Thursday 29th June 2023

[refitman]

Morning all.

[RogerOThornhill]

Good morning.

Privileges Committee report...part 2.

“This matter is made more difficult because two of the Members mounting the most vicious attacks on the Committee did so from the platform of their own hosted TV shows”

Can't imagine that Ofcom will take any action though.

[RogerOThornhill]

Oh dear, not a good day for the Government...

Plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda ruled unlawful

[gilsey]

[RogerOThornhill]

I see Ed Balls is teaming up with George Osborne. Lots of people on that twitter are getting a bit cross...

IIRC Balls said that on a personal level - and leaving aside the politics - Osborne was a decent sort and easy to talk to about family etc. But he thought Cameron to be an utter shit.

[AnatolyKasparov]

I can believe that about Gidot, and it goes a long way towards explaining how he got away with so much.

[frog222]

[RogerOThornhill]

Apparently Farage has had a numberless quantity of bank accounts closed by unnamed banks.

Perish the thought that it may be something to do with with the source of incoming funds...

[AnatolyKasparov]

Well its already generated a "huge amount of flak", so that oh-so-clever strategy is already a failure.

[frog222]

I think this one is UK, sometimes difficult to tell in the Anglosphere . She quite often refs the NHS and her profile says she lives in hell too

I wonder how many brits know what a CR box is ?

[frog222]

[AnatolyKasparov]

Usual suspects raging about "human rights getting in the way of the will of the people".

At this point - a reminder that the Rwanda plan has never been in any Tory election manifesto, and does not even score that well in polls.

[refitman]

Apparently Farage has had a numberless quantity of bank accounts closed by unnamed banks.

Perish the thought that it may be something to do with with the source of incoming funds...

[refitman]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Keir didn't actually give a shit about the LGBT community

[AnatolyKasparov]

Um, what is he supposed to do about it exactly?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

No QT review tonight I'm afraid. I'm off hiking and camping tomorrow which is best done without a hangover. Though I am tempted to risk watching it sober if Mhairi Black's on.

[refitman]

Um, what is he supposed to do about it exactly?

Ummm...suspend her from the Party? This isn't her first offence you know. The light holocaust denial she did the other year was pretty horrific. There's a long list of bigotry you can find, just from a scroll down her timeline.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Ah, my mistake - initially thought it was a Paul Embery tweet, apologies.

But we have discussed Duffield several times already, and my position has not changed - she unfortunately has too many powerful allies (ie almost the entire media) for this to be worth the candle for Starmer, at least as long as Labour are in opposition.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Not a single person in the QT audience was prepared to put their hand up and say they supported sending refugees to Rwanda.

[refitman]

Considering Starmer keeps 'accidentally' visiting churches that perform 'conversion therapy', I think he might be a bit of a bigot.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Ha ha. Mhairi Black's having a good night. Woman in the audience (Exeter) says if she could move to Scotland she would and gets considerable applause. After last weeks fiasco of an episode we're back to open season on the Tories and an overwhelming sense that they need to go because they're turning England into a shithole. Literally, as the question was about nationalising the water companies.

[frog222]

Not a single person in the QT audience was prepared to put their hand up and say they supported sending refugees to Rwanda.

Sky thanks for that !

[frog222]

Sky Keep going !

Broadband is steadily approachi, when I will at very long last get TV !

One hell of an operation !

First sign was a new bracket atop the phone poles even down the lane to me

Then the splendid 4" or so narrow diggers laying cable up and down neighbouring country lanes

Installation of concrete junction boxes at road crossings , isolated hamlets

Another team installed a box on the pole 50m from my cottage ...

Can't be long !

So when I do have TV will watch the french news

[gilsey]

The Thames Water crisis risks creating a potential investment crisis in the UK, warns Bill Blain, strategist at Shard Capital.

Blain points out that the public utility privatisations decades ago have left “a legacy of underinvestment and broken services”.

And he fears that “the imminent collapse” of the UK’s largest water company will become the fundamental crisis point when “the country’s long-saga of economic decline turned critical”.

Blain writes:

Economic success is all about confidence and common sense. This is not about the collapse of a single company – it’s about how 40 years of miscalculations, mistakes, and the primacy of political will over common sense, have finally come due.

Today’s crisis will have massive market, political and economic consequences as the travails of Thames Water ultimately reveal just how disjointed, hollowed-out, ineffective, but most importantly, how bust and broken the last 40 years has left the UK economy

Global investors looking at the UK today see “a nation of decaying infrastructure, a massive bill to rebuild it, a planning process that actively stops anything – and a nation showing little realisation of the crisis”, Blain adds.

Ouch.

[frog222]

Tksvm gilsey OUCH indeed !

It's not quite so bad here, but we too have gone a long way down the shitter .

For the poorer peoples provision we start at a higher level too, glad to say ...

[frog222]

OMG

[Sky'sGoneOut]

That was actually a heartening watch if anyone fancies seeing it later on TV.

Helen Whately spent the entire programme doing her very best impersonation of a confused prawn. Rosena Allin-Khan chewed her up and spat her out (which is what I would do with a prawn, yuck). Mhairi Black was tempting the people of Exeter to move to Scotland and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall got told off for righteously swearing while advocating nationalising the water companies. Good stuff. As for Dia Chakravarty, where do the right wing press and think tanks keep finding these peculiar, borderline crazy, weirdos?

Once again a majority Conservative voting audience sat glumly in silence listening to the vacuous drivel coming out of the mouth of a Tory minister while applauding those criticising the state they've got this country into.

As an aside I listened to Tim Montgomerie earlier today on Politics Live repeatedly claim to be speaking for 'the people of this country' when defending sending refugees to Rwanda, yet when asked to support it tonight not a single Conservative voter in that audience was prepared to do so.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Sky thanks for that !

No problem, I couldn't resist. Normal service will be resumed next week for the final one before the Summer break.

[frog222]

XX

[gilsey]

Not a single person in the QT audience was prepared to put their hand up and say they supported sending refugees to Rwanda.

Good.


Enjoy your camping trip.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Tories going all Orbanite for a policy that isn't even popular, thank God they are so incompetent at it.