[Bones McCoy]

Any word yet as to which property developer donor has been lined up to build Sarfend Caffeedrawl?

I don't know who, but it's going to be shaped like a gigantic poppy.

[Bones McCoy]

Any word yet as to which property developer donor has been lined up to build Sarfend Caffeedrawl?

Yes, where is Dido Harding these days?

Doing the Scrooge McDuck backstroke through her piles of Krugerrands.

[Nigredo]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ver-brexit

The pork haystack has fine form for carrying out the wishes of the deceased.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This couldn't be legal, surely.

I think Mr Houchen is due one- overdue, I'd say.

[Boiler]

deleted

[Tubby Isaacs]

Could be an embarrassing court case in it for Houchen if he's depressing the value by restricting access?

[The Weeping Angel]

Banning anon social media accounts won't solve this.

[Youngian]

Like chancellor Rishi Sunak, Houchen has long championed freeports, which critics claim will simply shift investment and jobs around the country, rather than create new business.

You bet he’s a champion of freeports. Is there any data on the success of this revived 80s idea that Osborne put the kibosh on? The USP is that you save a bit on imported component tariffs if you’re assembling something. What else?
Might be better off building luxury remote working offices and nice affordable flats with a sea view.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Freeports are like trade deals, they're post-hoc justification for Brexit. And they make the government look busy.

I wonder if Houchen has been watching the SNP. Fair bit of symbolism mileage with ex-Labour voters in ports/ ships. Whether the government intervention is value for money is a different question. Reeves and Starmer seem to keen to follow down the same road.

[Youngian]

I’m not the target audience for Rachel Reeves’s
fag packet autarky economics she well knows is total bollocks. Do what you have to in order to flip seats as long as I don’t have to listen to these ‘fresh ideas.’

[Tubby Isaacs]

I’m not the target audience for Rachel Reeves’s
fag packet autarky economics she well knows is total bollocks. Do what you have to in order to flip seats as long as I don’t have to listen to these ‘fresh ideas.’

I haven't checked it out because because it sounded too much like Jez.

Some interesting figures here. Maybe the target audience are responding to it a bit?

[Youngian]

Some interesting figures here. Maybe the target audience are responding to it a bit?

Unsurprising some older more serious minded conservative voters prefer Starmer to a clown running the country.

[Cyclist]

As the majority of MPs in the Commons are Tories this can go in here...

MPs have voted against bringing in a tougher air quality target, after it was introduced to the Environment Bill by the House of Lords.

Peers had amended the legislation to set a limit on particle pollution which would be at least as strict as World Health Organisation guidance, by 2030.

But the Commons rejected this, in line with the government's wishes...


...MPs also rejected an amendment added by the Lords which would place a duty on water companies to reduce raw sewage discharges into rivers...


...Beccy Speight, chief executive of the RSPB, accused the government of "falling short of its pledge to leave the natural environment in a better state than it inherited it".

And campaign group Surfers Against Sewage said it was "astonishing that, in this critical decade for the environment, the government is opting out of amendments designed to better protect the planet and all its precious inhabitants".

But a Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said the "landmark" bill would "transform how we protect our natural environment, make better use of our resources and clean up our air and water."...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58968871

This is also the Bill which removes Protected status from the likes of Hen Harriers, Pine Martens and Red Squirrels.

Basically, the government are happy for people in urban areas to suffer all sorts of respiratory problems and die a bit younger, and they couldn't give a flying fuck about the environment or endangered species.

[Nigredo]

Remind me what they're actually supposed to be conserving again?

Aside from their personal wealth of course.

[RedSparrows]

Their mate's pile of lucre, which via contortions and distortions of philosophy means they think they're fucking ethical as they do it.

[Youngian]

Money, so much of it and only a phone call away. Gimme more, gimme, gimme

Carrie Johnson could receive ‘first lady’ status

Her friendship with Christmas guest Nimco Ali may have generated unwelcome scrutiny, but I hear Boris Johnson has plans to invest his wife Carrie with official first lady-style status.

“There is no official recognition of the PM’s spouse and he wants to fix that,” one Whitehall insider tells me. “The other halves of prime ministers have always had to make do as best they can in No.10, in sharp contrast to their counterparts in the White House, where first ladies are assisted by taxpayer-funded staff in the office of the first lady, headquartered in the east wing of the White House.”

In 1990, when John Major was elected prime minister, his wife Norma conscientiously attended to all her correspondence herself, until she was eventually prevailed upon to take on a secretary, which she fretted about because of the cost to the taxpayer. She’d even in the early days of her husband’s government take the Tube to meetings and lunches. https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/carrie ... irst-lady/

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Is that money I smell?

[Crabcakes]

I have my suspicions that will go down dreadfully. Good.

[Youngian]

Its still a gossip piece but lets hope Carrie Antoinette becomes a thing beyond Twitter.

[Samanfur]

It's one more way to top up that PM's salary that Alex reckons that he can't live on.