The poor will freeze to death in the UK.

I’ve noticed one of those synchronous media campaigns that tries to appear unconnected unrolling this week in the U.K. Stories everywhere about too many students wanting to go to university - that we need a new model in which far more are put to work instead. Lots of posh academic voices in chorus chanting that their research and their superior education says that less education will be better for your kids. And you know damn well their children will all attend university).

And today the big firm PwC has said you don’t need a 2:1 degree to get a job there.

Also today there’s stories about schools possibly closing partially over winter and 4 day weeks due to high energy costs.

Coordinated stories? No, of course not! That’d be crazy!

This coming after 2 years of disrupted education for all, except the wealthy (they of course had private tutors throughout the lockdowns and places like Eton stayed open, while everyone else’s kids schools were closed).

You could be forgiven for thinking there’s a desire to have a the coming generations finish school only partially educated and go straight into work without higher education and thereafter do as they’re told because they won’t know any better.

Meanwhile monkeypox stories, double strain super vaccine being released in the U.K. first and a new alert system coming soon to the U.K. to let 85% of the population know if there’s a life threatening event…

It’s quite the number being done on us.

a reply to: nonspecific

Fair enough - guess I was triggered

It's possibly my fault as for some reason my avatar gives the impression that I'm some kind of Rees Mogg esque tory monster.

originally posted by: McGinty
a reply to: nonspecific

Fair enough - guess I was triggered

a reply to: Freeborn

That's the political rub, half of the economy is in reality necessary infrastructure, which provides jobs and should be nonprofit. Thatcher sold these off as blue chip stocks where you had to pay whatever they decided you should pay. The restructuring should be to get all these utilities back to public control, and the rest of the economy can operate under purely capitalistic principles with the Utilities underpinning the economy. Greed did this.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: Randyvine2

I'm in Scotland mate where it can become considerably colder, but England gets its fair share of bad weather also.

Cold enough to kill vulnerable pensioners, blankets or otherwise, where Hypothermia can set in without them even realizing sometimes.

OMG! that rings my empathy bell very loud just threatening human beings like that.
Surely you can see why I believe the way I believe about the people running this place
we call Earth. And why I fight holding a grudge against you who I consider a brother.
You're wrong in your ridicule if only that. And you make me struggle with that to often
even tho I know you're a good guy. And will some day soon have to say to yourself.

My God all that is true. Just try to remember that my brother. And I'm glad to
have this chance to tell you that.

a reply to: nickyw

we are a complacent society there is talk of rationing electric and gas but neither will work as we're not geared up for it as a society.. you can't shut off the gas or electric in a meaningful way as there is no fall over capability at any level.. plus health and safety gone mad mean they'd have to check all pipes, connections & appliances where gas safe before turning the gas on again..

You're relating to a catastrophe that is certain. And in my mind TPTB wouldn't
mind at all. Crazy bastards.

a reply to: anonentity

I lived through and experienced Thatcher's great sell off - I remmeber someone once likened it to selling off the family silver.
I disagreed with it back then and nothing that has happened since has changed my mind.

Many of the problems the UK currently faces can be traced back to Thatcher and her policies.
Her abandonment of the mixed economy that had both collecivism and private enterprise operating side by side to one obsessed purely with the generation of profit for a small elite completely transformed the UK.....mostly for the worse.

Incredibly our next Prime Minister will most likely be a woman who is obsessed with out-Thatchering Thatcher.

With many people predicted to die this winter, mainly the old and vulnerable, I wonder how many will actually die because of them not having heating and not because their immune system is shot because of you know what.
The fourth booster campaign will start in autumn as well.

a reply to: Freeborn

She read a book and was so taken with it she implemented all the policies in it, i can't remember the name of it. But it called for just about everything to be monetized. The sheep fell for it, and thought they would be richer by buying the council houses. I suppose in their minds they had made it to the middle class, but the burden on the less well-off has grown to such proportions they just can't afford to bail out the rich anymore. Because that's what it ended up doing.

I believe in my part of the U.S. anyway we call these kerosene heaters. I have one and always keep at least six large refill drums for the winter, more in times like these. They really work to heat an area fast and well, plus the one I have I can boil water and cook a pizza on top in case the power goes down. a reply to: andy06shake

a reply to: Freeborn
The Thatcher years are burnt into the minds of those of a certain age in the UK.

