by LED lights in cars, dazzling drivers in a way that never used to happen with old-style lights.
Quite a telling story from Guido - the writers of the 'independent report' backing Millitwat's energy disasterstroke were actually giving full copy approval to the Government.
“We are keen to get views on the messaging, tone and structure (overall and for the main sections) as well as anything that you [DESNZ] think is missing and anything you strongly dislike or can’t live with!“
“We hope you will see that your feedback and comments have been incorporated wherever possible”
“please find the very latest draft report and costs annex which include the updated narrative and visuals on cost… In any case we will ensure the 3 orgs [NESO, DESNZ & Ofgem] are aligned on lines to take on costs.“
Let's all 'align on lines to take' as if they're a PR firm working for Topshop. That's the quality of the independent research backing up this utter helmet and his total destruction of our grid and economy.
Does anyone know why the Conservatives are so furious at the Local Election postponements, most of which have been requested by Conservative controlled Councils?
Can we all just agree: LED lights are rubbish. I'm sitting in a cafe and an LED spotlight is shining in my direction and it's so bright and concentrated that I'm having to use my hand to shield myself. To say nothing of the glare problems caused by LED lights in cars, dazzling drivers in a way that never used to happen with old-style lights.
They're a great technology, which hasn't yet matured as a consumer product. Manufacturers are still pursuing brightness at the expense of usability.
Does anyone know why the Conservatives are so furious at the Local Election postponements, most of which have been requested by Conservative controlled Councils?
Kemi supporters please explain.
Why did Starmer come the high and mighty about covid rules when he knew his voice coach had come through about 5 zones in a disastrous yuletide mission to make him sound less of a twat? Because it's good politics. What does Labour want, a thank you note?
Does anyone know why the Conservatives are so furious at the Local Election postponements, most of which have been requested by Conservative controlled Councils?
Kemi supporters please explain.
See two third's of the UK's current problems. Same thing.
Republican version of virtue signaling (Vice Signaling?). Saves having to address real problems. As in his first term he's making things worse, if he just played golf for 4 years things would be better.
I mentioned Sir Gordon Richards earlier in the week, with a picture of the dog sat by his grave
I've since learnt two things related to him that I find at least mildly interesting..
First, during his post-riding training career, the best horse he trained was called Reform!
Reform must have been one of the best three year olds ever to not win a Classic. He wasn't even entered into any of them because he was such an unimpressive looking yearling. In fact, the breeders decided not to send him to the yearling sales because they thought that it would be bad for their reputation
He won eleven of his fourteen career races. Late in his three year old season, he beat the Derby winner in the Champion Stakes
Second, I've realised that I have one degree of separation from Sir Gordon. For about a decade, from 1990 until his death in 2000 my parents employed an old boy called Bert Woodage as their gardener and dog walker
He was a stable jockey for Richards when he trained in Ogbourne Maizey (where we lived when Peter Makin trained there, and is on my mail route now Emma Lavelle trains there). In 1960 he was one of I think five of the staff done for a big doping scandal, and he was banned from working in racing for life
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
Ah ok. I've not come across it.
Anyway, question for you. Why have you become so irritated by his voice? You never used to be. What's going on there?
I have been on a journey, shall I say. I was never a natural supporter of Labour, but as a believer in democracy I realise that we have to have exchanges of power, and the Tories, particularly under Johnson, had become terrible. I believe that Sunak was beginning to turn things around but it was too late.
I was therefore relieved that Mr Thicky was out and to begin with I thought Starmer, who had a reasonably impressive backstory (albeit largely within the featherbedded public sector), would probably make a good PM. He has turned out to be shit. When the real test has come it is evident he is at best mediocre. Therefore his voice has become more and more boring, nasally and irritating, but most annoying of all is his complete lack of humility; an arrogance that is normally assumed by people such as yourself to be an uniquely Tory trait.
Ok, thanks. That sounds sincere although I think you're being too harsh and too hasty. Anyway, we'll get another vote in 2029 and if I'm wrong and he doesn't turn out to be ok, perhaps better than ok, it'll just be the one term rather than two or three. Which will be a shame because somebody, anybody, needs a decade to have a significant and lasting positive impact on the country. You can trash things quickly (Johnson, Truss) but the opposite takes time.
He has no plan and no clue. He is like Johnson without the bonhomie and charisma. An empty suit. And as for Rachel From Customer Complaints, the second most important office of state ffs. She is so shit she needed to lie on her CV. When you think about the gravity of what she is in charge of it is really shocking that we have to have someone so below mediocre in such a position. If it turns around it will be sheer luck. It is said that a chief executive's future is defined by his/her first few months in post. Keir From HR has been found out. He is shit and his CoE is even worse.
Good evening from my holiday cottage at the far North Western tip of Assynt.
From the hill here I can see Lewis, the whole of Assynt and its inselbergs, the coast of Wester Ross and all the way to Skye.
Magnificent. You have been very lucky with the weather. The night sky will be brilliant.
