Saturday 20th and Sunday 21st June 2015

[rebeccariots2]

I've obviously done too much gardening today and addled my brain ... I no longer understand anyone's posts.

[AngryAsWell]

One for CJA..

All choked up: did Britain's dirty air make me dangerously ill?
This year, environment correspondent John Vidal had heart bypass surgery – a wake-up call that prompted him to investigate the state of the air we breathe. With 29,000 UK deaths a year attributed to pollution, is it time we cleaned up our act?

http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/ ... ity-health" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[citizenJA]

Goodnight, everyone.

I repeat:
Goodnight, everyone.

(I thought I'd do it voluntarily.)

Goodnight, PorFavor

[citizenJA]

1.The last Labour Government let welfare spiral out of control.
2.It has taken many years for welfare to get out of control

There is no inconsistency in these statements.

1.The vulnerable will be protected.
2.If they are not protected they are not vulnerable.

I'm confused, HindleA, as well as terrified by these people.
Is your post satirical, am I not understanding your meaning? Apologies - please write a bit more if you've time.

“It took many years for welfare spending to spiral so far out of control, and it’s a project of a decade or more to return the system to sanity. Reforming the damaging culture of welfare dependency and ensuring that work pays has been central to our mission to make Britain fit for the future.”

This government was elected with a mandate to implement further savings from the £220bn welfare budget...For a start, we will reduce the benefit cap, and have made clear that we believe we need to make significant savings from other working-age benefits. We will set out in detail all the steps we will take to bring about savings totalling £12bn a year in next month’s budget and at the spending review in the autumn."

- An extract from Chancellor Jeff in a joint article with Iain Duncan Smith in the Times
21 June 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... y-protests" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[citizenJA]

One for CJA..

All choked up: did Britain's dirty air make me dangerously ill?
This year, environment correspondent John Vidal had heart bypass surgery – a wake-up call that prompted him to investigate the state of the air we breathe. With 29,000 UK deaths a year attributed to pollution, is it time we cleaned up our act?

http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/ ... ity-health" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Oh, gracious.
Powerful & scary.
Thanks for posting the link.
I'd missed it.

[RogerOThornhill]

Jeez...that Burnham article is like a magnet for very soddin' troll for miles around - they're all there!

[rebeccariots2]

Soft rain in the green green garden now. Makes me think of that Joni Mitchell song / album 'hissing of summer lawns'.

[RogerOThornhill]

Soft rain in the green green garden now. Makes me think of that Joni Mitchell song / album 'hissing of summer lawns'.

Lovely album - 1975 was such a great year...Dylan's Blood On the Tracks, first Patti Smith, first Nils Lofgren, John Fogerty and Joni - five of may all-time favourites.

[AngryAsWell]

Yannis Koutsomitis ‏@YanniKouts · 25m25 minutes ago
French officials point to an imminent agreement following Tsipras-Merkel-Hollande call http://bit.ly/1fraaWz" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; /via @handelsblatt #Greece

...fingers crossed.

[HindleA]

@CJA

Yes attempt at satire.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Soft rain in the green green garden now. Makes me think of that Joni Mitchell song / album 'hissing of summer lawns'.

Lovely album - 1975 was such a great year...Dylan's Blood On the Tracks, first Patti Smith, first Nils Lofgren, John Fogerty and Joni - five of may all-time favourites.

Not forgetting Physical Graffiti and Wish You Were Here for those who liked slightly harder stuff.

I like punk, but it wasn't all a wasteland before it arrived by any means

[RogerOThornhill]

Soft rain in the green green garden now. Makes me think of that Joni Mitchell song / album 'hissing of summer lawns'.

Lovely album - 1975 was such a great year...Dylan's Blood On the Tracks, first Patti Smith, first Nils Lofgren, John Fogerty and Joni - five of may all-time favourites.

Not forgetting Physical Graffiti and Wish You Were Here for those who liked slightly harder stuff.

I like punk, but it wasn't all a wasteland before it arrived by any means

Also Brian Eno's Another Green World, Guy Clark Old No 1. Smokey Robinson A Quiet Storm...

