Westminster Politics

Scamland (continued):

Garden bridge charity spent £53.5m with no construction, TfL finds
Review finds £43m of public money went on abandoned Thames bridge scheme
Boris Johnson signed a directive as mayor in 2016 which watered down some of the conditions that had to be met before more public money was released. Questioned by the London assembly last year on why he did this, Johnson said he could not remember.
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In the end, the trust spent more than 70% of its £60m public money allocation without building anything. Johnson’s successor, Sadiq Khan, eventually ended the scheme by refusing new funding.
As part of its review, TfL sought legal advice about whether the charity’s trustees might have breached their legal duties. It concluded there was no reasonable prospect of getting back any of the money.
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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...ity-spent-535m-with-no-construction-tfl-finds
 
If they had just spoken to me first I would have not built a bridge for a fraction of the cost that those rip off merchants didn't build you a bridge.

Please keep this in mind for other projects.

CrossRail2, I can not build you this for 12m.. no wait, I will do it for an unbelievable price of just 10 million pounds with Heathrow non expansion thrown in for free.

Save on the disruption of actually building something, save on the environmental costs and leave room for an infinite number of future non building projects.

You know it makes sense.
 
The Conservative Party: down with the kids since 1834.
 
Drifter said:
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Uncanny
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Am I missing something?
 
NinjaFletch said:
Oh you missed the best one:



Won't somebody think of [what] the children [are doing to the lawn]!
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Is that genuine? :lol:

I heard one child make a quite apt and worrying point earlier "what's the point of going to school if they don't listen to the educated?"

Bit fecked up if Brexit/Trump etc are having that kind of impact on our youngsters
 
Smores said:
Is that genuine? :lol:

I heard one child make a quite apt and worrying point earlier "what's the point of going to school if they don't listen to the educated?"

Bit fecked up if Brexit/Trump etc are having that kind of impact on our youngsters
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It's too in keeping with what he has retweeted and posted to be satire. He's just an absolute weapons grade moron.
 
A tasteless 'tribute' to Paul Flynn from May.
 
altodevil said:
It's been the same conversation for 2 years.
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Its been awful for a while now. The two Eds vs Cameron & Osborne gave us some wonderfully hammy moments, especially in the double-dip era. But May vs Corbyn is so low quality that there isnt really any fun to be had at the moment. You get the odd gaff, that's about it.
 
Just seen Anna Soubry on The Last Leg, talking about all the politician Whatsapp groups. Can you imagine how good (or incredibly frustrating) it would be to see all of them? Specially the smaller ones.
 
VeevaVee said:
Just seen Anna Soubry on The Last Leg, talking about all the politician Whatsapp groups. Can you imagine how good (or incredibly frustrating) it would be to see all of them? Specially the smaller ones.
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Must be an absolute goldmine.
 
VeevaVee said:
Just seen Anna Soubry on The Last Leg, talking about all the politician Whatsapp groups. Can you imagine how good (or incredibly frustrating) it would be to see all of them? Specially the smaller ones.
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I believe a lot of anonymous sources these days are an MP showing a journalist something on these groups on the proviso the MP who showed them is not named
 
Chris Grayling is hands down the worst cabinet secretary in my lifetime.
 
Sweet Square said:
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That's religion for you

Parents have been protesting outside the Saltley school, which is rated as outstanding by Ofsted. At one protest they held signs that read “say no to promoting of homosexuality and LGBT ways of life to our children”, “stop exploiting children’s innocence”, and “education not indoctrination”.
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Can't teach children about homosexuality because it's indoctrination but absolutely fine to force religion on them from a young age :wenger:
 
I have just read that Council Tax is going up by about 5%.
I cannot wait to pay it as it is such fantastic value for money don't you think.

Seriously. How can this be justified by any form of metrics. Double the rate of inflation.
In particular the increase for the Police. Remember the Police. We used to see them on our streets.

Don't be fooled by the thinking that the extra money will result in an increase in the number of Police being there in public. That might happen for a short time then they will gradually dissappear only for another unjustified increase next year for the same thing.
 
Buster15 said:
I have just read that Council Tax is going up by about 5%.
I cannot wait to pay it as it is such fantastic value for money don't you think.

