What an arrogant dismissal of our relationship with our New Zealand allies
It's just the reality that New Zealand is a country with a population smaller than, say, Slovakia, and a hell of a long way away. So increased trade with them, while nice, just won't move economic indicators at all.
It's not a criticism of the fine people of New Zealand, just economic fact.
Ah, political journalists trying to be experts on aviation again. What could possibly go wrong?
$50k might be the cost of a plane’s worth of paint for AA, who buy it by the tonne. It’s sure as hell not the cost of the hangar, scaffolding, mobile platforms, design, printing of masks, paper, tape, stripper for the old paint - oh, and about a dozen certified people working for a week or two on it. £900k is about right.
Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus
Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.
Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?
Bear in mind
(a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications
It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
I was myself thinking more of those pop culture Minis or Mini Mokes of the 1960s (I am a bit too young for that era really).
I'd be interested to see how the designers achieve the result on the Johnson-Mobile. It seems to be hard to get a UJ which is recogniseable without it looking like a hippymobile at one extreme or so undertstated at the other that it's not recogniseable as a UJ - like the later British Airways scheme on Concorde for instance. Didn't the latter upset Mrs T so much she draped a hanky over the GRP model showing it at a Farnborough Air Show? Or am I misremembering?
No, she was draping the rebranded BA tailfin art that removed the Union Flag and was just 'world designs' - I think the one she covered was based on Dutch pottery but I could be wrong.
That's it, thank you! But the BA tail fin was pretty understated anyway.
Painting a bloody plane! Is that it? Is that what Boris is about?
He will be the envy of the other 27 EU leaders when he rocks up to trade talks in AirBorisOne/ BorisForceOne.
The art of one-upmanship.
Slovakia wins the Presidential Flight Design One-Upmanship award, I think...
But it looks like a 15 year old Airbus. Style over substance!
That's a Fokker 100 plane, I think. Slovakia does have an AIrbus A319, I think, in its presidential flight but the design doesn't work so well. The plane is too fat.
Yes, definitely a Fokker-100 - built in the EU, natch!
Ah, political journalists trying to be experts on aviation again. What could possibly go wrong?
$50k might be the cost of a plane’s worth of paint for AA, who buy it by the tonne. It’s sure as hell not the cost of the hangar, scaffolding, mobile platforms, design, printing of masks, paper, tape, stripper for the old paint - oh, and about a dozen certified people working for a week or two on it. £900k is about right.
Why do they need certifying?
Although I suppose they would be working for Johnson which would send anyone round the twist...
What an arrogant dismissal of our relationship with our New Zealand allies
It's just the reality that New Zealand is a country with a population smaller than, say, Slovakia, and a hell of a long way away. So increased trade with them, while nice, just won't move economic indicators at all.
It's not a criticism of the fine people of New Zealand, just economic fact.
Well lets have fewer criticisms of that US trade deal the government is working on then too
Worthless, yet brutal. It's barely worth arguing with but when you have the most conservative of teaching groups saying the same things as the more left leaning ones it doesn't stand up for more than a second.
There is one thing leading this and that is parental will. Parents don't want to send their children into school when the government previously set out to sacrifice half a million people leading to the PM nearly doing it to himself. That's the bottom line.
Blowhards like that really want to have a go at feckless parents but they haven't got the guts,
Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus
Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.
Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?
Bear in mind
(a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications
It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
BJ's going to plaster the windows with Help For Heroes and I Stand With Soldier F stickers, isn't he?
"Which do you think is more deserving of funding from the UK taxpayer - (i) recruiting yet more "diversity advisors" in local government or (ii) making sure our veterans are properly looked after?"
The red white and blue plane is a very good idea. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office merger is a very good idea. The motivations for both these actions are quite clear - the Government is going to do its utmost to promote Britain's interests overseas. The people dissing both these ideas are people who were never going to be reconciled to Boris, his Government, or Brexit.
What an arrogant dismissal of our relationship with our New Zealand allies
It's just the reality that New Zealand is a country with a population smaller than, say, Slovakia, and a hell of a long way away. So increased trade with them, while nice, just won't move economic indicators at all.
It's not a criticism of the fine people of New Zealand, just economic fact.
Well lets have fewer criticisms of that US trade deal the government is working on then too
I don't quite understand your point.
Are you saying we should just roll over on any trade deal Trump slops out because his country has 328 million souls (and is economically significant) whereas Jacinda Ardern's has five million and essentially isn't?
Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
Homeopathy as a specific medical practise uses infinitesimally small quantities of active ingredients diluted so much that any efficacy is implausible except as a placebo. Indeed, people have conducted 'mass overdoses' of homeopathic remedies to show how useless they are.
However, if your comment was aimed more widely and you're referring to any naturopathic doctor spearheading a review into cancer treatments, yes that would be very refreshing. And probably result in far better cancer outcomes that we have in the UK at the moment.
The allusion was - somebody heads an inquiry into something they do not think is worth looking into and probably do not even believe in. It almost worked. It's not bad.
I thought you would be quite big in homeopathy. Just goes to show. Assumptions about people are fraught with danger. Avoid where possible.
