Johnson might come to regret his joke about pit closures – politicalbetting.com
Johnson might come to regret his joke about pit closures – politicalbetting.com
If BoJo’s aim when he made his joke about pit closures was to get coverage for his Scottish trip then he has succeeded but he appears to have touched a raw nerve about one of the most difficult periods during the UK’s recent history.
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Test0
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Second like the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party.0
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FPT
For a moment I did worry that that key Scottish segment of ex miner Scottish Tories, otherwise known as Tom who lives outside Kirkcaldy, might be offended but then I remembered that Tom had a sense of humour.6 -
What a twit.
But how silly of the Mirror and Record to sacrifice the This is no joke moral high ground for the sake of an incredibly weak joke.0 -
- “It can be argued that his approach was not factually inaccurate. The closure of the mines led to the UK continuing to use a lot of coal to generate electricity but most of it was imported.”
He was factually inaccurate, because one has to remember *why* Thatcher closed the coal industry. She was no environmentalist. She did it out of pure spite. Johnson thinks ordinary people are mugs.
The truth is that after intentionally and gleefully destroying the coal communities she then greatly expanded the oil & gas sector, and, as you point out, simply imported coal to replace the lost production in Wales, Scotland and England. She didn’t give a shit for the environment.0 -
On a fractionally more serious note there was an excellent idea from a Scottish engineering company some time ago now that these pits might be brought into service as batteries using the lift shafts to lift weight and store potential energy for when it was needed, sort of like mini Cruachans.. The employment generated would be modest but it struck me as a really interesting idea.1
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Nice try David, but you well know the real problem here. Without strong levels of tactical voting from Scottish Labour and Scottish Liberal Democrat voters there would not be a single Conservative MP in the country. I find it hard to imagine a better way for a Tory PM to antagonise large numbers of SLab supporters. They can go “home” to their first preference party very easily. That is why wiser SCon strategists are holding their heads in their hands.DavidL said:FPT
For a moment I did worry that that key Scottish segment of ex miner Scottish Tories, otherwise known as Tom who lives outside Kirkcaldy, might be offended but then I remembered that Tom had a sense of humour.2 -
Ooooft.
Leaving aside the Mirror’s feeble attempt at a pun, how’s this for brutal sarcasm about the failures of SAGE?
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/07/09/jack-lesgrins-week-put-seven-year-olds-not-experts-in-charge-of-covid-response-seriously/0 -
Finally, some good news.
https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/06/someone-left-purple-dildo-jacob-rees-moggs-range-rover-7802323/
More of this sort of thing.0 -
I've not heard anyone mention the miners strike in real life for well over a decade.
And I doubt many people would want the housing estates and country parks to be turned back into slag heaps.
That said, Boris really shouldn't babble about things he knows little about.
Given that he's not going to stop babbling then he needs to do some proper preparation.1 -
Bored teenagers on school holidays who think this is tremendous japes.Dura_Ace said:Finally, some good news.
https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/06/someone-left-purple-dildo-jacob-rees-moggs-range-rover-7802323/
More of this sort of thing.
Plenty of them around here with "nothing to do".0 -
Marketing directors of cctv companies will be mass-emailing Tory MPs this morning!Casino_Royale said:
Bored teenagers on school holidays who think this is tremendous japes.Dura_Ace said:Finally, some good news.
https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/06/someone-left-purple-dildo-jacob-rees-moggs-range-rover-7802323/
More of this sort of thing.
Plenty of them around here with "nothing to do".0 -
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?ydoethur said:Ooooft.
Leaving aside the Mirror’s feeble attempt at a pun, how’s this for brutal sarcasm about the failures of SAGE?
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/07/09/jack-lesgrins-week-put-seven-year-olds-not-experts-in-charge-of-covid-response-seriously/1 -
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.IshmaelZ said:
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?ydoethur said:Ooooft.
Leaving aside the Mirror’s feeble attempt at a pun, how’s this for brutal sarcasm about the failures of SAGE?
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/07/09/jack-lesgrins-week-put-seven-year-olds-not-experts-in-charge-of-covid-response-seriously/1 -
On topic, the Rees Moggs started their fortune as mine owners in the Somerset coalfield.Dura_Ace said:Finally, some good news.
https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/06/someone-left-purple-dildo-jacob-rees-moggs-range-rover-7802323/
More of this sort of thing.1 -
It seems like he was right to me. 🤷♂️
And in 2021, nearly four decades later, the environment is a bigger issue than the closure of the pits.
Although no doubt it would strike a nerve with Corbynistas on Twitter, I'm not sure who else would be offended.
PS as a child of the eighties myself, the thing that makes me feel really old now is to realise that the gap between now and the miners strike is about the same as the gap between the miners strike and World War Two. World War Two has always been history for me.0 -
Truly the pits.Foxy said:
On topic, the Rees Moggs started their fortune as mine owners in the Somerset coalfield.Dura_Ace said:Finally, some good news.
https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/06/someone-left-purple-dildo-jacob-rees-moggs-range-rover-7802323/
More of this sort of thing.1 -
Just trying to slag off Johnson.ydoethur said:
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.IshmaelZ said:
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?ydoethur said:Ooooft.
Leaving aside the Mirror’s feeble attempt at a pun, how’s this for brutal sarcasm about the failures of SAGE?
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/07/09/jack-lesgrins-week-put-seven-year-olds-not-experts-in-charge-of-covid-response-seriously/1 -
This was 3 years ago?Dura_Ace said:Finally, some good news.
https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/06/someone-left-purple-dildo-jacob-rees-moggs-range-rover-7802323/
More of this sort of thing.
Also, while I think the dildo is harmless pranking spray-painting abuse isn't acceptable imo.1 -
‘Fight for survival’: Boris confronted by desperate fishermen as Brexit deal 'falls short'
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1473046/boris-johnson-fishing-news-brexit-scotland-eu-news-north-sea-exodus/amp1 -
Still shafting after all these years.Nigelb said:
Truly the pits.Foxy said:
On topic, the Rees Moggs started their fortune as mine owners in the Somerset coalfield.Dura_Ace said:Finally, some good news.
https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/06/someone-left-purple-dildo-jacob-rees-moggs-range-rover-7802323/
More of this sort of thing.1 -
Thatcher and the climate:
I must admit, when I was a teenager in the eighties, the environmental crisis I remember was the hole in the Ozone Layer (which ISTR featured heavily in a Grange Hill plotline), rather than climate change. Tackling the Ozone Hole has been a rather brilliant international success over the last thirty years.
On Thatcher: in November 1989, she made a speech on CFCs and the climate to the UN's General Assembly, being the first major politician to do so:
https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107817
For instance, it contained the following:
"We are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere. The annual increase is three billion tonnes: and half the carbon emitted since the Industrial Revolution still remains in the atmosphere.
At the same time as this is happening, we are seeing the destruction on a vast scale of tropical forests which are uniquely able to remove carbon dioxide from the air."
In April 1989, she held a cabinet meeting on climate change, with scientists invited to give talks.
For legislation: in 1986 the legislation for the privatisation of the electricity sector included a commitment for the reduction in the use of fossil fuels - though this was seen as being for economics, rather than environmental, reasons. A 1989 act designed to help nuclear power was altered to include renewables.
As ever with politicians, and especially PMs, the truth is a lot more complex than just a one-sided story. She was not a climate heroine; she was not a climate villain - especially as the climate was nowhere near as much on the agenda as it is nowadays. But she deserves a heck of a lot more credit than the people who were cravenly calling for uneconomic pits to be kept open.9 -
‘It seems like he was right to me. 🤷♂️‘Philip_Thompson said:It seems like he was right to me. 🤷♂️
And in 2021, nearly four decades later, the environment is a bigger issue than the closure of the pits.
Although no doubt it would strike a nerve with Corbynistas on Twitter, I'm not sure who else would be offended.
