UK Politics: National shortage of incompetence pads

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I blame autocorrect, and I edited it, you cheesehead-adjacent hot-dish-breathed reprobate.

You know what. We're all thinking it. I'm just going to come out and say it.

Dante Jr. is technically an anchor baby. You and your sneaky wife, fornicating in a foreign land just so you could bring him back here in the womb to get him citizenship. All so you can be welfare queens and steal the white man's money.

This is almost as bad as when two women in the dating thread talked about accidentally touching butts with one another.

It's all sick and disgusting. And it's denying me my freedumb! 

[DanteGabriel]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You know what. We're all thinking it. I'm just going to come out and say it.

Dante Jr. is technically an anchor baby. You and your sneaky wife, fornicating on a foreign land just so you could bring him back here in the womb to get him citizenship. All so you can be welfare queens and steal the white man's money.

This is almost as bad as when two women in the dating thread talked about accidentally touching butts with one another.

It's all sick and disgusting. And it's denying me my freedumb! 

I really triggered you with the reference to your proximity to Titletown-of-the-Plains, eh?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 minute ago, DanteGabriel said:

I really triggered you with the reference to your proximity to Titletown-of-the-Plains, eh?

It was the hot dish line. I hate that shit.

I've heard you Filipinos like to have sex while not always being face to face, avoiding eye contact though.

You sick freaks! 

[DanteGabriel]

56 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It was the hot dish line. I hate that shit.

I've heard you Filipinos like to have sex while not always being face to face, avoiding eye contact though.

You sick freaks! 

Look, not for nothing, but one of my closest friends from grade 1 through high school was another athletic, wealthy, Democratically-aligned politically-active Caucasoid-passing Jew who confessed to me that, based on stuff he'd overheard, he was pretty sure he was conceived from behind.

Sorry for the digression, mods, I'm all done!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

24 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Look, not for nothing, but one of my closest friends from grade 1 through high school was another athletic, wealthy, Democratically-aligned politically-active Caucasoid-passing Jew who confessed to me that, based on stuff he'd overheard, he was pretty sure he was conceived from behind.

Sorry for the digression, mods, I'm all done!

Here in Minnesota, we call that fucking while listening to Prince. at least that's what my mom said when trying to explain the weird shit that would happen at his free public concerts in the 80's.

I'll always take it farther, mods! But not for tonight.

[mormont]

[mod] None of us are without sin when it comes to discussing other users rather than the topic, but at the same time, let's not. [/mod]

H - it's really good to see you. And as it happens, despite not being one myself, I do rather agree with you that there has to be a sane party for people with the beliefs and feelings you discuss. I wish there were. I remember back in the '90s and '00s a lot of discussion about the new intakes of Tory MPs and how ideological they were, how their selection was shifting the party to places it had never been. It's truly sad and frustrating to see it come to fruition now.

It's not even a coherent ideology: as I said a week or so ago, Johnson and his closest allies have in place of that a totemistic belief in British exceptionalism, a reverence for some woolly notion of 'common sense', and an aversion to detail, which they seem to think is unnecessary. Hence the prevaricating early on over whether to order pubs and clubs to close, and the preference to just sort of suggest that people might stop going to them instead - an ideologically driven approach that undoubtedly killed people.

[Alarich II]

When politicians talk about common sense, I always think of Descartes who opens his Discourse on Method with this great sentence:

Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. 

[mormont]

The latest from the Tory party is that we should all 'move on'. They don't seem to realise that there is no 'moving on' from this. This has already done political damage to Johnson that will be permanent. But it's also done damage to the COVID-19 battle that is unfixable.

Case in point: the message about having 'local lockdowns', a measure that Cummings' behaviour - which the same government want us to accept as perfectly OK - would completely undermine. It takes skill to discredit a measure in the same interview you introduce it.

I see also that 'friends' of Cummings are briefing the FT that he doesn't care how much damage this does to the Conservative party. I'm sure that'll go over great with the 39 Tory MPs calling for him to resign.

[Derfel Cadarn]

23 minutes ago, mormont said:

The latest from the Tory party is that we should all 'move on'. They don't seem to realise that there is no 'moving on' from this. This has already done political damage to Johnson that will be permanent. But it's also done damage to the COVID-19 battle that is unfixable.

Case in point: the message about having 'local lockdowns', a measure that Cummings' behaviour - which the same government want us to accept as perfectly OK - would completely undermine. It takes skill to discredit a measure in the same interview you introduce it.

I see also that 'friends' of Cummings are briefing the FT that he doesn't care how much damage this does to the Conservative party. I'm sure that'll go over great with the 39 Tory MPs calling for him to resign.

What’s interesting is, I believe in his ‘statement’ his answer to the accusation that he breached rules he had helped write was that he hadn’t written the lockdown rules, and wasn’t in favour of it (if I’m remembering correctly?)

