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Poll: Who Should Be Leader of HM Most Loyal Opposition?
This poll is closed.
Jeremy Corbyn 95 18.63%
Dennis Skinner 53 10.39%
Angus Robertson 20 3.92%
Tim Farron 9 1.76%
Paul Ukips 7 1.37%
Robot Lenin 105 20.59%
Tony Blair 28 5.49%
Pissflaps 193 37.84%
Total: 510 votes
[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

 
  • Locked thread
Gonzo McFee
Jun 19, 2010
See Tony Blair did it the wrong way around. Martin started out with war crimes as an underdog and then worked his way up to the peace process. Tony started out with the peace process and then went into war crimes.

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Pantsuit
Oct 28, 2013

forkboy84 posted:

Someone flying a plane into the Commons would at least save us the billions required to repair it.

Can't we just move the capital to Brum?

Miftan
Mar 31, 2012

Terry knows what he can do with his bloody chocolate orange...

How about Preston?

Seaside Loafer
Feb 7, 2012

Waiting for a train, I needed a shit. You won't bee-lieve what happened next

I never understood why a jet loosing pressure causes all that havoc. I mean sure all the people might suffocate but as long as it isn't the pilot and the engines are still going then it might have to go low but it still works right? Every film ever has them dropping out of the sky and crashing as soon as they loose pressure. What bit of the science am I missing?

Spangly A
May 14, 2009

God help you if ever you're caught on these shores

A man's ambition must indeed be small
To write his name upon a shithouse wall

Seaside Loafer posted:

I never understood why a jet loosing pressure causes all that havoc. I mean sure all the people might suffocate but as long as it isn't the pilot and the engines are still going then it might have to go low but it still works right? Every film ever has them dropping out of the sky and crashing as soon as they loose pressure. What bit of the science am I missing?

The plane can pull itself apart at speed but I think you'd need a pretty big hole, films are nonsense.

Oberleutnant posted:

In the government mindset people are regrettably acceptable casualties. Capital isn't - if only because the owners of capital can put a poo poo load more pressure on the government than any number of whinging, mutilated proles.

you should read james mcclean's piece about mcguinness. It's not that informative but holy poo poo the comments are hilarious

big scary monsters
Sep 2, 2011

-~Skullwave~-

Seaside Loafer posted:

I never understood why a jet loosing pressure causes all that havoc. I mean sure all the people might suffocate but as long as it isn't the pilot and the engines are still going then it might have to go low but it still works right? Every film ever has them dropping out of the sky and crashing as soon as they loose pressure. What bit of the science am I missing?

Movies aren't real. Losing a door or something isn't going to do poo poo to a modern plane, although I imagine it's going to get fairly chilly for the passengers even if they get their oxygen masks on in good time.

ShaneMacGowansTeeth
May 22, 2007



I think this is it... I think this is how it ends
If watching almost every single episode of Air Crash Investigation has told me anything, it's that the bomb would have to be sufficiently powerful enough to cause serious damage to the superstructure of the plane or take out a poo poo load of electronics and hydraulics to bring it down

crispix
Mar 28, 2015

Grand-Maman m'a raconté
(Les éditions des amitiés franco-québécoises)

Hello, dear

Miftan posted:

How about Preston?

Yes. New Parliament will be housed in an additional 4 layers on top of the bus station that look exactly like the existing layers. Very same shade of grey.

Miftan
Mar 31, 2012

Terry knows what he can do with his bloody chocolate orange...

crispix posted:

Yes. New Parliament will be housed in an additional 4 layers on top of the bus station that look exactly like the existing layers. Very same shade of grey.



Sure but we can build a huge clock next to it?

crispix
Mar 28, 2015

Grand-Maman m'a raconté
(Les éditions des amitiés franco-québécoises)

Hello, dear

Miftan posted:

Sure but we can build a huge clock next to it?

Only if it is v cheap and makes a fart noise instead of a chime. That is what we deserve as a bad, stupid and lovely country imo.

(I was in Preston once and the entire town centre smelled like school dinners.)

communism bitch
Apr 24, 2009
Cheerful article on NHS privatisation from the Private Eye website:

quote:

ACCORDING to Professor Sir Mike Richards, chief inspector of hospitals, the NHS stands on a “burning platform” with 11 percent of trusts rated inadequate by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and 70 percent requiring improvement. Understaffing and overcrowding put patients and staff at risk every day.
Meanwhile, private providers lead by Virgin Care are busy “conquering the community care space”, says HealthInvestor magazine. “A market worth around £10bn has suddenly become a private affair.” Virgin has already hoovered up more than 400 health, social care and local authority services’ contracts, worth more than £1bn. It’s “quite the portfolio”, according to HealthInvestor, and other companies are lining up to conquer what’s left. “The chance to drink in a £9bn pool is tantalising.”

