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msc

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Posts posted by msc

  2. Posted

    35 minutes ago, Bibliogryphon said:

    Going to be manning the company stand at an exhibition in Telford for the next two days. I will still have my phone but it would be bloody typical if the pent up backlog of deaths hits whilst I am otherwise engaged

     

    So, as we already worked out you were secretly high up in government during those Brexit negotiations* so with that in mind. Telford is a UK constituency and so... we need to await news if you've forced Rishi Sunak to have an election soon after the locals? Got it. Good luck.

     

    :D

     

     

    *For any newcomers, Biblio's work trips had a habit of corresponding to Brexit negotiation trips abroad in 2017-ish.

    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    9 minutes ago, Bibliogryphon said:

     

    Both the Conservatives and Labour are now both uneasy coalitions and Brexit has shot a bolt right through party politics I think now is the time where we have to reconsider the current voting system and introduce a form of Proportional Representation. It will free up the wings of the parties that disagree with each other to breakaway and we might get a more grown up approach to coalition.

     

    Politically the distance between Kier Starmer and Ken Clarke is a lot shorter than it is between Kier Starmer and Jeremy Corbyn or Ken Clarke and Suella Braverman

     

    tbf I'm a Glasgow socialist and, by comparison, the political distance between me and Ken Clarke is a lot shorter than it is between me and Suella Braverman or George Galloway!

    • Like 3

  5. Posted

    @RoverAndOut sorry to hear about your dad. Best wishes to him and you. I had a stroke in my early twenties and a lot of that feels familiar though I was lucky with my age and the severity level. Short term memory is buggered even today though, among other symptoms I'm stuck with! I do remember vaguely atos, or the dread and atmosphere to the interviews more than the actual questions. Anyhow I'll be cheering the demise of ids come election night.

     

    Sunak is a shithead cunt. And a Millionaire one to boot who only knows struggle when his servants are sick. I know what would help improve the nations collective mental health. A fucking election. 

     

    • Like 6

  6. Posted

    Christopher Reich also has a small but memorable role in the original Survivors, as the Doctor who realises there's a pandemic before dying of it and telling his friend (and show main character) Jenny to get to the countryside. He's also in one of the Armchair Thrillers, though not the one with the ghost nun everyone remembers.

     

    Sheena Penson is in a good Taggart but in a blink and you'll miss it extra role. She was recurring in Still Game but not memorably so.

     

    Patricia Heneghan had a recurring role in Crown Court in episodes not yet repeated by Talking Pictures. She was in a lot of the early 70s TV classics, and played a minor role in classic film Whistle down the Wind.

     

    Murray Hayne a recognisable face. Another memorable role in Survivors, Hodges from When the Boat Comes in (seemingly never off Drama), Martin in the (godawful) Brothers, and yes, as a hypnotised killer in a Tara King episode of The Avengers. One of those "that face" old school actors.

     

     

    • Like 2

  7. Posted

    6 hours ago, Philheybrookbay1 said:

    Bit late to this conversation,  but yes Portillo was seen as the next leader by most political commentators- on YouTube you can watch the election result and there's a really interesting discussion at the beginning between Portillo and Paxman where it's clear Labour will get a landslide and that Major wouldn't survive. Taxman really presses Portillo on if he expected to be the next leader - the answer he dodges but clearly Portillo is thinking about it.

     

    Of course - it all goes belly for Portillo and again after his result he's interviewed. Now he's relaxed, gloves are off and he says "well at least no more questions about becoming leader". 

     

    We got Hague, a guy I like but was never PM material and it's important to bear in mind the next leader is very unlikely to be PM as the pendulum has swung for at least 2 elections IMHO. 

     

    Mordant no chance of survival but I want to be up for the Rees- Mogg - that will be the moment hopefully!!!

     

    The weekend before the election, The Observer did a bunch of constituency polls, one of which showed Enfield Southgate as being only 3 points between Portillo and Twigg. This led to a vast influx of Labour volunteers to the seat on the final week. Anyhow, Portillo says he genuinely expected Paxman to bring this threat to his own seat up in their early discussion but Jeremy refused to. Even so, he thought it would be "worrisomely close" but not an actual defeat until he got to the count. 

     

    In 2011, Ken Clarke did one of his Ken Clarke interviews (you know, drink in hand, no tact), and said he felt Hague had made the error of going to be elected leader a parliament too early, that he should have let Ken Clarke fail in the role in 97-01 and then take over when the shine fell off Blair. Now, Clarke would say that, and I think Hague had a bit of the Kinnock about him whenever he got elected as Tory leader, but in that same interview, Clarke suggested Ed Miliband had made the exact same error, and would have been better going for the Labour job in 2015-16 when the public would be more amenable to listening. Which also turned out true, though Labour's choice of Jeremy Corbyn somewhat negated any advances!

