Government announces 20 million smackers and a new review board to help Southern Rail back towards some form of performance standard. Rather suggests that they now admit to having fucked up in giving Govia the bloody job in the first place.
I am NOT going to hold my breath …
News report today saying that the Electoral Reform Society has done some analysis of what people think of the referendum campaign. Katie Ghose, who is to opinion polling what Katie Hopkins is to diplomacy, has said that people think they weren’t given enough information.
Darling Heart, they always trot out that platitude!
Katie has called for the next referendum campaign to be six months long. Just pause for a moment and imagine that – HALF A FRIGGING YEAR!
Will someone please neuter this witch and sew her gob shut.
Watched this last night and I’m sorry to say that it didn’t even register on the scale of One to Meh.
What a colossal waste of opportunity. I was surprised to see that JJ Abrams produced this pap, because he is capable of much better.
This COULD have been a seriously good psycho-thriller, but it was thrown away by a rather lacklustre script and a piece of hopeless miscasting. (It’s almost impossible to take threats of being dunked into a barrel of acid very seriously when they’re being delivered in the voice of Sulley Sullivan. Someone like Ralph Fiennes would have played the part with much more menace.)
That aside, the script failed to take advantage of the situation and raise any serious level of angst – the only minor shock being when Sulley shoots Emmett, something, frankly, that I’d been wanting to do for half an hour!
And would it not have been more dramatic if there hadn’t been the woman or the dead pigs outside? That Michelle completely disbelieves the story, escapes and then has a single, but massive “Oh,Shit!” moment? Instead it dribbled away into nothingness as if the sequel has already been written.
So, ‘tis the morning after the night before and we have a result. It isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but breakfast will be a sombre meal in Downing Street where it will be regarded as the worst of all possible outcomes.
Cameron took us into this expensive, divisive and damaging referendum for purely party political purposes. He’d hoped for a massive vote for remaining in the EU as that was the only way he could silence the Euro-Sceptic wing of his own party and effectively neuter UKIP. Nothing short of at least 60/40 in favour of remain would have done that and in the early stages he must have thought he was on to a winner. Only very late in this bruising and hurtful campaign did it occur to him that the public didn’t altogether share his rose-tinted view of Europe!
Where do we go from here?
Leave has won, but not by a very big margin. The outcome of the referendum is not binding on Parliament, so don’t expect anyone to invoke Article 50 any time soon. More than likely that things will be fudged to the effect that because the majority was so small Parliament must make the decision. UKIP will stay with us, but making much more noise.
Stand by for lots and LOTS of legal challenges. Oh, and expect resignations!
It’s now over half a century since I was involved in my first ever political campaign. (In case you’re interested, it was stuffing envelopes for my father’s efforts to get elected to the local council.) I’ve been quite an active campaigner over the years, less keen to do so in recent years as politics in the UK has become steadily more fractious.
The referendum campaign has finally killed off what was left of my enthusiasm for politics.
Firstly, there are all the lies and scaremongering that has been going on – from BOTH sides. Some of it has been so far off the wall that it can only come from a political class so far out of touch with the people that they think we can’t see through their charlantry. They must hold us in such contempt.
The atmosphere is now poisonous. What should be reasoned, polite Continue reading Poisonous Politics
I admit that today I gave up!
I don’t exactly live out in the sticks, but then again, my local station isn’t the Clapham Junction of Surrey. It does, however, have the complete misfortune to be “served” by Southern Railway.
During the peak rush hour between 7.30 and 8.30am there are supposed to be five trains heading into London. I arrived for my usual one at 7.45 only to find that it had been cancelled, as had the 7.30 and the 8.15. The 7.54 was still on the board, but then that got cancelled as well. That left the 8.26 – all five coaches of it!
I didn’t have a very good night’s sleep. I’m getting over a cold and that, coupled with the emphysema, kept me up coughing for quite a bit of it. I also don’t breath very well when under stress or in humid conditions, so I decided to call in and take the day off.
Now, I wish that I could say that Southern’s piss-poor performance Continue reading Bring Back BR
Two really disgusting things happened yesterday.
The first and most obvious was the killing of Jo Cox MP. This was clearly a senseless act of violence which is utterly repugnant to any civilised person. It should be roundly condemned and it was correct that Corbyn and Cameron put aside their differences at least briefly to show respect.
The second is more insidious, but just as vile. Almost before the poor woman was cold some sick individuals from the left and right of politics and both sides of the referendum debate were seizing on her death to make political capital out of it.
Two of the worst examples?
