[Tubby Isaacs]

I wondered if Beefy had spoken in the Lords since his maiden speech. He has, once. This is the entire speech.

My Lords, we all welcome the injection of £300 million into rugby union and horseracing, and the safe return of much-needed supporters to stadiums, which will be a lifeline to so many clubs. Do the Government have any plans to financially support cricket, which has faced massive financial difficulties as a result of Covid? Is the Minister willing to favourably consider direct representations from all the cricket clubs affected by Covid?

Yeah, that would be a sensible use of the Minister's time, speaking to people from every cricket club.

The MInister (Baroness Barran) replies that the ECB could have applied for aid, but hadn't. Old Beefy hadn't done a minute's research before that question, had he?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Amazed to see that Botham's voted 66 times- I suppose remotely in most cases. Every vote I've seen so far, he's voted with the Government, despite being a Crossbencher.

[Abernathy]

Rushanara Ali has a role in relation to Bangladesh. If you need political experience and a proper connection to the country for there, what's different with Australia?

That would work if Nick Knowles or Peter Andre was appointed to Botham’s post.

If Kipper Leo McKern were still alive, he could do New Zealand.

Rumpole was a Kipper ? ??????

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Bloater.

[Bones McCoy]

Newsthump are on it:

Liz Truss appoints Rastamouse as trade envoy to the Caribbean

https://newsthump.com/2021/08/23/liz-tr ... lzvJxiz110

[davidjay]

Amazed to see that Botham's voted 66 times- I suppose remotely in most cases. Every vote I've seen so far, he's voted with the Government, despite being a Crossbencher.

Just like all the other 'non-political' bigots. I've yet to see anyone describe themselves as non-political who wasn't so right wing they were in danger of meeting themselves coming back.

[Andy McDandy]

It always seems to mean that the mainstream party are too soft and inclusive for them, and they hate gypsies.

[Andy McDandy]

Tom Peck from the Indy on Botham:

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ia ... 1629736651

These are the consequences of having ideologues and high-functioning imbeciles in charge. In their heads, huge complex problems can just be solved by their worldview. I see your problem, and in return I give you this, my opinion, and now everything is fine. Except it’s not.

But we’ll muddle on like this for the time being, because there’s nothing else that can be done. Brexit, after all, has always been mainly a mood. Its problems, like the Northern Ireland border, can just be lied, and procrastinated away. You don’t need to solve a problem if you can quieten it down for a bit with a headline.

[Abernathy]

So now we have ten new "trade envoys" to various faraway bits of the globe, including Ian Botham and Kate Hooey.

Apparently these are unpaid "ambassadorial" type roles, though it's far from clear to me what that actually means in practice.

I was wondering whether we had a "trade envoy" to our 27 partner countries when we were actually members of the EU ?
I don't think we did. Could it be that we didn't actually fucking need any ???

[Andy McDandy]

It's been pointed out that Sweaty Andy was a trade envoy, and that was just to put a quasi-official gloss on his zipping around the world to play golf among other things. Make it more palatable when it came to picking up the bill. I don't see these appointments as anything different.

[Tubby Isaacs]

So now we have ten new "trade envoys" to various faraway bits of the globe, including Ian Botham and Kate Hooey.

Apparently these are unpaid "ambassadorial" type roles, though it's far from clear to me what that actually means in practice.

I was wondering whether we had a "trade envoy" to our 27 partner countries when we were actually members of the EU ?
I don't think we did. Could it be that we didn't actually fucking need any ???

Looking at the people who've done the job for other places, looks like it's intended to be a serious role. Rushanara Ali was appointed by Cameron to do the job for Bangladesh. They didn't appoint a cricketer to that job, even though lots of people in Bangladesh like cricket.

[Nigredo]

Even if Botham wouldn't immediately piss off his Australian counter parts, his negotiations probably start and end at how many complimentary crates of Wolf Blass they offer to ship to his Valencian villa.

[mattomac]

Why do I feel Truss only did it so she could use that pun about batting….

[The All New KevS]

Any other 12 year old in 1982 would be playing on his ZX81, ogling Sarah Greene or Kim Wilde, before watching The A-Team....

[Youngian]

He’s just making Comical Ali shit up

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Is it ever going to end?

No.

On another forum someone is crowing that he predicted this would happen and when several months ago. When I repeated his thoughts on a motoring forum, I got flamed big time.

No, they will continue the search until they find the Dacre they want.

Seems to have run into the buffers. Dacre is being denied his reward for all those years of arse-licking because no-one will help Johnson fix the system...

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/ ... -ofcom-job

Downing Street’s second attempt to appoint Paul Dacre as chair of the media regulator Ofcom has hit another snag, with ministers struggling to find people willing to interview the former Daily Mail editor for the job.

No 10 has been trying to appoint Dacre, 72, as chair of the media regulator for more than a year as part of wider plans to install government-friendly figures at the top of cultural institutions.

The first attempt to appoint Dacre, an arch-critic of the BBC, unexpectedly failed at the final round of interview process. Even though the government appointed the four-strong advisory committee, it concluded Dacre’s strong opinions on the British media meant he did not meet the stated criteria to become chair of the Ofcom board.

Rather than accept the verdict and appoint another one of the candidates who did pass the vetting process, ministers instead decided to scrap the competition altogether and rerun it from scratch to enable Dacre to have another try.

[Bones McCoy]

Top culture-war tips.

Be such a toxic cunt that nobody wants to be in a room with you.
Nothing can possibly go wrong with this infallible strategy.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Dacre must know where bodies are buried. Otherwise, this makes no sense at all. There are a million and one low profile Tories who'd do the job he's intended to do much better.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I think it's more a case of calling in favours. I don't really go for this 'where the bodies are buried' schtick.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Government would tell Dacre to fuck off if it was a simple quid pro quo. Sorry, Paulie, we tried, how about something like we gave Lord Ashcroft? Think it's more than that.