Thursday 24th March 2022

[refitman]

Morning all.

[frog222]

BBC R4 frontpage review at 6.08 this morning, unanimous condemnation of Soapy, even the Express & DT , highlighting the Star's !
https://www.tomorrowspapers.co.uk/
The Star wins —

[frog222]

https://www.ft.com/content/857d2ccd-285 ... e04b42ba93



https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/busin ... ad-317103/

[gilsey]

Good morning.


A twitter exchange yesterday, roughly

'I'm in Istanbul, they'll exchange roubles, and nobody's wearing a mask'

'Russian money welcome, and no masks, just like London then'.

[gilsey]

[Willow904]

Everyone seems less than impressed by the government's lacklustre response to the worst cost of living crisis in decades. The budget was only generous in its scope for humour, it seems:

[frog222]

[gilsey]

Transport & Business Committee.





Worth reading the whole thing.

[frog222]

@Gilsey -- any fines are just a cost of doing business . Cheap at the price .

[AnatolyKasparov]

Turns out it was some random person's car, which he filled (or pretended to) as a photo opportunity.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Yes this 'mini budget' does seem to have gone down particularly badly doesn't it? The right wing press saying it's a raid on the middle class, the left saying pensioners and benefit claimants are being left to fend for themselves, he's managed to please nobody. If I were on 'team Rishi' I'd be getting a bit worried about his evident lack of political acumen. Osborne always managed to throw out some headline grabbing scrap to the Tory media to keep them happy but Sunak seems to be devoid of that kind of shrewdness.

And a word about Rachel Reeves. I've given her plenty of stick but I thought she was excellent yesterday, especially the Alice in Wonderland bit.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Sunak got lots of mind blowingly sycophantic media coverage until recently, and that often serves people badly when things become a bit more difficult.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

How strange, the Tory press are telling us Johnson is the new Churchillian leader of the free world yet the other NATO leaders are treating him as if he just shat himself.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Sunak got lots of mind blowingly sycophantic media coverage until recently, and that often serves people badly when things become a bit more difficult.

Despite the vitriol aimed at his budget in the Telegraph they were still making excuses for him claiming he was forced into being a reluctant Social Democrat by a 'Heseltinian' Johnson. I somehow doubt Heseltine would appreciate the comparison.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Kate Andrews!

[frog222]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... on-top-job

ITMA !

[refitman]

Tears of a clown

[frog222]

[Sky'sGoneOut]

QT report from Reading. I nearly went to University there but the student halls still had two pin electric plugs in 1988 and I couldn't plug my crimpers in so decided against it.

For the Tories we had Damian Hinds. I have slipped on really slippy ice that was less slippery than Damian. He was so slippery that reality seemed to just slide off him while he maintained a kind of semi-smirk. A Tory woman in the audience berated him at length yet her criticism could gain no traction due to his slipperiness. Eventually some frustrated fellow in the audience shouted out that Mr Slippery seemed to be finding the whole experience funny and treating it as a joke. Damian winced at this and looked mildly pained before denying that he'd found the previous proceedings amusing. Which is odd, because that's exactly what it fucking looked like. He thought he was being clever, yet a majority Tory audience thought otherwise. We may demonise them on occasion (ahem) but there are Tory voters who have a social conscience and they made Damian very aware of their displeasure by turning on him.

For Labour we had Lisa Nandy. Once again Lisa had come to chew gum and kick ass but she was all out of gum. She was basically shooting fish in a barrel but she did it with admirable verve. Not least when some young Tory scrote tried the old 'but what would Labour do' line and she answered him so well even he had to do a little begrudging polite clap. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't always agree with her but she's an absolute asset to the Labour party.

For the Spectator we had Kate Andrews. Over the years Kate seems to have learned to filter out her more loony right wing tendencies in front of a live audience which is a shame because she used to be really funny. So tonight while we had an incoherent, economically illiterate defence of Sunak (borrowing is bad even if it's for investment, we need more austerity) we also had the soft cuddly side saying all refugees are welcome and the hostile enviroment is awful. Who knows, she may mean the latter but I got the impression that even she read the room/country better than Mr Slippery and was telling people what they wanted to hear.

For the PCS Union we had Mark Serwotka. This was one of Mark's less ranty performances and was all the better for it.

For forgotten comedians from ages ago we had Dom Joly. Dom was great. Said it like it was.

[PorFavor]

I didn't understand a word that Kate Andrews said. Well, I understood the individual words. The problem arose when she put them in a sentence. She must be one of the few people who can be said to be ill-served by the ablity to string more than two words together.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I think it's fair to say that whichever side of the feminist/trans divide you stand on Graham Linehan has only himself to blame. I mean there's having your own opinion then there's having some weird destructive mania that ruins your family and career.

Thankfully this doesn't stop Father Ted and the IT Crowd being brilliant.

What perplexes me is why as a straight male he went down this route, and not just him, so many other straight males seem keen to give their opinions, why?

I'm a straight male, what the fuck do I know about the struggles of women and transexuals? I mean I know as a lefty I'm supposed to empathise with everyone (as long as they're not right wing) but I can't and I don't think I should in this instance.

This isn't my fight.

And I don't understand why so many men are so arrogant to think it's theirs.

[PorFavor]

Night night.

[Sky'sGoneOut]