UK Politics Thread XII: The Lockdown

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Keep an eye on the streets. They like to change.

Well in Eastern Europe that is actually not a crazy thing to say :p

Though actually during the invasion scare of 1940 to 1941 road signs were removed and swapped to confuse a hypothetical German invasion.

Maybe the government still wants to scare away the Germans :o

It won't help against the hordes of PRC'ians coming here to colonise England... half of them speaks only passable English and the other half doesn't at all. <.>

[The New California Republic]

Keep an eye on the streets. They like to change.

Well in Eastern Europe that is actually not a crazy thing to say

Though actually during the invasion scare of 1940 to 1941 road signs were removed and swapped to confuse a hypothetical German invasion.

Maybe the government still wants to scare away the Germans

In the UK all the train station signs were removed.

[Fartsniffage]

Well in Eastern Europe that is actually not a crazy thing to say

Though actually during the invasion scare of 1940 to 1941 road signs were removed and swapped to confuse a hypothetical German invasion.

Maybe the government still wants to scare away the Germans

In the UK all the train station signs were removed.

As well as signposts and mile markers.

There was also a captain sent to the USSR as a tank doctrine adviser after a decision was made to put up signs saying sheep should keep out of the roads in Southern England so military traffic was unimpeded. He asked a general how the sheep were supposed to read the signs.

[Celritannia]

Using a phrase to gain attention is sometimes a logical way of promoting something that should be condemned.

There are circumstances where that's the case. However, this is clearly not one of them. Dropping a ludicrous phrase as the entire response, and providing no commentary to give any supposed "ironic" context, leads to near-certainty that the discussion will primarily be diverted to the inaccuracy of the word choice. Which will in turn hamper rather than facilitate discussion of the more nuanced point you claim to have wanted to have made but didn't.

The conclusion is that either you made an illogical argument, or you meant your words to express one thing but it got widely interpreted as expressing something else. Given that this something else was what your words literally said, and multiple people of various political views interpreted this as being your meaning, a reasonable person would conclude that the fault lies with your communication rather than others' pedantry or failing to understand the workings of your beautiful grand strategy.

*Shrugs*

People can interpret it how they like.
I found it the right word to use.

[Bienenhalde]

So apparently we've reached "swimming in human waste to own the Libs" because EU regs were the only thing stopping companies dumping raw sewage into the sea.

The UK can issue its own regulations to stop sewage dumping. There is nothing to stop them.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

So apparently we've reached "swimming in human waste to own the Libs" because EU regs were the only thing stopping companies dumping raw sewage into the sea.

The UK can issue its own regulations to stop sewage dumping. There is nothing to stop them.

But will they?

[Gormwood]

So apparently we've reached "swimming in human waste to own the Libs" because EU regs were the only thing stopping companies dumping raw sewage into the sea.

The UK can issue its own regulations to stop sewage dumping. There is nothing to stop them.

"Dump it in EU territory, let those fuckers deal with it!"

[The East Marches II]

The UK can issue its own regulations to stop sewage dumping. There is nothing to stop them.

"Dump it in EU territory, let those fuckers deal with it!"

Based and redpilled

[Greater vakolicci haven]

I do love a privatised Royal Mail.

Got a letter today and in their defence they did get the street number correct. Sadly they missed that the street name, town, city, and county were wrong. Not sure how that's even managed?

Was the post code the same or very similar?

[The New California Republic]

I do love a privatised Royal Mail.

Got a letter today and in their defence they did get the street number correct. Sadly they missed that the street name, town, city, and county were wrong. Not sure how that's even managed?

Was the post code the same or very similar?

Postcodes in totally different areas are nigh on impossible to mix up...

[The Huskar Social Union]

Was the post code the same or very similar?

Postcodes in totally different areas are nigh on impossible to mix up...

Random side note, Northern Ireland uses BT as the post code for the entire region. For such a long time i thought Scotland etc would have had just one postcode too.

[The New California Republic]

Postcodes in totally different areas are nigh on impossible to mix up...

Random side note, Northern Ireland uses BT as the post code for the entire region. For such a long time i thought Scotland etc would have had just one postcode too.

NI is about the same size as the Perth postcode area.

[Novus America]

The UK can issue its own regulations to stop sewage dumping. There is nothing to stop them.

But will they?

The thing is the EU is clearly not solving the problem either as this has been going on for years.

What is really needed is infrastructure investment, regulations alone will not fix aging, overused Victorian era sewers, you need to actually spend money.

[Fartsniffage]

I do love a privatised Royal Mail.

Got a letter today and in their defence they did get the street number correct. Sadly they missed that the street name, town, city, and county were wrong. Not sure how that's even managed?

Was the post code the same or very similar?

Really not. The postcode even had one more letter than mine.

[The New California Republic]

Was the post code the same or very similar?

Really not. The postcode even had one more letter than mine.

The only thing I can think of is that the OCR on the sorting machine misread the postcode, if it wasn't manually sorted that is. But then again you'd think the postie delivering it would have noticed it.

[Celritannia]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/vi ... ress-video

They are afraid of the press, or rather, any press that isn't a media baron with offshore bank accounts and don't reside in the UK.

[The New California Republic]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2020/feb/04/laughter-erupts-as-tory-mp-claims-government-is-committed-to-open-dealings-with-press-video

They are afraid of the press, or rather, any press that isn't a media baron with offshore bank accounts and don't reside in the UK.

It's a shame to see that they are taking a page out of Trump's book, as he started doing that.

[Greater vakolicci haven]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2020/feb/04/laughter-erupts-as-tory-mp-claims-government-is-committed-to-open-dealings-with-press-video

They are afraid of the press, or rather, any press that isn't a media baron with offshore bank accounts and don't reside in the UK.