I can't speak for them, but I doubt homeopaths are uninterested in cancer treatments, and naturopaths certainly aren't - they are probably interested in a wider range than conventional medics though. So the analogy does work, it just doesn't support your argument.
What an arrogant dismissal of our relationship with our New Zealand allies
It's just the reality that New Zealand is a country with a population smaller than, say, Slovakia, and a hell of a long way away. So increased trade with them, while nice, just won't move economic indicators at all.
It's not a criticism of the fine people of New Zealand, just economic fact.
Well lets have fewer criticisms of that US trade deal the government is working on then too
It won't be a fair trade deal, we will have to lower our standards on worker's rights and animal welfare to compete. It will be the only thing we have left, so we will get screwed.
Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus
Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.
Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?
Bear in mind
(a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications
It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
I was myself thinking more of those pop culture Minis or Mini Mokes of the 1960s (I am a bit too young for that era really).
I'd be interested to see how the designers achieve the result on the Johnson-Mobile. It seems to be hard to get a UJ which is recogniseable without it looking like a hippymobile at one extreme or so undertstated at the other that it's not recogniseable as a UJ - like the later British Airways scheme on Concorde for instance. Didn't the latter upset Mrs T so much she draped a hanky over the GRP model showing it at a Farnborough Air Show? Or am I misremembering?
No, it was one of the "world image" non-UK designs that Fatcha objected to on a model. Concorde always carried the "Chatham" Union Flag design which BA now uses fleet-wide.
(Called "Chatham" because it was inspired by the naval flag factory at the old Chatham naval base.)
This is a non political question but as my wife and I may venture out soon after 12 weeks locked away I have acquired face masks but on trying them on my glasses steam up
As I have to wear glasses to drive I will not be able to do both
Is this just me or has anyone advice on this strange issue
I don't think there's any reason to wear the mask actually over your face while you're driving with the windows up, just be ready to put it on properly as soon as you get out.
Also with the disposable kind, the top is usually slightly stiffer so you can mould it to fit close around your nose and cheeks. I've found that very effective in stopping the glasses fogging issue.
iirc @Foxy suggested using Micropore tape to seal the top of the mask to your face. In this case, there is no obvious reason to wear a mask while driving your own housemates.
Apologies if someone mentioned this but, just skimming the last thread, there's an obvious reason why Starmer won't say yes to schools going back. It's also a stupid question from Johnson, as it seems to be something else that he doesn't know about.
Starmer does want schools to further reopen but he can't push that because he's seen the returning pupil figures and, on average, only 25% of those who could return did so. Parents are clearly not on board (and polls showed that well before anyway). It might just be something to do with the initial attempt to off half a million of us and then Johnson nearly dying himself. If you want the reason why people are so cautious compared to other countries that's why, so there is very little trust left regarding what claims are being made now.
There are millions of people, many of whom are in low-paid or hourly paid work, who can’t go back to work and face losing their jobs if the schools don’t reopen.
That’s before we think of the kids who need school because they have a chaotic home life, live with someone violent, addicted or abusive, don’t have a computer at home, don’t have parents who care about education etc.
It’s fine for a bunch of middle class parents who love educating their kids and can do home school in the nice garden at this time of year.
Yet Starmer, who’s been sending his own kids to school because he can, chooses not to side with getting the poor and disadvantaged kids back to school - siding instead with the teachers’ unions, for whom no amount of precautions taken would be enough.
And the government's approach is just as rubbish.
Using schools as childcare to allow people to get back to work isn't dignified, but yes, it's part of what schools do, and needs must in a crisis.
So expand the key worker offer from "key workers who have no alternative" to "all workers who have no alternative". Take the load off individual schools by making the national remote offerings as easy to use as possible (Bitesize Daily from the BBC and Oak National Academy from a group of teachers are both pretty good). Then see how much it's possible to get everyone back part-time.
One of mine had their first day back since lockdown today. With the rooms and furniture they have, the school can just about offer 2 days a week to all of years R, 1 and 6 plus children of key workers with no alternative. I really feel for my other one, who isn't in one of those year groups and probably won't get to go back at all because of the dumb priorities the government set. It would have been much better to have got everyone in one day a week.
The guidance from central government has been rubbish, and I suspect that the (academy) school I know most about is representative. They have done the best they can with the rules put in place. The attempts by the government to weaponise this as a culture war are as disgrace.
Tories: Marxism is evil. Others: But what about all those RCP ones you employ? Tories: Splendid fellows. Radical free thinkers don't cha know!
Still think the ex-RCP comrades are secretly working to overthrow capitalism from the inside by making it so unbearable that the masses will have no choice but to start a revolution. Nothing else makes sense.
Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus
Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.
Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?
Bear in mind
(a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications
It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
I was myself thinking more of those pop culture Minis or Mini Mokes of the 1960s (I am a bit too young for that era really).
I'd be interested to see how the designers achieve the result on the Johnson-Mobile. It seems to be hard to get a UJ which is recogniseable without it looking like a hippymobile at one extreme or so undertstated at the other that it's not recogniseable as a UJ - like the later British Airways scheme on Concorde for instance. Didn't the latter upset Mrs T so much she draped a hanky over the GRP model showing it at a Farnborough Air Show? Or am I misremembering?