PS as a child of the eighties myself, the thing that makes me feel really old now is to realise that the gap between now and the miners strike is about the same as the gap between the miners strike and World War Two. World War Two has always been history for me.
Well I never!1 -
Conservative Central Office thinks Tory PM is a great chap shocker.Theuniondivvie said:
‘It seems like he was right to me. 🤷♂️‘Philip_Thompson said:It seems like he was right to me. 🤷♂️
And in 2021, nearly four decades later, the environment is a bigger issue than the closure of the pits.
Although no doubt it would strike a nerve with Corbynistas on Twitter, I'm not sure who else would be offended.
PS as a child of the eighties myself, the thing that makes me feel really old now is to realise that the gap between now and the miners strike is about the same as the gap between the miners strike and World War Two. World War Two has always been history for me.
Well I never!-1 -
Bingo on the puns. (Don't know if southrons will spot both mine.)Foxy said:
Just trying to slag off Johnson.ydoethur said:
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.IshmaelZ said:
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?ydoethur said:Ooooft.
Leaving aside the Mirror’s feeble attempt at a pun, how’s this for brutal sarcasm about the failures of SAGE?
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/07/09/jack-lesgrins-week-put-seven-year-olds-not-experts-in-charge-of-covid-response-seriously/
More seriously: has anyone on PB or elsewhere noted that it's not just a matter of 1980s history. Mr Johnson has just given a rather brilliant impression of enunciating the equation:
climate change policy = brilliant excuse for the Tories to screw the working classes and their communities, what japes!
Which is the last thing we all need at the moment, especially with him fronting COP26 - in Scotland, too.1 -
Lol, even Nige is getting a boot in.
Farage: this is rubbing salt in the wounds of red wall voters.0 -
FPT
MGM is now able to make another bid, under the six month rule, and there has been some speculation one might be coming.DecrepiterJohnL said:OT Entain (owners of Ladbrokes and Corals among others) shares have shot up recently. Not sure why and this is not a tip, from someone who has never owned any shares.
1 -
"It can be argued that his approach was not factually inaccurate. The closure of the mines led to the UK continuing to use a lot of coal to generate electricity but most of it was imported."
A question is how much did the closure of the pits, and the consequent import of coal, often of lesser quality, lead enable the 'dash for gas' that started in the 1990s?
If coal had continued being mined in the UK at the levels it was in 1980, would it have been politically possible to move over to gas, which is much better for the environment?
As ever, politician's actions can have unexpected consequences. Occasionally they are even positive.4 -
Hancock excepted obviously.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Marketing directors of cctv companies will be mass-emailing Tory MPs this morning!Casino_Royale said:
Bored teenagers on school holidays who think this is tremendous japes.Dura_Ace said:Finally, some good news.
https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/06/someone-left-purple-dildo-jacob-rees-moggs-range-rover-7802323/
More of this sort of thing.
Plenty of them around here with "nothing to do".5 -
"Boris Johnson says he ‘hasn’t’ declined offer to meet Sturgeon", also.StuartDickson said:‘Fight for survival’: Boris confronted by desperate fishermen as Brexit deal 'falls short'
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1473046/boris-johnson-fishing-news-brexit-scotland-eu-news-north-sea-exodus/amp0 -
Ok, fraud is maybe the wrong word, but it just *feels* like criminal activity. It is deceitful.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Close to fraud? Probably not. Casinos have been barring card-counters for years. It is unfair, though, and large numbers of recreational punters will be collateral damage if they accidentally make the same bets as the sharks.StuartDickson said:
Thanks. I feel less singled-out if what you say is true. But I do find this very worrying. Is it not close to fraud? Accepting significant wagers from punters with a proven track record of losing, but restricting wagers to insignificant sums for punters with a winning profile.DecrepiterJohnL said:
I've been heavily restricted by three bookmakers, more for horses than politics, perhaps, but the books are so trigger-happy these days I'm not sure it is such a badge of honour any more.StuartDickson said:
I love it how punters are always so willing to tell you about the ones they guessed right, but never about the long list of failures. Stopped clocks.TheScreamingEagles said:
I accurately forecast that Scotland would vote No in 2014 when you said the clueless wonders on here were in for a shock. I believe 55% of Scots constitutes a majority of Scots.StuartDickson said:
Yeah, that’s right, BritNats like you are so in tune with “the majority of Scots”.TheScreamingEagles said:
There you go again.StuartDickson said:
British Nationalism: The home of Jockophobia..TheScreamingEagles said:
Scottish Nationalism: The home of transphobia.StuartDickson said:
Well, it wouldn’t be a woman’s penis.squareroot2 said:I just accidentally clicked on Johnson on the thread header and the dictionary defined it as a man's penis.. interesting if spooky....
Conflating criticism of the SNP with criticism of Scotland.
Fortunately the majority of Scots know that too.
I also accurately predicted that Alba would do shite in the Holyrood elections when one of your fellow Nats was predicting 12%-14% minimum for Alba on the list.
I also successfully tipped the SCons would get over 9.5 seats in 2017 at 20/1.
I’m such a successful political punter that I’m typically restricted to max wagers of about 50p. The very fact that you’re still allowed to bet shows that the bookies are winning.
Can any lawyers help out? What criminal charge are the bookies leaving themselves open to being accused of?0 -
Thommo's back after a firmware upgrade.Theuniondivvie said:
‘It seems like he was right to me. 🤷♂️‘Philip_Thompson said:It seems like he was right to me. 🤷♂️
And in 2021, nearly four decades later, the environment is a bigger issue than the closure of the pits.
Although no doubt it would strike a nerve with Corbynistas on Twitter, I'm not sure who else would be offended.
PS as a child of the eighties myself, the thing that makes me feel really old now is to realise that the gap between now and the miners strike is about the same as the gap between the miners strike and World War Two. World War Two has always been history for me.
Well I never!2 -
COP26 may be something of a bogey in any case.Carnyx said:
Bingo on the puns. (Don't know if southrons will spot both mine.)Foxy said:
Just trying to slag off Johnson.ydoethur said:
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.IshmaelZ said:
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?ydoethur said:Ooooft.
Leaving aside the Mirror’s feeble attempt at a pun, how’s this for brutal sarcasm about the failures of SAGE?
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/07/09/jack-lesgrins-week-put-seven-year-olds-not-experts-in-charge-of-covid-response-seriously/
More seriously: has anyone on PB or elsewhere noted that it's not just a matter of 1980s history. Mr Johnson has just given a rather brilliant impression of enunciating the equation:
climate change policy = brilliant excuse for the Tories to screw the working classes and their communities, what japes!
Which is the last thing we all need at the moment, especially with him fronting COP26 - in Scotland, too.
