[Andy McDandy]

It's Marinatime!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... n-new-york

With plenty to chew into regarding Johnson's visit to New York (I'm thinking that prior to this, if you told me to think of a massive hairy brute whose trip to America was fortuitous for nobody and ended with him crashing to the ground, I'd assume you meant King Kong*), she's spoiled for choice.

She also takes some jabs at Tim Martin, because why not.

*Bonus prize for anyone getting that reference...

[Boiler]

I wonder how the Tory/Brexit voters are spinning this on the forums I'm banned from: probably along the lines of

Screenshot 2021-09-24 at 16-20-48 If only we could panic buy prime ministers who know what they’re doing Marina Hyde.png (4.52 KiB) Viewed 3105 times

Popped to the shops earlier: the main access road was blocked by a queue to the petrol station, which is at the edge of the precinct. People were driving on the wrong side of the road to get to the shops. Elsewhere, queues are steadily growing at the petrol stations.

*Something* has gone wrong but I'm not sure that Brexit has anything to do with it; I think that's too lazy an assumption. Maybe it's more that being an HGV driver is a badly-paid, shit job and older drivers are saying "I've had enough of this" and hanging up their keys. Someone like me, with a dodgy guts and the need to pee two/three times a night could never sleep in a cab...

[Abernathy]

If it’s all down to drivers deciding to pack in a shitty, not very well paid job, how come it’s just happening now ?

[Boiler]

If it’s all down to drivers deciding to pack in a shitty, not very well paid job, how come it’s just happening now ?

Don't ask me, I'm not an economist or indeed a truck driver: but turning it around, what has changed in the world of Brexit that has suddenly caused this? Were drivers told to go home last week?

[Abernathy]

A read of Jonathan Freedland’s article today may help :


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... SApp_Other

[Boiler]

I'd also add this, Abers;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/57810729

From that;

Covid is certainly part of it. As travel became increasingly restricted last year, and large parts of the economy shut down, many European drivers went home. And haulage companies say very few have returned.

Brexit does get a mention but given that fuel is, as far as I can tell, entirely within the UK I don't see how foreign drivers figure in that other than their being available and as already noted, why has it become a problem in the last few days - other than the media causing people to panic buy?

Now would seem to be a good time to be a vegan with an electric car.

[Boiler]

A read of Jonathan Freedland’s article today may help :


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... SApp_Other

My sister was telling me they were having to delay blood tests at her hospital because of this - apparently the vials have to be made of a particular type of glass.

Still, as of yet I don't believe the B-word has stopped delivery of medical isotopes from France - "unless you know differently", as Esther used to say.

[kreuzberger]

It's Marinatime!

A fine mind and a sharp tongue do it for me every time. (I need a shower...)

[MisterMuncher]

If it’s all down to drivers deciding to pack in a shitty, not very well paid job, how come it’s just happening now ?

If it's anything like catering:

Reduced demand during lockdown pushed them into other, less shitty jobs, and like fuck are they coming back. Supermarket home delivery boomed, it's shorter hours, shorter journeys, smaller vehicles and not bad coin (Source: local driving instructor has all but jacked in his own business to drive the Tesco truck) with things like overtime and less bullshit about leave.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Heard same from our Ocado delivery bloke.

[MisterMuncher]

You take any old style job that has had minimal union involvement for twenty-thirty years and you'll see that conditions have deteriorated to an absurd degree. It's a boiling frog thing that you don't really notice while it's happening.

A few weeks in another trade is an eye-opener.

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ral-horror

Not exactly a glowing report on the conference from Wor Marina.

As for enticing policies, without wishing to let daylight in on tragic, no one other than hyper-engaged people will be mulling on them while they’re in line for the petrol pumps.

Says it all, really.

John Crace is a little kinder:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... hel-reeves

When John McDonnell was shadow chancellor, his speeches were treated with scepticism, if not alarm, from many financial institutions and large sections of the media. Reeves doesn’t have that problem. She is perceived as a perfectly credible shadow chancellor of the exchequer. Her problem is to get them and enough of the country to take her seriously as the next chancellor.

And ain't that the truth too?

[Crabcakes]

This woman is a national treasure.

