The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[Genie]

This all hinges on whether Sue Gray / Boris Johnson can sell the party as a work event, however paper thin that may be.

If they do that, then it all goes away. The complaint about it potentially being against the rules, Boris being there and the Met are off the hook too.

Can they ride out the uproar it would cause?

Obviously in a courtroom no jury would buy it.

[bickster]

57 minutes ago, Genie said:

then it all goes away

Nah, it's gone way past the all goes away stage. The court of public opinion has already decided his guilt regardless of what Sue Gray says, it's almost impossible to get out of the hole that has been dug

As I've said, I hope the Tories stick by him as they'll just be using their free JCB to dig a bigger hole

[ml1dch]

 

I'm shocked. SHOCKED. 

Actually, not that shocked. 

[Stevo985]

On 21/01/2022 at 11:01, Genie said:

This all hinges on whether Sue Gray / Boris Johnson can sell the party as a work event, however paper thin that may be.

If they do that, then it all goes away. The complaint about it potentially being against the rules, Boris being there and the Met are off the hook too.

Can they ride out the uproar it would cause?

Obviously in a courtroom no jury would buy it.

There doesn’t seem to be enough people questioning whether it can be a work event in any way shape or form, and if it was then that doesn’t make it acceptable. 
 

Just because it’s happening at work doesn’t mean it’s ok. 

[mjmooney]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

There doesn’t seem to be enough people questioning whether it can be a work event in any way shape or form, and if it was then that doesn’t make it acceptable. 
Just because it’s happening at work doesn’t mean it’s ok. 

Quite the opposite, in my experience. A social after work might be OK (were it not for the covid rules).  But drinking on work premises, during working hours? Plebs would probably be sacked for it. 

[Stevo985]

39 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Quite the opposite, in my experience. A social after work might be OK (were it not for the covid rules).  But drinking on work premises, during working hours? Plebs would probably be sacked for it. 

Exactly. But the narrative seems to be if it was a work event it was fine. 

Work events of that I’ll were not allowed. I couldn’t bring some beers into my office and all stand around drinking. It was strictly against the rules

[Seat68]

Back in the olden days, Matheson House, when it was purely Inland Revenue. If you have ever been to Telford Shopping Centre it's the large grey building to the left of the multi story. Back in the early nineties and late 80s, they had a bar on work premises, a very cheap bar. I think the Pogues played there once too. I can't recall if it was open during the working day but it was open just after. 

[bickster]

14 hours ago, ml1dch said:

 

I'm shocked. SHOCKED. 

Actually, not that shocked. 

Further news on this story...

I believe the tweet may have been put back up (because he's probably been advised that deleting it looks even more stupid)

Now here's the thing. Nusrat Ghani didn't name anyone or say who told her. So Mark Spencer's tweet was outing himself and as many people have pointed out, she can't have defamed him as  she didn't say who told her. He was effectively saying... "She's talking about me but I never said that", which only leads to one question... how do you know she was talking about you?

As much as the original story is shocking (not shocking), the fall out is hilarious

Peston's right, this is a massive crisis the party is in and it is blowing up everywhere

[Dodgyknees]

What we need is the media to really dig deep into islamophobia, make it headlines for weeks, all news stories focused on it, far all party supporters as anti-Muslim and wait, no, never gonna happen. 

[markavfc40]

It seems Wragg coming out with the bullying claims last week and Wakeford defecting has opened Pandora's box and given others the confidence to speak out. There will be more.

I don't see how Johnson can get through this in the medium term but I think he will hold on for a while longer yet. It is quite interesting watching them implode and fight like rats in a sack.

I think far more serious than all these revelations for most of us will be the cost of living crisis that has been brewing for a while and about to really boil over. 

I rarely go food shopping as my missus does it due to the odd occasion I have gone with her she sees me as more hindrance than help and when I have gone on my own to do it I end up coming back with either half what we need missing or the wrong stuff. I do pop in for the odd things and did go into ASDA last night and was shocked by how much things had gone up. I then spoke with my missus about  it and she listed a load of things that had gone up 30p here, 50p there etc over the last few months but getting worse over the last few weeks with things going up weekly. Add that into energy costs. My energy supplier PFP went bust in September so we went over to British Gas on a tariff that matched the current price cap until April. My electricity went up something like 70% and gas 40%. That will go up again massively in April to the point I will be paying twice what I was in September 2021. Then it is expected to rise again in September. 

We are fortunate that we have enough slack in our finances that we can get through this but millions of others won't and they will be pushed into severe poverty. I was listening to LBC the other day and a pensioner phoned in and said if I'm cold I can put a hat and coat on but they were terrified about the price of food as if they haven't got food they'll die. Another caller said they lived alone and their food shop (they buy the cheapest bread, pasta, beans etc) had gone up from £10 a week (which they could just about manage) to £18 a week and they can't afford it. Then a school head mistress phoned to say the school energy bill for the year had gone from 145k up to 212k. It was an academy school. They have had zero help from government so are having to make cuts and have delayed filling a couple of teaching vacancies.

