British Politics
Been on holiday for a few weeks, surprised to find no general discussion of British politics so though I'd kick one off.
Tory leadership contest is quickly turning into farce. Trump has backed Boris, which should be reason enough for anyone with half a brain to exclude him.
Of the other candidates Rory Stewart looks the best of the outsiders. Surprised to see Cleverly and Javid not further up the betting, but not sure the Tory membership are ready for a brown PM.
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/bri...
Regarding the LD leadership contest, Jo Swinson is miles ahead of any other candidate (and indeed any of the Tory lot). Should be a shoe in.
Finally, it's Groundhog Day in Labour - the more serious the anti-Semitism claims get, the more Corbyn's cronies write their own obituary by blaming it on outlandish conspiracy theories - this week, it's apparently the Jewish Embassy's fault...
It's not exactly summer 1939 (everyone carrying gasmasks in cardboard boxes slung on string, Hitler planning the attack on Poland, Orwell -- at that time weirdly an ILP pacifist despite fighting for the Republicans in Spain -- writing essays about Henry Miller and, er, Billy Bunter).
Different but posssibly more extraordinary.
The alien anthropolgists may well have this as an era changing time and at a staggering pace. WWII a mere detail
We deserve better. The latest Jonathan Pie picks them apart pretty perfectly. 10% of time in office already, and exactly what done?
It's like cons don't want to help people, labour don't seem able to, so what the hell do people do?
unfortunately, many think about Reform.
So it just gets worse and worse.
I'm not really sure anyone deserves very much in life apart from a roof, water, food and heating. The whole "we deserve better" thing is part of the problem.
We welcomed Murdoch's toxic attacks on public figures because we enjoyed the tittle tattle while he set about undermining everything we used to appreciate about life here. If anything, we probably deserve what's coming.
It really should be a 'we demand better' movement
If we deserve anything, it's pretty much what we're getting.
We're certainly living in an age of entitlement. I listened to a Radio 4 phone-in yesterday on my way to work about the "care crisis". 30 mins of one entitled middle class voter after the next complaining that they (viz: their children) would lose their £500k property - wealth they did nothing to earn or create - IF they went into care.
I mean, so what? I guess unlucky if you do need care in old age, but why shouldn't you have to pay? If your kids are crying about their inheritance, they can always take care of you in old age, like, what happens in probably 90% of the world.
They want someone else to pay for their care but don't want to pay more tax. Selfish hypocrites.
I'm not listening to it but X is damning about Badenoch's apparent mauling by the dead sheep Starmer.
LOTO amateur hour
Badenough doesn't care about whether the police investigate and I doubt even starmer is useless enough to make the mistake of appearing to defend himself with it being too late to do anythngi about it.
Unless she learns very fast I'm not sure she's cut out for this role.
So that makes two of them.
Written before Trump was elected again - his brand of hateful politics will normalise hostility to minorities here too. It's deeply worrying and there's very little resistance to it among the main parties here.
Written before Trump was elected again - his brand of hateful politics will normalise hostility to minorities here too. It's deeply worrying and there's very little resistance to it among the main parties here.
Trump is 58% 'disliked' in the UK, according to YouGov, and UK parties, who watch these things, will be wary about that.
Labour won a landslide with 32% of the vote. Starmer, Streeting and the rest won't let anything like the meltdown of social cohesion get in the way of re-election.
What's more, on ~25% Reform are currently positioned very nicely indeed for the Labour party, causing great damage to the Tories while allowing FPTP vagaries to favour Labour, but that could easily swing in Reform's favour.
Andrew Gwynne seems like a nice guy
Symptomatic of how the encroachment of social media into people's lives has coarsened and vulgarised politicians across the board. Glad he's gone.
Seriously, where do they find these arseholes? Do they seriously have nothing better to do all day that post **** on WhatsApp?
Its no wonder Reform are topping the polls. People are just sick of either not being listened to or being talked down to by both main parties. Neither deserve to govern.
Not actually true that Starmer took the decision not to proceed against Savile at that time, or even knew about it till later.
"Public service" be like
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Former patients at Scotland's biggest children's psychiatric hospital have spoken out about a culture of cruelty among nursing staff.
Patients who were teenagers when they were admitted to Skye House, a specialist NHS unit in Glasgow, told BBC Disclosure some nurses called them "pathetic" and "disgusting" - and even mocked their suicide attempts.
"It was almost as if I was getting treated like an animal," one young patient, being treated for anorexia, said.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said it was "incredibly sorry" and has launched two inquiries into the allegations uncovered by the BBC's investigation
Not actually true that Starmer took the decision not to proceed against Savile at that time, or even knew about it till later.
MScbu18 is a worthless Trumper troll. Its best to scroll past his posts.
Talking of Trumpers:
Kemi Badenoch – ‘I will never get into bed with Farage’
Thanks Tony
Schools across a city are caught up in an increasingly bitter row over repairs, with some telling the BBC they've had to fight to get work done while paying "astronomical" charges over 25 years.
The Stoke-on-Trent schools are all locked into a multi-million-pound Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract, meaning they pay a company to keep their buildings in good condition.
The agreement is due to end in October, when schools fear the private firm will walk away, leaving behind a huge repair bill for work not completed.
BBC News has been investigating the row for more than a year, visiting multiple schools in the city, using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and analysing documents.
We can exclusively reveal 42 of the 88 schools involved are now withholding payments to the contract. The investigation also found:
35 of those schools received a letter from Stoke-on-Trent City Council threatening them with legal action in January
Schools were also told at the end of January that there was not enough money left to complete all the repairs required before the contract ends
None of the 88 schools in the contract have received any compensation for alleged failures, such as delays to repair buildings over the course of the 25-year contract
The contract was signed in 2000 between Stoke-on-Trent City Council and a firm called Transform Schools (Stoke) Limited (TSSL). It uses multinational company Equans to maintain the facilities.
The contract is the largest of its kind in England and will be among the first PFI deals in the country to expire. After the deal ends, the private company will have no further liability.
What happens next has implications for the expiry of almost 600 similar deals covering schools and hospitals across England.
Stoke City Council said its priority was to get the schools handed over "safe, warm and dry", while the main contractor engaged under the PFI contract, Equans, said the buildings had been well maintained.