The owner of this place is a fellow of the royal astronomical society and is holding an astronomy club evening tonight in her actual, hut-sized observatory with a massive telescope in the garden. She just popped round to say we’re welcome to come and take a look later.
I've only been to Assynt in high summer when the evening melds into the morning and night is just a fleeting dream with barely a star visible at 1 am. There has to be some compensation for being there at this time of year!
O/T I couldn't really care less whether Toolmakerson is middle class or working class (whatever either of those ridiculous labels mean). What I do care about is that he and his hopeless CoE are fucking up the economy because they do not understand the first thing about business. You can be from any background to understand business, and also from any background to be totally clueless, such as Keir From HR and Rachel From Customer Complaints.
Is "Keir From HR" one that you yourself have coined, Nigel?
I think it was sort of coined by one of his colleagues. Someone I assume who might not be asked to explain by BJO.
Ah ok. I've not come across it.
Anyway, question for you. Why have you become so irritated by his voice? You never used to be. What's going on there?
I suspect it was coined on here to gender balance the Rachel from accounts insult.
It is odd that Starmer (who I don't have a great deal of time for) is pilloried for his parentage, the donkey, his adenoidal speech and his dreary delivery. This is all very similar to the criticism he got on here prior to the Batley and Spen by election.
Now the same posters falling over each other to call Starmer a traitor we're quite comfortable to see Johnson shake off his minders to attend a party with a KGB officer whilst Foreign Secretary, the same people who cried that Johnson was unfairly attacked for being ambushed by a cake wanted Starmer's nuts for having a curry in Durham.
It is true @Kinabalu that you and I beasted Johnson for putting a border in the North Channel /Irish Sea, whilst claiming his oven ready Brexit deal. For missing Cobra meetings and shaking hands with COVID nurses when shaking hands was off limits, whilst all the time claiming his own "World beating " status for everything he did during Covid. There may be a reasonable charge sheet against Starmer, but it remains slim compared to that of the narcissistic **** many on here idolise.
We did too. Those were the days. Ripping into a PM who deserved every bit of it and more.
And HYUFD defended him even though he was shit, just the same as you defend Starmer even though he is shit. The moral and analytical vacuum that exists in the head of a party loyalist eh?
Comments
Anyway, question for you. Why have you become so irritated by his voice? You never used to be. What's going on there?
I wonder if, in the case of Woking, like with different parish precepts, they can have an extra charge for Woking residents to go towards the debt. It would be monstrous, for the reasons in that last paragraph, if a poor areas like my own saw taxpayers money taken to write off a debt for this area.
Which is not to pretend he's some salt of the earth type, just that we romanticise certain things, especially in the past, we don't in the present.
I was therefore relieved that Mr Thicky was out and to begin with I thought Starmer, who had a reasonably impressive backstory (albeit largely within the featherbedded public sector), would probably make a good PM. He has turned out to be shit. When the real test has come it is evident he is at best mediocre. Therefore his voice has become more and more boring, nasally and irritating, but most annoying of all is his complete lack of humility; an arrogance that is normally assumed by people such as yourself to be an uniquely Tory trait.
They also make bespoke gauges, jigs and fixtures.
His arrogance is doubly odious because it is
1 a moral arrogance - he thinks he is morally superior
And
2 it is unjustified whether moral OR intellectual. He’s a fucking liar and a hypocrite and not very smart
Although I can imagine HY putting his version of a John Snagge commentary to print.
The more corrupt you are, the more you have to talk about not being corrupt.
How much public money has Musk had thus far?
And how much more will he get?
Sounds like a dealer. Or a bad hairdresser at 90 quid a pop!
Leon from Camden was always trying to pass off toasted banana skins as good gear.
The fact he has generated so many insulting nicknames in just a few months is quite something in itself. And not in a good way
He is desperately poor at politics
You’d never forget Leon from Camden
That’s probably why you’d make him a minor character in your breakout movie script
Have I ever told my Bruce Robinson story? It’s rather good
As Taz said, there are numerous threads to the 'blame', albeit the obvious one is the people who are doing it. I can accept Conservative governments have a part to play too.
Your kneejerk lazy reaction to entirely blame some fly-tipping on the Conservatives, who are neither in control of the council nor the country, is the expected reaction of someone who isn't willing to accept responsibility.
It's going to be a tough journey for Labour supporters from carping and blaming on the sidelines to accepting responsibility. Especially with a potential self-inflicted recession, home grown inflation and increasing unemployment. Own it!
It is odd that Starmer (who I don't have a great deal of time for) is pilloried for his parentage, the donkey, his adenoidal speech and his dreary delivery. This is all very similar to the criticism he got on here prior to the Batley and Spen by election.
Now the same posters falling over each other to call Starmer a traitor we're quite comfortable to see Johnson shake off his minders to attend a party with a KGB officer whilst Foreign Secretary, the same people who cried that Johnson was unfairly attacked for being ambushed by a cake wanted Starmer's nuts for having a curry in Durham.
