BS: Conservative Leadership Contest

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:26 PM

I honestly don't remember much about him as PM..
But it's a shame he's not now...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:37 PM

Sorry Big Al, "if I were a conservative". If I were a conservative, I would hope that my relatives would be kind enough to have me committed to the nearest psychiatric hospital.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:44 PM

well he had a rough time of it as Chancellor and then PM.

it was a poison chalice. Thatch had spent nearly ten years indulging her beliefs about monetarism. all the money from north sea oil had been squandered on phoney medical retrement packages for minners, etc. as had the money saved by stopping subsidising industries.

the same old story - tax breaks for the rich, no investment in new industry or infra structure.

its unlikely anything he did would have counterracted the stupidity of the previous ten years. However what he did do was a disaster - a little adventure called the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Apparently a bloke called George Sorros did well on the deal.

Major's not a bloke with faultless instincts. Apparently Thatcher pleaded with him not to do the ERM thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 03:00 PM

Wow! That was not they grey man from Spitting Image! I agree with everything said above about the John Major interview. You really do need to watch it for yourselves but if there are a couple of messages that come across they are, the good of the country should always come above the good of the party and you cannot totally ignore the views of 48% of your electorate. Powerful stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 03:47 PM

Go on then Al, tell us all you know about 'phoney medical retirement packages for miners'. Tell us the numbers of miners involved, tell us how much money they received. Tell us all you know.









Then I'll tell you about shattered communities, local amenities shut down, shops closing, empty pubs and thousands of people with no hope, no prospects, no futures, two or three generations sold down the river with **** all help from the government.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 03:54 PM

No point, Raggytash. Al believes that the working class, such as him, are all anti-EU. It is only the rich intelligentsia such as you and I that want to stay. He has a well balanced view. Having a chip on each shoulder ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 04:04 PM

"Big Al's Chips" sounds like a great brand name...

I'd buy 'em.. and if they did potato wedges as well...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 04:20 PM

Me rich !!!!

Chance would be a fine thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 04:31 PM

Well I lived in Nottinghamshire. Gigging Notts, Derbyshire, Yorkshire. Country and western gigs. A lot of the places I gigged were miners welfares - most of which had a country and wesren night. My roadie was a miner whohad a heart attack down the pit. A lot of the other folkies/ musos were semi pro miners you were pretty much living cheek by jowl wuth their community. I lived in a mining village.

THeres not much to tell. Thatch was determined to close the pits after Scargill/Saltley.

She sweetened the deal for the miners by offering disability pensions. In South Wales - it was said you were bound to be disabled if you'd worked down a pit. The miners were in a rough spot (kinnock was like Corbyn now - quite unpopular and unlikely to be elected). So it was a question of getting what they could out of a dofficult situation.

As you say, shattered communities. The dodgy disability deals were part of the general chatter - like the green jackets policing the picket lines. I doubt its in any history of the period.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 04:57 PM

You should have gone to Specsavers, Al.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 05:01 PM

That's not good enough Al. If you are going to make such statements it is expected that you can back them up with solid facts.

Merely saying my cousins, mothers friend knew someone ....... etc etc.

Facts, please, facts.



Having said that I fully anticipate that you will not provide such because basically it is a fallacy.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 05:18 PM

They were not on "disability pensions." They were put on incapacity benefit in their tens of thousands (or more) for the simple reason that they wouldn't thereby appear in the unemployment statistics. A decade or two later, when they were all ageing men and women, huge numbers of them were thrown off that benefit, or its successor ESA, by Iain Duncan-Smith's resort to the French company ATOS, who pretended to employ "health professionals" whose only brief was to kick people off the benefit that had baled Thatcher out. Thousands per annum are still dying of severe illness even though they have been deemed fit for work. Do recognise Tory Britain for what it really is.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 07:30 PM

I can't see substantially that's much different from what I said. Skullduggery. A way of bribing and thinning out her enemies.

You're beginning to sound like dear old Keith. Prove that the 1st world war generals weren't a gang of homicidal maniacs. You can't! THey were skilled military commanders....


Never did ptove it to him...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 08:29 PM

Incapacity benefit was not a disability pension. Nothing like it. I know this because I was on both at the same time. Your post is seriously unfocused. When you want to make serious points you should choose your words reasonably carefully. Making offensive and cheap-shot remarks relating to Keith says quite a lot about you. I suggest that you try again in the morning when you're fresh.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 03:41 AM

Whats a "semi pro miner" Big Al?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 05:25 AM

David, I got what Al meant. He meant ‘miners who were, in their spare-time, paid musicians’ - ‘semi-pro’ because music wasn’t their main paid occupation.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 06:12 AM

the point is that loot changed hands under dubious circumstances so that Thatch could isolate and subborn the ranks of miners unions massed against her. And as you say, as soon as the battle was won, she stopped the payments.

As a recipient of benefits for my long term disabled wife, I have no interest in what they call the money as long as it arrives. Sometimes it doesn't - but I've never been fastidious enough to turn it down, whatever they call it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 06:36 AM

Well for tens of thousands of people, or more, it stopped arriving. A large number died as a result. A pension never stops arriving.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 02:03 PM

You've obviously never heard of Robert Maxwell.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 02:31 PM

The exception that proves the rule: even Sir Philip Green can't manage it these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 07:00 PM

From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 06:36 AM
Well for tens of thousands of people, or more, it stopped arriving. A large number died as a result. A pension never stops arriving.

