BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Aug 26 - 12:24 PM

”Backwoodsman when was the last Russian aircraft’s incursion into UK airspace requiring the RAF to scramble its Typhoons ?”

If I told you, I’d have to kill you…

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: mayomick
Date: 09 Aug 26 - 08:28 AM

i think you would first have to catch and abduct me , Backwoodsman , . I wouldn't mind if it was one of the gorgeous alien visitors with glowing orbs abducting me - strictly for impregnation experimental purposes of course.
are you sure you didn't see the russian invaders while walking back   from the village pub on a dark night ?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Aug 26 - 02:50 PM

Usual idiotic Facebook rhetoric about immigration but this one takes the biscuit

"...the majority of the msm news is left wing driven, so anyone dares share anything from elsewhere then they're lying racists"

How can you reason with people who have no idea what a reasoned argument is?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Aug 26 - 04:25 PM

So far we haven't figured it out in the US with the current crew. Good luck on your side of the pond.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Aug 26 - 06:30 PM

Tomorrow is bin day :-D

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: r.padgett
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 01:35 AM

ditto

Ray

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: r.padgett
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 01:43 AM

The biggest problem which new PM AB as did former PMs side step and indeed brought in seriously debatable law on proscription is Free speech and Netanyahu's continued war in the Middle East

If this is ever sorted there must imv be a inquiry into what factors led to these blatantly unjust decisions

Yes appeal to Supreme Court in UK is underway currently

Ray

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 04:44 AM

it looks like farage will win Clacton, Burnham has made a politically astute move about cross channel refugees?

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 04:53 AM

i hope he loses

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 05:33 AM

From the Facebook Page called ‘We Have, I Fear, Confused Power With Greatness’, a perfect commentary on the outrageous position we currently find ourselves in regarding our water supply…

”Half of England is officially in drought. Forty per cent of us are on a hosepipe ban. Your garden is dying, your hydrangeas have been moved to end-of-life care, watering can only, family notified, and if you're caught topping up the paddling pool you're liable for a fine of up to £1000.

Unless, of course, you're a golf course.

Because there's an exemption. Written down in the actual rules is a clause saying that grass used for "sport or recreation" can still be watered. Which raises the question of what they think your garden is for? Light industry?

Your child in a paddling pool is apparently not recreational. A man called Tarquin three-putting from eight feet, however, is. And the really posh clubs don't even need the exemption, because they have their own boreholes. Drill, baby, drill.

Mere months ago, some parts of the country had the wettest start to the year on record. Record rainfall in January, drought by August. You might wonder how that's possible. This is where it gets properly baroque.

Not a single new major reservoir has been built in England since 1992. To put that in perspective, when we last finished a reservoir, the internet didn't have pictures on it and Take That were a new band. The population has grown by ten million since then, and the plan for supplying them all with water was, as far as anyone can tell, hope.

It gets better. The water companies haven't merely failed to build reservoirs. They've sold off 25 of the ones they inherited, and not replaced them. Sold them. Presumably for golf courses.

Meanwhile, since privatisation, 41.4 trillion litres of treated drinking water have leaked out of the pipes and into the ground. Water that was cleaned, treated, ready to drink, and then returned to the soil, like some vast national art installation about futility.

Now, you might think all this suggests a shortage of money for investment. It does not. The companies have paid out £78 billion in dividends since privatisation, which is nearly half of everything they spent on infrastructure in the same period. And they've done it while running up over £64 billion in debt, despite being handed over at privatisation with no borrowings at all. Debt-free in 1989. Sixty-odd billion in the hole now. They borrowed the money, gave it to shareholders, and left us the invoice. It's not a business model, it's a heist with a customer services department.

The star pupil, as ever, is Thames Water, which is currently sitting on about £19 billion of debt, needed £3 billion in emergency funding, and was hit with a record £123 million fine, of which £18.2 million was specifically for paying dividends it shouldn't have. The regulator's actual finding was that it "failed to build, maintain and operate adequate infrastructure" while paying "undeserved dividends".

So the rain turned up in January in record quantities. And there was nowhere to put it, because the buckets had been sold, the pipes were colanders, and the money for new buckets was in a pension fund in Toronto.

So to summarise the official position: your tomatoes are a luxury, the 14th green is critical national infrastructure, and the people who let the water run out will now be issuing you a fine for using it.

The water may be rationed but the irony is in plentiful supply.”

The time to re-nationalise the water industry without compensation is now!

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 06:33 AM

Iagree

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: r.padgett
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 10:26 AM

Yes water conservation and reservoir construction in Uk and no doubt throughout EU and further serious thought and action

Farmers in UK need to construct "tarns" adjacent to fields for times of drought an so they should

Weather not likely to change its spots ~ sorry

Ray

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 13 Aug 26 - 12:58 PM

Yes, more reservoirs needed. But please not by evacuating and flooding communities in Wales to supply water to Liverpool.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Aug 26 - 03:19 AM

As expected, The Man-frog has been re-elected by the delusional simpletons of Clacton. Now he’s wasted a quarter of a million pounds of our money on a completely pointless and unnecessary exercise, let’s get on with the investigations into the bribes he’s allegedly taken.

Should be interesting…

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Aug 26 - 04:17 AM

I hope so

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: Vincent Jones
Date: 14 Aug 26 - 08:10 AM

With all the profits gleaned by United Utilities you'd think they'd have the decency at least to repair the road around the Thirlmere Reservoir which they damaged and subsequently blocked off.

No, on reflection, I don't think they have that level of decency.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 16 Aug 26 - 11:01 AM

Does anybody else remember seeing (or hearing) a news report about badgers which have starting digging up golf courses? You can't get the worms, y'know.

Subject: RE: BS: Brexit and other UK politics thread 5
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 16 Aug 26 - 01:53 PM

Majoc: Badgers via BBC
Also available from the Guardian.