Experience wonder this autumn as we head for Tory conference, where, according to Lord Frost, the “British Renaissance has begun”. Are you enjoying the British Renaissance? It’s like the Italian Renaissance, only instead of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, there are two guys fighting over petrol on a forecourt in Epping. I suppose both involve a Shell.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -shortages

[Bones McCoy]

This woman is a national treasure.

Experience wonder this autumn as we head for Tory conference, where, according to Lord Frost, the “British Renaissance has begun”. Are you enjoying the British Renaissance? It’s like the Italian Renaissance, only instead of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, there are two guys fighting over petrol on a forecourt in Epping. I suppose both involve a Shell.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -shortages

More Caravaggio than Botticelli.

[kreuzberger]

Cold War Steve after Hogarth?

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/co ... -blackpool

John Crace hitting hard. How the fuck have we come to this?

If the aim is to portray the Tories as a confident party of government with Boris as Supreme Leader, it has backfired badly. Rather it has shown them to be hopelessly complacent and out of touch – a party that thinks it has a divine right to remain in power for the foreseeable future. Then perhaps, they’re right. Maybe it’s fine for them to take the piss. After all, even mid-parliament with so much going wrong they’re still a few percentage points ahead of Labour in the polls.

[Boiler]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/co ... -blackpool

John Crace hitting hard. How the fuck have we come to this?

Simple.

1. Brexit overrode everything and people were getting fed up of the endless faffing about - Johnson offered them an answer.
2. A lack of a credible opposition.

Johnson "got Brexit done". That's all that matters.

Fallout from electing this Government? Don't care, doesn't matter. The problems will blow over soon enough.

Down "The Winchester", anyone?

As an aside, I wonder where we'd be if Covid hadn't happened.

[Nigredo]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ges-tories

[The Weeping Angel]

Nick Cohen on the threats of violence against Sadiq Khan

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ist-london

The level of threat Sadiq Khan must live with challenges the self-congratulatory claim that “Britain is the least racist country in the world” and many other complacent cliches.

British society tells immigrants and their children that all will be well as long as they assimilate. No family could have tried harder than the Khans. Sadiq’s father, Amanullah, and mother, Sehrun, emigrated from Pakistan in 1968, the year of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. When his son became a Labour MP in 2005, that time of racial intimidation and violence was meant to have passed into an unmarked grave.

I am not damning with faint praise when I say that if Khan were a white politician, there would be nothing exceptional about him. Since the voters made him London’s mayor in 2016, he has not shown a trace of sectarianism or religious intolerance. He has described Pride marches as a highlight of his year. When Jeremy Corbyn was in charge of Labour, Khan spoke out against anti-Jewish hatred with more political courage than many of his colleagues could muster. As if to prove the point, the first threats he received did not come from neo-Nazis but from Muslim radicals who condemned his support for same-sex marriage.

[Bones McCoy]

Nick Cohen on the threats of violence against Sadiq Khan

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ist-london

The level of threat Sadiq Khan must live with challenges the self-congratulatory claim that “Britain is the least racist country in the world” and many other complacent cliches.

British society tells immigrants and their children that all will be well as long as they assimilate. No family could have tried harder than the Khans. Sadiq’s father, Amanullah, and mother, Sehrun, emigrated from Pakistan in 1968, the year of Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech. When his son became a Labour MP in 2005, that time of racial intimidation and violence was meant to have passed into an unmarked grave.

I am not damning with faint praise when I say that if Khan were a white politician, there would be nothing exceptional about him. Since the voters made him London’s mayor in 2016, he has not shown a trace of sectarianism or religious intolerance. He has described Pride marches as a highlight of his year. When Jeremy Corbyn was in charge of Labour, Khan spoke out against anti-Jewish hatred with more political courage than many of his colleagues could muster. As if to prove the point, the first threats he received did not come from neo-Nazis but from Muslim radicals who condemned his support for same-sex marriage.

Nick Cohen knows very well.

The types who hate Khan will regard supporting pride and opposing anti-Jewish hatred as "assimilation done wrong".

A mayor for pooves, jews and other anti-white woke causes .... [ Continued page 94 ].