Stop voting for fucking Tories

[SaintK]

Coffey is a useless piece of shite........everywhere she's been in government

There were xtraordinary scenes in the Commons environment commitee earlier when where Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, was being grilled by MPs now.
Despite representing farmers, she said “I am not going to pretend to read the editorials in Farmers’ Weekly” when asked by chair Sir Robert Goodwill if she had read an editorial which referred to her appearance as NFU conference as a “car crash”. She said this is because “I am into information and facts”.
She also launched a scathing attack on the author of the piece, Farmers’ Weekly editor Andrew Meredith, accusing him of “voting Liberal Democrat for a decade before joining Labour.” This is false; Meredith – a fine journalist, incidentally- tells me he has never been a member of a political party and seemed rather baffled by the personal attack.

Coffey also refused to respond to comments by Tesco CEO John Allan about food suppliers profiteering post pandemic, claiming not to have read or seen the remarks, which were aired on the Laura Kuennesberg show.
Additionally, she rejected the committee’s recommendation that she release an annual food security report because “it takes a considerable amount of time”.

[inactionman]

Coffey is a useless piece of shite........everywhere she's been in government

There were xtraordinary scenes in the Commons environment commitee earlier when where Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, was being grilled by MPs now.
Despite representing farmers, she said “I am not going to pretend to read the editorials in Farmers’ Weekly” when asked by chair Sir Robert Goodwill if she had read an editorial which referred to her appearance as NFU conference as a “car crash”. She said this is because “I am into information and facts”.
She also launched a scathing attack on the author of the piece, Farmers’ Weekly editor Andrew Meredith, accusing him of “voting Liberal Democrat for a decade before joining Labour.” This is false; Meredith – a fine journalist, incidentally- tells me he has never been a member of a political party and seemed rather baffled by the personal attack.

Coffey also refused to respond to comments by Tesco CEO John Allan about food suppliers profiteering post pandemic, claiming not to have read or seen the remarks, which were aired on the Laura Kuennesberg show.
Additionally, she rejected the committee’s recommendation that she release an annual food security report because “it takes a considerable amount of time”.

That's it love - stick your fingers in your ears, ignore everyone and it will all go away.

[Hal Jordan]

She's got form for ignoring advice and sitting on reports.

It really is a Government of None of The Talents. None of them seem to be on top of their briefs, they can't think on their feet and just say black is white in the face of all evidence, and woe betide if you're a female MP daring to ask them a question they don't like, because the first thing they say is how they don't like your "tone." Dripping in condescension and know your place, uppity woman.

[fishfoodie]

She's got form for ignoring advice and sitting on reports.

It really is a Government of None of The Talents. None of them seem to be on top of their briefs, they can't think on their feet and just say black is white in the face of all evidence, and woe betide if you're a female MP daring to ask them a question they don't like, because the first thing they say is how they don't like your "tone." Dripping in condescension and know your place, uppity woman.

Ordinarily, with this shower you'd just call them thick, or chancers, but she has a fucking PhD in Chemistry, that, I can assure, you they don't give you if you collect twenty cereal box tops !

So that makes everything she does, or doesn't do, much, much, worse than some fucking grifter like Shapps, because she does it with, "Malice Aforethought"

[Biffer]

Dominic thick-as-shit Raab at PMQs today.

Chris Bryant pays tribute to Paul O'Grady.

Raab calls him Paul Grayson and proceeds to complain about wokery.

Fucking prick.

[GogLais]

Dominic thick-as-shit Raab at PMQs today.

Chris Bryant pays tribute to Paul O'Grady.

Raab calls him Paul Grayson and proceeds to complain about wokery.

Fucking prick.

Was he thinking of Larry Grayson?

[dpedin]

Dominic thick-as-shit Raab at PMQs today.

Chris Bryant pays tribute to Paul O'Grady.

Raab calls him Paul Grayson and proceeds to complain about wokery.

Fucking prick.

Was he thinking of Larry Grayson?

Shut that door!

[SaintK]

Dominic thick-as-shit Raab at PMQs today.

Chris Bryant pays tribute to Paul O'Grady.

Raab calls him Paul Grayson and proceeds to complain about wokery.

Fucking prick.

Fucking useless prick indeed!

[GogLais]

Dominic thick-as-shit Raab at PMQs today.

Chris Bryant pays tribute to Paul O'Grady.

Raab calls him Paul Grayson and proceeds to complain about wokery.

Fucking prick.

Fucking useless prick indeed!

Boring git. He’d be better off with a bit of self-deprecating humour on the lines of he can’t be worth as much as Matt Hangcock.

[Line6 HXFX]

Sure the government's current climate change policy is to arrest everyone who protests and to build a human barrier reef of climate activist prisioners, in the sea.

Honestly thpugh what passes for humour in the chamber is total shit outside it.

Say what you like about him..Boris used to make me chuckle a bit.

