| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks 07:54 - Oct 21 with 3814 views | fab_lover |
One day, people should go to jail for this; but they won't.
Does anyone want to stick their head above the parapet and defend this ?
Does anyone think that Labour would have handled the Covid crisis any worse ?
Does anyone still feel inclined to vote Tory in the next election ?
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 07:59 - Oct 21 with 1950 views | Herbivore |
The Tories' purpose in government has always been to maintain and strengthen the status quo, which means ensuring that the wealthy - often Tory donors - continue to accrue wealth. If they can get to do that proactively through siphoning public funds to their mates then they will, otherwise they'll do it through policy choices. It was ever thus with the Tories, although this cabal are particularly brazen and shameless but that's possible because they have such a huge majority, no respect for the legislature, and a willingness to try to shape our unwritten constitution to make it harder to hold them to account.
Sadly a large chunk of the electorate either can't see this, don't want to see it, or just don't really care. The last 10 years or so in the UK have been pretty horrific and yet people keep voting for the party that has presided over it all. The country has lost its head to be honest. We need to try turning it off and on again. [Post edited 21 Oct 2021 8:15]
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:08 - Oct 21 with 1931 views | gtsb1966 |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 07:59 - Oct 21 by Herbivore |
The Tories' purpose in government has always been to maintain and strengthen the status quo, which means ensuring that the wealthy - often Tory donors - continue to accrue wealth. If they can get to do that proactively through siphoning public funds to their mates then they will, otherwise they'll do it through policy choices. It was ever thus with the Tories, although this cabal are particularly brazen and shameless but that's possible because they have such a huge majority, no respect for the legislature, and a willingness to try to shape our unwritten constitution to make it harder to hold them to account.
Sadly a large chunk of the electorate either can't see this, don't want to see it, or just don't really care. The last 10 years or so in the UK have been pretty horrific and yet people keep voting for the party that has presided over it all. The country has lost its head to be honest. We need to try turning it off and on again. [Post edited 21 Oct 2021 8:15]
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The labour party needs to look like a party fit to govern first before anything will change. Sadly we are stuck with this lot for a good few years yet. |  | | |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:09 - Oct 21 with 1925 views | wkj |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:08 - Oct 21 by gtsb1966 |
The labour party needs to look like a party fit to govern first before anything will change. Sadly we are stuck with this lot for a good few years yet. |
Maybe, but I wouldn't be surprised if we have another hung parliament in 2024. |  |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:17 - Oct 21 with 1894 views | Herbivore |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:08 - Oct 21 by gtsb1966 |
The labour party needs to look like a party fit to govern first before anything will change. Sadly we are stuck with this lot for a good few years yet. |
Yeah it's definitely Labour's fault that the Tories are crooks. Take a look at what's going on around you, ffs. It's all on the Tories. We could put a sack full of rats in charge and they'd do a more humane and competent job of running the country than this version of the Tory party. | |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:26 - Oct 21 with 1877 views | You_Bloo_Right |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:08 - Oct 21 by gtsb1966 |
The labour party needs to look like a party fit to govern first before anything will change. Sadly we are stuck with this lot for a good few years yet. |
So the only way the electorate would vote to remove a government that has proved itself unfit to govern is for the opposition to somehow prove themselves fit to govern?
One wonders then how a Johnson led administration managed to get anywhere near government let alone an 80 seat majority when its leading lights had already, before the election and many times too, shown all the traits that they continue to display in office. |  |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:30 - Oct 21 with 1866 views | Herbivore |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:26 - Oct 21 by You_Bloo_Right |
So the only way the electorate would vote to remove a government that has proved itself unfit to govern is for the opposition to somehow prove themselves fit to govern?