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1422945875186311170?s=210 -
The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article2 -
Indeed? When’s the meeting then?Carnyx said:
"Boris Johnson says he ‘hasn’t’ declined offer to meet Sturgeon", also.StuartDickson said:‘Fight for survival’: Boris confronted by desperate fishermen as Brexit deal 'falls short'
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1473046/boris-johnson-fishing-news-brexit-scotland-eu-news-north-sea-exodus/amp1 -
As far as I'm aware: None. ,Private companies can exclude anyone for any non-discriminatory reason. If a restaurant banned you because you only dined at the lunch buffet deal it would be potentially awful PR for them, but unless they did it because you were black, or male, or trans, or christian, then it isn't unlawful. The Equality Act 2010 lists what are protected characteristics, and punting profitability isn't one of them.StuartDickson said:
Ok, fraud is maybe the wrong word, but it just *feels* like criminal activity. It is deceitful.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Close to fraud? Probably not. Casinos have been barring card-counters for years. It is unfair, though, and large numbers of recreational punters will be collateral damage if they accidentally make the same bets as the sharks.StuartDickson said:
Thanks. I feel less singled-out if what you say is true. But I do find this very worrying. Is it not close to fraud? Accepting significant wagers from punters with a proven track record of losing, but restricting wagers to insignificant sums for punters with a winning profile.DecrepiterJohnL said:
I've been heavily restricted by three bookmakers, more for horses than politics, perhaps, but the books are so trigger-happy these days I'm not sure it is such a badge of honour any more.StuartDickson said:
I love it how punters are always so willing to tell you about the ones they guessed right, but never about the long list of failures. Stopped clocks.TheScreamingEagles said:
I accurately forecast that Scotland would vote No in 2014 when you said the clueless wonders on here were in for a shock. I believe 55% of Scots constitutes a majority of Scots.StuartDickson said:
Yeah, that’s right, BritNats like you are so in tune with “the majority of Scots”.TheScreamingEagles said:
There you go again.StuartDickson said:
British Nationalism: The home of Jockophobia..TheScreamingEagles said:
Scottish Nationalism: The home of transphobia.StuartDickson said:
Well, it wouldn’t be a woman’s penis.squareroot2 said:I just accidentally clicked on Johnson on the thread header and the dictionary defined it as a man's penis.. interesting if spooky....
Conflating criticism of the SNP with criticism of Scotland.
Fortunately the majority of Scots know that too.
I also accurately predicted that Alba would do shite in the Holyrood elections when one of your fellow Nats was predicting 12%-14% minimum for Alba on the list.
I also successfully tipped the SCons would get over 9.5 seats in 2017 at 20/1.
I’m such a successful political punter that I’m typically restricted to max wagers of about 50p. The very fact that you’re still allowed to bet shows that the bookies are winning.
Can any lawyers help out? What criminal charge are the bookies leaving themselves open to being accused of?
I'd be very sympathetic to a minimum staking law being brought in here, but there isn't one at the moment.0 -
None.StuartDickson said:
Ok, fraud is maybe the wrong word, but it just *feels* like criminal activity. It is deceitful.DecrepiterJohnL said:
Close to fraud? Probably not. Casinos have been barring card-counters for years. It is unfair, though, and large numbers of recreational punters will be collateral damage if they accidentally make the same bets as the sharks.StuartDickson said:
Thanks. I feel less singled-out if what you say is true. But I do find this very worrying. Is it not close to fraud? Accepting significant wagers from punters with a proven track record of losing, but restricting wagers to insignificant sums for punters with a winning profile.DecrepiterJohnL said:
I've been heavily restricted by three bookmakers, more for horses than politics, perhaps, but the books are so trigger-happy these days I'm not sure it is such a badge of honour any more.StuartDickson said:
I love it how punters are always so willing to tell you about the ones they guessed right, but never about the long list of failures. Stopped clocks.TheScreamingEagles said:
I accurately forecast that Scotland would vote No in 2014 when you said the clueless wonders on here were in for a shock. I believe 55% of Scots constitutes a majority of Scots.StuartDickson said:
Yeah, that’s right, BritNats like you are so in tune with “the majority of Scots”.TheScreamingEagles said:
There you go again.StuartDickson said:
British Nationalism: The home of Jockophobia..TheScreamingEagles said:
Scottish Nationalism: The home of transphobia.StuartDickson said:
Well, it wouldn’t be a woman’s penis.squareroot2 said:I just accidentally clicked on Johnson on the thread header and the dictionary defined it as a man's penis.. interesting if spooky....
Conflating criticism of the SNP with criticism of Scotland.
Fortunately the majority of Scots know that too.
I also accurately predicted that Alba would do shite in the Holyrood elections when one of your fellow Nats was predicting 12%-14% minimum for Alba on the list.
I also successfully tipped the SCons would get over 9.5 seats in 2017 at 20/1.
I’m such a successful political punter that I’m typically restricted to max wagers of about 50p. The very fact that you’re still allowed to bet shows that the bookies are winning.
Can any lawyers help out? What criminal charge are the bookies leaving themselves open to being accused of?0 -
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article0 -
"An internal row is now underway between the PM's advisers on how low to set the bar."Theuniondivvie said:
COP26 may be something of a bogey in any case.Carnyx said:
Bingo on the puns. (Don't know if southrons will spot both mine.)Foxy said:
Just trying to slag off Johnson.ydoethur said:
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.IshmaelZ said:
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?ydoethur said:Ooooft.
Leaving aside the Mirror’s feeble attempt at a pun, how’s this for brutal sarcasm about the failures of SAGE?
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/07/09/jack-lesgrins-week-put-seven-year-olds-not-experts-in-charge-of-covid-response-seriously/
More seriously: has anyone on PB or elsewhere noted that it's not just a matter of 1980s history. Mr Johnson has just given a rather brilliant impression of enunciating the equation:
climate change policy = brilliant excuse for the Tories to screw the working classes and their communities, what japes!
Which is the last thing we all need at the moment, especially with him fronting COP26 - in Scotland, too.
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1422945875186311170?s=21
"COP26 President Alok Sharma’s camp want to say as little as possible before the summit in the hope of building a late consensus and declaring whatever can be agreed in Glasgow a success. "
Not exactly MBO, is it?0 -
All of us of an age feel like that. The political history of the 90s (when I first won an election) still feels relevant - yet is as long ago as WWII was when I was at primary school, and WWII felt like very distant history back then. What strikes me is that the middle aged and elderly back then must have viewed their wartime experience in a similar way, in terms of recency, relevance and recollection, as we look back at the 90s.Philip_Thompson said:It seems like he was right to me. 🤷♂️
And in 2021, nearly four decades later, the environment is a bigger issue than the closure of the pits.
Although no doubt it would strike a nerve with Corbynistas on Twitter, I'm not sure who else would be offended.
PS as a child of the eighties myself, the thing that makes me feel really old now is to realise that the gap between now and the miners strike is about the same as the gap between the miners strike and World War Two. World War Two has always been history for me.2 -
Quite. Wasn't it Svante Arrhenius who realised the potential issue in the 1850s?IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article1 -
He just hasn't accepted.Carnyx said:
"Boris Johnson says he ‘hasn’t’ declined offer to meet Sturgeon", also.StuartDickson said:‘Fight for survival’: Boris confronted by desperate fishermen as Brexit deal 'falls short'
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1473046/boris-johnson-fishing-news-brexit-scotland-eu-news-north-sea-exodus/amp1 -
It is simply further proof that his feet are bigger than his brain.another_richard said:I've not heard anyone mention the miners strike in real life for well over a decade.
And I doubt many people would want the housing estates and country parks to be turned back into slag heaps.
That said, Boris really shouldn't babble about things he knows little about.
Given that he's not going to stop babbling then he needs to do some proper preparation.2 -
Christ, when even the Central Committee is discussing how low the bar can be set, you’ll need tunnellers not limbo dancers.Carnyx said:
"An internal row is now underway between the PM's advisers on how low to set the bar."Theuniondivvie said:
COP26 may be something of a bogey in any case.Carnyx said:
Bingo on the puns. (Don't know if southrons will spot both mine.)Foxy said:
Just trying to slag off Johnson.ydoethur said:
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.IshmaelZ said:
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?ydoethur said:Ooooft.
Leaving aside the Mirror’s feeble attempt at a pun, how’s this for brutal sarcasm about the failures of SAGE?
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/07/09/jack-lesgrins-week-put-seven-year-olds-not-experts-in-charge-of-covid-response-seriously/
More seriously: has anyone on PB or elsewhere noted that it's not just a matter of 1980s history. Mr Johnson has just given a rather brilliant impression of enunciating the equation:
climate change policy = brilliant excuse for the Tories to screw the working classes and their communities, what japes!
Which is the last thing we all need at the moment, especially with him fronting COP26 - in Scotland, too.