Those feeling still run deep to this day.

Got rid of Boris, and now all the news we see here in America is NEGATIVE UK news.

a reply to: Freeborn

while living through Thatcherism and 3rd way politics, youth unemployment in brighton was in the region of 80% so most of us leaving school ended up as slave labour on YTS, and yet I was still a blinkered non political back then, parents brought then lost their council home.

When I did start voting it was for the person not the party, took a while to loose those blinkers too that came when the Libdems joined the cons in office and my local mp dropped his campaign to find out what happened to Dr Kelly.

however I've always been pondered how the captive monopolies could avid morphing into the zombie markets of pre British rail days of chits, yet that is what happened and it reinfected the rest of the economy with that disease.

for me this culminated in supporting leaving the EU which has also become a zombie marketplace filled with fake competition, from the campaigning and same discussion i was part of it was more a leveller "an agreement of the people" kind of thing some nefarious plan..

bottom line is whoever leads has to understand that regardless of party they have a country filled with lollards and levellers, Johnson's hubris like henry8 was his downfall..

as was not fixing the economic structural flaws of 2007/8, not unpicking the various zombie markets and fake competition that has taken us to this place we are where everything is breaking.

that lies at the core of why I feel we verge on a new reformation starting this autumn rather than civil conflict, most people still want the basics, clean water to drink and wash in, GP and hospital appointments when they need them schools that get kids ready for the real world, warm food and a roof over their head..

At this point the entire system is failing on all the basics and no party stands ready to address the structural problems which is why when the catastrophic failure comes this winter they'll all go into flailing chicken mode without any plans to fix what is broken just knee jerk promises which we are already hearing.

at the bottom the west looks looks in the same catastrophic space as the fail of the soviets..

a reply to: carewemust

that's ok as it is accepted with shrugs how the democrats dislike the English and have a few axes to grind notable recent ones include Syrian red lines, Libya/Bengasi and more recently Afghanistan.. not to mention being plague & terf island.. if we are going to be fair and rounded while the US exports its cultural conflicts it also ends up importing them too.. oh and when they say the brits are coming am not sure they ever thought it would be peppa pig

a reply to: Randyvine2

OMG! that rings my empathy bell very loud just threatening human beings like that.

Don't know about threatening, seems to me its more like extortion rather than a mere threat.

Surely you can see why I believe the way I believe about the people running this place
we call Earth.

Politicians and bankers? Well they are not in it for the goodness of mankind alone no matter what they claim, its all about money and profit mate been that way for quite sometime.

And why I fight holding a grudge against you who I consider a brother.

Hold a grudges is a pointless exercise unless there is reason for the anger, bitterness, or resentment.

Certainly none of that on my end so cheers for the sentiment.

You're wrong in your ridicule if only that. And you make me struggle with that to often
even tho I know you're a good guy.

I don't know about ridicule but i have been know to attempt to use humor as a sort of defense mechanism should a crux arsis that vexes me somewhat.

And will some day soon have to say to yourself.

Well im sure your heart is in the right place.

May i ask, what more do you imagine our respective words amount to if not us having our say?

My God all that is true. Just try to remember that my brother. And I'm glad to
have this chance to tell you that.

No problem Randyvine2, you have yourself a nice day.

a reply to: andy06shake

No problem Randyvine2, you have yourself a nice day.

That's becoming extremely difficult for the realist.

a reply to: Randyvine2

You just have to go with the flow buddy.



And make hay while the sun shines so to speak.

a reply to: Cymru

Fecking milk thief!

a reply to: Cymru

Double my bad.

a reply to: McGinty

the middle class and academics have always hated the poor working class its a thing going back to William1, their worst excesses they now pretend are not theirs where always perfected on the English first from salting their farms to craft famines to shipping bodies as labour across the planet, the last shipments of such labour ended in the 1970s..

some of the greater poets have picked up on the theme in their works, Kipling and Chesterton examples include Tommy, the last of the light brigade, the rolling English road and the land.. many of which made it into song by the likes of Peter Belamy and Maddie prior, but the words show the hatred the middle class have for those they share this island with is not new, equally in ages gone they would rather cheer on the likes of napoleon than their own people.. its why they don't want them in their universities.