Wednesday 25th November 2020

[refitman]

Morning all.

[PorFavor]

Good morfternoon.

I posted this last night but - here it is for you to enjoy again:

Brexit
UK facing risk of 'systemic economic crisis', official paper says

Exclusive: Cabinet Office briefing seen by Guardian warns that Brexit, Covid, flu, flooding and unrest could lead to chaos (Guardian)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... paper-says

[AnatolyKasparov]

Johnson abysmal at PMQs, again.

[PorFavor]

As an aside -

I thought I'd noticed before, and so paid particular attention today, that Boris Johnson refers to male and female MPs differently when responding to their questions. He does. Today, he referred to male MPs as "my Rt Hon Friend" or "my Honourable Friend". The female MPs, with one exception, he referred to as "she".

[PorFavor]

Re private sector wages v public sector wages -

Levelling Down.

[gilsey]

As an aside -

I thought I'd noticed before, and so paid particular attention today, that Boris Johnson refers to male and female MPs differently when responding to their questions. He does. Today, he referred to male MPs as "my Rt Hon Friend" or "my Honourable Friend". The female MPs, with one exception, he referred to as "she".

The Speaker should have a word.

[gilsey]

Re private sector wages v public sector wages -

Levelling Down.

'Race to the bottom' was the phrase that came to my mind.

[gilsey]

Not at all surprised that Sunak didn't mention Brexit.

I wonder if there's a precedent for the Chancellor failing to mention the most significant influence on next year's GDP forecasts in his statement.


The EU will be to blame if Brexit causes border trading chaos in January because of its “rules are rules” approach, Michael Gove says.

[gilsey]

General Theorist
@GeneralTheorist
@bbclaurak
on the UK finances: "eyewateringly enormous" "national credit card" "scary equivalent of 2010... there is no money left" "hugely difficult decisions in the years to come" "how we pay it back." This language is hugely irresponsible and unfounded.

Ann Pettifor
@AnnPettifor
One has to despair. After a decade of trying to educate journalists on the nature of macroeconomics - the aggregate activity and economics of the state, as opposed to the household. I blame the microeconomists at the @IFS, @OBR and @HMTreasury

[AnatolyKasparov]

And why was she allowed to spout this nonsense when the BBC's economics editor was with her in the studio??

[RogerOThornhill]

Hardly a surprise given she is a Minister in DfID

Michael Savage
@michaelsavage
Baroness Sugg resigns over the foreign aid cut.
2:35 PM · Nov 25, 2020·TweetDeck

[AnatolyKasparov]

Of course, the Tory manifesto said it wouldn't be cut - hopefully that is mentioned in the resignation letter.

[RogerOThornhill]

This from the Graun...and in the OBR text.

Having postponed implementation of reforms underpinned by the 2011 ‘Dilnot commission’, the government announced in December 2017 that it would publish a green paper on the future of adult social care in the summer of 2018. This did not materialise. The 2019 Conservative manifesto commits to “urgently seek a cross-party consensus in order to bring forward the necessary proposal and legislation for long-term reform”. The prime minister told the BBC in January 2020 that he would be “bringing forward a proposal” later this year, and in relation to implementation that “we will certainly do it in this parliament”. The spending review allows local authorities to raise council tax faster to increase funding for adult social care, but news of long-term reform of the system is still pending.

[RogerOThornhill]

And not more than 2 months ago a Minister confirmed to Kevin Brennan that the 0/7% Aid budget was enshrined in law and would continue.

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I looked forward to James Duddridge's resignation as well then.

[RogerOThornhill]

Ouch!

Tim Montgomerie Flag of United Kingdom
@montie
1. Boris promised me twice he’d “never” abandon 0.7%.
But who cares what he told me?
2. He has broken a manifesto promise.
3. He has broken a promise to world’s poorest people when they need it most.
4. Under this PM, Britain is becoming a nation that doesn’t keep its word.
1:11 PM · Nov 25, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

[AnatolyKasparov]

Hmmm, looking like this might have a bit of (to use the dread phrase) "cut through".

[RogerOThornhill]

So Trump has just pardoned...the man that he fired.

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Well, the next few weeks are going to be interesting to watch.

[tinyclanger2]

Hello

[PorFavor]

I was forced to look this up today -

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[gilsey]

This from the Graun...and in the OBR text.

Having postponed implementation of reforms underpinned by the 2011 ‘Dilnot commission’, the government announced in December 2017 that it would publish a green paper on the future of adult social care in the summer of 2018. This did not materialise. The 2019 Conservative manifesto commits to “urgently seek a cross-party consensus in order to bring forward the necessary proposal and legislation for long-term reform”. The prime minister told the BBC in January 2020 that he would be “bringing forward a proposal” later this year, and in relation to implementation that “we will certainly do it in this parliament”. The spending review allows local authorities to raise council tax faster to increase funding for adult social care, but news of long-term reform of the system is still pending.

