peterms

Johnson gives the green light to murderers, as long as they wear uniform.

Oops!  CCTV footage of very, very high profile prisoner on suicide watch, who ""kills himself", goes missing.

Just one of those things, I guess.

Just now, It's Your Round said:

I’ve taken to adding Siracha sauce to my bacon sarnies recently. Adds a really nice garlic chilli flavour. 

Sriracha mixed with yogurt is a very simple, tasty sauce.  Takes 30 secs to make.  Ottolenghi.

1 minute ago, It's Your Round said:

That actually sounds wonderful! I’ve been quite into my veggie food recently, ever since my son turned veggie three years ago we cook at least three or four veg meals a week. I’ve discovered a whole host of tasty food. 

Veggie/vegan food is great.  Wouldn't ever recommend it as a complete diet, though.

I've seen several reports over the last few days, individuals reporting their personal experience of racist abuse in public places.

Many more than I normally see.

Like after the referendum, there may be an emboldening of far right sentiments taking place.

This is the problem with political critiques these days.  Not enough substance, too much froth.

Did a buffet for the Greens, about 100 people expected, fewer showed up due to post-election depression.  Had some help prepping.  Mostly vegan because, well, Greens.

Goats cheese tarts with spiced onion, falafel, dolmades, Greek mushrooms, potato salad, hummus, squash and sweet potato dip with green salsa, feta and red pepper dip, butterbean mash with muharamma, tabbouleh, crushed courgettes, green beans in tomato sauce, root veg salad, apple and celeriac salad, foccaccia, pitta bread, flatbread with za'ataar, quince aioli, harissa, tahini lemon sauce, pickles. 

Bit knackered after.

My favorite is granary bread, sliced thick, with loads of worcester sauce, no butter (pah!), smoked back bacon, grilled, sometimes with either mushrooms quickly fried in extra virgin olive oil, or else fried egg also in EVOO.  Sometimes I will turn the egg over, briefly, to reduce the leakage while also leaving it still moist in the yolk.  And strong coffee.  Tea is an abomination.

9 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Special shout out today for Stephen Kinnock who was on the radio earlier criticising London’s coffee culture socialists.

Clearly he’s forgotten when he claimed for a milk frother on his parliamentary expenses.

But was the milk frother an implement, or a domestic servant?

2 hours ago, snowychap said:

I see that Johnson may soon be trying to sell us yet another bridge.

Edit: And Zak Goldsmith peerage confirmed. That's the Old Etonian close friend of the PM's partner who lost his seat in last week's election being ennobled very shortly afterwards. Trebles all round.

And who ran a racist campaign against Khan, let's not forget.

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

Copying this one from the Tory party thread, as my point really relates to it vis-a-vis Labour.

It seems to me that the feeling Genie expresses here, is a big big problem for Labour, has been since 2015, and will be whichever wing of the party the next leader is from, and indeed will be as long as the SNP are in hegemonic control of Scottish politics.

One underdiscussed group of voters are English voters who are persuaded that 'a vote for Labour is a vote for a second Scottish indpendence referendum' which they don't want, and which is essentially self-reinforcing as Labour are unlikely to form a stable governing coalition without either Scottish seats or the SNP. It's kind of impossible to see how Labour can break free of this dynamic until Scotland becomes independent, and of course the Tories know this, which is a] why they keep talking about Labour-SNP alliances during election campaigns, and b] a strong reason not to offer a second independence referendum at all.

Parts of Scottish Labour are apparently becoming more open to independence.

I understand the Fabians have done a paper on priorities, which identifies northern England but not Scotland as a priority area for action.

Hard to see where Scottish Labour go now to recover support and find a way forward that can make sense, if they continue to oppose a further referendum.

Just in time for us to start thinking about a trade deal with them, the US is reducing its food safety standards still further.

Quote

Two federal inspectors warned that “mystery” meat and other unwanted materials will contaminate pork throughout the U.S. under the new meat inspection rules currently being used in a pilot program, NBC News reported Monday.

Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inspectors Anthony Vallone and Jill Mauer told NBC News that they filed whistleblower disclosure forms with the Office of Special Counsel about their concerns with the reduction of the required number of federal inspectors at plants.

"The consumer's being duped," Mauer said, adding that the meat may be more likely to contain feces, sex organs, toenails, bladders and unwanted hair. 

A pilot program for the adjusted rules for pork lines has been implemented at five plants. Five inspectors who worked at these plants talked to NBC News, while four others submitted affidavits with similar concerns. 

NBC News notes that none of the inspectors it talked to say they themselves allowed unsafe meat to pass inspection.

"If this continues across the nation, when you open your package of meat, what you're gonna get for a pathogen is gonna be a mystery," Mauer added.

Typically, seven federal inspectors check the meat for defects, but under the new rules, the required number would drop to two or three with more experience but less hands-on time with the meat. The plants’ own employees would be instructed to check the meat directly without any required federal training.

The rules would also eliminate the maximum speed of the meat lines, giving less time for inspections...

Cock au vin, anyone?

11 hours ago, A'Villan said:

Psyops is scary business.

I remember being very interested in this when you originally posted.

Any chance you could break the whole thing down for me in a few sentences, or paragraphs, if you don't mind?

Otherwise I'll try and find some time to get up to speed later today.

It's basically a network of people co-ordinated by a secretive unit which is funded by the Foreign Office, the British Army, and the Ministry of Defence.  It has ties to other propaganda outfits like the Atlantic Council and Bellingcat.  The networks consist of journalists and politicians, here and abroad, who can be relied on to circulate and amplify lines pushed by the intelligence services, but passing it off as their own independent thinking.  It attracted attention because it was smearing Corbyn, and a dump of hacked documents gave a lot of information about who was involved in which countries, what they were being paid and so on.  (The links in the article to the document dump won't work now, they had to keep moving them around every few days because the intelligence services were closing down hosting sites as far as they could, and I don't have a current link).  They have got in trouble with the charities regulator for misusing charitable status.

