NPR

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 6:51 am

C69 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 10:36 pm Mel C was at the Tory conference earlier in the week speaking about sexual harassment coersion and abuse.

Giving or receiving?

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:33 pm

Margin__Walker wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 9:02 pm This Government is the shitshow that keeps on giving.

I was under the distinct impression that he swung the other way ?

Is he an equal opportunity harasser ?

From the details that it was; in a bar, at the confrence, & with his track record; I had this down as another, Pincher episode, but Truss was showing a rare piece of good judgement, & wasn't going to defend the infensible, & threw him to the wolves straight away.

Slick wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 8:13 am

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 6:51 am

C69 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 10:36 pm Mel C was at the Tory conference earlier in the week speaking about sexual harassment coersion and abuse.

Giving or receiving?

Might be worth reading up on what she has been through

SaintK wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 9:39 am

Slick wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 8:13 am

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 6:51 am

Giving or receiving?

Might be worth reading up on what she has been through

Quite!

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 10:43 am

Under Truss. the Tories are no longer governing for the nation. They are a sect and it's not even clear who they represent

Slick wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 8:13 am

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 6:51 am

C69 wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 10:36 pm Mel C was at the Tory conference earlier in the week speaking about sexual harassment coersion and abuse.

Giving or receiving?

Might be worth reading up on what she has been through

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 1:32 pm

Slick wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 8:13 am

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 6:51 am

Giving or receiving?

Might be worth reading up on what she has been through

I'm confident that I would derive zero utility reading anything about yet another so called celebrity.

SaintK wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 10:51 am

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 10:43 am

With a majority of 70+! They must be really shitting themselves

C69 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 10:18 am

SaintK wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 9:39 am

Slick wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 8:13 am

Might be worth reading up on what she has been through

Quite!

Indeed tbh she has been at the forefront of speaking up about domestic abuse.

The Tory creep's incident reportedly involved another man btw.
They really are a fetid sewer. Well tbh, they always have been but now people are speaking up.

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 6:49 am

C69 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 10:18 am

SaintK wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 9:39 am
Quite!

Indeed tbh she has been at the forefront of speaking up about domestic abuse.

The Tory creep's incident reportedly involved another man btw.
They really are a fetid sewer. Well tbh, they always have been but now people are speaking up.

Conor Burns sacked as minister after touching man's thigh, witness says

Allies of the MP claim he had injured his ribs the weekend before the party conference and was on heavy medication to manage the pain.

They suggested the prescribed medicine made the effect of the alcohol worse.

It is not disputed by the former minister's friends that he had been drinking or that he flirted with the young man who had joined him, who, we understand, was not known to Mr Burns.

The MP was sufficiently drunk that he had to later be taken back to his hotel by a friend.

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 10:30 am

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 6:49 am

C69 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 10:18 am
Indeed tbh she has been at the forefront of speaking up about domestic abuse.

The Tory creep's incident reportedly involved another man btw.
They really are a fetid sewer. Well tbh, they always have been but now people are speaking up.

Conor Burns sacked as minister after touching man's thigh, witness says

Allies of the MP claim he had injured his ribs the weekend before the party conference and was on heavy medication to manage the pain.

They suggested the prescribed medicine made the effect of the alcohol worse.

It is not disputed by the former minister's friends that he had been drinking or that he flirted with the young man who had joined him, who, we understand, was not known to Mr Burns.

The MP was sufficiently drunk that he had to later be taken back to his hotel by a friend.

Ah yes, the Roseanne Barr excuse; it was the drugs made me do it

I like neeps wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 1:58 pm Considering Burns was a Boris Johnson ally and we all know from the Pincher scandal his attitude to creeps we can safely assume he's been at it for a while.

The party of family values.

I like neeps wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 1:58 pm Considering Burns was a Boris Johnson ally and we all know from the Pincher scandal his attitude to creeps we can safely assume he's been at it for a while.

The party of family values.

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 2:46 pm

I like neeps wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 1:58 pm Considering Burns was a Boris Johnson ally and we all know from the Pincher scandal his attitude to creeps we can safely assume he's been at it for a while.

The party of family values.

His name was on the leaked Whips list of creeps, & sundry other offenders; so it's safe to say this isn't his first offence, & the Party was well aware of it, & it never stopped his re-selection, or elevation to the Cabinet

petej wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 1:44 pm

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 10:30 am

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Sun Oct 09, 2022 6:49 am

Conor Burns sacked as minister after touching man's thigh, witness says

Allies of the MP claim he had injured his ribs the weekend before the party conference and was on heavy medication to manage the pain.

They suggested the prescribed medicine made the effect of the alcohol worse.

It is not disputed by the former minister's friends that he had been drinking or that he flirted with the young man who had joined him, who, we understand, was not known to Mr Burns.

The MP was sufficiently drunk that he had to later be taken back to his hotel by a friend.

Ah yes, the Roseanne Barr excuse; it was the drugs made me do it

The thing is would they let plebs like us use that excuse?

