How can MP’s be eating meals at these subsidised prices when I’m seeing elderly patients presenting in A&E on the brink of starvation? Something is very wrong in this country. This from an NHS Nurse of 48 years (BSc(Hons) 1st class, RN in NHS for 48yrs.)
Nanny looking very smart there.
And why did the cost of a steak in the Commons Dining room go down in price in 2021 at the same time as beef had to be taken off the menu in schools in England because it was too expensive?
And why, oh why, above all, are we subsidising alcohol at work for people who are paid over £80,000 a year for sitting on back benches with very little responsibility, except to vote for what they are told (whipped) to vote for and to make deprecating noises whenever an SNP or Alba MP speaks?
And today’s laugh…
And some photographs of a bit of the A93 that was by passed… and through which we walked this afternoon.
The road has all but disappeared.
It was rather wet…
Little waterfalls everywhere.
Baillie Bridge which was starting to look a bit ropey.
And here’s Munguin’s pal, Bertie looking for his breakfast of sultanas and meal worms… to each his own, I say.
Many people, for various reasons like high inflation and low wage increases, if any, will be looking forward to a rather reduced Xmas celebration this year. And having worked in some of the poorer areas of Dundee, I know how much pressure is on parents at this time of the year to provide their kids with the best that they can afford. This year it may not be much.
Fortunately, however, our beloved royal family will not be among the scrimpers and savers.
Windsor Castle, for example, is clearly unbothered by the cost of electricity and although Snarles has reduced the staff, it appears they have sufficient people on hand to do the work.
Christmas tree No 1.
And Christmas Tree No. 2.
The heating must be on in the castle because these servants are hardly dressed for the cold.
Munguin will just have a vase of flowers on the table.
And of course there will only be one member of staff… guess who.
It’s good to know that while many of his subjects will sit down to rather poor fare for Christmas lunch, if indeed any at all, our gracious sovereign and his charming and HUGE family of hanger on benefit recipients will enjoy nothing but the best. How generous of his loyal proletariat to provide so generously for him.
I wonder it Airmiles the Unprotected will be invited this year now that Mummy’s no longer there.
***********
Bulls and Bears outside the Frankfurt Börse.
Brenda sent me this story as yet another Brexit bonus hits at the heart of the London economy. (London is a remainer city.)
As the UK is no longer an EU member, the bloc has set out plans to shift processing trillions of euros of derivative transactions from London to Frankfurt as London faces competition from EU financial centres in Paris and Frankfurt.
UK is Germany’s third export market, but we are concerned that trade between Germany and the UK has continuously declined since the Brexit referendum. Britain has traditionally been Germany’s fifth largest trading partner. In 2022 UK will drop out of the list of the TOP 10 (blue line), says the German Ambassador to Britain.
Some more cake just gone stale?
**********
'It's like deciding to go out with no clothes on when there's a storm…that's where we are at the moment.'
After UK farmers said they're 'struggling to cope' after Brexit, chair of Save British Farming, Liz Webster, says the solution is to 'get back into the single market.' pic.twitter.com/cBWu6N0yPf
Yvette Cooper – "Why is the Home Secretary not here? This is supposed to be her top priority… you have to ask what is she for.. " pic.twitter.com/1cfRMlsxdW
Apparently, we are to have a new duchess for our capital city. Duchess of Edinburgh was one of dozens of titles that Lizzie had. It had been expected that when prince Philip died the dukedom would pass to Eddy of “It’s a Knockout” fame.
However, Charlie grabbed it for himself because, he was only Duke of Cornwall and Rothsay, and how on earth can a bloke get through the day with only two dukedoms?
So now that he’s king and all these lowly dukedoms (except Lancaster, which pays £20 million a year) are a bit beneath him, the rumour is that old Snarles is going to give the title to his granddaughter, Charlotte, who is seven years old and is only a princess (poor thing).
Obviously in those seven years she has done more service for the country than folk that have worked all their days for charity and got an MBE.
When is this nonsense going to stop and Britain move out of the 18th century?
**********
A voluntary union, indeed!
Well, Elon, mate. You’re kinda doing the advertising for them, for free.