[inactionman]

I utterly hate PMQs and the like. not only does it make the house look like a bunch of braying idiots*, it remains perhaps the most expensive way of achieving the square root of fuckall.

Does it actually drive anything, other than re-election prospects?

Some of the behaviours would get you a slap if you did it in public. Take mateyboy sat next to Mhairi Black - his guffaw at the ropy dig is just a shitty way to conduct yourself.



* I am acutely aware most of the house are actually braying idiots

[Paddington Bear]

Adversarial Parliament does not work in the era of 30 second social media clips. If you ever feel tragic enough to read Hansard from 40+ years ago, you can agree or disagree with what was being said but people were putting serious effort and thought into their contributions. Now it's all about having something to package up to get likes and retweets.

[Hal Jordan]

Dominic thick-as-shit Raab at PMQs today.

Chris Bryant pays tribute to Paul O'Grady.

Raab calls him Paul Grayson and proceeds to complain about wokery.

Fucking prick.

Black armbands and a minute's silence/applause at the next Northampton home game?

[SaintK]

It's a fucking pothole you morons.
Just like on every other road in the country after 13 years of government cuts to transport infrastucure and repair

[GogLais]

It's a fucking pothole you morons.
Just like on every other road in the country after 13 years of government cuts to transport infrastucure and repair

I can show him a bigger one than that.

[ASMO]

It's a fucking pothole you morons.
Just like on every other road in the country after 13 years of government cuts to transport infrastucure and repair

It's not a pothole, its just where that fat cunt on the left slipped over and landed

[SaintK]

It's a fucking pothole you morons.
Just like on every other road in the country after 13 years of government cuts to transport infrastucure and repair

It's not a pothole, its just where that fat cunt on the left slipped over and landed

[SaintK]

When you're a backbencher you don't even have a driver

Just fuck off you entitled, useless bastard!

[Hal Jordan]

I see that we're waging war on potholes. We've reached the part of the cycle that shall forever be recalled as The Cones Hotline Event Horizon.

[Line6 HXFX]

I remember all the pro tory stuff years ago, before they got in, from people who had deliberately forgotten, or who didn't know or who didn't live it. They seemed so charming these tories, we looked so unreasonable hating them so.
I am from one of the most economically deprived areas specifically because the Tories deliberately fucked us.
They looked us in the eye, measured us and fucked us. " All this heavy industry is crowding out modern, well paid industry, which will arrive here as soon as we get rid of it", 40 years later only 19% of those jobs have been replaced, with zero hour contract low skilled shit.
When you live in it, work in this dystopia, volunteer in it..see your friends die, or get addicted or become severely mentally ill from economic despair, and you learn and understand that the tories did all this deliberately. It is hard to imagine how anyone could do this to people.
But in the eighties we needed many more poor people, turns out of everyone has a decent living and a job.. inflation goes out of control.
The UK was an extremely poverty dependent country. When you realise this, realise if you have a few Bob, you need to treat people with nothing like shit, as your wealth is literally dependent on their penury and sufferring.
So their answer was of course, mass unemployment to increase the value of the pound on the money markets. Thatcher was a huge fan of the wacko Milton Friedman and his Monetarist ideas. So this was an act of deliberate and extreme callousness and vandalism that made the Post War invasion planning of Iraq look like thoughtful, well meaning and considered. Throwing millions of great, decent hardworking Britosh people into poverty and hopelessness was probably decided on a drunken coked up weekend. No party, no people that evil should ever be in power again.

Imagine, you destroy a countries industry (my whole town is only here because of Iron and steel, before this there was forests, wolves, the odd farm) , encourage them to go on the sick because there are no jobs, and never will be..and then you finger jab at them, scream at them, and call them lazy, knowing the English middle classes are so fucking resent'tardedthey would actually buy it.

It's exactly like hitting someone with your car backing over them for good measure, getting out and screaming "get up you lazy cunt".
This from people who have known nothing but priviledge all their lives.
Their whole ideology is just a pyramid scheme, and like all Pyramid Schemes the first thing they tell you is " the system is perfect"..so if you don't believe in it or don't benefit, you are not workihg hard enough or are lazy scum. They have created a perfect system, that protects their wealth and priviledge.. whilst taking yours and blaming you.

Think the root cause of nations problems is we can never understand how fucking evil, desperate, greedy, they are, and it always takes us by surprise, because we are not like them.
They are not like us.
They have to lie.
They hate us because we don't.

[dpedin]

When you're a backbencher you don't even have a driver

Just fuck off you entitled, useless bastard!

Is this quote real? If it is then Kamikaze can just feck off, and once he is there he can feck off again!

[TB63]

[geordie_6]

Looks like Suella de Vil is going for the Richard Nixon playbook on the Laura Kuenssberg show today, speaking for the patriotic, silent majority.

I'm sure she was questioned thoroughly by Kuenssberg of course...

[C69]

Looks like Suella de Vil is going for the Richard Nixon playbook on the Laura Kuenssberg show today, speaking for the patriotic, silent majority.