There is a clear underfunding and privatising trend in NHS and local authority services. Between April 2013 and April 2016, 45 percent of the community health services that were put out to tender went to non-NHS providers. Private operators now run the following:

GP and out-of-hours services
Walk-in centres and minor injury units
District nursing
Diabetes, musculoskeletal, audiology, dermatology, physiotherapy, podiatry, rheumatology, mental health and other chronic disease services
Not to mention urgent care, phlebotomy, anti-coagulation, sexual health, wheelchair services, prison healthcare, community hospitals, neuro-rehabilitation, frail and elderly care, health visiting, services for children with complex mental, physical and sensory learning difficulties, social care for adults and children, and end-of-life care.

The whole range of community healthcare has now been privatised while Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt – and Tony Blair and Alan Milburn before them – have the gall to repeat the lie that the NHS is not for sale. The NHS has outsourced its very essence – much of the complex, difficult care that requires close collaboration and team working has been contracted out. Virgin argues that such care was fragmented when the NHS offered it and that it has a much better chance of joining it up under one organisation. The more it hoovers up, the more it can join up.
Former health secretary Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Act has allowed companies like Virgin to aggressively tender for any service they want, and to legally challenge the award of any contract that doesn’t allow them to make a pitch. That pitch is deceptively simple. “Our aim is to make a real difference to people’s lives by offering NHS and social care services that are better than what went before, a great experience for everyone and better value for the public and the NHS.”

When the NHS pitches for services it tends to be far more downbeat, citing the reality of trying to keep an underfunded, understaffed service afloat in the face of rising public demand and expectation. It’s easy to see how the clinical commissioning groups and local authorities who award the contracts fall for the optimistic swagger of Virgin. The company generally employs the NHS staff who were providing the services previously, and gives them smart phones, colour printers and other gadgets you have to fight for in the NHS. It claims that 93 percent of customers recommend its services to friends and family. If it can provide better services than the NHS for the same cost or less, then why not?

NHS commissioners are often naïve (remember PFI?), and get turned over in contracts, which companies stick to aggressively. “If it’s not in the contract, we’re not doing it” rarely equates with universal healthcare. Yet despite some tough negotiating, Virgin Care has yet to make a profit in seven years doing business. In the year ending 31 March 2015, turnover was reported as £40.38m leading to a gross profit of £5.2m, but with administrative expenses of more than £20m, the company made a loss of £9.1m. When will shareholders start demanding it balances the books and cuts back on smart phones?

Virgin recently lost its community services contract for children in Surrey. As a whistleblower told the Eye: “Virgin Care are now concentrating on recouping as much money as possible […] threatening removal of laptops and mobile phones with little thought for safe transfer of care. They have been restricting information sharing with the new provider and talking about intellectual property rights. Many staff are feeling anxious about being able to carry on with ‘business as usual’ on 1 April.” Meanwhile, the government is launching 10-year multi-specialty community provider contracts to take the pressure off hospitals. “It’s another lucrative opportunity for the private sector,” says HealthInvestor.

M.D.
:suicide: Thank god for Big Tone, eh?

EmptyVessel
Oct 30, 2012

Oberleutnant posted:

Cheerful article on NHS privatisation from the Private Eye website:

:suicide: Thank god for Big Tone, eh?

Unfortunately for the world the god in question was Moloch.

goddamnedtwisto
Dec 31, 2004

If you ask me about the mole people in the London Underground, I WILL be forced to kill you
Fun Shoe

Seaside Loafer posted:

I never understood why a jet loosing pressure causes all that havoc. I mean sure all the people might suffocate but as long as it isn't the pilot and the engines are still going then it might have to go low but it still works right? Every film ever has them dropping out of the sky and crashing as soon as they loose pressure. What bit of the science am I missing?

