Sunlit uplands. Are we there yet?

[JohnL]

I think Frost is the sort of man who gets on everybody's nerves.

He probably got married, said it was the best marriage ever then wanted an annulment because the marriage was the worst marriage ever.

Actually he's the Henry VIIIth of international treaties.

[Seabag]

Frost is a cutn as is Johnson.

Oven ready? Shame we?re not on the old natural gas and we could shove this governments head in said cooking device.

Lying, scheming cunts

https://apple.news/AxtufJTDUQja0DRtHdQPwXg

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

TheCat Wrote:

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> I tripped over in the street today. Bloody brexit.

Expect to be tripping over many more unfixed pavement defects and stepping over more potholes - there's a 25 year peak in demand for labour in the construction sector but half of London's EU labourers have left and replacements can't just jump on a plane or coach to work here.

The materials shortage isn't only a UK problem to be fair - but it's aggravated by Brexit.

https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/brexit/uk-construction-loses-a-quarter-of-its-eu-born-workforce-22-01-2021/

[Earl Aelfheah]

diable rouge Wrote:

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> The blame game worked for Brexit, so if it ain't

> broke...Johnson's speech stays on course, full of

> tubthumping rhetoric minus actual policy.

>

> However, I do feel that once things start

> affecting Joe Public, like the fuel shortage has,

> then you will see more reaction. Winter of

> Discontent 2.0 looming...

I dunno. Conservatives up in the polls. People don't seem to care. Johnson will blame shortages on 'EU intransigence' and the press will hail him as Churchillian and a large number of the hard of thinking will lap it all up.

[Sephiroth]

At least we can stop people bullshitting about ?the protocol isn?t working as we expected?. Openly admitted that they promised people they would sign up and then tear it up. Disgraceful

They lied and lied and lied to the public

And enough of them bought that obvious pile of steaming shite

[malumbu]

Pick your battles - amending the NI protocol was a bit of a damp squib. The Mail and Torygraph will no doubt see this as a great victory for GB (not sure if I can include NI) following gunboat diplomacy. Much of the EU has more important things to worry about.

[malumbu]

I'm looking back on my previous posts for one where I was defending the government's handling of Covid once we came out of lockdown. It was along the lines of they promised us a return to near normal whilst we lived with/coped with Covid. This is what the people wanted and what the people got. I can't defend it any more, they have been pretty useless. We are an outlier in Europe having virtually the worst rates, the lowest mask wearing etc etc.

I've been on a Zoom call with former colleagues including a mate who now works for the UN in Vienna. We all worked in another health related area twenty odd years ago. This is a topic for another thread.

[Spartacus]

Malumbu I quite agree about the lack of mask wearing, especially as cases are appearing to accelerate and I can't defend the Government's decision not to reintroduce mask wearing as a minimum as every person and their dog knows it's needed (but not everyone agrees with them)

All we can do whilst we wait for "plan B" to start (and it's obvious it's needed now) is to protect ourselves and wear masks in busy places, social distance as much as possible and where we can work from home.

If this Government won't be sensible then at least we all can.

[diable rouge]

The Gov has dug itself into a hole over this, exacerbated with it's bigging-up of the whole Freedom Day nonsense (twice). Asking people to wear masks etc isn't a loss of freedom, just as the compulsory wearing of a seat belt isn't.

Agree that people should be applying their own common sense, but one thing that has struck me during all is how behest the British public are to Gov and rules. The vast majority went along with the restrictions and precautions when they were told to do so, but since precautions were lifted the opposite has happened, and I've heard people say that they're not wearing a mask because the Gov hasn't asked them to.

Lots of whining over the years about the Nanny State, but basically it seems people want someone to wipe their backside for them...

[Sephiroth]

not the first person to say it, but we don't advise people to wear seat belts because it saves lives, we compel them by law

Because if it wasn't a requirement, not enough people would do it

But all this belongs in the mask wearing thread - (yes even tho the incompetence across all of these areas is linked to the same govt who only exist because of their hard line on "sunlit uplands")

[Spartacus]

DR, you've hit the nail on the head, people want to be told what to do rather than take responsibility for their own actions and once told they have someone else to blame if things don't work out.

It's not just masks but possibly most aspects of life at the moment.

