stumobir

4 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

Have just got to series 6 in a little over a week. Such an easy watch, and so rewarding. Still think Jim and Pam are fucking insufferable at times though.

That episode were they have the Bluetooth earphone so they can be on the phone all day, eurghhh, insufferable isn’t the word. 
Really appreciating Creed on this watch, after Dwight he probably gets the most genuine lols. 

13 minutes ago, garynysmon said:

Its a very simplistic answer but yes I do, there are several much smaller nation states in the EU that are faring as well or better than we are at present.

Yeah, I’ve always wondered why, based on nothing, Scotland and Wales would be anomalies in NW Europe and become pauper states if they left the UK, it’s almost like the people saying it have skin in the game. 

16 minutes ago, David said:

 

Yes, which would require pretty serious austerity measures to be put in place by the Scottish government. The kind of austerity measures that the Scottish government railed against when it was the 'Tories who were implementing them.

And while there maybe wouldn't be a hard deadline, there would certainly be a requirement for some kind of display of good faith that these figures were being worked towards, so life as people in Scotland know it would change a hell of a lot. For the worse. Because with the required austerity would come further cuts to public services and it would be the people at the lowest rung on the societal ladder who'd pay the price. 

It certainly wouldn't be the people at the top footing the bill.

I'm as patriotic as the next guy, but when I last read a solid document on potential Scottish independence it basically read that we'd "be okay...probably" if we gained control of the north sea oil reserves and predicted oil would "likely" sell for $110 a barrel. Not to mention the white paper was taking into account an economy that wasn't blighted by the lockdowns of the past year.

What is oil worth today? Less than half that when I last looked a few weeks back. And that's after a rally of sorts over the past few months.

So while we could technically still apply, it would be entirely unworkable as the levels of austerity it would take to show the EU we were halfway serious in hitting their requirements would be absolutely crippling.

Throw in the uncertainty over the economy in Scotland post-COVID and, for me, it's not a risk worth taking at the moment. In fact, it should be the very least of the SNP's worries when you see their recent atrocious record in government in Scotland.

It's a hard no from me, Bob.

 

Again, not true. If post 2008 economics has taught us anything it’s that a policy of austerity is the worst way of trying to bring down a deficit. The SNP, who wouldn’t govern an iScotland indefinitely anyway, have made it clear that growing the economy is how they’d hope to achieve this through a combination of borrowing (historically low interest rates) and foreign investment - Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow are in top 5 cities in the UK for foreign investment.

It’s clear you’ve made your mind up but to be honest, I expected a bit better than regurgitated lines from 2014. 

2 hours ago, David said:

It could apply, but going by the current financial requirements Scotland would not qualify for membership. 

I'm not even sure Scotland could afford independence at the moment. The COVID situation has made matters even worse. 

This isn’t true but the myth has persisted since 2014, Scotland meets all Copenhagen Criteria and there’s no reason why they wouldn’t be accepted for membership, sources from the EU have said so themselves, repeatedly. It wasn’t so long ago that the Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia joined, and the EU are currently working with other Balkan candidate countries moving towards membership. The idea that Scotland; a developed, diversified market economy wouldn’t be admitted to the EU on the grounds of finances just doesn’t hold up. The 3% deficit that everyone likes to bang on about is a target or a commitment to work towards, with no deadline. The three countries I mentioned above all joined the EU with a budget deficit in excess of 5%. 
 

And anyway, there’s no clear picture of Scotland’s finances, the best we have to work with is GERS Report and the holes in that are glaring, even for a layman. Have a look at the apportioned defence spending as a percentage of GDP, it puts Scotland between Israel and North Korea. It’s in the UK govt’s interest to paint as bad a picture of the bank balance as possible.
 

