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Thread | Banks and defence companies
at 15:00 12 Dec 2024
One of the few good things the new government is doing is putting pressure on banks that refuse to deal with defence companies. I had not realised that Santander and Lloyds closed more that 300 accounts of such companies last year, largely as a result of pressure from groups such as Free Palestine.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/up-to-300-defence-companies-debanked-by-hi
Is it worth those of us who are customers of these banks using their free online messaging services to let them know we are not happy with this? As a Santander customer, I am deeply pissed off with virtue signalling that is detrimental to national security. |
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Thread | The worst UK city for growth?
at 04:18 1 Dec 2024
MSN is featuring a story, recycled from September, about PWC's survey of the best and worst UK cities that I’d missed before. I looked down the best cities list expecting Swansea to be in the top 10, but to my horror we feature as number 1 on the worst cities list.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/the-20-best-and-worst-cities-to-live-in-th
https://www.pwc.co.uk/government-public-sector/good-growth/assets/pdf/good-growt (full report)
The exercise is based on an index developed for PWC’s Framework for Growth research, and our problems seem to include the winding down of traditional industries, the need for city regeneration, serious economic disparities, and lack of affordable housing. Apart from the major impact of the blast furnace closure at Port Talbot, I don’t really recognise the picture, but perhaps I have been misled by the refurbishment of important city buildings and our geographical advantages. Are we really the worst UK city for growth? Apologies if this is old news for some.
[Post edited 1 Dec 12:31]
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Thread | NHS: The return of "targets and terror"?
at 08:05 13 Nov 2024
Wes Streeting is in the news today with his statements about hospital league tables and sackings for managers who fail to get waiting lists down. Older forum members may remember that this is similar to the policies introduced after 2000 when Labour was last in power - the period of so-called "targets and terror."
https://www.lse.ac.uk/Research/research-impact-case-studies/improving-public-ser
https://www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/audio/targets.html
Will it work this time around you may ask? Well, it did at one level because Labour did get waiting times down. However, some would say that this had more to do with the major increase in NHS funding at that time than with cracking the whip. The downsides of targets and terror included gaming of the system by manipulating performance data, a negative impact on management morale, and focusing on certain objectives at the expense of others. It was said by Bevan and Hood that "what's measured is what matters", leading, for example, to complaints from doctors that non-serious cases about to exceed waiting times targets were prioritised over more serious cases who hadn't waited as long. We shall have to see how it works out this time.
There is always a certain resonance when politicians say the NHS needs reform - and especially given how things are now. The trouble is that the NHS since around the mid-1970s has been locked into a kind of Maoist permanent revolution. Some commentators were arguing that what was needed was a period of stability and consolidation, but it turned out that the most recent lull in reform coincided with a steeply rising and ageing population, constrained budgets, a crisis in social care and a pandemic. [Post edited 13 Nov 8:15]
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Thread | TNS vs Shamrock Rovers tonight
at 17:42 7 Nov 2024
About to kick off on TNT Sport. Will be interesting yardstick re the progress of Welsh league football. [Post edited 7 Nov 17:44]
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Thread | Red for Kuharevich
at 16:56 3 Nov 2024
Sent off for second yellow and conceded a pen for Hibs against Dundee United. I thought he put himself around in this game, with nasty niggles and tackles. Must own up to potential bias as I have a soft spot for United, but in my opinion Kuharevich deserved his early shower. Could this be a hint of a character issue that explains his problems with Swansea managers? |
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Thread | More hotels needed
at 17:59 16 Oct 2024
It seems only a few short weeks ago that the Labour Party promised to phase out the use of hotels for "irregular" migrant accommodation, which they said would be possible when they "smashed the gangs". This was initially presented as something that could be achieved in about a year. At the same time, senior party figures stated that the use of migrant barges and military bases to house migrants would be discontinued. More recently, Ministers have conceded that three years is a more realistic time scale for phasing out hotels. The letting of new five year contracts to run two migrant processing centres also suggests that the realisation is dawning that illegal immigration will be a long-term problem. Now an investigation by Times journalists has revealed that the recent influx of cross-channel migrants has used up most of the "buffer" of vacant hotel beds that government finances as a reserve, and that the Home Office is seeking to contract anew with hotels the Tories had stopped using and find new hotels to put to this use. Quite where this leaves all the billions Labour promised to save is a matter of uncertainty. In the French camps the policies of the "friendly one" seem to have been very helpful to the people smugglers.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/asylum-seekers-immigration-bibby-stockholm-hotels/#:~ |
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Thread | Walter Road to Sketty cycle path scheme paused
at 17:29 4 Oct 2024
Does anybody remember the story of the planned redevelopment of Walter Road to create a segregated cycle path and narrow the highway, and the controversy this stirred up? The Council inflamed the situation by setting up a public consultation exercise and then taking the decision to go ahead before the results had been collated. It is rumoured that the balance of opinion was very much against the plan. I posted a video many months ago of a council meeting where Uplands Councillors asked if ignoring the consultation was pukka and were showered by abuse by the Labour pack.