**********
I see the disgraced English ex-Health Secretary didn’t win that tv show in the jungle. Probably just as well.
His government is insulting the health service enough at the moment by telling them they don’t have enough money (even after all the £350 millions a week that the health service got as a Brexit bonus) to give them at least a cost of living pay rise after the nightmare two years these poor people went through.
Nurses aren’t particularly well paid. These are the figures for England. At the top end, it not bad, but at the lower end… bed pans, wiping noses, taking temperatures and blood pressures and general dog’s bodying, it’s pretty low.
As I was thinking about it I found myself wondering why it was that back bench MPs are paid so much more than nurses, with their £84,144 pa plus a wide variety of expenses, including homes in London, and all the stuff that goes with that, along with subsidised food and alcohol within the workplace and at home… and all for sitting on a bench and jeering, and doing exactly what the whips tell them.
Also, nurses won’t get a single minute off work for the coronation of Snarles. Folk don’t stop getting sick because some medieval nonsense is happening in London.
The proletariat is to get a day off, and apparently MPs and Lords are to be given a week off. But nurses will be holding sick buckets, emptying bed pans and saving lives… as per normal.
Any one know why MPs need a week off for something that will happen one Saturday afternoon??
***********
Thanks to Dave A for sending me this beautiful late autumn scene. Hopefully that will cheer you.
The really frightening thing about middle age is that you know you’ll grow out of it. – Doris Day
3.
4.
5.
“Due to recent cutbacks, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.”
“Name me three Qatar players.”
“Easy. Eric Clapton, George Harrison and Jimmi Hendrix.”
A limerick now by Thomas Thornely in which he reflects on the unthinkable cash motive behind art:
A Painter encumbered with cash
Said: ‘It’s time to be making a splash.
I can paint, if I care,
Things to startle and scare,
Though I’m fully aware they are trash.’
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13. What’s a salary? Something that comes like a tortoise and runs off like a rabbit.
14. Duh.
15.
Don’t marry for money – a bank loan is cheaper.
Why was Cinderella dropped from the women’s rugby team? She kept running away from the ball.
Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand. – Putt’s Law
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
THIS contortionist went bankrupt. He couldn’t make ends meet.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
Munguin’s sincere thanks to: AndiMac, Brenda, Brendan, Erik, John and Graham.
11. Maybe spoils the landscape a tiny bit, but would you rather have a nuclear or coal fired power station there?Just don’t tell Trumpy. He’ll spend the day looking for dead birds.
12. A litter of Red Wolf cubs born in the wild. Critically endangered species.
13. You wanna bite?
14. Mangroves, Indonesia.
15. More motherly love.
16. Bzzzzzz.
17. These vaporetti are so slow, still, it’s better than getting your paws wet.
18. I brought my baby for Munguin to see. What do you think?
19. I had a accident.
20. I wonder if Jacob Rees Mogg would rent out his Nanny. This is a LOT of work.
21. Wow!
22. Not very often I have to look up at anyone.
23. Shhhh.
24. Right. Job done. I’ve been born. Now what?
25. Now, how do you swim again? I wish I’d paid more attention at school today.
26. Edinburgh.
27. No, it’s my teddy and you can’t have it.
28. I got a job in the duck school, teaching these little ones. They musta thought I was a duck too.
29. This is my best friend. Odd looking dog, but I love him.
30. That’s it. My shift is over. Nice relaxing sauna and jacuzzi in the staff quarters then home for tea.
Have you ever wondered why people make dangerous Channel crossings to reach the UK?
It’s the lack of safe routes for most people fleeing war and persecution and you’d have thought that a union, professing to “punch above its weight” in world affairs to keep its seat at the “top table”, would have wanted to be seen participating fully in saving people who are suffering.
But no.
Regrettably the Home Office doesn’t seem to understand that they have to get here to claim asylum. All they seem to care about is demonising people who have to try.
Here’s Suella Braverman spluttering and stuttering her way through the question, from a Tory MP. Yes, there are some decent one.
What on earth is she doing in that job? What has she got on Sunak?
Tim Loughton(Tory MP) – I'm a 16 year old orphan, from an East African country, escaping a war zone & religious persecution, & I have a sibling legally in the UK… what is a safe & legal route for me to come to the UK?
