Mailwatch(ed) Forum

And it gets better

Gillian Keegan has questions to answer over a £1million schools IT contract given to a firm her husband is a director of, Labour said last night.

A Mirror investigation found the deal with Centerprise was paid for from the same pot of cash earmarked to rebuild classrooms at risk of collapse because they contain ­potentially deadly concrete. Michael Keegan is a non-executive director of the company which was given the contract in May...

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... 871695.amp

I'm tired of being morally superior. I want to see these cunts suffer a slow and painful death. Every. Fucking. One. Of. Them.

Ah no! I've looked again and it is sorted - by the DfE's own school identifier number, which is used by literally no-one else except when sending data to the DfE.

Add Fucking Lazy to the list of misdemeanours.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... etary-tory

Marina Hyde on the chaos of the concrete crisis:

The Sunak government neither makes the political weather nor seems able to predict it. Everything it does – and everything it and its predecessors neglected to do – now constitutes some sort of fuck-up extended universe. Worse still, crossover events have started happening. The crisis franchises are bleeding into one another. Keegan was holidaying in Spain as the crumbling concrete situation reached decision point last week, but was unable to get back in good time to deal with it because of the air traffic control chaos.

Every week, in some form or another, the Sunak government has to endure the mildly out-of-body experience of watching itself do clean-up on messes of its own making. Though these failures can be grotesque and iniquitous, there is a kind of absurdism to them.

Sunak is a supply PM, brought in after another implosion, when he became the fifth Conservative prime minister inside six and a half years. This mad merry-go-round is part of the system rot. Gillian Keegan is education secretary – a role that has been held by 10 different people since the Conservatives assumed power in 2010. It’s been held by five different people since July last year alone. What does the Conservative party expect? What do people honestly think the outcomes will be, with those inputs?

Andy McDandy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 06, 2023 1:15 pm https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... etary-tory

Marina Hyde on the chaos of the concrete crisis:

The Sunak government neither makes the political weather nor seems able to predict it. Everything it does – and everything it and its predecessors neglected to do – now constitutes some sort of fuck-up extended universe. Worse still, crossover events have started happening. The crisis franchises are bleeding into one another. Keegan was holidaying in Spain as the crumbling concrete situation reached decision point last week, but was unable to get back in good time to deal with it because of the air traffic control chaos.

Every week, in some form or another, the Sunak government has to endure the mildly out-of-body experience of watching itself do clean-up on messes of its own making. Though these failures can be grotesque and iniquitous, there is a kind of absurdism to them.

Sunak is a supply PM, brought in after another implosion, when he became the fifth Conservative prime minister inside six and a half years. This mad merry-go-round is part of the system rot. Gillian Keegan is education secretary – a role that has been held by 10 different people since the Conservatives assumed power in 2010. It’s been held by five different people since July last year alone. What does the Conservative party expect? What do people honestly think the outcomes will be, with those inputs?

And the answer, as Marina knows full well, is: fuck all, but the Tories don't care.

It's an ill wind that blows none to the good

Boom for prefab classroom makers as England schools’ Raac crisis deepens

Modular buildings hire firm inundated with inquiries from schools needing temporary classrooms

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/20 ... is-deepens

How long before we read the startling revelation that senior Tories, their pals, and their donors, have shares/directorships in modular building companies?

Or am I being too cynical here?

Or they just happened to have a generic company gathering dust in a drawer, which can be brought to life and apply for contracts; the compensation clauses in case of non-delivery being worth it on their own?

Keegan has said the £34m spent refurbishing offices wasn’t one for ministers, and couldn’t be.

In other news, ministers oversee bids for park chess sets.

From Private Eye

Sunak missed the opportunity to invoke Blitz Spirit here.

The image of plucky "can do" school students using their desks as improvised Morrison shelters and continuing lessons as concrete chunks fall about them.

Speaking as a pedant, I feel I must congratulate Bones on his knowing the difference between Anderson and Morrison shelters, and knowing which one to pick for indoor use.

Chapeau!

You'd be amazed at the number of people who get it wrong.

In a statement today, Mr. Anderson Shelter denied all connection with “30p” Lee Anderson, Principal Bigot for the Conservative Party. He also recommended the services of his close colleague, Mr. A. Morrison Shelter.

Mrs. Bus Shelter declined to comment.

Or G.M.E Shelter, hangout of rockers in their 80s in Hackerney (topical reference m'lud)

It is easy to think that children would do well to shelter from falling debris under a mount of gristle and scab-scented lard.

Except they wouldn't. They are in greater danger than the Ukrainian offspring being bombarded by Mother Russia.

Yug wrote: ↑Wed Sep 06, 2023 5:12 pm Speaking as a pedant, I feel I must congratulate Bones on his knowing the difference between Anderson and Morrison shelters, and knowing which one to pick for indoor use.

Chapeau!

You'd be amazed at the number of people who get it wrong.

I'm from the Airfix generation, who obsessed with detail, and had a pair of grandparents who had an Anderson and Morrison between them.
(Should that be two pairs of grandparents).

The site of the Anderson shelter became a raised bed - before raised beds were a thing.

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Wed Sep 06, 2023 7:35 pm Or G.M.E Shelter, hangout of rockers in their 80s in Hackerney (topical reference m'lud)

Diamond geezers.

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Wed Sep 06, 2023 12:02 pm So I've opened it in TextEdit.

Still a clusterfuck. Whoever compiled this needs a kicking.

It's not in alphabetical order of schools, and not (by me) searchable.
It's not grouped by authority or MAT.
It's not grouped by phase.
It says that some schools not affected are included.

If I wanted to make this hard to see, this is what I would do.

It's also missing a load of schools, because the list is dated 30 August and the DfE only completed a large number of surveys on the 31st. Such as at my daughter's school, which is now (according to the headmaster) a school of interest being monitored by 'people high up in government'.

This is not because it is particularly badly affected, but because it is particularly embarrassing - the school itself conducted its own survey last year, applied for DfE funding to rebuild some sections as a result, and was point blank told no, no money, no work needed - the buildings are entirely safe and no reapplication would be considered for some years. The EXACT SAME buildings the DfE declared unsafe less than 12 months later. The head had no qualms passing these details on to the press, and it got on to BBC news.

Suffice to say this is not only a shitshow, but - as with all things Tory - it is one where the solutions will be based around how best to survive the next 10 minutes politically rather than what's best for schools, kids, investment for the future etc.

I think a more important consideration when sorting out school renovations will be how best to personally benefit financially from it?

There are two things that have become blatantly obvious since Johnson took over as PM. They've always been part of the Tory Party ethos, but until the Johnson fiasco, they have always attempted to hide them.

1. They are all fucking liars.
2. They are all fucking corrupt.

Remember Ernie Marples and the motorway programme that robbed us of our rail network?

Marples was just the visible tip of the iceberg. Like I said, it's always been there, just never so blatant as it is now.