Well it seems that local businesses have added their voices of dissent and the scheme has been halted, although it is not as yet clear whether this is anything more than a temporary pause.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/major-update-on-swanseas-controversial-cyc
One quotation from a councillor that stands out for its sheer mendacity is the following:
Cllr Stevens added: "We are aware of misleading comments on social media claiming that decisions were made before people have had a chance to give their views. This is completely untrue."
Who elects these *******? |
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Thread | Enemy within?
at 10:49 4 Oct 2024
This is film of pro-Palestine activists trying to sabotage a UK factory making components for the F-35 jet. I've seen some crazy things in my time, but at the present juncture in geo-political events this takes the biscuit. If the jail tariff for social media keyboard warriors is at least 15 months, I wonder what these people deserve.
https://youtube.com/shorts/BbKI1fQwLow?si=uGhxM4ZLb5A-jTzp
Edit: Youtube is glitchy - just click the link above. [Post edited 4 Oct 11:21]
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Thread | End of coal
at 06:55 30 Sep 2024
Today sees the closure of both Port Talbot's last blast furnace and the power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, which will effectively end coal-fired heavy industry in the UK when Scunthorpe's blast furnace goes imminently. To mark this "milestone", Radio 4 spoke to Baroness Worthington, the Powys-born architect of the Climate Change Act, in what was one of the most smarmy interviews I have ever heard. She is taking a break in California and basking in the reflected glory of having helped the UK become the first G7 country to end coal-fired energy generation. She spoke with delight at being congratulated by Al Gore. She talked of how wonderful it is that Port Talbot will now have a plant with modern, clean technology, omitting to mention that this signals the end of the UK strategic industry of primary steel production (and the importation of plenty of dirty steel). When pushed about the many thousands of workers who will lose their present jobs, she said that change happens, and the same has happened to bank staff and supermarket checkout assistants - many more she said if one took numbers across the UK. She said this was sad, but that as somebody who drives through Port Talbot from time to time witnessing the pollution, she feels the population will be better off with the change. She did not seem convinced by the BBC interviewer's question suggesting that the pace of change could have been somewhat slowed in line with what is happening in Germany and the USA. It is hard to escape the conclusion that, along with genuine concern for the climate, there is a big dollop of virtue signalling here. I hope Baroness Worthington will get a warm welcome whenever she returns to Wales. [Post edited 30 Sep 8:55]
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Thread | Verdicts from the riots
at 15:39 24 Sep 2024
The not guilty plea cases in the magistrates courts and more serious ones going to crown court are starting to trickle through. Some posters said that this would be the test of whether there is anything in the claim of "two-tier justice". At the time there were also allegations of "two-tier policing". For example, there was the case of the mob that surrounded the Birmingham pub, hospitalised a customer unwise enough to venture outside, and tried to slash the tyre on a Sky broadcast crew van. Well, one of the few persons charged that day has now appeared in court. The verdict is likely to add grist to the mill.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/man-filmed-at-protest-carrying-stick-clear
We are still waiting to hear what happens to Ricky Jones early next year. [Post edited 24 Sep 15:40]
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Thread | Tata and the new UK steel strategy
at 12:56 11 Sep 2024
The statement just made today in Parliament is the first encouraging development I have seen under the new government. The big plus is that, in addition to an improved redundancy package, there will be an intention to bring back some UK primary steel production to complement the planned electric arc furnaces at Port Talbot and Scunthorpe. I suppose the downside is that the Tata deal does not postpone the closure of the existing blast furnaces, does not reduce the number of lost jobs significantly, and does not push Tata to add a DRI front end to the EAF in the short term. It was a bit rich for the Shadow Business Minister to criticise Labour for this when so little progress had been made by the last government. I will wait with interest to see what those with greater knowledge than me of the plant think. [Post edited 11 Sep 13:02]
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