Following the numerous benefits/payments discussed in this thread, would you care to state what "it" refers to?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 09:01 PM

Try not to be daft. Just read the post before mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 02:32 AM

The Pension Protection Fund was set up after the Maxwell scandal to stop that kind of thing ever happening again.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 02:05 PM

Back to the thread title. A resounding summary from Boris the Blessed, the scourge of the left, darling of the right. He is the man to reclaim our sovereignty. The federalisation of Europe can continue without us.

https://brexitcentral.com/no-more-fake-brexit-deadlines-we-must-leave-the-eu-on-31st-october-come-what-may/

None of the wishy washy will we won't we of kama sutra corbyn, the only man in Christendom that can find fifty ways of straddling a fence. Hopefully it is topped with thorny wire.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 02:11 PM

I wonder how that post will look by the end of the year.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 03:11 PM

DMcG IT seems compo corbyn has been dragged off the fence by his union paymasters. Is that how democracy works for labour? The biggest checquebook dictates policy? Oh Dear!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 08:50 PM

whereas the the tories disinterest in material wealth is legendary.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 02:11 AM

Comments about Labour's Brexit policy belong on the Brexit thread, not the Conservative Leadership Contest thread. I will respond there.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 01:33 PM

I will direct my colleague to the answer previously given.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Jul 19 - 01:50 PM

This is the piece of work who will almost certainly be our next PM.

What a talentless, charmless, graceless, useless twat. The Tory party will get what they deserve.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 10 Jul 19 - 02:21 PM

Johnson has shown that he is totally unfit to be appointed as Prime Minister, and hopefully May, as a small way perhaps of repairing her legacy, will advise the Queen accordingly. Meanwhile the traitor who leaked the ambassador's confidential comments needs to be identified, and banged up or more. Isabel Oakeshott presumably knows, so the first step should be to put her in a darkened room with half a dozen burly WPCs, and ask her nicely to name the miscreant.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Jul 19 - 02:31 PM

Jeeeeeee-zus! The last thing I’d want is to be locked in a room, darkened or otherwise, with that foul harridan!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jul 19 - 05:50 PM

The obnoxious Oakeshott should be dispatched immediately to a bloody vivisectionist.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 02:11 PM

The obnoxious Oakeshott should be dispatched immediately to a bloody vivisectionist.

She published a story that any journalist would have drooled over. Had the government caught wind of it they would have slapped a "D" notice on it faster than you could say Tommy Robinson. She was the political editor of The Sunday Times for a period.

I wonder if you would have the same faux outrage had the Guardian broken the story?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 02:18 PM

I've just realised that the thread would be more aptly titled "Conservative leadership circus". Full of clowns and political acrobats. Shame no one will put their heads in a lion's mouth.

Oh, hang on, didn't Cameron put part of his anatomy in an animals mouth? Maybe he should be reconsidered...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 02:49 PM

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. H. L. Mencken
Labour is still trying to find a way in!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 03:14 PM

Iains - must be the tories hogging the cage and brazenly playing with themselves,
whilst lobbing their poo out
at anyone else at risk of getting too near...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 03:47 PM

If the Guardian hired Oakeshott I would stop even reading their website. Its annoying enough when the publish columns from John Bolton and Mahmoud Ahmadinijad, but Oakeshott would be a step too far.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 04:40 PM

Could you express that in a form I can understand Iains. I really haven't a clue what you are talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 04:44 PM

.. but only a right **** would say that...


ie.. my arguments are flimsy and rubbish, folks can see right through them, and me..
So I'll strike back with smug textbook definitions in as big a quote as I can,
in the hope it'll make me look much cleverer than them......
Then they'll be the biggest losers, not me...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 05:38 PM

All I'll say is that I wouldn't climb over you to get at Isobel Oakeshott, pfr...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 06:13 PM

Once again Iains ............

You fail to use quotation marks. Are they your words (somehow doubt it) or are they the words of someone else.

If, as it appears, they are the words of someone else you fail to name the person or your source.

It is VERY easy to take a part of a speech and bend it to your own agenda ............ and I have to say I won't put that past you.


................. upon reflection I doubt if you ........

Nough said!!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 06:14 PM

do what...???

I've just googled her photos.. nah.. looks too Aryan master-racey for my tastes...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 12:28 PM

DtG - imagine Johnny Depp, Jim Morrison, Tony Curtis, Vinnie Jones, Sid James,
at least two famous boy bands, a grizzly bear, and a male Thunderbirds puppet,
were crammed in the back of a small van that was suddenly hit by a high speed train...

After the result was scooped up and bagged, and specialists tried to reconstruct at least one complete face..

That might be what I look like..???

Of course I'm being modest...

But there was no more room in the van for Brad Pitt, Clark Gable, and Kirk Douglas, and Cary Grant...

..and Yul Brynner was too busy at the time getting his head waxed...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 12:32 PM

DtG's matey banter post, that I just replied to, enquiring what I look like,
has been suddenly disappeared...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 12:54 PM

Aye. I think there are server problems but I knew what you meant so I'll not bother reposting

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 01:00 PM

Oh, and my van contained John Rhys-Davies, Karl Malden and Groucho Marx :-D

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 01:07 PM

...and a bit of Shania Twain but I'm not saying which bit

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 02:23 PM

THE CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES OF AARON BANKS

The police are now considering making whistle-blowing such as that concerning teh Ambassador a criminal offence
Soon we'll be as FREE AS AMERICA
"Orwellian" as our own Tommy Robinsonite would say
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 04:11 PM

"Oakeshott is suing the Guardian for defamation of character"

What character?