threegee

The 125,000 copies printed represents proof of a conspiracy?  Apparently an idiotic screw up, but additional confirmation of irredeemable establishment group-think nevertheless. The people who hate "uncertainty", but fail to recognise that uncertainty is the very essence of the real world.

4 hours ago, moe19 said:

 No back of the queue for the UK now 

 

Ukip’s Nigel Farage is heading to the United States this weekend where he will probably become the first British politician to meet Donald Trump since his shock election victory.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-donald-trump-us-election-2016-uk-visit-theresa-may-first-a7407771.html

Italy could be the next country to take revenge on careerer politicos (of which the EU is the utter embodiment).  The referendum on 4th December is about obscure constitutional changes, but it is being regarded as a vote on the EUphile Prime Minister and imposed EU placeman Mario Renzi.  He's desperately back-pedalling on his Brussels affiliations in order to appear to be his own man, but few people are buying this.

His principal achievement so far is to get the right wing Northern League and the left-of-center Five Star movement (which supports and votes with Ukip in the EU parliament) to unite against him!  Five Star still seem to cling to a belief that the EU could be reformed, but they do want out of the Eurozone double quick, and if they get control will get the support of Italy's right wing parties to scrap the Euro.  This would be a huge blow for Juncker and Merkel, and a major step towards the EU exit door.  The resulting recovery of the Italian economy would set an example for Spain, Portugal, Greece, etc. to follow, and start an irreversible stampede.  Without them all keeping the Euro undervalued Germany will be tipped into recession, and the AfD there is sure to add to its recent gains.

This, and several other factors, means that the outlook for the EU is bleak in the extreme, and before too long there may not be any EU for crazy religious types like Tim Farron to cling to!

55 minutes ago, Eggy1948 said:

He will have to wait in line behind - Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub.

Here is the clock, the Trumpton clock. Telling the time, steadily, sensibly; never too quickly, never too slowly. Telling the time for Trumpton.

Yes, but the real question must be has Peter the postman been tampering with the postal vote?

Is Nigel packing his bag for his new job yet?

13 hours ago, mercuryg said:

"How on earth could that possibly be?"

Because one cannot simply wander over to the roundabout, get up close and have a look. I'm a bit concerned you think it sidelined, also; it's at the edge of a pavement, between two public crossings. As an aside, I'm all for moving it to the roundabout; the answer to the problem would be to install simple notice boards depicting the inscription and explaining the purpose of the monument.

"Keep off the grass" signs then?  If not I still have two legs; but maybe these days you can't do anything anywhere without ramps for electric thingies?

My first encounter with the Trott would have been punctuated with dogging the top-of-town traffic, and - if I remember rightly - it was plumbed in to the water supply for some unfathomable reason.   A "grassy knoll" would have been a stonking safety feature in those non-H&S days!

I meant sidelined as far a presentation to through traffic and visitors of course!  Bedlingtonians ALWAYS knew who it was and why it was, but these days it probably needs a Bluetooth beacon so they don't have to look up from their screens?

Just now, Bayardm said:

Re: Trotter Memorial. Putting it in the middle of the roundabout will make it inaccessible to those interested in seeing it in detail and reading the inscription.

How on earth could that possibly be?  It's pretty tragically sidelined now, and it used to be a prominent feature, saying to everyone "you have arrived in Bedlington and we have a significant heritage!".  Moving it was one of those late twentieth century acts of civic vandalism that we sort of got used to.

How sure are we of the precise original location, and who will determine this?

Some supplementary questions:

• Which international bank is picking up the huge legal bills that both you and the "foreign hairdresser" are running up (rather a lot of perms!)?
• How close is the Miller business relationship to Goldman Sachs?
• Have the Millers or their associates had any contact with Tony Blair is recent times?
• Which of your two faces did you use in your modelling career?

If those questions are too difficult then how about:

• When was the last time you ventured outside the M25?

Amusing to see the discomfort of their lordships (aka Tony's Cronies in the High Court) over the massive press reaction to their judgement on the Article 50 shenanigans.

So shaken are the lawyers that they've been leaning on Lord Chancellor, Liz Truss (one of Dodgy Dave's cronies - great how you can get to be THE senior law officer these days with no formal legal experience; alternating around the LibLabCon stitch-up as convenient; and sleeping with a married Tory MP) to condemn:-

Quote

"serious and unjustified attacks on the judiciary".

"The Bar Council of England and Wales condemns the serious and unjustified attacks on the judiciary arising out of the Article 50 litigation,” the statement said.

"It regrets the lack of public statement by the Lord Chancellor condemning these attacks and calls upon the Lord Chancellor to do so as a matter of urgency.