No, it was one of the "world image" non-UK designs that Fatcha objected to on a model. Concorde always carried the "Chatham" Union Flag design which BA now uses fleet-wide.
(Called "Chatham" because it was inspired by the naval flag factory at the old Chatham naval base.)
Harold Wilson, campaigning in 1966: ‘I will never allow a Royal Dockyard to be closed. And why do I say this?’
Voice from the hall: ‘Because you’re in Chatham...’
Munira Mirza, Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak, Kemi Badenoch...
All the wrong sort of BAME, according to the woke left mob.
Wokeists: All forms of diversity in all areas of life are good by definition, and the absence of diversity is bad by definition.
Tories: Wonderful. How about these BAME Conservatives with their own considered views on these matters?
Wokeists: Not that kind of diversity! Heretics!
Wokeists - that is a most clumsy word.
Please use "the Cognescenti" in future.
Surely the tried and tested 'fuckwits' is the noun to use.
If you tell me you're 'woke' I won't punch you - I will want to though.
I've never ever met anyone telling me that they're woke, in life or on the internet. Plenty of red faced blokes calling other people woke about, mind...
The red white and blue plane is a very good idea. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office merger is a very good idea. The motivations for both these actions are quite clear - the Government is going to do its utmost to promote Britain's interests overseas. The people dissing both these ideas are people who were never going to be reconciled to Boris, his Government, or Brexit.
Do you think it's in our interests to make people laugh at us?
You don't think it's ironic that the nasty EU passports were made in the UK while the nice British blue passports are made in the EU? It just sums up the stupidity of the whole exercise and how it was always about prioritising things that don't matter (what colour your passport is) over things that do (jobs). I have nothing but sympathy for the people who lost their jobs, btw. No gloating or sneering from me, I grew up on Tyneside so i can imagine the impact on Gateshead.
It's the kind of thing that sends Twitter into a frenzy, but the bottom line is that the May Government awarded the contract to the company that put in the best bid. Obviously the management of De La Rue also felt the prospect of the job going overseas was preposterous, and therefore didn't feel they needed to make their bid competitive. Personally, I would like jobs in the UK to be considered as a factor in public procurement (I don't believe it has up until this point, unlike with almost all other world governments), but equally, companies need to know they can't gouge the taxpayer.
Under EU gov procurement laws, anyone in the EU could submit a bid of course. No reason why the UK can’t now demand that jobs stay in the UK for this sort of thing, although public sector contracts do usually feature in major trade deals.
This one looks like a case of the EU doing exactly what it accuses the UK of doing: wanting to reproduce aspects of EU/EEA membership without us being EU/EEA members.
Edit: I see @CarlottaVance has already posted some of the thread.
I hope the UK sticks to its guns on this one. And we should be applying it to all extradition treaties, particularly those with the US.
What an arrogant dismissal of our relationship with our New Zealand allies
I am sure our relationship with the kiwis will be fruitful.
Haha - so am I.
And there are other considerations - New Zealand's environment is incredibly unspoiled, and therefore its food produce is second to none. The more of it that enters the food chain imo, the better for the general health of the UK.
For better or worse it is meaningless as the Johnson majority will easily overturn it in the Commons.
What actually were they voting on? The Posonby Rule as codified by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 allows either house to veto ratification of a treaty.
Munira Mirza, Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak, Kemi Badenoch...
All the wrong sort of BAME, according to the woke left mob.
Wokeists: All forms of diversity in all areas of life are good by definition, and the absence of diversity is bad by definition.
Tories: Wonderful. How about these BAME Conservatives with their own considered views on these matters?
Wokeists: Not that kind of diversity! Heretics!
Wokeists - that is a most clumsy word.
Please use "the Cognescenti" in future.
Surely the tried and tested 'fuckwits' is the noun to use.
If you tell me you're 'woke' I won't punch you - I will want to though.
I've never ever met anyone telling me that they're woke, in life or on the internet. Plenty of red faced blokes calling other people woke about, mind...
You obviously mix with the wrong crowds. It is a common self identifier amongst students. Worn as a badge of honour rather than an insult. Mind you students always have been strange creatures. It seems to be a phase people go through.
This one looks like a case of the EU doing exactly what it accuses the UK of doing: wanting to reproduce aspects of EU/EEA membership without us being EU/EEA members.
Edit: I see @CarlottaVance has already posted some of the thread.
I hope the UK sticks to its guns on this one. And we should be applying it to all extradition treaties, particularly those with the US.
A chance to fix something that was an unjust mess when it was introduced.
Munira Mirza, Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak, Kemi Badenoch...
All the wrong sort of BAME, according to the woke left mob.
Wokeists: All forms of diversity in all areas of life are good by definition, and the absence of diversity is bad by definition.
Tories: Wonderful. How about these BAME Conservatives with their own considered views on these matters?
Wokeists: Not that kind of diversity! Heretics!
Wokeists - that is a most clumsy word.
Please use "the Cognescenti" in future.
Surely the tried and tested 'fuckwits' is the noun to use.
If you tell me you're 'woke' I won't punch you - I will want to though.
I've never ever met anyone telling me that they're woke, in life or on the internet. Plenty of red faced blokes calling other people woke about, mind...