Ironically, it’s English Nationalism that has killed the Union.  There was never going to be pragmatic approach to Brexit, the Tories had to be seen to take the hardest line possible with the EU because that’s what their voters wanted. It was never about trade or fishing or the ECHR, it was about telling Johnny Foreigner “we don’t like you” and sensibly, the other home nations are distancing themselves as much as possible from that. Still today, when the signs of how much of a disaster it is and will continue to be, the guys I know who voted for Brexit still insist that it’s the EU’s fault and their intransigence shows we were right to leave, completely oblivious to the fact that this is 27 independent countries we are talking about but to them it doesn’t matter, it’s us and them. Whipped up by right-wing rags and championed by arseholes like Farage and Johnson, we’ve ended up with half the population who see everything through the prism of English exceptionalism, ignoring the fact that their house is falling in around them and their stick-it-to-the-man cheerleaders have actually been running the show for quite a long time now. 

Think you’re splitting hairs a bit there, Scorch. 

Ted Cruz’s transformation from Kevin Malone to Walmart American Badass has been the highlight of Trump’s Presidency for me. 

I’m sure those within his party like the clown below had absolutely no influence either and all those people that decided they hated Corbyn did so of their own volition. 
And don’t dare question his allegiance because he accepted a job and a peerage off the Tories or question all those donations to him from various Israeli outfits, that would be anti-Semitic, as he claimed, despite not being Jewish.

Remind me, how many MPs have been killed by left-wing extremist nutters recently?

Today, we’ll be asking which is the worst monger, iron, fish, rumour.... or war.

- Alan Partridge 

15 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

The leader of the opposition, Marcus Rashford, will sort it out.

Keir Starmer sympathises but will abstain from supporting this post. 

I’m sure we’ll all have seen it by now but this is what a parent was given to feed their child lunch for 10 days, in place of a £30 voucher. In my opinion, the outsourcing and procurement throughout this pandemic has been one of the biggest scandals but has gained barely any traction in our media. It’s actually making a bigger splash on the continent and even in America for fuck sake.  Profiting off the poorest in society when they’re already the most adversely affected by all this, is there a low that this country won’t sink to? 

Plumbing’s just Lego, innit? Water Lego.

- Super Hans

1 minute ago, Gay as FOOK said:

The revolution can certainly count on a solid $1000 from the American tight arse himself. 

After it’s been laundered at least a dozen times and we find out that it actually came from the tip jars at Turnberry.
 

I don’t see him having any issues in raising funds, mainly because he won’t care where that money comes from and there is a vested interest in keeping America fucked. It’ll be interesting to see if he launches his own media platforms, it’ll be his only way of staying relevant but could also be a financial clusterfuck as I don’t see how they could ever make any advertising revenue, I’m sure it won’t stop his ego from convincing him to give a go though, provided someone else picks up the tab. 

And on the flip side of this argument, my gf’s a MFL teacher and her arrogant twat of a headteacher wrote to all parents a couple of weeks ago encouraging them to send their kids to school despite Government policy not to do so. The prick said that as HE considers all children vulnerable due the disruption in their education last year that HE thinks they should continue to attend. 
 

It was leaked to the papers and he made a swift U-turn but is still insisting that all staff attend for the full day, everyday. 
https://www.thestar.co.uk/education/sheffield-school-classing-all-pupils-vulnerable-reopen-announces-it-will-stay-closed-3085608

He also tried to get all staff to delete the track and trace app. Not every parent is a villain and not every teacher is a saint, people gonna people.

5 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

Lockdown seems to get earlier every year

Always the first Tuesday after it’s one week too late. 

Just finished series one of Detectorists and it’s absolutely perfect, isn’t it? The most wholesome, sweet but funny tv you could hope for to end 2020. The highlight for me was the pub quiz episode, I can’t remember ever enjoying 30 mins of television more than that. 
The show is quite light on plot but that doesn’t seem to matter, it’s just a pleasure to watch their lives unfold for half an hour at a time.

Two episodes in to series two and I’m really hating the ginger Kraut but I guess that’s the point. I’m going to be gutted when I finish this.

The correct pronunciation of Cockburn Street, Edinburgh is very disappointing.

Because of the dialect where I grew up I’ve got a few of these. I was older than what would acceptable before I learned that it was “chest of drawers” and not chester drawers and I think half the Scottish population is still singing “a wean in a manger” too, which makes perfect sense tbf.