It is true @Kinabalu that you and I beasted Johnson for putting a border in the North Channel /Irish Sea, whilst claiming his oven ready Brexit deal. For missing Cobra meetings and shaking hands with COVID nurses when shaking hands was off limits, whilst all the time claiming his own "World beating " status for everything he did during Covid. There may be a reasonable charge sheet against Starmer, but it remains slim compared to that of the narcissistic **** many on here idolise.
But overall, yes, big reduction in working-class background MPs. Partly reducing social mobility, partly the changing nature of the union movement.
Under 50% support for the Union with Britain, only 20% of Northern Protestants would find a victory for Irish Unity in a border poll "almost impossible to accept".
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/02/07/support-for-irish-unification-grows-but-unity-vote-would-be-soundly-defeated-in-north-poll-shows/
George Conway - Bulwark [12:20]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjqSeb9GyeI
I care not a whit if anyone else uses it, you tiny-dick pinhead
Woof!
https://www.naval-technology.com/news/uk-leaks-development-of-snapper-and-wasp-naval-drones-for-ukraine/
My god they’re dumb. Ornamental, but dumb
From the hill here I can see Lewis, the whole of Assynt and its inselbergs, the coast of Wester Ross and all the way to Skye.
Eg your reaction to my Chagos remarks: an endless whine
But, yes, you keep using it. As I say, I like it. And very clever too!
Assynt is magnificent. Enjoy
You have been very lucky with the weather. The night sky will be brilliant.
Do wasps have anuses?
I used to entertain my daughters (when aged 5-10) with my impressions of various insects and invertebrates possessing ani. Eg “here’s a bee having a poo”
Cracked them up
Probably wouldn’t work so well now the eldest is at St Andrews studying Classics and Anthropology
He’s letting his hair go white, as well. Suits him
Plenty of stupid glaring headlights/spotlights/etc before LEDs.
As with everything else, it needs to be design right. Not thrown together.
I mean wtf?! But we were mad then. Mad and young
So we literally just went round to his big house in Wimbledon and rocked up and buzzed his doorbell (with no warning. And he had no idea who we were) and Bruce R answered the door except he answered it in shorts and tee shirt on a cold night and he had an oxygen mask clamped over his face and he was wheeling an oxygen tank
We thought omg and then he started laughing and we said Hey we love your movie and he said “hahah ok come in” and it turned out he just inhaled oxygen for fun and he gave us a tour of his beautiful house and beautiful wife and beautiful scripts (including withnail!!) and then he said “hey you kids are fun” and he took us round the corner to a curry house and bought us dinner and paid for everything including very very expensive wine and at the end he signed a copy of the withnail script with “more oxygen!” written inside (it became a joke of the whole evening) and I still have it now
And I’ve always thought: what a fucking dude. Two wastrel kids turn up on your door without warning and you have the balls and the wit to turn it into something fun for everyone
LEDs are brilliant
Bad lighting design is a curse
“We hope you will see that your feedback and comments have been incorporated wherever possible”
“please find the very latest draft report and costs annex which include the updated narrative and visuals on cost… In any case we will ensure the 3 orgs [NESO, DESNZ & Ofgem] are aligned on lines to take on costs.“
Let's all 'align on lines to take' as if they're a PR firm working for Topshop. That's the quality of the independent research backing up this utter helmet and his total destruction of our grid and economy.
Does anyone know why the Conservatives are so furious at the Local Election postponements, most of which have been requested by Conservative controlled Councils?
Kemi supporters please explain.
They’ve assessed that the traffic, commercial, infrastructure and access needs outweigh the benefits of a larger playground
Car headlights in particular. There's a good long read here, on how US regulations play a part in the fuckup:
https://www.theringer.com/2024/12/03/tech/headlight-brightness-cars-accidents
Same thing.
Saves having to address real problems.
As in his first term he's making things worse, if he just played golf for 4 years things would be better.
I've since learnt two things related to him that I find at least mildly interesting..
First, during his post-riding training career, the best horse he trained was called Reform!
Reform must have been one of the best three year olds ever to not win a Classic. He wasn't even entered into any of them because he was such an unimpressive looking yearling. In fact, the breeders decided not to send him to the yearling sales because they thought that it would be bad for their reputation
He won eleven of his fourteen career races. Late in his three year old season, he beat the Derby winner in the Champion Stakes
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_(horse)
Second, I've realised that I have one degree of separation from Sir Gordon. For about a decade, from 1990 until his death in 2000 my parents employed an old boy called Bert Woodage as their gardener and dog walker
He was a stable jockey for Richards when he trained in Ogbourne Maizey (where we lived when Peter Makin trained there, and is on my mail route now Emma Lavelle trains there). In 1960 he was one of I think five of the staff done for a big doping scandal, and he was banned from working in racing for life
https://x.com/marwandata/status/1887872745100185763
Reform UK would gain 147 seats off Labour and 19 off the Conservatives.