Thursday 8th December 2022

[refitman]

Morning all.

[PaulfromYorkshire]

Morning!

In the US, the Theranos saga draws to a close with former President of the company ‘Sunny’ Balwani sentenced to 13 years for defrauding investors with bogus science. He follows Elizabeth Holmes on their way to prison.

What a story.

[frog222]

Morning!

In the US, the Theranos saga draws to a close with former President of the company ‘Sunny’ Balwani sentenced to 13 years for defrauding investors with bogus science. He follows Elizabeth Holmes on their way to prison. What a story.

Haven't been following, did nobody think of testing the machine to see if it actually ...worked ?

Windscreen de-iced, nice sunny day here !

[gilsey]

Y'all seen the report yesterday on approving the Cumbria coal mine.




The day before, they postponed the decision on dualling the A1 in Northumberland to Sept 2023. No doubt someone will tell us how long we've already been waiting for it, and how many manifestos it's been in.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-63872232

[refitman]

Not the BBC being deceptive again *shocked face*

[AnatolyKasparov]

An important point about this "new" coal mine is that it will actually employ far fewer people than would have been the case in the "old days" for which there is (understandably) still a fair bit of nostalgia for locally.

Compared to the number of new jobs a new nuclear plant would bring in, its genuinely a drop in the ocean.

[frog222]

[refitman]

Not the BBC being deceptive again *shocked face*

Oh, would you look at that

[AnatolyKasparov]

Tbh some BBC "journalists" do come across as even more credulous and incurious than is now the general media norm.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Opened the curtains this morning to find a lone icicle dangling from above the window. It's still there.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Sooner or later the Tories are going to have to start raising the dead if they want to win elections.

[notnowsonny]

Sooner or later the Tories are going to have to start raising the dead if they want to win elections.

They’ll need to kill us off if our house is anything to judge by: 100% of over 66s will definitely not be voting Tory!

[AnatolyKasparov]

Sooner or later the Tories are going to have to start raising the dead if they want to win elections.

Well, it sometimes worked in Northern Ireland (ahem, allegedly)

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Last time I heard anything from Isabel Oakeshott she was celebrating Truss and Kwarteng's mini-budget claiming it would make us lefties weep. Which turned out to be true only we were crying with laughter so I'd only give her a 5/10 for that prognostication and that's being generous.

[AnatolyKasparov]

I quite like Lucy Powell, whilst appreciating this is not a universally held opinion.

[frog222]

Last time I heard anything from Isabel Oakeshott she was celebrating Truss and Kwarteng's mini-budget claiming it would make us lefties weep. Which turned out to be true only we were crying with laughter so I'd only give her a 5/10 for that prognostication and that's being generous.

Happy hunting dear @Sky .(off to check on Powell)

I'm very much looking forward to AK's reply to this --

[gilsey]

frog, you'll love this.

I was supposed to go to the hairdresser today, she phoned to say she had covid but was at work and I could go if I wanted.

Do we have one of those exploding head emojis?

Needless to say I declined.

[refitman]

frog, you'll love this.

I was supposed to go to the hairdresser today, she phoned to say she had covid but was at work and I could go if I wanted.

Do we have one of those exploding head emojis?

Needless to say I declined.

We've got these &

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I was supposed to go to the hairdresser today, she phoned to say she had covid but was at work and I could go if I wanted.

Outstanding. Did she offer a discount?

[frog222]

frog, you'll love this.
I was supposed to go to the hairdresser today, she phoned to say she had covid but was at work and I could go if I wanted.
Do we have one of those exploding head emojis?
Needless to say I declined.

OMG dear Gilsey , we are SO surrounded by imbeciles I hardly know what to say !
On twitter , follow @Chaela for a fellow spirit !

[Sky'sGoneOut]

QT tonight came from Bishop Auckland where the stupid bastards voted Tory last time round. They don't seem so keen now though.

