Thread 21 Starmer - Casting Nasturtiums

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5298316-thread-20-starmer-spring-statement?page=40&reply=143217222

Respectful and supportive discussion of things political and beyond

Cat, dog, flowers, haberdashery tax most welcome

I don't love peas, though as a child I took John Lennon at his word and gave them a chance.

There should be live fact checking..

Anyway for those that are interested here is the annual chance to visit Downing Street Gardens ballot. I enter every year and not won yet. Crosses fingers. I just want to see Larry.

londongardenstrust.org/whatson/london-open-gardens-2025/10downingstreet/#tandcs%C2%A0

Unite members have struck down the latest offer from Birmingham City Council to end strikes, which have seen thousands of tonnes of rubbish go uncollected in the city.

I don't think even South Tyneside's bin strike rattled on for this long.

The origins of the strike go back through decades of council mismanagement - would take a book to outline it. (Almost perpetually against legal advice). The general view is that the workers shouldn't be expected to carry the can for council mistakes.

Remember this is a council that managed to spend £100 million on an accounting system that can't produce an audit (and apparently never will) and that no one anywhere is going to get any blame for.

They are also incapable of putting a fucking SSL certificate on their crappy bespoke council website.

@SerendipityJane Your post about BCC is spot on. It has been woefully mismanaged over many years and now us Brummies are paying the price. I read that the accounts system is so unfit for purpose that schools were withdrawn from it because suppliers etc weren't getting paid and were threatening schools with bailiffs.

From what I can see, the Council didn't even know the cost of the equal pay claim. They were blaming "dinner ladies" for the £800million debt but it turns out its more like £250 million and we need not have had Gove's Commissioners & their austerity thrust on us. The Council don't even seem to have any logistical planners on its staff - some have been lent to us by the army.

Very high level overview that doesn't mention the countless times the council ignored all advice to rectify the problem.

Not only are they bust. They have to make up the (considerable) shortfall in pension payments from the existing council budget.

Yes I saw the armed forces had been drafted in for logistics planning support.

o really hope they manage to make a difference. I can’t imagine what it’s like for people in Birmingham right now.

I'm sure we (I count myself an adopted Brummie at this length in 😀) can cope.

We had that Luftwaffe over here once.

Thank you for the mention, I cannot go on that date, if you are successful, please give Larry some affection from me (and no doubt others on this thread).

Your football team had Wayne Rooney as manager too. How many mirrors has someone in Birmingham broken?

I am concerned about the bin strike but I'm more concerned about the cuts that have been made to libraries, day centres, SEND transport etc.

This article is interesting. The equal pay claim being estimated as £250 million, not that touted by the Council. I had forgotten the ongoing debacle of the Commonwealth Games athletes village.

auditreformlab.group.shef.ac.uk/audit-reform-lab-briefing-note-on-birmingham-city-council-budget-2025-26/

What’s the commonwealth games debacle? We were at the swimming test event as DS was one of the athletes invited to compete in it - that was May 2022 and when we went to Sandwell for para winter nationals Nov 24 it was really different!

“The UK is prepared to retain some regulatory alignment with the European Union and accept supervision of the bloc's court over a deal to cut checks on imports of foods and agricultural products

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-14/uk-signals-openness-to-eu-court-oversight-of-key-food-checks

This will get rid of the Palm Sunday rage on my Twitter. All the worst people on there are going to hate this.

Good.
(but a bit more of this please)

What's the Palm Sunday rage I could understand my horse getting the rage because he thinks donkeys are evil devils but can't think of any other reasons for rage.

I have seen a few references to 'red Ed'

Net zero and clean energy can actually help save the steel industry, experts point out, as UK’s net zero target being falsely blamed for the UK’s steel crisis in place of UK's acute exposure to fluctuations in gas prices.

Helena Horton https://buff.ly/KhedmBR

All the times that either Starmer or the 10 Downing Street has posted about a non Christian celebration recently but not marked a Christian one.

Started last week with his video about Passover and how he didn’t mark the start of Lent. Got worse on Sunday when he failed to mark Palm Sunday with a tweet.

He didn’t. Mostly because nobody in their right mind has ever marked Palm Sunday with outside of the Church service being a bit different and sometimes there’s a donkey.

Palm Sunday was a big thing here when I was a child. Flowers had to be put on the grave of every relative. Looks like it still goes on as the cemetery was full of flowers when I visited my Dad’s grave yesterday.

It’s known as Sul y Blodau (Flowering Sunday).

I don't think I've even thought about Palm Sunday since I stopped going to Sunday school nearly 60 years ago. I bet most of the whingers didn't either until they saw a post mentioning it.

But Keir Starmer...

I’m waiting for St George’s day outrage which this year has been moved to 28th in the Church calendar because it falls during Easter week. I’ll bet very few of these Christians will be aware of that.

I really hope Team UK have watched this, made notes, and refined their strategy

Farage is giving an election speech in Co Durham

He is still going on about 2 tier justice and then there is this gem

Farage now condemns what he calls “that madness”’of diversity policies, saying some recruitment processes favour people from minority ethnic backgrounds against “white people with more history in this country”.