Westminstenders: Prepare for what we said would never happen

[RedToothBrush]

I think that there may be a run on tinned tomatoes and pasta coming. Pizza will no longer have mozzarella in 2021.

On the plus side turnips are in season.

She is a Tory peer.
Extract from her Wikipedia entry:

Neville-Rolfe is a particularly prominent speaker on issues concerning business. The aim is to encourage government to facilitate and support UK businesses, to remove unnecessary tax and regulatory burdens,...

Private Eye is of course, something of a niche publication..... But still, all publicity about the duplicity of those who think they are better than us, is good.

Peregrina
The Eye is nich
but its a very big niche - £231,073 subscribers as per the latest data
and a very influential niche

It took them years on the Horizon / Post office but they won out.
They have been needling at PFI until the NAO has converted
Rail nationalisation - ditto
FWIW they are GC (along with the Economist)

the old line its not what you know, its who you know definitely applies

BCF - I saw your post on the Coronavirus stats thread.

Please don't go!

Thanks for the reminder, I'd been meaning to subscribe. That's my next year sorted.

@BigChocFrenzy please please don't leave MN - your calm and reasoned words coupled with the advantage of German perspective is invaluable to me on these threads. It would be awful if you disappeared, but if you must then a heartfelt thank you for keeping me sane, (or as close as I get), and good luck for the future.

I haven't seen the BigChoc's posting on the Coronavirus thread, but saw the several deleted postings and wondered what was going on. I, too, am adding my voice to the chorus of 'please don't go'. No idea what has led you to this decision, but your postings are always insightful and acute and you always bring in facts to the debates. Very valuable.

Another one who values @BigChocFrenzy's unique German perspective on Brexit. I'd miss you very much if you leave MN.

As you were.

I think that these threads would definitely be the poorer without BigChoc

There are many valuable contributors but hers is a particular perspective that comes from being in a (sensible ) EU country.

We don't subscribe to PE but we almost invariably buy a copy.

Why is BigChoc threatening to go? I find her posts very informative?
Unlike a certain Cut n' paste poster.

What’s all this about BCF leaving MN? Adding my voice to those saying this, and other threads, will be poorer without your contributions.

I've contacted Bigchoc (she and I have been in touch 'off site' for a long time)
Hopefully she'll come back when all of us are a bit less stressed about anything and everything.

Its tough because all of us in the UK are quite brittle
but we will be proved right about Brexit
which was the gathering point for these threads

@ListeningQuietly Please pass on my very best wishes to BigChoc.

I don't post on these threads very often but I've read them assiduously since they started and found her contributions in particular hugely informative.

Oh FGS, if someone wants to go let them go. BCF has been an invaluable contributor here and I thank you for that BCF.

I hope you will return on 31 December for more succinct analyses, if not before!

Can I please add my voice to those wishing BigChoc well and hoping she feels able to rejoin us soon

Good luck, @BigChocFrenzy
I am dreading January 2021, but if you do come back that will be one bright spot in the storm clouds.

Does anyone remember "Thatcher the milk snatcher?".

It happened before I was born and yet I still heard about it - as a member of a comfortable, MC family.

The row over the school holiday meals support feels similar. The Government has really been tone-deaf on this issue.

TheABC
Watch out, watch out there's a Humphrey about
those 1/3 pint milk bottles were iconic
TBH I loathed compulsory pripsin in school more than I missed milk

Hopefully we haven't lost Red as well as BigChoc 🙁 Such stressful times but I always valued both of your commentary.

From an appreciative lurker "please don't go" bigchocfrenzy

Have we lost them both? I still don't know what the argument was about, because I don't go on the corona virus threads.

These Westminstenders threads have been something of a lifeline for me over the past four years and I would be very sad if they stopped because two of the prime contributors stopped contributing.

I'm lurking, but not got a huge amount to add right now of much value.

We have spoken today and we are both cool and fine and are staying in touch - well she damn well better had!

I really hope she does come back but at least a break is the right thing for her right now. I dont think its about one thing only. Beyond that i think its up to her to elaborate if she wants to rather than for me to say more.

From my own experience I know MN can be a place which you over invest yourself - perhaps to the point it becomes unhealthy - and everyone has to make a judgement call about if and when to quit. So I'm sympathetic to when someone calls time on being here whatever their personal reason is to go. BCF isn't someone to just flounce off and I respect why she decided to go. I wish she wasn't but I do get it.

I'm going to really bloody miss her. She is a real loss to the community. The last 4 years of my life wouldn't be quite the same as silly as it sounds for someone i dont know and im not sure there are any posters i'd feel the loss of quite so much after these threads than her - she has kept things going around here when ive been awol in more ways than one. And that been important to me.

Everyone has a time to move on i guess.

Can't get rid of me im afraid. I'm like dogshit on your shoe.

@RedToothBrush

Can't get rid of me im afraid. I'm like dogshit on your shoe.

That's such a lovely analogy to wake up to. 🤭😉

Red You can't go too - I'd have no one to talk Eurovish with. Am I too pessimistic early to call it yet? Can't see it being held next spring tbh. Not like it used to be in a vast stadium with global visitors.

Greatest regards to BCF.💐 There r times u need break off MN and SM as a whole. I have done it many a time ( though I'm not sorely missed as BCF will be). We all need to have space for whatever reason and with all the shit that's life at the moment a break is a good idea. I hope BCF will be recharged and come back with her invaluable contributions as I miss her already! That goes to RED too! 💐