Off Topic News & Current affairs

I'm not a great fan of the Royal Family and their traditions, but I do greatly admire and respect our Armed Forces.
I think this country just did ex-royal Harry a pretty big favour by accepting the major break with royal tradition that saw none of the Duke of Edinburgh's children or grandchildren in military uniform for the funeral.

Will this break with a tradition going back centuries be repeated at the next royal funeral - which may well be a full State Funeral.
That may be seen by many as an insult to our Armed Forces.
And it would be an extraordinary measure in my view, merely to save the embarrassment of one estranged member of the family.

It is interesting to note that as far as I'm aware, no commentator has said the lack of military uniforms at his funeral was one of the Duke of Edinburgh's wishes for the ceremony.
If I'm wrong about this then I'm willing to stand corrected.

 

He's great for a laugh is Arnie.

"Get to the Chopper" is from Predator I believe (1987?)

 

I see that Andrew has adopted the Land Rover idea and intends to be taken to his funeral by a 15-year-old Escort.

 

He makes a lot of sense for a feller with a bin on his head

My current inclination however is to vote for the Tory bloke.
He's the only candidate (as far as I know) - or at least the only candidate with a chance of winning - who has said he will stop the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone to encompass the entire area within the North & South Circular roads.

Clean up London's air by all means.
But don't make poor and manual working Londoners pay for it all.

We cannot all afford £30,000 electric prams.
Never mind that there are only about 20 charging points within the M25 - and 17 of those are out of order.

 

Yet another set of empty promises by world leaders on climate change. Déjà vu

 

Anyone been following the Post Office scandal? The sub-postmasters are due to get their convictions quashed today, a few years too late. Private Eye were on this story right from the start, and Panorama has also been doing a good job in exposing a shocking miscarriage of justice. The most shocking aspect is that the PO knew at an early stage the postmasters were innocent, but still carried on prosecuting them, believing that their wealth and size enabled them to crush the individuals. When they get their convictions quashed it will go in the good news thread.

 

The way the Post Office behaved is disgraceful, and criminal in my opinion.

Destroying the lives of hundreds of sub-postmasters and their families.
Then covering up by destroying evidence that their computer system was faulty.
And the CPS - forcing folk to admit to things they never did for fear of prison, and branding them criminals.

This case, more than any other, established a life-long distrust of computer systems among many of us.
But of course the faulty computer system was not to blame. The people who installed it, then knowingly ruined people's lives for a decade and a half rather than come clean about it being faulty.
Those people could be identified even today. And punished.

The Government's attitude that it was too long ago and involves too many parties (so it's not in the public interest to pursue) is pathetic.
The same thing was said about Windrush. And Hillsborough.
And the same thing looks like it might be happening to Grenfell.

The powerful don't mind how many common folk they hurt, in order to cover their privileged arses.

 

I found myself who was driving these prosecutions and why, given that all the evidence pointed to error on the part of the Post Office.

 

Corporate responsibility, ie nobody's fault. The present chairman has apologised, but those who were responsible at the time will never, although Paula Vennels did issue a standard non-apology a few years ago, something like "I'm sorry we weren't able to agree............................", or something equally patronising and insulting.

 

Alex Belfield does a very good rant on it on his YouTube channel

 

Have you been following the story on Private Eye? They've been on the case from very early on. The behaviour of the Post office verges on evil, for instance telling individual postmasters that no-one else had any problems, only them. And systematically rejecting firm evidence that they were innocent, over a long period of time. The journalist who doggedly pursued this miscarriage of justice deserves huge credit. Private Eye is much more than a satirical magazine, it's investigative journalism is top drawer.
The Rev Paula Vennels, CBE, who presided over the scandal for 7 years, is a preacher at her local church, and a member of the C of E ethical investments advisory panel.

 

Not any more.

 

The Daily Mail has broken ranks with the pro-Boris Murdoch papers and Telegraph. I feel this must bode something, but don't yet know what.

 

This whole Boris / Dominic spat is pretty sordid and tiresome.

This Country is not free of the Pandemic yet, and it is raging out of control in other parts of the world.
MP's and Parliament should be standing united to support the people. A government of National Unity, or the closest equivalent.

Instead we have the most childish of squabbling, any why - because of some upcoming local elections?
I'm sick of it, and I don't think I'm alone in that.

We're probably heading for a new wave of infections.
Please God let that not lead to another tsunami of hospitalisations.
And please don't let it lead to another lockdown.

There are matters of much more gravity to be concerned about than mud-slinging about stupid things Boris may or may not have said in some meeting.
What is happening to this country?
Are we all going potty?

 

Michael Gove has been very quiet recently.

 

Never a bad thing.
Is he as quiet as IDS?

Shhhhh...

 

Gove is an opportunist, I am sure he is waiting for the main chance.

I think Johnson is a dead man walking. Cummings, for all his faults of personality, is a shrewd political operator and has not taken kindly to being ousted at the behest of Carrie Antoinette. I suspect he will be ruthless when he really gets going.

The problem is that the Conservatives have made themselves unelectable. Labour became unelectable under Coprbyn and have done nothing to repair the damage that he created. LibDems are less screechy without Swinson's student union politics but are still devoid of ideas. Farage is finshed, he has ducked out of one party too many. There is a massive void which can easily be filled by anarchy. Laurence Fox talks sense but will never get further than Question Time and Talk Radio.

To quote a politician of a bygone era, who in turn was quoting Virgil, "as I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'."