OneGuyFromBarlick

Here's proof that there is safe legal route for people in danger in their home country to seek asylum over here. . . .


Noiw let's do the same for the people of Sudan. We are the fourth fifth richest economy in the world, and have done far less than other comparable European countries. Any Sudanese who feels unsafe should be allowed entry here without delay.

Couldn't agree more David. I note that after patting themselves on the back for rescuing UK nationals our government introduced another 'last chance ' flight from Port Sudan. In reality they have reproduced the Afghanistan cock-up. Too little too late.
See THIS for the final 'final' flights out yesterday.
"Two extra evacuation flights carrying British nationals have left Sudan, as UK efforts now turn to diplomacy and humanitarian aid. The "exceptional" flights - billed as the last UK airlift from Sudan - took off from Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast on Monday evening. Military rescue flights from an airstrip near the Sudanese capital Khartoum ended on Saturday. Nearly 2,200 people had been evacuated as of Monday afternoon. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said it would release passenger numbers for the two latest flights on Tuesday. British nationals and others, including Sudanese NHS staff, were asked to travel to Port Sudan by midday on Monday for the "additional exceptional" flights."
The cuts in reporting staff show up in the Politics section of the BBC news, there isn't any news for today. In other areas I see that Chuck is to wear golden robes on Saturday. Kids going hungry and he wears cloth of gold. It's an obscenity!
Elsewhere in the news: A woman has died after being stabbed in south London. and "Food prices in the UK continued to soar in April despite a drop in wholesale costs, new figures show. Food inflation jumped to 15.7% last month compared with April in 2022, up from 15% in March, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said.
Would someone please give me a reason to be cheerful?

YouGov poll on Brexit done in February 2023: YouGov Note the word `Bregret'!

Tizer wrote: ↑02 May 2023, 08:56 YouGov poll on Brexit done in February 2023: YouGov Note the word `Bregret'!

I tend to ignore all these poll results. The government do their own polling and adjust the rules to give themselves an advantage. The only thing we shall see from this particular poll is that voting in general elections will become more and more difficult for younger people. We have already seen that older people can use their bus passes for identification but the young can't use their equivalent passes. The young tend to be the ones to be active in public demonstrations so what do we do is amend the public order bill to stop 99% of demonstrations. Soon Putin will be visiting the UK to get ideas to strengthen his position.

We are going down the road where not only can police stop demonstrations they judge to be problematic with but will soon stop the if they THINK could be against public interest.

And the British voters voted them in.
I've no doubt I'll be criticised for raising this matter but I can remember when I was reading the history of the rise to absolute power of Adolph Hitler wondering how he could use 'democratic powers' (like the polls) to garner absolute power and become Dictator. I can't help thinking I am seeing the process in action in this country now. Take one small example. How can a majority of the health unions have accepted a 5% pay deal when historic inflation is over 10% (Food inflation over 20%) and though the figure will go down there is no way it is going to fall to 5% this year. What Sunak has done is persuade those unions to vote to accept a pay cut. If you can do that, removal of civil liberties is easy-peasy.
Please point out where I have got this wrong......
More on Brexit.... Have you noticed the UK firms getting shares quoted on the NY stock exchange? ARM industries for instance? Said to be as a result of Brexit. The Stock Exchange is revising its rules to try to slow this happening.

ARM industries morphed from Acorn Risc Machines, microprocessor manufacturers. I trained to mend their 32 bit ARM based machines to component level back in the late 80's, early 90's.

The main political news of the day is that we can vote against the Tories in the local elections. I hope many people do just that.
See THIS if like me you are puzzled by why whom Starmer appoints to work for Labour is causing such a stir.
My own view is that Sue Gray knows too much that hasn't been made public about Johnson, Partygate and perhaps other matters and Sunak doesn't want her spilling the beans inside the Labour camp.There is certainly more to this than we have been told.....

Stanley wrote: ↑04 May 2023, 02:28 See THIS if like me you are puzzled by why whom Starmer appoints to work for Labour is causing such a stir.

The so-called independent report on Sue Gray instigated by No10 was timed to smear Starmer prior to the local elections. The inference being that they were in collusion to bring Boris Johnson down. Having left the civil service Sue Gray is now a private person and is under no obligation to answer questions from 'independent' enquiries. Even Simon Case, he of partying fame, has to admit that disclosing details during her tenure would break the confidentiality code. Even so part of the report has been leaked to the right-wing media. Meanwhile No10 has held back the full report. This is another Tory cock-up. Amazingly no mention of Sunak who will no doubt deny all knowledge of the Sue Gray plot.

In the local forest that is Barlick Town Council. I noticed on the local Facebook page that that despite the Lib Dems fielding a full slate who were all elected unopposed about a fortnight ago when nominations closed, the Town Council is advertising a vacancy? The notice says that no party affiliation is required (strange thing to say) and that no election will take place? I thought that the latter was actually down to the electors! Applications are asked for to fill the vacancy.

I think I have figured it out. The Lib Dems didn't field a full slate, only 13 and I think there are 14 vacancies.

Local elections.... Early days yet but the picture that's emerging is bad night for Tories, not as good a night for Labour as they had hoped and Lib-Dems have a broad smile on their faces.

