NPR

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 12:02 pm

Slick wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 11:43 am

Asked what he would have done if he had received text messages like this when he was prime minister, Blair said that when he was in Downing Street he never had a mobile phone. He was now “extremely grateful” for that, he said

He also said, and it's a little more relevant than his mobile phone ownership:

We were in the middle of a pandemic. After all, we were asking James Dyson to step forward and start making ventilators. I find it hard to get worked up about this. There's got to be a certain degree of understanding: if you are in the middle of a huge crisis like this, people are going to be using every means they can to make sure they respond to the immediate crisis

Except the Tories weren't; "using every means"; because, despite the offer, they very deliberately ignored the massive EU scheme to manufacture ventilators.

Slick wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 12:14 pm

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 12:02 pm

Slick wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 11:43 am

He also said, and it's a little more relevant than his mobile phone ownership:

Except the Tories weren't; "using every means"; because, despite the offer, they very deliberately ignored the massive EU scheme to manufacture ventilators.

So they should have followed the EU vaccination program?

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 12:19 pm

Slick wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 12:14 pm

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 12:02 pm

Except the Tories weren't; "using every means"; because, despite the offer, they very deliberately ignored the massive EU scheme to manufacture ventilators.

So they should have followed the EU vaccination program?

Are you going to follow the bimbot playbook & just fling shit; or genuinely engage in the discussion ?

Paddington Bear wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 1:14 pm If anyone read Bingham’s interview with the FT, the EU Vaccine scheme offered us essentially observer status with no control over how many and when we’d get vaccines. No reason to suggest the ventilator scheme wasn’t the same

Paddington Bear wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 1:14 pm If anyone read Bingham’s interview with the FT, the EU Vaccine scheme offered us essentially observer status with no control over how many and when we’d get vaccines. No reason to suggest the ventilator scheme wasn’t the same

Slick wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 12:35 pm
I thought it was a stupid statement, they were going what they thought was the best route using a world class British engineering company

According to a report by Lucy Fisher in the Telegraphy Truss thinks Dan Tehan needs to be made to speed up progress towards a deal when he is in London this week. Fisher reports:
The source close to Ms Truss quipped: “She plans to sit him down in the Locarno Room [in the Foreign Office] in an uncomfortable chair, so he has to deal with her directly for nine hours.”
The ally said that Mr Tehan and Ms Truss have struck up a good rapport, but added: “He is inexperienced compared to Liz. He needs to show that he can play at this level.
“Australia need to show us the colour of their money. They’re great friends of ours and talk a good game about free trade and wanting a deal, but they need to match those words with action.”

As the Independent’s Andrew Woodcock reports, a briefing from Liz Truss’s Department for International Trade about how Truss intends to use hardline tactics against her “inexperienced” Australian opposite number (see 2.52pm) has gone down very badly in Australia. The UK’s high commissioner in Australia has had to on TV to try to defuse the row triggered by the remarks.
And it turns out that although Dan Tehan only became Australia’s trade minister in December, he has been working on trade policy in one capacity or another for more than 20 years. Truss became trade secretary less than two years ago, with no previous experience of international trade negotiations.

SaintK wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:24 pm Good way to start potential trade negotiations with Australia. But then again it is that awful Truss woman!!

According to a report by Lucy Fisher in the Telegraphy Truss thinks Dan Tehan needs to be made to speed up progress towards a deal when he is in London this week. Fisher reports:
The source close to Ms Truss quipped: “She plans to sit him down in the Locarno Room [in the Foreign Office] in an uncomfortable chair, so he has to deal with her directly for nine hours.”
The ally said that Mr Tehan and Ms Truss have struck up a good rapport, but added: “He is inexperienced compared to Liz. He needs to show that he can play at this level.
“Australia need to show us the colour of their money. They’re great friends of ours and talk a good game about free trade and wanting a deal, but they need to match those words with action.”

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:28 pm

SaintK wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:24 pm Good way to start potential trade negotiations with Australia. But then again it is that awful Truss woman!!

According to a report by Lucy Fisher in the Telegraphy Truss thinks Dan Tehan needs to be made to speed up progress towards a deal when he is in London this week. Fisher reports:
The source close to Ms Truss quipped: “She plans to sit him down in the Locarno Room [in the Foreign Office] in an uncomfortable chair, so he has to deal with her directly for nine hours.”
The ally said that Mr Tehan and Ms Truss have struck up a good rapport, but added: “He is inexperienced compared to Liz. He needs to show that he can play at this level.
“Australia need to show us the colour of their money. They’re great friends of ours and talk a good game about free trade and wanting a deal, but they need to match those words with action.”

Ah, the good old "Slider" - highly waxed wooden seat and two inches sawn off the front legs. I'd put no childish tactic past this government...

Biffer wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:59 pm

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:28 pm

SaintK wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:24 pm Good way to start potential trade negotiations with Australia. But then again it is that awful Truss woman!!

Ah, the good old "Slider" - highly waxed wooden seat and two inches sawn off the front legs. I'd put no childish tactic past this government...

It's the utterly moronic, private school boy larks kind of approach which beggars belief. This idea that it'd actually achieve something rather than the guy saying he'd like another chair, or just walking the fuck out. They're children.

ASMO wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:29 pm Can we just not agree collectively that they are indeed scum of the highest order?

Slick wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 12:35 pm world class British engineering company

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 12:02 pm

Slick wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 11:43 am

Asked what he would have done if he had received text messages like this when he was prime minister, Blair said that when he was in Downing Street he never had a mobile phone. He was now “extremely grateful” for that, he said

He also said, and it's a little more relevant than his mobile phone ownership:

We were in the middle of a pandemic. After all, we were asking James Dyson to step forward and start making ventilators. I find it hard to get worked up about this. There's got to be a certain degree of understanding: if you are in the middle of a huge crisis like this, people are going to be using every means they can to make sure they respond to the immediate crisis

Except the Tories weren't; "using every means"; because, despite the offer, they very deliberately ignored the massive EU scheme to manufacture ventilators.