For the Conservatives we had Guy Opperman. Even for a Tory Guy is a bullshit artist extraordinaire. When asked why he objected to a proposed coal mine in his own constituency while supporting the one in Cumbria his justification was that the one he opposed would produce coal for power stations while the Cumbrian one would produce coke for steelworks. What difference does that make Guy? Does burning things for different reasons alter the amount of carbon they release you fucking imbecile? He then tried to claim the Cumbrian mine would be carbon neutral, an absurd assertion which only comes close to being true if none of its coking coal is ever used. To add insult to injury he went on to claim British steelworks were crying out for the stuff when they've said the exact opposite. Everything he said was unmitigated bullshit and all the while he had a smug, self satisfied look on his face that made me want to rearrange it with a brick.

For Labour we had, err, Lucy, umm, Powell. Lucy, ahhh, seemed to have a bit of, umm, difficulty, err, speaking in coherent, ahhh...where was I? Oh yeah, umm, sentences. It made her a bit, umm, hard to follow at, err, times but when she did manage to express her train of thought coherently she did ok, not great but not terrible. She had that kind of bland, beige, inoffensive thing going on that Starmer's Labour have embraced. I say inoffensive but of course anyone remotely left wing would probably take issue with that. I suppose I should point out in the spirit of fairness that she claimed the Cumbrian mine would release the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere as 2 million new cars on our roads. According to the government's own Climate Change Committee which she was referring to it's 200,000 so she was out by one million and eight hundred thousand cars. Which is quite a lot.

For the marvellous Great British Sewing Bee we had Patrick Grant. Patrick was a revelation to those of us used to him criticising hemlines and buttonholes. He kicked arse. The first question asked was if Britain was broken and he proceeded to explain that it was, why it was, and why striking workers need to be supported. He pointed out that privatisation had been a disaster and recounted how his mother had been left in an ambulance outside a hospital for 10 hours with a spinal infection because there were no beds as a result of healthcare and social care being an underfunded wreck. He was excellent and sounded far more like a Labour politician than, erm...

For witless dimwits everywhere we had Isabel Oakeshott. Isabel tried everything tonight to shamelessly gain applause, she tried the populist approach in attacking the government over strikes by not actually supporting the strikes but questioning the number of new nurses being trained which failed miserably. She then tried to claim the new mine in Cumbria would be 'green' because it would mean we imported less coking coal, until it was explained to her the company plan to export 85% of it. Then finally got her applause by attacking Harry and Meghan in a bizarre rant in which everything she accused them of she was guilty of herself. I've never been a fan of the idea of 'projection', it lets idiots like her off. They're just too thick to be capable of self reflection.

For the SNP* we had Stewart Hosie. Stewart pointed out we have a lack of nurses because we left the EU and thousands of them went home. Isabel said 'oh please' just as the audience applauded him.

*Why do they keep inviting SNP MPs to take part in England? Are there no Liberals or Greens?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Is it just me or is there a political shift occurring in this country?

Attitudes seem to be changing.

From immigration to benefits to strikes it's like we're in a very different place to where we were only recently.

It's as if the right have shat the bed so often that outside the dregs of their core support nobody wants to have anything to do with them.

Like they were some kind of contagious embarrassment.

Of course the public are fickle because half of them are morons, apparently loads of them fell for Matt Hancock's dubious charms on TV, but it does feel like the times they are a changin' if you'll excuse me using a line from someone else who couldn't sing.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[tinyclanger2]

Is it just me or is there a political shift occurring in this country?

Attitudes seem to be changing.

From immigration to benefits to strikes it's like we're in a very different place to where we were only recently.

It's as if the right have shat the bed so often that outside the dregs of their core support nobody wants to have anything to do with them.

Like they were some kind of contagious embarrassment.

Of course the public are fickle because half of them are morons, apparently loads of them fell for Matt Hancock's dubious charms on TV, but it does feel like the times they are a changin' if you'll excuse me using a line from someone else who couldn't sing.

I hardly dare hope, but perhaps some sort of inate decency is emerging.

[tinyclanger2]

Excellent QT report Sky. Many thanks.