Why the Guardian is going down the pan!

[DotCommunist]

this was nice:

'Macron is a pound-shop Margaret Thatcher'

Somebody give him a bag of crisps and a half



I know this is the 'guardian is shit' thread but that was fairly refreshing given how egregiously the groan tongues macrons ringpiece normally

 

[rekil]

Why it's time to retire the "x is a pound shop y" apophthegm

 

[newbie]

My adblock hasn't changed but today I'm seeing adverts where yesterday I wasn't.

 

[butchersapron]

 

[DotCommunist]

just marry him then GMG

Dandruff diplomacy: why Macron groomed Trump but Merkel got the brush-off

 

[J Ed]

just marry him then GMG

Dandruff diplomacy: why Macron groomed Trump but Merkel got the brush-off

You would think that the closeness of the relationship to Trump might be cause to reconsider their Macron worship but no, it only makes it stronger. Big liberal strongman.

 

[The Pale King]

You would think that the closeness of the relationship to Trump might be cause to reconsider their Macron worship but no, it only makes it stronger. Big liberal strongman.

'Muscular liberalism'

 

[ska invita]

My impression is the Guardian can take a good dose of credit for Rudd's scalp. They've been steadily reporting the deportations and other injustices the last two years, pretty much on their own, and I think they hit the final nail in the coffin yesterday. Looks like good campaigning and investigative journalism to me.

 

[bemused]

My impression is the Guardian can take a good dose of credit for Rudd's scalp. They've been steadily reporting the deportations and other injustices the last two years, pretty much on their own, and I think they hit the final nail in the coffin yesterday. Looks like good campaigning and investigative journalism to me.

Publishing the letter of her outlining targets was the key moment.

 

[redsquirrel]

Pass the sick bucket. Lovely, lovely developers and council leaders

Bradford council’s chief executive, Kersten England, is a woman on a mission. She burns with a determination to pull the city around, and aims “to make Bradford the Shoreditch of South Yorkshire”. She declines to join the northern chorus for more grants, subsidies and attention from London. ... She wants “not to do things, but to help others to do them” – to facilitate the revival of an “alternative Bradford”.

Up the road from Rawson Square is David Craig’s Assembly warehouse, host to a group of freelance designers and publishers. ... He and his colleagues “have a passion for the city”, even though only a few live there. As yet they are less a hub than an oasis.

Bradford is the most challenging by far. It is lucky to have in England, her council leader, Susan Hinchliffe, and Leeds’s Judith Blake, leaders of stature and intelligence, who seem to get the point of Yorkshire’s future. They are well-placed to capitalise on a promised new dawn in Yorkshire politics, with Labour MP Dan Jarvis who will run for mayor of South Yorkshire.

 

[Admiral Fitz]

Pass the sick bucket. Lovely, lovely developers and council leaders

Why the fuck would any one want to live in the actual Shoreditch, never mind "The Shoreditch of South Yorkshire". Outstanding, now they can pay £7.50 for a bowl of fucking cereal in some shitty hipster cafe.

 

[belboid]

I see they have amended the article now. You'd have hoped the Manchester Guardian might recognise the difference between South and West Yorkshire.

 

[rekil]

Across the world, democracy is in crisis. Here’s my plan to save it | Dambisa Moyo

I have been examining electoral systems across the world. In many democracies, including the US and UK, migrants are required to pass government-sanctioned civic tests in order to gain citizenship. So, in this vein, why not give all voters a test of their knowledge? This would ensure minimum standards that should lead to higher-quality decision-making by the electorate. The message this would send is that voting is not just a right, but one that has to be earned. Such testing would not only lead to a better-informed electorate, but also to voters who are more actively engaged.

 

[emanymton]

Across the world, democracy is in crisis. Here’s my plan to save it | Dambisa Moyo

It has become necessary to destroy democracy in order to save it.

 

[DotCommunist]

Across the world, democracy is in crisis. Here’s my plan to save it | Dambisa Moyo

we've had various stripes of this from liberals since the brexit reff, wankers

 

[DotCommunist]

'She currently serves on the boards of Barclays Bank, the financial services group, Seagate Technology, Chevron Corporation, and Barrick Gold, the global miner.'

it'll be salt not gold come the day

 

[SpookyFrank]

Publishing the letter of her outlining targets was the key moment.

And waiting until she'd denied all knowledge of those targets to publish it.

 

[redsquirrel]

Across the world, democracy is in crisis. Here’s my plan to save it | Dambisa Moyo

Dambisa Moyo is a global economist and author. She serves on the boards of Seagate Technology and Barclays Bank

Lovely. One for the anti-democray of liberals thread.

 

[DotCommunist]

I'm not even going to read the piece in todays one by stephen kinnock, the man is thick as fucking shit

 

[stavros]

Can anyone counter my intuition that this idea is a bad one? A radical way to cut emissions – ration everyone’s flights | Sonia Sodha

 

[MickiQ]

Can anyone counter my intuition that this idea is a bad one? A radical way to cut emissions – ration everyone’s flights | Sonia Sodha

Nope agree with you, I presume that the number of air miles everyone gets doesn't include the cost of buying the tickets so poor people get an allowance they can't use, so they have no choice but to sell it on the open market getting a significant sum of money for it which sounds good, except supply and demand kicks in, lots of poor people selling their allowance drives prices down making it cheaper for rich people to fly anyway so rich pay a bit more and poor get a lot less.
Then some bright spark in a focus group says "Hey we're giving people free money here, if they sell it lets tax it, if they're on benefits let's stop an equivalent sum out of their housing benefit (or whatever) so poor people end up subsidising rich people's air travel out of their benefits.