There's a couple of different effects. At high speed, the hole will be enlarged by the fuselage peeling away in the airstream. At high altitude, the sheer force of air will enlarge the hole even further and if any loose item happens to block the hole thanks to the fluid hammer effect - all of the air is moving towards the hole, anything blocking that movement will suddenly be dealing with a much higher transient pressure - the effect is massively multiplied. This happened with Aloha Airlines Flight 243:



Rather gruesomely the loose object that helped enlarge the 30-cm hole into... that was a flight attendant, miraculously the only fatality. The only reason the plane was able to land is that the area of roof lost happened to be right above the main spar, the strongest area of the aircraft. Had it been behind the spar, or below the centreline, the loss of structural integrity would have torn the aircraft apart, and even if by some miracle it hadn't all of the control lines run along the bottom half, so it's going to end badly anyway. Modern aircraft are monocoques, with the outer skin of the plane accounting for most of the stiffness of the aircraft, and it only needs a surprisingly small amount of it to be lost in the right/wrong place to doom the plane.

The best example of this is Lockerbie. The bomb was fairly big compared to a laptop battery but needed to be because it was in the cargo hold - if you were able to guarantee that it would be detonated against the aircraft skin you'd need a much smaller amount, as little as 100g of TNT. It blew "only" a 20cm hole in the side but as the plane was at cruising speed and altitude the decompression, plus the effect of the cargo being sucked through the hole, ripped the entire nose off the aircraft, with the rest of it disintegrating afterwards because blowing air at 600 mph into a thin-walled tube that no longer has anything holding it together tends to be a bit disruptive.

The losing altitude thing is a Hollywood invention, a hole in the side won't make the plane drop (although it may cause all sorts of changes in attitude because of the thrust from the decompression and the disruption of the control surfaces) but of course the very first thing the crew will do in the event of decompression is get the plane down below 8,000 feet as quickly as is safely possible to avoid more damage and injury.

goddamnedtwisto fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Mar 21, 2017

big scary monsters
Sep 2, 2011

-~Skullwave~-
Move Parliament to the centre of the country: Carlisle.

Fangz
Jul 5, 2007

Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

Oberleutnant posted:

Cheerful article on NHS privatisation from the Private Eye website:

:suicide: Thank god for Big Tone, eh?

Not sure why you are blaming Blair when the period it talks about is between 2013 and 2016. But hey, cool, let's disarm the NHS issue by blaming Labour somehow.

communism bitch
Apr 24, 2009

Fangz posted:

Not sure
Yeah, that's you all over, but it don't stop you making GBS threads up the thread with your worthless opinions.

Fangz
Jul 5, 2007

Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!
Do you people really prefer I didn't post here? Because, okay.

LemonDrizzle
Mar 28, 2012

neoliberal shithead
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/21/labour-membership-expected-to-fall-below-half-a-million

quote:

Labour membership is expected to fall below half a million for the first time since its peak under Jeremy Corbyn because about 40,000 people are in arrears.
The unusual number of lapsed payments was discussed at a meeting of Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) on Tuesday, as the drop will hit Labour’s budget.
A source present at the meeting said the number of members who are up to date with their payments is now about 483,000, with about 40,000 having fallen behind.
The peak of party membership under Corbyn was 554,000 members as of last July, which had fallen to 528,000 by December.
However, senior party figures warned at the time that this lower figure might not reflect the scale of people leaving the party, as some might have simply cancelled their direct debits without informing the party formally that they wanted to leave.
The membership figure as of the general election on 6 May 2015 was 201,293.
...
A Labour source said many of those who gave a reason for resigning their membership said it was because of Corbyn’s decision to whip his MPs in favour of voting for article 50.

Lt. Danger
Dec 22, 2006

jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

Fangz posted:

Do you people really prefer I didn't post here? Because, okay.

Post what you like, where you like, but most people aren't a fan of disingenuousness - and that extends to pretending that this kind of response is 'personal'.

namesake
Jun 19, 2006

"When I was a girl, around 12 or 13, I had a fantasy that I'd grow up to marry Captain Scarlet, but he'd be busy fighting the Mysterons so I'd cuckold him with the sexiest people I could think of - Nigel Mansell, Pat Sharp and Mr. Blobby."


Yeah not surprising really. All the actions by Blair, the Labour right and various other wealthy political backers are pretty much confirming my theory about British politics being primarily split into the nationalist right, the internationalist right (with a pro-EU base) and a rump social democratic/radical left with the drama of this realignment being centred around Labour. If Corbyn or an ideologically aligned successor remains in charge then they'll oversee a split and their MPs shrink massively to some new party phoenixing with the Lib Dems, if they're ousted then Labour will occupy the internationalist right slot and continue chasing the lead of the nationalist right.

