Off Topic News & Current affairs

Inquiry finds that Sue Gray broke the Civil Service Code...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66086668

Not good on the face of it.
Let's not forget however this it was not a cross-party Parliamentary Inquiry investigating Ms Gray.
It was a Cabinet Office Inquiry.
The Cabinet Office which - along with No.10 - broke more lockdown rules than any other organization in the Country.
The same Cabinet Office that brought us a "Bring your own booze" invitation.

It seems there are inquiries, and there are inquiries.

 

Hardly a politically neutral voice, given the way the cabinet has behaved of late. having said which, couldn't Starmer have found soemone else to do whatever job he gave Sue Gray? i doubt anything happened untoward, but that still gave the Johnson adoration society an unexpected chance to call 'foul' even if VAR won't even take a second look.

 

Banks & Supermarkets profiteering Who's have thunk it?

 

Now I hear even a five year fixed rate on your mortgage will be over 6%.
That's ridiculous.

Surely better to stay on a variable rate, if you can survive it for a year or two.
Rates must surely come down within the next couple of years.
If mortgage rates stay at 6% or higher for the next 5 years, the mortgage market will implode.
Vast numbers will lose their homes. Landlords will want to sell but nobody will be willing to buy their slums.
Only millionaires who can pay cash will be able to buy a house.

If my Landlord (who has been very good for years) decides he has to sell the house I'm living in, I'll be homeless.
I'll have to live in the back of a van or something similar.
If that happens it'll be adios amigos. I doubt I'll live very long.

always look on the bright side of life...

 

It's a witch-hunt

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66097039

They're all out to get you Nigel

 

And people still think he's the bees' knees because of B****t, even though he says himself it's failed. Whatever turns you on.

 

To be fair to him, he says it’s failing because we haven’t actually taken advantage of the change, largely because most of the establishment didn’t want it, so are trying to make it fail.

I always thought that it couldn’t be judged for at least 10 years and with Covid I’d extend that to at least 12 years.

A major change like that needs time and goodwill before it should be judged.

To me the jury is still out.

 

That's not how it was presented to us during the referendum!

 

Agreed. But there were lies and exaggerations on both sides.

My personal feeling was that there was far more bias against Brexit than there was towards it. The government was largely against it and then you had organisations like the BBC who were very negative towards it. Plus the Bank of England, CBI, EU leaders etc etc.

The public had a chance to listen to it all and despite being bombarded with anti-Brexit rhetoric they chose to leave the EU.

It certainly isn’t fair to say that the public were somehow tricked into making the wrong decision.

Some may have now changed their minds, but they are probably the sort of people we discussed before, who want a quick cheap fix for every problem. A momentous decision like Brexit needs to be given support and time to make it work, not obstruction from the establishment and the constant highlighting of short term negative impacts by what is supposed to be our unbiased national broadcaster.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66103922

Every single person in that picture should be fined, except for the lady in the grey top, third from the left.

 

It all became far too tribal; my 2 brothers-in-law fell out over it. Even if there turn out to be benefits, is it worth all the divisions? And as you say the barrage of lies. I'm more convinced than ever that we should not have been asked to make the decision.

 

I’m happy that we were. It may not be a perfect way to decide these things, but the alternative is to trust the politicians to do what is best for us, but they only seem to be interested in what is best for them.

 

The bloke in the cardigan should be fined for his dress sense, even if it was Christmas.
The wearing of a tie and braces fully exonerates the chap with the drink. He looks like a proper Tory.

 

Filming themselves partying. Idiots.

 

And they used to pride themselves on being the Party of Law and Order

 

It's the sense of entitlement that sticks in the craw. Actually being caught because they filmed themselves breaking the law.

 

Most train operators set to close all their ticket offices on stations.

How long will it be before there are no staff at all on railway stations?
I understand that is already the case on some outlying tube stations.

 

Not long.
I tried to buy a ticket at Hebden Bridge station last week but because the ‘system was down’ and I didn’t have enough cash with me, the man in the ticket office told me to just board the train and travel for free because ‘soon there won’t be any ticket offices left’. On entering the platform I was stopped by a ticket inspector and when I told him what I’d been told, he just let me get on without a ticket as well. The staff know what is coming, many of them will lose their jobs, the railways will be less safe, but the shareholders will be richer.
Another industry that needs to be re-nationalised.

 

I've said it 100 times and now I'll say it again;

There should be NO PLACE for Chelsea Tractors on the suburban streets of any city, and certainly not anywhere near schools.
These vehicles are massively over-powered, heavy and needlessly deadly.
It's bad enough we have to have big vans and lorries on our city streets. But most of them are carrying out deliveries to keep shops and businesses open. Some European Cities only allow those kinds of vehicles on their roads at night, when there are fewer pedestrians (including children of course) out and about.

One in four new cars registered are Sports Utility Vehicles. That means tens of thousands of them everywhere.
Add the extra weight of the batteries in electric ones (which also run silent) and these things become pure killing machines.
Almost all are bought or leased for vanity, pure and simple.
They make no sense from any point of view - environmental or safety of pedestrians.

Granted, those poor schoolkids would have been badly hurt by any motor vehicle ploughing into them.
But their situation was made needlessly even more dangerous by being hit by a Land Rover.

I wonder what the proportion of deaths & serious injuries are caused by SUV's as opposed to normal cars.
I should think it is much higher. Surely enough is enough.

 

Spot on but you’ve failed to point out they’re normally driven by women that time of the morning on the school run