Comments by "Ash Roskell" (@ashroskell) on "A Different Bias"
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My dad had a condition similar to the protagonist’s in the movie Memento. He’d had a series of mini-strokes rendering him unable to make new memories. Imagine your dad asking you, “Will you drive me to the hospital to visit your mum?” Only to have to see his face crumple with shock and pain, once again, when I had to explain that she was dead and buried already, just a few weeks ago. Why am I sharing this? Because it was this man who fell, trapped his arm, got taken to hospital and there caught Covid, from which he died within a couple of weeks of admission. The trauma, for me, was compounded by the fact that my dad knew he was seriously ill, but needed to have the fact that none of his four children (nor his wife) were there for him accounted for over and over again. Covid was still a new crisis and nowhere near as well understood as it is now, and the rushed off their feet medical staff would not have had the time to patiently re-explain my dad’s isolation to him, or the different reasons for his wife’s absence from that of his children’s. Yes we could WhatsApp with him, but that was a haphazard, unreliable process, often mediated by an exhausted medic who’s English was little better than basic. He died hard. He died alone. He died not understanding why he was alone.
And then I saw a video of a female press secretary in which she stood at a podium and literally laughed out loud about the drunken antics of the politicians from which she’d just extricated herself, finding their rule breaking somewhat hilarious. At that moment, when I thought about their motives for doing that, and mine for being tempted to break the rules when I even had to get special permission to travel from Scotland to the north of England to attend his funeral, I felt (for the first time in my life) the rage of a revolutionary. I felt like the Tories were laughing at me and every family that suffered through those times.
And I resolved never to forgive them. Even if I could, one day, find forgiveness for their blind, venal, arrogant self service and lies, in my heart, I knew it would be damaging for the country to allow this, “Let them eat cake,” moment to pass unanswered. Whatever Boris’s, “punishment,” for his cruel dereliction of duty, failure to model basic leadership in a time of crisis, or downright lies, I can never get my last moments with my dad back. So whatever they do to Boris, it won’t be enough.
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Exactly. Truth is, the Tories fear and loathe her. The very rich, and perhaps some snobs of the type who had to hold their nose when they voted for the likes of Lee Anderson, fear they will end up paying their fair share in taxes because of people like her. She has all of the benefits that people who like, “personality,” politics go for, with none of the drawbacks. She delivers genuine zingers at PMQ’s, she’s personally charming, eloquent, attractive and seems to genuinely care about the most disenfranchised, vulnerable Britains.
I’m sure the Tories would LOVE us to think of Rayner as, “Marmite,” because their entire political model has been built on a foundation of DIVISION, wherever they can find it or (more often) create it! Even inside their own party.
Their criminal conspiracy against her failed, when James Daily asked a Tory pal in the police to look into her background, without ever making ANY formal complaint until much later. When he realised he and his senior police officer bum chum might face charges themselves, they had to go back over the paperwork and agree on the same lies to make their investigation not appear as Stasi-like and blatantly criminal as it was!
That’s just DESPERATION and they’re still desperate to get at Rayner by hook or by crook, because she’s one of Labour’s most popular and effective MP’s. She does her JOB! And the Tories can’t understand that about her! They probably think she’s a witch or something, because working hard for your constituency would NEVER occur to them.
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@teniente_snafu : Nailed it. “We want the right to own and run a train service without all that, ‘bureaucracy,’ of competition or any other companies being allowed to compete and make the trains run on time.” The water companies also refuse to deal with the, “bureaucracy,” of competition or, “standards,” and prefer being allowed to LITERALLY sh*t in our drinking water without fear of consequences. Totally nailed it.
Now we have actual red tape, so that business can attain parity with European businesses, so as to continue trading, whilst getting away with ignoring all basic safety, legal or moral standards for their British customers.
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No, that’s wrong. Why would we equate high pay with quality? The highest paid people in the world do the most damage and are fundamentally thick! Rishi Sunack is an example that leaps to mind. Do YOU, “need,” high pay to, “like talking about politics”??? People who love history, civic matters, policy creation, people management, are not even interested in riches!
I’m sorry, Phil, but you’re just wrong about that commonly accepted bit of received wisdom there which has been empirically disproven time and time and TIME AGAIN, since history began being committed to print!