[AnatolyKasparov]

HQ by Roy Harper, as well

Talking of punk, was messing around on YouTube the other day (as you do) and stumbled upon a C4 news interview last year (that I had somehow missed at the time) with Viv Albertine - one of my very first crushes. She's remarkably posh tbh, but still very politically sound - and looks pretty great for 60

Her autobiography is well worth reading, apparently......

[AngryAsWell]

HQ by Roy Harper, as well

Talking of punk, was messing around on YouTube the other day (as you do) and stumbled upon a C4 news interview last year (that I had somehow missed at the time) with Viv Albertine - one of my very first crushes. She's remarkably posh tbh, but still very politically sound - and looks pretty great for 60

Her autobiography is well worth reading, apparently......

She's just released her first solo album

http://vivalbertine.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[RogerOThornhill]

Surprised? No, not really...

Gove plans freedom of information crackdown

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3e10b852-15d2 ... z3djOnJxVY

Ministers are planning a crackdown on Britain’s freedom of information laws in a move critics say undermines David Cameron’s claim to create a “new era of transparency in government”.

Michael Gove, the justice secretary, is considering making it more difficult to procure information from government bodies, including allowing officials to count “thinking time” when calculating how much it costs to retrieve information.

One plan is to make it easier for ministers to veto publication of certain documents, as they tried unsuccessfully to do with the recent release of letters written by Prince Charles to Labour ministers during the past decade.

Another is to change the way the cost of finding information is calculated so that officials can more readily turn down requests.

As the source for this said:

Laura McInerney ‏@miss_mcinerney 52m52 minutes ago
If Gove's going to start complaining about #foi cost he better know the ratio of how much each department spends on marketing vs #foi


Laura McInerney ‏@miss_mcinerney 51m51 minutes ago
Because if you're spending millions on what YOU want to tell ME it's hard to argue against cash for what the public actually *want* to know.

Spot on.

[citizenJA]

Soft rain in the green green garden now. Makes me think of that Joni Mitchell song / album 'hissing of summer lawns'.

I envy you, though the air quality in Stoke currently good, there's no rain & people are driving too fast.
& those goddam power tools...
apologies
it's a Tory government & nothing is right
ironically

[citizenJA]

@CJA

Yes attempt at satire.

I've written the following too many times already but I'm ageing into querulous & repetitive:

Tory government have destroyed satire by becoming satire.

[citizenJA]

Surprised? No, not really...
Gove plans freedom of information crackdown

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3e10b852-15d2 ... z3djOnJxVY

Ministers are planning a crackdown on Britain’s freedom of information laws in a move critics say undermines David Cameron’s claim to create a “new era of transparency in government”.

Michael Gove, the justice secretary, is considering making it more difficult to procure information from government bodies, including allowing officials to count “thinking time” when calculating how much it costs to retrieve information.

One plan is to make it easier for ministers to veto publication of certain documents, as they tried unsuccessfully to do with the recent release of letters written by Prince Charles to Labour ministers during the past decade.

Another is to change the way the cost of finding information is calculated so that officials can more readily turn down requests.

As the source for this said:
Laura McInerney ‏@miss_mcinerney 52m52 minutes ago
If Gove's going to start complaining about #foi cost he better know the ratio of how much each department spends on marketing vs #foi

Laura McInerney ‏@miss_mcinerney 51m51 minutes ago
Because if you're spending millions on what YOU want to tell ME it's hard to argue against cash for what the public actually *want* to know.

Spot on.

Yes, Laura McInerney is correct & sums it up beautifully.
Tories don't do reasonable.

[citizenJA]

Gove demands civil servants spell out contractions?
Oh, god what a tedious little man.

[RogerOThornhill]

Gove demands civil servants spell out contractions?
Oh, god what a tedious little man.

Oh, I saw that...how to win friends and influence people my M.Gove.

Does he really think you can't begin a sentence with 'However'?

And I bet he doesn't think you should start a sentence with And...er...oh.

Tedious little man is correct.