Seriously. How can this be justified by any form of metrics. Double the rate of inflation.
In particular the increase for the Police. Remember the Police. We used to see them on our streets.

Don't be fooled by the thinking that the extra money will result in an increase in the number of Police being there in public. That might happen for a short time then they will gradually dissappear only for another unjustified increase next year for the same thing.
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This gives you one answer Buster:
https://www.local.gov.uk/about/news...er-ps13-billion-government-funding-cut-201920

As for police on the streets, their numbers were very much increased by the Blair government, my own area in Preston had 2 dedicated community PCs and 2 support officers. Since Cameron started cuts this has been halved on paper, but much more than halved in practice as they are often taken away for other roles. The message for policing is simple, if you voted Conservative in the last two elections you voted to reduce police numbers 'on the street'. Some might think that was worth it to save money, I don't, I'm willing to pay more to keep police numbers up, even though I'm not particularly well off.
 
711 said:
This gives you one answer Buster:
https://www.local.gov.uk/about/news...er-ps13-billion-government-funding-cut-201920

As for police on the streets, their numbers were very much increased by the Blair government, my own area in Preston had 2 dedicated community PCs and 2 support officers. Since Cameron started cuts this has been halved on paper, but much more than halved in practice as they are often taken away for other roles. The message for policing is simple, if you voted Conservative in the last two elections you voted to reduce police numbers 'on the street'. Some might think that was worth it to save money, I don't, I'm willing to pay more to keep police numbers up, even though I'm not particularly well off.
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Thank you for this.
Despite the extremely negative press, Tony Blair was a very progressive leader and the NHS, Schools and local government benefited hugely from the levels of investment.

Like you I believe that we desperately need extra police. However, I simply don't trust councils and government to use the additional levy from the council tax increase to deliver what is promised.

I also don't agree that householders should be expected to fund it. The police should be funded by general taxation not just a section of the population.
 
Buster15 said:
Thank you for this.
Despite the extremely negative press, Tony Blair was a very progressive leader and the NHS, Schools and local government benefited hugely from the levels of investment.

Like you I believe that we desperately need extra police. However, I simply don't trust councils and government to use the additional levy from the council tax increase to deliver what is promised.

I also don't agree that householders should be expected to fund it. The police should be funded by general taxation not just a section of the population.
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Yes I see that, but I'd add that I don't think the standard of policing, education etc should depend on the wealth of the area you happen to live in either, everyone should have the same level of such services wherever they live. The Conservatives hugely increased the unfairness when they changed the benefits of business tax from going into a national pool to going the local council that was lucky enough to raise them, a measure guaranteed to make poor areas poorer, but that's Conservatives for you.

I'm not sure about your lack of trust problem, if you can suggest a better way of providing the police with more money then go for it. You could ring-fence an amount just for them but it's a slippery road to go down really, everyone else would demand the same and it might be one of your favourite things that loses out at the end of it.
 
711 said:
Yes I see that, but I'd add that I don't think the standard of policing, education etc should depend on the wealth of the area you happen to live in either, everyone should have the same level of such services wherever they live. The Conservatives hugely increased the unfairness when they changed the benefits of business tax from going into a national pool to going the local council that was lucky enough to raise them, a measure guaranteed to make poor areas poorer, but that's Conservatives for you.

I'm not sure about your lack of trust problem, if you can suggest a better way of providing the police with more money then go for it. You could ring-fence an amount just for them but it's a slippery road to go down really, everyone else would demand the same and it might be one of your favourite things that loses out at the end of it.
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You are right.
Maybe I am being cynical in my old (er) age but last year the council tax going up for pretty much the same reason; to provide extra policing.

My point was simply that a big proportion of the police budget is spent on younger people, some of who live at home with their parents.
Nothing is perfect so we will have to pay up again for the same thing and get terrible value for money.
Thanks for listening by the way.
 
Sounds like a brain fart to me. Not that horrendous.
 
Coloured woman - severe and disgraceful racial slur
Woman of colour - wokest phrase currently in the book of woke

I know the history of the term, especially in America, but it seems pretty easy to confuse those two phrases in the moment in an unscripted radio interview. And while talking specifically about combating racist online trolling no less. Content over context as per.
 
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