One wonders then how a Johnson led administration managed to get anywhere near government let alone an 80 seat majority when its leading lights had already, before the election and many times too, shown all the traits that they continue to display in office. |
Indeed. And even if people genuinely think Labour wouldn't be competent, the current government is both incompetent and nasty, so Labour would still be an upgrade. | |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:30 - Oct 21 with 1864 views | gtsb1966 |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:17 - Oct 21 by Herbivore |
Yeah it's definitely Labour's fault that the Tories are crooks. Take a look at what's going on around you, ffs. It's all on the Tories. We could put a sack full of rats in charge and they'd do a more humane and competent job of running the country than this version of the Tory party. |
Who said it was Labours fault. Not me but I do know this current government is without doubt the worst in my life time. To win over the electorate labour has to get its house in order first.... but you know that. Take those blinkers off. | | | |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:35 - Oct 21 with 1849 views | Herbivore |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:30 - Oct 21 by gtsb1966 |
Who said it was Labours fault. Not me but I do know this current government is without doubt the worst in my life time. To win over the electorate labour has to get its house in order first.... but you know that. Take those blinkers off. |
The electorate need to give their head a wobble. | |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:42 - Oct 21 with 1826 views | You_Bloo_Right |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:30 - Oct 21 by gtsb1966 |
Who said it was Labours fault. Not me but I do know this current government is without doubt the worst in my life time. To win over the electorate labour has to get its house in order first.... but you know that. Take those blinkers off. |
I get the idea I just don't think it represents much more than a media spin on what we see at elections time and again.
The Johnson-led Conservative victory at the last GE was, for me, nothing to do with who looked more competent but who would "drive Brexit through". There are, I believe, a large number of people who, with some justification, vote for "change" regardless of what that change may turn out to be simply because their current lot is in dire need of improvement. Ignored by government for decades? Vote against whoever happens to hold that position at the time of the GE regardless of what the party you are voting for "looks like".
Of course the media have a huge part to play in all this as MSM shapes peoples' opinions more than any political party has ever done. I don't think opposition parties really do "win over" voters in the way they, and perhaps we, like to think - parties in power lose support.
So yes we have a long way to go and may see way too much of Johnson and his ilk in positions of power. Labour (or any other party) will do themselves no harm in "looking fit to govern" but will that be the telling factor? I don't think so. | |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:59 - Oct 21 with 1804 views | Guthrum |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:08 - Oct 21 by gtsb1966 |
The labour party needs to look like a party fit to govern first before anything will change. Sadly we are stuck with this lot for a good few years yet. |
Until we have mass media* who are prepared to present Labour (or any other party) as fit to govern, then they are always going to be on the back foot. Like it or not, many voters form their opinions upon what they see in the Daily Mail or the Sun (or what's passed on to them from those sources via FaceBook) than from deep consideration of manifestoes.
Unfortunately that mass media is largely owned by those with ideologies or vested interests more aligned with the (low regulation free market) Conservatives than anyone else.
* Not talking so much the BBC, more print/online and private TV channnels such as Sky. |  |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 09:04 - Oct 21 with 1772 views | hype313 |
Vermin. |  |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 09:05 - Oct 21 with 1771 views | Churchman |
Yes, people should go to jail for this disaster - but no chance of that.
Their disgraceful efforts cannot be defended. 10s of 1000s have needlessly died through their negligence and incompetence. They know that and don’t care. A few 1000 plebs dead? Oh well, what’s for lunch? Any public enquiry will be a snow job.
It’s irrelevant whether Labour could of handled it worse as this disaster isn’t down to them, but anyway it’s actually impossible to handle it worse. No country in Europe made a greater pigs ear of this. In fact, their can’t be many in the world that screwed it up as badly. It was almost as if they were having a laugh trying to get everything wrong, while presumably filling their pockets any way they could through private contracts etc.
It feels like this lot are using C-19 to break public services, which they have of course loathed since the creation of the Welfare State in 1947. To paraphrase that dreadful creature Francis Maude, the private sector can do everything quicker, cheaper and more efficiently. They still believe this with every fibre of their being. I wonder how long it’ll be before, like the good ole days, you pay into an insurance policy and have a plaque on your wall for your own fire service to bail you out if you have a fire?
