For a significant number of viewers, replacing the final of MasterChef with programming celebrating the life of Prince Philip was the wrong decision. Quite how many would have complained if the BBC had done the opposite is the unanswered question.
I really wonder what "the opposite" would be.
Put on a special episode of Master Chef where contestants have to cook Prince Philip
For a significant number of viewers, replacing the final of MasterChef with programming celebrating the life of Prince Philip was the wrong decision. Quite how many would have complained if the BBC had done the opposite is the unanswered question.
I really wonder what "the opposite" would be.
Put on a special episode of Master Chef where contestants have to cook Prince Philip
Prince Philip seems like the kind of person who would enjoy a good missionary-and-cannibal joke.
The only worry is if they call a snap election to capitalise on it. Which I wouldn't put past this bunch, and I wouldn't put it past enough opposing to vote for it as well although I've not done the maths for that.
The only worry is if they call a snap election to capitalise on it. Which I wouldn't put past this bunch, and I wouldn't put it past enough opposing to vote for it as well although I've not done the maths for that.
But surely, this flagrant abuse of power is what the fixed term parliament act exists to prevent? It's absolutely ironclad (so long as you ignore the previous two snap elections)! :biggrin:
Jokes aside, why would the tories risk it for the sake of an extra year and a half or so? May thought it was an easy gamble and it cost her - and this time the tories biggest electoral asset is out of the picture (although I imagine he'd probably pipe up just to cause trouble for Labour).
Thinking about it, we haven't actually had a regularly scheduled election since 2015, and aren't due one until the very end of 2024. Every election in between has been scheduled by the tories and it does give them a distinct advantage.
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
The absolute worst shower of bastards imaginable
It's really hard not to feel totally despondent about politics in this country. In my lifetime the government has usually been Tory, with occasional labour blips that don't last and I don't feel like ever will last. This is a Tory country. It fucking sucks.
Next election is due to be May 2024, as per the FTPA. I’m fully expecting Johnson to repeal that act (which takes fewer votes than calling an election under the terms of the act) then call an election at whatever point suits him, because why should he let someone else tell him when he can call an election?
Edit to add: turns out the repeal of the FTPA was part of the 2020 queen’s speech, but all of that was obviously derailed. So yeah, they’ll get back on that as soon as they think there’s been enough of a gap since the pandemic.
Yeah I thought we already were getting rid of FTPA because at this point pretty much everyone agrees it was a bad idea? I guess covid must have kicked it into the weeds.
It's really hard not to feel totally despondent about politics in this country. In my lifetime the government has usually been Tory, with occasional labour blips that don't last and I don't feel like ever will last. This is a Tory country. It fucking sucks.
Labour did hold a majority once though, and on that occasion neglected to do anything about FPTP or redistricting that could've stopped the Tory stranglehold. Very likely because it would risk them being hurt as well by third parties.
Also, THE Funeral, "this music was chosen by Philip, he has eclectic tastes" *music proceeds to be music that's been on for the last hour and is all standard British fare.
Only people in power can change the system and no one changes the system that put them in power. Labours mistake is assuming the status quo benefits them as much as it does the Tories, which is blatantly incorrect, but I guess they think every time they get in power somehow won't result in them doing something stupid that earns them two decades in the cold.
Only people in power can change the system and no one changes the system that put them in power. Labours mistake is assuming the status quo benefits them as much as it does the Tories, which is blatantly incorrect, but I guess they think every time they get in power somehow won't result in them doing something stupid that earns them two decades in the cold.
That something stupid was the US subprime mortgage collapse, but yeah I've no idea why Labour isn't for electoral reform - though that might be a post SNP Scotland world, which to be fair is probably their second stupid thing.
I also think it's likely quite complicated to campaign on changing the rules as the second major party, as it's kind of giving the impression that you can't win fairly under the current rules, which might turn people off regardless of how true it might be.
It's definitely the lesson they should have learnt from the Brexit party.
Postal vote is in. First party on the West Scotland list info sheet is Abolish the Scottish Parliament party. Yes I want less reputation and a museum instead of a parliament Robert. Or I could vote for the list that includes Ross Greer. Tricky decision.
AtSP think Holyrood is ugly and should be converted to a vet museum with staff buildings converted for vet housing mainly because Holyrood is a waste of money. Holyrood isn't ugly and the main chamber is stunning although you might not know it if all you see is the low angles from debates which are admittedly not great sometimes.
