[Maark Abbott]

Good lord this government has gone totally off the rails.

"We cannot afford to feed children impoverished by our economic policies sorry"

"Here's £12.5bn for defense, also laser guns and space force".

The cynic in me can't help but think that defense spending over the next four years will really be for keeping control of the country in a post-brekshit UK. Scotland, get out while you can! Save yourselves!

[Macros]

Most of that money is going to Scotland ironically.

The money being spunked on "defense" is white elephant to the extreme, coupled with chronic cronyism. Prime example the aircraft carrier that came in at double its budget (I know guys who worked on it, stuff was being installed 2 and 3 times for zero reason, like no actual snags recorded, just re do it) and at the end of it we had junked the harriers so had no planes that could land on them, oh let's buy some off our American buddies.

[Maark Abbott]

Macros, on 20 November 2020 - 08:29 AM, said:

Most of that money is going to Scotland ironically.

The money being spunked on "defense" is white elephant to the extreme, coupled with chronic cronyism. Prime example the aircraft carrier that came in at double its budget (I know guys who worked on it, stuff was being installed 2 and 3 times for zero reason, like no actual snags recorded, just re do it) and at the end of it we had junked the harriers so had no planes that could land on them, oh let's buy some off our American buddies.

Madness. Absolute madness.

Oh, for a mossy hyena and an open top car, Boris!

[Mezla PigDog]

Maark Abbott, on 19 November 2020 - 04:19 PM, said:

Good lord this government has gone totally off the rails.

"We cannot afford to feed children impoverished by our economic policies sorry"

"Here's £12.5bn for defense, also laser guns and space force".

The cynic in me can't help but think that defense spending over the next four years will really be for keeping control of the country in a post-brekshit UK. Scotland, get out while you can! Save yourselves!

It's just classic Conservatives. Big headlines to impress the gammons who still hark back to Rule Britannia days. They would always vote for that over feeding poor kids.

[Maark Abbott]

Mezla PigDog, on 24 November 2020 - 10:47 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 19 November 2020 - 04:19 PM, said:

Good lord this government has gone totally off the rails.

"We cannot afford to feed children impoverished by our economic policies sorry"

"Here's £12.5bn for defense, also laser guns and space force".

The cynic in me can't help but think that defense spending over the next four years will really be for keeping control of the country in a post-brekshit UK. Scotland, get out while you can! Save yourselves!

It's just classic Conservatives. Big headlines to impress the gammons who still hark back to Rule Britannia days. They would always vote for that over feeding poor kids.

It's absolutely mad how misty eyed they get for the days of empire. I wonder if the gammons will still be like this when prices hike next year and Scotland fucks off?

[Grief]

So if we're to have a deal it needs to be now (more or less).

I'll be back in the UK shortly and will get to experience the situation at the border first hand in early January... despite it being silly, it's hard not to be a little paranoid that I might have messed up some paper somewhere and not be allowed back! We were only told very very recently what measures we would have to take for afterwards.

[Mezla PigDog]

Not to wish you a terrible time at the airport or anything but a big part of me is hoping for a complete and utter disaster. Food and medicine shortages, the absolute works. I've had enough and I want it all to blow up in their face revealing their utter incompetence and foolishness.

Of course the better part of me knows that if that were to happen then relatively well off people like me would be ok but those with less would suffer disproportionately. But then I think I always vote with those people in mind and look where it's got me so fuck 'em. But that's what the Tories want me to think!

So I'm a hot mess about the whole thing. My last day at work yesterday was mired by Brexit additonal workload nonsense compounded by an incompetent colleague. I nearly cried I'm so fed up with it.

[Macros]

Even the TSS system that has been set up is a shames, I've filled in everything correctly like 5 times, and they still keep telling me it's not done right.


And all the wankers who voted for Brexit over here saying "something had to change" are no crying because their funding for X and y has dried up. It was all fucking EU money supporting your cross community projects, sporting development and business diversification you fucking turd burglars

[Maark Abbott]

Macros, on 19 December 2020 - 10:04 AM, said:

And all the wankers who voted for Brexit over here saying "something had to change" are no crying because their funding for X and y has dried up. It was all fucking EU money supporting your cross community projects, sporting development and business diversification you fucking turd burglars

Good god so much this. Almost all of Barno's regeneration projects were out of EU funding (South Yorkshire is from memory the most impoverished area in Europe on the whole just now). But of course your average Barnsley breklet doesn't care about that, he just wontz da moose limbs owt.

[Mezla PigDog]

Blah.

I saw a Tweet from Caroline Lucas quoting Johnson in his 2016 Brexit article where he said we will still be able to freely live, work and study in Europe post-Brexit. None of those are in his "deal" now. Twat.

Relieved it isn't a No Deal though, I was worried enough of them genuinely wanted it.

What do people think of Starmer whipping Labour MPs to vote for it? Surely they have to abstain. Why can't they say "we get that loads of Labour supporters voted for it, us abstaining won't affect the outcome as the Tories have a big majority but it's a Tory project that has split the country and we're frankly keeping out of it now". I think people on both sides could live with that. If they do vote for it then it is another line on the Green side of my Labour or Green tally chart for the next election.

[Cyphon]

Labour are no where on this. At least Corbyn had a principled position on this. I feel like Starmer is looking for a technicality so he can overturn the whole case, when what he should be looking to do is to turn the national narrative...

I'll vote anti-tory. Green is the closest to getting a positive vote for them now that the revived socialism of the Labour Party is dying on the vine under Starmer.

[Maark Abbott]

Mezla PigDog, on 28 December 2020 - 07:13 PM, said:

Blah.

