alchresearch

As this was recently in the news I thought i'd give it another watch for the first time since it came out. ‘The worst film ever made’: how Sex Lives of the Potato Men broke British cinema https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/feb/20/the-worst-film-ever-made-how-sex-lives-of-the-potato-men-broke-british-cinema I certainly wouldn't call it ‘The worst film ever made’, and there were some awful bits in it. But it did have some funny non sexual scenes. 5/10

I'm sure Fred was based on Foghorn Leghorn

I've bought a few second hand books and they've come within 48 hours. New stuff from businesses taking much longer though.

Its going to be an odd one. I wonder how many will stay at home this time round. I've never vote voter apathy and genuine hate so high against all parties. You can't even give your vote to the Lib Dems these days.

Who is MacHine?

MPs bring it on themselves a lot of the time on social media. They post something inflammatory or just a plain lie and then disappear without answering legitimate questions from the electorate about why their claim isn't backed up. Rachel Reeves and her vague "windfall tax will pay for everything" is one that winds people up. Pretty soon people are going to get angry and take it out in person. I for one will smile if I hear Wes Streeting gets a beating.

Wrong. Again. It was the National Citizen Service - something completely different. And still going today https://wearencs.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Citizen_Service

BBC summed it up perfectly and what we all knew

That Trans cyclist is in the news again Trans cyclist Emily Bridges on legal fight against competition ban https://www.itv.com/news/2024-02-20/transgender-cyclist-emily-bridges-says-she-will-fight-competition-ban-in-court The funniest bit: How about all the real women who have to complete against him?

Start to list your item then at the bottom under POSTAGE - click "SEE POSTAGE OPTIONS" You can then select EXCLUDED LOCATIONS Also make sure you have "International postage - Send with the Global Shipping Programme" unticked

Psychopaths on parade: How National Service transformed the Krays into gangland thugs https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1305512/Krays-How-National-Service-transformed-twins-gangland-thugs.html

Pot, meet kettle: Gambling Firms Prey on the Working Class. Why is Labour Taking Their Money? https://novaramedia.com/2023/01/26/gambling-firms-prey-on-the-working-class-why-is-labour-taking-their-money/ Place your bets (pun intended) for the revival of Labour's "super casinos" or similar when Labour are back in power.

A few facts about RAAC: There are 32,163 schools in the UK. Only 234 have confirmed they have RAAC issues. Is that 0.7%? Out of those, only 119 of these schools will need one or more buildings rebuilt or refurbished where work to remove RAAC are more extensive and complex. The other 110 schools and colleges where work to remove RAAC will be on a smaller scale will have access to grant funding to pay for the work. While RAAC is an issue, it was one spun by Labour to have a dig at the Tories. But it backfired because shortly after we found that Labours modern BSF schools aren't fit for purpose - although many of us knew that back in the day.

Another PFI failure from a few years ago - was costing Amey too much to maintain Brum's roads, so they got out of it, Amey ‘agrees £300m settlement’ with Birmingham council https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/civils/amey-reaches-300m-pfi-settlement-birmingham-council-27-06-2019/

duplicate

A cut and paste from my post in the Labour thread. I'm finally pleased that the school PFI farce is coming to light. BITD you could see it was a disaster in the making. These schools looked lovely, but huge glass atriums of buildings cost a fortune to heat in winter, and cool in Summer. In a regular school if a window was broken, the caretaker would get a pane of glass and his ladder and quickly replace it. But in these new builds you need a special piece of glass and an expensive cherry picker. Network equipment that wouldn't be out of place in a high-end bank. No £300 HP network switches (the school standard) when you can buy a £1000 Cisco switch instead. I worked with one school that was getting new Dell computers. If they'd bought direct from Dell they were £329 each. But as it was under PFI they were forced to buy from their managed service provider, who bought from an IT supplier, who then bought from Dell. Price per machine £549. One consultant at a school said "we're going to give every staff member and student an ipad". Completely overlooked the cost of managing them. The school had to take on TWO extra full time technicians to manage all the losses, damage and handle loaners and chargers. The company managing the warranties which covered "accidental" damage had to cancel the contract as it was costing them a fortune and the school was out of pocket having to foot the bill. The PFI contracts bankrupting our schools are coming back to haunt Labour https://inews.co.uk/opinion/keir-starmer-labour-pfi-mistakes-2901882

Labour very quiet today compared to how vocal they were last week. I'm finally pleased that the school PFI farce is coming to light. BITD you could see it was a disaster in the making. These schools looked lovely, but huge glass atriums of buildings cost a fortune to heat in winter, and cool in Summer. In a regular school if a window was broken, the caretaker would get a pane of glass and his ladder and quickly replace it. But in these new builds you need a special piece of glass and an expensive cherry picker. Network equipment that wouldn't be out of place in a high-end bank. No £300 HP network switches (the school standard) when you can buy a £1000 Cisco switch instead. I worked with one school that was getting new Dell computers. If they'd bought direct from Dell they were £329 each. But as it was under PFI they were forced to buy from their managed service provider, who bought from an IT supplier, who then bought from Dell. Price per machine £549. The PFI contracts bankrupting our schools are coming back to haunt Labour https://inews.co.uk/opinion/keir-starmer-labour-pfi-mistakes-2901882

So if Labour can't afford the green policies and have done a U turn, why are they blaming it on "Tories crashed the economy"? According to Starmer, they did this in October 2022. Tories have ‘crashed the economy’ says Starmer amid calls for election https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/28/tories-have-crashed-the-economy-says-starmer-amid-calls-for-election So why is he using that tired old lie of an excuse now?

Aren't they just cancelling plans to develop CHEAP EVs? https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/honda-shelves-plan-co-develop-smaller-evs-with-gm-bloomberg-news-2023-10-25/

Like we did with Blair and his weapons of mass distraction.....

We won't because Labour have great plans to recoup loads of money from windfall taxes and stopping bankers bonuses and taxing private schools! They're also going to stop offering rail franchises to private companies when they come up for renewal and bring them back into public ownership. The Shadow Chancellor said it so it MUST be true! 🙂

https://pathetic.org.uk/unbuilt/m67_manchester_to_sheffield_motorway/

For the past 14+ years each has equally defended and attacked U turns in equal measure. The party making the turn would call it a wise decision not to blindly progress and waste money or resources. The opposition would just accuse them of flip-flopping. Its really quite pathetic from all sides. 2022: U-turn if you want to? How the Tories spent two months going backwards Rarely have so many major political decisions been reversed https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/06/u-turn-if-you-want-to-how-the-tories-spent-two-months-going-backwards A damning list of Rishi Sunak’s broken promises and screeching U-turns, from net zero to EU law https://www.bigissue.com/news/politics/rishi-sunak-u-turn-house-building-nhs-fines/

Miliband certainly thought so: 2015: Ed Miliband slams Government over 'devastating' sudden closure of Hatfield Colliery after 99 years https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ed-miliband-slams-government-over-5978358 But after jumping onboard the green bandwagon: Labour says it would stop Cumbria coalmine from opening https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/08/labour-says-would-stop-cumbria-coalmine-opening-ed-miliband

Interesting to see Labour MPs and their supporters jumping all over this. Its almost as if they have no policies, plans or redeeming features of their own and just need to keep pointing and shouting "look how evil the Tories are" in the hope that it will deflect from their inadequacies.