NPR

Rinkals wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 5:00 am

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Mon Mar 15, 2021 11:33 pm

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 15, 2021 11:13 pm Not the biggest fan of Ian Dunt, but his thread here on the Tory defence of the bill is a must-read. They are utter fucking cunts. Just a pack of lying, amoral, power-grabbing shitstains willing to sell the people down the river in order to get what they want.

https://t.co/cItBV2oeaI?amp=1

I don't know what you've currently got in the UK; but it sure as fuck isn't Democracy

I think the one thing that Trump and now Boris have taught us is that the checks and balances don't work if you are brazen enough; the checks hold nothing in check and the authoritarian thumb is firmly on the balances.

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:46 am

I like neeps wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:00 am

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:46 am

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co ... s-55331063

How it was reported at the time. Racism that amounted to "substantial" damages paid was seen as the racist being cancelled as one publisher didn't want to hitch their wagon to an obvious and now admitted racist. What a crock of sh*te this who cancelling nonsense really is. Welcome to consequence culture, Julie Burchill.

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 15, 2021 11:13 pm Not the biggest fan of Ian Dunt, but his thread here on the Tory defence of the bill is a must-read. They are utter fucking cunts. Just a pack of lying, amoral, power-grabbing shitstains willing to sell the people down the river in order to get what they want.

https://t.co/cItBV2oeaI?amp=1

Exclusive: Russian-Owned Firm Played Key Role In Downing Street Media Refit

The £2.6m project to prepare No.9 for White House-style TV briefings was described as “dodgy" by a senior MP.

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:22 am

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:08 am https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entr ... ssion=true

Exclusive: Russian-Owned Firm Played Key Role In Downing Street Media Refit

The £2.6m project to prepare No.9 for White House-style TV briefings was described as “dodgy" by a senior MP.

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:35 am Any reporter entering that room with a mobile device should be very worried.

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:35 am Any reporter entering that room with a mobile device should be very worried.

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:20 pm

SaintK wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:08 am

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 15, 2021 11:13 pm Not the biggest fan of Ian Dunt, but his thread here on the Tory defence of the bill is a must-read. They are utter fucking cunts. Just a pack of lying, amoral, power-grabbing shitstains willing to sell the people down the river in order to get what they want.

https://t.co/cItBV2oeaI?amp=1

I don't particularly like Dunt either but he's nailed it with that commentary
The unfortunate outcome of a government with an 80 seat majority.........they can do what they fucking well like!!!

SaintK wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:55 pm

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:20 pm

Who signed that off?

sturginho wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 1:50 pm

SaintK wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:55 pm

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 12:20 pm

Who signed that off?

That's not in the photo above, where does that come from?

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 2:09 pm

They are SUCH cunts.

SaintK wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 3:43 pm

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 2:09 pm

They are SUCH cunts.

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 5:38 pm In all of the furore over the protest element of the legislation and the shitty point scoring in relation to rape, the elements of the Bill further demonising and marginalising the Roma, Traveller and Gypsy communities have gone largely unnoticed. They are easy targets to feed to the public, though.

Democracy is in retreat, warns Dominic Raab

Democracy is "in retreat", the foreign secretary will warn as he sets out his vision for the UK's role in the world.

Dominic Raab will use a speech to argue that democracies face their greatest threat since the end of the Cold War.

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 5:38 pm In all of the furore over the protest element of the legislation and the shitty point scoring in relation to rape, the elements of the Bill further demonising and marginalising the Roma, Traveller and Gypsy communities have gone largely unnoticed. They are easy targets to feed to the public, though.

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Wed Mar 17, 2021 10:05 am Oh, the ironing...

Democracy is in retreat, warns Dominic Raab

Democracy is "in retreat", the foreign secretary will warn as he sets out his vision for the UK's role in the world.

Dominic Raab will use a speech to argue that democracies face their greatest threat since the end of the Cold War.

Dominic Raab has told officials in a leaked video call that Britain will seek trade deals with countries around the world that violate international standards on human rights.

The foreign secretary told staff in his department that only trading with countries that meet European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) standards would mean the UK missing out on trade with future “growth markets”.

In a question and answer session with Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) staff, a recording of which has been heard by HuffPost UK, Raab said: “I squarely believe we ought to be trading liberally around the world.

“If we restrict it to countries with ECHR-level standards of human rights, we’re not going to do many trade deals with the growth markets of the future.”

Rhubarb & Custard wrote: ↑Wed Mar 17, 2021 10:11 am

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 5:38 pm In all of the furore over the protest element of the legislation and the shitty point scoring in relation to rape, the elements of the Bill further demonising and marginalising the Roma, Traveller and Gypsy communities have gone largely unnoticed. They are easy targets to feed to the public, though.

Someone is going to need to point out where the concern is. At most it's unfortunate that their lifestyle is so significantly anachronistic in current society they just don't belong anymore. I've sadly had dealings with dozens of such groups now, sometimes those groups are largely the same block, and there's not one of them I can think of a nice thing to say about, or even an ambivalent thing to say about.

Their behaviour is appalling (by the standards of normal societies, not theirs).

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 17, 2021 10:26 am

Rhubarb & Custard wrote: ↑Wed Mar 17, 2021 10:11 am

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 5:38 pm In all of the furore over the protest element of the legislation and the shitty point scoring in relation to rape, the elements of the Bill further demonising and marginalising the Roma, Traveller and Gypsy communities have gone largely unnoticed. They are easy targets to feed to the public, though.

Someone is going to need to point out where the concern is. At most it's unfortunate that their lifestyle is so significantly anachronistic in current society they just don't belong anymore. I've sadly had dealings with dozens of such groups now, sometimes those groups are largely the same block, and there's not one of them I can think of a nice thing to say about, or even an ambivalent thing to say about.

