Seen in the News

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report about the proposed strike of Home Office staff.
"More than 1,000 Passport Office workers will go on strike for five weeks over a dispute about jobs, pay and conditions. Members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union working across England, Scotland and Wales will take part in the action from 3 April to 5 May. Those working in Belfast are being balloted and could join the strike. The union warned the action is likely to have a "significant impact" on the delivery of passports ahead of summer. More than 4,000 people are employed by the Passport Office across the UK, meaning around one in four workers will be walking out.
I am puzzled by this. I understand why they are striking but not the setting of a five week duration before they start.
Or have I missed something?

[Stanley]

What to make of the visit by the Home Secretary to Rwanda?
See THIS BBC round-up of the front pages and make up your own mind.......

[plaques]

What to make of the visit by the Home Secretary to Rwanda?

Probably to make sure that the UK is on a war footing to stop the invasion of millions of small boats crossing the channel. Its all becoming like a kafkaesque dream

and now we have.... I wonder if it applies to rubber boats?

A siren-like alert will be sent to mobile phone users across the UK next month to test a new government public warning system.

It allows the government and emergency services to send urgent messages warning the public of life-threatening situations like flooding or wildfires.

The test is expected to take place in the early evening of 23 April.

Phone users will have to acknowledge the alert before they can use other features on their devices.

[Tripps]

Everyone should read this Rwanda Then demand a General Election.
Just because your name is Michela Wrong (poor girl) doesn't mean you are.

So much more to say - best I just think it. . . .

PS When this ridculous (bound / designed to fail scheme) was announced they said it would be limited to, and costed for, a couple of hunndred migrants. I heard Sunak say last week that the number was without limit. No mention of increased cost, and the reamrk didn't seem to be picked up by the mainstream. Braverman said it was ground breaking and a 'first'. Not true - the Danes. and I think the Israelis have done something very similar, and proved it to be a failure.

I shall be amazed if a single migrant goes to Rwanda.
***********************

Meanwhile how's the Windsor framework doing?

I read today that a P&0 redundant ferry has been consigned to Turkey to be scrapped. They were given approval to do so by the EU.

That's would be the EU that does not include either UK or Turkey within its membership.

That would be the P&0 that sacked a lot of its workers and replaced them with low paid third world seafarers. There was great indignation, and promises to change the law at the time - but now it looks as if there are no consequences.

[Stanley]

A good informative post David. Well done for noticing the strange matter of the P&O ferry being scrapped in Turkey.
I have read the Guardian piece on Rwanda and agree with you. In fact I'll go further. This reminds me of how the National Socialist Party in Germany treated the press in the 1930s.
Unfortunately we haven't the same remedy that was used against Trump in the US when he did the same thing. We don't have a Constitution or a free speech amendment......

[Tripps]

I heard Sunak say last week that the number was without limit. No mention of increased cost

Simon Webb is saying today that the deal is that we take in refugees from Rwanda on a one to one basis for each one
we we send to them. Their refugees will be the ones classified as vulnerable and most will have medical problems and contribute nothing to the economy. Rwanda I think he has called me a 'gullible idiot'.

As usual the Government is very coy about actual numbers in both directions

[Stanley]

I shouldn't take too much notice of what that bloke Webb says David.....
My version of the reasons for Braverman's visit to Rwanda is that she has been instructed by Sunak to do something, anything, to make it appear that she is busy and the government is actually doing something.....
Later.... See THIS BBC report about the investigation into the Metropolitan Police. It is excoriating.
A damning report into the culture and standards of the Metropolitan Police has laid bare deep and widespread failings in the force. Discrimination is baked into it; it is failing women and children; it is unable to police itself; and public confidence has been shattered, Baroness Louise Casey concluded.
The thing that strikes me is that the picture revealed by the report is the same as the one repeatedly portrayed in police dramas over the years. If playwrights could see the state of affairs why was nothing done about it?

[Stanley]

Later.... Listening to Baroness Casey and others I hear the dreaded word 'banter' used as an excuse for some of the language. I hate the concept of banter and would advise that it be banned absolutely.

[Tizer]

I shall be amazed if a single migrant goes to Rwanda.

Tripps, thanks for posting a link to the Guardian article. Looking back on OG I posted last July: I read in The Times that the Rwanda government say they can take only 200 migrants and there is only one place to house them. Yet we've already paid them £1.2 million to do the work and it looks like nothing much has changed (except that Rwanda seems to be descending into an even more perilous state).

[Tripps]

I just heard that a Times journalist (Joshua Rifkind I thnk) says the housing development that Braverman toured is nothing to do with the immigrant transfer scheme, and O'Brien of LBC has supported my idea that this is a policy which will never happen, and is designed to fail - just to give the illusion that they are acting vigorously, in order to fill the gap until the next local and general elections.

I shall continue to watch Simon Bell I'm afraid - but as ever I'll have my sceptical questioning hat on at all times.

As Stanley wisely says

"My version of the reasons for Braverman's visit to Rwanda is that she has been instructed by Sunak to do something, anything, to make it appear that she is busy and the government is actually doing something....."

[Tizer]

I think it was Greta Thunberg who said it was `old men' who are wrecking the Earth before the young can inherit it. She was talking about climate change primarily but she's right in more ways than just that. `Old men' like Putin, Xi, Trump seem bent on wrecking this world. Likewise old, rich business leaders. And politicians around the world aren't up to the job any more. I feel so sorry for the young and also for all the wonderful wildlife of this planet.