Oh well that's that done.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
So awesome
tbf cons SHOULD be ahead
huge nationalist event in philip dying activating patriots plus glow from vaccinations and lockdown release
Only people in power can change the system and no one changes the system that put them in power. Labours mistake is assuming the status quo benefits them as much as it does the Tories, which is blatantly incorrect, but I guess they think every time they get in power somehow won't result in them doing something stupid that earns them two decades in the cold.
That something stupid was the US subprime mortgage collapse, but yeah I've no idea why Labour isn't for electoral reform - though that might be a post SNP Scotland world, which to be fair is probably their second stupid thing.
I also think it's likely quite complicated to campaign on changing the rules as the second major party, as it's kind of giving the impression that you can't win fairly under the current rules, which might turn people off regardless of how true it might be.
It's definitely the lesson they should have learnt from the Brexit party.
Labour did plenty to get themselves booted out. Off the top of my head the biggies are the illegal war in Iraq, cash for honours, the expenses scandals, several attempts to force mandatory biometric ID on the public and switching to a leader basically no one liked didn't do them a lot of favours either.
Yes most of us would have traded our left arms to have Gordon Brown as a leader at any point in the last decade but at the time he was pretty much the final nail in labours coffin. I've spoken before about the electorates double standard towards Labour and it's just a fact of life that levels of sleaze that is every day for the Tories will destroy Labour governments. Tory voters are people who are already benefiting from inequality and corruption or are kidding themselves that they one day will, Labour voters are people who want the corruption to stop. They don't brush off and forgive Labour for "playing the game" and they have long memories.
I might have my events in the wrong order, but I wasn't including the Iraq war as they won an election even afterwards even when things weren't going swimmingly without a huge change in the number of seats.
I don't know if Brown as PM lost them that many seats, but he certainly wasn't the charismatic leader who could have weathered the hit from the GFC - but you're right, fatigue and those other scandals would have played apart (I had thought the expenses scandal came out under Cameron too, I'd also compressed Brown's premiership into a couple of months in my head rather three years!).
While the most important issue is clearly that some football teams are trying to make their own football league with blackjack and hookers (which the government is naturally pulling out all the stops to stop, because there's nothing more important for them to deal with), this gives me cause for concern: Government to speed up UK climate change target
Radical new climate change commitments are to become law in the UK, Boris Johnson will announce this week.
The prime minister will say carbon emissions will be cut by 78% by 2035 - almost 15 years earlier than previously planned - which would be a world-leading position.
And for the first time the climate law would be extended to cover international aviation and shipping.
Good news if he actually follows through on it (I give 20% odds), but considering how much he dithered about lockdowns when scientists were telling him every day counted, just how scary was the private briefing Boris must have gotten about this?
The most likely scenario I can believe was someone telling him "This will get incredibly bad while you're still around to unequivocally get the blame for it."
Idealogical greenness and conservation is actually quite a force in the modern Tory party
Not quite sure how it got there but Gove is a notable conservationist as well. When he was Environmental Secretary chuffin Greenpeace was singing his praises!
Nah, it's more likley he's grabbing an easy win. Politicians love making ambitious, attention grabbing projects with deadlines set for long after they've left office. It'll be someone else's problem in 2035, that'll probably be the next time Labour wins an election! Win win!
Idealogical greenness and conservation is actually quite a force in the modern Tory party
Not quite sure how it got there but Gove is a notable conservationist as well. When he was Environmental Secretary chuffin Greenpeace was singing his praises!
You see, conservation sounds like conservative, and being conservative is good, therefore conservation is good. I suspect this is the extent of the logic in place here.
Idealogical greenness and conservation is actually quite a force in the modern Tory party
Not quite sure how it got there but Gove is a notable conservationist as well. When he was Environmental Secretary chuffin Greenpeace was singing his praises!
You see, conservation sounds like conservative, and being conservative is good, therefore conservation is good. I suspect this is the extent of the logic in place here.
No it's about keeping the affluent green spaces they [live in/have second homes in/go fox hunting in] green, low density and undeveloped. Conservation as NIMBYism.
Idealogical greenness and conservation is actually quite a force in the modern Tory party
Not quite sure how it got there but Gove is a notable conservationist as well. When he was Environmental Secretary chuffin Greenpeace was singing his praises!
You see, conservation sounds like conservative, and being conservative is good, therefore conservation is good. I suspect this is the extent of the logic in place here.
