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Post by mrsonde on Nov 28, 2018 7:02:41 GMT 1
30/7/66. Two world wars and one world cup. Typical bloody Yanks- Google has no sense of real history. Excuse me? I thought you claimed to be a Scot? Celebrate your own victories, thankyou. Bannockburn in thirteen whatever. Robert the Bruce managing to run away successfully. William Wallace getting chopped up artfully into symmetrical pieces. Nicola Sturgeon. No, I know what you mean. Bloody yanks again, taking all the best parts. Attenborough! As Bogarde once masterfully summed him up, what an utter ninny. Hepburn gives me the shudders. Yeah, Anglophones - not the bloody Scots. Here's the thing though, the hair of dubious origin in the toothpaste - aren't we supposed to have cheated in the World Cup? Is there something infradig about Shepperton I don't know about?
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Post by mrsonde on Nov 28, 2018 17:09:36 GMT 1
May's desperate flourishing of the latest Treasury "impartial forecasts" must surely be the final nail in anyone's faith in the ability of the Civil Service to be apolitical, reliably loyal to the nation's interests, or even that most basic of criteria its citizens should be able to reasonably expect, academically respectable. Of course this is by no means a novel development, but it has to be the pinnacle of its post-war institutional climb to national betrayal, exceeding even the heights it had reached when Thatcher was obliged to do what little stable-cleaning of their corruption she could manage in the 80s. I think the depth and extent of the manure is now so extensive that such a task has become quite impossible, short of something akin to a revolution. If for nothing else, this may turn out to be the greatest achievement of Brexit - far from the first time in world history, the saving of a country from the insidious tyranny of its self-serving mandarins.
And hope against hope, the stupidity of its political class? Not a single of our "representatives" has the minimal nouse to ask her s simple devastating question this afternoon: If the civil servants she's managed to suborn (though of course the true situation is the other way around) truly believe that all the Free Trade deals we might be able to negotiate in the future after leaving the EU can only amount to a paltry 0.2% of extra growth - how is it that they conclude that losing our Free Trade with Europe (a smaller total of trade, and an ever-diminishing one) would entail a shrinkage of growth of 7-9%? If international trade is really so insignificant, how is it that trade with the EU is so dramatically different? And if it isn;t - what's all the fuss about? All the constant repetition of "catastrophe" and "disaster"?
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Post by alancalverd on Nov 28, 2018 18:19:59 GMT 1
Scot? Moi? Why do you think I am so much in favor of Scottish independence?
Cheating in football is a lot less serious than ignoring the Maginot line. Anyway, I watched the game live on telly and it was fair. Indeed possibly the best soccer game ever televised, almost as good as the opening match of the 1995 rugby world cup.
Far from stable-cleaning, Thatcher actually put personal (i.e. political) appointees as "advisers" next to Permanent Secretaries. The top ranks having been filled by government arselickers ever since, what do you expect?
Don't know about the Treasury, but I do know that HMRC staff numbers having been cut to the bone, they have been told specifically not to prepare any policy or procedural documents in advance of Brexit. This is a significant change from the Civil Service I knew in the last century: before every general election each ministry prepared briefings and strategies for every reasonably conceivable outcome, based on party manifestoes and serious discussions with front bench members. But the post-Thatcher change was evident even then: when answering any correspondence, the overriding concern was not to embarrass the Minister, regardless of the facts. This made the term "Scientific Civil Service" an oxymoron, so most government laboratories were privatised, and any project or investigation that might reflect badly on Party policy was quietly unfunded.
Nothing infradig about Shepperton, but having lived near the brook that runs through the studios, I could never take the exciting "African" river scenes quite as seriously.
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Post by alancalverd on Nov 28, 2018 18:34:31 GMT 1
With a serious hat on, it's worth remembering that "the economy" means the sum of all financial transactions, including house purchases and nominal (but well-informed) sums for prostitution and illegal drugs. "Growth" is therefore not an unalloyed benefit - it just means that the housing market has become more compressed and more people are indulging in dubious pleasures. The statistic that dare not speak its name is the trade gap. Even the Grauniad admits it www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/08/why-the-uk-trade-deficit-with-the-eu-is-woeful-and-wideningNothing to do with racism or sovereignty, just simple national bankruptcy. Why pay for the privilege of losing money?
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Post by Progenitor A on Nov 29, 2018 0:27:31 GMT 1
May's desperate flourishing of the latest Treasury "impartial forecasts" must surely be the final nail in anyone's faith in the ability of the Civil Service to be apolitical, reliably loyal to the nation's interests, or even that most basic of criteria its citizens should be able to reasonably expect, academically respectable. Of course this is by no means a novel development, but it has to be the pinnacle of its post-war institutional climb to national betrayal, exceeding even the heights it had reached when Thatcher was obliged to do what little stable-cleaning of their corruption she could manage in the 80s. I think the depth and extent of the manure is now so extensive that such a task has become quite impossible, short of something akin to a revolution. If for nothing else, this may turn out to be the greatest achievement of Brexit - far from the first time in world history, the saving of a country from the insidious tyranny of its self-serving mandarins. And hope against hope, the stupidity of its political class? Not a single of our "representatives" has the minimal nouse to ask her s simple devastating question this afternoon: If the civil servants she's managed to suborn (though of course the true situation is the other way around) truly believe that all the Free Trade deals we might be able to negotiate in the future after leaving the EU can only amount to a paltry 0.2% of extra growth - how is it that they conclude that losing our Free Trade with Europe (a smaller total of trade, and an ever-diminishing one) would entail a shrinkage of growth of 7-9%? If international trade is really so insignificant, how is it that trade with the EU is so dramatically different? And if it isn;t - what's all the fuss about? All the constant repetition of "catastrophe" and "disaster"? Hear!Hear! Eloquently put, devastatingly accurate!