The Treasury U-turns seem to be coming thick and fast this morning. According to a report by George Parker in the Financial Times, the government has abandoned plans to appoint Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary at the justice department as the new permanent secretary at the Treasury.

Until the end of last week Romeo had been seen as the clear favourite for the job. She was permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade when Liz Truss was secretary of state there and the pair developed a strong relationship. In part that may be because Truss identified Romeo as a fellow disrupter, not bound by Whitehall orthodoxy and convention.

SaintK wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 10:01 am ...........and another U turn in the Treasury as red hot favourite will no longer be appointed Permanent Secretary

The Treasury U-turns seem to be coming thick and fast this morning. According to a report by George Parker in the Financial Times, the government has abandoned plans to appoint Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary at the justice department as the new permanent secretary at the Treasury.

Until the end of last week Romeo had been seen as the clear favourite for the job. She was permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade when Liz Truss was secretary of state there and the pair developed a strong relationship. In part that may be because Truss identified Romeo as a fellow disrupter, not bound by Whitehall orthodoxy and convention.

Slick wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 10:06 am

SaintK wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 10:01 am ...........and another U turn in the Treasury as red hot favourite will no longer be appointed Permanent Secretary

The Treasury U-turns seem to be coming thick and fast this morning. According to a report by George Parker in the Financial Times, the government has abandoned plans to appoint Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary at the justice department as the new permanent secretary at the Treasury.

Until the end of last week Romeo had been seen as the clear favourite for the job. She was permanent secretary at the Department for International Trade when Liz Truss was secretary of state there and the pair developed a strong relationship. In part that may be because Truss identified Romeo as a fellow disrupter, not bound by Whitehall orthodoxy and convention.

Hmm, I've met her a couple of times and my view, which I have to say was widely shared, is that she was promoted well above her talents at DIT.

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 02, 2022 6:31 am

_Os_ wrote: ↑Sat Oct 01, 2022 6:08 pm

Another quite mysterious IEA man.

Singham is from London and was involved in Thatcherite privatisations in the late 1980s/early 1990s. He then disappears to the US becomes a dual national referring to himself as American and ends up deeply imbedded with the American right (lobbying/think tanks/Republican Party). This is where he headed up a project for Babson Global (connected to the Kochs), to create Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in third world nations. These are areas of low-transparency, low-regulation, low-tax, that are supposed to broadly get rid of democracy/human rights based law system/welfare to achieve high economic growth. It's the Chinese model but not really, because it ignores all the other factors in China's reform (which were more significant), only focusing on the SEZs element (which was a way for the CCP to obtain economic growth, without liberalising China more broadly). I'm not sure he really understands the SEZ concept. As far as I can tell all these projects failed or are failing, the one in Honduras has been written about widely.

He then pops up in the Uk again for Brexit, and finds a place in Tufton Street thinktanks, and the IEA. He ends up very closely associated with the ERG, because he told them what they wanted to hear. I remember reading an IEA paper by him in 2018 on his post-Brexit plan, basically it would all be easy and FTAs would hugely boost growth, there was so much wrong with it I remember not even knowing where to start as I read it. There's a good longform bio on that part of his career here. He was known to all the Brexit supporting Tory MPs and became an advisor to Truss when she was International Trade Secretary. Whitehall civil servants regarded him as a "total clown" and “like any of these Brexiteers, he comes up with these ideas that aren’t workable. He’s a good blue-sky thinker, but on the practicalities and details he gets blown apart.”.

Fast forward to today and Truss is crashing ahead with an unlimited amount of "investment zones", which it's unlikely don't have a straight line connection to Singham. He was quite influential among Brexiters immediately after the referendum (and before reality hit and it got difficult), and this was his idea even before Brexit and his return to the UK.

He's now delighting in the "howls of anguish from those who object to reform", the language of a revolutionary madman.

Never heard of this guy. Good shout to highlight him.

They added that before September’s “mini”-budget chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng twice tried to persuade Truss to limit the number of zones to 40 — with Treasury officials warning the prime minister the zones could create a tax liability of “up to £12bn” a year — but was overruled by Downing Street.
As a result, the government this week invited all upper-tier local authorities and mayoral authorities in England to apply to host an investment zone if they wanted one.
“The IZs have created a huge potential liability and the Treasury has been trying to demand a cap on the number,” a government insider said. “Kwasi [Kwarteng] tried twice, but was overruled and caved in to Liz who wants them everywhere — 100 or even 200.”

_Os_ wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 12:05 pm
Surely an advanced economy cannot be run like this? Just making it all up on the fly, with some false notion of cutting taxes always works. 100+ "Investment Zones" would put a lot of the UK economy into a blackhole where it pays no business rates for its premises, all investment is tax deductible (there's already a £1m Annual Investment Allowance, so this would just uncap the AIA and tilt the playing field in favour of large corporates), and there's no employer NI contributions. No one seems to have any clue if this would even create new economic activity or just displace already existing economic activity into the blackhole.

there's already a £1m Annual Investment Allowance, so this would just uncap the AIA and tilt the playing field in favour of large corporates

Biffer wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 2:28 pm

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 1:32 pm

Slick wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 8:13 am

Might be worth reading up on what she has been through

I'm confident that I would derive zero utility reading anything about yet another so called celebrity.

