Thanks to Dave.
ALL OUR YESTERDAYS
Month: February 2020
BYE BYE SIR LORD STEEL
DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOUR BUTT ON THE WAY OUT
So, this fellow in his smart frock has resigned from the Liberal Democrats not long after poor wee Willie Rennie said that they believed every word he said about being deaf and not being able to hear the embarrassing inquiry questions he was asked about proposing a knighthood for Cyril Smith, all the while knowing that he was an abuser of children. Had he spoken out, maybe he could have saved some child the unutterable horror of being sexually molested by that thing?
According to the statement, he has left the LibDems and will resign from the House of Lords “as soon as possible”.
I’m not sure how long it takes to write a resignation letter and send it to whoever it is you have to send it to, but I have suggested this quick and easy way of expediting the matter with the least delay:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I hereby resign from the House of Lords with immediate effect.
Yours faithfully
David Steel
That should do it.
++++++++++
Here’s Wee Willie making an ass of himself…
PS: It was too late when it was discovered by the public that Smith was a child abuser, for his knighthood to be removed, given that he was already dead. (According to the authorities, a K dies with the person, although if that is the case, why do we still refer to dead people by their title eg Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden?)
The question is, should the queen now remove Steel’s knighthood which he holds along with his peerage?
SAVE THE BBC?
Davina McCall* is urging people on Twitter to sign a petition to Boris Johnson to stop persecuting the BBC, although I suspect that it’s Dom Cummings who is behind it the plan to sell off both Channel Four and the BBC.
The comments on her post are interesting. Let’s say she’s not having much luck.
One of the reasons people cite is the fabulously high salaries paid to presenters from the licence fees. Of course, that is just the presenters… and that is just salaries.
There are also a wagon or two load of management types on salaries that would make your eyes water and your wallets bulge, but who also seem to feel that their bottoms are simply too precious to risk sitting on seats that the ordinary people might have sat on… and so they have chauffeur-driven limos, or private hire cars to take them from London to Manchester or Cardiff. And, when for some inexplicable reason, they are obliged to go to New York, they avail themselves of first-class seats at our expense.
I’ve never been a tv watcher. Not when I was a kid; not when I was a teen, and not as an adult. Indeed for a long time, I didn’t even have a tv set in the house. Then eleven years ago, I had an op which needed some recovery time and my mum bought me a tv, which I didn’t really want.
I watched a bit of tv out of boredom and found most of it turgid. Indeed, one night I flicked through literally dozens of channels trying to find something to divert me, and the best I could find was the turgid “On the busses”.
But as my friend, Danny, so well known on the blog as our voice on America, will tell you, I did kinda get hooked on box sets of trashy tv detective stories like “Murder She Wrote”!
Ye gads, how we laughed about it.
Anyway, after a couple of months I was in fine fettle and back to doing all the things I’d done before (like mainly running after Munguin). And Munguin employed me to write this blog.
The tv was forgotten and my life began over again.
In 2013 (I think), I heard, through reading blogs, the kind of nonsense the BBC was churning out about the independence debate, and I thought “not on my money, mate”. I cancelled my licence and removed the ariel leads from the set. (To begin with, I got letters, then visits from Crapita, but they eventually gave up after I explained in English … then, fearing they had not understood, French, and finally in Gaelic, that I HAVE NO TV. “Je n’ai pas de télévision” and “Chan eil telebhisean agam” if you ever need it…)
They sent people around to the house and I told them to go away… or something like that. Eventually, they got sick of me and gave up, or more likely lost my files.
I’ll never pay a tv licence to the BBC again.
I’m not saying I would never watch a BBC programme because I’m sure that there are some decent ones, but it would be so rare that it would work out extremely expensive.
I’d be interested to know how you feel about:
The BBC in general;
Paying the licence fee as an obligation, regardless of how little of the BBC’s output you consume;
Mr Cummings’ proposals to scrap the licence and make it pay to view.
