Westministers : Saving the Union

[RedToothBrush]

Apparently we need a tunnel. Just like we needed the £53 million failed Garden Bridge.

Nice little earner for anyone involved.

🐿 The vast majority of garden snails have a dextral (right-handed or clockwise) coil to their shell. Very rarely, a mutant snail is born which has a sinistral (left-handed or anti-clockwise) coil; several years ago one such rare specimen was found in London and duly named Jeremy [Corbyn] (due to being a lefty).

Unfortunately for Jeremy, its opposite-coiled shell also meant that its genitals also pointed the wrong way, and so it would have been doomed to a short lifetime of self-love. A public appeal was made and eventually two other anticlockwise snails were found in (boo, hiss!) foreign lands - but it wasn’t good news for Jeremy, as initially the two snails decided to mate with each other proving that immigrants are ingrates only here to consume our Brexitannian resources and breed copiously.

Subsequently though, Jeremy did find slimy love with one of the imported snails, and produced a number of offspring (all right-handed, therefore Tories). This is because the left-handed mutation is thought to be a recessive allele.

Therefore, it is a natural law for ToryBrexitannian Patriots to be slimy snails... oh sorry, I meant for slimy snails to be ToryBrexitannian Patriots... 🐿

Yeah that thought had occurred to me too DG, they chose to vote for the deal so I wonder if they are now in the 'Brexit isnt causing problems its all red tape' camp

I don’t know why they can’t reinstate the Giant’s Causeway. In fact I’m surprised it’s not Government policy already given their general grip on reality.

Yeah that thought had occurred to me too DG, they chose to vote for the deal so I wonder if they are now in the 'Brexit isnt causing problems its all red tape' camp

Makes almost everything they say dishonest from now on.

Darned dinosaurs taking over my dining room
I love half term

@ListeningQuietly

Darned dinosaurs taking over my dining room I love half term

DGRosetti - I had a very similar experience myself yesterday - did you actually say it felt so "British"? You do knowthat you're not allowed to say such things here, well you might get away with it, but there's loads of us here that just keep schtum for ....well...you know, obvious reasons.

Besides our NHS, it was the organization, courtesy, no drama and of course that world-renowned British version of Queueing. Which is a pretty useful, if somewhat anachronistic, characteristic for a State to have right now.

@TheHateIsNotGood

DGRosetti - I had a very similar experience myself yesterday - did you actually say it felt so "British"? You do knowthat you're not allowed to say such things here, well you might get away with it, but there's loads of us here that just keep schtum for ....well...you know, obvious reasons.

Besides our NHS, it was the organization, courtesy, no drama and of course that world-renowned British version of Queueing. Which is a pretty useful, if somewhat anachronistic, characteristic for a State to have right now.

"British" can be used where appropriate, of course. I believe that queuing and tea are habits that transcend the 4 nations - and might be extended to cover the entire geographical feature of the British Isles ....

However I do try very carefully not to say "British" when it comes to things that are purely "English". Like the government of the UK for example.

Ah when I had my vaccination there were spinsters on bicycles arriving in droves, shedding hatpins. What larks, how British!

www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/19101233.very-few-lorry-movements-post-brexit-facility/
‘Very few’ lorry movements at post-Brexit facility

AN average of only 30 vehicle movements a day have been made at a post-Brexit inland border facility for lorries since it opened

and

“Several council officers were involved in the planning for this facility which has been designed to accommodate over 800 vehicles per day.

The queue for McDonalds at the services at J20 is longer.

RTB
Wow, so they are surprised that the RoI had made contingency plans for two sets of customs clearance.
Golly gosh.

place mark dinos

PMK.

Lovely cats PrettyBird and FatCatThinCat.

I have a dinosaur obsessed child too LQ.

DGR Glad you have had the vaccine. The NHS have done a great job of the rollout.

Course, what the lack of lorry movements don't tell you, is how many are avoiding the land bridge altogether, or how many coming from Ireland but delivering in Wales or England just aren't bothering with Customs at all. Things are not yet anything like back to normal with Covid.