[rebeccariots2]

Remember - only just yesterday I fantasised about firing Gove off into outer space - to catch a ride on a comet heading into the sun. He really really is the most odious conniving .............

Jim Pickard retweeted
David Pegg ‏@davidtpegg 1h1 hour ago
2011: Gove told he can't use private email to dodge FOI.

2015: Gove as Justice Minister decides to hamstring FOI.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3e10b852-15d2 ... z3djEDqoQp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

[AngryAsWell]

Roger I've just PM you

[rebeccariots2]

2015 really was a dirty dirty election ...

Chris Williamson ‏@ChriswMP 4m4 minutes ago Derby, England
Murdoch's Times 'newspaper' exposed for pre-election lies. Penalty? They've got to print a post-election correction http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... map=%5B%5D" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

Press regulator orders front page correction from The Times for 'Labour tax bombshell' splash
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... map=%5B%5D" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[RogerOThornhill]

Roger I've just PM you

And replied.

[AngryAsWell]

Roger I've just PM you

And replied.

Likewise

[rebeccariots2]

Beth Rigby ‏@BethRigby 4m4 minutes ago
Cameron urged to reveal EU renegotiation plan > Eurosceptics demand the details by tory conference http://on.ft.com/1GB0VvI" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Plan? What plan? He's flying by the seat of his pants ... no way he's going to give anyone actual details of what he wants and how he intends to get it. Only today a commentator on Radio 4 said as much ... that he won't give information on what he actually wants from the negotiations as he will look stupid when he doesn't get all or any of it ...

That won't stop him proclaiming his mission a mighty success though - regardless of what he does or doesn't achieve.

[citizenJA]

2015 really was a dirty dirty election ...

Chris Williamson ‏@ChriswMP 4m4 minutes ago Derby, England
Murdoch's Times 'newspaper' exposed for pre-election lies. Penalty? They've got to print a post-election correction http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... map=%5B%5D" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

Press regulator orders front page correction from The Times for 'Labour tax bombshell' splash
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... map=%5B%5D" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

All I could write were rude words in response to this & I think I've used my rude word quota up today.

[RogerOThornhill]

2015 really was a dirty dirty election ...

Chris Williamson ‏@ChriswMP 4m4 minutes ago Derby, England
Murdoch's Times 'newspaper' exposed for pre-election lies. Penalty? They've got to print a post-election correction http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... map=%5B%5D" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

Press regulator orders front page correction from The Times for 'Labour tax bombshell' splash
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... map=%5B%5D" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Was this the story where the Times quoted "internal Treasury figures show..." where it was clear that Osborne had simply asked his officials to come up with something and forget all that 'being in purdah' nonsense?

[rebeccariots2]

2015 really was a dirty dirty election ...

Chris Williamson ‏@ChriswMP 4m4 minutes ago Derby, England
Murdoch's Times 'newspaper' exposed for pre-election lies. Penalty? They've got to print a post-election correction http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... map=%5B%5D" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

Press regulator orders front page correction from The Times for 'Labour tax bombshell' splash
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... map=%5B%5D" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Was this the story where the Times quoted "internal Treasury figures show..." where it was clear that Osborne had simply asked his officials to come up with something and forget all that 'being in purdah' nonsense?

Patrick Wintour ‏@patrickwintour 3m3 minutes ago
The Ipso ruling on The Times error and what to do about it. A test case. https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/rulings/IPS ... tml?id=165" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

and from that ruling (which is very straightforward)

7. The complainant was satisfied with the text of the correction, but not with its prominence. He said that the appropriate placement was the same as the original, inaccurate article. The newspaper should publish the headline “Correction: Labour’s £1,000 tax on families” on its front page in the same font size as the original headline, with the text of the correction below.

The complainant is Jonathan Portes.

[citizenJA]

Hey, everyone? Did this insidious bit of Gove's grammar lesson just pass me by? I've re-read the article & noted the bold bit.