I'm sure she was questioned thoroughly by Kuenssberg of course...

Unfortunately LK was yet again toothless and let Suella off the hook about her comments about rape and immigration.
it was her fecking Government ffs. Lettting her get away with blaming Labour Councils. LK is vaccuous and not fit for her position.
Calling Braverman an honest politician.

[tabascoboy]

[yermum]

Great movie I watched it a couple of months ago and thought we are not that far off it.

Amazing tracking scene

[inactionman]

I remember all the pro tory stuff years ago, before they got in, from people who had deliberately forgotten, or who didn't know or who didn't live it. They seemed so charming these tories, we looked so unreasonable hating them so.
I am from one of the most economically deprived areas specifically because the Tories deliberately fucked us.
They looked us in the eye, measured us and fucked us. " All this heavy industry is crowding out modern, well paid industry, which will arrive here as soon as we get rid of it", 40 years later only 19% of those jobs have been replaced, with zero hour contract low skilled shit.
When you live in it, work in this dystopia, volunteer in it..see your friends die, or get addicted or become severely mentally ill from economic despair, and you learn and understand that the tories did all this deliberately. It is hard to imagine how anyone could do this to people.
But in the eighties we needed many more poor people, turns out of everyone has a decent living and a job.. inflation goes out of control.
The UK was an extremely poverty dependent country. When you realise this, realise if you have a few Bob, you need to treat people with nothing like shit, as your wealth is literally dependent on their penury and sufferring.
So their answer was of course, mass unemployment to increase the value of the pound on the money markets. Thatcher was a huge fan of the wacko Milton Friedman and his Monetarist ideas. So this was an act of deliberate and extreme callousness and vandalism that made the Post War invasion planning of Iraq look like thoughtful, well meaning and considered. Throwing millions of great, decent hardworking Britosh people into poverty and hopelessness was probably decided on a drunken coked up weekend. No party, no people that evil should ever be in power again.

Imagine, you destroy a countries industry (my whole town is only here because of Iron and steel, before this there was forests, wolves, the odd farm) , encourage them to go on the sick because there are no jobs, and never will be..and then you finger jab at them, scream at them, and call them lazy, knowing the English middle classes are so fucking resent'tardedthey would actually buy it.

It's exactly like hitting someone with your car backing over them for good measure, getting out and screaming "get up you lazy cunt".
This from people who have known nothing but priviledge all their lives.
Their whole ideology is just a pyramid scheme, and like all Pyramid Schemes the first thing they tell you is " the system is perfect"..so if you don't believe in it or don't benefit, you are not workihg hard enough or are lazy scum. They have created a perfect system, that protects their wealth and priviledge.. whilst taking yours and blaming you.

Think the root cause of nations problems is we can never understand how fucking evil, desperate, greedy, they are, and it always takes us by surprise, because we are not like them.
They are not like us.
They have to lie.
They hate us because we don't.

I was brought up in a New Town after my family were bombed out on London in WWII. There used to be a shedload of decent engineering and manufacturing jobs there, and plenty of decent facilities, but it's all Poundland distribution centres now and the town centre is a comparative wasteland.

I just can't bear going back to see it, but the most painful thought is that it just didn't need to be that way- there as no real practical reason why we couldn't sustain the high quality industrial work, it mainly came down to finance and lack of government investment.

I still spare a thought for the people in the old Welsh mining towns - Merthyr and the like. I went to Big Pit a few years back and chatted to one of the ex-miner tour guides. He was gutted that his kids simply couldn't live in the area with lack of opportunity and investment after Thatcher just pulled the plug, although he did admit to some slight comfort in that his son wouldn't be getting emphysema.

Thatcher was right to look to end coal mining, but utterly, hopelessly, negligently wrong in the way it was done -and the damage is still there to see.

[inactionman]

I'm not quite on board here.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with a numerate population, and to be frank it's not always a fun thing to do so it will always fall by the wayside against arts and sports. Having investment in extra-curricular sports and arts seems a better thing to do, rather than compare it to more life-skill based subjects.

I do think we should teach philosophy - teaching kids how to think and reason. Maths is ultimately just formal semantics for reasoning, but teaching reason and logic is just generally applicable. (I'm not advocating forcing kids to read the full collected works of Wittgenstein, just to teaching that basics of reasoning)

I'd also advocate more time on foreign language and culture, but there's only so many hours in day.

I feel a bit dirty defending Tories, but I just disagree with Pegg's premise. Teaching maths isn't turning people into data-driven automatons, and it's silly to express it that way.