     

    Also, while I don't think WIlliam Hague was PM material, he looked like bloody MacMillan or Disraeli next to Iain Duncan bloody Smith!

    • Like 2

  11. Posted

    11 minutes ago, TQR said:

     

    Absolutely, it's well documented how much of a shock 1992 was and how the Tories just seemed tired by the end of it. Was there ever a real prospect, as there is now with scandal after scandal and shocking poll after shocking poll, of 1997 being a genuine existential threat to the Tories?

    Worth adding that we love a political narrative and the 92 narrative ignores that polling had become much kinder to the Tories under Major but was being ignored because obviously the Tories were going to lose. John Major was quite popular with the public even among those who disliked his government.

     

    As for Blair, a lot of 95/96 political news stuff has gone up on YouTube and it's an eye-opener. Leading Tories several times pointing out the polls can be wrong, they are hearing a different story on the doors, Tony Blair hasn't won over the public and Labour don't have any policies. I was getting deja vu watching. A lot of Tories legit thought the polling was wrong and that's been backed up to me by campaigners and candidates from the time. It also chimes with my admittedly childhood memories that Blair became popular after the election. But as with 1992 we like our narratives binary.

     

    I think now is worse because frankly many people respected Major, Ken Clark, Michael Forsyth, etc even as they voted them out. Who has genuine widespread respect in this cabinet? I always try to be fair and even then I'm struggling for names.

    • Like 3

  13. Posted

    10 minutes ago, Commtech Sio Bibble said:

    Of your big 5, I'd swap out George Burns with Gloria Stuart, and if Eva makes it to her 100th I'd say she'd take Glynis Johns place. On the tier below I'd 100% add Nehemiah Persoff, Earl Cameron and maybe Caren Marsh Doll. 

     

    I'd keep Burns over Stuart, personally.

     

    Also I was today years old when I found out that, despite the press calling her a centenarian on her death (which I vaguely remember), Lillian Gish was only 99 1/2. I guess not everyone who makes 99 will make it to 100 or something.

    • Like 3

  20. Posted

    12 minutes ago, YoungWillz said:

    I simply do not accept this is a war in its purest sense.

     

    This is an operation to kill terrorists. I'm seeing no organised army in Palestine which justifies the horrors going on there. 

     

    The only thing I can draw equivalence to is this. For example, the folk who blew up the London Underground and the London bus on 7 July 2005 were from Leeds and Aylesbury. Now let's assume the British intelligence had evidence that there were other members of a cell in those locations. What would they do? 

     

    A. Have a special operation to seek out those suspects and bring them to justice. 

     

    Or

     

    B. Bomb the shit out of Leeds and Aylesbury in the hope of killing the suspects associated with the attack.

     

    The casualties among civilians and the malnutrition and starvation just are not justified. You send your operatives into the tunnels, you seek out your enemy and keep civilian death to a minimum.

     

    Netanyahu's history of course is quite different. He seems quite content with indiscriminate death and destruction which is not being very successful in releasing hostages or targeting terrorists.  The hateful talk of right wing settlers in Israel looking forward to having beach front properties in Gaza after this operation feeds this narrative.

     

    This Lavender thing is just more evidence of a "don't care who dies" policy.

     

    A reminder that back in the nineties small steps were being made towards, if not peace, understanding. Then a fanatic, inspired by the words of Benjamin Netanyahu, shot Israeli leader Rabin dead. (In case you think I'm being unfair, a few weeks before Rabin was shot, Netanyahu led a protest march where he brought out a noose and had folk chant Death to Rabin.) Despite inflaming a situation that directly lead to the assassination of a political opponent, Netanyahu was able to take power afterwards, on the basis of being the strongman who can protect Israel from violence. And any time moves were made on either side (not enough of course) he was there to snuff them out. He built a coalition of the fearful, the trusting and the xenophobic. 

     

    The attacks in October were an existential crisis for Netanyahu, because his entire career is based on being the strongman who prevents this, and it turned out his entire life was built on bollocks and lies, and his own actions had made things much, much worse.

     

    The IDF attack on the charity workers doesn't surprise, because Jeremy Bowen (well known BBC journalist) was specifically targeted in 2000. There's been a flexible definition of enemy combatants used in the past, for which the buck stops with the man in charge: Benjamin Netanyahu.

     

    For the terminally thick (not you, Willz), this does not mean the anti-semites are right. Fuck them. Israelis have a right to exist same as the rest of us, and racists can get to fuck, but...  the Palestinians also have those rights. This is only going to end through some form of two state peace treaty, and the warmonger leaders pretty much need to be removed for any chance of that to succeed. (This includes Hamas, who aren't the voices of all Palestine as much as Netanyahu isn't the voice of all Israel.)

     

    It's not surprising, but it is extremely depressing. I can't see either side getting rid of their cunts, and meanwhile, children and innocents continue to die horribly.

    • Like 16
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