False flag conspiracy Brexiters who think Ms Cox’s murder was a put up job to make us all vote to remain, and rabid Bremainers who point out how offensive this is and then proceed to tar every one who wants to leave the EU with the same brush.
Sometimes this country just makes me want to puke.
PS – It is now looking increasingly likely that the murderer is a neo-Nazi nutcase.
I sometimes find it hard to believe man’s ability to be inhuman, but then another senseless act of violence brings it back into very sharp focus.
I could file the events of yesterday in Orlando in the already overflowing drawer labelled “Predictable Consequences of letting any old basket-case have a gun”. We are all too familiar with the seemingly endless stream of carnage and mass murder from around the world, but this one’s rather personal.
The gunman’s father apparently told NBC News that his son was enraged after recently seeing a same-sex couple kissing in front of his family, “an event that could have set him off”.
Really?
Seriously?
THAT’S a reason to murder 50 people and ruin the lives of countless others? I see people doing things that offend me almost every day. Does that give me carte blanche to go crazy and kill anyone of whom I don’t approve? No! No! NO!!
What is emerging is a picture of an unstable racist, misogynist and homophobe who, regrettably, had easy access to weapons. The attack must have been homophobic, else why choose a gay nightclub.
Even more gross and disgusting is the absolute glee with which the attack has been seized upon by christian nutjobs claiming it as “god’s punishment”. Just Google “Pat Robertson” or “Westboro Baptist” if you don’t believe me! They are in paroxysms of righteous joy. Filth!
Well, there’s news for you and any other religious extremist who thinks they’re doing “god’s work” by spewing hate or violence towards gay people. Homosexuality occurs naturally. There is reliable evidence to show that we were around long before your religions even got started. And we will be here long after they have crumbled into dust.
We will NOT go quietly into the night.
We’re Here, We’re Queer – now grow up and deal with it!
That’s what the outcome of this referendum campaign is beginning to look like.
In the last week or so there has been a series of increasingly hysterical claims being made by both sides on this (for want of a better word) “debate”. It’s most certainly not a patch on the more gentlemanly discussions in 1975, but there was more deference towards politicians then and more willingness to follow the establishment – which Wilson had got sewn up.
I’m not convinced about any of the extreme claims being made, whether they are Bremain’s claptrap about losing paid holidays and the onset of World War III or Brexit’s bollocks about rising wages or that the process of leaving will be easy.
What does disturb and disappoint me, though, is the tone in which much of this is carried out.
A friend recently shared a post on Facebook from a person in Norway. It was another of those lists of dire predictions – you know the stuff – if Britain leaves the EU the economy will shrink by 500%, we’ll have to bring back the Corn Laws, Scotland will vote to be towed out into the Iceland/Faroes gap and the Four Horsemen will escort Boris Johnson up Downing Street.
Fine! Chuck it on the heap with all the other predictions of Armageddon.
No – what upset me about this one was that it was prefaced thusly:
“British friends: if you know anyone who is considering voting for Brexit (and I sincerely hope you don’t), please point out to them that blah, blah blah…”
Are we no longer allowed to be friends with people who hold different political views? Have we sunk so low in our regard for each other that we must discard people because they disagree with us on how our country should be run?
If that is what politics is now to involve then I leave, I resign, I want no part of it.
This here referendum thingy is going on a bit too long for me. I made my mind up months (read years) ago about whether we should leave or not and I’ve already cast my vote.
The referendum was painted as the opportunity to have a proper debate about the issues. What we have, however, is the usual childish mud-slinging contest. The latest to chuck his rattle out of the pram is John Major with his charges of “deceitful and dishonest”. Well, and both Norma and Edwina will back me up on this, his honesty is definitely not without a fucking great big stain on it!
I despair!
We have an elected chamber that conducts much of its business at the level of a lower school playground. Our elections are carried out fortissimo as yah-sucks-boo shouting matches. I suppose it was too much to hope that, for once, we would be able to take a major decision with our politicians acting like sensible informed adults rather than participants in the early stages of Monty Python’s argument sketch. Sadly not! We are destined for yet more “we’re right, you’re wrong, ner-ner-ni-ner”-ism
Research places politicians as the least trusted of all occupations, below even estate agents and journalists. And rightly so – they are, as a breed, disingenuous and dissembling. They trade in false promises, unreliable predictions and vacuous soundbites. Apart from a handful of honourable exceptions they serve no purpose but their own. Believe me, I have seen them in operation close up. They are not pretty people and should not be trusted with the running of a sweet shop let alone a country.
It is, in part, the very fact that so many of these Music Men are still trying to sell me the idea of a marching band that has helped to convince me that it’s time to leave failed experiment that is the EU.