BS: UK politics

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 01:16 PM

Sorry, I had a full knee replacement last week, haven't checked in as often. Your wish is (finally) my command. Try again with a new one.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: peteglasgow
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 11:46 AM

yes, pfr i also changed my name as i hadn't lived in aberdeen for 11 years. and as i became famous as the workington man i thought......also i go to loads of folk festivals and spend my time trying to avoid folk music. the stuff i like - richard thompson, show of hands etc i've seen and enjoyed many times. and as for the self-indulgent, dreary unaccompanied stuff....anyway i go to folk festivals and seek out country, americana, blues and anything else i've not heard before. and beer, and old friends and lurchers and......thread rift, innit? sorry but i like that too

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 11:37 AM

It has been on here many a time before so I don't mind repeating it. I'm Dave Polshaw. Yes, I live near Skipton now but am originally from Swinton near Manchester. Only 2 letters different and both with a Monday folk club :-) Recently retired computer prodder specialising in high availability. Mainly for or in close connection with Hewlett Packard and most recently for Morroisons. Half Polish and, at 67, far younger than that Shaw bloke :-)

Pretty centre left. I have a good few friends and acquaintances. Mainly from the folk world and mainly left and remainders. A few are from the right and leave factions but I never fall out with them about it mainly because although I disagree with them, they do not go out of their way to obnoxious like some of the twats on here.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 11:28 AM

What a shame. It means you can't creep up on them from behind without being noticed...

"historical battles reenactor..."

Yeah, we used to get one of those twots once a year on a battle anniversary. He thought it was great to play the bloody spoons at full blast for the whole evening, until I told him to piss off. He didn't half get shirty but he never came again...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 11:27 AM

Shite joke for a gloomy Monday..

A man walked into a a 2nd hand book shop with a turnip
he hoped to barter for something good to read...
He selected some tatty paperbacks,
put them on the counter by the till,
then said to the shop owner........

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 11:14 AM

I suppose that when you stand in your field of turnips you're perfectly camouflaged.
You assume the sheep have the same powers of discrimination as yourself.
Having never been taken for a turnip I must assume the sheep are brighter than mr shaw.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 11:01 AM

Steve - nah.. broke a tooth on a stick of rock when I was little..

MY name is pfr and I am a Rocker..

though I do like a fair bit of Mod music as well...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 10:58 AM

btw.. if I sound a bit too asocial..

I still get traumatic flashbacks to the evening I got cornered in conversation
with a middle aged dungeons and dragons gamer and historical battles reenactor...

oh no.. i can feel the cold sweats and palpitations coming on again
just thinking about his beard...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 10:54 AM

"My name is punkfolkrocker..

and to be honest I don't really like punk or folk music that much any more.."

What about rocks, like me?

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 10:44 AM

Seeing as we are now self doxing...

My name is punkfolkrocker..

and to be honest I don't really like punk or folk music that much any more..

I've found too many people who still self identify and dress as punks or folkies
make me feel very wary...

I avoid human interaction as much as possible..

But I can put up with the mrs for a few hours a day,
and am polite to shop workers
and the post office and bank staff,
on the rare times I leave the sanctuary of my own home...

My ideal job would be masked vigilante like Green Arrow or Batman,
though, as I'm not a billionaire,
I'll just settle for mocking random right wing plonkers on the internet...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 10:37 AM

I suppose that when you stand in your field of turnips you're perfectly camouflaged.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 10:08 AM

Ideal food for lambs are turnips. 250 -300gm/day weight increase. Gets them up to kill weight in a trice. .

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: peteglasgow
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 09:56 AM

and are you an expert in that field, ian? are they your only friends or do you have a more varied and real existence than on the internet?

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 09:17 AM

The people on here whom I wish to know about me already do. The rest - fuggeddit. Saw too much crap when Iains’ BNP mates infiltrated the forum once before.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 09:15 AM

You ARE a fucking turnip.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 09:09 AM

I've got a field of turnips.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: DMcG
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 09:08 AM

Ok.

