[Oboogie]

I don't understand who the Tories think Bibby Stockholm is impressing.
Decent people object on humanitarian grounds,
Locals object for various reasons - only some of which are racist,
The far-right object because "vey shud bee sent baack",
Hoteliers object because they're missing out on useful income (particularly seaside ones, now the sea is full of shite), Pragmatists object because it's expensive and ineffectual - it would take 100 Bibby Stockholms to house all the asylum seekers.
Plus, all the Tories are doing is highlighting their own failure, there are many more asylum seekers now (after 13 years of them in charge) than there ever were under Labour.
So who is it for?

[davidjay]

I don't understand who the Tories think Bibby Stockholm is impressing.
Decent people object on humanitarian grounds,
Locals object for various reasons - only some of which are racist,
The far-right object because "vey shud bee sent baack",
Hoteliers object because they're missing out on useful income (particularly seaside ones, now the sea is full of shite), Pragmatists object because it's expensive and ineffectual - it would take 100 Bibby Stockholms to house all the asylum seekers.
Plus, all the Tories are doing is highlighting their own failure, there are many more asylum seekers now (after 13 years of them in charge) than there ever were under Labour.
So who is it for?

Follow the money.

[Oboogie]

I don't understand who the Tories think Bibby Stockholm is impressing.
Decent people object on humanitarian grounds,
Locals object for various reasons - only some of which are racist,
The far-right object because "vey shud bee sent baack",
Hoteliers object because they're missing out on useful income (particularly seaside ones, now the sea is full of shite), Pragmatists object because it's expensive and ineffectual - it would take 100 Bibby Stockholms to house all the asylum seekers.
Plus, all the Tories are doing is highlighting their own failure, there are many more asylum seekers now (after 13 years of them in charge) than there ever were under Labour.
So who is it for?

Follow the money.

Oh I know it's a scam, but it's also an electoral strategy designed to boost their polling. That's what I was focussing on, which voters are pleased by this?

[davidjay]

I don't understand who the Tories think Bibby Stockholm is impressing.
Decent people object on humanitarian grounds,
Locals object for various reasons - only some of which are racist,
The far-right object because "vey shud bee sent baack",
Hoteliers object because they're missing out on useful income (particularly seaside ones, now the sea is full of shite), Pragmatists object because it's expensive and ineffectual - it would take 100 Bibby Stockholms to house all the asylum seekers.
Plus, all the Tories are doing is highlighting their own failure, there are many more asylum seekers now (after 13 years of them in charge) than there ever were under Labour.
So who is it for?

Follow the money.

Oh I know it's a scam, but it's also an electoral strategy designed to boost their polling. That's what I was focussing on, which voters are pleased by this?

I don't think they're aiming for voters - they know the game's up, they'll get hammered next year so they're grabbing everything that's not nailed down and heading for the airport before the rebels get there.

[Andy McDandy]

There's a very simple solution to the migrant issue: treat them like people, open safe routes, process the backlog, and put the smugglers out of business by rendering them irrelevant.

Problem here being that they don't want to fix it - they just want someone to beat on. And pointless as this barge is, it makes some of their voters wet. A little bit of meanness that makes their own dire straits more palatable.

[Bones McCoy]

There's a very simple solution to the migrant issue: treat them like people, open safe routes, process the backlog, and put the smugglers out of business by rendering them irrelevant.

Problem here being that they don't want to fix it - they just want someone to beat on. And pointless as this barge is, it makes some of their voters wet. A little bit of meanness that makes their own dire straits more palatable.

It's a war on drugs style strategy.
One that causes immense harm.

But it's a smokescreen.
A distraction while the Sunak loyalists whisk the national assets out the back door.
Like the last days of the Batista regime.

[Boiler]

A thoughtful piece by Hugh Muir in the Guardian on the decline of the Tory party, its politicians and its standards.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...i ... ishi-sunak

[...] it does say something about this time, and something about his party, that he should be defended by the hierarchy for choosing – for political advantage – to pour more verbal sewage in the already fetid political swamp. He was, after all, using language that might well see him arrested were he to direct those same words, expressed in that same way, to an individual on the street within earshot of a diligent police officer.

Mind you, if it was a Met officer they'd probably join in...

[Crabcakes]

I also wonder how much of it is a vanity project for Braverman. Every other deliberately cruel wheeze she’s dreamed up to appeal to the most rabid of voters has failed, and so she’s become so desperate for a ‘win’ to show she can deliver, that this watered down non-Rwanda money pit of a project has gone through purely for optics - that people she doesn’t like and doesn’t want to treat as human are now in what no one would rightly describe as a pleasant situation - a floating, unsafe ghetto.

It serves no purpose other than to be something she can put on a leadership campaign flyer - “I beat the lefty lawyers and got immigrants locked up off of the mainland”. Even if it’s all of 5 metres off of the mainland.

[Boiler]

Somebody in the BTL comments on the Guardian today asked why MPs are not being accommodated on a barge in the Thames whilst the Palace of Westminster is renovated.

However, this comment appealed to my SoH:

Screenshot 2023-08-09 at 15-35-37 Tory peer Zac Goldsmith could be ‘very tempted’ to back Labour over climate issues - UK politics live.png (15.78 KiB) Viewed 4387 times

[Youngian]

I don't think it's an exaggeration now to say that some people would be happy to see every asylum seeker dead. Then every Muslim, then every benefits claimant.