Still the one commentator thinks that Brexit is wonderful - or rather that Project Fear hasn't materialised, which is not the same as a gain from Brexit.

A bridge backed by Sadiq Khan at one stage - he was later accused of flip-flopping on the idea;
No doubt. If I close my eyes I can hear the outraged squawking.
However, he fulfilled an election promise to investigate the project.

Mr Khan said: “The Garden Bridge could rival New York’s High Line but it must be a genuinely public and open space for all Londoners, rather than a closed and private space.
He said all of that, and then he added, 'BUT...'
www.buzzfeed.com/sirajdatoo/sadiq-khan-gives-backing-to-londons-garden-bridge-project-bu
Here is a selection of his statements on the topic, including caveats.

In the end, Khan smelled a giant rat and pulled the plug.
archinect.com/news/article/149945629/sadiq-khan-investigates-troublesome-details-in-thames-garden-bridge-project

archinect.com/news/article/150002008/biting-independent-review-on-garden-bridge-is-a-reality-check-for-the-project-s-authorities

@Clavinova
Is sensible stewardship of public funds no longer a laudable attribute in a politician?

1 Dumfries and Galloway Council said it was "certainly not averse" to the proposal [bridge] being examined.

1. I thought it was an idea worth examining and that we should take a look at it...a “high-level engineering assessment” should be done to see whether it is a viable proposal... (Leo Varadkar)

@Clavinova, have you ever watched the very funny and clever satire 'Yes Minister'?

Don't write off NI yet - we are only 7 weeks in.

The only way NI can hope to avoid economic disaster is by making the Protocol work and working to stay as closely aligned as possible to the EU.

Sadly, the benighted DUP won't get behind any of that.

So yes, the NI economic outlook is very grim indeed.

...the organization, courtesy, no drama and of course that world-renowned British version of Queueing. Which is a pretty useful, if somewhat anachronistic, characteristic for a State to have right now.

You clearly haven't visited any of my local supermarkets during the past year. Day after day, queues of patient, cheerful, mask-wearing people standing six feet apart waiting to be beckoned through the entrance by polite supermarket employees after other shoppers had exited through the other doors, so that the supermarkets could comply with the maximum occupancy rules of the municipality. I doubt many of those lining up (we call queues 'lines') were British.

When life gets you down, watch a flash mob

DGRosetti - I completely understand others' definition and how they wish to express it. Myself, I'm half-breed, Scottish Father and English Mother, lived in both countries and elsewhere. I therefore Identify as British - that's what my Nationality is, no matter how much I might want to change it.

Clearly I haven't visited your local supermarkets anxiety - aren't yours as reasonable as mine? Where are these disruptive supermarkets - do you need some Local Queue Instructors?

Happy to help - just PM me.

I'm not in the UK, @TheHateIsNotGood.

The conclusion of my observations over the last year is that orderliness and patience are not exclusively British virtues.

Patient queueing used to be big in Communist Russia, didn’t it? Societies like to claim all sorts of virtues for themselves; patience, stoicism, kindness, generosity, innovation etc. Often these seem to be borne of past or even present tribulations and in a sense go towards justifying them. In this country we use “the war”, some people use abusive childhoods (I was beaten and it never did me any harm, etc.). You see it in threads on Mumsnet: “we never had any heating when I was a child so my thermostat is set at zero and I just put on a jumper when icicles form on my nose”.
It has the added advantage of “othering” those who have not endured such inconvenience or unpleasantness by making them appear morally deficient.

There was a thread a few days on MN started by someone saying that they had been disadvantaged when they were small but had managed to get three degrees and done well for themselves so therefore there was no reason for anyone to stay in poverty or continue to be disadvantaged.

They claimed to be close to retirement - yet had had to take out hefty student loans to get their degree(s)

It got pulled pretty quickly

I doubt many of those lining up (we call queues 'lines') were British.

Yes ... it's probably the very first thing you learn in the UK.