[Biffer]

I remember all the pro tory stuff years ago, before they got in, from people who had deliberately forgotten, or who didn't know or who didn't live it. They seemed so charming these tories, we looked so unreasonable hating them so.
I am from one of the most economically deprived areas specifically because the Tories deliberately fucked us.
They looked us in the eye, measured us and fucked us. " All this heavy industry is crowding out modern, well paid industry, which will arrive here as soon as we get rid of it", 40 years later only 19% of those jobs have been replaced, with zero hour contract low skilled shit.
When you live in it, work in this dystopia, volunteer in it..see your friends die, or get addicted or become severely mentally ill from economic despair, and you learn and understand that the tories did all this deliberately. It is hard to imagine how anyone could do this to people.
But in the eighties we needed many more poor people, turns out of everyone has a decent living and a job.. inflation goes out of control.
The UK was an extremely poverty dependent country. When you realise this, realise if you have a few Bob, you need to treat people with nothing like shit, as your wealth is literally dependent on their penury and sufferring.
So their answer was of course, mass unemployment to increase the value of the pound on the money markets. Thatcher was a huge fan of the wacko Milton Friedman and his Monetarist ideas. So this was an act of deliberate and extreme callousness and vandalism that made the Post War invasion planning of Iraq look like thoughtful, well meaning and considered. Throwing millions of great, decent hardworking Britosh people into poverty and hopelessness was probably decided on a drunken coked up weekend. No party, no people that evil should ever be in power again.

Imagine, you destroy a countries industry (my whole town is only here because of Iron and steel, before this there was forests, wolves, the odd farm) , encourage them to go on the sick because there are no jobs, and never will be..and then you finger jab at them, scream at them, and call them lazy, knowing the English middle classes are so fucking resent'tardedthey would actually buy it.

It's exactly like hitting someone with your car backing over them for good measure, getting out and screaming "get up you lazy cunt".
This from people who have known nothing but priviledge all their lives.
Their whole ideology is just a pyramid scheme, and like all Pyramid Schemes the first thing they tell you is " the system is perfect"..so if you don't believe in it or don't benefit, you are not workihg hard enough or are lazy scum. They have created a perfect system, that protects their wealth and priviledge.. whilst taking yours and blaming you.

Think the root cause of nations problems is we can never understand how fucking evil, desperate, greedy, they are, and it always takes us by surprise, because we are not like them.
They are not like us.
They have to lie.
They hate us because we don't.

I was brought up in a New Town after my family were bombed out on London in WWII. There used to be a shedload of decent engineering and manufacturing jobs there, and plenty of decent facilities, but it's all Poundland distribution centres now and the town centre is a comparative wasteland.

I just can't bear going back to see it, but the most painful thought is that it just didn't need to be that way- there as no real practical reason why we couldn't sustain the high quality industrial work, it mainly came down to finance and lack of government investment.

I still spare a thought for the people in the old Welsh mining towns - Merthyr and the like. I went to Big Pit a few years back and chatted to one of the ex-miner tour guides. He was gutted that his kids simply couldn't live in the area with lack of opportunity and investment after Thatcher just pulled the plug, although he did admit to some slight comfort in that his son wouldn't be getting emphysema.

Thatcher was right to look to end coal mining, but utterly, hopelessly, negligently wrong in the way it was done -and the damage is still there to see.

Yeah, if you have reason to stay a few days in most English towns in the Midlands or the North, they're all very similar - dead industrial buildings on the outskirts, high streets populated by hairdressers, coffee shops, poundshops and charity shops. These communities were shat on 30-40 years ago and have had no help to try and get them back on their feet since. It can be done with the right political will and investment - East Germany is the example we should all look to.

[inactionman]

I remember all the pro tory stuff years ago, before they got in, from people who had deliberately forgotten, or who didn't know or who didn't live it. They seemed so charming these tories, we looked so unreasonable hating them so.
I am from one of the most economically deprived areas specifically because the Tories deliberately fucked us.
They looked us in the eye, measured us and fucked us. " All this heavy industry is crowding out modern, well paid industry, which will arrive here as soon as we get rid of it", 40 years later only 19% of those jobs have been replaced, with zero hour contract low skilled shit.
When you live in it, work in this dystopia, volunteer in it..see your friends die, or get addicted or become severely mentally ill from economic despair, and you learn and understand that the tories did all this deliberately. It is hard to imagine how anyone could do this to people.
But in the eighties we needed many more poor people, turns out of everyone has a decent living and a job.. inflation goes out of control.
The UK was an extremely poverty dependent country. When you realise this, realise if you have a few Bob, you need to treat people with nothing like shit, as your wealth is literally dependent on their penury and sufferring.
So their answer was of course, mass unemployment to increase the value of the pound on the money markets. Thatcher was a huge fan of the wacko Milton Friedman and his Monetarist ideas. So this was an act of deliberate and extreme callousness and vandalism that made the Post War invasion planning of Iraq look like thoughtful, well meaning and considered. Throwing millions of great, decent hardworking Britosh people into poverty and hopelessness was probably decided on a drunken coked up weekend. No party, no people that evil should ever be in power again.

Imagine, you destroy a countries industry (my whole town is only here because of Iron and steel, before this there was forests, wolves, the odd farm) , encourage them to go on the sick because there are no jobs, and never will be..and then you finger jab at them, scream at them, and call them lazy, knowing the English middle classes are so fucking resent'tardedthey would actually buy it.