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1422945875186311170?s=21
"COP26 President Alok Sharma’s camp want to say as little as possible before the summit in the hope of building a late consensus and declaring whatever can be agreed in Glasgow a success. "
Not exactly MBO, is it?0 -
In 1912, it was the Liberals who were in power.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article2 -
I love the way you have to get 'Tory' in there, as if the problem was solely down to them.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article
But your comment leads to a question: what alternative was there back then? Even with the climate crisis, was the energy expended to get the world where it is today, worth the damage to the environment? The pace of technological change in the last hundred years has been phenomenal, and life has never been better for billions.
If we had banned steam power in 1920, where would we be today? We did not have the technology to go green back then, and without plentiful electricity we would not have been able to eventually develop it.
The difference is that nowadays we have much better information on the damage was are doing, and the ability to do things about it: both directly and though mitigation.2 -
The ex-miner on Today was fairly forthright. "If Boris Johnson wants to come up here to look at the estates, let him. The only industry up here is the drug industry."
Not good for the Tory appeal in the Red Wall seats.
In other news, in the interview just before, I noticed Nick Robinson sounding bizarrely desperate to get two farmers to agree that labour shortages weren't primarily due to Brexit, proposing all sorts of other problems which they, one after the other, rejected ; no, they said, it was the bureaucratic obstacles of Brexit. Extremely odd reporting.0 -
Well, that's Mr J's solution to the Irish Question.Theuniondivvie said:
Christ, when even the Central Committee is discussing how low the bar can be set, you’ll need tunnellers not limbo dancers.Carnyx said:
"An internal row is now underway between the PM's advisers on how low to set the bar."Theuniondivvie said:
COP26 may be something of a bogey in any case.Carnyx said:
Bingo on the puns. (Don't know if southrons will spot both mine.)Foxy said:
Just trying to slag off Johnson.ydoethur said:
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.IshmaelZ said:
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?ydoethur said:Ooooft.
Leaving aside the Mirror’s feeble attempt at a pun, how’s this for brutal sarcasm about the failures of SAGE?
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/07/09/jack-lesgrins-week-put-seven-year-olds-not-experts-in-charge-of-covid-response-seriously/
More seriously: has anyone on PB or elsewhere noted that it's not just a matter of 1980s history. Mr Johnson has just given a rather brilliant impression of enunciating the equation:
climate change policy = brilliant excuse for the Tories to screw the working classes and their communities, what japes!
Which is the last thing we all need at the moment, especially with him fronting COP26 - in Scotland, too.
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1422945875186311170?s=21
"COP26 President Alok Sharma’s camp want to say as little as possible before the summit in the hope of building a late consensus and declaring whatever can be agreed in Glasgow a success. "
Not exactly MBO, is it?0 -
You do come across as bizarrely obsessed.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article
I don't see how the world's burning of fossil fuels during the last century was entirely caused by 'Tory greed'.1 -
Mr. Oracle, it's been a while since I watched news regularly but one thing that stuck with me was Nick Robinson, as BBC political editor, having a bizarre line on attempts to reduce net migration (I believe by the Coalition Government or it may even have been a Cameron policy in opposition). He implied heavily it was essentially racist because most EU (then unaffected) migrants were white and most non-EU migrants had 'black and brown faces'.
I think sometimes journalists decide they have an opinion and go hunting for evidence and witnesses to support it, rather than gathering information and presenting it.1 -
Those damn Tories in...New Zealand?StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article2 -
You need help.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article2 -
What's interesting is that I don't see much evidence of the developing world skipping the fossil fuel phase of development. Maybe that will come later.JosiasJessop said:
I love the way you have to get 'Tory' in there, as if the problem was solely down to them.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article
But your comment leads to a question: what alternative was there back then? Even with the climate crisis, was the energy expended to get the world where it is today, worth the damage to the environment? The pace of technological change in the last hundred years has been phenomenal, and life has never been better for billions.
If we had banned steam power in 1920, where would we be today? We did not have the technology to go green back then, and without plentiful electricity we would not have been able to eventually develop it.
The difference is that nowadays we have much better information on the damage was are doing, and the ability to do things about it: both directly and though mitigation.1 -
Just a completely pointless interview with the miner. Asked about the comments the miner says “I haven’t read them yet”.... so the producers get on a guy who was a striking miner, who hasn’t read what he’s on to talk about and then he spends the slot calling boris Johnson a clown and that nobody listens to anything Johnson says (so if nobody listens to what he says what’s the fuss about?).WhisperingOracle said:The ex-miner on Today was fairly forthright. "If Boris Johnson wants to come up here to look at the estates, fine. The only industry up here is the drug industry".
Not good for the Tory red wall seats.
In other news, in the interview just before I noticed Nick Robinson sounding bizarrely desperate to get two farmers to agree that labour shortages weren't primarily due to Brexit, proposing all sorts of other problems which they in turn rejected - no, they said, it was the bureaucratic obstacles of Brexit. Odd reporting.
What’s the point in getting people on the bbc who have absolutely nothing interesting or insightful to add to the story? And then for the interviewer to make no effort to ask the miner if he would prefer things to go back to what they were like or mention Labour’s role in pit closures before Thatcher....
And your comprehension of the interview with the farmers is odd - firstly the second tomato grower never got to make any points really or answer Re pandemic effects as his line was shit so they dropped him and the first flower grower actually volunteered that actually the pandemic had caused staffing problems as potential staff didn’t know what would happen with quarantine and travel etc and said it was the major problem this season. He wasn’t being pushed by Robinson away from Brexit at all.....1 -
That’s what they wanted you to thinkydoethur said:
In 1912, it was the Liberals who were in power.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article0 -
To give an example of what little effect 'Tory greed' actually has had on climate change consider this from May 2019:another_richard said:
You do come across as bizarrely obsessed.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article
I don't see how the world's burning of fossil fuels during the last century was entirely caused by 'Tory greed'.
Here are two surprising facts which between them help explain why the UK steel industry seems to be in what looks like a perma-slump.
The first is that in the past two years (to be precise, the past 22 months) China has manufactured more steel than Britain has since the height of the Industrial Revolution in 1870.
Try, if you can, to get your head round that.
In the months since the last general election China has produced more steel than Britain - the country where modern steel manufacturing was invented - has produced. Ever.
https://news.sky.com/story/the-surprising-facts-behind-the-declining-steel-industry-11725482
And Chinese steel production has continued to rise:
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/steel-production2 -
This is weak. Among the pantheon of Boris japes I'm not even sure it rates in the top 100.
The perpetually offended will scream about their offence and everyone else will roll their eyes and get on with life.
This isn't shifting any votes.2 -
Good morning
Boris putting his foot in it is hardly news but it was crass and he just does not seem to learn to measure his comments
Cop26 is heading for an enormous fudge and like so many of these overhyped events lots will be promised but little happens
Starmer demands the Cambo oil field is cancelled losing 1,000 plus Scots jobs, while Boris maintains he cannot intervene as HMG would be sued by the Company, and Sturgeon hides in a closet as she is scared to make any comment
I would be interested to hear from our SNP posters why Sturgeon is scared to comment
0 -
Well, yes, I am aware they were less than securely in power and it was the Irish who generally called the shots on policy.DougSeal said:
That’s what they wanted you to thinkydoethur said:
In 1912, it was the Liberals who were in power.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article0 -
It's also very related to who who knew/know and what they talked about. WW2 seemed intensely relevant to me when I grew up in the 60s and remained relevant until maybe 20 years ago, partly because of relatives who'd died in it. By contrast, I can't remember much about the late 80s, when I was just pursuing a quiet IT career in Switzerland and almost nobody I knew was very interested in politics.IanB2 said:
All of us of an age feel like that. The political history of the 90s (when I first won an election) still feels relevant - yet is as long ago as WWII was when I was at primary school, and WWII felt like very distant history back then. What strikes me is that the middle aged and elderly back then must have viewed their wartime experience in a similar way, in terms of recency, relevance and recollection, as we look back at the 90s.Philip_Thompson said:It seems like he was right to me. 🤷♂️
And in 2021, nearly four decades later, the environment is a bigger issue than the closure of the pits.
