Off Topic Politics Thread

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
Woohoo.! The Guardian has been informed that GCHQ were first to catch Trump's circle of followers and Russian agents passing information back and forth since 2015: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia

I watched Snowden [2015] recently and I can oh-so-easily see how they got hold of the information. Especially when even the United States security agencies doff their IT hats to 'the Brits' for writing loads of today's infiltration software.

Very, very good film, by the way.
 
So you can't take your child out of school, for a holiday, without risking getting fined.
Now 1 in 6 state schools have written to parents asking for monthly contributions, to subsidise the "free" state education the children are entitled to.
Can't have the hoi polloi becoming too well educated, I guess, hence the funding cuts.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/cash-strapped-schools-beg-parents-10192677

Always thought this was likely to happen - paying for your chldren's text and notebooks. Wonderful!!!! Then teachers will be expected to pay to park in the school car park, students will need to pay for entry to the sports hall.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Number 1 Jasper
Always thought this was likely to happen - paying for your chldren's text and notebooks. Wonderful!!!! Then teachers will be expected to pay to park in the school car park, students will need to pay for entry to the sports hall.
Well, staff have to pay to park in NHS hospital car parks. Before I retired 3 years ago I had £35 deducted from my salary every month because I drove my car to work, not that I had any alternative means of getting there!
 
Well, staff have to pay to park in NHS hospital car parks. Before I retired 3 years ago I had £35 deducted from my salary every month because I drove my car to work, not that I had any alternative means of getting there!

That is incredible. That was the pay increase gone then for many employees in the NHS!!
 
I bet that went down well. Celebration time guys, we're all getting a real-terms pay cut <cheers>

Yeah, words lead and balloon come to mind.

Boss is relatively new as well, think they thought it might be a good start to building relations by announcing good news alongside all the **** that's going on...I would say they misjudged both the situation and mood <ok>
 
1% again this year was it not?

Meanwhile, Cameron and Osbourne are filling their boots on the after dinner circuit.

It is rarely mentioned when someone's given rant time on the BBC to complain about lazy/lucky NHS staff having generous pensions, that they always lag behind average pay increases during times like these. No one disputes pensions can (well used to) be better than the private sector, but nurses especially are running about 14% behind the rate of inflation and 19% behind average pay increases over the last 10yrs.

My wife (who bless her soldiers on as a mental health nurse) had to listen on Tuesday's Today program to a government spokesperson telling lies about automatic increments and accusing nurses of being inflexible, so to blame themselves for the low pay rise.

I've said for a long time we'll end up with the NHS we're (or more correctly the politicians) willing to pay for.
 
Yeah, words lead and balloon come to mind.

Boss is relatively new as well, think they thought it might be a good start to building relations by announcing good news alongside all the **** that's going on...I would say they misjudged both the situation and mood <ok>

I was handed a few of those poisoned challices during my management career at Royal Mail. At one time, well before privatisation, there was an employee share scheme where we all got a certificate which we were told would mature in 5 years and pay out a sum dependent on the success of the business (note the use of the word 'business' rather than 'service').

The CWU always argued that the shares were bogus, but it did pay out a dividend annually, & all us managers were instructed to sing the praises of the scheme.

Then one morning as I was going in to work, I got a call from my boss. He said to get everyone together straight away, and tell them the news; the shares had been evaluated by Royal Mail's new senior management team and assigned a value of Zero. Zip. Zilch. The square root of **** All, in fact. And the story was about to break in the national press, so make sure you tell them before they read it in The Sun.

Not my best ever start to the working day, & this was repeated by other poor bastards at Royal Mail premises the length and breadth of the country. Cheers for that, Royal Mail.
 
I was handed a few of those poisoned challices during my management career at Royal Mail. At one time, well before privatisation, there was an employee share scheme where we all got a certificate which we were told would mature in 5 years and pay out a sum dependent on the success of the business (note the use of the word 'business' rather than 'service').

The CWU always argued that the shares were bogus, but it did pay out a dividend annually, & all us managers were instructed to sing the praises of the scheme.

Then one morning as I was going in to work, I got a call from my boss. He said to get everyone together straight away, and tell them the news; the shares had been evaluated by Royal Mail's new senior management team and assigned a value of Zero. Zip. Zilch. The square root of **** All, in fact. And the story was about to break in the national press, so make sure you tell them before they read it in The Sun.

Not my best ever start to the working day, & this was repeated by other poor bastards at Royal Mail premises the length and breadth of the country. Cheers for that, Royal Mail.

<laugh>

Sorry mate, I shouldn't laugh, but that's a cracking story.
 
Quite right Helen! the gender inequality gap on psychopaths needs addressing! You've only got Mrs. May and Marine Le Pen. We need some more positive discrimination to make a more balanced society! :)
In fairness, I don't think that May is psychopathic, but I'll certainly give you Le Pen.