This country is in big trouble with millions about to be tipped into poverty, extreme poverty or into starving to death. And what are our government doing. Arguing amongst themselves with the most incompetent, self serving bastard at the wheel you could dream up in your worst nightmare. 

 

Edited January 23, 2022 by markavfc40

[Xann]

24 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

I think far more serious than all these revelations for most of us will be the cost of living crisis that has been brewing for a while and about to really boil over. 

Yes indeed.

Quote

 

A whole section of society is being cut adrift by the rising cost of supermarket shopping

Budget ranges offered by supermarkets are becoming smaller or disappearing altogether, leaving shoppers with no option but to buy more expensive equivalents.

Our ruling class may have been brazenly wheeling suitcases of cheap plonk past the averted gaze of Metropolitan police officers during the last year of lockdowns, but their voters are increasingly finding themselves destitute, hungry, demoralised and priced out of the cheapest bag of apples at the supermarket.

It was reported last week that the consumer price index (CPI) measure for inflation rose to 5.4% in December, the highest level for nearly 30 years. The CPI and the retail price index (RPI) are used interchangeably to document the rising price levels of groceries and household goods across the UK. Yet they only tell a fragment of the story of inflation, and grossly underestimate the true cost-of-living crisis.

A collection of 700 pre-specified goods that includes a leg of lamb, bedroom furniture, a television and champagne seems a blunt and darkly comical tool for recording the impact of inflated grocery prices in a country where two and a half million citizens were forced by an array of desperate circumstances to use food banks in the last year.

I have been monitoring this for the last decade, through writing recipes on my online blog and documenting the prices of ingredients in forensic detail. In 2012, 10 stock cubes from Sainsbury’s Basics range were 10p. In 2022, those same stock cubes are 39p, but only available in chicken or beef. The cheapest vegetable stock cubes are, inexplicably, £1 for 10. Last year the Smart Price pasta in my local Asda was 29p for 500g. Today, it is unavailable, so the cheapest bag is 70p; a 141% price rise for the same product in more colourful packaging. A few years ago, there were more than 400 products in the Smart Price range; today there are 87, and counting down.

The managing director of Iceland, Richard Walker, stated on ITV on Friday that his stores were losing customers “to food banks, and to hunger”. Not to other competitors, not to better offers, but to starvation, and charity. Iceland has pledged to keep its £1 lines at the flat rate of £1 until the end of the year, a commitment to customers at the sharp end that is rare in the cut-throat world of supermarket retail...

 

Grauniad

Tory Brexit delivering in spades.

[limpid]

4 hours ago, Seat68 said:

Back in the olden days, Matheson House, when it was purely Inland Revenue. If you have ever been to Telford Shopping Centre it's the large grey building to the left of the multi story. Back in the early nineties and late 80s, they had a bar on work premises, a very cheap bar. I think the Pogues played there once too. I can't recall if it was open during the working day but it was open just after. 

My desk was up one flight of stairs, turn left and walk to the end of the building. If you went down one flight there was access to the tunnel under the roundabout.

Most places I worked around then sold alcohol in the restaurants. I never thought those were strange. Having bars at fire stations I always thought was strange.

[markavfc40]

 

This is about to get far worse.

[mjmooney]

26 minutes ago, limpid said:

My desk was up one flight of stairs, turn left and walk to the end of the building. If you went down one flight there was access to the tunnel under the roundabout.

Most places I worked around then sold alcohol in the restaurants. I never thought those were strange. Having bars at fire stations I always thought was strange.

My first IT job was for a software house servicing the Lloyds of London reinsurance market. I remember having a meeting with some clients in their office block in the City. Stroke of midday, they all knocked off and got in the lift down to the basement. Which was a pub. They then proceeded to get absolutely shitfaced, and went back to work at about 3.00. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by mjmooney

[bickster]

The missus used to work for Royal Liver Assurance and they had a bar in the basement, open all day, She left sometime after 2000, it was still there and as far as I know it was there until the company was bought out and left the building (2011)

EDIT: Further checking reveals it closed in 2004

[mjmooney]

Mind you, I'm not one to talk, after 28 years' worth of Friday lunchtimes in the Fighting Cock. 

The one thing I miss about work. 

[chrisp65]

A handy map of where to find UK foodbanks after 12 years of tory rule.

[AVFC_Hitz]

I used to work in the finance department at Steelhouse lane police station. There was a pub in the basement. When I left it was being ripped out to be turned into a generic canteen with vending machines. Quite sad as it was a really beautiful place, probably hadn't changed in 60 odd years

[blandy]

8 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Mind you, I'm not one to talk, after 28 years' worth of Friday lunchtimes in the Fighting Cock. 

The one thing I miss about work. 

The one thing you miss about work is the cock?

[choffer]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

The missus used to work for Royal Liver Assurance and they had a bar in the basement, open all day, She left sometime after 2000, it was still there and as far as I know it was there until the company was bought out and left the building (2011)

EDIT: Further checking reveals it closed in 2004

Desperately trying to work out the joke about all that drinking being bad for Royal Livers. 
 

In a similar vein, I remember colleagues regularly popping over to the Cadbury Club at lunch for a quick pint when I worked at Bournville for a year in the late 90s. I suspect some still did until the fire.