Although no doubt it would strike a nerve with Corbynistas on Twitter, I'm not sure who else would be offended.
PS as a child of the eighties myself, the thing that makes me feel really old now is to realise that the gap between now and the miners strike is about the same as the gap between the miners strike and World War Two. World War Two has always been history for me.
I think that Johnson could have got away with factually observing that the decline of the coal industry had fortuitously enabled Britain to reduce its emissions drastically (I don't believe that was a deliberate intention by policy-makers). What's damaging is having a jolly chuckle about it, since lots of people remember how it affected relatives in previous generations. The equivalent would be if Starmer cracked a joke about soldiers in the Falklands - it's not that anyone talks or even cares much about the Falklands now, but the next generation wouldn't feel it decent.0 -
Well there's a surprise!Philip_Thompson said:It seems like he was right to me. 🤷♂️
And in 2021, nearly four decades later, the environment is a bigger issue than the closure of the pits.
Although no doubt it would strike a nerve with Corbynistas on Twitter, I'm not sure who else would be offended.
PS as a child of the eighties myself, the thing that makes me feel really old now is to realise that the gap between now and the miners strike is about the same as the gap between the miners strike and World War Two. World War Two has always been history for me.
Anyway. Pah! As a child of the 1960s, my birthday is as close to Victoria's reign as it is to today!0 -
The thing about Johnson is that it doesn't really matter.
It doesn't matter that what he said was cobblers, because the dash for gas didn't start until years after Thatcher's closure of the pits.
It doesn't matter that it directly contradicts the government's desire to open a new coal mine in Cumbria.
It doesn't matter that he's consistently opposed most of the government green policies over the last two decades that have helped us to make what progress has been made.
None of this matters because we're basically just talking about a joke, and so we're not talking about all the ways in which the government is incompetent, mendacious or corrupt.
Sure, those already hostile to Johnson have another reason to be riled up, but it's not going to convince anyone to switch support. Maybe you'll have a couple of people who will be unhappy about the callousness, but when it comes to voting this distraction means they don't have to think about all the worse things that are being done, or not done.
And, fundamentally, it's not like the opposition would be so insane to advocate for reopening coal mines. Not since Corbyn anyway. Sigh.0 -
Talk Radio programme finds someone to whinge shocker.WhisperingOracle said:The ex-miner on Today was fairly forthright. "If Boris Johnson wants to come up here to look at the estates, let him. The only industry up here is the drug industry."
Not good for the Tory appeal in the Red Wall seats.
In other news, in the interview just before, I noticed Nick Robinson sounding bizarrely desperate to get two farmers to agree that labour shortages weren't primarily due to Brexit, proposing all sorts of other problems which they, one after the other, rejected ; no, they said, it was the bureaucratic obstacles of Brexit. Extremely odd reporting.
Its bad enough forty years later moaning that uneconomic mines were closed forty years ago - but if there's no new industries there forty years later, over a decade of which Labour were in charge - then is that due to the closing of the mines?
Would you have kept uneconomic coal mines going not just forty years ago but right through to today? Don't be ridiculous. 🙄1 -
My birth date is exactly half way between the end of World War Two and now.Mexicanpete said:
Well there's a surprise!Philip_Thompson said:It seems like he was right to me. 🤷♂️
And in 2021, nearly four decades later, the environment is a bigger issue than the closure of the pits.
Although no doubt it would strike a nerve with Corbynistas on Twitter, I'm not sure who else would be offended.
PS as a child of the eighties myself, the thing that makes me feel really old now is to realise that the gap between now and the miners strike is about the same as the gap between the miners strike and World War Two. World War Two has always been history for me.
Anyway. Pah! As a child of the 1960s, my birthday is as close to Victoria's reign as it is to today!1 -
By recent polls Johnson's loose tongue is shaping opinion, certainly on Johnson's personal popularity, which I have learned can be the canary in the coalmine for Party fortunes too.MaxPB said:This is weak. Among the pantheon of Boris japes I'm not even sure it rates in the top 100.
The perpetually offended will scream about their offence and everyone else will roll their eyes and get on with life.
This isn't shifting any votes.0 -
This wasn't the way the interview went, in fact. Robinson pushed the final interviewee in turn to agree that the shortages might have been caused first by the pandemic, then by wages in eastern europe rising, and then one other issue, and finally he clearly rejected all of them. "That's not what we've been finding. The obstacles are bureaucratic."boulay said:
Just a completely pointless interview with the miner. Asked about the comments the miner says “I haven’t read them yet”.... so the producers get on a guy who was a striking miner, who hasn’t read what he’s on to talk about and then he spends the slot calling boris Johnson a clown and that nobody listens to anything Johnson says (so if nobody listens to what he says what’s the fuss about?).WhisperingOracle said:The ex-miner on Today was fairly forthright. "If Boris Johnson wants to come up here to look at the estates, fine. The only industry up here is the drug industry".
Not good for the Tory red wall seats.
In other news, in the interview just before I noticed Nick Robinson sounding bizarrely desperate to get two farmers to agree that labour shortages weren't primarily due to Brexit, proposing all sorts of other problems which they in turn rejected - no, they said, it was the bureaucratic obstacles of Brexit. Odd reporting.
What’s the point in getting people on the bbc who have absolutely nothing interesting or insightful to add to the story? And then for the interviewer to make no effort to ask the miner if he would prefer things to go back to what they were like or mention Labour’s role in pit closures before Thatcher....
And your comprehension of the interview with the farmers is odd - firstly the second tomato grower never got to make any points really or answer Re pandemic effects as his line was shit so they dropped him and the first flower grower actually volunteered that actually the pandemic had caused staffing problems as potential staff didn’t know what would happen with quarantine and travel etc and said it was the major problem this season. He wasn’t being pushed by Robinson away from Brexit at all.....
0 -
No it can’t be. The whole point of this thread is that there are no coal mines.Mexicanpete said:
By recent polls Johnson's loose tongue is shaping opinion, certainly on Johnson's personal popularity, which I have learned can be the canary in the coalmine for Party fortunes too.MaxPB said:This is weak. Among the pantheon of Boris japes I'm not even sure it rates in the top 100.
The perpetually offended will scream about their offence and everyone else will roll their eyes and get on with life.
This isn't shifting any votes.2 -
I don't think that's right. I reckon in 1920 it would definitely have been possible to generate electricity from wind turbines.JosiasJessop said:
I love the way you have to get 'Tory' in there, as if the problem was solely down to them.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article
But your comment leads to a question: what alternative was there back then? Even with the climate crisis, was the energy expended to get the world where it is today, worth the damage to the environment? The pace of technological change in the last hundred years has been phenomenal, and life has never been better for billions.
If we had banned steam power in 1920, where would we be today? We did not have the technology to go green back then, and without plentiful electricity we would not have been able to eventually develop it.
The difference is that nowadays we have much better information on the damage was are doing, and the ability to do things about it: both directly and though mitigation.
Not much electricity, and not very efficiently, but enough to make a start with.
I'm not saying it would have been a good idea, but I think humans are ingenious on the whole, and a way would have been found.0 -
I seem to remember you getting quite offended about some Labour leaflets. Funny that.MaxPB said:This is weak. Among the pantheon of Boris japes I'm not even sure it rates in the top 100.
The perpetually offended will scream about their offence and everyone else will roll their eyes and get on with life.