Bravo Britain. There’s a lesson to the world on how to be great and global and lead the world. Makes you proud, eh?Now follow their lead.
**********
Oh dear. This is The Noble Baroness, who seems to have profited from the pandemic in a most unaristocratic fashion. Still we shouldn’t actually expect much from her. This is the sort of tweet she was known for in her early days of the dizzy heights of the British aristocracy.
One wonders what the aristocracy is coming to… really, one does.
What would the Dowager Countess say?
Still, she must have impressed Mr Cameron at some point as being an asset to his union.
Just what it was that impressed him, I fear that we shall never know.
***********
"Yesterday I was told by the most senior person working for the Train Operating Companies that he has been stopped from offering us a deal… by the Department of Transport".
— Simon Gosden. Esq. #fbpe 3.5% 🇪🇺🐟🇬🇧🏴☠️🦠💙 (@g_gosden) November 24, 2022
Thank goodness I rarely need to take a train in Great Britain on Great British Railways. It was always the worst transport system I’d ever used in Europe and I’ve been on a lot. But now? Jeeeez.
Like everything else they touch, it’s completely screwed.
“While disappointed by it I respect ruling of UK Supreme Court – It doesn’t make law, only interprets it. A law that doesn’t allow Scotland to choose our own future without Westminster consent exposes as myth any notion of the UK as a voluntary partnership & makes case for Indy.
“Scottish democracy will not be denied. Today’s ruling blocks one route to Scotland’s voice being heard on independence – but in a democracy our voice cannot and will not be silenced.”
First Minister.
📺 Crowds cheer as Nicola Sturgeon addresses Scottish independence supporters outside the Parliament following the Supreme Court verdict today pic.twitter.com/YK47nVWiXA
I tend not to criticise courts, specially senior ones, on the basis that they at least SHOULD be too smart to allow personal feelings to influence their judgments. They know that many other people with legal expertise and fine brains will have looked at the evidence and reached conclusions, so I can reasonably believe that the judges have weighed up the evidence for and against the Scottish Parliament having powers to legislate for a referendum, and found them not to exist in any devolution legislation.
That doesn’t mean that the court thinks we should not have one. Just that the current legislation doesn’t allow the Scottish government to call one.
We must redouble our efforts to make sure that as many MPs and MSPs are returned at the next elections for independence supporting parties. Certainly, in the case of the English parliament any independence supporting party will do.
We must continue to press the English government to say why it is that the North of Ireland can have a referendum every seven years, but Scotland cannot. Are we not all supposedly equal partners in this union? If not, can they explain why not?
We may be able to guess at the answer, but we need to embarrass them into admitting it.
We also need to press them on who would give permission for a referendum on English independence. If we are four equal nations, presumably Wales and Scotland have to ask the Westminster parliament for permission (the North of Ireland has permission by rights of the Belfast Agreement), but to whom should the English apply for permission?
We need to embarrass them in international fora on these matters. (If that is even possible!)
Munguin made an appearance in Dundee City Square tonight.
Hello, my faithful readers. I’m just having a seat here. Dragging the Factotum around and making sure he doesn’t get lost in the crowd is a hard job, I’m sure you’ll agree. We don’t want him handed into the police station and have to get a taxi to pick him up.The gardens here lack the class of those at the Towers, don’t you think?
Oooops, my beak got in the way of Tris’s photo… It’s more interesting than that crowd of Dundonians anyway.
“I haven’t seen Tory MPs this miserable since the May 2019 European Elections.“
Question is, Tom, have you ever seen the rest of the population so miserable? Ever?
Not particularly cheering for ordinary people, but at least good news for the greedier MPs, is the news is, unbelievably, that they can charge their Christmas parties to the taxpayer.
New guidance from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) has informed MPs that, for the first time, bills for food, *drink and festive decorations can all be claimed.
*Alcohol is excluded, thank goodness, because the way that lot drink we’d be doubly bankrupt.
The directive said “MPs can claim the costs of food and refreshments for an office festive” in their parliamentary or constituency offices. (What’s a “festive”)
Lights, tinsel, and a tree can also be expensed because “festive decorations” are covered by the guidance. (Expensed? Do these people speak English?)
