Friday 15th December 2023

[refitman]

Morning all.

[gilsey]

Good morning.


Rishi's reverse midas touch strikes again.

A council in one of the wealthiest parts of the UK has warned it faces potential bankruptcy due to the “devastating” impact of cancelling the northern leg of HS2.

Leaders of Cheshire East council in north-west England said the authority had spent £11m preparing for the high-speed rail link, and this would now have to be written off. Most of this money – £8.6m – had been funded by borrowing and would now have to be funded from the council’s already stretched revenue budget.

As a result, the council, which is a unitary authority covering Crewe and Macclesfield, could be forced to trigger a section 114 notice, in effect declaring bankruptcy, according to a report by council officers.

................

Cheshire East council said it faced “direct and devastating impacts” from Rishi Sunak’s decision to abandon HS2 north of Birmingham. It said these impacts were not mitigated by the government’s “network north” proposals which were released to quell widespread anger from political and business leaders over the axing of HS2.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... ncellation

[AnatolyKasparov]

Whilst the HS2 thing is what has finally set this off, the council had years of previous misrule by the Tories before this May.

(it featured more than once in the Rotten Boroughs section of Private Eye)

[Sky'sGoneOut]

More evidence that Labour's pandering to the right on immigration is a deeply flawed strategy.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I usually have a lot of time for Sam Freedman but this is way off the mark. I've barely seen any personal attacks on Kate Andrews, just a lot of people questioning why she's been so ubiquitous on the BBC for years and why they've repeatedly failed to inform their audience of her background.

Here for example is Kate in 2016 explaining why guns are great. Absolutely no mention of the fact that she's a paid political lobbyist. She's simply referred to as 'a 25-year-old American woman'.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-35233637

At the time she was working for the IEA and appearing on Question Time explaining how Brexit was going to make us all rich.

[notnowsonny]

I usually have a lot of time for Sam Freedman but this is way off the mark. I've barely seen any personal attacks on Kate Andrews, just a lot of people questioning why she's been so ubiquitous on the BBC for years and why they've repeatedly failed to inform their audience of her background.

Not that I'm defending her (God forbid!) but she said on Question Time that the Rwanda policy was a "cruel gimmick".

[AnatolyKasparov]

The problem isn't really any individual like Andrews, but Tufton Street more generally and the deference our media mostly shows towards it.

[refitman]

So, the jury is back in the Guliani trial. $148M total damages. (thread)

[gilsey]

[gilsey]

I usually have a lot of time for Sam Freedman but this is way off the mark. I've barely seen any personal attacks on Kate Andrews, just a lot of people questioning why she's been so ubiquitous on the BBC for years and why they've repeatedly failed to inform their audience of her background.

Not that I'm defending her (God forbid!) but she said on Question Time that the Rwanda policy was a "cruel gimmick".

Stopped clock etc.


Usually she talks a load of shite imo, does that count as a personal attack?

[notnowsonny]

@gilsey
Credit where it’s due, however begrudging!

[gilsey]

No credit is due, because why should I want to know her opinion? The BBC have never explained.

Listening to her is worse than listening to the BBC's beloved vox pops, some random geezer stopped in the street to have their two penn'orth on a subject of which they have no knowledge or understanding. They don't usually have an agenda, but she does.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Just walked home from the pub and the breeze was warm at night. What month is this?

[Sky'sGoneOut]

No credit is due, because why should I want to know her opinion? The BBC have never explained.

Not only have they never explained they've gone out of their way not to explain.

Freedman tries to make the case that young right wing commentators are as rare as hen's teeth so of course we keep seeing the same ones over and over again but as a long time QT viewer it just doesn't stack up. They have a vast swathe of right wing commentators and journalists to choose from yet they always seem to keep fishing from the same shallow puddle.

As you say her views are irrelevant. It's not what she thinks but why she's been given a platform by the BBC for over a decade.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[Sky'sGoneOut]