Why anyone would vote for this mob is quite beyond me. Our political system is broken. |  | | |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 09:49 - Oct 21 with 1722 views | Guthrum |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:35 - Oct 21 by Herbivore |
The electorate need to give their head a wobble. |
That's a fruitless attitude - "if only the electorate would wake up, they'd naturally vote for us". It's something I've encountered from radical activists many times*. Never going to happen - plus people don't like being talked down to.
In reality, you've got to go and meet them, carry them with you to the desired outcome. That's how Blair got elected, by reaching out to people who would normally have voted other ways, speaking their language, offering things they want.
* Descends from the old communist historical determinism - "history is on our side, we'll inevitably win in the end". Pure 19th century pseudo-Darwinian bollox. | |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 09:59 - Oct 21 with 1709 views | Swansea_Blue |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:59 - Oct 21 by Guthrum |
Until we have mass media* who are prepared to present Labour (or any other party) as fit to govern, then they are always going to be on the back foot. Like it or not, many voters form their opinions upon what they see in the Daily Mail or the Sun (or what's passed on to them from those sources via FaceBook) than from deep consideration of manifestoes.
Unfortunately that mass media is largely owned by those with ideologies or vested interests more aligned with the (low regulation free market) Conservatives than anyone else.
* Not talking so much the BBC, more print/online and private TV channnels such as Sky. |
Absolutely. And this does include the BBC unfortunately. Or at least certain elements of it, with client journalists like Kusenberg uncritically distributing the Conservative Press Office and SPADs messages for them.
Although the issue around the BBC is obviously much more nuanced than that (e.g. Panorama and Newsnight tend to question and attempt to hold people to account, QT quite the opposite, etc). |  |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:00 - Oct 21 with 1710 views | Herbivore |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 09:49 - Oct 21 by Guthrum |
That's a fruitless attitude - "if only the electorate would wake up, they'd naturally vote for us". It's something I've encountered from radical activists many times*. Never going to happen - plus people don't like being talked down to.
In reality, you've got to go and meet them, carry them with you to the desired outcome. That's how Blair got elected, by reaching out to people who would normally have voted other ways, speaking their language, offering things they want.
* Descends from the old communist historical determinism - "history is on our side, we'll inevitably win in the end". Pure 19th century pseudo-Darwinian bollox. |
Not sure that's true of Blair, he won over Murdoch which meant for once Labour had much of the press on its side. That coupled with fatigue at nearly 20 years of Tory government and a competent but uninspiring PM leading a divided party mired in sleaze gave Blair something of an open goal. It's easier to get your message out there when the press are prepared to give it fair hearing.
I stand by my comments on the electorate, I'm not claiming they're helpful but they reflect my views. It's depressing that so few people care about politics but then as a country we've tended to frown upon activism and actively encouraged the electorate to be docile and disinterested. I guess the public gets what the public wants. | |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:02 - Oct 21 with 1703 views | Herbivore |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 09:59 - Oct 21 by Swansea_Blue |
Absolutely. And this does include the BBC unfortunately. Or at least certain elements of it, with client journalists like Kusenberg uncritically distributing the Conservative Press Office and SPADs messages for them.
Although the issue around the BBC is obviously much more nuanced than that (e.g. Panorama and Newsnight tend to question and attempt to hold people to account, QT quite the opposite, etc). |
I think there's an element with the Beeb of them being coerced as well. The Tories constantly make veiled and not so veiled threats towards them, they appoint their friends to positions of influence in an attempt to shape content. They are so acted to speak truth to power these days that they end up just parroting who has said what uncritically. | |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:09 - Oct 21 with 1690 views | Swansea_Blue |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 09:49 - Oct 21 by Guthrum |
That's a fruitless attitude - "if only the electorate would wake up, they'd naturally vote for us". It's something I've encountered from radical activists many times*. Never going to happen - plus people don't like being talked down to.