Torq in posting shite from a position of ignorance shocker.

We are all very surprised.

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 12:50 pm

_Os_ wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 12:05 pm
Surely an advanced economy cannot be run like this? Just making it all up on the fly, with some false notion of cutting taxes always works. 100+ "Investment Zones" would put a lot of the UK economy into a blackhole where it pays no business rates for its premises, all investment is tax deductible (there's already a £1m Annual Investment Allowance, so this would just uncap the AIA and tilt the playing field in favour of large corporates), and there's no employer NI contributions. No one seems to have any clue if this would even create new economic activity or just displace already existing economic activity into the blackhole.

Is any business dumb enough to invest in the current circumstance ?

Especially with this Government, not being likely to last long.

I just see localities re-designating where ever their biggest employer is, as the zone; so Sunderland will draw a line around Nissan, Derby around Rolls-Royce, etc, etc etc

The Employees will still pay their taxes, but the business won't, & the arse will fall even further out of exchequer receipts

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 1:31 pm

Biffer wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 2:28 pm

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Sat Oct 08, 2022 1:32 pm

I'm confident that I would derive zero utility reading anything about yet another so called celebrity.

Torq in posting shite from a position of ignorance shocker.

We are all very surprised.

I'm more that happy to remain entirely ignorant of her life. I'll leave the funding of Hello magazine to the likes of you.

_Os_ wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 12:05 pm An update on this little project, which it now seems is mostly driven by Truss. This from the Financial Times:

They added that before September’s “mini”-budget chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng twice tried to persuade Truss to limit the number of zones to 40 — with Treasury officials warning the prime minister the zones could create a tax liability of “up to £12bn” a year — but was overruled by Downing Street.
As a result, the government this week invited all upper-tier local authorities and mayoral authorities in England to apply to host an investment zone if they wanted one.
“The IZs have created a huge potential liability and the Treasury has been trying to demand a cap on the number,” a government insider said. “Kwasi [Kwarteng] tried twice, but was overruled and caved in to Liz who wants them everywhere — 100 or even 200.”

https://www.ft.com/content/a3aea4e6-0b2 ... 3629a3bc3e

Surely an advanced economy cannot be run like this? Just making it all up on the fly, with some false notion of cutting taxes always works. 100+ "Investment Zones" would put a lot of the UK economy into a blackhole where it pays no business rates for its premises, all investment is tax deductible (there's already a £1m Annual Investment Allowance, so this would just uncap the AIA and tilt the playing field in favour of large corporates), and there's no employer NI contributions. No one seems to have any clue if this would even create new economic activity or just displace already existing economic activity into the blackhole.

Biffer wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 1:39 pm Domestic abuse court cases aren't really a big thing with those magazines, but stereotyping people in the public eye is, so they seem quite suited to your mentality.

_Os_ wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 1:55 pm It seems obvious why Truss is a solar luddite.

1. Most UK agricultural land is pasture. Sheep can graze in solar fields, it's not true solar prevents farming. What the objection is about, is really the same as onshore wind, it's a Nimby objection by Tory supporters to solar regardless of utility/productivity/economic growth.
2. Distributed energy generation where smaller players have a stake (farmers), is a threat to those who own the UK's current energy system who (financially) support the Tories.

You can already see the outline of what will happen long term. When Labour get in they create a nationalised renewables based energy system, it works. Which gets attacked by the Tories simply because it exists and is owned by the state. When the Tories next get in they privatise it, the new owners squeeze everything they can out of it and reinvest not much. Through this entire process smaller players are entirely locked out, there is only the assets the UK state creates and those it decides to gift them to.

Rhubarb & Custard wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 2:51 pm Not all pasture if all that well placed for collection and distribution of energy, but plenty is. And solar panels don't seem to have much of a negative impact on the weight animals add when grazing in panelled fields Vs just grass, and interestingly when you get down to smaller animals like sheep it seems to reduce their requirement for water which is a big win, probably a shading thing but I don't know if anyone has signed off on the data for that (I'm not saying they haven't just I don't read many agri journals)

_Os_ wrote: ↑Mon Oct 10, 2022 1:55 pm It seems obvious why Truss is a solar luddite.

1. Most UK agricultural land is pasture. Sheep can graze in solar fields, it's not true solar prevents farming. What the objection is about, is really the same as onshore wind, it's a Nimby objection by Tory supporters to solar regardless of utility/productivity/economic growth.
2. Distributed energy generation where smaller players have a stake (farmers), is a threat to those who own the UK's current energy system who (financially) support the Tories.

You can already see the outline of what will happen long term. When Labour get in they create a nationalised renewables based energy system, it works. Which gets attacked by the Tories simply because it exists and is owned by the state. When the Tories next get in they privatise it, the new owners squeeze everything they can out of it and reinvest not much. Through this entire process smaller players are entirely locked out, there is only the assets the UK state creates and those it decides to gift them to.