Their behaviour is appalling (by the standards of normal societies, not theirs).

The concern is that the bill allows the police to confiscate their possessions if they think there might be criminal behaviour at some point in the future. It's absolutely ridiculous.

I understand the concerns about their behaviour. I also understand that they suffer a shit-ton of discrimination. And even the fucking police bodies thought all this was deeply unnecessary. They already proposed alternatives that are supported by the relevant communities, but the Tories just want to crack down (and to be seen as cracking down for their far-right supporters) on vulnerable minority groups.

Solving the problem of allowing Roma, Gypsy, and Traveller communities to live their lives alongside everyone else while reducing the friction (and yes, criminal behaviour) is not going to happen by fucking confiscating their vehicles & property and slinging them in jail because they might intend to park somewhere they shouldn't. It's a hugely discriminatory law.

Punish genuinely criminal behaviour which is already illegal under current legislation, don't criminalise minorities.

(edit: And that's not the mention that the ridiculous new trespass laws will affect everyone, essentially criminalising the act of walking on our country's land in favour of the elite few landowners)

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 17, 2021 11:27 am No, it's both. These proposed law changes directly target certain minorities.

Look, you don't solve the "problem" of traveller, roma, gypsy criminality - or the crimes against them - by making their way of life essentially illegal. Instead of closing down camping sites for them, more site should've been opened up. Now we're basically ensuring they will always be criminals in the eyes of the law. How the fuck is that a) humane or b) going to help them exist alongside other communities?

It isn't.

You might think they're scum who should be criminalised for their cultural heritage, but the majority of respondents to the Government's consultation on this disagree with you, as do the vast majority of police forces. The existing laws are good enough. This is making the problem worse, does nothing to help the crimes being committed *against* these communities, and will drive them into further criminality. It's authoritarian far-right garbage, red meat to the racists.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesman, and Allegra Stratton, his press secretary, were unable to to give more details of what Boris Johnson thinks needs to be done to bring about the “cultural and social change in attitudes” towards women that he said was needed at PMQs. (See 1.33pm.)
They also sidestepped questions about misogynist comments made by Johnson in his previous career as a journalist.
But Stratton insisted that Johnson has a “strong record” on measures to protect women. She said:
If you look back to 2009, when he was London mayor, he launched a call to action to end violence against women. And that was first ever strategy of its kind for a major city.
It saw him quadrupling funding for rape crisis provision and opening three new centres in London, and a host of other measures ...
So this was “not something to which the prime minister has been recently converted”, she claimed.

The prime minister's former aide, Dominic Cummings, has criticised the Department of Health as "a smoking ruin in terms of procurement and PPE" at the start of the pandemic.
...
He said: "In spring 2020 you had a situation where the Department for Health was just a smoking ruin in terms of procurement and PPE and all of that, you had serious problems with the funding bureaucracy for therapeutics on Covid."
...
"We had to have it authorised very directly by the prime minister and say strip away all the normal nonsense that we can see is holding back funding."

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Wed Mar 17, 2021 4:48 pm

The prime minister's former aide, Dominic Cummings, has criticised the Department of Health as "a smoking ruin in terms of procurement and PPE" at the start of the pandemic.
...
He said: "In spring 2020 you had a situation where the Department for Health was just a smoking ruin in terms of procurement and PPE and all of that, you had serious problems with the funding bureaucracy for therapeutics on Covid."
...
"We had to have it authorised very directly by the prime minister and say strip away all the normal nonsense that we can see is holding back funding."

In other words the DoH had to follow the required protocol of putting it out to tender and evaluating VFM and cost effectiveness, rather than just handing the contracts out to some mates and party donors...

dpedin wrote: ↑Thu Mar 18, 2021 9:54 am

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Wed Mar 17, 2021 4:48 pm

The prime minister's former aide, Dominic Cummings, has criticised the Department of Health as "a smoking ruin in terms of procurement and PPE" at the start of the pandemic.
...
He said: "In spring 2020 you had a situation where the Department for Health was just a smoking ruin in terms of procurement and PPE and all of that, you had serious problems with the funding bureaucracy for therapeutics on Covid."
...
"We had to have it authorised very directly by the prime minister and say strip away all the normal nonsense that we can see is holding back funding."

In other words the DoH had to follow the required protocol of putting it out to tender and evaluating VFM and cost effectiveness, rather than just handing the contracts out to some mates and party donors...

Paul Nurse, Nobel Prize winning scientist seems to disagree with history graduate Cummings about this on Peston last night! Difficult to decide who to believe on this matter! In other news Cummings preferred candidate for head of Aria, Steve Hsu has stood down form his job in the states because of numerous complaints about him being a racist and eugenicist.

At the 5pm Downing Street press conference last night Matt Hancock, the health secretary, insisted that the shortfall was just a routine and he refused to acknowledge that it would make a material difference to people waiting for a vaccine. It was not one of his more convincing performances, and afterwards he was accused of not being honest with the public.
Overnight No 10 seems to have realised that the critics were right and that the original Hancock line would not hold. Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, has been doing the broadcast round this morning and he has been delivering a refined verdict; the vaccine rollout will be slower than expected, he said, although he insisted the key target dates would still be met. He told BBC Breakfast:
We are experiencing some supply issues so it does mean the vaccine rollout will be slightly slower than we may have hoped but not slower than the target we set ourselves.
We’re going to move forward as quickly as we possibly can but it won’t be as fast as we might have hoped for a few weeks but then we have every reason to believe that supply will increase the months of May, June and July.