No it's about keeping the affluent green spaces they [live in/have second homes in/go fox hunting in] green, low density and undeveloped. Conservation as NIMBYism.
That was how modern conservationism started, in fairness.
I suspect it's mostly about them hosting the environmental thingy this year and wanting to look good. I'd like to see how they plan on reducing emissions during this Parliament to ensure the target is on track to be met. Saying 78% by 2035 is great! But if you're just saying that and doing nothing but foisting it on the next bunch in it's not so impressive.
Like many things it's a combination of people being more idealistic than you'd expect and less than you'd like, to paraphrase the quote
There are a lot of Tories who genuinely believe in preserving the environment. Look at various royals who champion green causes, a lot of conservatives spend time with a lot of land owners, and land owners (especially old, landowning families) are big into conservation. Are they into it because of fluffy planet protecting reasons? Some of them yes, some of them just want the Grouse shooting to not be affected. But Gove and Johnson are both proponents of green technology and policies, amongst others. It just happens to be a Tory thing, it's just one more way (and there are many) in which the Tories are not Republicans and to think of them as Republicans is just not accurate. The UK government is not a climate change denialist government, quite the opposite.
Also from a more cynical point of view to be a Tory you need to lack the ability to engage with the UK's cultural, social and economic reality, not it's meteorological reality. Tories who have inerringly wrong instincts on everything from education to the economy to health service provision seemingly seem to have pretty realistic views on climate change. A smarter person than me might be able to tell you why.
I suspect it's a silver linning of Thatcher killing off the coal subsidies and fucking over the regions that depended on them.
When the industry that had been the UK's biggest greenhouse gas emitters hates you with every fiber of their being, you're less likely to be tempted to deny that aspect of reality to get votes.
Idealogical greenness and conservation is actually quite a force in the modern Tory party
Not quite sure how it got there but Gove is a notable conservationist as well. When he was Environmental Secretary chuffin Greenpeace was singing his praises!
You see, conservation sounds like conservative, and being conservative is good, therefore conservation is good. I suspect this is the extent of the logic in place here.
No it's about keeping the affluent green spaces they [live in/have second homes in/go fox hunting in] green, low density and undeveloped. Conservation as NIMBYism.
That was how modern conservationism started, in fairness.
Yup. Over here, Teddy Roosevelt helped kick off our system of national parks because he wanted there to always be places for True Gentlemen to go shoot the hell out of some animals.
Downing Street has scrapped plans to launch new White House-style press conferences after spending £2.6m on a venue to host them.
The PM's media chief Allegra Stratton - who had been due to front the briefings - has confirmed the move to the BBC.
She will instead become the spokeswoman for the COP26 climate summit.
The government was criticised for the price tag of its new facilities at 9 Downing Street, which will now be used by the prime minister and officials.
Responding to the news, Labour's Deputy Leader Angela Rayner accused Boris Johnson of "running scared of scrutiny".
She added: "Instead of wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on a pointless vanity project, the prime minister should have used the money to give our NHS heroes a pay rise."
But a No 10 source told the BBC the current format of coronavirus press conferences had been "widely welcomed by the public" and they planned to continue with them to discuss both Covid and "government policy".
If 'widely welcomed' is PR speak for 'immediately change the channel and check online an hour later to see if there was anything interesting', then yeah.
Downing Street has scrapped plans to launch new White House-style press conferences after spending £2.6m on a venue to host them.
The PM's media chief Allegra Stratton - who had been due to front the briefings - has confirmed the move to the BBC.
She will instead become the spokeswoman for the COP26 climate summit.
The government was criticised for the price tag of its new facilities at 9 Downing Street, which will now be used by the prime minister and officials.
Responding to the news, Labour's Deputy Leader Angela Rayner accused Boris Johnson of "running scared of scrutiny".
She added: "Instead of wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on a pointless vanity project, the prime minister should have used the money to give our NHS heroes a pay rise."
But a No 10 source told the BBC the current format of coronavirus press conferences had been "widely welcomed by the public" and they planned to continue with them to discuss both Covid and "government policy".
If 'widely welcomed' is PR speak for 'immediately change the channel and check online an hour later to see if there was anything interesting', then yeah.
"Widely welcomed" = oh, Pointless will be on BBC2 tonight
I dunno whose idea televised Q&A sessions with a government spokesperson were but they were pretty thick if they thought Allegra Stratton stonewalling and lying at a podium for an hour was good for government PR.