This isn't shifting any votes.2 -
This is much the more important point re the Thatcher comment… the effort is now underway to play down the importance of COP26 specifically and carbon reduction generally. Climate change has clearly slipped from an opportunity to push Global Britain and sanctify Boris to being a nuisance. Sturgeon and Drakeford are not being asked to participate because COP is going to be an unqualified success.Theuniondivvie said:
COP26 may be something of a bogey in any case.Carnyx said:
Bingo on the puns. (Don't know if southrons will spot both mine.)Foxy said:
Just trying to slag off Johnson.ydoethur said:
I think they spoil tip by trying to be funny.IshmaelZ said:
You feel they were trying to mine an exhausted seam of humour?ydoethur said:Ooooft.
Leaving aside the Mirror’s feeble attempt at a pun, how’s this for brutal sarcasm about the failures of SAGE?
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2021/07/09/jack-lesgrins-week-put-seven-year-olds-not-experts-in-charge-of-covid-response-seriously/
More seriously: has anyone on PB or elsewhere noted that it's not just a matter of 1980s history. Mr Johnson has just given a rather brilliant impression of enunciating the equation:
climate change policy = brilliant excuse for the Tories to screw the working classes and their communities, what japes!
Which is the last thing we all need at the moment, especially with him fronting COP26 - in Scotland, too.
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1422945875186311170?s=212 -
It was certainly possible to generate it from hydropower, and frequently was. That was how aluminium was first extracted in the Highlands, using water resources at Foyers and Fort William.LostPassword said:
I don't think that's right. I reckon in 1920 it would definitely have been possible to generate electricity from wind turbines.JosiasJessop said:
I love the way you have to get 'Tory' in there, as if the problem was solely down to them.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article
But your comment leads to a question: what alternative was there back then? Even with the climate crisis, was the energy expended to get the world where it is today, worth the damage to the environment? The pace of technological change in the last hundred years has been phenomenal, and life has never been better for billions.
If we had banned steam power in 1920, where would we be today? We did not have the technology to go green back then, and without plentiful electricity we would not have been able to eventually develop it.
The difference is that nowadays we have much better information on the damage was are doing, and the ability to do things about it: both directly and though mitigation.
Not much electricity, and not very efficiently, but enough to make a start with.
I'm not saying it would have been a good idea, but I think humans are ingenious on the whole, and a way would have been found.2 -
Oh ffs. Enough! To work!ydoethur said:
No it can’t be. The whole point of this thread is that there are no coal mines.Mexicanpete said:
By recent polls Johnson's loose tongue is shaping opinion, certainly on Johnson's personal popularity, which I have learned can be the canary in the coalmine for Party fortunes too.MaxPB said:This is weak. Among the pantheon of Boris japes I'm not even sure it rates in the top 100.
The perpetually offended will scream about their offence and everyone else will roll their eyes and get on with life.
This isn't shifting any votes.0 -
But that's Johnson's problem.IanB2 said:
It is simply further proof that his feet are bigger than his brain.another_richard said:I've not heard anyone mention the miners strike in real life for well over a decade.
And I doubt many people would want the housing estates and country parks to be turned back into slag heaps.
That said, Boris really shouldn't babble about things he knows little about.
Given that he's not going to stop babbling then he needs to do some proper preparation.
He can't help himself.
The core message- even by the standards of fossil fuels, coal is horrible stuff and the UK got it right to transition away from it- is pretty sound. The greeny Thatch line is more true than not true.
The reason this has blown up isn't that, though. It's the chuckle and the "thought that would wind you up". Both of which feel like ad libs, of the sort BoJo has done throughout his career. Many of them work in his favour, contributing to his"not one of them" persona. But some blow up and cause him a world of trouble.
And because the current Prime Minister has the judgement and self-control of a Jack Russell puppy, he can't filter the bad ad libs from the good ones.4 -
Strong start by Kenny and Archibald in the Madison.0
-
Racist Labour leaflets. Labour is institutionally anti-Hindu and anti-Semitic. Starmer continues to enable the racists in Labour.Tres said:
I seem to remember you getting quite offended about some Labour leaflets. Funny that.MaxPB said:This is weak. Among the pantheon of Boris japes I'm not even sure it rates in the top 100.
The perpetually offended will scream about their offence and everyone else will roll their eyes and get on with life.
This isn't shifting any votes.2 -
The impact of these comments in Scotland is largely irrelevant. Of the 6 remaining Tory seats in Scotland they are all in largely posh, rural seats with no mining heritage of any significant and no Labour vote of any significance outside Dumfries and Galloway. Plus even if Boris lost all 6 Tory Scottish seats he would still have a comfortable majority of 68.StuartDickson said:
Nice try David, but you well know the real problem here. Without strong levels of tactical voting from Scottish Labour and Scottish Liberal Democrat voters there would not be a single Conservative MP in the country. I find it hard to imagine a better way for a Tory PM to antagonise large numbers of SLab supporters. They can go “home” to their first preference party very easily. That is why wiser SCon strategists are holding their heads in their hands.DavidL said:FPT
For a moment I did worry that that key Scottish segment of ex miner Scottish Tories, otherwise known as Tom who lives outside Kirkcaldy, might be offended but then I remembered that Tom had a sense of humour.
However, while Boris may have been correct that coal had to go as a primary energy source due to its impact on the climate (the fact the Scottish Greens, now in coalition with the SNP, are fiercely anti coal further shows the irrelevance of his remarks in Scotland) he needed to reflect on the damage his remarks might do in the Red Wall.
In fact of the 100 top Labour target seats for the next general election over a third of them have some heritage of coal mining.
So clearly Boris' remarks are a boost to Starmer.
To rectify the damage Boris could point out his government is opening the first newdeep coalmine in 30 years in Cumbria
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/02/first-new-deep-coalmine-in-uk-for-30-years-gets-green-light
1 -
It definitely was.LostPassword said:
I don't think that's right. I reckon in 1920 it would definitely have been possible to generate electricity from wind turbines.JosiasJessop said:
I love the way you have to get 'Tory' in there, as if the problem was solely down to them.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article
But your comment leads to a question: what alternative was there back then? Even with the climate crisis, was the energy expended to get the world where it is today, worth the damage to the environment? The pace of technological change in the last hundred years has been phenomenal, and life has never been better for billions.
If we had banned steam power in 1920, where would we be today? We did not have the technology to go green back then, and without plentiful electricity we would not have been able to eventually develop it.
The difference is that nowadays we have much better information on the damage was are doing, and the ability to do things about it: both directly and though mitigation.
Not much electricity, and not very efficiently, but enough to make a start with.
I'm not saying it would have been a good idea, but I think humans are ingenious on the whole, and a way would have been found.
https://www.renewableenergylawinsider.com/2011/07/28/origins-of-wind-power-mr-brushs-windmill-dynamo/
Wiki says that by 1908 there 72 wind driven generators in Denmark so leading the way even then.2 -
I don't think anyone wants coal back, nor the dirty dangerous work that it was.
It is emblematic of the decline in manufacturing industry and the employment stability of the communities around it, whether coal, steel, textiles* or shipbuilding. That transition to a post industrial society left a lot of lovers, even if we were winners as consumers. That is the globalisation that drove Brexit.
It is no coincidence that the old coalfields are amongst the most Brexity places in the country.2 -
As one who was interested and indeed involved in politics in the 70's and, although less so, in the 80's it was the lack of alternative work that was the problem.Stuartinromford said:
But that's Johnson's problem.IanB2 said:
It is simply further proof that his feet are bigger than his brain.another_richard said:I've not heard anyone mention the miners strike in real life for well over a decade.
And I doubt many people would want the housing estates and country parks to be turned back into slag heaps.
That said, Boris really shouldn't babble about things he knows little about.
Given that he's not going to stop babbling then he needs to do some proper preparation.
He can't help himself.
The core message- even by the standards of fossil fuels, coal is horrible stuff and the UK got it right to transition away from it- is pretty sound. The greeny Thatch line is more true than not true.