In reality, you've got to go and meet them, carry them with you to the desired outcome. That's how Blair got elected, by reaching out to people who would normally have voted other ways, speaking their language, offering things they want.
* Descends from the old communist historical determinism - "history is on our side, we'll inevitably win in the end". Pure 19th century pseudo-Darwinian bollox. |
This will get dismissed by many because of Iraq and for who he is, yet it's the clearest suggestion I've seen for what Labour need to do to start to get noticed. It sounds ridiculously basic and simple, yet even this isn't happening. Four to five grand policy ideas may be too many though. Just one flagship policy, that's clear and memorable and endlessly repeated in the media, would be a step in the right direction. It seems vast numbers of people can only remember a 3 word slogan, so writing 15,0000 word essays isn't going to achieve anything.
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:17 - Oct 21 with 1672 views | BlueNomad |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 08:59 - Oct 21 by Guthrum |
Until we have mass media* who are prepared to present Labour (or any other party) as fit to govern, then they are always going to be on the back foot. Like it or not, many voters form their opinions upon what they see in the Daily Mail or the Sun (or what's passed on to them from those sources via FaceBook) than from deep consideration of manifestoes.
Unfortunately that mass media is largely owned by those with ideologies or vested interests more aligned with the (low regulation free market) Conservatives than anyone else.
* Not talking so much the BBC, more print/online and private TV channnels such as Sky. |
Don't forget that wise old sage Gap Toothed Dave down at 'Spoons who utters his pearls of wisdom after three pints of Stella. He, and his mates, are real opinion formers. |  | | |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:19 - Oct 21 with 1669 views | Darth_Koont |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:09 - Oct 21 by Swansea_Blue |
This will get dismissed by many because of Iraq and for who he is, yet it's the clearest suggestion I've seen for what Labour need to do to start to get noticed. It sounds ridiculously basic and simple, yet even this isn't happening. Four to five grand policy ideas may be too many though. Just one flagship policy, that's clear and memorable and endlessly repeated in the media, would be a step in the right direction. It seems vast numbers of people can only remember a 3 word slogan, so writing 15,0000 word essays isn't going to achieve anything.
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For the many not the few?
My concern with Starmer and his crew is not that they can’t do politics (which they really, really can’t) but that in power they’d be another retrograde step for the UK.
“Less retrograde than the Tories” isn’t inspiring enough but, much more importantly, it’s simply not good enough and will keep adding to the UK’s problems. |  |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:32 - Oct 21 with 1638 views | Darth_Koont |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 09:59 - Oct 21 by Swansea_Blue |
Absolutely. And this does include the BBC unfortunately. Or at least certain elements of it, with client journalists like Kusenberg uncritically distributing the Conservative Press Office and SPADs messages for them.
Although the issue around the BBC is obviously much more nuanced than that (e.g. Panorama and Newsnight tend to question and attempt to hold people to account, QT quite the opposite, etc). |
Our lamentable national media is far and away the cause of our political and socioeconomic problems stretching back decades.
Obviously, the billionaire media has skewed the narrative right and presented social democracy as a pipe dream AND a threat to our British Way of Lifeâ„¢ï¸. But then we’ve got a notionally centrist counterbalance to that made up of an extremely unrepresentative group of mainly middle/upper-middle class, white southerners, all based in London, who are largely clueless and certainly incurious about the world outside. And you’re right about client journalism on top of that where access to power is the goal, which is mutually exclusive from speaking truth to power.
When the norm is skewed, limited and/or self-serving journalists who are failing at the core of their job, then a country gets the politicians and political debate it deserves. [Post edited 21 Oct 2021 10:35]
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:35 - Oct 21 with 1612 views | Herbivore |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:32 - Oct 21 by Darth_Koont |
Our lamentable national media is far and away the cause of our political and socioeconomic problems stretching back decades.