I can appreciate number ten wanting to have a method of speaking to the nation after a year of speaking to the nation but it seems like whatever they were using for that worked already and they didn't need anything else? I am not quite sure what the point of it is, other than having an official spokesperson, and typically number ten has spokespeople anyway?
Labour are continuing the lobbying attack on the Tories by highlighting texts that occurred between James Dyson and Boris Johnson where Dyson seems to have successfully pressed the PM to wave tax bills for Dyson employees temporarily working in the UK. The only issue here is that the conversation related to the point last year when the government were desperately asking every engineering firm to send people here to make ventilators.
I can appreciate Labour pressing home the point and this may turn out to be in violation of some rule but I think labour may have cottoned on to possibly the sole example of lobbying being used in both the moral and national interest. Dyson lost money from the whole thing, they were responding to a plea for help from the government in a time of crisis, they attempted to go through proper channels but the treasury wouldn't even speed up for an emergency. Regardless of whether it breaks the rules or not I don't think many people are going to be upset that the PM got personally involved and sped things along at a point we had people dying in hospital corridors because of a lack of ventilators. There's no profit motive here to attack. God knows I'm no fan of Johnson or Dyson but this could backfire on Labour.
Labour are continuing the lobbying attack on the Tories by highlighting texts that occurred between James Dyson and Boris Johnson where Dyson seems to have successfully pressed the PM to wave tax bills for Dyson employees temporarily working in the UK. The only issue here is that the conversation related to the point last year when the government were desperately asking every engineering firm to send people here to make ventilators.
I can appreciate Labour pressing home the point and this may turn out to be in violation of some rule but I think labour may have cottoned on to possibly the sole example of lobbying being used in both the moral and national interest. Dyson lost money from the whole thing, they were responding to a plea for help from the government in a time of crisis, they attempted to go through proper channels but the treasury wouldn't even speed up for an emergency. Regardless of whether it breaks the rules or not I don't think many people are going to be upset that the PM got personally involved and sped things along at a point we had people dying in hospital corridors because of a lack of ventilators. There's no profit motive here to attack. God knows I'm no fan of Johnson or Dyson but this could backfire on Labour.
The Dyson stuff was super shady. They were a completely unsuitable manufacturing partner and unsurprisingly failed to deliver as a result.
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Get some old Spitting Image episodes on
Edit: balls, that wasn't the Beeb, was it?
Put on a special episode of Master Chef where contestants have to cook Prince Philip
Prince Philip seems like the kind of person who would enjoy a good missionary-and-cannibal joke.
Britain elects is the UK's biggest polling aggregator.
So.......that's not great.
I know, I know: FPTP
The only worry is if they call a snap election to capitalise on it. Which I wouldn't put past this bunch, and I wouldn't put it past enough opposing to vote for it as well although I've not done the maths for that.
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But surely, this flagrant abuse of power is what the fixed term parliament act exists to prevent? It's absolutely ironclad (so long as you ignore the previous two snap elections)! :biggrin:
Jokes aside, why would the tories risk it for the sake of an extra year and a half or so? May thought it was an easy gamble and it cost her - and this time the tories biggest electoral asset is out of the picture (although I imagine he'd probably pipe up just to cause trouble for Labour).
Thinking about it, we haven't actually had a regularly scheduled election since 2015, and aren't due one until the very end of 2024. Every election in between has been scheduled by the tories and it does give them a distinct advantage.
Edit to add: turns out the repeal of the FTPA was part of the 2020 queen’s speech, but all of that was obviously derailed. So yeah, they’ll get back on that as soon as they think there’s been enough of a gap since the pandemic.
Labour did hold a majority once though, and on that occasion neglected to do anything about FPTP or redistricting that could've stopped the Tory stranglehold. Very likely because it would risk them being hurt as well by third parties.
Also, THE Funeral, "this music was chosen by Philip, he has eclectic tastes" *music proceeds to be music that's been on for the last hour and is all standard British fare.
That something stupid was the US subprime mortgage collapse, but yeah I've no idea why Labour isn't for electoral reform - though that might be a post SNP Scotland world, which to be fair is probably their second stupid thing.
I also think it's likely quite complicated to campaign on changing the rules as the second major party, as it's kind of giving the impression that you can't win fairly under the current rules, which might turn people off regardless of how true it might be.
