Westministenders: Crisis, which crisis ?

[BigChocFrenzy]

Main crises facing the government:

. Negotiating a Brexit deal with the EU
. Coronoavirus
. Floods
. Allegations of some ministers - and Cummings - bullying civil servants
. More trouble threatened from Turkey / Syria

Unfortunately with all these parallel crises, we have a workshy lying arse as PM
and the worst collection yet of incompetents in Cabinet
who seem to have decided on a strategy of bullying their civil servants to avoid hearing any facts that don't fit with current Tory party ideology

Well I think it's ridiculous that a town in Wales - which apparently has no immigration to speak of in that area (and which Carole Cadwalladr is seemingly making fun of) has a school website depicting cartoon characters of predominately ethnic minority (non-Welsh) pupils - for the sake of being politically correct - although I apologise for any offence caused.

Mistigri
I thought you didn't read my posts?

For the sake of being politically correct?

Looking at the photos of the kids in that school on its website, it’s not being politically correct, just vaguely representative.

Looking at the photos of the kids in that school on its website, it’s not being politically correct, just vaguely representative.

In which case Carole Cadwalladr is talking nonsense.

I saw the post on the other thread and am glad it was deleted as I did not judge it worth engagement

Not at all - Ebbw Vale is 98% British, 1% EU and 1% non-EU. You can be non-white British you know?

Tiger Bay is not a million miles from there after all

🎶🎵🎶🎵

An example why people tend not to speak up about bullying until they retire:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/03/aide-dominic-cummings-unkind-leave-post-lynn-davidson

Downing Street has confirmed that the special adviser who confronted Dominic Cummings over his “unkindness” at a recent meeting is leaving the government.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/04/coronavirus-crisis-boris-johnson-dominic-cummings

.... his government is at war not only with coronavirus but with some of its own civil servants;
the BBC;
swaths of businesses opposed to Brexit;
and possibly soon the judiciary, depending on the outcome of a review led by the new attorney general, Suella Braverman.

All while trying to deliver a trade deal with Europe on a timetable that many in Brussels already thought was impossible.

Get either the first or the last of those wrong, and the worst-case scenario is a 2008-style economic crash,
not to mention the potential loss of life in a pandemic.
Get both of them wrong, and the consequences don’t bear thinking about.
....
The downsides of being led by people who will cross the road to pick an unnecessary fight should be obvious now even to Downing Street’s lords of creative destruction,
but just to spell it out:

government is hard enough as it is without starting fires for the sake of it.

www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/scott-mann-on-the-working-time-directive-and-brexit-1-6543027

A Tory MP has called for the government to review the EU's working time directive after Brexit to fill labour shortages.

(contd)

Finally. Farmers getting what they voted for:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51731757

...

Rishi Sunak is set to announce in next week's budget that red diesel - so-called because it is marked with a dye - will no longer attract a lower fuel duty. It currently accounts for about 15% of total diesel sales in the UK and costs the Treasury about £2.4bn a year in revenue.

🎻 plays worlds smallest violin...

Sorry if this has been done (which it has to death in a way).

How pathetic and wilfully ignorant is the man in charge of the country under the coronavirus threat? Whether you think the threat is realistic or overblown, the fact remains that this virus has infected people in this country, there is the chance of many being infected and dying and many who are concerned. The prime minister should taking it a little bit seriously.

Watch the video at the beginning of this link: www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-boris-johnson-symptoms-brexit-nhs-a9372891.html

In the press conference at the start he goes on about how he went to a hospital where there might have been people with the virus and states that he shook hands with everyone. Then repeats that he shakes hands with everyone. Apparently, it is everyone's judgment call. Then he goes to start a sentence about the scientific evidence, which he can't complete (because there is no scientific evidence to say that shaking hands with sick people with an air-transmitted viral infection is perfectly okay). He turns to the scientific expert, who then points out that washing hands is the best thing. Although a small child could have come to the same conclusion.

Honestly, I am really dumbfounded at the lack of professionalism and attention to the slightest detail. He obviously did no preparation, applied no critical thinking to the situation and just decided to wing it.

