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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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On the contrary I regard this enthusiasm for the past as an excellent thing. It is only when it becomes a mania that the rot sets in. As with the Railway Mania of the 1840's. I deplore these preservation societies who spend their weekends dressed in stovepipe hats hurling order papers at one another.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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I had not previously thought of the House of Commons as a preservation society. But it fits. With the waving of order papers and all.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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MP's still have to wear a collapsible stovepipe hat (two are kept by the Speaker's Chair) when they want to make a point of order. The women don't like it but they should have thought of that when they asked for the vote.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Oh how wondrous the web Labour newbie MP's do not weave. They are up in arms because the Treasury was threatening to freeze 'Personal Independence Payments' (PIPs) made to people with 'health conditions'. This is stupendously unimportant. Whether it gets uprated by 3% or whatever is not the issue. This is the issue
| PIPs are paid to 3.6 million people. They range from £1,500 to £9,600 a year. |
That's more than five billion out of tax coffers even if everyone is on the minimum. It has nothing to do with the ordinary social security budget, remember. Most of these people will be on benefits in addition to this. It is, as it were, an ex gratia payment.
Now personally, and I speak for everyone, nobody begrudges genuine people not being able to do genuine things being a given a little extra in their top pocket. Rather them than me. I'd rather not have the disability and not get the PIP.
But personally, and I speak for everyone, we are all wondering how come there are so many people suffering these predicaments in our fair and generally healthy land? Apparently it's mostly due to 'mental health issues'. As the divinely eloquent Mathew Said sighed
| "These have got quite out of control. There's a syndrome for everything nowadays as a goodly proportion of people since Covid have been discovering. Since there's a PIP for every syndrome, we shall soon be being beggared in our beds." |
[I have paraphrased a little.]
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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If you were compelled by law to go somewhere and then have to stay there the live-long day, would you expect them to provide you with a bit of tucker? Of course you would. In fact if they didn't you'd be inclined to tell them to stuff it and stay at home. The cheek of it, who do they think they are?
Well, if that's the case I've only got two words for you: school dinners.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | I've only got two words for you: school dinners. |
Are you buying or selling?
If the latter, M'Lady can advise how you can sell the school dinners at cost price, but still make a profit.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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That would be interesting.
However this is an important matter of public ethics. Schools have to offer 'a lunchtime meal' by law but not a free one. The result is the well-known apartheid system of normal kids and free-dinner kids. This though is not the important point, though it is an AE point that paying for dinners has been going on so long nobody even notices that it is a diabolical liberty.
And, further down the road, all part of my campaign to get rid of compulsory education.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I'm not a huge buyer of electric vehicles--not knowing how to drive being one limiting factor--but if I were contemplating purchasing an EV (that's what we techies call them) I would be presented with a vast array of choices which, after tariffs and other local interventions, will be much of a muchness in terms of price and quality. Like the traditional carmarket to be honest.
Apart from one brand. I see from news reports that Tesla EV's are being torched all round the world because of the unpopularity of Elon Musk, the guiding light of the Tesla motor company. I understand there is very little chance of my own Tesla undergoing such a grisly fate, with or without me inside it, but... you know... just for the moment... I think I'll choose another brand.
In fact I can't see anybody with any sense buying a Tesla for the foreseeable future. So Mr Musk has nothing to worry about.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Explaining how she couldn't have known about her husband purloining thousands of pounds from the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon said their relationship was somewhat like that of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun. Asked which one of them wore the trousers she said that is always a difficult question to answer in Scotland.
Late breaking news: following a refusal of planning permission to extend the clubhouse at Turnberry, President Trump has declared the SNP to be a terrorist organisation. Denying these reports, John Swinney commented, "We should be so lucky."
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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March 2021 - Three SNP officials, Edinburgh Lord Provost Frank Ross, Allison Graham and Cynthia Guthrie had resigned from the party's finance and audit committee after being denied sight of the accounts.
| An SNP spokesperson in 2021 wrote: | | “There have been attempts by opponents of the SNP to stir this up for some time. It is part of an ongoing dirty tricks campaign and like most conspiracy theories, it is utterly baseless." |
| John Swinney March 2025 wrote: | | What is clear the SNP has been the potential victim of alleged embezzilment |
I guess one lesson in hindsight might be to let members of your finance and audit committee actually view your accounts when they request this, rather than leave it to the discretion of the treasurer?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I am not yet satisfied this isn't political. If it turns out Mr Nicola Sturgeon has been diverting hard earned subs from SNP members into his personal pension fund, then fair enough. His feet shouldn't touch.
But if he was shifting money from one (authorised) SNP account to another (unauthorised) SNP account, then finger-wagging and a non-custodial is indicated.
"You will live with Ms Sturgeon for the rest of your natural life in a caravan of her choosing well away from civilised life i.e. anywhere in Scotland."
"Can I do a five-stretch in Barlinnie instead, your honour?" | |
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Thu, 20 Mar 2025 at 14:11 The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Dear Resident, The Council is providing £50 to eligible residents to help with the ongoing cost of living. |
A perfect illustration of why Rachel Reeves is right up the mire. I had no idea I was going to receive this and it won't make an ounce of difference but, if it had been cancelled, fifty Labour MP's would have resigned in a righteous huff in case I died of hypothermia.
Which I may well do just to spite them.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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| Wile E. Coyote wrote: |
| An SNP spokesperson in 2021 wrote: | | “There have been attempts by opponents of the SNP to stir this up for some time. It is part of an ongoing dirty tricks campaign and like most conspiracy theories, it is utterly baseless." |
| John Swinney March 2025 wrote: | | What is clear the SNP has been the potential victim of alleged embezzilment |
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Thus serving as one example of an answer to an AEL question.
| What's the difference between "conspiracy theory" and "fact". |
In this case, about four years.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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A very revealing graph popped up on Newsnight showing the changes in departmental spending between 2010 and 2025. In other words, What The Tories Did. The two pluses were
Home Office +35%
Health +30% |
It would be ironic if Rachel Reeves ends up stopping small boats crossing the Channel in her desperation to keep to her fiscal rules. The NHS it would appear was as safe (or unsafe) in Tory hands as in Labour ones.
Education -3%
Justice -19%
Transport -20%
Environment -22%
Work & Pensions -28%
Foreign Office -31%
Culture, media & sport -38%
Housing & communities -46% |
So it looks as if the Tories did exactly what Labour is going to do: cut the welfare bill and the foreign aid budget while scrabbling around elsewhere. ('Communities' (I think) includes social care and I don't know why Defence isn't on the list.)
Everyone keeps maundering on about raising taxes but that just means all the same dramas will be acted out a few years down the road as those buckets fill. (Not that I'm particularly against it.) Nope, it's root and branch time, kiddiewinks.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The central problem of micro-politics is that going up the slippery pole is easy, coming down is hard. So, for example, in ye days of yore there were, say
| A million people so disabled they couldn't work. This cost ten billion pounds and wasn't a problem. |
Well-intentioned policymakers add a new category
| A coupla million people are sufficiently disabled to affect them working. This cost an extra ten billion pounds and wasn't a problem. |
But so much subjectivity has been intruded into the system that, while the 'well-intended' bit remains the same, the numbers start going up and the disability criteria start coming down. Soon
| Ten million people are getting some kind of disability benefit. This costs fifty billion and there is a problem. |
But to get back down to even forty billion you have to find the ones that won't show up in MSM why-oh-why stories. And that is impossible. You have to be ill-intentioned. (I think you really do, in terms of disability.)
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