Let's start with 'DMcG'. My full name is Dave McGlade (and not Dave NA Mcglade as one company thinks, nor Dave McGlad E* as the National Trust keeps calling me.) I use 'DMcG' because the first computer with user accounts I used only had four character user names, and that was (almost) mine - it ignored case, so strictly speaking it was DMCG. So the first occasion I used the Internet was with that user name and I have kept it ever since.

I don't really have a local, because I rarely drink. The pub I go to most often is after choir practice, and I have non-alcoholic drinks because I have to drive to get home. The choir is based in a place called Hamble-le-Rice, which is certainly up-market: several in the choir own substantial boats, for example. Hamble is that sort of place. This is a fairly formal choir, SATB style.

I live on the outskirts of Southampton, and have never owned a boat!

I haven't discussed Brexit at all with these people, so I can't tell you their views.

Then I am effectively choirmaster of a church choir. This is far less ambitious - splitting into male and female is about as complicated as we get. In this group we have spoken about Brexit sometimes, and I would say it is perhaps 10% leave, 15% remain, all the rest not prepared to say or otherwise get into it.

For the folk club I go to most often, it is almost universally remain, but there are three strong leave supporters.


I would consider myself centre-left, rather than strongly left. The distinction is, for example, I would not think nationalisation of the rail services desirable simply on the grounds of ideology, but could on the basis of economic assessments. I could live - reluctantly but tolerably - with a true One Nation Tory leadership, but not with one driven by a free market ideology (or should I say, like most people with ideologies, driven by it when it suits them but not when it doesn't. I don't see them applying the free market principles to wages for nurses or teachers for example, which would indicate the wages should rise until the vacancies are filled.)

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: peteglasgow
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 09:01 AM

i've got a camper van beethoven album....

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 09:00 AM

And Liverpool FC. Don't just say God, say Shankly...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 08:59 AM

And Beethoven fanatic...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 08:56 AM

Steve, 68, live in the sticks a few miles outside Bude, do all the cooking and get praise, 43 years wed, two grown-up kids, fiendishly interested in geology,* meteorology and mildly in astronomy but only good enough at maths to do biology, leftie, Labour Party member, play traditional music on the harmonica half-decently, bad back, curious about everything, enjoy life...

Have lived in Lancs, where I come from, still got the accent, then London including the East End, then near Epping Forest until we came here in 1986. Have worked in the East End, Walthamstow and Holsworthy (Devon), all in secondary schools teaching science. Attained a senior position as a team leader marking "A" level biology essay papers for the University of London. Oh, and on Radcliffe Parks...

*Good round here. Upper Carboniferous Bude formation (massive sandstones and thin shales), Crackington formation just down the road, all that lovely plutonic stuff on the Cornish moors and the regional metamorphism around their edges, slate around Delabole and Tintagel and on my roof, fantastic volcanics around Pentire with some super pillow lavas full of vesicles, multicoloured slates around Padstow and Daymer Bay, evidence of Variscan orogeny everywhere...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: peteglasgow
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 07:57 AM

i know a bit about some people on here and don't mind people knowing a bit about me. 64 yesterday, live in cumbria and work in the care sector, lefty, jags fan etc. eg i think dtg lives in skipton, steve ex-teacher in cornwall etc etc i don't know how folk interact with other people (my local, the swan is very well run, good beer etc but too many right wing, racist opinions around me for me to be fully comfortable. anyone like to share a bit about their local (or equivalent) and where they would like it to be - in my case the bell on walcot street, bath?

i'm intrigued really - where do turnips interact? and what real contacts do they have with folk?

take this as a 'are you a real person and not a machine exercise'

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 04:31 AM

Second thoughts Dave, you're dead right.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 03:53 AM

I see the abbaccus is retiring from the opposition front bench. That should make room for several others. A shame really - She probably drove more labour supporters to the sensible tories than even magic grandad.
The wannabe replacements seem to be carrying on the magnum opus. They have not mastered the transmutation of base metal into gold, but the practise piece of making labour totally unelectable is proceeding very well.
I am looking forward to the day I can have a chlorinated chicken to go with my chlorinated salad, washed down with a glass of chlorinated water. The ban on imported american chicken is a prime example of EU protectiionism keeping prices high.