There's a piece here which gives some detail.

Quote

Recent hacked documents have revealed an international network of politicians, journalists, academics, researchers and military officers, all engaged in highly deceptive covert propaganda campaigns funded by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), NATO, Facebook and hardline national security institutions. 

This “network of networks”, as one document refers to them, centers around an ironically named outfit called the Integrity Initiative. And it is all overseen by a previously unknown England-based think tank registered in Scotland, the Institute for Statecraft, which has operated under a veil of secrecy.

The whole operation appears to be run by, and in conjunction with, members of British military intelligence.

According to David Miller, professor of political sociology in the school of policy studies at the University of Bristol and the director of the Organization for Propaganda Studies, the Integrity Initiative “appears to be a military directed push.”

“The most senior government people are professional propagandists and spooks,” Miller explained. “The ‘charity’ lead on this [Chris Donnelly] was also appointed as a colonel in military intelligence at the beginning of the project — a truly amazing fact that suggests this is a military intelligence cut out.”

A minister for the UK FCO has officially confirmed that it has been funding the Integrity Network...

10 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Do they have a reference for the claim that Yaxley-Lennon has joined? Because the Indy article doesn't say so, and I would have thought that the Tories would not have admitted him.

They haven't referenced it, but I assume it's based on reports a few days ago that he messaged his followers saying that he'd joined.  The BF chief of staff displayed a photo of his (the BF person)'s membership card, but I'm not aware of any similar proof regarding Y-L.

I assume anyone sensible in the tory party wouldn't want him, and if he has managed to join, you'd expect him to be removed simply because of his profile.

They allow online applications, but they are subject to later approval, so it's possible that he might have joined (ie applied) online and that this was the basis for his claim - I don't know.

Could Neil's apparent outrage at Johnson breaking his word on doing the interview perhaps have been...confected...insincere...?  It boggles the mind to admit the possibility.

Oh.  Well there's a surprise.

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I find it tricky, a lot of the message appeals to me, not much of it spooks me. But I’m old enough to have worked out my world view isn’t going to win many UK elections. So I can see a milder version might win, which would be good winning over perfect as opposed to perfect losing out to greedy thieves and liars.

But then again, Labour have had a more controlling hand where I live for 22 years and done nothing.

So I’ve probably bucked the trend and got a smudge more radical as I’ve got older.

The milder version was leaching votes and members since 1997.

The more radical approach increased the vote, and recruitment.  The recent election was so much about Brexit that it's hard to compare with more normal elections, but I think it would be a very big mistake for them to abandon the approach which managed to reverse the decline.

59 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

So, do you think a Jeremy in a dress with the very similar manifesto could win next time?

He'd have to shave that beard as well, or they'd know it's him.

2 hours ago, A'Villan said:

I intend on using google but does anyone know of any homeless services that are worth giving my energy to in Birmingham?

I'd prefer not to associate with organisations that take 80% of charitable donations and revenue for their staff and board, and leave 20% for the homeless and hungry.

Boards are generally unpaid, and the services of value to homeless people are provided by staff.  Volunteers can be a useful addition, but it's very hard to run decent and reliable services without paid staff.  Low staff cost is not the best basis for distinguishing good and less good services.  I'd suggest not being put off by staff costs, unless the pay rates seem exorbitant, which is pretty unusual.

On 16/12/2019 at 15:26, lapal_fan said:

we needed hospitals but had no cash to build them entirely -

This is a fallacy.  Individual trusts and health authorities may not have had the cash, if it was withheld by the government.

The government could have spent it, and chose not to.

As with all these things, it is a case of political choice, nothing else.

11 hours ago, StefanAVFC said:

 

That whole thread was so funny.  People quoting case after case which showed Peston not knowing what he was talking about.  Basic facts.

The funniest was someone pointing out that Lord Mandelson was Minister for Business when Peston was BBC Business Correspondent, but there are several others.

Peston is paid around £250k a year for this level of incompetence.

14 minutes ago, bickster said:

Yet again I'll give up. I can't be bothered with people that refuse to read what is actually said.

I think your problem with my post is that I did actually read what you said.  It was generic insults.

4 minutes ago, bickster said:

Rubbish, the criticism of Corbyn is that he was a shit leader.

You have demonstrated the exact point I made.

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

he was more a puppet of McLusky and Milne, that specialised in preaching to the converted

 

Do you read the Mail, and repeat its insights?

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

And as for the AS crisis, whatever you may think of that, he never even came close to getting a grip on it

It is not a crisis, and you will see that It will soon evaporate if it hasn't already.  It was a convenient tool to attack him, nothing more.

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

he couldn't even convince anyone that he'd press the button if he needed to

He wouldn't be keen to evaporate millions of people, leading to a conflagration that would destroy the planet?  Bastard!  Lefty, white feather, pacifist bastard!

6 minutes ago, bickster said:

dressed like a tramp,

Get a grip, man.

6 minutes ago, bickster said:

His new form of leadership appeared to be anti-leadership

Many find that rather appealing, especially those who have not served in the forces of repression.

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

Whats that got to do with the Labour Party?

It's about where our leaders come from.  The concept of "leaders" is not specific to a political party, and in fact one prevalent criticism of Corbyn was that he wasn't enough like the stereotype of a "leader" for those who take a deferential approach to politics.