It's exactly like hitting someone with your car backing over them for good measure, getting out and screaming "get up you lazy cunt".
This from people who have known nothing but priviledge all their lives.
Their whole ideology is just a pyramid scheme, and like all Pyramid Schemes the first thing they tell you is " the system is perfect"..so if you don't believe in it or don't benefit, you are not workihg hard enough or are lazy scum. They have created a perfect system, that protects their wealth and priviledge.. whilst taking yours and blaming you.

Think the root cause of nations problems is we can never understand how fucking evil, desperate, greedy, they are, and it always takes us by surprise, because we are not like them.
They are not like us.
They have to lie.
They hate us because we don't.

I was brought up in a New Town after my family were bombed out on London in WWII. There used to be a shedload of decent engineering and manufacturing jobs there, and plenty of decent facilities, but it's all Poundland distribution centres now and the town centre is a comparative wasteland.

I just can't bear going back to see it, but the most painful thought is that it just didn't need to be that way- there as no real practical reason why we couldn't sustain the high quality industrial work, it mainly came down to finance and lack of government investment.

I still spare a thought for the people in the old Welsh mining towns - Merthyr and the like. I went to Big Pit a few years back and chatted to one of the ex-miner tour guides. He was gutted that his kids simply couldn't live in the area with lack of opportunity and investment after Thatcher just pulled the plug, although he did admit to some slight comfort in that his son wouldn't be getting emphysema.

Thatcher was right to look to end coal mining, but utterly, hopelessly, negligently wrong in the way it was done -and the damage is still there to see.

Yeah, if you have reason to stay a few days in most English towns in the Midlands or the North, they're all very similar - dead industrial buildings on the outskirts, high streets populated by hairdressers, coffee shops, poundshops and charity shops. These communities were shat on 30-40 years ago and have had no help to try and get them back on their feet since. It can be done with the right political will and investment - East Germany is the example we should all look to.

In terms of investment in industry, Germany is indeed a very good example to look at.

[robmatic]

I remember all the pro tory stuff years ago, before they got in, from people who had deliberately forgotten, or who didn't know or who didn't live it. They seemed so charming these tories, we looked so unreasonable hating them so.
I am from one of the most economically deprived areas specifically because the Tories deliberately fucked us.
They looked us in the eye, measured us and fucked us. " All this heavy industry is crowding out modern, well paid industry, which will arrive here as soon as we get rid of it", 40 years later only 19% of those jobs have been replaced, with zero hour contract low skilled shit.
When you live in it, work in this dystopia, volunteer in it..see your friends die, or get addicted or become severely mentally ill from economic despair, and you learn and understand that the tories did all this deliberately. It is hard to imagine how anyone could do this to people.
But in the eighties we needed many more poor people, turns out of everyone has a decent living and a job.. inflation goes out of control.
The UK was an extremely poverty dependent country. When you realise this, realise if you have a few Bob, you need to treat people with nothing like shit, as your wealth is literally dependent on their penury and sufferring.
So their answer was of course, mass unemployment to increase the value of the pound on the money markets. Thatcher was a huge fan of the wacko Milton Friedman and his Monetarist ideas. So this was an act of deliberate and extreme callousness and vandalism that made the Post War invasion planning of Iraq look like thoughtful, well meaning and considered. Throwing millions of great, decent hardworking Britosh people into poverty and hopelessness was probably decided on a drunken coked up weekend. No party, no people that evil should ever be in power again.

Imagine, you destroy a countries industry (my whole town is only here because of Iron and steel, before this there was forests, wolves, the odd farm) , encourage them to go on the sick because there are no jobs, and never will be..and then you finger jab at them, scream at them, and call them lazy, knowing the English middle classes are so fucking resent'tardedthey would actually buy it.

It's exactly like hitting someone with your car backing over them for good measure, getting out and screaming "get up you lazy cunt".
This from people who have known nothing but priviledge all their lives.
Their whole ideology is just a pyramid scheme, and like all Pyramid Schemes the first thing they tell you is " the system is perfect"..so if you don't believe in it or don't benefit, you are not workihg hard enough or are lazy scum. They have created a perfect system, that protects their wealth and priviledge.. whilst taking yours and blaming you.

Think the root cause of nations problems is we can never understand how fucking evil, desperate, greedy, they are, and it always takes us by surprise, because we are not like them.
They are not like us.
They have to lie.
They hate us because we don't.

I was brought up in a New Town after my family were bombed out on London in WWII. There used to be a shedload of decent engineering and manufacturing jobs there, and plenty of decent facilities, but it's all Poundland distribution centres now and the town centre is a comparative wasteland.

I just can't bear going back to see it, but the most painful thought is that it just didn't need to be that way- there as no real practical reason why we couldn't sustain the high quality industrial work, it mainly came down to finance and lack of government investment.