By the way shaw have you learnt to make a link yet? Rather a let down for someone constantly boasting about what a clever fellow they are.
I would have thought after nearly 6000 posturing posts you might have mastered the art of creating links. But by supplying links what you post would have to be factual, not whimsy. That would likely curb your troublemaking and constant arguing.(a win win for all we lesser mortals that do not possess a mighty ego such as yours!)

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 03:48 AM

It would be fine, Dave, if everybody would just IGNORE the bugger. But some don’t seem to have any self-control and they keep reacting to him - so the thread goes down the shitter.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 03:34 AM

Probably time this thread was out out of its misery. If that happens it's someone else's turn to start a new one!

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 02:21 AM

Oh, forgot ‘expert’ in Middle-East politics and affairs, and ‘expert’ in Israel/Palestine conflict.

Even more reason to ignore the bloody twonk.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Feb 20 - 01:59 AM

Well, what we know is that he’s an ‘expert’ in UK and US politics, an ‘expert’ in the internal organisation and workings of the European Union, an ‘expert’ in geology, an expert in virology, an ‘expert’ in epidemiology, a ‘farmer’ and, most significantly, an ex-squaddie and barrack-room lawyer.

In other words, he is a fabricated persona, here with the sole purpose of sowing disagreement and stifling genuine discussion and exchange of ideas..

IGNORE. THE. TROLL.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 06:15 PM

Words, words, words. Prove it! I don't believe you! You're a prize online anonymous bullshitter! You are absolutely NOTHING that you claim to be, as your "knowledgeable" posts abundantly reveal. You live in hope that no-one will understand what you whittle on about and that we'll all be befuddled by your cod-technical waffle, but you are well and truly sussed. Plenty of blokes like you infesting the internet. Laughable!

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 06:03 PM

"Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.”
and to make up for their inadaquacies some feel the need to boast they are a scientist, botanist, biologist,educationalist, union activist.............(yawn,yawn)
Suffice it to say I was allowed the post-nominals for fellowship and chartered status. Recognition by one's peers and CPD is all that is required, and is acknowledged by the world at large.
Shaw's opinions, on both this and many other subjects, are only worthy of derision

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 03:34 PM

We shouldn't laugh.. but that flat earth rocket scientist/spaceman...

He won't make that mistake again...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 03:26 PM

He'll deny anything and everything. He knows even less about politics than he does about geology, which is sayin' summat... He learns everything he knows about politics from a right-wing criminal blogger, so he probably learns his geology from the Flat Earth Society...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 02:54 PM

"reality".. oops.. too much of a rush.. failed to notice that one..

..but it's so easily done..

especially by ideologically zealous politicians and bloggers...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 02:37 PM

Iains - even you can't deny the attack on unions...!!!???

..and as for compassion..
selfish ruthless spiv loadsamoney yuppie culture
was not such an enthusiastically openly promoted phenomena before thatcher... was it.. innit...

probity...??? see above...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 02:05 PM

It also steered away from Unions, compassion, probity, reality..

We look forward to seeing some examples to justify your post. Otherwise it is simply inflammatory words.(as usual)

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Mossback
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 10:33 AM

Thatcher's govt also steered us away from coal,

It also steered away from Unions, compassion, probity, reality........