However, MPs have been told to be mindful of the cost of living crisis and any claims “should represent value for money, especially in the current economic climate”. To be fair, comments from MPs in the three main parties (Tories, Labour and SNP) have made it clear that they won’t be making use of this . It will be interesting to find out who, if anyone, does!)
But at least, according to the rules, while ordinary people may not be able to afford much in the way of food or presents, and many kids won’t be having a tree, it will surely cheer them to know that their MPs’ Christmas Parties can be well catered for.
**********
Maybe those families which are trying to work out how to give their kids a Christmas lunch could ask Lee Anderson. He might share his recipe for 30p meals.
**********
“Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye”
Half a decade on from Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘launch’ of the Glen Sannox, the cost of building the two ferries has skyrocketed to more than £250 million and they still haven’t entered service. We need a public inquiry to get to the truth of this fiasco once and for all.
So says the Scottish branch office of the Brit Tory Party.
And I have no problem with there being such an inquiry, because we definitely need to know what went wrong.
£250 million for two ferries is a lot of money.
So I’m sure that the Scottish branch office of the Conservative party will also wish to hold an inquiry into what went wrong with some of their own projects.
Because, expensive as £250 million maybe, it pales into absolute insignificance when you consider the £5.5 billion that their government has wasted on “motorised skips.
Then there is the “bloody disgrace ” of the delays to fix the engines of the Type 45 destroyers. They were, according to the Navy, one of the world’s most advanced warships, but the engines keep breaking down… particularly in warmer water.
All six of the ships are to be repaired and according to The Noble Baroness, Annabel Goldie, defence minister, it will be 2028 before the vessels are in working order.
These ‘state of the art’ destroyers cost over £1 billion each and clearly this cost is rising. Originally they planned to build 12, but ended up with six which were 3 years late and £1 billion over budget!
And they still don’t work!
We might also remind the Scottish branch of the Tories, that one of their number, Failing Grayling I seem to recall was his name, managed to spend millions on a ferry that didn’t exist and the company supplying it had a Article of Association copied from a Pizza House… and then had to cancel a contract with another ferry company at a cost of £5o million.
£3 billion Prince of Wales aircraft carrier that has now broken down 3 times and is currently in Rosyth for repairs.
It was, as I recall, supposed to be joining the American navy in joint exercises on the other side of the Atlantic, but only got as far as the Isle of Wight.
Just as well it was only exercises, huh? How Putin and Xi must laugh at Little Britain punching above its weight in incompetence.
**********
OK, so sometimes you just want to forget reality and thing about happy things like our cousins playing the same games as we do with our kids.
Strangely, or maybe not, Nigel Farage, who is claiming the Conservatives face extinction if there is a Swiss-type deal, used to think that Switzerland and indeed Norway and Iceland (he forgot Liechtenstein, but well, he’s Nigel and who knows how many beers he’d put away) had a very good deal. He talked non-stop about Norway here, but mentions the others too.
This Nigel Farage? The one who spoke repeatedly about being more like Norway? pic.twitter.com/ETPgzF3TMQ
Indeed, Mr Farage seems to think that Switzerland was the inspiration for Brexit. What an odd and confused little man he is. He clearly knew very little about the EEA or Swiss deals.
Anyway, of course it wasn’t going to happen.
Firstly, the ERG group controls the Tory Party. (Though, so riven are they, they could easily be mistaken for two parties.) They won’t tolerate a return to any formal connection with Europe, and were said to be in meltdown over the idea that Sunak may try to obtain a Switzerland like deal with Brussels. Remembering that the deal Switzerland has allows it to have the four freedoms…free movement of goods, services, finance and labour you can imagine why.
So Sunak had to make it clear that no such deal was being sought. I’ve no idea whether that was true or not. They are the Brit Tories. Would you automatically believe anything they say?
But the second reason is that the EU would be unlikely to contemplate another deal like the Swiss one, which is a hodgepodge of bits and pieces of agreements that is time consuming and expensive and complex to administer. And given Britain’s propensity for breaking agreements, it makes any arrangement with them very unlikely.
So all in all, another day of utter confusion and watching Tories coming undone at other Tories.
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 