“A strong independent judiciary is essential to a functioning democracy and to upholding the rule of law."

I'm sure the press would support the last sentence there, except their precise point is that the judiciary isn't seen to be acting independently [of the EU] in this case.  In fact the judiciary should be so independent that it keeps its nose entirely out of politics.  Their narrative is that this is entirely a matter of correct procedure, and that their deliberations are entirely apolitical.   That might have been believable if at least two of their "ludships" had recused themselves as parties with their own fingers in the EU honeypot.

What's more, the public is entitled to take a broader view and ask what consideration was given to matters of correct constitutional procedure during the entry process to the then EEC, and at every salami-slicing attack on British sovereignty and democracy since that time.  The plain answer to that is sweet FA!  Like everything to do with the EU, British constitutional matters have become a one-way street that has no turning, and the cabal that determined that traffic plan is intermingled with the cabal that derives all indirect benefit from traffic flow.

Of course the Machiavellian figure of Tony Blair hangs behind the whole affair.  Blair not only packed the system out with his mates but made new law on an unprecedented scale.  Ironic then that brining to justice the biggest criminal this country has ever known is now "a legal impossibility".  How did that happen then?  To crown it all, rather than stay the low profile team manager of the EUphiles, Blair is now dancing around on the pitch making no secret of his intention to subvert democratic process by all means at his disposal.  These are HIS cronies and placemen - go figure!

So... our judiciary demands respect, and if we don't give it to them the price is sure societal breakdown.  Well, a lot of us feel that we are heading for societal breakdown quite rapidly, and through their agency!

There, and I haven't mentioned Bilderberg once!  Do your own research and weep for our country!

Analysis by News Watch of BBC Brexit coverage

Well worth scan reading the whole thing - Maggie!

http://news-watch.co.uk/bbc-brexit-collection-strong-bias-against-leaving-the-eu/

Quote

...there were no attempts in any programme to explore the benefits of leaving the EU, but conversely, Brexit came under sustained negative attack. This was reflected in the balance of contributions and comment contained within the items. Analysis by News-watch shows that only 23% of contributors in the programmes as a whole spoke in favour of Brexit, against 58% in favour of Remain and 19% who gave a neutral or factual commentary.

Nine programmes and six features, amounting to 5 hours 20 minutes of programming, were strongly anti-Brexit, contained unchallenged predictions that civil unrest and rioting were now on the horizon and cast the ‘out’ vote in negative terms, inferring that the result had been a consequence of racism and xenophobia. The balance of programme guests in all of these items was strongly – and sometimes overwhelmingly – pro-Remain.

By contrast, only two programmes, from the series Points of View, were clearly Eurosceptic in tone. They both attacked the EU project as a whole, but did no explore the possibilities presented by Brexit.

A group of six documentaries in the Collection, originally broadcast in 2009 and 2012, looked critically at the EU and examined claims that there were structural faults in the EU project, especially in relation to the euro. However, the vast majority of guests on these programmes were wholly in favour of the EU project, or were EU officials, and as such the issues were observed through a strongly pro-EU lens.

A further eight programmes have been classed as neutral. Many of these, such as the comedy programmes Dead Ringers and The Now Show, contained strong anti-Brexit content, or expressed doubts about it, but did contain some balancing material.

The items that were strongly anti-Brexit were editions of culture series Front Row, The Briefing Room, six editions of the feature Brexit Street on the news programme PM, one edition of A Point of View, How to Make a Brexit (a one-off documentary about Greenland’s exit from the EU), Farming Today, More Less, The Food Programme, The Bottom Line and Call You and Yours.

In some of these, the range of anti-Brexit opinion was astonishing and light years from any definition of ‘impartiality’ and there was no balancing comparable pro-Brexit material. A majority of the country had voted ‘out’ on June 23, but this was not reflected in the space given to each side of the debate, or the thematic emphases of the various programmes.

The Food Programme, for example, contained predictions from ten contributors ranging through civil unrest, substantial food price rises, the demise of food businesses and years of turmoil.  Only one contributor (described disparagingly as a ‘former speech writer for Nigel Farage’), thought that Brexit could have positive outcomes.

And in The Bottom Line, presented by Evan Davis, three strong supporters of Remain (one a former Liberal Democrat candidate) feared a drying up of investment, the introduction of tariffs, an increasing complexity of doing business through the need for additional paperwork, price rises, unfair treatment of workers, unwise and impractical restrictions on immigration, a curtailing of the opportunities available to young people, and a rise of xenophobia and racism to the extent there was imminent danger of ‘personal attack’ for those supporting Remain. They were ranged against a contributor from Switzerland, who – although accepting briefly that Brexit could be positive – also warned that the process was very complex.