People who weren't invited didn't get to attend.

[Fartsniffage]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2020/feb/04/laughter-erupts-as-tory-mp-claims-government-is-committed-to-open-dealings-with-press-video

They are afraid of the press, or rather, any press that isn't a media baron with offshore bank accounts and don't reside in the UK.

People who weren't invited didn't get to attend.

No one attended. Because those who were invited walked out. Even the evil parasites that make up the British press thought this was wrong.

[The New California Republic]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2020/feb/04/laughter-erupts-as-tory-mp-claims-government-is-committed-to-open-dealings-with-press-video

They are afraid of the press, or rather, any press that isn't a media baron with offshore bank accounts and don't reside in the UK.

People who weren't invited didn't get to attend.

Barring certain journalists from press briefings negatively affects both freedom of the press and government transparency.

[Celritannia]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2020/feb/04/laughter-erupts-as-tory-mp-claims-government-is-committed-to-open-dealings-with-press-video

They are afraid of the press, or rather, any press that isn't a media baron with offshore bank accounts and don't reside in the UK.

People who weren't invited didn't get to attend.

Media outlets must always attend press conferences so they can criticise and report on the Government's actions. Otherwise, how do we hold our politicians to account?

[Hirota]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2020/feb/04/laughter-erupts-as-tory-mp-claims-government-is-committed-to-open-dealings-with-press-video

They are afraid of the press, or rather, any press that isn't a media baron with offshore bank accounts and don't reside in the UK.

Curious they didn't invite The Independent and evening standard then. Curious they invited the beeb which isn't owned by a "media baron. Curious they invited the Guardian which also is not owned by a media Baron. Curious they invited the ITV which is a plc not owned by a single individual or group.

Almost as if these five examples prove the drivel in this particular claim.

A word of advice Cel, if people notice you have a habit of spewing drivel (or as you like to creatively call it "Using a phrase to gain attention") people will start pointing out the trend of a lack of anything resembling rational argument.

Media outlets must always attend press conferences so they can criticise and report on the Government's actions. Otherwise, how do we hold our politicians to account?

Barring certain journalists from press briefings negatively affects both freedom of the press and government transparency.

No one attended. Because those who were invited walked out. Even the evil parasites that make up the British press thought this was wrong.

Curious that some of these same journalists in "the lobby" have been actively trying to supress freedom of the press and transparency. If they are that determined to promote transparency then briefings should be broadcast and publicly available, not limited to their direct viewing to decide what gets communicated or not..

Look, it is certainly worrying the breakdown in the relationship between No 10 and the lobby for the reasons outlined (although this is hardly new, and it's not just the Tories with a grudge against the press). Thats a given. Press freedom is a universal liberty that needs to be upheld for all, whether the people in power like what publications say or not. Staging such a public show of excluding some journalists made Johnson’s team appear petty-minded and proscriptive – hardly a demonstration of its claim to be ‘the most transparent government in decades’. But some context is required.

The independent reports that:

It is not uncommon for politicians and their political special advisers to brief particular publications or journalists about their plans.

But it has long been the convention that briefings from politically neutral civil servants are conducted on a strictly non-partisan basis, with publications of all shades of opinion represented to ensure that readers and viewers are kept informed.

And they are right, mostly. The problem stems from a (maybe deliberate) miscommunication of who was hosting this particular briefing. SpAds are not politically neutral civil servants, and Lee Cain, is listed as a SpAd by the Guardian.

Also, just because "the convention that briefings from politically neutral civil servants are conducted on a strictly non-partisan basis" existed before does not mean that the convention is obligation.This appeal to tradition argument is fallacious, especially when I recall the Independent cheering when certain conventions were thrown out the window by Bercow.

Finally, Spads are not new. Howard Wilson brought them in back in the 60's.

[The New California Republic]

Scotland's finance secretary has quit hours before delivering his budget over claims he messaged a 16-year-old boy on social media.

The Scottish Sun reported that Derek Mackay contacted the boy over a six-month period, and told him that he was "cute".

When Nicola Sturgeon took office in 2015, he became transport minister, before being promoted to finance secretary following the 2016 Holyrood election. Many bookmakers had him down as the favourite to succeed Ms Sturgeon as first minister.

The 42-year-old was also a major figure in the SNP, serving as business convener for seven years, a role which saw him overseeing management of the party and chairing conferences and election campaigns.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51397956

[Hirota]

Scotland's finance secretary has quit hours before delivering his budget over claims he messaged a 16-year-old boy on social media.

The Scottish Sun reported that Derek Mackay contacted the boy over a six-month period, and told him that he was "cute".

When Nicola Sturgeon took office in 2015, he became transport minister, before being promoted to finance secretary following the 2016 Holyrood election. Many bookmakers had him down as the favourite to succeed Ms Sturgeon as first minister.

The 42-year-old was also a major figure in the SNP, serving as business convener for seven years, a role which saw him overseeing management of the party and chairing conferences and election campaigns.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51397956

So both Sturgeon's predecessor and likely successor have appearently been caught in flagrante delicto. But obviously it's only Westminster that is the problem. It's not been a great week for them.

[The New California Republic]

So both Sturgeon's predecessor and likely successor have appearently been caught in flagrante delicto. But obviously it's only Westminster that is the problem. It's not been a great week for them.

Also from the BBC article:

After thirteen years in office, the SNP does not have its troubles to seek.

There's the CalMac ferry order scandal, a public inquiry into hospital failures and a full review of the school curriculum amid concerns about underperformance in education.

And the party's former leader, Alex Salmond, is due to stand trial next month on allegations that he sexually assaulted ten women, which he denies.