I still spare a thought for the people in the old Welsh mining towns - Merthyr and the like. I went to Big Pit a few years back and chatted to one of the ex-miner tour guides. He was gutted that his kids simply couldn't live in the area with lack of opportunity and investment after Thatcher just pulled the plug, although he did admit to some slight comfort in that his son wouldn't be getting emphysema.

Thatcher was right to look to end coal mining, but utterly, hopelessly, negligently wrong in the way it was done -and the damage is still there to see.

Yeah, if you have reason to stay a few days in most English towns in the Midlands or the North, they're all very similar - dead industrial buildings on the outskirts, high streets populated by hairdressers, coffee shops, poundshops and charity shops. These communities were shat on 30-40 years ago and have had no help to try and get them back on their feet since. It can be done with the right political will and investment - East Germany is the example we should all look to.

It could be done, but we will focus all our investment on London instead.

[inactionman]

I was brought up in a New Town after my family were bombed out on London in WWII. There used to be a shedload of decent engineering and manufacturing jobs there, and plenty of decent facilities, but it's all Poundland distribution centres now and the town centre is a comparative wasteland.

I just can't bear going back to see it, but the most painful thought is that it just didn't need to be that way- there as no real practical reason why we couldn't sustain the high quality industrial work, it mainly came down to finance and lack of government investment.

I still spare a thought for the people in the old Welsh mining towns - Merthyr and the like. I went to Big Pit a few years back and chatted to one of the ex-miner tour guides. He was gutted that his kids simply couldn't live in the area with lack of opportunity and investment after Thatcher just pulled the plug, although he did admit to some slight comfort in that his son wouldn't be getting emphysema.

Thatcher was right to look to end coal mining, but utterly, hopelessly, negligently wrong in the way it was done -and the damage is still there to see.

Yeah, if you have reason to stay a few days in most English towns in the Midlands or the North, they're all very similar - dead industrial buildings on the outskirts, high streets populated by hairdressers, coffee shops, poundshops and charity shops. These communities were shat on 30-40 years ago and have had no help to try and get them back on their feet since. It can be done with the right political will and investment - East Germany is the example we should all look to.

It could be done, but we will focus all our investment on London instead.

Edinburgh doesn't do badly, to be fair.

I's say the issue is more to do with sectors, although the choice of sectors to back is is pretty much nailed on to benefit the landed gentry and City financiers and not the poor railway factory worker from Crewe.

[Paddington Bear]

I remember all the pro tory stuff years ago, before they got in, from people who had deliberately forgotten, or who didn't know or who didn't live it. They seemed so charming these tories, we looked so unreasonable hating them so.
I am from one of the most economically deprived areas specifically because the Tories deliberately fucked us.
They looked us in the eye, measured us and fucked us. " All this heavy industry is crowding out modern, well paid industry, which will arrive here as soon as we get rid of it", 40 years later only 19% of those jobs have been replaced, with zero hour contract low skilled shit.
When you live in it, work in this dystopia, volunteer in it..see your friends die, or get addicted or become severely mentally ill from economic despair, and you learn and understand that the tories did all this deliberately. It is hard to imagine how anyone could do this to people.
But in the eighties we needed many more poor people, turns out of everyone has a decent living and a job.. inflation goes out of control.
The UK was an extremely poverty dependent country. When you realise this, realise if you have a few Bob, you need to treat people with nothing like shit, as your wealth is literally dependent on their penury and sufferring.
So their answer was of course, mass unemployment to increase the value of the pound on the money markets. Thatcher was a huge fan of the wacko Milton Friedman and his Monetarist ideas. So this was an act of deliberate and extreme callousness and vandalism that made the Post War invasion planning of Iraq look like thoughtful, well meaning and considered. Throwing millions of great, decent hardworking Britosh people into poverty and hopelessness was probably decided on a drunken coked up weekend. No party, no people that evil should ever be in power again.

Imagine, you destroy a countries industry (my whole town is only here because of Iron and steel, before this there was forests, wolves, the odd farm) , encourage them to go on the sick because there are no jobs, and never will be..and then you finger jab at them, scream at them, and call them lazy, knowing the English middle classes are so fucking resent'tardedthey would actually buy it.

It's exactly like hitting someone with your car backing over them for good measure, getting out and screaming "get up you lazy cunt".
This from people who have known nothing but priviledge all their lives.
Their whole ideology is just a pyramid scheme, and like all Pyramid Schemes the first thing they tell you is " the system is perfect"..so if you don't believe in it or don't benefit, you are not workihg hard enough or are lazy scum. They have created a perfect system, that protects their wealth and priviledge.. whilst taking yours and blaming you.

Think the root cause of nations problems is we can never understand how fucking evil, desperate, greedy, they are, and it always takes us by surprise, because we are not like them.
They are not like us.
They have to lie.
They hate us because we don't.

I was brought up in a New Town after my family were bombed out on London in WWII. There used to be a shedload of decent engineering and manufacturing jobs there, and plenty of decent facilities, but it's all Poundland distribution centres now and the town centre is a comparative wasteland.