 

[stavros]

My initial thought was that it would exist within the current free market environment, where growth is often the defining factor, and the kind of shrinkage required wouldn't be accepted.

 

[MickiQ]

My initial thought was that it would exist within the current free market environment, where growth is often the defining factor, and the kind of shrinkage required wouldn't be accepted.

that makes two reasons it's a stupid idea, well-meaning perhaps but still stupid.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Can anyone counter my intuition that this idea is a bad one? A radical way to cut emissions – ration everyone’s flights | Sonia Sodha

It's the 'tradeable' bit I disapprove of, poor folks who maybe can't afford to fly anyway selling their allowane to the rich. Any kind of attempt to marketise stuff like this is doomed to fail IMO, as it's not going to stop the most damaging beaviour ie business cunts hooning it around the globe all the time. It would need to be global too or our business cunts will piss and moan about how they're now at a disadvantage against German or Japanese business cunts.

e2a: She's actually suggesting businesses get an air miles allowance as if they were people. These fucking liberals, even when they've nailed down 'global capitalism' as the principle cause of a problem they still look for a solution rooted in global capitalism and which won't upset any capitalists

 

[MickiQ]

It's the 'tradeable' bit I disapprove of, poor folks who maybe can't afford to fly anyway selling their allowane to the rich. Any kind of attempt to marketise stuff like this is doomed to fail IMO, as it's not going to stop the most damaging beaviour ie business cunts hooning it around the globe all the time. It would need to be global too or our business cunts will piss and moan about how they're now at a disadvantage against German or Japanese business cunts.

e2a: She's actually suggesting businesses get an air miles allowance as if they were people. These fucking liberals, even when they've nailed down 'global capitalism' as the principle cause of a problem they still look for a solution rooted in global capitalism and which won't upset any capitalists

it won't fail so much as become yet another tradeable commodity, there are already way too many people creaming off the top by buying and selling stuff that doesn't actually exist without adding more.

 

[SpookyFrank]

it won't fail so much as become yet another tradeable commodity, there are already way too many people creaming off the top by buying and selling stuff that doesn't actually exist without adding more.

It'll also provide new and exciting forms of inequality.

I'm damned if I'm gonna give up my very occasional flight to somewhere cheap and cheerful to try and save the planet when there's other people cunting about in private planes just to show they can. If we're all doomed anyway I wanna die with some nice memories of that week in Sardinia.

But if there's a market, and if I can make a few much needed pennies in a lean month by selling my year's allowance of flying, the reality is I'll probably end up doing it. I'll still be on the bones of my arse, but that prospect of maybe getting away somewere in a few months' time will be gone.

The only fair way to do it would be ground everyone in Europe and the US until the nice people of Mozambique and El Salvador have had the chance to fly around as much as we have already, then ban flights for everyone.

 

[MickiQ]

I'm not totally convinced that this plan wouldn't actually increase flights for some people, In 31 years of marriage Mrs MickiQ and I (accompanied by 0 to 4 children) have had 17 foreign holidays, 12 UK ones and 2 years with no holidays at all. In all cases the deciding factor on where to go has been money, Under this woman's plan we would get our air miles allowance for three short-haul flights a year but we have only ever taken 1 so we would have been able to sell 2 and use the money to at least subsidise if not completely pay for the 3rd which would probably means some if not all of the 12 UK holidays would have been foreign instead using a plane rather than packing the kids and all their crap into the car.

 

[stavros]

I'm not totally convinced that this plan wouldn't actually increase flights for some people, In 31 years of marriage Mrs MickiQ and I (accompanied by 0 to 4 children) have had 17 foreign holidays, 12 UK ones and 2 years with no holidays at all. In all cases the deciding factor on where to go has been money, Under this woman's plan we would get our air miles allowance for three short-haul flights a year but we have only ever taken 1 so we would have been able to sell 2 and use the money to at least subsidise if not completely pay for the 3rd which would probably means some if not all of the 12 UK holidays would have been foreign instead using a plane rather than packing the kids and all their crap into the car.

I would be wary of equating going abroad with flying. For Western Europe, ferries* and high speed trains achieve the same end result, albeit probably less quickly for those outside the South-East.

*Boat travel not being without negative environmental side effects.

 

[MickiQ]

I would be wary of equating going abroad with flying. For Western Europe, ferries* and high speed trains achieve the same end result, albeit probably less quickly for those outside the South-East.

*Boat travel not being without negative environmental side effects.

The Guardian article was about air travel especially long distance, apart from 2 trips to Florida, all our flights have indeed been Western Europe (Croatia the farthest) however for the MickiQ's the only way off this island is by air, Mrs MickiQ is scared of flying but the only way I would get her through the Chunnel would be to knock her out first, strange for a woman that loves to travel.

 

[Poi E]

Guardian engaged Tory Scotsman writer to attack baby boxes The SNP has caused its own baby box blues | Dani Garavelli

London media are a bunch of fucking morons.