[Tripps]

`old men' who are wrecking the Earth before the young can inherit it

Present company excepted of course. . . .

[Stanley]

I'm not too sure David, I have burned more than my share of fossil fuel during the last seventy years!
Later.... a surprise rise in inflation to 10.4%.....

[Tizer]

No wonder so many people claim to have seen alien spacecraft!...
`'What is that?' Space junk seen flying over California' LINK

[Tripps]

The argument that France is a safe country, and that asylum seekers should apply there is rapidly falling apart.

France civil unrest

[Stanley]

Space Junk...... We treat space just as badly as we treat earth Peter. We aren't fit to have anything to look after!
The archetypal view of the French as volatile and excitable has been frowned on of late but looking at burning pallets on main roads and town halls on fire one begins to wonder.

[Tizer]

I wonder how soon we'll see these being stolen by pirates?
`Crewless container ships appear on the horizon' LINK

[Stanley]

I foresee a problem Peter. If they use technology to do away with humans will they still need fertilizer for growing food?
The ultimate result of technology like this is chilling....... (Or am I just being a silly old bugger....?)

[Stanley]

Did I hear aright? Liz Truss has put forward a retirement honours list.
Liz Truss ‘trying to create a new peer for every 10 days in office’. Opposition parties call on Rishi Sunak to block move

[Stanley]

Yes, she has put forward 4 names. Ridiculous though it is, they will be allowed to go through. To bar them would be to set a precedent.
See THIS BBC news report for the latest cunning wheeze to come out of the Home Office for housing asylum seekers....
"The government is preparing to announce alternatives to hotel accommodation for migrants as early as next week. The use of ferries will be confirmed, but their exact location may not be announced for another few weeks. Two military sites in England will also be confirmed, and the first migrants are expected to move in within weeks. Sources say each site will house 1,500-2,000 migrants and will initially be used for new arrivals, rather than to rehouse people currently in hotels. The BBC understands more than 51,000 people are being housed in 395 hotels. Home Secretary Suella Braverman has signalled the government wants to end the practice of housing migrants in hotels, which she says costs around £6m a day. Former airbases in Lincolnshire and Essex are among sites being looked at."

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC account of the shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.
"Six people - three children and three staff - have been killed in a shooting by an ex-student at a school in the US city of Nashville, Tennessee. Three of the victims were pupils aged nine or under at Covenant School. Police named them as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. The adult victims were named as Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61. The private Christian school has about 200 students. It teaches pupils from three years old up to around 12. Ms Peak was a substitute teacher working at the school that day. Mr Hill was a janitor and Ms Koonce was described as the Head of School on Covenant's website.
Police said the suspect was 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who identified as transgender. Hale was armed with three guns, including a semi-automatic rifle, and was shot dead by police. Police received the first call about the incident at 10:13 local time on Monday morning. The suspect drove to the school in a Honda Fit and got in by firing through one of the school doors, which were all locked.
A very popular bumper sticker in the States issued by the National Rifle Association is 'If it is made criminal to own guns only criminals will have them'. I think a report like this shows how fundamentally wrong that specious argument is.

[Tizer]

A Matt Chorley tongue-in-cheek article in The Times last Saturday...

[Big Kev]

A Florida headteacher has been forced to resign after a parent complained that the statue of 'David' was pornagraphic. The mind boggles.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65087218

FB_IMG_1680017542091.jpg

Italian nuns taking a selfie.

[Stanley]

It's happened before Kev. Here's a poem Samuel Butler wrote after finding a naked statue of a Greek discus thrower gathering dust in the attic of a museum in Montreal....

O God! O Montreal!
by Samuel Butler

Stowed away in a Montreal lumber room
The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall;
Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught,
Beauty lieth in an attic and no man regardeth:
O God! O Montreal!

Beautiful by night and day, beautiful in summer and winter,
Whole or maimed, always and alike beautiful--
He preacheth gospel of grace to the skins of owls
And to one who seasoneth the skins of Canadian owls;
O God! O Montreal!

When I saw him I was wroth and I said, "O Discobolus!
Beautiful Discobolus, a Prince both among Gods and men,
What doest thou here, how camest thou hither, Discobolus,
Preaching gospel in vain to the skins of owls?'
O God! O Montreal!

And I turned to the man of skins and said unto him, "O thou man of skins,
Wherefore hast thou done thus to shame the beauty of the Discobolus?'
But the Lord had hardened the heart of the man of skins,
And he answered, "My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.'
O God! O Montreal!

"The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar,
He has neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs;
I, Sir, am a person of most respectable connections--
My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.'
O God! O Montreal!

Then I said, "O brother-in-law to Mr. Spurgeon's haberdasher,
Who seasonest also the skins of Canadian owls,
Thou callest trousers "pants", whereas I call them "trousers",
Therefore, thou art in hell-fire and may the Lord pity thee!'
O God! O Montreal!

"Preferrest thou the gospel of Montreal to the gospel of Hellas,
The gospel of thy connection with Mr. Spurgeon's haberdashery to the gospel of the Discobolus?'

Yet none the less blasphemed he beauty saying, "The Discobolus hath no gospel,
But my brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.
O God! O Montreal

[Tizer]

I think the nuns were really doing a recce and planning a night raid to kidnap David!
I approve of hellfire as the penalty for calling trousers pants.