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 02:33 AM

He is enjoying the entertainment of watching the EU fighting over how to fill their black hole of funding.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Feb 20 - 02:01 AM

Anybody heard what our Prime Minister is doing lately? He seems to have gone very quiet - not that that’s a bad thing.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 22 Feb 20 - 05:11 AM

Actually it was Wilson presided over the greated decrease in post war coal miners. Between 1960 and 1970 numbers dropped 607k to 290k. Then 1980 to 1990 a further drop to 48k. By 2000 numbers were down to 11k.
The numbers had been in continuous decline from the 1920s. By 2002 imports exceeded home production. The reason for the decline was economic rather than political, even though the left tries to make political capital out of it. Since 2012 imports of coal have also fallen off a cliff. Beeching cuts and the move away from steam cut coal consumption by approx 12million tons a year(10%+/-)back in the 60s.
In 1971, conventional coal and oil power plants accounted for 88 per cent of electricity supplied to the UK market. Last year coal’s share had shrunk to just 5 per cent. And between April and June this year it fell to an all-time low of just 0.6 per cent.(2019)

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: BobL
Date: 22 Feb 20 - 02:23 AM

Thatcher's govt also steered us away from coal, thirty years ahead of everyone else...

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Feb 20 - 09:43 AM

So from now on UK unemployed and school leavers will definitely be coerced
into minimum wage shit prospect jobs
or mickey mouse training schemes,
without any pretense that that they have a free choice or real career development...???

.. and tory PR spin will make it all sound like a wonderful opportunity all round...

At least thatcher's govt inadvertently ran some genuinely useful unemployment schemes
like community programme and enterprise allowance,
which enabled motivated individuals to retain some autonomy and independent control
over their own career development choices..

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Feb 20 - 06:31 AM

Having spent a total of around a year in hospital since 2006, I can safely say that some of the hardest-working, most caring, and straight-up nicest nurses I’ve had the pleasure of being cared for by have been those from south-east Asia and the Pacific. One called Ela from, IIRC, the Philippines, and another whose name I forget who came here from The Solomon Islands were absolutely fantastic.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: DMcG
Date: 21 Feb 20 - 05:46 AM

I hear they have flown in 100 Filipino nurses today to cover a shortfall. That won't be possible next year.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Feb 20 - 05:29 AM

A policy that they are fast implementing and which they are fast going to have to backtrack on is the immigration policy, fronted by that obnoxious, dishonest, shallow and smug woman Patel. Just wait until the whole care system collapses... Bloody racist Tory claptrap.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 21 Feb 20 - 05:24 AM

Has the goblin popped up for a troll? A meaningful contribution is obviously beyond his capabilities

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Feb 20 - 05:21 AM

I must say that the new rules on UK politics threads seem to be working. Apart from the occasional right wing fart, which I'm glad to say everyone ignores, the air is far cleaner nowadays:-+)

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 21 Feb 20 - 04:04 AM

The conservatives have policies they are fast implemnting.
What does Labour offer, apart from a "wishlist" making them totally unelectable?

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Feb 20 - 03:38 AM

”what are the conservative party conserving these days”

As always, they are conserving their own wealth at the expense of the less-wealthy. That’s what conservatism is - the upward flow of wealth, from the less-wealthy to the more-wealthy. That’s precisely what Conservative policies are designed to promote and maintain.

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: peteglasgow
Date: 21 Feb 20 - 03:21 AM

what are the conservative party conserving these days - all looks anarchic to me. and for what again?

Subject: RE: BS: UK politics
From: Iains
Date: 20 Feb 20 - 11:48 AM

TONY BLAIR has revealed he supports Prime Minister Boris Johnson on his Brexit plans as the former Labour leader said the party should forget about campaigning to rejoin the EU.
Who would have believed it? Even bliar blair is deserting the corbynated clowns that are labour.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1244905/tony-blair-news-brexit-news-boris-johnson-EU-latest-speech-video
Latest reports also suggest the pocket napoleon and merkel are having a hissyfit over the blackhole that is funding.
How very sad!
I wonder what they will do with all that champagne and fleets of mercs. when we crash out. The Elgin marbles was a step too far!