Even if they could find a way to do it, they're only trying to reform the bit of the social care system that people pay for privately, so that tory voters don't have to pay out extortionate sums/have to sell their houses etc.
I think they still think there's a magic, painless solution, if only they could find it.

In the mean time, talk of long-term reform somehow manages to continue letting them off making sure the publicly funded bit is, indeed, adequately funded.

More money for councils, for social care, would mean self-funders wouldn't have to subsidise the others so it would actually help them. It would also mean care workers could be paid more, perhaps that's the stumbling block. Scum.

[tinyclanger2]

Were there consequences?

[tinyclanger2]

Would have been a bugger to plant potatoes

[tinyclanger2]

Am wondering if Gilsey's interstitial comment makes me look really flakey (vis a vis my responses to PF's shock disclosure above); or whether my ramblings are generally just that incoherent.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Incoherent ramblings for an incoherent age?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Had a chat with my teacher brother earlier and he's quite justifiably furious about having his pay frozen again.

Teachers have been asked to work in an enviroment that is demonstrably unsafe, he's had three of the kids he teaches test positive, two entire year groups are currently off supposedly isolating, so not only is he still teaching in the classroom he also has to prepare video lessons when he gets home that half the isolating kids don't bother doing. And what's his reward for all this work and putting himself at risk? Having his pay frozen because we have more important things to spend our money on like a Festival of fucking Brexit.

Listening to Sunak it was extremely difficult to square what he was saying with reality. For example he claimed today in regard to benefits that he was 'protecting the most vulnerable'. But most of the 'vulnerable' are the long term sick and disabled who are on ESA and PIP, and for those of us on these legacy benefits Sunak has done the square root of fuck all. In fact he's done worse than that because he's flat out refused to raise them in line with the increase in Universal Credit.

Billions of pounds have been dished out in contracts through a system designed to priorities those bids given a nod and a wink by Tory MPs. Never before in modern British history have such vast amounts of public money been poured into a trough by Conservative ministers for their mates to shove their snouts into. It makes Cameron and Osborne's austerity cash grab from poor to rich look almost trivial in comparison. And yet there's little to no outrage when it's the poorest both at home and abroad and public sector workers risking their lives to do a job that are asked to pay for it. With cash strapped councils warning they'll have to cut already decimated public services meaning there's even less for the likes of adult social care despite all of Johnson's vacuous promises.

Watching Sunak today you'd think that he was a beneficent Chancellor doing his best to perform triage on a wounded British economy, that's certainly the image he attempted to portray. But the reality is his patient is in so much distress because he and his cohorts have been handing out its blood and organs to their friends in some vampiric frenzy and now it needs transplants and a transfusion from those with little blood left to give.

[tinyclanger2]

Incoherent ramblings for an incoherent age?

probably

[AnatolyKasparov]

Anyway.......Maradona.

A cheat both on and (performance enhancingly) off the pitch.

Despite that, still maybe second only to Pele in the all time list.

Discuss?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I was forced to look this up today -

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[Sky'sGoneOut]

As a Scotland supporter I have no problem caling Maradona a genius both in his skill and his cheating.

I would actually put him quite a few rungs down from Pele, or George Best, simply because by the 80's defenders simply assaulting attacking players was no longer de rigueur, so while he had to put up with a few 'crunching tackles' the game was beginning its journey to the almost non contact sport it is today.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Wat te hel s goin n wit ma speelin tonite?

[adam]

Both one of the world's great sports photographs and one of the best if most obvious 'what happened next' questions.

[RogerOThornhill]

What a lovely chap he is, ole Lozza Fox eh?

Laurence Fox
@LozzaFox
Dear people that keep going on about free school meals for kids in the UK and international aid for everyone everywhere.

You can take everything you have to spare out of the cash point and give it to charity today.

Virtue actually means something.

Talk is cheap.
7:36 PM · Nov 25, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

[RogerOThornhill]

Bloody hell, Grimes hasn't even realised that Corbyn isn't leader any longer?

Darren Grimes
@darrengrimes_
To show you just how removed much of Westminster is from the public: Most of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour voters support reducing the amount of money we send overseas too.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

What a lovely chap he is, ole Lozza Fox eh?

Laurence Fox
@LozzaFox
Dear people that keep going on about free school meals for kids in the UK and international aid for everyone everywhere.

You can take everything you have to spare out of the cash point and give it to charity today.

Virtue actually means something.

Talk is cheap.
7:36 PM · Nov 25, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

Well no, we can take 0.7% of what we have from a cashpoint and leave 99.3% of it there. it doesn't surprise me 'Lozza' isn't very good at maths.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Both one of the world's great sports photographs and one of the best if most obvious 'what happened next' questions.

Oh I know (hand up)...it was against Belgium and he'd just received a short free kick before putting a terrible ball into the box that was easily headed away.

I know this in the same way I know crossword clues after hanging around away from other people with my phone for a few minutes. It's spooky.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

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[Sky'sGoneOut]

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[PorFavor]

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[PorFavor]

Tenuous -

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