Sure. A look, a word - we can easily assess we're not frothing loons. At least so it should be. Quite how there are Corbyns and McDonnells escapes me.
I suspect that you're trying to suggest that I'm some puffing loon. Who knows. I've certainly never accused anyone of being 'woke' though. I don't plan to either - it's horrible English.
The red white and blue plane is a very good idea. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office merger is a very good idea. The motivations for both these actions are quite clear - the Government is going to do its utmost to promote Britain's interests overseas. The people dissing both these ideas are people who were never going to be reconciled to Boris, his Government, or Brexit.
Do you think it's in our interests to make people laugh at us?
Unless you find the very concept of Britain laughable (which I suppose you may, but thankfully most don't), I don't see why either of those developments would make people laugh at us. If the design of Boris Air looks ridiculous, we can talk again.
Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus
Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.
Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?
Bear in mind
(a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications
It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
I was myself thinking more of those pop culture Minis or Mini Mokes of the 1960s (I am a bit too young for that era really).
I'd be interested to see how the designers achieve the result on the Johnson-Mobile. It seems to be hard to get a UJ which is recogniseable without it looking like a hippymobile at one extreme or so undertstated at the other that it's not recogniseable as a UJ - like the later British Airways scheme on Concorde for instance. Didn't the latter upset Mrs T so much she draped a hanky over the GRP model showing it at a Farnborough Air Show? Or am I misremembering?
It was the new funky tail designs that Mrs T didn’t like, that had replaced the union flag ones.
Munira Mirza, Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak, Kemi Badenoch...
All the wrong sort of BAME, according to the woke left mob.
Wokeists: All forms of diversity in all areas of life are good by definition, and the absence of diversity is bad by definition.
Tories: Wonderful. How about these BAME Conservatives with their own considered views on these matters?
Wokeists: Not that kind of diversity! Heretics!
Wokeists - that is a most clumsy word.
Please use "the Cognescenti" in future.
Surely the tried and tested 'fuckwits' is the noun to use.
If you tell me you're 'woke' I won't punch you - I will want to though.
I've never ever met anyone telling me that they're woke, in life or on the internet. Plenty of red faced blokes calling other people woke about, mind...
I had assumed it was a term which began as a self identifier but that it is now primarily used by those who use it as an insult - I have encountered at least one real person who used it in a positive sense, much to my surprise, so I think it cannot have simply been a perjorative invention.
The red white and blue plane is a very good idea. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office merger is a very good idea. The motivations for both these actions are quite clear - the Government is going to do its utmost to promote Britain's interests overseas. The people dissing both these ideas are people who were never going to be reconciled to Boris, his Government, or Brexit.
Do you think it's in our interests to make people laugh at us?
Unless you find the very concept of Britain laughable (which I suppose you may, but thankfully most don't), I don't see why either of those developments would make people laugh at us. If the design of Boris Air looks ridiculous, we can talk again.
I somehow doubt it will be something subtle like this.
I sense a blank space where a venn diagram could usefully be.
According to Edwin Chadwick in 1840, 57% of the working-class children of Manchester died before their fifth birthday, compared with 32% in rural districts. Whereas a farm labourer in Rutland had a life-expectancy of 38, a factory worker in Liverpool had an average age of death of 15.
Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus
Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.
Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?
Bear in mind
(a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications
It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
I was myself thinking more of those pop culture Minis or Mini Mokes of the 1960s (I am a bit too young for that era really).
I'd be interested to see how the designers achieve the result on the Johnson-Mobile. It seems to be hard to get a UJ which is recogniseable without it looking like a hippymobile at one extreme or so undertstated at the other that it's not recogniseable as a UJ - like the later British Airways scheme on Concorde for instance. Didn't the latter upset Mrs T so much she draped a hanky over the GRP model showing it at a Farnborough Air Show? Or am I misremembering?
It was the new funky tail designs that Mrs T didn’t like, that had replaced the union flag ones.
Thank you! Nice to see those photos again - after so long.
You don't think it's ironic that the nasty EU passports were made in the UK while the nice British blue passports are made in the EU? It just sums up the stupidity of the whole exercise and how it was always about prioritising things that don't matter (what colour your passport is) over things that do (jobs). I have nothing but sympathy for the people who lost their jobs, btw. No gloating or sneering from me, I grew up on Tyneside so i can imagine the impact on Gateshead.
It's the kind of thing that sends Twitter into a frenzy, but the bottom line is that the May Government awarded the contract to the company that put in the best bid. Obviously the management of De La Rue also felt the prospect of the job going overseas was preposterous, and therefore didn't feel they needed to make their bid competitive. Personally, I would like jobs in the UK to be considered as a factor in public procurement (I don't believe it has up until this point, unlike with almost all other world governments), but equally, companies need to know they can't gouge the taxpayer.
Under EU gov procurement laws, anyone in the EU could submit a bid of course. No reason why the UK can’t now demand that jobs stay in the UK for this sort of thing, although public sector contracts do usually feature in major trade deals.
It could be just a perception, but my feeling is that most EU states pretty much ignore EU competition laws when it comes to public procurement. If there are hundreds of German police cars that are Renaults and Italian police cars that are BMWs, I've missed them. I've never got that with the British Government/civil service, and I've never really known why.
Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
The red white and blue plane is a very good idea. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office merger is a very good idea. The motivations for both these actions are quite clear - the Government is going to do its utmost to promote Britain's interests overseas. The people dissing both these ideas are people who were never going to be reconciled to Boris, his Government, or Brexit.
Do you think it's in our interests to make people laugh at us?
Unless you find the very concept of Britain laughable (which I suppose you may, but thankfully most don't), I don't see why either of those developments would make people laugh at us. If the design of Boris Air looks ridiculous, we can talk again.
I somehow doubt it will be something subtle like this.
The red white and blue plane is a very good idea. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office merger is a very good idea. The motivations for both these actions are quite clear - the Government is going to do its utmost to promote Britain's interests overseas. The people dissing both these ideas are people who were never going to be reconciled to Boris, his Government, or Brexit.
Do you think it's in our interests to make people laugh at us?
Which people and about what is they key thing I think. The colour scheme of a plane, or its design, or even how much it costs, are not something that will be of any consequence. People might raise some of the petty crap Trump has done, but none of that is of any consequence next to the much more substantive things he has done. And even those won't matter in terms of government interests with foreign governments and peoples, since they'd be foolish to let such a thing impact their own actions. If Macron spent too much sprucing up his bathroom to look like a cabin on the Titanic that would probably be very silly and make people laugh at him, but it wouldn't matter abroad.
We worry far far too much about 'people' laughing at us.
For better or worse it is meaningless as the Johnson majority will easily overturn it in the Commons.
What actually were they voting on? The Posonby Rule as codified by the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 allows either house to veto ratification of a treaty.
That's good. Like all the other prerogative powers it would be good to see this brought properly under the control of Parliament. Not sure in that case what Adonis is going on about.
The red white and blue plane is a very good idea. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office merger is a very good idea. The motivations for both these actions are quite clear - the Government is going to do its utmost to promote Britain's interests overseas. The people dissing both these ideas are people who were never going to be reconciled to Boris, his Government, or Brexit.
Do you think it's in our interests to make people laugh at us?
Which people and about what is they key thing I think. The colour scheme of a plane, or its design, or even how much it costs, are not something that will be of any consequence. People might raise some of the petty crap Trump has done, but none of that is of any consequence next to the much more substantive things he has done. And even those won't matter in terms of government interests with foreign governments and peoples, since they'd be foolish to let such a thing impact their own actions. If Macron spent too much sprucing up his bathroom to look like a cabin on the Titanic that would probably be very silly and make people laugh at him, but it wouldn't matter abroad.
We worry far far too much about 'people' laughing at us.
But surely not if 'we' is Mr Johnson and his party, and 'people' are UK voters. I suspect there has been a calculation already. But if it turns out like an episode of Pimp My Wings ...
You don't think it's ironic that the nasty EU passports were made in the UK while the nice British blue passports are made in the EU? It just sums up the stupidity of the whole exercise and how it was always about prioritising things that don't matter (what colour your passport is) over things that do (jobs). I have nothing but sympathy for the people who lost their jobs, btw. No gloating or sneering from me, I grew up on Tyneside so i can imagine the impact on Gateshead.
It's the kind of thing that sends Twitter into a frenzy, but the bottom line is that the May Government awarded the contract to the company that put in the best bid. Obviously the management of De La Rue also felt the prospect of the job going overseas was preposterous, and therefore didn't feel they needed to make their bid competitive. Personally, I would like jobs in the UK to be considered as a factor in public procurement (I don't believe it has up until this point, unlike with almost all other world governments), but equally, companies need to know they can't gouge the taxpayer.
Under EU gov procurement laws, anyone in the EU could submit a bid of course. No reason why the UK can’t now demand that jobs stay in the UK for this sort of thing, although public sector contracts do usually feature in major trade deals.
It could be just a perception, but my feeling is that most EU states pretty much ignore EU competition laws when it comes to public procurement. If there are hundreds of German police cars that are Renaults and Italian police cars that are BMWs, I've missed them. I've never got that with the British Government/civil service, and I've never really known why.
The red white and blue plane is a very good idea. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office merger is a very good idea. The motivations for both these actions are quite clear - the Government is going to do its utmost to promote Britain's interests overseas. The people dissing both these ideas are people who were never going to be reconciled to Boris, his Government, or Brexit.
Do you think it's in our interests to make people laugh at us?
Unless you find the very concept of Britain laughable (which I suppose you may, but thankfully most don't), I don't see why either of those developments would make people laugh at us. If the design of Boris Air looks ridiculous, we can talk again.
I somehow doubt it will be something subtle like this.
It won't be exactly like that, because we're not France. However, it won't necessarily be worse, as you automatically assume.
The red white and blue plane is a very good idea. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office merger is a very good idea. The motivations for both these actions are quite clear - the Government is going to do its utmost to promote Britain's interests overseas. The people dissing both these ideas are people who were never going to be reconciled to Boris, his Government, or Brexit.
Do you think it's in our interests to make people laugh at us?