Fangz
Jul 5, 2007

Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!
I am genuinely not sure why you would post an article about the current NHS situation and pick out the single sentence that mentions Blair. Maybe you think Blair started all this, like the Tories wouldn't be pursuing privatisation of the NHS otherwise. Maybe you don't believe that the Private Eye has a pretty right wing perspective and would like to put the boot into Labour to balance any critique of the Tories. Maybe you think Blair is somehow the real issue here so the rest of the article is pretty unimportant as long as it works as ammunition for the New Labour/Corbyn fight. Maybe you missed the fact that it's talking about 2013-2016. Or maybe you have some good reason to think that the current situation that 45% of those services being private is comparable to how it was under Blair.

But no, I'm disingenuously pushing a lovely and worthless opinion. This is all a bad opinion, unsuited for the good opinion zone of this thread. He's not exactly the first one to do the content free 'your opinions are poo poo, go away' attack so at this point I really can't be bothered. I don't think I'm adding value to anyone's day, so gently caress it.

Cerv
Sep 14, 2004

This is a silly post with little news value.

jabby posted:

Wouldn't it have to be a pretty major hole? As I recall the last laptop bomber just killed himself and the hole posed no issues with landing the plane.

relying on incompetence on the part of the other guys is never a popular strategy with the security services.
even if it's frequently not actually a bad shout

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
Is that why they're so keen to close the incompetence gap?

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Miftan posted:

I'm frankly surprised this hasn't happened sooner. Bombs are incredibly hard to locate in those types of devices even if you're looking for them, and the resources the airports put into that stuff isn't nearly enough.

A couple planes blowing up is preferable to making everyone suffer through this bullshit imo.

Pissflaps
Oct 20, 2002

by VideoGames

This is a real blow. Thanks to labour's ballooning membership the party has been able to


and



also in the future we can look forward to

Pissflaps
Oct 20, 2002

by VideoGames

namesake posted:

Yeah not surprising really. All the actions by Blair, the Labour right and various other wealthy political backers are pretty much confirming my theory about British politics being primarily split into the nationalist right, the internationalist right (with a pro-EU base) and a rump social democratic/radical left with the drama of this realignment being centred around Labour. If Corbyn or an ideologically aligned successor remains in charge then they'll oversee a split and their MPs shrink massively to some new party phoenixing with the Lib Dems, if they're ousted then Labour will occupy the internationalist right slot and continue chasing the lead of the nationalist right.

What's this cdf.txt poo poo got to do with the article posted?

Breath Ray
Nov 19, 2010

Fangz posted:

I am genuinely not sure why you would post an article about the current NHS situation and pick out the single sentence that mentions Blair. Maybe you think Blair started all this, like the Tories wouldn't be pursuing privatisation of the NHS otherwise. Maybe you don't believe that the Private Eye has a pretty right wing perspective and would like to put the boot into Labour to balance any critique of the Tories. Maybe you think Blair is somehow the real issue here so the rest of the article is pretty unimportant as long as it works as ammunition for the New Labour/Corbyn fight. Maybe you missed the fact that it's talking about 2013-2016. Or maybe you have some good reason to think that the current situation that 45% of those services being private is comparable to how it was under Blair.

But no, I'm disingenuously pushing a lovely and worthless opinion. This is all a bad opinion, unsuited for the good opinion zone of this thread. He's not exactly the first one to do the content free 'your opinions are poo poo, go away' attack so at this point I really can't be bothered. I don't think I'm adding value to anyone's day, so gently caress it.

I like your effort posts and calm demeanour. The people who dont are just lashing out

Pochoclo
Feb 4, 2008

No...
Clapping Larry
Move all Tories, Blue Labour MPs, the PM, the ministers, and all royalty to the bottom of the Mariana Trench IMO

gently caress wait that's the plot to Bioshock I guess

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
Except they genetically modified themselves by only marrying their cousins for centuries.

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

Pochoclo posted:

Move all Tories, Blue Labour MPs, the PM, the ministers, and all royalty to the bottom of the Mariana Trench IMO

gently caress wait that's the plot to Bioshock I guess

Wouldn't that just end with them pouring out of the ocean in a gibbering, mutated horde and stealing all our missile subs?

After Yewtree, I'm not optimistic enough to expect the 'mass child rescue' ending.

ThomasPaine
Feb 4, 2009

We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.
Lmao

quote:


I’m a furry. And I’m finally at home with my wild side

Brian Switek

If I could be anything, I’d be a jaguar. And not just any jaguar. One with a dark coat, blue spots, but my general humanoid shape intact along with the feline features. That’s because I’m a furry.