The reason this has blown up isn't that, though. It's the chuckle and the "thought that would wind you up". Both of which feel like ad libs, of the sort BoJo has done throughout his career. Many of them work in his favour, contributing to his"not one of them" persona. But some blow up and cause him a world of trouble.
And because the current Prime Minister has the judgement and self-control of a Jack Russell puppy, he can't filter the bad ad libs from the good ones.
It was 'just close the pits. On yer bike'.
We had, I thought, moved on from that. Some at least fishermen on the East Coast are now servicing wind farms and oil platforms.2 -
Our summer interns have been starting this week. They were apparently born in 2001, which is the very definition of "the future" and that is therefore not possible.Mexicanpete said:
Well there's a surprise!Philip_Thompson said:It seems like he was right to me. 🤷♂️
And in 2021, nearly four decades later, the environment is a bigger issue than the closure of the pits.
Although no doubt it would strike a nerve with Corbynistas on Twitter, I'm not sure who else would be offended.
PS as a child of the eighties myself, the thing that makes me feel really old now is to realise that the gap between now and the miners strike is about the same as the gap between the miners strike and World War Two. World War Two has always been history for me.
Anyway. Pah! As a child of the 1960s, my birthday is as close to Victoria's reign as it is to today!3 -
I think this is more likely to reinforce preexisting bias, those that hate him will take a view along the lines of OGH in the header. Those that like him will shrug it off as “Boris being Boris”. There’s very little middle ground with this man.1
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Netanyahu and Modi get on well with Johnson precisely because they actively harvest the right-wing racist vote in their respective countries. The left should not be scared off pointing this out by your hysterical fear of muslims.MaxPB said:
Racist Labour leaflets. Labour is institutionally anti-Hindu and anti-Semitic. Starmer continues to enable the racists in Labour.Tres said:
I seem to remember you getting quite offended about some Labour leaflets. Funny that.MaxPB said:This is weak. Among the pantheon of Boris japes I'm not even sure it rates in the top 100.
The perpetually offended will scream about their offence and everyone else will roll their eyes and get on with life.
This isn't shifting any votes.1 -
I disagree. Even by 1920, the local coal generators were generating massive amounts of power, and that was accelerating. Those turbines would have been small and generated tiny amounts of electricity. Industry was moving away from their own individual furnaces towards electricity - the National Grid project started in the 1920s. And you'd have problems with the intermittent nature of the power.LostPassword said:
I don't think that's right. I reckon in 1920 it would definitely have been possible to generate electricity from wind turbines.JosiasJessop said:
I love the way you have to get 'Tory' in there, as if the problem was solely down to them.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article
But your comment leads to a question: what alternative was there back then? Even with the climate crisis, was the energy expended to get the world where it is today, worth the damage to the environment? The pace of technological change in the last hundred years has been phenomenal, and life has never been better for billions.
If we had banned steam power in 1920, where would we be today? We did not have the technology to go green back then, and without plentiful electricity we would not have been able to eventually develop it.
The difference is that nowadays we have much better information on the damage was are doing, and the ability to do things about it: both directly and though mitigation.
Not much electricity, and not very efficiently, but enough to make a start with.
I'm not saying it would have been a good idea, but I think humans are ingenious on the whole, and a way would have been found.
It would have destroyed industry. That would have been good for the environment, but rather poor for the people.2 -
Disastrous blunder from Boris. I personally know some working-class Tories of many decades standing. They loved Maggie, thought Scargill was a maniac, but still had considerable sympathy with the miners and were saddened by the sight of a great and ancient British industry laid to rest. They just consoled themselves with the notion that time moves on. So what will the Red Wallers be thinking about Boris's flippant and gratuitous mockery?0
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A lot of lovers? Is that because people had much more time on their hands?Foxy said:I don't think anyone wants coal back, nor the dirty dangerous work that it was.
It is emblematic of the decline in manufacturing industry and the employment stability of the communities around it, whether coal, steel, textiles* or shipbuilding. That transition to a post industrial society left a lot of lovers, even if we were winners as consumers. That is the globalisation that drove Brexit.
It is no coincidence that the old coalfields are amongst the most Brexity places in the country.3 -
There is a plaque at the Met Office, which commemorates Thatcher opening the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in 1990.JosiasJessop said:Thatcher and the climate:
I must admit, when I was a teenager in the eighties, the environmental crisis I remember was the hole in the Ozone Layer (which ISTR featured heavily in a Grange Hill plotline), rather than climate change. Tackling the Ozone Hole has been a rather brilliant international success over the last thirty years.
On Thatcher: in November 1989, she made a speech on CFCs and the climate to the UN's General Assembly, being the first major politician to do so:
https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107817
For instance, it contained the following:
"We are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere. The annual increase is three billion tonnes: and half the carbon emitted since the Industrial Revolution still remains in the atmosphere.
At the same time as this is happening, we are seeing the destruction on a vast scale of tropical forests which are uniquely able to remove carbon dioxide from the air."
In April 1989, she held a cabinet meeting on climate change, with scientists invited to give talks.
For legislation: in 1986 the legislation for the privatisation of the electricity sector included a commitment for the reduction in the use of fossil fuels - though this was seen as being for economics, rather than environmental, reasons. A 1989 act designed to help nuclear power was altered to include renewables.
As ever with politicians, and especially PMs, the truth is a lot more complex than just a one-sided story. She was not a climate heroine; she was not a climate villain - especially as the climate was nowhere near as much on the agenda as it is nowadays. But she deserves a heck of a lot more credit than the people who were cravenly calling for uneconomic pits to be kept open.
Sir John Houghton, who gave the talk on climate change to the cabinet you refer to liked to say that it was the first time an overhead projector had been used in a cabinet meeting - but that's a reference that won't mean much to the younger ones on here.
We really wasted a lot of time over the last few decades because right-wingers, instead of following Thatcher's lead and advocating for right-wing policies to tackle the problem, generally preferred the path of denial and decided climate change was a communist plot.
At least in rhetorical terms that has mostly ended now, but it remains to be seen if the policies will follow.3 -
Quite startling the growth of Twitter accounts with Israeli, Indian, US and UK flags in their profiles. Was a bit of a flurry of Brazilian flags as well but that’s diminished as evidence of Jair shitting the bed so comprehensively emerges.Tres said:
Netanyahu and Modi get on well with Johnson precisely because they actively harvest the right-wing racist vote in their respective countries. The left should not be scared off pointing this out by your hysterical fear of muslims.MaxPB said:
Racist Labour leaflets. Labour is institutionally anti-Hindu and anti-Semitic. Starmer continues to enable the racists in Labour.Tres said:
I seem to remember you getting quite offended about some Labour leaflets. Funny that.MaxPB said:This is weak. Among the pantheon of Boris japes I'm not even sure it rates in the top 100.
The perpetually offended will scream about their offence and everyone else will roll their eyes and get on with life.
This isn't shifting any votes.0 -
GB kicking butt in the cycling.0
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The first hydroelectric powerplant was installed in Wisconsin in 1882.Theuniondivvie said:
It definitely was.LostPassword said:
I don't think that's right. I reckon in 1920 it would definitely have been possible to generate electricity from wind turbines.JosiasJessop said:
I love the way you have to get 'Tory' in there, as if the problem was solely down to them.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article
But your comment leads to a question: what alternative was there back then? Even with the climate crisis, was the energy expended to get the world where it is today, worth the damage to the environment? The pace of technological change in the last hundred years has been phenomenal, and life has never been better for billions.
If we had banned steam power in 1920, where would we be today? We did not have the technology to go green back then, and without plentiful electricity we would not have been able to eventually develop it.
The difference is that nowadays we have much better information on the damage was are doing, and the ability to do things about it: both directly and though mitigation.
Not much electricity, and not very efficiently, but enough to make a start with.
