like the queen this thread will never die: in which we ALL resign (ourselves to disgusting miseries to post-boris politics 2022)

I got that thread from an account of a person who works in and around the dwp. Thread is locked but unsurprisingly, like all government, it's in a mess so processing of claims are about six months behind so what it's in the headline charts should be higher.

also PIP is no longer available to people in Scotland and hasn't been since June-August depending what council area you live in.

I noticed they have scrapped the dreaded face to face assessments for the PIP replacement benefit in Scotland, that sounds like good news

crossing a picket line to tweet about a pr person being nice to you, great stuff

I booked on a coach for my @Channel4News shift in Leeds but got a train after discovering there’s one an hour despite #strikes . Mike Ross @LNER head of customer relations is serving drinks on the 9.05 - which left a minute early. He even upgraded me to first class! 🍾 🎉 pic.twitter.com/O7rwI8vk7S

— Cathy Newman (@cathynewman) December 14, 2022

"Investigations Editor".

xp she's deleted it already, oops I guess?

by "oops" I mean "I'm a professional political journalist but have just revealed I lack even a sixth-form understanding of industrial relations"

the BBC keeps reporting on declining public support - the important thing here is that levels of public support for the strikes is inconsequential and decisions to take industrial action should never hinge on public support. It's a majority of the public who gave this govt a huge parliamentary majority - so basically fuck them.

'left a minute early' reveals a lack of understanding of how fucking trains work!

imagine getting to the platform 59 seconds before your train is due to depart only to see it pull away and later learn that cathy newman is on board being entranced by the jingling keys of mike ross, lner head of customer relations

fkn raging

Yes, that is absurd.

FWIW I don't think that a majority of the public, or electorate, voted Con in 2019. Con party won 43.6% of the vote but that's only of those people who voted. 33% of eligible people didn't vote.

xp happened to me the other day, the button changed from green to red as my hand was heading towards it, then the train just pulled away, it was 20 seconds or so before the listed departure time, I was fuming.

you'd think it was 90% if you listened to the whingeing vox-pops on the bbc news this morning

Channel 4 News started a minute early!

Channel 4 News usually starts a few mins late, meaning I get to see the final thrilling scene of Hollyoaks.

When these people are doing their little "good honest working class Brits suffer the consequences of immigration" dance, always remember just what squeamish little babies they are when working-class *actually* assert any power or make any demands of society. https://t.co/OYbKbYCVcH

— Jack Saundrs ❤🖤 (@jack_saundrs) December 15, 2022

Murray's a Nazi and everything he says should be seen thru that filter

altho Jack's comment applies just as well to the likes of Streeting

Yeah this is it. It's a more common view across the political spectrum. All cunts.

Big day today.

This is *obviously* wrong - as @JasonGroves1 or @MrHarryCole could have ascertained with 10 seconds thought (or, assuming they can't do that, 1 minute's research). https://t.co/hA5G7hcneM

— Jonathan Portes (@jdportes) December 15, 2022

I saw her this morning making a complete pig's ear of every interview she was giving. I really think the government are backing the wrong horse in this particular dispute. Her answer to the question of why Scottish nurses weren't on strike was, "Yes, but they haven't actually accepted the Scottish government's offer yet". YES, BUT THEY AREN'T ON STRIKE THIS MORNING. YOU DIMWIT.

BREAKING 🚨 | Amazon workers vote to strike at Coventry depot in UK first.

— Trades Union Congress (@The_TUC) December 16, 2022

haven't they already gone on strike earlier in the year

good shit obviously either way

the previous one was a more or less spontaneous wildcat strike iirc

Grown up politics.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/20789328/rishi-sunak-mick-lynch-the-grinch/

Class war? Millionaires take the train?