ASMO wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:29 pm Can we just not agree collectively that they are indeed scum of the highest order?

Johnny Mercer: Sacked minister attacks 'distrustful' government

A former veterans minister has hit out at the government as "the most distrustful, awful environment I've ever worked in". Tory MP Johnny Mercer told Times Radio "almost nobody tells the truth," and election pledges had not been delivered.

It follows his departure over legal protections for British troops who fought during the conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. No 10 has pledged action on the issue.

Speaking to BBC Newsnight in an interview that will air later on Wednesday, Mr Mercer said Boris Johnson had failed to deliver on promises to protect ex-soldiers who served in Northern Ireland from prosecution.

"Politics is a question of integrity, this whole trust thing," he added. "This is the most distrustful, awful environment I've ever worked in, in government. Almost nobody tells the truth is what I've worked out over the last 36 hours.

"I don't think anyone really can get on their high horse about trust and ethics and all the rest of it in politics, because as far as I'm concerned, most of it is a bit of a cesspit".

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 8:55 pm It's even too much for one of their own.

Johnny Mercer: Sacked minister attacks 'distrustful' government

A former veterans minister has hit out at the government as "the most distrustful, awful environment I've ever worked in". Tory MP Johnny Mercer told Times Radio "almost nobody tells the truth," and election pledges had not been delivered.

It follows his departure over legal protections for British troops who fought during the conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. No 10 has pledged action on the issue.

Speaking to BBC Newsnight in an interview that will air later on Wednesday, Mr Mercer said Boris Johnson had failed to deliver on promises to protect ex-soldiers who served in Northern Ireland from prosecution.

"Politics is a question of integrity, this whole trust thing," he added. "This is the most distrustful, awful environment I've ever worked in, in government. Almost nobody tells the truth is what I've worked out over the last 36 hours.

"I don't think anyone really can get on their high horse about trust and ethics and all the rest of it in politics, because as far as I'm concerned, most of it is a bit of a cesspit".

Torquemada 1420 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:38 am

mat the expat wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:28 am

SaintK wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:19 am
Brazen doesn't do it justice

Luckily, the Football scandal is in the press

Don't forget that threat to extinction of the human race, COVID.

High-risk contracts

Contracts awarded to companies with political connections:
Twenty-four PPE contracts worth £1.6 billion were awarded to those with known political connections to Conservative Party.

Three contracts worth £536 million went to politically connected companies for testing related services.

Contracts awarded without competition:
Between February and November 2020, 98.9 percent of COVID-19 related contracts by value (£17.8 billion) were awarded without any form of competition, many without adequate justification.

Contracts awarded to companies with no track record of supplying goods or services:
Fourteen companies incorporated in 2020 received contracts worth more than £620 million, of which 13 contracts totalling £255 million went to 10 firms that were less than 60 days old.

Rinkals wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 7:55 pm

ASMO wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 3:29 pm Can we just not agree collectively that they are indeed scum of the highest order?

You need to define "highest order".

The problem is that, as soon as you do so, they'll surpass it.

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 7:18 am

High-risk contracts

Contracts awarded to companies with political connections:
Twenty-four PPE contracts worth £1.6 billion were awarded to those with known political connections to Conservative Party.

Three contracts worth £536 million went to politically connected companies for testing related services.

Contracts awarded without competition:
Between February and November 2020, 98.9 percent of COVID-19 related contracts by value (£17.8 billion) were awarded without any form of competition, many without adequate justification.

Contracts awarded to companies with no track record of supplying goods or services:
Fourteen companies incorporated in 2020 received contracts worth more than £620 million, of which 13 contracts totalling £255 million went to 10 firms that were less than 60 days old.

https://www.transparency.org.uk/track-a ... k-VIP-lane

Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said that it was “very good” thing that business leaders have had direct access to ministers and those making decisions in Whitehall.

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:04 pm

dpedin wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:27 pm

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:04 pm

Bunch of reckon crooks, and not even that good or clever ones at that. Arrogance exceeds their intellect!

Tichtheid wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:40 pm

dpedin wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:27 pm

Insane_Homer wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:04 pm

Bunch of reckon crooks, and not even that good or clever ones at that. Arrogance exceeds their intellect!

The Cons have a nine point leas over Labour and it's been increasing for months, they are going to continue tipping the contents of the till into their mates' back pockets as long as this keeps up.

The British electorate are apparently morons.

It's difficult to come to any other conclusion.

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:58 pm I think that the Tories have realised that, like Trump, and many populists before them, if you drown people in a torrent of lies and grift and be absolutely brazen and unashamed about it whilst hurling the contents of the morgue of the Battersea Dogs and Cats home onto the table every day, it is very hard to hold them to account with a largely supine media, an opposition that is as eager, if not more, to stab itself in the front, back and sides than to oppose, plus the general apathy towards politics in the public, then they can rort the gravy train long enough to salt it away where we ain't getting it back, plus ram through some absolutely shitheel policies whilst we're all looking the other way.

Add to that the strange reaction of many people seeming to have a sneaking admiration for the sexual incontinence, lies and utter laziness of "Boris" and it's a match made in heaven.

Glaston wrote: ↑Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:59 pm The reason for the Conservatives lead in the polls





Because the leftieTards are useless at everything except hot air, vis a vis this thread.


All the hot air about Dyson and Labours shadow cabinet minister admitting they would likely have done the same thing.