Not that eye opening, surprising it wasn’t in the low 30s.

YouGov put a range of expenses to the public to ask at what income level they believed each should be attainable. The results are eye-opening. The survey shows that 76% of Britons believe that everyone should be able to afford their utility bills, while 74% think they should have the means to eat a balanced diet – in effect, meaning that around a quarter of the public believe that people on out-of-work benefits shouldn’t be able to have electricity or a full complement of vitamins.

Such attitudes are grim, but hardly new. As British philosopher Bertrand Russell said in 1932: “The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -workhouse

[Andy McDandy]

See also: Thatcher asking why the Toxteth rioters didn't go litter picking if they didn't have anything to do.

[soulboy]

Desperate stuff.

BBC is accused of bias after Nick Robinson wrongly claims Lee Anderson suggested asylum seekers should 'F-off home' when he actually said 'they should f*** off back to France'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... rance.html

Is that the best they've got? Dyed in the wool, life long Leftie demonstrating BBC bias? It is now OK to say fuck off back where you came from and on't you dare put words in my mouth?

[Boiler]

I'd post that elsewhere, where there are plenty of apologists for the Tories but as I'm on permanent moderation there I know the mods will delete it without seeing the light of day.

Incidentally, have you seen how many down-votes the one reasonable comment has got?

[Youngian]

Desperate stuff.

BBC is accused of bias after Nick Robinson wrongly claims Lee Anderson suggested asylum seekers should 'F-off home' when he actually said 'they should f*** off back to France'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... rance.html

Is that the best they've got? Dyed in the wool, life long Leftie demonstrating BBC bias? It is now OK to say fuck off back where you came from and on't you dare put words in my mouth?

Had one of my periodic dips into Today this week to see if it has improved. Headline story was big news of a deal with Turkey to stop people smugglers (a No 10 press release), followed by some bollocks about a musical and a press release from the Tax Payers Alliance. The TPA ever vigilant about government money wasting claimed lefty civil servants were reclassifying jobs to give themselves pay rises. No evidence of this but is a famous stroke pulled by Sir Humphrey in Yes PM 35 years ago.

[Crabcakes]

I don't think it's an exaggeration now to say that some people would be happy to see every asylum seeker dead. Then every Muslim, then every benefits claimant.

Not that eye opening, surprising it wasn’t in the low 30s.

In a remarkable coincidence, the low 30s is the average IQ for the sort of person who holds this ‘opinion’.

[Boiler]

Had one of my periodic dips into Today this week to see if it has improved. Headline story was big news of a deal with Turkey to stop people smugglers (a No 10 press release), followed by some bollocks about a musical and a press release from the Tax Payers Alliance. The TPA ever vigilant about government money wasting claimed lefty civil servants were reclassifying jobs to give themselves pay rises. No evidence of this but is a famous stroke pulled by Sir Humphrey in Yes PM 35 years ago.

It will be interesting to see in what direction the BBC heads after 2027 because I can't see any government allowing the licence fee to continue from that point. The BBC's "Digital First" strategy is, IMO, paving the way for it to become an entirely web-only, subscription operation. Already Radio 2 no longer announces frequencies, it just directs you to BBC Sounds or a Spy Speaker.

The Overton Window is mounted on roller bearings and being tilted ever further right.

[Youngian]

Already Radio 2 no longer announces frequencies, it just directs you to BBC Sounds or a Spy Speaker.

The Overton Window is mounted on roller bearings and being tilted ever further right.

Analogue radio is left wing?

Assuming this looney government is gone in 2027, the next review will probably come to same conclusion as previous ones; licence fee is not a good idea but better than all the other alternatives. If a better funding concept emerges, than good.

[Boiler]

Already Radio 2 no longer announces frequencies, it just directs you to BBC Sounds or a Spy Speaker.

The Overton Window is mounted on roller bearings and being tilted ever further right.

Analogue radio is left wing?

Sorry, badly constructed on my part. No, to me it seems that politics in the UK is now moving ever more rapidly to the right and sooner or later I can't help but feel that "politically homeless" will apply to people who are "old school" Labour and not just the deranged fash praying for a withdrawal from the ECHR so we can hang people again. I'm sure I'm wrong, but I'm seeing that phrase a lot elsewhere and not just from the Trots.

Assuming this looney government is gone in 2027, the next review will probably come to same conclusion as previous ones; licence fee is not a good idea but better than all the other alternatives. If a better funding concept emerges, than good.

I wish I could agree but I'm more than ever convinced the BBC is readying itself to be told that there will be no licence fee after 2027 by whoever's in power - please remember, a GE is as much as sixteen months away and so a Labour win really isn't a done deal. It's increasingly seen as a regressive tax and the argument of it being "the least worst option" just won't cut it any more. Nothing would please the Right more than to reduce it to as much of an irrelevance as PBS/NPR are in the States. Subscription is the model the Tories especially would like to see (although some would prefer its complete abolition).

[Tubby Isaacs]

Is Lee this thick? Or does he get it, and doesn't care at all because, as Tony Yates says, he's given up on politics already?

[Boiler]

Perhaps they wish to deny him the oxygen of publicity?