The Conservative Party - Part Two.

[tinfoilhat 11]

3 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

Who said anything about food banks? Let's get back on topic shall we.

 

They are not special love.  Everyone has had to face price increases. Pensioners, students, anyone else in the working world not lucky enough to have some additional state hand out on top of their wages. We are just coming out of a massive worldwide pandemic. The government had to invest billions into trying to sort it out and we are still reeling from the massive disruption to our businesses, supply chains and staffing.

 

A small child will understand that's going to have an obvious effect on end prices and we are all having to manage.  

 

None of that detracts from the simple basic fact that the £20 extra per week was a temporary arrangement for a specific purpose. It's over. They need to get back to coping just like they used to -  everyone else is.  I am sure we will all like an extra £1,000 a year but hey this is a real world.

 

Sick to death of seeing this whiny exaggerated story across certain newspapers and TV shows.  

Love? Love??? 

 

Besides - they get £20 or they don't.  Its not a case of working a couple more hours either. I've been in situations where losing £20 would have been a disaster - not eating disaster. But I've full order books now. I'm alright. I could lose £20 a week and it won't hurt, which is fab.  

 

If I had a tax cut - and not that NI increase - I'd be even better off. I should get to keep more money. 

[catmiss 12]

For Universal Credit claimants, working or not, loosing £20 a week is significant when fuel and food inflation is looming, The governments call for higher wages will only increase costs for those in the gig economy or those unable to work. In the meantime fruit and vegetables are rotting unpicked, food standard pigs and poultry are to be culled on farm whilst food bank use is increasing. Britain has gone mad!

 

 

[El Cid 216]

17 hours ago, CaptainSwing said:

Here's another article making the same point.  Boris the Red Tory.

It could be said that saving the banks was a left leaning policy, but most lefties were not impressed.

They would have wanted the banks nationalising. As they do with the struggling energy companies.

Edited October 11, 2021 by El Cid

[Tony 10]

10 hours ago, CaptainSwing said:

Far from being a 'left leaning' policy, saving the banks was the classic example of neoliberalism in action.  The bankers get the rewards while the taxpayer takes the risks and pays the price - this 'corporate welfarism' is one of the things that distinguish neoliberalism from pure 19th century laissez-faire.

 

People might not have been impressed by the bailout, but I think they saw it as unavoidable under the circumstances.  What they were really unimpressed by was the decades of policy that produced those circumstances.

 

Some of the banks were temporarily nationalised, both here and in the US, but if it had been a 'left leaning policy' they still would be.

 

Meanwhile, back on topic, Will Hutton thought that the Tories were gravitating towards Keynesianism even before the pandemic kicked off [as always, I'll believe it when I see it]:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/14/this-tory-budget-is-keynes-reborn-will-hutton

 

Not that Keynesianism is 'left-leaning' of course.  Keynes himself was very much a capitalist.  His project was above all to stabilize capitalism, not to destroy it.  And to make it work for the majority of people - to that extent he was also a small-s socialist.

There are times when I really wish the Forum had the "Like" button switched on, just to make it easy to agree in passing without having to make a song and dance about it. So, while I'm making a song and dance, please have a thumbs up as well. 👍

[HumbleNarrator 286]

Well done Stephen Barclay for not caving in to Kay Burley on Sky News who tried 11 times to get him to apologise for the avoidable covid deaths.

 

I've got three things to say about this:

 

Firstly, most fair minded people know that hindsight is a wonderful thing and  won't  "blame" the government for Covid deaths.

 

Secondly, why don't news outlets such as Sky News stick to reporting news and asking questions, and accept interviewees answers instead of trying to manipulate them into saying they want them to say.

 

And lastly (a cut and paste from Wiki) - In December 2020, Burley admitted to breaching London's tier 2 coronavirus restrictions when celebrating her 60th birthday. Her actions allegedly included meeting up to nine individuals outside of her household, breaking the 11pm curfew, and socialising inside two restaurants and her own home. Burley was later suspended from Sky News until June 2021, and withdrawn from consideration for the Royal Television Society's journalism awards. 

Edited October 12, 2021 by HumbleNarrator

[tinfoilhat 11]

27 minutes ago, HumbleNarrator said:

Well done Stephen Barclay for not caving in to Kay Burley on Sky News who tried 11 times to get him to apologise for the avoidable covid deaths.

 

I've got three things to say about this:

 

Firstly, most fair minded people know that hindsight is a wonderful thing and  won't  "blame" the government for Covid deaths.

 

Secondly, why don't news outlets such as Sky News stick to reporting news and asking questions, and accept interviewees answers instead of trying to manipulate them into saying they want them to say.

 

And lastly (a cut and paste from Wiki) - In December 2020, Burley admitted to breaching London's tier 2 coronavirus restrictions when celebrating her 60th birthday. Her actions allegedly included meeting up to nine individuals outside of her household, breaking the 11pm curfew, and socialising inside two restaurants and her own home. Burley was later suspended from Sky News until June 2021, and withdrawn from consideration for the Royal Television Society's journalism awards. 