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Post by Progenitor A on Nov 29, 2018 0:29:00 GMT 1
With a serious hat on, it's worth remembering that "the economy" means the sum of all financial transactions, including house purchases and nominal (but well-informed) sums for prostitution and illegal drugs. "Growth" is therefore not an unalloyed benefit - it just means that the housing market has become more compressed and more people are indulging in dubious pleasures. The statistic that dare not speak its name is the trade gap. Even the Grauniad admits it www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/08/why-the-uk-trade-deficit-with-the-eu-is-woeful-and-wideningNothing to do with racism or sovereignty, just simple national bankruptcy. Why pay for the privilege of losing money? Well said Sir!
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Post by mrsonde on Nov 29, 2018 16:06:07 GMT 1
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Post by mrsonde on Nov 29, 2018 16:18:00 GMT 1
"Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (in the voiceover of the Gold Blend salesman):
alancalverd (in one of his multiple-personalities we have not encountered before):
mrsonde (in his very rarely seen irritating bastard mode):
alancalverd (in his mad over-irradiated Heinz Wolff mode):
jean (in her debut performance as a ghost):
mrsonde:
fascinating (in her never before seen analytical mode):
aqua:
mrsonde:
alancalverd:
mrsonde:
fascinating:
aqua:
mrsonde:
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Post by alancalverd on Nov 29, 2018 17:45:39 GMT 1
Oh no he isn't
Oh yes he is
Look behind you
Hisssss
All together now!
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Post by aquacultured on Nov 30, 2018 2:32:35 GMT 1
mrsonde is being coy, and hasn't credited himself by his most egregious adulator so far.
Progenitor A reveres him beyond measure:
Well said Sir!
Hear!Hear! Eloquently put, devastatingly accurate!
You're the most lovely, articulate and lovely poster ever. Have I said lovely yet? Enough? If not, I'll make up for it.
(Sorry for the few years I slagged you off for being a preposterous astrologer. I have complete faith in you now. I simply haven't looked back.)
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Post by mrsonde on Nov 30, 2018 5:29:56 GMT 1
mrsonde is being coy, and hasn't credited himself by his most egregious adulator so far.
Progenitor A reveres him beyond measure: Well said Sir!
Hear!Hear! Eloquently put, devastatingly accurate!
You're the most lovely, articulate and lovely poster ever. Have I said lovely yet? Enough? If not, I'll make up for it.
Sorry for the few years I slagged you off for being a preposterous astrologer. I have complete faith in you now. I simply haven't looked back.)
Blimey. Aqua (in Green-Eyed Monster mode) possessed by the spirit of Violet Elisabeth Bott! Buffy's most hideous troll adversary yet, its demonic weapon its unparalleled ability to Projectile Vomit! He did? What a horrid horrid beastly man! Hate him! For ever and ever and ever, you see if I don't!
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Post by mrsonde on Nov 30, 2018 18:43:03 GMT 1
Cheating in football is a lot less serious than ignoring the Maginot line. Anyway, I watched the game live on telly and it was fair. I remember watching it too. In black and white, sadly. The cheating accusations are not really to do with the final - leaving aside the controversial ball on the line issue - but with the arrangements for the earlier rounds, and above all the refereeing. Ah yes, I remember. Someone bit someone's ear off in the scrum. Classic. I've been mulling that one over, trying to find a way to make it even partially make sense and still be passably true. I don't think it can be done. I don't know where you got that bizarre idea from - blaming Thatcher, who had a severe distrust of SpAds, for the sins of Wilson, Callaghan, and above all Blair, it would seem. Even then you grossly exaggerate. Ministers appoint their own SpAds, and wouldn;t tolerate them being imposed from No.10. Neither would the Civil Service possibly put up with such an unconstitutional innovation. Yes - that still goes on. Brexit was an exception - I agree an astonishing one. Cameron (and...errr...whatsisname, the idiot child, ermmm...nope, it's gone) were...it's hard to think of an appropriate term condemnatory enough, really. I wouldn't go so far as Owen Jones, that he was the worst prime minister in history (that has to be Brown, by a long shot, ahead of even Chamberlain), but he's doubtless in the bottom five.
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Post by mrsonde on Nov 30, 2018 18:45:01 GMT 1
Clegg!
Please don't remind me ever again.
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Post by alancalverd on Nov 30, 2018 20:39:09 GMT 1
'Twas Thatcher's pet idiot from Sainsburys who couldn't see the difference between treating cancer and selling beans, who fucked up the NHS by preparing it for wholesale privatisation and thus quadrupling the administrative overhead at the expense of actual medical services.
Problem with admin is it is essentially cancerous, infiltrating the professions and growing of its own accord until it strangles its host.
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Post by mrsonde on Nov 30, 2018 23:24:48 GMT 1
'Twas Thatcher's pet idiot from Sainsburys who couldn't see the difference between treating cancer and selling beans, who fucked up the NHS by preparing it for wholesale privatisation and thus quadrupling the administrative overhead at the expense of actual medical services. I beg to differ. Both with your assertions of fact and your overall argument. Shall we have at it? Another thread? I know you're involved in the NHS, from one end - my experience has been from the other end, where it gets down and dirty. That sounds like a devastating enough critique of the whole philosophy of communism, and in fact the whole socialist spectrum, as valid as any. Works for me.
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