Barnoldswick

Number of Councillors to be elected - one
Name of Candidate

Description

Number of Votes
CLOUSTON, Euan Robert Labour Party 248
GODFREY, Sylvia Joyce The Green Party 85
PRESTON, Steven UK Independence Party 43
PURCELL, Jenny Conservative Party 560
STRICKLAND, Mick Liberal Democrat 983 ELECTED

Turnout: 29.2%

The turnout in the ward is abysmal and multiplied out shows that 1919 electors voted from eligible voters totalling 6588 in the ward, 4664 couldn't be bothered. A proportion of these will be those without Photo ID who were turned away. It will be interesting to see how many this impacted.

There were 5 spoilt papers.

Earby and Coates

Number of Councillors to be elected - one
Name of Candidate

Description

Number of Votes
GOULTHORP, Mike Conservative Party 873
LAND, Susan Lynne Liberal Democrat 1037 ELECTED
WOOD, Jane Veronica Bailes The Green Party 225

Rejected ballot papers: 17
Voter turnout: 38.2%
Liberal Democrat gain

So, the Lib Dems have gained both seats in West Craven from the Tories.

Tories have lost control of Pendle Council which is now a hung council with no group having an overall majority.

Pendle Council Political composition

The new political composition of the Council is:

14 Conservative councillors
11 Labour councillors
7 Liberal Democrat councillors
1 Independent

See THIS for an analysis of the national picture.
I think Starmer makes a big mistake if he really sees this as a sign that a Labour victory is guaranteed in the next general election. The scale of the loss is a measure of how much the Tories are hated. It pains me to say it but Sunak is right when he says he sees no groundswell of support for Labour.

Yesterdays local election results have been sliced, diced and put under the microscope. We now hear that those who won the most seats, Labour' were actually the losers and those who lost the most seats, Tories' were the winners. This is based on some obscure logic that 'IF' this had been a General election, which it wasn't, then the Tories would still be in power and Labour runners up.

The real winners were the Green Party taking a full council. No doubt they will honour it in the traditional way by digging up their cricket pitch.

Today will be wall to wall Coronation with millions enjoying the spectacle directly or through TV coverage. Something which last time you could only do if you knew someone with a TV set. Over 70 odd years things have changed, there were no cans of beer or bottles of Prosecco just a jug of ale for the adults and jelly for the kids.

Enjoy your day.

We were lucky because my dad worked at Philips/Mullard and the employees could get a TV by paying a bit out of their wages each week. So he decided to go for it (although the truth is my mum pressured him to get it - those like her, born in South Africa, were even more loyal than the home-grown variety). We suddenly found we had more friends than we realised!

Funny things elections - In Oldham the national trends seemed to be reversed.

The Tories gained two seats and the Liberals one. Labour lost three, and in what is now becoming a tradition, the Leader of the Council, one Amanda Chadderton was narrowly voted out.

Pleasing to see that my party Failsworth Independents got four of their six candidates elected - including a clean sweep in Failsworth West. That takes some doing I'd say. I had a full vote in the choice of candidates. My support doesn't seem to have done any damage.

We hear that the Greens have had a resurgence. Not in Pendle it seems where member Calluna came a brave last with jut 92 votes. Full credit for standing, and not just kvetching from the sidelines, though I'd say.

PS Thanks Judge Judy for 'kvetching'.

My view of politics was not improved by the sight of the great British Public (And other volunteers from overseas) swallowing the whole monarchy deception and loving it yesterday. If they are capable of doing that, how easy will it be for them to swallow the undoubted barrage of Tory propaganda that will flood out of Downing Street over the next 18 months?
I hear Starmer's repeated claims that the Tories are Toast and Labour is a shoo-in but I don't buy it. Houdini had nothing on the Tories with their backs to the wall. Labour need complete revolution in their approach to the election and part of that is a different leader. Sorry, but I don't think Starmer cuts it.

I think we can claim that the pageantry of the coronation was a success. Cinderella for pensioners. The Monarchy may be an outdated anachronism but it provides that level of spectacle that Disney Land or the Oscars don't quite match. Millions of people enjoyed the show in spite of the rain and took the trouble to dress up for the event. I think Charles III recognises that the monarchy is approaching its sell-by date hence the inclusivity and name changing. Charles I was the last king to rule by divine right which in the end proved to be a false assumption. Things may change in the future but it will need more than a few generations to change the collective mind set.

Our Taunton Parish Council election went much as expected. A total of 20 councillors were elected to represent 14 wards on the new council which came into being on 1 April. Of these 19 were Liberal Democrats and 1 was Conservative. We had pre-election leaflets repeatedly from the LibDems and nothing from the other contenders.

Now that the local elections are out of the way with a drift in Pendle towards Labour. The next question will undoubtedly be what will happen at the general election. Will Andrew Stephenson MP get the chop or will the gerrymandering save his bacon. The plan so far is to swap Labour held Brierfield for a sizable chunk of the more Conservative Ribble Valley. The flaw in this plan is that Brierfield is a low value Council Tax receipt area whereas the Ribble value has some high value properties giving a total receipt of £4.716m (including parish precepts) of which a sizable chunk should be passed to Pendle. We may finish up with Stevenson has the Pendle MP but since the total receipts are up individual council tax should be down.
Or will we see even more maneuverings to reduce the cash flow from the Ribble Valley?