Woulsnt surprise me, he strikes me as the sort happy to sacrifice lives. 

Not sure why someone didnt press him on did he believe the PM was wrong to lockdown the country. Make him either defend or publicly disagree with Johnson. 

[polishgenius]

Yvette Cooper has absolutely ripped Johnson's head off at the Liaison Committee. Now Hunt is kicking it around like a football.

[A wilding]

Totally predictable.

Frequent repetition of the meaningless catchphrase of the day; "time to move on".

Distraction headline grabbing announcement of a big new initiative that will turn out to be mostly smoke and mirrors. The infrastructure for this "test and trace" program is just not there yet, and this "local action" is just an attempt to distance themselves from future responsibility for it.

[williamjm]

5 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

What’s interesting is, I believe in his ‘statement’ his answer to the accusation that he breached rules he had helped write was that he hadn’t written the lockdown rules, and wasn’t in favour of it (if I’m remembering correctly?)

I remember him saying that he felt his family had been threatened after press reports that he was against lockdown but not commenting on whether those reports were accurate. It's possible he had a different comment elsewhere that I don't remember.

Previous reports from March/April suggested that Cummings was initially against locking down but after seeing the Imperial College modelling switched to supporting it (at least for other people).

11 hours ago, mormont said:

H - it's really good to see you. And as it happens, despite not being one myself, I do rather agree with you that there has to be a sane party for people with the beliefs and feelings you discuss. I wish there were. I remember back in the '90s and '00s a lot of discussion about the new intakes of Tory MPs and how ideological they were, how their selection was shifting the party to places it had never been. It's truly sad and frustrating to see it come to fruition now.

Agreed. I feel we'd be in a somewhat better position as a country with just about any other Tory leader from my lifetime even if I'd probably still find plenty to disagree with them about.

I was going to say 'any other Tory leader from my lifetime' but IDS might actually have been a worse choice than Boris.

[dog-days]

It's verging towards OT, but I've been listening to BBC Radio 4's The Great Post Office Trial, and strongly recommend it to everyone here. Each episode lasts 15 minutes. 

I'd read about the post office scandal previously in Private Eye and seen bits and bobs in the national news, but this series has really been bringing home how awful the whole thing was (is). The latest episode played an excerpt from what basically seems to have been an interrogation of a sub-postmistress by her manager - there really are no words. Horrific.  The Post Office should be licking the boots of all the poor people it's bullied and attempted to destroy, but remarkably I think it's still trying to cover its own arse. 

 

[Werthead]

Now a major row brewing over the BBC: Maitlis expressed disbelief on Cummings' behaviour and was promptly replaced on Newsnight for the evening, Kuenssberg made a defence of his behaviour and the BBC ignored it (although there's now been a flood of complaints about it).

Interesting to see how much time before the story runs out of oxygen. We have this contentious semi-opening of the country next Monday which is going to cause fireworks. I suspect the senior Tories are hoping to ride out the mess until then and hope the news cycle replaces it, but it's difficult to see how that will happen if even the right-wing press want Cummings' scalp and are prepared to fully commit to it (relations between Murdoch and Cummings - and BoJo - seem a bit icy at the moment, perhaps Murdoch feeling that Cummings' strategies are less reliant on cosying up to him).

[Heartofice]

Actually Maitlis wasn’t replaced on Newsnight it seems.

 

 

 

[Spockydog]

Considering Maitless signed off with, "See you tomorrow," on Wednesday night, this is just more of the same ill-considered bollocks.

And I watched Razzall last night. There was a distinct change in tone throughout the entire programme. 

[Spockydog]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

Kuenssberg made a defence of his behaviour and the BBC ignored it (although there's now been a flood of complaints about it).

She is a disgrace to her profession. Utterly awful human being.

[Heartofice]

10 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Considering Maitless signed off with, "See you tomorrow," on Wednesday night, this is just more of the same ill-considered bollocks.

And I watched Razzall last night. There was a distinct change in tone throughout the entire programme. 

Maitless has said she wanted the night off. Choose to believe her or not.

Whether you agree with Emily or not, she has taken it upon herself numerous times to editorialise when introducing the news , adding her opinion as statement of fact. That is why the BBC had to come out and issue an apology.

[Spockydog]

46 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

...she has taken it upon herself numerous times to editorialise when introducing the news , adding her opinion as statement of fact. That is why the BBC had to come out and issue an apology.

Shame they've never done anything like apologise for any of Kuennsberg's crimes against journalism.

[Heartofice]

7 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Shame they've never done anything like apologise for any of Kuennsberg's crimes against journalism.

Such as?

Also they probably apologised due to receiving over 18,000 complaints about Maitless.