I just can't bear going back to see it, but the most painful thought is that it just didn't need to be that way- there as no real practical reason why we couldn't sustain the high quality industrial work, it mainly came down to finance and lack of government investment.

I still spare a thought for the people in the old Welsh mining towns - Merthyr and the like. I went to Big Pit a few years back and chatted to one of the ex-miner tour guides. He was gutted that his kids simply couldn't live in the area with lack of opportunity and investment after Thatcher just pulled the plug, although he did admit to some slight comfort in that his son wouldn't be getting emphysema.

Thatcher was right to look to end coal mining, but utterly, hopelessly, negligently wrong in the way it was done -and the damage is still there to see.

Yeah, if you have reason to stay a few days in most English towns in the Midlands or the North, they're all very similar - dead industrial buildings on the outskirts, high streets populated by hairdressers, coffee shops, poundshops and charity shops. These communities were shat on 30-40 years ago and have had no help to try and get them back on their feet since. It can be done with the right political will and investment - East Germany is the example we should all look to.

The Germans have let a lot of smaller Eastern towns die, understanding they needed to concentrate investment in more viable cities. Are we willing to do that?

[Paddington Bear]

This is really, really dumb. Our numeracy skills as a nation are embarrassing and it holds us back across the board. There’s no reason you can’t learn maths and be creative, and it is pretty insulting to people’s intelligence to pretend otherwise.

Of course most of us hated maths at school - it’s dull! 99% of school is dull and grinding, the question is whether it prepares you for later life or not. The English school system generally does a poor job of it, and improving our numerical skills would be a step to changing that.

[inactionman]

Excellent.

For all of us who think not polluting rivers and seas should be a relatively obvious thing to do, we've now got Therese on the case.

In just under an hour, the environment secretary, Thérèse Coffey, will launch the government’s snappily titled “plan for cleaner and more plentiful water”, which is ministers’ latest attempt to clean up rivers and seas across England.

I'm glad she's not too busy to do this, at least.

Must be very time-consuming, all this doing sweet FA.

[Biffer]

I was brought up in a New Town after my family were bombed out on London in WWII. There used to be a shedload of decent engineering and manufacturing jobs there, and plenty of decent facilities, but it's all Poundland distribution centres now and the town centre is a comparative wasteland.

I just can't bear going back to see it, but the most painful thought is that it just didn't need to be that way- there as no real practical reason why we couldn't sustain the high quality industrial work, it mainly came down to finance and lack of government investment.

I still spare a thought for the people in the old Welsh mining towns - Merthyr and the like. I went to Big Pit a few years back and chatted to one of the ex-miner tour guides. He was gutted that his kids simply couldn't live in the area with lack of opportunity and investment after Thatcher just pulled the plug, although he did admit to some slight comfort in that his son wouldn't be getting emphysema.

Thatcher was right to look to end coal mining, but utterly, hopelessly, negligently wrong in the way it was done -and the damage is still there to see.

Yeah, if you have reason to stay a few days in most English towns in the Midlands or the North, they're all very similar - dead industrial buildings on the outskirts, high streets populated by hairdressers, coffee shops, poundshops and charity shops. These communities were shat on 30-40 years ago and have had no help to try and get them back on their feet since. It can be done with the right political will and investment - East Germany is the example we should all look to.

The Germans have let a lot of smaller Eastern towns die, understanding they needed to concentrate investment in more viable cities. Are we willing to do that?

If you visit those towns in England, they're already dead.

Every region of East Germany now has a higher GDP per head than the UK. From a position of being a bankrupt former soviet state 30 years ago.

[Biffer]

Yeah, if you have reason to stay a few days in most English towns in the Midlands or the North, they're all very similar - dead industrial buildings on the outskirts, high streets populated by hairdressers, coffee shops, poundshops and charity shops. These communities were shat on 30-40 years ago and have had no help to try and get them back on their feet since. It can be done with the right political will and investment - East Germany is the example we should all look to.

It could be done, but we will focus all our investment on London instead.

Edinburgh doesn't do badly, to be fair.

I's say the issue is more to do with sectors, although the choice of sectors to back is is pretty much nailed on to benefit the landed gentry and City financiers and not the poor railway factory worker from Crewe.

Yes and no. The major infrastructure investments have all come out of the Scottish budget. Even the new Forth crossing wasn't deemed important enough to be critical National Infrastructure. But widening the A14 was.

[inactionman]

It could be done, but we will focus all our investment on London instead.

Edinburgh doesn't do badly, to be fair.

I's say the issue is more to do with sectors, although the choice of sectors to back is is pretty much nailed on to benefit the landed gentry and City financiers and not the poor railway factory worker from Crewe.

Yes and no. The major infrastructure investments have all come out of the Scottish budget. Even the new Forth crossing wasn't deemed important enough to be critical National Infrastructure. But widening the A14 was.

