L00b

Citizen or subject, matters not: you’re all paying for the pageantry just the same 😉

I’m certain that old world businesses at the time -especially the industrial type-that were long versed and invested in imperials, were howling. That is an interesting analogy because, to the exact contrary of Brexit, these principles were introduced to facilitate international trade, not to impede it. I don’t remember decimalisation and metrication removing people’s personal rights, however. So, probably a lot less distress, but just the usual reticence to change for the better from the usual luddites.

We’ve been members on here for nearly as long as each other -well over a decade- and exchanged countless times on threads. Heh 😏

What happened is, the Conservatives* successfully convinced enough of the population that all their woes were anyone else’s fault (-but the Conservatives’, ever), but that it would be jam for everyone tomorrow, right from the get go and every day since, whilst ripping up the social fabric wide open for exploitation by hardline neoliberalism and trousering about £100bn’s worth of taxpayers’ money for them and their mates. And the opposition has let them all along, most cynically so, expecting to ride popular discontent at Tory policies into no.10. *the persons currently standing in the political arena as such, who bear so little resemblance to Tories of old. Don’t believe me? Then why are the Conservatives still riding Liam Byrne’s “there’s no money left” joke (and it was that: a joke) and blaming socio-economic problems on Labour 13 years on, and still getting away with it? And why is Starmer now reneging outright on political pledges that he made *and signed and published* not even a year ago? Edit: rightly or wrongly, Bank of England is correct with that statement. You’re all poorer, you’ve got accept that and, more importantly, to internalise why that is, before you can have any chance of starting to make things better for yourselves.

So much so, that they have since gone NYSE for their IPO. Hey-Ho.

It’s more evidence, than a biased interpretation of a politician’s speech. You should know by now, that I am always very happy to play the long game. Witness the Ukraine thread over a year on, the Brexit consequences threads 7 years on, the Conservatives thread 4 years on, etc, etc, etc. Looking very much forward to continue well-well-well’ing as and when further evidence surfaces 👍🏻

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65420882 Sudanese doctor, Registrar at Manchester hospital for 4 years incl.through Covid, went back to help his family, refused repatriation. There I was, being told by your media that the NHS is on its ar5e with a recruitment crisis 🤪 Heh, f*** the claps: pay’s triple and weather’s nicer in Oz 👍🏻

Obviously enough, because they haven’t been in power for around 13 years. Less obviously, because the respective higher-flying echelons of the parties are probably just as influenced by the vested interests who profit from the inaction. Probably goes to explain why so many finance-heavy service sectors are least regulated in the U.K. relative to other, similar economies. E.g. the gambling industry.

Oh, you mean it could be propaganda, like those February takes on Biden’s interview?

It must be the season, we have local elections too coming up here in Lux. This morning’s haul: green and CSV leaflets and, unexpectedly, a full copy of country’s Constitution (high gsm, bound, quite high quality) from our Parliament. CSV guy looks too much like my soon-to-be-ex boss, so recycling. Same with the greens, just a load of well-greyed OAPs.

source: https://www.information.dk/indland/2023/04/forsvaret-bekraefter-rusland-specialfartoej-naer-nord-streams-spraengningspunkt?lst_frnt Well, well, well 😏

Let’s hope France drops all the British that it has rescued from Sudan into Rwanda. I’m sure the Foreign Office will get the joke 😆

Refer your recent thread about consequences of ramped up rethoric. This excusing of a Tory figurehead, long shown to be inexcusably poor at his ministerial appointments, is one of the more benign ones.

It’s statistically-proven cause and effect, and nothing that we haven’t seen before, including in the U.K. in recent times: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/2675052-areas-of-the-uk-where-more-people-voted-remain-saw-smaller-increases-in-hate-crime-following-historic-brexit-vote It is exactly the end result sought by those peddling the rethoric and ramping it up. Namely, authoritarians with a vested interest in exhausting their domestic populations into political apathy, but for the few more excitable idiots motioned into extremist action. Fascism never comes to the fore as fascism. It always comes to the fore as the contrarian friend, finger-pointing at all those others who have it better than you because they are different, whispering in your ear all along about all that jam that you could have tomorrow if it weren’t for those others.

Speaking of which, my notice is in, exiting current job in early June. The British group of 500+ persons, of which I am part/soon not to be, already down to a single physical office in the EU, will then be down to 3 persons (1,5 persons-equivalent, with experience factored in) qualified and entitled to represent its Fortune 50 clients before the EUIPO. And nobody whatsoever in a EU member state in which I am the only person qualified to act out of the entire group. That single EU office, of 45 staff, has ‘enjoyed’ a staff turnover approaching 37% since last summer. Enough said.