Of course, I know that this is his mod. But still, can't he even bring himself to fucking act like the most responsible person in the country when required? It was fucking cringey to listen to. Like a colleague who went out on the piss the night before a big work presentation and managed to both spout nonsense and put their foot in it at the same time.

How many experts has he listened to? How much information has he been given on this? How many proposed plans of crisis action, statistics must a prime minister have to listen to in a situation such as this? And he acts like he just got out of bed and couldn't even be bothered to do his homework on the bus.

In a nutshell, I am disgusted. Honestly, what a pathetic prat.

Prince william also being a cockwomble about it...bbc news covering his comments to an irish paramedic on their current ireland visit...

I doubt whether the working time directive will have made much difference in practice - firms will already have opted out, and it won't apply to the zero hours people. So it's a) a nice soundbite for the right wing faithful b) an excuse to reduce workers rights.

I was pleased to see that the various medical professionals, quoted in the Guardian survey, like many of the ones on the MN thread, have said the Govt can go whistle for them coming back to help out. These are people who will normally move heaven and earth to help others, but they have got to the stage where they have had enough.

Greener petrol at the pumps:

E10 would see this percentage increased up to 10% - a proportion that would bring the UK in line with countries such as Belgium, Finland, France and Germany.

Shome mishtake shurely? Copying Belgium, Finland, France and Germany? Shouldn't we be making it as filthy as possible, to please the Americans?

Shome mishtake shurely? Copying Belgium, Finland, France and Germany? Shouldn't we be making it as filthy as possible, to please the Americans?

The problem is the fossil fuel industry has pretty much milked the public tit for all it's worth.

Now these nice "Electric cars" that can be subsidised every which way but loose for the next few decades. They're the future. Not in reality of course. Only in peoples investment portfolios.

I'm just watching yesterday's Politics Live and there's a Tory MP on there blatantly lying (again) and nobody is challenging him. Why are the BBC allowing them to spout bollocks without accountability.

He said the UK took in more refugees than any other European country during the recent refugee crisis. Blatantly untrue.

Then he said the UK has paid more in aid to keep the refugees closer to their place of oriigin than all the other European countries put together. Again untrue. The UK has paid £1 billion, EU countries have paid £7.5 billion.

The other day another Tory on the programme said that maternity rights in the UK are the best in Europe. Sitting in Sweden still on maternity leave with my 6 year old on 80% of my salary, I thought I'd entered a parallel universe.

Why aren't they being called out on their lies. All the time. Lie after lie after lie. Do they even know what the truth is?

They don't, they're Tories, it goes with the job spec.

And I suspect the Beeb have decided to do whatever it takes to keep the Guff sweet in the hope that the threatened axe mightn't fall quite as heavily as mooted

And I suspect the Beeb have decided to do whatever it takes to keep the Guff sweet in the hope that the threatened axe mightn't fall quite as heavily as mooted

The beeb have sold their soul. It won't save them, and perversely, will earn the contempt of those in power. Can't speak for anyone else, but I learn from history first, peoples deeds second, and their words not at all, as Gandhi said.

Economic strife incoming

Joel Hills @itvjoel
Breaking: Flybe has told the government that it is running out of cash and will not survive until the end of the month. Airline has been hit by slump in bookings since COVID-19 outbreak. FlyBe says it needs a decision on its request for taxpayer loan of £100m “in the coming days”

Breaking: Flybe has told the government that it is running out of cash and will not survive until the end of the month. Airline has been hit by slump in bookings since COVID-19 outbreak. FlyBe says it needs a decision on its request for taxpayer loan of £100m “in the coming days”

Magic Money Tree.

Of course, there will be a queue behind FlyBe. We could have a sweepstakes on who would be next. BA ? EasyJet ?

EIn one of her poems, Emily Dickinson wrote "Hope is the thing with feathers."

Woody Allen called one of his early collections of short prose sketches 'Without Feathers'.

The Beeb should dig out their Woody Allen...

It won't save them, and perversely, will earn the contempt of those in power.

Quite, I read the other day about someone appeasing fascism, and he realised that if he wasn't actively against them, by doing nothing, he enabled them.