sadoldgit

Badger, our very own Wikipedia 😎

Having worked in the Criminal Justice System at the height of Tory austerity measures, each year we were told to cut staff and close buildings to save x amount of money. We started off as Kent and ended up as Kent/Surrey/Sussex, closing offices in Medway, Maidstone and Guildford. The workload didn’t get any less, in fact it went up, yet we had fewer people to do it so efficiency went down. This was the same for the police, the probation service and the court service. Someone on the radio this morning made a good point. Where has this figure come from? Where are the in-depth plans to show how efficiencies will be made with no deterioration to service? As with the Rwanda scheme, it is just another ill-thought out scheme presented to the gullible as the Tories taking action. It certainly worked for one guy on the phone in programme (was it you Duckie?) who said that most public sector workers didn’t have to work hard for their living and had a cushy number. Towards the end of my time at the CPS more and more people were off sick with stress and mental health issues because they couldn’t cope with the workload. Take nearly 100k people out of public service and it can only put more pressure on services and people already at full stretch. Great, it frees up money to use on other things, likes benefits for the 90,000 people plus who will be jobless.

You were the one calling him a “hero” Batman. As Duckie would say, you are all over the place.

So our caring Cabinet have been covering themselves in glory yet again. Their idea of “levelling up” is to break into various different dialects during an interview and their idea in helping out during the cost of living crisis is to tell us not to shop at Waitrose, to chose supermarket own brands and to spend 30p only on a meal each day. Anyone got any ideas of what you can buy in a supermarket for 30p? Dear God!

And you clearly will carry on defending the indefensible till hell freezes over. The point has been made enough times. I am not making it anymore. You should get a job with the Daily Mail.

How exactly is Starmer a “slimey hypocrite?” As things stand he has not been found guilty of breaking Johnson’s rules. In fact he was investigated and found not guilty of breaking Johnson’s rules. From the “new evidence” that we have seen, Starmer has strong evidence to say that the Mail’s campaign is nothing more than “fluff” (to quote Jacob). If he is found guilty I’m sure you will have a field day but if I were you I wouldn’t put any money on it. The PM of the UK an “ordinary Joe,” really? You don’t think that our PM should uphold higher standards than us mere mortals? Ok, let’s run with it. If an “”ordinary Joe” lies to Parliament they are expected to resign. What makes Johnson so special that he can ignore the rules expected to be adhered to by everyone else? He said there were no parties. There were. He was at some of them himself along with his “bird.” If the PM can’t uphold his own rules, why should anybody else bother? If the PM thinks it’s ok to lie, flout the law, preside over dodgy deals and stand by as millions of £ of public money got wasted or directed into buddies pockets, why should we all stick to the straight and narrow? You are very quick to point the finger at anyone not in your gang, it would make a pleasant change if you actually stopped defending the indefensible. Just watching the news and the government’s latest wheeze to give neighbours a right to block planning applications. To quote you, “dear God.”

Or if you haven’t done anything wrong.

Tell that to the ten of thousands who died or are still ill with long covid. Even superspreader Boris Johnson himself was supposed to be very I’ll with it. I didn’t have you down as one of the MLT brigade Batman. Oh, and as has already been said, Johnson has set a new low for someone in public office and that is probably deeper than the gutter. As well you know this is not about being issued with the equivalent of a parking ticket and you are either deliberately being obtuse or you really are at the level of a Daily Mail reader.

The Mail have managed to do exactly what they set out to do, muddy the waters and pretend that all MPs are the same. It doesn’t matter if Starmer is not charged, mud sticks. It was the same with the nonsense about him being responsible for not charging Savile. People believe because they want to believe it. Johnson has got away with being the worst PM in living memory (so far) because some who voted for him think he is the best of a bad bunch and others don’t want to admit they have made a terrible mistake and keep making excuses for him. Like Trump he has taken this country to a new low and for that alone should be kicked out of office. Whatever you think of Partygate he needs to go because you can’t have the person setting the rules ignoring them. An honourable person would have resigned ages ago once the whiff of scandal was in the air. He doesn’t care about this country. He doesn’t care about his party. He only cares about himself. We now have the unedifying prospect of him desperately clinging on by his fingertips until his party finally find a successor and kick him out. The only upside with him staying in power is that the longer he is in office, the more votes the Tories will lose. The downside of course is that he and his incompetent cabinet will continue to wreck this country (and possibly the union) for the next two years. His legacy will be less of Churchill, more of Mr Bean.