"However, all this is to miss the point, or to make light of it for the sake of comedy. There are two clues as to what is really going on. The one in plain sight is his job: however sidelined he may be from the actual levers of power, or from David Cameron’s cosy clique, Gove is, in his own eyes at least, and relative to us, an Important Person. The clue that is tucked away in his instructions is his insistence that when his civil servants refer to rising court fees, a fact due entirely to his party’s policies, they must mention “the need to tackle the economic situation that the government has inherited”.'

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... s#comments" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So much wrong factually & laughably with that instruction.
That'd be the Tory-led government Gove was in?
He didn't intend to convey that though, did he.
Lunatic Tory government.
They'd be entertaining without their power to hurt people.

[citizenJA]

2015 really was a dirty dirty election ...

Was this the story where the Times quoted "internal Treasury figures show..." where it was clear that Osborne had simply asked his officials to come up with something and forget all that 'being in purdah' nonsense?

Patrick Wintour ‏@patrickwintour 3m3 minutes ago
The Ipso ruling on The Times error and what to do about it. A test case. https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/rulings/IPS ... tml?id=165" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

and from that ruling (which is very straightforward)

7. The complainant was satisfied with the text of the correction, but not with its prominence. He said that the appropriate placement was the same as the original, inaccurate article. The newspaper should publish the headline “Correction: Labour’s £1,000 tax on families” on its front page in the same font size as the original headline, with the text of the correction below.

The complainant is Jonathan Portes.

(my bold)

Government misconduct in public office rulings will require every member found guilty to serve an indefinite sentence living in a series of cold, mouldy, insecurely tenured dwellings without enough to eat, no money, no access to assistance & dogged by a team of pendants sending threats by post.

[Hobiejoe]

2015 really was a dirty dirty election ...

Was this the story where the Times quoted "internal Treasury figures show..." where it was clear that Osborne had simply asked his officials to come up with something and forget all that 'being in purdah' nonsense?

Patrick Wintour ‏@patrickwintour 3m3 minutes ago
The Ipso ruling on The Times error and what to do about it. A test case. https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/rulings/IPS ... tml?id=165" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

and from that ruling (which is very straightforward)

7. The complainant was satisfied with the text of the correction, but not with its prominence. He said that the appropriate placement was the same as the original, inaccurate article. The newspaper should publish the headline “Correction: Labour’s £1,000 tax on families” on its front page in the same font size as the original headline, with the text of the correction below.

The complainant is Jonathan Portes.

Except it's not quite like-for-like. From the article:

On 24 April, two weeks before the general election, the paper’s print edition ran the front page headline ‘Labour’s £1,000 tax on families’.

And

The Times has now published the correction on the front page of its website, where it is set to remain for 48 hours.

So the definintion of "front page" seems to be a somewhat elastic one. Quelle effing surprise.

[LadyCentauria]

Was this the story where the Times quoted "internal Treasury figures show..." where it was clear that Osborne had simply asked his officials to come up with something and forget all that 'being in purdah' nonsense?

Patrick Wintour ‏@patrickwintour 3m3 minutes ago
The Ipso ruling on The Times error and what to do about it. A test case. https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/rulings/IPS ... tml?id=165" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

and from that ruling (which is very straightforward)

7. The complainant was satisfied with the text of the correction, but not with its prominence. He said that the appropriate placement was the same as the original, inaccurate article. The newspaper should publish the headline “Correction: Labour’s £1,000 tax on families” on its front page in the same font size as the original headline, with the text of the correction below.

The complainant is Jonathan Portes.

Except it's not quite like-for-like. From the article:

On 24 April, two weeks before the general election, the paper’s print edition ran the front page headline ‘Labour’s £1,000 tax on families’.

And

The Times has now published the correction on the front page of its website, where it is set to remain for 48 hours.

So the definintion of "front page" seems to be a somewhat elastic one. Quelle effing surprise.

Precisely. So, when exactly will they be putting it on the front page of the newspaper? The one that sits on news-stands to be seen by many hundreds of thousands as they pass by; that is shown and talked about on television and radio channels' 'newspaper headlines' programmes late at night and during the 'breakfast' hours to be seen and heard by millions of people; and which drops onto many thousands of people's doormats in the mornings...