In all anti-Brexit programmes, presenters worked with the contributors to ensure that the negatives of Brexit were pushed to the maximum extent, and they did not challenge their extreme claims, for example, about civil unrest and racism.

Analysis of the contributions across the series as a whole raises other major issues of imbalance. Of the 59 politicians to appear, 37 were pro-Remain. With academics and lawyers, 11 supported Remain and none favoured Leave, and with businessmen and financial experts, 19 were Remainers and only six wanted ‘out’.  Another striking imbalance was that, across the board, 41% of the speakers who supported Leave were ‘ordinary’ contributors (i.e. members of the public with no obvious expertise, for example, in vox pops), compared to only 27% of pro-EU guests. In terms of the number of words spoken, members of the public contributed 34% of the Leave total, compared to only 8% on the Remain side.

Eleven of the 20 ‘ordinary’ speakers who spoke in favour of Brexit were from two locations in Northern England, Thornaby-on-Tees and Wakefield. All of these were from social classes D and E and together they were responsible for 80% of the words spoken by ‘ordinary’ Leave supporters.

News-watch research has shown that such serious imbalances have been a feature of BBC coverage of EU-related issues since 1999.

...

What we now have is a sustained ideological attack on traditional working people (particularly those in the North) from the state broadcaster, and an attempt to diminish, disparage and sideline their values.

The only decent thing the BBC can do is to get rid of Evan Davis and Ian Katz.  As long as they hold a senior positions at the BBC nothing can even start to change.

On 30/09/2016 at 17:45, moe19 said:

...

I have grown bored of watching programs with audiences top heavy with left-wing  Luvvies  who scream racist or sexist at anyone who dares to disagree with them

They SAY they learned something from the referendum result - I wonder!

BBC sacked me for being a white man... even though I work in radio

Maybe it was just that Jon didn't contribute enough to the non-stop wall of hilariously funny anti-Ukip "jokes" before the last GE?  You know, the ones that now cheerfully flout both the BBC Charter and electoral law in the six week purdah periods.  OK, so he's not a Guardian subscriber, but why would he waste his money when there are so many surplus copies littered around Broadcasting House?

The Guradianistas at the BBC aren't being entirely honest in reporting what Carlos Ghosn the CEO of Nissan UK is saying by selectively reporting him.  What Ghosn is looking for is the government to channel some of the revenues from counter-taxing German luxury cars back to Nissan to compensate them for any EU protectionism and Brussels hubris.  Obviously no one wants any tariffs, and if sanity prevails there won't be any, but the Brussels bureaucrats are in a hole and their empire threatened, so rationalism may not prevail.

Ghosn is being very careful about not issuing any threats, and is only talking about competitiveness, but this doesn't seem to be good enough for elements at the BBC.  Nor is he pressing his views, and that he's not mentioning the windfall boost to Nissan's competitiveness from the lower exchange rate is understandable, although it's not understandable for the BBC to completely fail to question him about this aspect!  In fact he's doing his duty and acting in the interests of Nissan, its shareholders and it's employees.  It a pity that the BBC Guardianistas need to be frequently embarrassed into acting in the interests of their own "shareholders"..

...trade deals.  Or at least trade deals negotiated by politicians.  Even if you formerly claimed "TTTIPEX" or whatever the best thing since pencils with rubbers on the top; even if it was in your party's manifesto; even if you part negotiated it yourself - right now you want to distance yourself from it, because the practical result for your country has turned out far worse than having no deal at all!  (average tariffs under the current WTO regime are only about 3.5%)

Now what are our politicos telling us we really really need?  What are armies of British bureaucrats readying to spend years and years negotiating?  Someone should tell them to make sure they stay right at the end of the queue.

Oh well have one from we whilst we look at the problem. 

...or even the Guardian, but the MAIN headline of the Sunday Express HOME page:

It's like spelling checkers aren't built in to practically every bit of WP software these days!  That's only the start; I hardly get to read any substantial piece where I don't have to reread a sentence several times to try to figure out what the writer intended to say.

1 hour ago, Canny lass said:

Had me laughing as well but I wasn't allowed to "give reputation".

Really?!   We need that technical prob looking at straight away!

Ah, well, I got it wrong (but that was 3.30 in the morning!): New South Row was parallel to the main rows and not at right angles;  that one was (quite logically) Cross Row.  Got the vicinity right though.