Which people and about what is they key thing I think. The colour scheme of a plane, or its design, or even how much it costs, are not something that will be of any consequence. People might raise some of the petty crap Trump has done, but none of that is of any consequence next to the much more substantive things he has done. And even those won't matter in terms of government interests with foreign governments and peoples, since they'd be foolish to let such a thing impact their own actions. If Macron spent too much sprucing up his bathroom to look like a cabin on the Titanic that would probably be very silly and make people laugh at him, but it wouldn't matter abroad.
We worry far far too much about 'people' laughing at us.
But surely not if 'we' is Mr Johnson and his party, and 'people' are UK voters. I suspect there has been a calculation already. But if it turns out like an episode of Pimp My Wings ...
As the expression used was about '[laughing] at us' from someone who is not a fan of Boris I thought it safe to assume the question was in the context of foreign relations and impact on the interests of this country, and as is usually the case in these situations it assumes foreign governments are far more petty than I think most are.
Obviously Boris and co becoming a laughing stock among people who presently like him would be of significance, and small issues can cumulatively end up having a big impact on how people and party, even if the issue itself is misleading, but I suspect the impact is limited.
I sense a blank space where a venn diagram could usefully be.
According to Edwin Chadwick in 1840, 57% of the working-class children of Manchester died before their fifth birthday, compared with 32% in rural districts. Whereas a farm labourer in Rutland had a life-expectancy of 38, a factory worker in Liverpool had an average age of death of 15.
It was slavery in all but name.
Indeed it was. And is - it continues in many places around the world today.
What an arrogant dismissal of our relationship with our New Zealand allies
I am sure our relationship with the kiwis will be fruitful.
Haha - so am I.
And there are other considerations - New Zealand's environment is incredibly unspoiled, and therefore its food produce is second to none. The more of it that enters the food chain imo, the better for the general health of the UK.
You speak great sense of food welfare matters and food in general. It’s just a shame you are such a crank on everything else!
I sense a blank space where a venn diagram could usefully be.
According to Edwin Chadwick in 1840, 57% of the working-class children of Manchester died before their fifth birthday, compared with 32% in rural districts. Whereas a farm labourer in Rutland had a life-expectancy of 38, a factory worker in Liverpool had an average age of death of 15.
It was slavery in all but name.
Indeed it was. And is - it continues in many places around the world today.
Capitalism needs its victims. It must eat.
Of course it doesn't. It can work perfectly well without 'victims'. After all its not something extreme like Marxism.
What an arrogant dismissal of our relationship with our New Zealand allies
I am sure our relationship with the kiwis will be fruitful.
Haha - so am I.
And there are other considerations - New Zealand's environment is incredibly unspoiled, and therefore its food produce is second to none. The more of it that enters the food chain imo, the better for the general health of the UK.
You speak great sense of food welfare matters and food in general. It’s just a shame you are such a crank on everything else!
I thank you for the compliment and duck the swipe.
Ah, political journalists trying to be experts on aviation again. What could possibly go wrong?
$50k might be the cost of a plane’s worth of paint for AA, who buy it by the tonne. It’s sure as hell not the cost of the hangar, scaffolding, mobile platforms, design, printing of masks, paper, tape, stripper for the old paint - oh, and about a dozen certified people working for a week or two on it. £900k is about right.
Why do they need certifying?
Although I suppose they would be working for Johnson which would send anyone round the twist...
Because any job on a plane needs to be done by certified people!
In practice, you usually have the team leaders as certified, and they sign for the work of the juniors under them. The seniors then cross check each others’s work for what is known as a duplicate inspection. They don’t recruit sprayers from the local auto repair shop and put them on a plane without a lot of training, and as you’d expect they get well paid for the work they do.
More than one plane has crashed, because important instrument holes got covered up by paint, or someone left some tape on the plane when they finished.
£1m or thereabouts to paint a £200m plane is going to be about right, for a single piece to a unique design.
You don't think it's ironic that the nasty EU passports were made in the UK while the nice British blue passports are made in the EU? It just sums up the stupidity of the whole exercise and how it was always about prioritising things that don't matter (what colour your passport is) over things that do (jobs). I have nothing but sympathy for the people who lost their jobs, btw. No gloating or sneering from me, I grew up on Tyneside so i can imagine the impact on Gateshead.
It's the kind of thing that sends Twitter into a frenzy, but the bottom line is that the May Government awarded the contract to the company that put in the best bid. Obviously the management of De La Rue also felt the prospect of the job going overseas was preposterous, and therefore didn't feel they needed to make their bid competitive. Personally, I would like jobs in the UK to be considered as a factor in public procurement (I don't believe it has up until this point, unlike with almost all other world governments), but equally, companies need to know they can't gouge the taxpayer.
Under EU gov procurement laws, anyone in the EU could submit a bid of course. No reason why the UK can’t now demand that jobs stay in the UK for this sort of thing, although public sector contracts do usually feature in major trade deals.
It could be just a perception, but my feeling is that most EU states pretty much ignore EU competition laws when it comes to public procurement. If there are hundreds of German police cars that are Renaults and Italian police cars that are BMWs, I've missed them. I've never got that with the British Government/civil service, and I've never really known why.
Agree 100%, and it’s one of the many things that led up to the Brexit vote.
Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...
p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
You don't think it's ironic that the nasty EU passports were made in the UK while the nice British blue passports are made in the EU? It just sums up the stupidity of the whole exercise and how it was always about prioritising things that don't matter (what colour your passport is) over things that do (jobs). I have nothing but sympathy for the people who lost their jobs, btw. No gloating or sneering from me, I grew up on Tyneside so i can imagine the impact on Gateshead.
It's the kind of thing that sends Twitter into a frenzy, but the bottom line is that the May Government awarded the contract to the company that put in the best bid. Obviously the management of De La Rue also felt the prospect of the job going overseas was preposterous, and therefore didn't feel they needed to make their bid competitive. Personally, I would like jobs in the UK to be considered as a factor in public procurement (I don't believe it has up until this point, unlike with almost all other world governments), but equally, companies need to know they can't gouge the taxpayer.
Under EU gov procurement laws, anyone in the EU could submit a bid of course. No reason why the UK can’t now demand that jobs stay in the UK for this sort of thing, although public sector contracts do usually feature in major trade deals.
It could be just a perception, but my feeling is that most EU states pretty much ignore EU competition laws when it comes to public procurement. If there are hundreds of German police cars that are Renaults and Italian police cars that are BMWs, I've missed them. I've never got that with the British Government/civil service, and I've never really known why.
Agree 100%, and it’s one of the many things that led up to the Brexit wore.
If the problem is a lack of patriotism among the British elite, how does Brexit help?
Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...
p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
But you know what I mean.
Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
Munira Mirza, Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak, Kemi Badenoch...
All the wrong sort of BAME, according to the woke left mob.
Wokeists: All forms of diversity in all areas of life are good by definition, and the absence of diversity is bad by definition.
Tories: Wonderful. How about these BAME Conservatives with their own considered views on these matters?
Wokeists: Not that kind of diversity! Heretics!
Wokeists - that is a most clumsy word.
Please use "the Cognescenti" in future.
Surely the tried and tested 'fuckwits' is the noun to use.
If you tell me you're 'woke' I won't punch you - I will want to though.
I've never ever met anyone telling me that they're woke, in life or on the internet. Plenty of red faced blokes calling other people woke about, mind...
I had assumed it was a term which began as a self identifier but that it is now primarily used by those who use it as an insult - I have encountered at least one real person who used it in a positive sense, much to my surprise, so I think it cannot have simply been a perjorative invention.
That doesn't really persuade me away from my point about never having met anyone self identifying as such (mainly because it's a fact). However we don't need anecdotal evidence for the reverse, indeed there are several such users on here this very eve.
I sense a blank space where a venn diagram could usefully be.
According to Edwin Chadwick in 1840, 57% of the working-class children of Manchester died before their fifth birthday, compared with 32% in rural districts. Whereas a farm labourer in Rutland had a life-expectancy of 38, a factory worker in Liverpool had an average age of death of 15.
It was slavery in all but name.
Indeed it was. And is - it continues in many places around the world today.
Capitalism needs its victims. It must eat.
Of course it doesn't. It can work perfectly well without 'victims'. After all its not something extreme like Marxism.
I can detect the digital tongue in the digital cheek. Which is always nice.
Ah, political journalists trying to be experts on aviation again. What could possibly go wrong?
$50k might be the cost of a plane’s worth of paint for AA, who buy it by the tonne. It’s sure as hell not the cost of the hangar, scaffolding, mobile platforms, design, printing of masks, paper, tape, stripper for the old paint - oh, and about a dozen certified people working for a week or two on it. £900k is about right.
Why do they need certifying?
Although I suppose they would be working for Johnson which would send anyone round the twist...
Because any job on a plane needs to be done by certified people!
In practice, you usually have the team leaders as certified, and they sign for the work of the juniors under them. The seniors then cross check each others’s work for what is known as a duplicate inspection. They don’t recruit sprayers from the local auto repair shop and put them on a plane without a lot of training, and as you’d expect they get well paid for the work they do.
More than one plane has crashed, because important instrument holes got covered up by paint, or someone left some tape on the plane when they finished.
£1m or thereabouts to paint a £200m plane is going to be about right, for a single piece to a unique design.
Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...
p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
But you know what I mean.
Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
Wrong side of today's history is the Labour party - and the description fits.
Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...
p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
But you know what I mean.
Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.
Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.
Tories: Marxism is evil. Others: But what about all those RCP ones you employ? Tories: Splendid fellows. Radical free thinkers don't cha know!
Still think the ex-RCP comrades are secretly working to overthrow capitalism from the inside by making it so unbearable that the masses will have no choice but to start a revolution. Nothing else makes sense.
I heard the funny story of a Maoist in Switzerland who followed the "long march through the institutions" plan to advance into senior positions in society, ready for the revolution. I knew him slightly (though I only heard about his nefarious plan later), and the pharmaceutical company (Ciba-Geigy) was vaguely aware that he had radical political ideas but felt they were not a proper matter for the company to investigate, so they were happy to use his undoubted talents. He did indeed achieve a senior position in the company and was poised to assist the masses when they rose up. At that point, his party fell apart and dissolved itself, and Maoism itself started to seem an outdated idea.