Hindsight my arse, plenty of scientists, commentators and people with eyes and functioning TV set could see what was happening in Italy and we happily carried on with arena concerts and racing festivals.

 

Even the money grabbing premier league thought they should take action before Boris Johnson.

[ads36 217]

1 hour ago, HumbleNarrator said:

Firstly, most fair minded people know that hindsight is a wonderful thing and  won't  "blame" the government for Covid deaths.

it was obvious, for weeks, that national action was required.

 

Johnson did nothing (he didn't even go to the meetings).

 

We knew that thousands of vulnerable people were dying in countries that had already been hit -  we had plenty of warning.

 

Johnson did nothing, Cheltenham, Football matches, large concerts, all allowed to go ahead

 

remember last winter? when the kids were sent back to school for one (!) chuffing day, before being sent home again.

 

This Government, Johnson's government, have cocked it up, time and time again. And now they're telling us that there was nothing they could have done better.

 

?!

 

we had  a headstart, of a couple of months, on the vaccines, remember the noise they made about that? but they squandered it, even now we have one of (the?) highest death-rates in Europe, at around 100+ per day. given that we're going into winter, and vaccine efficacy fades over time, should we be surprised to see that daily number rise significantly?

 

but they were very good at handing profitable contracts to their friends.

Edited October 12, 2021 by ads36

[Mister M 1,624]

1 hour ago, HumbleNarrator said:

Well done Stephen Barclay for not caving in to Kay Burley on Sky News who tried 11 times to get him to apologise for the avoidable covid deaths.

 

I've got three things to say about this:

 

Firstly, most fair minded people know that hindsight is a wonderful thing and  won't  "blame" the government for Covid deaths.

 

Secondly, why don't news outlets such as Sky News stick to reporting news and asking questions, and accept interviewees answers instead of trying to manipulate them into saying they want them to say.

 

And lastly (a cut and paste from Wiki) - In December 2020, Burley admitted to breaching London's tier 2 coronavirus restrictions when celebrating her 60th birthday. Her actions allegedly included meeting up to nine individuals outside of her household, breaking the 11pm curfew, and socialising inside two restaurants and her own home. Burley was later suspended from Sky News until June 2021, and withdrawn from consideration for the Royal Television Society's journalism awards. 

Nice bit of gaslighting and rewriting history.

Expect more of this from the Sun, the Express etc etc.

Next week: Brexit has been an unmitigated success.

[whiteowl 54]

1 hour ago, ads36 said:

it was obvious, for weeks, that national action was required.

 

Johnson did nothing (he didn't even go to the meetings).

 

We knew that thousands of vulnerable people were dying in countries that had already been hit -  we had plenty of warning.

 

Johnson did nothing, Cheltenham, Football matches, large concerts, all allowed to go ahead

 

remember last winter? when the kids were sent back to school for one (!) chuffing day, before being sent home again.

 

This Government, Johnson's government, have cocked it up, time and time again. And now they're telling us that there was nothing they could have done better.

 

?!

 

we had  a headstart, of a couple of months, on the vaccines, remember the noise they made about that? but they squandered it, even now we have one of (the?) highest death-rates in Europe, at around 100+ per day. given that we're going into winter, and vaccine efficacy fades over time, should we be surprised to see that daily number rise significantly?

 

but they were very good at handing profitable contracts to their friends.

Almost reminds me of something..... 🤔

 

 

[El Cid 216]

3 hours ago, HumbleNarrator said:

Well done Stephen Barclay for not caving in to Kay Burley on Sky News who tried 11 times to get him to apologise for the avoidable covid deaths.

The Government should appolgise for avoidable deaths, if they were unavoidable deaths, that is a different matter.

Its obvious that some countries did things differently, the Welsh Government for instance have COVID passports for large gatherings.

I believe COVID passports will not work and are unnessessary.

Some countries had workable lockdowns, ours was not really enforcable.

 

Politicians do sometimes need to be pushed to say the right thing. There should be an oppology for being a country with a high death rate. Schemes like the 'eat out to help out' made COVID worse by getting people mixing indoors.

 

We all know why our lockdown was late, our leader went on TV and spoke abour herd immunity.

[Mister M 1,624]

It doesn't bode well for the Independent Public Inquiry if ministers have their heads stuck in the sand refusing to accept the facts.

[steved32 55]

3 hours ago, ads36 said:

This Government, Johnson's government, have cocked it up, time and time again. And now they're telling us that there was nothing they could have done better.

Correct.  Not only was the government complacent, Boris the Clown was actually bragging about shaking the hands of hospital staff and patients just before the inevitable lockdown.

 

And now?  How convenient he's away on a jolly just as this damning report is published.  Coward.