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Considering that our armed services are tiny now, compared to when the Tories came in, we simply cannot spare them anyway! But, I suggested in previous comments that Ben Wallace should dramatically, “Cross The House,” over to the Labour benches, as he really has nothing to lose and so much to gain. If we set aside his one gaff (having a go at Zelensky about a week ago, for, “ingratitude,” of all things! For which he could still apologise) he’s actually pretty talented as a diplomat and statesman, and has clearly spearheaded the charge against Russia, being instrumental in breaking the deadlock over tanks to Ukraine. He’s liked on both sides of the House, and has good relationships in NATO, the UN and in the EU.
And he’s not seen as being any Tory camp. He’s shown loyalty to Johnson when he was PM, but no more so than Sunack now. And all the thanks he got for his efficiency and hard work has been to be left to twist in the wind as the boundary changes for his seat will leave him without the votes, in all likelihood, to remain an MP.
If he’s had talks with Starmer, perhaps offering to bring some other Tories with him over the weeks (Sit TF down, Johnson, no one wants you!) for that drip, drip effect that gets the whole nation and the press on both sides crying, “Can we have an election now!?” Starmer will have offered him big rewards.
And let’s face it? He’s a vanishingly rare item in politics: a competent Tory, free of scandal and not hated by at least 50% of the population. He would be a genuine boon to Labour, perhaps continuing in his current post, under a brand new constituency? . . . Just a thought . . .
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Two things for me: The pandemic is Number 1. My dad died from that, alone. And, like the woman from your example, it was while Johnson was getting drunk with his mates. The first response I saw to that was that press staffer standing at a podium and having a good, “informal,” larf at the drunken antics of Cabinet members! I don’t know if that was a replay or if it was a contemporary event, but it was the first thing I saw when I got back from dad’s funeral. I felt like they were laughing in our faces and too drunk to be shamed.
2: All the stealth and blatant privatisation of everything, which was never actual, “privatisation,” because that implies private businesses running things. When you’re the ONLY company ALLOWED to run the water resources, supply urgently needed medical equipment, etc, that’s a monopoly and just a, “medieval level,” fiefdom!
You could add lots more, like having a vested financial interest in betting AGAINST the pound, at crucial moments of Brexit, race baiting, cruel and heartless victimisation of THE most vulnerable people on the face of the earth: asylum seekers, but I’d be here all day.
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@ : The fact is that battery, hybrid and old fashioned petrol burning combustion engine cars are all using roughly the same amount of fossil fuels in the big picture final analysis. There are certain advantages to hybrids; the ability to both generate and store energy by converting kinetic movement into battery recharge, etc. I’m no expert, but the maths are pretty clear when explained to me.
Yes, you’re right. The hybrid is a bridging technology which will become redundant when battery cars are recharging from power stations that rely on wind, hydro-electric, and other renewable technologies. We’re just not there yet. When we are, my family will be trading in our old hybrid cars and buying purely battery powered ones (assuming they aren’t prohibitively expensive to run?) and we’ll be glad of it.
Despite being expensive, hybrids do offer pretty appetising returns when it comes to keeping your personal costs down and in terms of convenience, since you don’t have to recharge the batteries (they do that for you while you drive) saving you a lot of time. And, if you pay attention to the requests of your onboard (nanny) computer and try to drive at an efficiency rating of 90% or higher, they are very cheap over distances, beating the alternatives hollow.
You are correct, though. They’re not, “the,” answer. Just the interim solution for now.
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Johnson looks more to me like Ted Heath to Sunak’s Thatcher, being too popular as a former PM back bencher to get rid of, but lacking the ambition to seek any goals that the government can block, thus sniping from the sidelines becomes something of a revenge hobby. I too wonder about his own commitment to the top job, which I honestly still think he would prefer another stab at, but further down the line, after the Labour Party have had time for their popularity to wear off, by being in office for a term or two. The only problem with that as a strategy is that so much can happen between now and then, he might find people don’t remember him, or think of him as a plausible candidate any more. Particularly once he’s set against a background of more adult styled governance from Labour, and less obviously venal self service.
It’s his cult who are more driven than he is. And Boris is probably finding many of those cultists too useful in other ways (connections, business opportunities, publishing deals, etc) to disabuse them?
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