[Sephiroth]

At a more prosaic level. This is what Brexit and sunlit uplands really means

Promised improved environment vs reality of shittier water

?At a hustings during the Ref with @AdamAfriyie I remember saying leaving the EU would risk weakening environmental laws. He scoffed and said I was being absurd. Here he is voting against the prevention of raw sewage entering our river systems. Go figure.

?

[malumbu]

Wow, you have a spectrum of topics to bash the government on. The government quite openly say that they want to cherry pick the best of EU legislation but go beyond it in other areas bigging up the UK. On the natural environment proposals were ambitious such as paying farmers for rewilding; I worry that just like the Zero emissions strategy it will be bluster with limited substance. Gesture politics means it is front page one day, then drops like a stone to be regurgitated on Question Time/Any Questions as spending zillions on this, that and the other. I'd like to add does anyone hold this government to account, well they do, Select Committees, PAC, NAO and the like, but it seems to make sweet FA difference both to the arrogance of the government and the majority of the electorate.

If only there was a credible opposition.....

[Sephiroth]

I initially thought your ?wow you have? was aimed at me

But it reads like ?one has a ?

Am I reading you right?

[Sephiroth]

I mean. Is this happening anywhere else in Western Europe?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/22/supermarkets-using-cardboard-cutouts-to-hide-gaps-left-by-supply-issues?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[malumbu]

Well I am conflicted as you do seem to pick on every opportunity to have a go at the government. And I feel duty bound to defend them. As with every pub discussion. But bally hell they are useless. I just think that you need to consider all angles, including the popular hang them and flog them views [and Cat]. I've tried to get a thread going on climate change and net zero (I've worked on this sort of thing so doubly frustrated). Three years ago a strategy was published on how we would get to zero emissions from transport, it was short and sweet with lots of commitments. But that was under the previous Johnson government. So it all starts again under the new one. They seem to have repeated this earlier succinct strategy under the long winded wider strategy, that lacks substance. Hence the comment on gesture politics.

I'm as frustrated as you are I expect.

Edited to bring in the Cat, who has been far too quiet recently.....

[diable rouge]

Interesting that with the Owen Paterson scandal, there finally appears to be some universal 'cut-through' displeasure with the way this Gov and PM goes about its business, even the Middle Englanders at the Daily Mail are up in arms over it.

IMO just as bad has happened under this Gov such as the unlawful proroguing of parliament, but that was conveniently ignored, or worse, clapped and cheered along by its Brexit base as a means to an end.

Expect the Gov to crank up the Brexit rhetoric over the coming weeks...

[Sephiroth]

"yeah but it's good we didn't get Corbyn version of Brexit

And tho I want Brexit, Johnson is clearly a clown - but once he is out of the way, someone sensible can come in and take the reins and we will really see the benefits"

Mad how it was these two gobshites lining up to push brexit through - MAKE YOU THINKS!!

[malumbu]

Interesting reversal of headlines today - Mail "yippee we've defeated Covid" and the Express "Tory voters losing trust in the PM" - maybe the two editors got together and swapped stories. [i've never bought either but have vague memories that the Express as a broadsheet was once a serious newspaper]

[Sephiroth]

Dacre finally left the mail properly last week. So they may start to go in harder

The mail has always been decidedly not to my tastes. But it?s worldview has always been relatively consistent with itself. Whereas the express/sun and now telegraph are all at sea in a reactionary storm

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

I don't really understand the Express. Who is its target market? Every other paper has a clear demographic. But who buys the Express?

[Spartacus]

Dogkennelhillbilly Wrote:

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> I don't really understand the Express. Who is its

> target market? Every other paper has a clear

> demographic. But who buys the Express?

Dare I hazard a guess who buys it ?

Express readers !

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Usually but not always.

[diable rouge]

I knew someone who only bought the Express for the horse racing coverage :)

Regardless of whether you support it's views or not, the direction it's 'journalism' has gone in over recent years is just plain bonkers. It's become nothing more than a Soviet style truth-twisting propaganda sheet...

[malumbu]

We used to love the Giles family cartoons when we were kids. Our London family were labour supporting working class, so would buy the mirror and Sunday Mirror, but think that the Sunday Express sneaked in from time to time, and they'd get the Giles family annual. I think it appealed to working class conservatives, like the Sun now but far less reactionary jingoistic I expect.

Was it just the Mail who were Nazi sympathizers? Beaverbrook was hardly a socialist but pretty important in the war effort and never seen any similar slurs on him.