Obviously, the billionaire media has skewed the narrative right and presented social democracy as a pipe dream AND a threat to our British Way of Lifeâ„¢ï¸. But then we’ve got a notionally centrist counterbalance to that made up of an extremely unrepresentative group of mainly middle/upper-middle class, white southerners, all based in London, who are largely clueless and certainly incurious about the world outside. And you’re right about client journalism on top of that where access to power is the goal, which is mutually exclusive from speaking truth to power.
When the norm is skewed, limited and/or self-serving journalists who are failing at the core of their job, then a country gets the politicians and political debate it deserves. [Post edited 21 Oct 2021 10:35]
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For balance, the left under Corbyn was also largely made up of middle class metropolitan followers. People were chanting his name at Glasto and that's fine, but in the red wall seats he was seen as poison. Labour have been failing to engage with that demographic for a long time, it didn't change under Corbyn (arguably it got worse) and that's allowed a populist to come in and sweep up their votes by giving them easy answers to complex problems. | |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:38 - Oct 21 with 1603 views | Pinewoodblue |
No one should be shocked or surprised by any of this. At his very first Covid press conference Hancock pleaded for anyone who could provide PPE to name their price and promised to pay it.
That so many people with direct access to the party in power took advantage was predictable from day one. |  |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:42 - Oct 21 with 1587 views | Herbivore |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:38 - Oct 21 by Pinewoodblue |
No one should be shocked or surprised by any of this. At his very first Covid press conference Hancock pleaded for anyone who could provide PPE to name their price and promised to pay it.
That so many people with direct access to the party in power took advantage was predictable from day one. |
It's possible to not be surprised but to also be rather depressed and quite angry about it. That the Tories and their mates line each other's pockets is a given, that doesn't mean we have to feel it's acceptable. | |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:42 - Oct 21 with 1586 views | Darth_Koont |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:35 - Oct 21 by Herbivore |
For balance, the left under Corbyn was also largely made up of middle class metropolitan followers. People were chanting his name at Glasto and that's fine, but in the red wall seats he was seen as poison. Labour have been failing to engage with that demographic for a long time, it didn't change under Corbyn (arguably it got worse) and that's allowed a populist to come in and sweep up their votes by giving them easy answers to complex problems. |
Yes, there is a certain amount of privilege in being able to go to Glastonbury and cheer for Corbyn. Same for those who can demonstrate against wars, human rights and climate change.
Corbyn of course did look to represent poorer workers and regions. That was pretty central to his platform.
That’s why it was so critical to monster him as he was proposing very little for an establishment that revolves around vested interests and privilege. | |
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| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 10:46 - Oct 21 with 1568 views | WeWereZombies |
| UK Government knowingly paid DOUBLE the going market price for facemasks on 09:49 - Oct 21 by Guthrum |
That's a fruitless attitude - "if only the electorate would wake up, they'd naturally vote for us". It's something I've encountered from radical activists many times*. Never going to happen - plus people don't like being talked down to.
In reality, you've got to go and meet them, carry them with you to the desired outcome. That's how Blair got elected, by reaching out to people who would normally have voted other ways, speaking their language, offering things they want.
* Descends from the old communist historical determinism - "history is on our side, we'll inevitably win in the end". Pure 19th century pseudo-Darwinian bollox. |
I don't think you can write off the 'spectre is haunting Europe' analysis by Karl Marx as pseudo-Darwinian bollox, it became the main cause of class tension during the latter half of the nineteenth-Century and then the dominant political force in underpinning revolutions in Russia and China as well as being a spur to form the reactionary (but still liberating for some workers - for a while) dogma of fascism during the first half of the twentieth-Century.
You could restate it as 'history is on our side and we will be proved right after everyone is dead' though. And this may come to pass with irrefutable force if humankind as a whole does not come to terms with environmental issues. |  |
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