I don’t think Sunak has, as they say, read the mood of the nation.

he said Labour admit union pay demands are “unaffordable” but they will “still take union money and undermine the interests of the travelling public unions”

he's almost correct there tbf

I think I hate Sunak more than Truss and Boris, such a smug superficial little twerp, and yet this useless cunt Starmer seems completely incapable of even landing a glove on him.

The Tories have clearly given up.

Our local surgery has suspended all routine GP appointments. The whole health system is on the verge of collapse.

— Will Jennings  (@drjennings) December 19, 2022

I do wonder how many people actually buy the Tory line on the NHS, that being that it's incompetently run and needs input from private health service providers to improve (like, er, the railways).

They aren't buying anything Tory, from the look of the opinion polls.

Given that these are the same cunts who insisted we stand outside clapping hands or banging pots and pans in support of NHS staff, I don't think the public have too much confidence in anything the Tories say about the NHS. Apart from dyed-in-the-wool Tory voting arseholes, of course.

a good time for Wes Streeting to be parroting Tory lines on the NHS. Even Mogg was saying he was glad to hear Wes talking some sense from the Labour benches.

How many people do the NHS employ? Your average person has more chance of knowing someone who works there than pretty much any other organisation in this country.

Strikes are good.

This is heartbreaking - and all too common. We print The Spectator on Wednesdays and hand over to Royal Mail every Thursday morning - pay 1st class for next-day delivery.

What then happens is a mystery. Royal Mail dysfunction now posing a real threat to weekly magazine industry https://t.co/B9RVgp5Jr5

— Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) December 20, 2022

Curious definition of "heartbreaking" there.

'Side-splitting' might be a more accurate term

Can almost hear Fraser Nelson saying "heartbreaking" in that Fraser Nelson accent, using his own invented vowel sounds.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/21/tom-watson-apologises-in-lords-for-promoting-false-abuse-allegations-labour-deputy-carl-beech

haha what a gullible fuckwit, I'd forgotten Watson's role in that comical shitshow.

Also:

Watson is now chair of the industry group UK Music and an adviser on problem gambling to the betting firm Flutter Entertainment.

It's like being an adviser on problem heroin use to the local dealer, utterly shameless.

Today I looked at a biography of George Orwell which went out of its way to say that JC, MP, was a notorious racist, and that Tom Watson MP had urged strong action against such people.

It was the most disgusting book I saw, in a large bookshop full of books.

Oh George Orwell cunts have been a thing for ages now. Did Dorian write it?

strangely not, i think it's Richard Bradford

That is accurate. The author mentioned is very prolific. It could be said that this author privileges quantity over quality.

As I recall, he produced the first ever biography of Martin Amis a few years ago, which was immediately disowned by Martin Amis.

Even if I believed the charges of racism against socialist MPs in recent years, which I don't, I would still find it strange to take up space on them in the middle of a book about an author who died over 70 years ago.

By the same token I would find it odd for a biography of Shelley to talk at length, however critically, about the views and policies of Theresa May and Rishi Sunak.

The fact that this author did this suggests that he is not just deeply wrong and malicious but also has lost all sense of place and propriety. An alternative explanation is that he had little to say about Orwell and the only way he could think of to fill space and give his publisher something to say to get attention was to make utterly irrelevant attacks on socialists from the 2010s.

Wait accusations of a pedophile ring operating in the British upper class turned out to be untrue? That’s a first.

Unproven, may well actually be true!

just because something is false doesn’t mean it’s not true

When Watson’s peerage was announced in October, the Tory former chancellor and now peer Norman Lamont called it “an absolute disgrace” and a “stain” on the Lords.

lol, when you are half in agreement with Lamont just before you lob a grenade in there. What happens if Tom discovers conclusive evidence that there really is a pedo-ring? He'll have to keep shtum because he's not a credible person!

credulous

Speaking for myself, I think the worst case scenario is the Tories remaining in power. But second worst is a majority Labour Government. There is really very little evidence it wants power for anything other than selfish reasons - a turn at the wheel.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) December 22, 2022