Sadly Duckie you are like this in real life. That Tory mouthpiece the Daily Duckhunter constantly ran a front page splash about “Beergate” right up to and through the local election period. Surprise surprise, when we all should have been talking about and celebrating the kicking the Tories got in the polls, the news finally drops that Durham police are going to re investigate and it’s all about “Beergate” again. Perhaps Duckie, you can tell us why the Met decided to wait until after the local elections before they announce the next round of fines for Johnson and his party party? Nothing dodgy about that 🥴. So Starmer and Rayner have answered your question. Not that Johnson will be rattled because a man without shame cannot be shamed into doing the right thing. Back to my original point which you don’t seem to be able to get your head around. Johnson should resign because he deliberately lied to Parliament about parties and not attending them. At this point in time, when Starmer addressed Parliament he did not lie as the police had investigated the incident and had found no rules had been broken. Starmer now says that he will stand down if he is issued a fine. How can Johnson continue in office when he has broken the same rules multiple times, has already been fined (with his wife) and is likely to be fined again? And before you start to play down these rules, people were dying or seriously ill because of others who did not follow the rules. Your esteemed leader himself was also ill and was also a superspreader. No problem with that? I guess not, despite the slagging you gave to Butch Wilkins when he passed away for drunk driving, your moral compass doesn’t seem to extend to illegal activities carried out by a Tory government that have cost lives and wasted huge sums of money sorting out their business mates. You guys must all be cut from the same cloth. Oh, bye the way. As I have told you several times before, I have only voted Labour twice in my life. This was in the last 2 elections and I did so because they are the second party in my constituency and I want to get the Tory MP out. I know it gives you pleasure to call people by labels and feel free to carry on calling me a “soft Lefty” if it makes you happy, but as usual, you are just talking bollocks. https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/09/labour-says-can-prove-starmer-team-worked-past-1am-beergate-night

I’m still not sure what he is supposed to have got wrong? Surely if you have a meeting that is going to finish at 10pm, you need to feed those present and the venue doesn’t serve food at that time, it is not unreasonable to make arrangements to provide food and drink? You say that they both breached the rules. We know for a fact that Johnson did multiple times. It has yet to be proved that Starmer has broken any rules. What is more interesting to me is who leaked the memo? If it is the far left trying to hamstring Starmer then perhaps it is for the best if he does stand down. Not only will it provide a huge headache for the Tories in that they would have no choice but to kick out Johnson too, but perhaps Labour could find a leader that all factions in the party could finally unite behind. As with Corbyn, all the signs are there that the divisions within Labour will cause them more problems than the Tories. It is imperative that the opposition parties work together to get this dreadfully incompetent and corrupt government out. If any more proof we’re needed that this mob need to be gone, Mail newspapers have been trying to convince the hard of thinking for 12 days running that the major issue facing us all at the moment is Beergate. Not the hammering the Tories got in the local elections, not Ukraine and the possible escalation of hostilities, not the problems in Ireland and the not so oven ready Brexit deal, not the fines racked up and further to come for illegal activities by this government, not the findings that the government acted unlawfully in putting infected people into care homes, not the cost of living crisis and citizens of the fifth biggest economy having to spend all day on buses to keep warm, 12 whole days spent on……Beergate! Sadly, their efforts to muddy the waters and confuse issues seem to be working on some.

What has he done himself exactly? The police have already investigated his situation and found that no rules were broken. If the only “new evidence” is that memo then still no rules have been broken. The Tories are desperately trying to make out that both Johnson and Starmer are in similar waters. They are not. The issue here isn’t Starmer. It is the way that the PM of this country, the man who makes the rules from the party of law and order, has broken the rules and the law. Whether Starmer stays or goes, it really doesn’t matter. Johnson is the story here but his enablers will try and make out it is otherwise. Brace yourself for more fines and negative headlines chaps. Also funny how the police said they would hold off on further announcements of fines for Tory lawbreakers until after the local elections because of the politics but were quite happy to announce the Starmer news! No bowing to pressure from the right wing media there of course. Couldn’t that have waiting until after the local elections too?

I think you will find that a lot more people were calling for Johnson to resign after he deliberately lied to Parliament about multiple parties and his not attending them, including many from his own party. But you carry on spinning it Duckie and pretending that both examples are the same. You’re in the same company as Raab.

Of course you are “that person.” Everyone knows who you are. Funny that someone with exactly the same mindset appears here shortly after you (Delldays/Batman) got yourself banned for the second time. I have never met anyone from the Sotonians forum so that is another lie. Going back to your point. Where exactly is the hypocrisy? The police had looked at it and decided that no rules were broken. Until such time that it is proven that any rules were broken Starmer is entitled to call out Johnson for breaking his own rules (on several different occasions) without being called a hypocrite. What you also deliberately ignore is that Johnson lied to Parliament about there no being any parties, and if there were he wasn’t at them anyway. As ever with you and the people you vote for, it is all about deflection. Now get back to scanning Twitter for more nonsense. Duckie, you don’t seem to understand the difference between the media hounding Starmer over “Beergate” when the police had already investigated it and found that no rules had been broken and the media hounding the police to investigate “Partygate” when rules had clearly been broken but they hadn’t bothered to investigate. As for resignations. It is a resigning matter if you deliberately lie to the House. This is what Johnson did and why he should resign.