So - after many decades - at last an explanation of why New South Row was called "New".  But still a mystery as to why it was labelled "South" when it was in fact North of North Terrace.  It seems that North Terrace was built long after the rest though, so perhaps not so illogical at the time NSR was named.  And, if it was built before the two major rows shown on the 1898 map were even planned, everything would then be explained: it would have been the most southern row at that point in time.

Not one newspaper has anything good to say about him:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/12/david-cameron-had-to-go

Quote

...as a new inductee into the rootless and roaming global elite of former political leaders, Cameron will already know that he has a choice between making a black-tie speech in Chicago for a six-figure sum and giving out the prizes at the annual Burford Conservative harvest festival.

And, we've already seen him choose. Doubtless a decision made on one of his never-ending holidays for reflection. Can I really be bothered with the little people?  Well no, forget that promise to look after the people in my constituency; file it away with all my other "cast iron" promises.

May is busily unpicking a lot of what he did.  It's clear that she regards both him an Osborne with contempt, and has practically said such.  I suppose he's spared us a Ted Heath style super-sulk, so that's something to be grateful for.

So, the real question is will our Mr Lavery get a real job, and if so who would be idiotic enough to employ him? 

The same principal needs to be applied to Scotland double quick; it would reduce the number of SNP MPs by about 2/3 and clip the mad fish woman's wings!

From what I've just heard on the news it seems about time we took a hatchet to the HoL too - 100 of their lordships now seems too many!  In fact the HoL would be a good place to start PR in: one lud for every percent of the national vote I think.

I'd wondered this about the NE too.

Maybe Cameron triggered a by-election now so's Boris or Davis couldn't slide into his seat at the 2020 GE?  Being forced to campaign for either with a happy face would even be beyond his powers of deception!

David Cameron resigns as MP, triggering by-election in his Witney constituency

Pretty much good riddance I think, and a few did see this coming.  Alternative headline: Petulant Etonian Schooboy Takes [rugby] Ball Away.

So much for your protestations of necessary service to the Tory party, and to our Country.  Go practice your lying skills somewhere else Dave!

HUMILIATION FOR ANGELA: Anti-migrant movement trump Merkel's party in German election

Quote

ANGELA MERKEL has suffered an embarrassing defeat at an election in her own backyard after the country's anti-migrant movement soared ahead of the chancellor's ruling party in the polls.

In signs of growing discontent with the Chancellor a year after she announced her open borders policy, Mrs Merkel's CDU party was beaten into THIRD place by Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland party (AfD) who secured 21 per cent of the vote in her home state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern today.

Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union (CDU) secured a 19.2 per cent share of the vote as it faces an uphill struggle after already being rejected in favour of the AfD in THREE state elections already in March.

After the AfD win, the party leader Frauke Petry said: "We have made history here today.

"This is a slap in the face for Merkel - not only in Berlin but also in her home state. The voters made a clear statement against Merkel's disastrous immigration policies. This put her in her place."

The equivalent of losing a bye-election in the PMs home county, and AfD has only been going three years!  The interesting thing is that only 2% of the migrants have gone to this area. It's pretty clear that most Germans have now had enough, and if her own party doesn't give her the chop they - like her - are history come next year's GE.

Thanks for your concern Maggie.  Did my research long ago, and so moved to an area that has no history of problems - well, if you discount fourteen hundred and something!  Yes, I know: that must mean there's one overdue!

Not felt here, but around the time the dogs got upset, and we had no idea why.  We did get the roof tiles loudly rattled by distant shock waves from the Athens one a few years back. That wasn't scary because we didn't know what the strange noise was until a local arrived to ask if we'd felt it, and told us that the town was buzzing with people discussing it.

So much for Brexit doom: IMF in embarrassing climbdown as it admits market turmoil has 'ebbed', while pound hits four-week high

Quote

UK manufacturing posts biggest rise in 25 years

UK manufacturing activity recorded its biggest month-on-month increase in a quarter of a century in August as production and new orders jumped following the initial shock of the Brexit vote.

Markit's latest survey of the sector showed factories were returning to "business as usual" following a steep downturn in activity immediately after the June 23 vote.

The weaker pound helped to push up overseas orders, while domestic output also bounced back and employment rose for the first time this year.

The survey compiler said the recovery was broad-based, with all three manufacturing sub-sectors returning to growth. The Markit/CIPS UK manufacturing purchasing managers' index rose to 53.3 in August, from 48.2 in July. (Continue reading here)

Pound spikes above $1.33 on UK manufacturing data beat 

The pound jumped by as much as 1.35pc to $1.3318 against the dollar this morning after data showed the UK manufacturing sector enjoyed one of its sharpest rebounds on record in August.