It's definitely the lesson they should have learnt from the Brexit party.
AtSP think Holyrood is ugly and should be converted to a vet museum with staff buildings converted for vet housing mainly because Holyrood is a waste of money. Holyrood isn't ugly and the main chamber is stunning although you might not know it if all you see is the low angles from debates which are admittedly not great sometimes.
Oh well that's that done.
huge nationalist event in philip dying activating patriots plus glow from vaccinations and lockdown release
lets see how things go
Labour did plenty to get themselves booted out. Off the top of my head the biggies are the illegal war in Iraq, cash for honours, the expenses scandals, several attempts to force mandatory biometric ID on the public and switching to a leader basically no one liked didn't do them a lot of favours either.
Yes most of us would have traded our left arms to have Gordon Brown as a leader at any point in the last decade but at the time he was pretty much the final nail in labours coffin. I've spoken before about the electorates double standard towards Labour and it's just a fact of life that levels of sleaze that is every day for the Tories will destroy Labour governments. Tory voters are people who are already benefiting from inequality and corruption or are kidding themselves that they one day will, Labour voters are people who want the corruption to stop. They don't brush off and forgive Labour for "playing the game" and they have long memories.
I don't know if Brown as PM lost them that many seats, but he certainly wasn't the charismatic leader who could have weathered the hit from the GFC - but you're right, fatigue and those other scandals would have played apart (I had thought the expenses scandal came out under Cameron too, I'd also compressed Brown's premiership into a couple of months in my head rather three years!).
Government to speed up UK climate change target Good news if he actually follows through on it (I give 20% odds), but considering how much he dithered about lockdowns when scientists were telling him every day counted, just how scary was the private briefing Boris must have gotten about this?
The most likely scenario I can believe was someone telling him "This will get incredibly bad while you're still around to unequivocally get the blame for it."
Not quite sure how it got there but Gove is a notable conservationist as well. When he was Environmental Secretary chuffin Greenpeace was singing his praises!
You see, conservation sounds like conservative, and being conservative is good, therefore conservation is good. I suspect this is the extent of the logic in place here.
No it's about keeping the affluent green spaces they [live in/have second homes in/go fox hunting in] green, low density and undeveloped. Conservation as NIMBYism.
That was how modern conservationism started, in fairness.
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There are a lot of Tories who genuinely believe in preserving the environment. Look at various royals who champion green causes, a lot of conservatives spend time with a lot of land owners, and land owners (especially old, landowning families) are big into conservation. Are they into it because of fluffy planet protecting reasons? Some of them yes, some of them just want the Grouse shooting to not be affected. But Gove and Johnson are both proponents of green technology and policies, amongst others. It just happens to be a Tory thing, it's just one more way (and there are many) in which the Tories are not Republicans and to think of them as Republicans is just not accurate. The UK government is not a climate change denialist government, quite the opposite.
Also from a more cynical point of view to be a Tory you need to lack the ability to engage with the UK's cultural, social and economic reality, not it's meteorological reality. Tories who have inerringly wrong instincts on everything from education to the economy to health service provision seemingly seem to have pretty realistic views on climate change. A smarter person than me might be able to tell you why.
When the industry that had been the UK's biggest greenhouse gas emitters hates you with every fiber of their being, you're less likely to be tempted to deny that aspect of reality to get votes.
Yup. Over here, Teddy Roosevelt helped kick off our system of national parks because he wanted there to always be places for True Gentlemen to go shoot the hell out of some animals.
"Widely welcomed" = oh, Pointless will be on BBC2 tonight
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Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Also she is Rishi Sunak's children's godparent
Chumocracy indeed
I can appreciate Labour pressing home the point and this may turn out to be in violation of some rule but I think labour may have cottoned on to possibly the sole example of lobbying being used in both the moral and national interest. Dyson lost money from the whole thing, they were responding to a plea for help from the government in a time of crisis, they attempted to go through proper channels but the treasury wouldn't even speed up for an emergency. Regardless of whether it breaks the rules or not I don't think many people are going to be upset that the PM got personally involved and sped things along at a point we had people dying in hospital corridors because of a lack of ventilators. There's no profit motive here to attack. God knows I'm no fan of Johnson or Dyson but this could backfire on Labour.
The Dyson stuff was super shady. They were a completely unsuitable manufacturing partner and unsurprisingly failed to deliver as a result.