It's not really infrastructure - it's more the entire level of support offered to industry, much of which is dependent upon central government incentive and direction. For example, the ability of e.g. SME companies in engineering to raise finance and investment - there is little incentive for banks to lend, given the focus upon the broader fund management typically seen in the City which influences the expected speed and volume of return on investment (engineering will typically return lower and over longer term, so there's typically lesser appetite). I worked for Jaguar Land Rover after it was bought by Tata and they were experiencing a good degree of growth and job creation* - it's important to note that the engineers didn't change, what changed was the degrees and levels of investment in the business itself and in new car programmes.

Infrastructure is an enabler, but a slightly different question.


* eta - I'm referring to a period about 7 ir 8 years ago - I appreciate JLR isn't finding things easy at the moment but all auto industry is suffering, and JLR in particular is quite exposed to Chinese luxury consumers' spending.

[Biffer]

Edinburgh doesn't do badly, to be fair.

I's say the issue is more to do with sectors, although the choice of sectors to back is is pretty much nailed on to benefit the landed gentry and City financiers and not the poor railway factory worker from Crewe.

Yes and no. The major infrastructure investments have all come out of the Scottish budget. Even the new Forth crossing wasn't deemed important enough to be critical National Infrastructure. But widening the A14 was.

It's not really infrastructure - it's more the entire level of support offered to industry, much of which is dependent upon central government incentive and direction. For example, the ability of e.g. SME companies in engineering to raise finance and investment - there is little incentive for banks to lend, given the focus upon the broader fund management typically seen in the City which influences the expected speed and volume of return on investment (engineering will typically return lower and over longer term, so there's typically lesser appetite). I worked for Jaguar Land Rover after it was bought by Tata and they were experiencing a good degree of growth and job creation* - it's important to note that the engineers didn't change, what changed was the degrees and levels of investment in the business itself and in new car programmes.

Infrastructure is an enabler, but a slightly different question.


* eta - I'm referring to a period about 7 ir 8 years ago - I appreciate JLR isn't finding things easy at the moment but all auto industry is suffering, and JLR in particular is quite exposed to Chinese luxury consumers' spending.

Yeah, right enough.

The Germans have an advantage through things like the Landesbanks (SP?), regional banks with limits on their growth so they have to lend within their region. There have been some attempts to do things like Scottish Investment Bank and Green Investment Bank but as soon as they reach a certain size in the UK, there'll be a clamour to sell them off and then they'll just revert to more traditional models.

[inactionman]

Yes and no. The major infrastructure investments have all come out of the Scottish budget. Even the new Forth crossing wasn't deemed important enough to be critical National Infrastructure. But widening the A14 was.

It's not really infrastructure - it's more the entire level of support offered to industry, much of which is dependent upon central government incentive and direction. For example, the ability of e.g. SME companies in engineering to raise finance and investment - there is little incentive for banks to lend, given the focus upon the broader fund management typically seen in the City which influences the expected speed and volume of return on investment (engineering will typically return lower and over longer term, so there's typically lesser appetite). I worked for Jaguar Land Rover after it was bought by Tata and they were experiencing a good degree of growth and job creation* - it's important to note that the engineers didn't change, what changed was the degrees and levels of investment in the business itself and in new car programmes.

Infrastructure is an enabler, but a slightly different question.


* eta - I'm referring to a period about 7 ir 8 years ago - I appreciate JLR isn't finding things easy at the moment but all auto industry is suffering, and JLR in particular is quite exposed to Chinese luxury consumers' spending.

Yeah, right enough.

The Germans have an advantage through things like the Landesbanks (SP?), regional banks with limits on their growth so they have to lend within their region. There have been some attempts to do things like Scottish Investment Bank and Green Investment Bank but as soon as they reach a certain size in the UK, there'll be a clamour to sell them off and then they'll just revert to more traditional models.

Definitely. The Landesbank approach gives local industry greater access to funding, with more localised investment imperatives. We just don't have equivalent.

There are other things, too numerous to mention, that we don't seem to have much interest in. Just an example, which I raise as I recall you're engaged in research - UK University research is world class, but we just aren't effective in spinning out, in particular outside of the redbricks. My feeling, which is dated as I left the University sector more than 10 years ago, is that we bodge fundamental research (the sort e.g. EPSRC would fund) and applied research which should take these early findings and exploit, particularly in conjunction with (and often directed by) industry. You end up with a good researcher trying to start up a spin-off, against all odds, or a more industrial researcher not having any fundamental insight to exploit. Germany, by way of contrast, has things like Max Planck institutes for fundamental research, and Fraunhofer Institutes which are specifically industry-funded* for direct, industry-facing applied research and development. The remits are clear, the funding routes clear, the industry expectation clear.


* eta (again - I should proof-read) - the Fraunhofers are state-owned and baseline funded but they rely upon industry funding for the bulk of their work. They are amazing- I visited the Berlin one, and there was a 3D cove you could step inside and pretend to assemble a car.