*I had absolutely no idea who she was, but someone informed me she used to interview people as they were thrown off some tv show. Nice job…
JUST FOR A LAUGH
Thanks to Dave and BJSAlba.
SOPPY SUNDAY
Thanks to John and his store of Bulgarian cat pics.
ALL OUR YESTERDAYS
AND…
SORRY, NO ONE IS AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW
WE ARE ALL DEFUSING MINES IN AFGHANISTAN WITH THE ARISTOCRATIC BARONESS LADYSHIP COLONEL
To be fair to the Tories, Jackson Carlaw said that the SNP proposals for a separate system did have merit, and they were looking at them closely.
So why not take part in an interview?
Maybe because they have been told by Mr Cummings’ underlings to keep quiet?
RANDOM THOUGHTS
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Well, I’m not entirely sure where they are going to recruit the *lower-paid hospital workers or care workers in future.
Great opportunities for British workers, I hear to say.
From what I gather, the UK unemployment rate is under 4%, a figure usually taken to mean full employment, given that at any time a certain number of people will be simply between jobs.
(Of course, in fairness, we cannot ignore the fact that the government cheats on that figure. People on zero-hour contracts are classed as in employment; those working a few hours a week are classed as in employment. So although they claim benefits, they aren’t counted in the unemployment figures.)
But even at that, the bulk of the people who are unemployed now, will probably be relatively unattractive to employers for a variety of different reasons, many of which are not their fault.
There are a large number of people in their late 50s and 60s. Those who were born in the middle to late 1950s and who do not enjoy the best of health or who are simply not sufficiently fleet of foot (and/or typing fingers) to satisfy today’s target-driven-culture bosses… more, more, more.
There are also in the four countries of the UK, a fair number of people who have drink and drugs issues and there are a not insubstantial number who have prison sentences (remember Michael Howard’s “Prison Works” mantra?) which render them unsuitable for jobs in many different sectors but particularly those working with vulnerable people.
Some time ago, I worked on a project designed to get people into work, so I know a little about these problems. Employers are not interested unless you are quick, flexible, fit, unlikely to be off work, well presented, and frequently, although they wouldn’t admit it, of attractive appearance (catering businesses).
Of course, it isn’t unreasonable to expect someone to be able to speak the language reasonably well (although some native-born Brits fail at that), but we need to remember that, as my granny would say, “whit’s guid tae gie’s no ill tae tak”.
I know a guy who worked as a welder in the Netherlands. He didn’t speak a word of Dutch, but he was fine there because his supervisor and most of his colleagues spoke passable English, he could get cable tv from England or USA. The job was great, conditions marvellous, transport first rate. There was only one problem. His girlfriend was back in Scotland. They wanted to be together. But she was an office worker and office workers have to be able to speak Dutch, so he came home.
But I bet there are a lot of other Brits in various places in Europe who can’t speak more than a few words of the language, but who, for example, work in the tourist trade… I’m thinking of bars in the Costas. I wonder what their futures look like tonight.
* NHS England starting salaries: Nurse £24.2k; Paramedic £24.2k; Midwife £24.2k; Radiographer £24.2k; Care assistant £17.6k; Physiotherapist £24.2k ; Therapist £24.2k
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It appears that Air Miles Fatboy is spending a quiet evening with his ex-wife and their two “blood princesses” to celebrate his 60th birthday tonight. I was much amused by the fact that people were complaining on Twitter about government buildings in England not flying the UK flag to celebrate his big day. It was, they said, an insult to the queen.
But the Queen, who was due to attend his birthday celebrations, has found that she is otherwise engaged, as have, strangely enough, the rest of his family.
So it seems that she may not have felt that snubbed after all.
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THEN AND NOW
No disrespect to the people whose photographs appear here. We all age, admittedly some better than others, but youthful looks aren’t everything, although Munguin says he hasn’t aged a day in ten years. (It’s all the good living he does.) Tris, on the other hand, has aged 50 years in the 10 he’s worked for Munguin’s Republic.
ANGELA PATRONISING RAYNER WILL MAKE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 