So do I, and there’s years’ worth of Corbyn’s own words, for me to have ‘found him’ and to stand by my opinion. As for Johnson and the Conservatives, don’t get me started about them (edit: plenty enough posts of mine on here about those, for you to look up the fact). Now where does that leave you?

😁

Do not mistake my dislike of Corbyn’s political person, for a tacit approval of Conservatives’ policies: I’d bin both in a heartbeat.

Same reasons he’s anti-Israel, anti-Ukraine defending itself, anti-… ‘The EU is a capitalists wet dream built to exploit the working class rah-rah-rah’ He’s an old guard, unreformed Trots with the thinnest of modern-day-labour veneers.

No worries + don’t be sorry, you didn’t misquote me as such 🙂

From the perspective of staffing (both NHS itself and non-NHS care sector) and availability of medicines, Brexit certainly has played a part, and continues to do so -increasingly- every passing day. Note I did not ‘praise’ Luxembourg’s healthcare system, so much as explain how it works as “another country’s healthcare system” 😉 Compared to the ‘NHS of old’, wherein everyone was seen about everything and cared for within reasonably short timescales, without ever getting the chequebook out, it’s not that good: you need a hefty cashflow capacity to finance the medical care upfront, you get refunded (pro rata State / medical insurance) afterwards…and that takes a while. €3k for the Mrs tooth the other week, €0 from the State, waiting to hear from insurer. That’s an outlier, note. Kid’s braces and orthodontics stuff over 2 years were 80-ish % refunded (though that came keen ofc, multi-€ks again). GP visit last week for the Mrs bronchitis: €80. At least the prescription was cheap: €23. Not even started the refund paperwork yet. Separate paperwork for State and insurer, submit to State first, then you can submit to insurer only once you’ve got state refund award. Nothing e-implemented yet on the State side, it’s *very* paperwork (actual, hard copy, original doctor invoices etc.) intensive. So yeah. Cover’s good (mostly, and much better than France next door). But you gotta earn it and work it, else you get sod all (system works fully on don’t ask-don’t get model, and don’t think of asking without all the paperwork and proof of payment…and then don’t think you’ll be getting 100% back either). But then, it is good (genuinely world class in terms of actual care), keeps people mindful of what healthcare actually costs (it does not get taken for granted, obvs), and generally incentivises people to get and stay fit (because who wants to lay out €ks and waste their leisure time making copies, typing refund letters and traipsing to the post office).

Ineos, the company founded and run by the British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, will build an electric version of its new Grenadier off-road vehicle in Austria. The electric version of the 4x4 will be developed with the Canadian car parts manufacturer Magna and production is scheduled to start in 2026. The decision means that the UK has missed out on building a second Ineos vehicle, after Ratcliffe, a vocal Brexit backer who is resident in Monaco for tax purposes, chose a French factory for the original Grenadier. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/17/jim-ratcliffe-ineos-electric-grenadier-austria?CMP=share_btn_tw

Starlink is not Ukraine's internet infrastructure, it's portable satcom that stands in as a ready-replacement for destroyed cellular network infrastructure. Musk donated a ton of Starlink gear to Ukraine, so that their military could still communicate and use commercial drones in combat zones in which Russia has destroyed 3G/4G network infrastructure. Heavily encrypted right out of the box, and as yet still unbreakable by Russia. It's been reported that Musk then throttled his Starlink gear in Ukraine to "stop WW3". That was the thicko-grade two-words slogan for Starlink geofencing the range of its gear to the Ukrainian border (so that the Ukrainian military cannot use it to control drones into/over Russian territory). All the same...doesn't make Musk any less of a 'warmonger' and 'armchair general' in trastrick's worldview: you know those thousands of videos of Ukrainian drones dropping munitions onto Russian vehicles and troops over the past year? Wouldn't have been possible without that Starlink kit. Thanks, Elon. All is not forgotten nor forgiven, far from it. But thanks where thanks are due.

Well, it’s his gear: I suppose that he can take back with one hand, what he gives with the other, for <reasons> I mean, it’s not as if the guy paid $44bn for a company 6 months ago, which is valued at $20bn today after spending that long under his ‘management’…right? 😉😏

Is that the same Elon Musk, who has been helping Ukraine from day one with his Starlink gear? That warmongering, armchair general Elon Musk? Speaking of ‘woke’, current indicting trends in the US indicate that it now means “not a kiddy-fiddling Republican politician”, in addition to earlier meanings of “not anti-abortion”, “not racist”, “not pro-arming teachers”, “not anti-civil rights”, “not <…> 😏