It took me a long time to admit that to anyone. More than 15 years. That’s because I had always heard the word “furry” as a pejorative, a term practically synonymous with fetish. At best, being open about it would open me to ridicule and at worst, well, I didn’t even want to think about the reactions of friends and family. Despite the proliferation of nerdy pop culture – from anime to cosplay – furries have always been pushed out to the fringes. Even when I decided to tell my wife about my interest in the fandom, I couldn’t hold back the anxiety. I was in a knot for days leading up to purchasing a ticket to my first furry convention at the relatively late age of 33. It was unexpected enough that my wife called me as soon as she saw the charge on our bank account. She thought some pervert had hijacked it. No, I said, I was the one going to Rocky Mountain Fur Con.

Even then, she asked me “You’re not a secret furry, are you?” To her, the term conjured the implication of people dressed up in mascot-like costumes who set about deviantly despoiling convention centre hotel rooms. All I could say was: “Not secret, but not how you think.”

Furry is not a fetish. I know that runs counter to the atrocious CSI episode about the fandom and a long-form 2001 Vanity Fair hatchet job, but furries are not bound together by some predilection for anonymous yiffing. It’s more like someone asking what superhero you’d want to be and saying no, thanks, you’d rather be a hyena or fox or deer. It’s about identity, picking a fursona – like a persona, naturally – that’s a projection of who you are or wish you could be. Instead of going to comic cons dressed up as Captain America or Black Widow, furries define an identity all their own.

Of course there’s a sexuality to the fandom. There is for almost any you can name. But that doesn’t define what brings furries together, and it would be a mistake to let the sneers and jeers of critics define the conversation. If you want to be surprised by who furries are and what they do, there’s an entire scientific profile on the matter for you to peruse. Stigma shouldn’t drive the way furries present themselves, especially during an era where a little escapism feels sorely needed.

Furries are hardly the only fandom to be misunderstood. But during a time when comic book movies are big box office and cosplaying is normal, I don’t understand why furry hate hangs on. If anything, it’s always been on the edges of our experience.

Anthropomorphic animals completely permeate our culture, from the earliest cave drawings to the Oscar-winning Zootopia (Zootropolis in the UK). People dress as animals for Halloween, identify with certain species as personal favourites, and, hell, a popular trashy novel and movie series had duelling fans debate the merits of whether the female lead should marry a blood-sucking corpse or werewolf. Whether you’re rooting for an animal-themed sports team or listening to Top 40 songs about being “hungry like the wolf”, we’re practically obsessed by crossover between the human and animal.

Furries have a culture all their own, formed through internet forums and conventions over decades. But the basic fascination has always been with us. Furries are simply drawing from our animalistic interests and curiosities to create characters for ourselves instead of trying to co-opt something already pre-packed and sold. It just so happens to be animal-shaped, and so much the better. At the heart of it, everyone’s a little bit furry.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/21/furry-wild-side-fursona-animal-nature?CMP=fb_gu

spectralent
Oct 1, 2014

Me and the boys poppin' down to the shops

Sad but not unsurprising. Local party attendance also seems to have trailed off, at least where I am, and I would assume the whip was responsible given it happened at the same time.

icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


https://mobile.twitter.com/ElwinWay/status/843377587913183232

liberalism was a mistake

Spangly A
May 14, 2009

God help you if ever you're caught on these shores

A man's ambition must indeed be small
To write his name upon a shithouse wall

he's right alex tsipras doesn't exist, isn't a real person. There is no left wing.

The guardian insult their readers intelligence every day, I don't really see the difference between nick cohen saying "gently caress off" and his normal "I'm a measured adult and you must heed my pathetic lack of substance seriously!!". Their best staff journalist is their cartoonist. They asked for experience of temp work and retracted the request when they realised their writers were temps.

Pissflaps
Oct 20, 2002

by VideoGames

Oh no the bad man used the f word.

serious gaylord
Sep 16, 2007

what.

How about that.

Pochoclo
Feb 4, 2008

No...
Clapping Larry

Isn't this mostly because unions have been on decline thanks to the efforts of neoliberalism?

Regarde Aduck
Oct 19, 2012

c l o u d k i t t e n
Grimey Drawer
I think it more likely it's because Corbyn didn't oppose Brexit.

Pissflaps
Oct 20, 2002

by VideoGames

Pochoclo posted:

Isn't this mostly because unions have been on decline thanks to the efforts of neoliberalism?

How does that explain the recent dramatic rise in membership?

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Breath Ray
Nov 19, 2010

Pissflaps posted:

How does that explain the recent dramatic rise in membership?

The spate of industrial action

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