Best one I’ve seen, but it was typed, was in a group chat with colleagues. We were talking about the pros and cons of the new helmets we were provided and one guy wasn’t happy with it affecting his “profiterole vision”. Probably an autocorrect but the guy is a tosser from facking Kent so he’s not getting the benefit of doubt.

Merry Christmas ‘FFers

And what does she look like when she hasn’t bumped a gram of MDMA?

Such a cynical man, Keith. It’s not like she had a book on cancel culture due out that she needed to promote...

12 minutes ago, johnnyboy said:

The shit Ash has to put up with daily on Twitter makes me despair.  "<Grotesque islamaphobic rant> plus you're well ugly".  Of course I'm sure Patriot12345678 dates c1993 Cindy Crawford.

Yeah, the recent Julie Burchill stuff was disgusting. As was the BBC’s reporting of it, the gist being “Ash Sarkar accuses Burchill of Islamophobia as Burchill comments on the age of one of Muhammed’s wives”.

No, Burchill accused Sarkar of worshipping a paedophile because she’s Muslim, the context being Sarkar highlighting an old Spectator article were Rod Liddle says he could never be a teacher as he’d probably fuck the kids. 
 

This country, honestly. 

The only thing the left seem to be winning atm is the Battle of the Hotties.

Ash Sarkar, Grace Blakeley and Zarah Sultana being my current favourites.

Would happily engage in a bit of Marxist pillow talk with any of these three. 

1 hour ago, patiirc said:

Im sorry, but the press thing is utter baws

People havent consumed information in traditional means for a long time and even as far back as 2010 it was being hailed as a digital election. I will try and dig out the reference points when I have time

Novara, AAV, Canary and all of the other sites that get shares tweets, retweets cut and pastes and copies mean that the 'left' actually had ta bigger reach than the traditional print   reach.  Doorstepping proved people despised Corbyn, and 99.9 per cent of the time the reasons were naff all to do with what was in the papers. Shit leader, untrustworthy over Brexit, too much of a campaigner, untrustworthy in general and about his goals not the greater good and a million and one other things were given as reasons. Naff all to do with Silly hats, jigs before the Cenotaph and the never ending Anti Semitism (Actually all Isms) that flourished under his leadership, looking at you Terfs which started there amongst other things. 

Labour could have won with A N Other, with the same policies however as confirmed by the recent Labour report into things as well as Miliband's post election report Jeremy, much like Swanson went rougue, ignored everything put to them, fell out with the leadership team and the rest.

It saddens me that people still buy into the sun wot done it or whatever else however mass news and information has changed and many people will see a cartoon, or an Meme or political thing on facey or Twitter or Insta or whatever and use that to form their bias and perceptions. 

Red wall is a different kettle of fish and basically Labour's assumption and continuation thereafter that the Redwall, would vote for them come what may as well as having a leader they detested meant that it was never going to happen. People in red wall seats were screaming this for years yet, managers and others within the CLP didnt listen to the canvassers and doorsteppers. It was certainly no shock that Blackpool and Burnley etc went blue apart from to those who had their fingers in the ears.

It's not the message It's the fact that Labour doesnt know what it is , what it wants and is continually at odds with itself. It needs to split and regroup else nothing will change. 

Boring, bullshit and barely makes sense: The Holy Trinity of a Pat Post

Pleased to say I survived the rona. I only had a bad couple of days were I felt really shitty, the rest of the time I just felt unbelievably tired, fatigue like I’d never felt before. That still hasn’t fully shifted but I’m definitely more sprightly by the day. I did end up losing my taste and smell which was bizarre and sucked. I was in the middle of doing a batch of chutney for Christmas when I noticed that the onion and vinegar didn’t have as much as a whiff to it, that stuck around for about a week but I’m still not convinced I’ve got the full range and depth of taste that I had before. My work have been pretty good about everything, appreciated that I got tested with only mild symptoms and as I was only supposed to return to work for one day after isolation before going back off for a week. they didn’t see the point so have given me the extra time to play PS/“recover”.