What to do? He shrugged and settled down to a career as a good senior manager. He, and the company, as as far as I could tell the Swiss masses were all content with the outcome. I'm not sure what the moral is.
Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...
p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
But you know what I mean.
Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
Wrong side of today's history is the Labour party - and the description fits.
Tomorrow's history - who knows.
They were on the wrong side of history on Dec 12th 2019. This is undeniable. But that's history now.
Comments
It's not a criticism of the fine people of New Zealand, just economic fact.
$50k might be the cost of a plane’s worth of paint for AA, who buy it by the tonne. It’s sure as hell not the cost of the hangar, scaffolding, mobile platforms, design, printing of masks, paper, tape, stripper for the old paint - oh, and about a dozen certified people working for a week or two on it. £900k is about right.
Others: But what about all those RCP ones you employ?
Tories: Splendid fellows. Radical free thinkers don't cha know!
Although I suppose they would be working for Johnson which would send anyone round the twist...
There is one thing leading this and that is parental will. Parents don't want to send their children into school when the government previously set out to sacrifice half a million people leading to the PM nearly doing it to himself. That's the bottom line.
Blowhards like that really want to have a go at feckless parents but they haven't got the guts,
"Yes, Frank, OK - you go first."
https://youtu.be/o-l4P0K00iM
https://www.great.gov.uk/international/
Are you saying we should just roll over on any trade deal Trump slops out because his country has 328 million souls (and is economically significant) whereas Jacinda Ardern's has five million and essentially isn't?
Please use "the Cognescenti" in future.
(Called "Chatham" because it was inspired by the naval flag factory at the old Chatham naval base.)
ETA link to Government guidance (hope Wales is the same!)
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-safer-travel-guidance-for-passengers
Using schools as childcare to allow people to get back to work isn't dignified, but yes, it's part of what schools do, and needs must in a crisis.
So expand the key worker offer from "key workers who have no alternative" to "all workers who have no alternative". Take the load off individual schools by making the national remote offerings as easy to use as possible (Bitesize Daily from the BBC and Oak National Academy from a group of teachers are both pretty good). Then see how much it's possible to get everyone back part-time.
One of mine had their first day back since lockdown today. With the rooms and furniture they have, the school can just about offer 2 days a week to all of years R, 1 and 6 plus children of key workers with no alternative. I really feel for my other one, who isn't in one of those year groups and probably won't get to go back at all because of the dumb priorities the government set. It would have been much better to have got everyone in one day a week.
The guidance from central government has been rubbish, and I suspect that the (academy) school I know most about is representative. They have done the best they can with the rules put in place. The attempts by the government to weaponise this as a culture war are as disgrace.
If you tell me you're 'woke' I won't punch you - I will want to though.
Voice from the hall: ‘Because you’re in Chatham...’
No reason why the UK can’t now demand that jobs stay in the UK for this sort of thing, although public sector contracts do usually feature in major trade deals.
And there are other considerations - New Zealand's environment is incredibly unspoiled, and therefore its food produce is second to none. The more of it that enters the food chain imo, the better for the general health of the UK.
Planespotters.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-need-to-talk-about-munira-mirza-and-priti-patel
I suspect that you're trying to suggest that I'm some puffing loon. Who knows. I've certainly never accused anyone of being 'woke' though. I don't plan to either - it's horrible English.
It was slavery in all but name.
We worry far far too much about 'people' laughing at us.
Obviously Boris and co becoming a laughing stock among people who presently like him would be of significance, and small issues can cumulatively end up having a big impact on how people and party, even if the issue itself is misleading, but I suspect the impact is limited.
Capitalism needs its victims. It must eat.
In practice, you usually have the team leaders as certified, and they sign for the work of the juniors under them. The seniors then cross check each others’s work for what is known as a duplicate inspection. They don’t recruit sprayers from the local auto repair shop and put them on a plane without a lot of training, and as you’d expect they get well paid for the work they do.
More than one plane has crashed, because important instrument holes got covered up by paint, or someone left some tape on the plane when they finished.
£1m or thereabouts to paint a £200m plane is going to be about right, for a single piece to a unique design.
p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
Doesn't VAR kick in there?
Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
(Great, great stuff that we can argue about this stuff again ♥️⚽️)
https://twitter.com/TSF/status/1273311196561711105
https://twitter.com/talkSPORT/status/1273310888477548544
Is the technology as rusty as the ref’s eyesight?
On the positive side, we have sport back!
A cog?
Call me a bloody cog?
Tomorrow's history - who knows.
EDIT: The game should be null and void if it’s confirmed that GLT has failed.
Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.
But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
What to do? He shrugged and settled down to a career as a good senior manager. He, and the company, as as far as I could tell the Swiss masses were all content with the outcome. I'm not sure what the moral is.
https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2020/0617/1148078-eu-uk-extradition-post-brexit/
According to the House of Commons Library, extradition requests to the UK under the EAW increased from 1,865 in 2004 to 12,613 in 2015.
Requests made by the UK to other Member States went up from 96 to 228 per year over the same period.
Willie Thorne: Snooker favourite dies aged 66
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/snooker/53076861
"If we stop testing right now, we'd have very few cases, if any," Trump said Monday