Off Topic News & Current affairs

Keir Starmer is an even worse Labour leader than Corbyn. Does anyone know what he thinks about anything? Getting up at PMQ's once a week and asking a series of questions which the PM doesn't even pretend to answer is never going to cut it. Having been elected on the basis that he wasn't Jeremy Corbyn it's clear he hasn't risen to the challenges of what is admittedly a very difficult job, and the comparisons with IDS's leadership are valid. His good fortune is that Labour does not have the Tories' ruthlessness when it comes to replacing a leader who is a loser.

 

Labour will never win power while he is leader. I don't like to keep coming back to Brexit, but it will continue to dominate the political scene in this country for years to come.
The British public will not forget how Starmer fought tooth and nail to overturn the result of the referendum. When all his efforts had failed he was one of the last to 'accept' the decision but even then he still wanted a confirmatory vote (ie a second referendum) which he hoped would give a different result or at very least delay the leaving for several more years.
Considering that project fear's predictions have not come true, I would imagine that the public's view has only shifted further towards the leave arguments. He will be forever seen as a hardline remainer so is unelectable.

 

If I was the Opposition leader I wouldn't want to win an election any time soon.

The fallout from our withdrawal from the EU is going to look like a picnic compared to what's coming as a result of the pandemic.
Anyone who thinks we're all just going to have a party on July 19th and then live happily ever after is in massive denial.

In World War Two this country lost about half the number of civilians as those who have died from Coronavirus. And we defeated the enemy. We weren't told we would have to learn to live with it. Compared to everywhere else in Europe, the slaughter here in the UK has been horrific.
And the reckoning in terms of the long term consequences to the economy and health of this nation has not even begun yet.
For every person who has died from the virus, one will die because the NHS has almost ceased to function.
And the consequences to the care sector are beyond measure.

Now both of these factors (Brexit and the virus) have their own threads, so I won't go on any further about them in this one.

And on that cheery note, I'll bid you all goodnight
Busy day tomorrow!

 

Happy days...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57669976

 

Starmer is equally unconvincing to us remoaners. He doesn't spell out his position on anything, leaving anyone free to interpret his (non)-views any way they like. At PMQ's he seems to think he's in a court of law, where the defendant has to answer the question, truthfully at that. And apart from the Piers Morgan interview where he showed that he's quite a decent chap who loved his Mum he doesn't have anything relevant to say.

 

BREAKING NEWS (Ukraine)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57706617

I had to laugh it's not April 1st is it?
Great timing, this story.

 

Stilletoes an fishnets would be better.

 

That's just too weird

 

Private Eye is so different now to when Richard Ingrams edited it. The satire is quite funny, but the investigative journalism is consistently top-drawer. It's got no political bias, everyone gets lampooned or investigated whatever side of the political spectrum, and it's reporting is accurate.

 

How's the sea in Whitstable, #Smudger ? Southern Water have received a huge fine for deliberately pumping raw sewage into the sea in North Kent. It has reportedly hit the oyster farmers quite hard.

 

I won’t be going in the sea or eating oysters until we’ve had a few high tides ! About 100 people reported having sickness and diarrhoea after eating oysters recently
I’m sure the fish and molluscs will gobble it all up soon !

 

After 40 years of warnings by climatologists, it seems to be sinking in that climate change is real.

 

Bizarre fake sport story...

This new 'Cricket' format they are launching soon, "The 100"

I know the people running it are trying to make is as different from T/20 as possible - even giving different names to parts of the game thus removing words like wicket and over.

But I just heard on the BBC that crowds watching this new "100" game are being told NOT to sing certain songs - like Sweet Caroline.
How bizarre is that?
Telling paying fans what they can sing or can't sing?

The whole "100" business sounds far too contrived to me.
Are youngsters really going to follow it?
Sounds like it has pretty much nothing to do with actual cricket.

 

Not impressed at all. I caught one twenty20 game and enjoyed the cricket, but less so the special effects, (music for 6's, wickets, etc, weird fireballs,) and the fact I was stuck next to a huge bunch of corporate types who spent most of the game with their backs to the pitch. But it made a bit of money, so why bring in a new competition and run it st the same time as other competitions? Daft.

 

I'm no fan of T20, but I can understand why a lot of people are.

The basic problem is that Cricket is nothing to do with thrills and fireworks.
For 150 years and more it has been a game of patience, strategy and sportsmanship. From an age when time was not running out every minute.
When life was shorter, but lived at a slower pace.

Nowadays, everything has to be thrills and fireworks.
Something stunning has to happen every couple of minutes, or people get bored.
Personally I find a batsman bashing a 6 off every ball in an over very dull.
Why do people want to be excited all the time?
We don't want Christmas every day.

But hey ho, I'm just a grumpy old git.

 

The Newspaper front pages today...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-57910489

Scroll down to the Daily Star

I seriously might start buying that rag. It just mercilessly takes the mick these days.
That has cheered me up.

 

I noticed The Sun wasn't one of the papers, so had a look at their website. It leads on the story that Fabian Delph is not the Premiership footballer who has been arrested in connection with child-sex allegations. It also has full-page photos of him just in case you don't know what he looks like. They need to be careful. Justin Fashanu won a landmark case against The People, for a "rumour denied" story about him being gay (before he came ahrt), in which they thought they'd got round the libel laws. I imagine this is why The Sun has been left out today.