I'm not saying it would have been a good idea, but I think humans are ingenious on the whole, and a way would have been found.
https://www.renewableenergylawinsider.com/2011/07/28/origins-of-wind-power-mr-brushs-windmill-dynamo/
Wiki says that by 1908 there 72 wind driven generators in Denmark so leading the way even then.0 -
Surprise surprise.. back to "slagging" off Boros again......3
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That's right, and this was how Castle Drogo was first electrified too.ydoethur said:
It was certainly possible to generate it from hydropower, and frequently was. That was how aluminium was first extracted in the Highlands, using water resources at Foyers and Fort William.LostPassword said:
I don't think that's right. I reckon in 1920 it would definitely have been possible to generate electricity from wind turbines.JosiasJessop said:
I love the way you have to get 'Tory' in there, as if the problem was solely down to them.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article
But your comment leads to a question: what alternative was there back then? Even with the climate crisis, was the energy expended to get the world where it is today, worth the damage to the environment? The pace of technological change in the last hundred years has been phenomenal, and life has never been better for billions.
If we had banned steam power in 1920, where would we be today? We did not have the technology to go green back then, and without plentiful electricity we would not have been able to eventually develop it.
The difference is that nowadays we have much better information on the damage was are doing, and the ability to do things about it: both directly and though mitigation.
Not much electricity, and not very efficiently, but enough to make a start with.
I'm not saying it would have been a good idea, but I think humans are ingenious on the whole, and a way would have been found.0 -
IMV the problem with the 1980s mine closures was that they were the latest in a long string of closures, dating back decades. Before then, when a pit closed, there was often one or more remaining in the immediate area. People would lose their jobs, but those who really wanted to mine could still do so. There were also more heavy industries that miners could move into.OldKingCole said:
As one who was interested and indeed involved in politics in the 70's and, although less so, in the 80's it was the lack of alternative work that was the problem.Stuartinromford said:
But that's Johnson's problem.IanB2 said:
It is simply further proof that his feet are bigger than his brain.another_richard said:I've not heard anyone mention the miners strike in real life for well over a decade.
And I doubt many people would want the housing estates and country parks to be turned back into slag heaps.
That said, Boris really shouldn't babble about things he knows little about.
Given that he's not going to stop babbling then he needs to do some proper preparation.
He can't help himself.
The core message- even by the standards of fossil fuels, coal is horrible stuff and the UK got it right to transition away from it- is pretty sound. The greeny Thatch line is more true than not true.
The reason this has blown up isn't that, though. It's the chuckle and the "thought that would wind you up". Both of which feel like ad libs, of the sort BoJo has done throughout his career. Many of them work in his favour, contributing to his"not one of them" persona. But some blow up and cause him a world of trouble.
And because the current Prime Minister has the judgement and self-control of a Jack Russell puppy, he can't filter the bad ad libs from the good ones.
It was 'just close the pits. On yer bike'.
We had, I thought, moved on from that. Some at least fishermen on the East Coast are now servicing wind farms and oil platforms.
But by the early 1980s, closures and amalgamations of mines meant that there might be only a handful left in any area. A pit closed, and the nearest was ten miles away. With the closure of that last pit in an area, the area lost massively, directly and indirectly to support industries. This was accompanied by the death of many heavy industries.
I love the way some people ignore all the mine closures that occurred before and after Thatcher. Simplistic people looking for simplistic, one-word answers to the problems in the world. 'Thatcha!'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_mining_in_the_United_Kingdom#/media/File:UK_Coal_Mining_Jobs.png1 -
I have a zero tolerance policy for national flags on Twitter. Doesn’t matter what the flag is a poster that puts one on their handle invariably has a point to push rather than a discussion. Like most of Twitter TBF but I tend to be persuaded more by people who don’t preadvertise their take.Theuniondivvie said:
Quite startling the growth of Twitter accounts with Israeli, Indian, US and UK flags in their profiles. Was a bit of a flurry of Brazilian flags as well but that’s diminished as evidence of Jair shitting the bed so comprehensively emerges.Tres said:
Netanyahu and Modi get on well with Johnson precisely because they actively harvest the right-wing racist vote in their respective countries. The left should not be scared off pointing this out by your hysterical fear of muslims.MaxPB said:
Racist Labour leaflets. Labour is institutionally anti-Hindu and anti-Semitic. Starmer continues to enable the racists in Labour.Tres said:
I seem to remember you getting quite offended about some Labour leaflets. Funny that.MaxPB said:This is weak. Among the pantheon of Boris japes I'm not even sure it rates in the top 100.
The perpetually offended will scream about their offence and everyone else will roll their eyes and get on with life.
This isn't shifting any votes.1 -
Your parental protectiveness towards this politician is something to behold. I don’t think I could ever be that invested in someone I’d never met.squareroot2 said:Surprise surprise.. back to "slagging" off Boros again......
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I tend to agree..DougSeal said:
I have a zero tolerance policy for national flags on Twitter. Doesn’t matter what the flag is a poster that puts one on their handle invariably has a point to push rather than a discussion. Like most of Twitter TBF but I tend to be persuaded more by people who don’t preadvertise their take.Theuniondivvie said:
Quite startling the growth of Twitter accounts with Israeli, Indian, US and UK flags in their profiles. Was a bit of a flurry of Brazilian flags as well but that’s diminished as evidence of Jair shitting the bed so comprehensively emerges.Tres said:
Netanyahu and Modi get on well with Johnson precisely because they actively harvest the right-wing racist vote in their respective countries. The left should not be scared off pointing this out by your hysterical fear of muslims.MaxPB said:
Racist Labour leaflets. Labour is institutionally anti-Hindu and anti-Semitic. Starmer continues to enable the racists in Labour.Tres said:
I seem to remember you getting quite offended about some Labour leaflets. Funny that.MaxPB said:This is weak. Among the pantheon of Boris japes I'm not even sure it rates in the top 100.
The perpetually offended will scream about their offence and everyone else will roll their eyes and get on with life.
This isn't shifting any votes.1 -
I think we're talking at cross purposes here.JosiasJessop said:
I disagree. Even by 1920, the local coal generators were generating massive amounts of power, and that was accelerating. Those turbines would have been small and generated tiny amounts of electricity. Industry was moving away from their own individual furnaces towards electricity - the National Grid project started in the 1920s. And you'd have problems with the intermittent nature of the power.LostPassword said:
I don't think that's right. I reckon in 1920 it would definitely have been possible to generate electricity from wind turbines.JosiasJessop said:
I love the way you have to get 'Tory' in there, as if the problem was solely down to them.StuartDickson said:
They knew what they were doing and they just went ahead and did it anyway. That’s where Tory greed gets you.IshmaelZ said:The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1912-article-global-warming/
Genuine 1912 newspaper article
But your comment leads to a question: what alternative was there back then? Even with the climate crisis, was the energy expended to get the world where it is today, worth the damage to the environment? The pace of technological change in the last hundred years has been phenomenal, and life has never been better for billions.
If we had banned steam power in 1920, where would we be today? We did not have the technology to go green back then, and without plentiful electricity we would not have been able to eventually develop it.
The difference is that nowadays we have much better information on the damage was are doing, and the ability to do things about it: both directly and though mitigation.
Not much electricity, and not very efficiently, but enough to make a start with.
I'm not saying it would have been a good idea, but I think humans are ingenious on the whole, and a way would have been found.
It would have destroyed industry. That would have been good for the environment, but rather poor for the people.
As I said, I agree that it probably wasn't a "good idea".
But in your comment you were suggesting that it would have been literally impossible. I'd argue it would have been more difficult, quite likely seriously sub-optimal, but it would have been possible.0 -
That was a rather emphatic win. Will that make Laura Kenny favourite for SPoTY?0
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I cunningly avoid flags on Twitter by having no idea how to add them and no interest in finding out.1
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It's all been downhill since they beat Bolton in that League Cup.squareroot2 said:Surprise surprise.. back to "slagging" off Boros again......
2