Talking of liars, are you still pretending that you are not Delldays/Batman and that you have met me?

I don’t disagree with you but is charisma something that you can learn as part of an acquired skill set or is it something you either have or haven’t got? People might disagree with my choices, but in my lifetime few of our PMs have had charisma. Churchill, Blair and Johnson probably. Most in my opinion have been dour, political mouthpieces. I’d include most world leaders in that as well since the end of WW2. It would certainly help in terms of votes if both main opposition parties had hugely charismatic leaders, but they haven’t. We are going to have to rely on their policies and their desire to help us ordinary people cope with the difficult times ahead. That’ll do for me.

I called for Johnson to resign because he made the rules and broke them multiple times (which was pretty obvious even to a dyed in the wool gammon like you). Johnson should resign for lying to Parliament. As for “Beergate.” Durham police had already investigated it and found that no rules had been broken. Now, having been hounded by the right wing press for days, they have given in and are doing so again. Let’s wait and see what this “new evidence” is shall we? Not sure how you manage to equate this non event with the litany of mismanagement, corruption, lies etc carried out by Johnson and his government over the last few years, but that is what you do. The important thing that happened yesterday is that, finally, the penny is dropping and people are turning against this disaster our government. You carry on knocking one out to “Beergate.” It’s all you’ve got.

Only you Batman, only you.

I think we have seen that “charisma” itself isn’t such a big deal. Starmer may lack it, but we won’t know if he or his government will be crap at the job until they do it. It is clear that one party wants to do something about the plight of most of us and another are just looking to put sticking plasters on the would whilst looking after the most well off. I’d rather have a PM who listened to the problems and tried to do something about them for everybody (which I think Starmer will try to do) than this bunch of self serving incompetents who clearly don’t give a stuff about us. We know the current government are crap because they prove it every day. We won’t know if the opposition are crap until they do the job themselves.

Hearing a lot from Johnson supporters that we need his “bold” leadership. Really? Probably the worst PM in living history leading the most inept cabinet in living history. Starmer’s problem will be hoovering up enough of the protest votes to make a difference. As we know, the first past the post system works better for the Tories than it does for the opposition parties and I’d like to see Starmer work closely with Davey up to get this dreadful government out. No surprise to see LibDems picking up a lot of Tory defectors, but splitting the vote only helps Johnson. The cost of living crisis is already hitting hard but the worst is to come. At some point even the most blinkered of Tories must see that “ordinary” people have been screwed over time and again by these people and it is time to take their votes elsewhere.

Just watched the Johnson interview with Susanna Reid. I bet he wished he had found another fridge to hide in. How is this man still in the job?

Any cunning plan devised by this cabinet carries less weight than all of Baldrick’s put together.

Apparently the traffickers are bumping up trade telling people they need to cross before the scheme kicks in. Not true as it is retrospective but desperate people will do desperate things. According to the i tomorrow the whole plan is a complete mess anyway (what a surprise). Johnson making a complete fool of himself yet again by responding to claims that pensioners are spending all day on buses because it is warm and they can’t afford to heat their homes by boasting that it was he that provided them with travel passes! Beyond parody.

Careful or you will have the usual suspects jumping all over you telling you that you don’t know the difference between a general election and local elections! I agree though that if the Tories loose large numbers of seats and control of local councils the pressure will mount on Johnson. He will no doubt brush it off as mid terms blues, promise to double down and focus on the important issues of the day (shagging, photo opportunities, finding new ways of not resigning etc.) and carry on being just as deceitful and as useless as before. The question is at what point will those who pull the strings within the party say enough is enough? Their golden boy waiting in the wings has blotted his copy book and there doesn’t seem to be another leader in waiting lined up yet (please don’t mention Truss, Dorries, Raab, in fact any of those who have had a high profile under Johnson). It is depressing to think that we have another two years of this but if the Great British public can be arsed to get out of their collective armchairs and stupor this Thursday maybe we will have a reason to be a bit more optimistic about the future come Friday morning.

Another classic cock up from the person who revealed that she didn’t have a clue how Channel 4 is funded when she announced that it would be privatised. It makes you wonder how members of our current cabinet manage to dress themselves in the morning. Another day, another gaff. Sad thing is there are still some who will be saying, yeah, but look at the lack of opposition and keep voting for them 🙄. A compelling case for Darwinism if one were needed.