I saw a Tweet from Caroline Lucas quoting Johnson in his 2016 Brexit article where he said we will still be able to freely live, work and study in Europe post-Brexit. None of those are in his "deal" now. Twat.

This was a given and no one should have believed the Tories when they said we'd still have those things.

Mezla PigDog, on 28 December 2020 - 07:13 PM, said:

Relieved it isn't a No Deal though, I was worried enough of them genuinely wanted it.

What do people think of Starmer whipping Labour MPs to vote for it? Surely they have to abstain. Why can't they say "we get that loads of Labour supporters voted for it, us abstaining won't affect the outcome as the Tories have a big majority but it's a Tory project that has split the country and we're frankly keeping out of it now". I think people on both sides could live with that. If they do vote for it then it is another line on the Green side of my Labour or Green tally chart for the next election.

Cyphon, on 28 December 2020 - 08:39 PM, said:

Labour are no where on this. At least Corbyn had a principled position on this. I feel like Starmer is looking for a technicality so he can overturn the whole case, when what he should be looking to do is to turn the national narrative...

I'll vote anti-tory. Green is the closest to getting a positive vote for them now that the revived socialism of the Labour Party is dying on the vine under Starmer.

Starmer's response to a lot of things is untenable to me. To my mind he's dragging the party back to wards Blairite Tory-lite in the pursuit of votes, rather than actually providing an opposition. Sure, it may be futile at times due to the majority on the other side, but an opposition that forces its members to sit on their hands is not worthy of the name. The previous energy of the youth vote seems to have fizzled entirely, and we're back to jaded hopelessness.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

The only problem with the "chasing votes" argument is that however principled Corbyn was, he didn't win an election against a very weak Tory government. We can argue about why that was until the cows came home - he still lost. I have a very slim hope if Starmer can get Labour back in power and do a half decent job then it leaves room to move more left again once in power. But it's all moot if the answer is "Tory majority for the next decade".

In all honesty, I'm unsure on Starmer. However, I don't want Johnson and co in power one second longer than necessary either.

The problem of a two party system laid bare, I suppose.

[Maark Abbott]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 05 January 2021 - 09:05 AM, said:

The only problem with the "chasing votes" argument is that however principled Corbyn was, he didn't win an election against a very weak Tory government. We can argue about why that was until the cows came home - he still lost. I have a very slim hope if Starmer can get Labour back in power and do a half decent job then it leaves room to move more left again once in power. But it's all moot if the answer is "Tory majority for the next decade".

In all honesty, I'm unsure on Starmer. However, I don't want Johnson and co in power one second longer than necessary either.

The problem of a two party system laid bare, I suppose.

It's the classic conundrum of the inept bumbling devil you know and the guys who's turned out to be a devil despite assurances that we also know who might be a little bit better but who knows.

The prime issue I see in Starmer's manner of chasing votes is that on his current path he is alienating a large amount of existing voters / youth voter base, etc. So in the end the likely result is the party splits down the middle and it backfires spectacularly.

If anyone plays guitar here I'll need you to ride on my giant fire spitting truck once we go full wasteland raiders time.

[Macros]

 AAAADJ7ozSkAAAAAAFt32Q20110724-22047-1tf4abs.jpg (8.54K)
Number of downloads: 0

[Morgoth]

One of our suppliers from the UK sent me an e-mail right before christmas, lamenting how difficult it is to deal with projects in Norway, us being outside of the EU and all. He particularly bemoaned the need to register a subsidiary in Norway in order to sell on site services, that sort of thing. He ended his e-mail by hoping there wont be much of that come Brexit. Poor man. They have no idea, you EU people have no idea, what it is like being outside of the union. The hassle you need to go through for taxes, for accounting, for VAT, permits and everything inbetween.

[Imperial Historian]

Morgoth, on 06 January 2021 - 10:23 AM, said:

One of our suppliers from the UK sent me an e-mail right before christmas, lamenting how difficult it is to deal with projects in Norway, us being outside of the EU and all. He particularly bemoaned the need to register a subsidiary in Norway in order to sell on site services, that sort of thing. He ended his e-mail by hoping there wont be much of that come Brexit. Poor man. They have no idea, you EU people have no idea, what it is like being outside of the union. The hassle you need to go through for taxes, for accounting, for VAT, permits and everything inbetween.

I still see so many people with there head buried in the sand about this. It's genuinely infuriating that people were arguing for brexit as it will allow us to remove red tape, utterly bonkers.

[Morgoth]

And major companies that in large live off of exports to Europe have made no effort to figure out how to continue doing that, even though they've had years of warning. This company is still doing what they've always been doing, but by all accounts they're now actively (if unknowingly) committing large scale tax fraud in numerous EU countries.

[Tiste Simeon]

Well this is horrifying

https://amp-theguard...rump-presidency

[Tsundoku]

Tiste Simeon, on 09 January 2021 - 06:43 AM, said:

Well this is horrifying

https://amp-theguard...rump-presidency

I particularly enjoyed this bit:

"And so to the founding fathers of this level of mass delusion. It was nice to hear from Mark Zuckerberg, who grandly announced he’d blocked Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. This is not so much a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted as doping the horse, whipping it into a frenzy, encouraging it to bolt, fostering a world in which humans are subjugated by horses, monetising every snort and whinny, allowing the very existence of “humans” and “horses” to become just one of a bunch of competing opinions, and then – only when that one particular horse has outlived its usefulness and seems destined for the glue factory – gently closing the stable door with a self-satisfied little “click”. That said, I very much enjoyed the photos of Zuckerberg’s wife enjoying a carefree surf in Hawaii, presumably taken as a man claiming to be prepared for a violent death was surfing on Nancy Pelosi’s desk."