Member Info for mick-b

Man's a madman

HOPE his gun jams and a big 7 ft grizzly tears him apart slowly so endures endless pain.

‼️wildlife is magical and should be left alone for future generations to adore‼️

"This siege and assault of the Chechen capital resulted in the widespread devastation of Grozny. In 2003, the United Nations designated Grozny as the most destroyed city on Earth due to the extensive damage it suffered. The battle had a devastating impact on the civilian population."

You have to be brutal to be a dictator in Russia.

Putin proved his brutality in destroying Grozny

TRO

Many seem to have an accent which seems strange to me.

If they came to Britain one would expect them to be supportive of the West.

I can understand their distain for supporting Israel.

But Ukraine?

That would account for the large numbers of recent Putin apologists that come on LBC to spout absolute rubbish....blaming the WEST‼️

Poland spends over 4% of its GDP on defence.

WE should do the same.....

and no more aircraft carriers that keep breaking down.

Depends on the size of the fenders.

BALTIMORE BRIDGE.

latest...

1000 engineers and five cranes on site.

plus army and navy personnel.

Big blow for the DUP.

London and NI will be very worried going forward.

BALTIMORE BRIDGE.

Fenders where supposed to be installed, but never were.

Fenders guide a ship away from bridge supports.

He's very good.

One of TROAJAN favourites too.

CONTINUED......

The country’s main animal health laboratory in Weybridge, Surrey, has “deteriorated at an alarming extent”. It has a £2.8 billion piecemeal redevelopment plan over 15 years but if it fails, “the UK will have no capacity to react to new and emerging animal disease threats”.

There are a large number of failures among IT systems across Whitehall -some of them impacting on the general public – notably the DWP underpaying pensioners.

The report says: “DWP has underpaid pensioners £2.5 billion,138 with errors dating back to 1985, and many more pensioners may still be under-claiming. 90% of these underpaid pensioners are women. The errors were due to outdated systems dating back to 1988.”

The next Government will inherit a long list of ‘big nasties’ from the Conservatives which will cost hundreds of billions of pounds to clear up, a report by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, warns today.

After a year when her committee examined projects across Whitehall, the NHS and schools the chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, Dame Meg Hillier, lists what she calls a catalogue of “big nasties – essential spending which cannot be put off”.

The list includes failed projects to tackle crumbling schools, hospitals, public health laboratories, outdated IT and renewing and refurbishing Parliament.

She warns: “All too often, we have seen money misdirected or squandered, not because of corruption, but because of group-think, intransigence, inertia, and cultures which discourage whistle-blowing. On occasion, the scale of failure has been seismic, such as HS2 or Horizon in the Post Office, or the procurement of PPE during Covid. Other times, there has been a systemic failure to be agile and adaptable as events unfolded.”

Unless this is tackled she warns: “my successors as chair of the PAC will be doomed to a cycle of broken promises and wasted cash in perpetuity.”

The report produces eye-watering shortfalls of money showing where short-termism by the present Government has worsened the state of public services.

In schools instead of spending £5.3 billion a year to refurbish or replace crumbling schools attended by 700,000 pupils, the Treasury cut this to £3.1 billion a year increasing the backlog.

In the NHS the backlog of crumbling hospitals has jumped from £4.7 billion to £10.2 billion after the NHS raided the capital programme to keep patient services going. Despite spending £178.3 billion a year patient services are worse, waiting lists longer, particularly for cancer patients who need urgent treatment.

A delayed £530 million programme to modernise public health laboratories which handle the most dangerous diseases such as Ebola and Lassa fever will now cost £3.2 million. Failure to implement it “would present a significant risk to public health,” says the report.

The report says a decision not to decommission 20 nuclear submarines which have been withdrawn from service since 1980 has left the ministry of defence with a £500m maintenance bill and it has run out of space of where to store them. The ministry now has a £7.5 billion future liability to dispose of them.

The Ministry of Justice now has a £900 million maintenance backlog on the prison estate and plans to create 10,000 new prison places have only seen 206 new places.

Some £100 billion of spending by local councils remains unaccountable because of a shortage of auditors and councils like Birmingham, Nottingham, Slough and Thurrock have gone effectively bankrupt.

CONTINUE...

Few weeks have demonstrated the need for honest, independent, public interest journalism quite like this one.

As Britain prepares to head to the polls for the May local elections, the Conservative Party has launched a series of highly misleading adverts seeking to scare voters about what “life under Labour” would look like.

The first of these adverts focused on Labour’s London mayor Sadiq Khan and the supposed “chaos” experienced since he “seized power” in the city. As I reported this week, the advert was filled with deeply misleading and false claims and even contained images, not of London, but of New York City.

Yet despite one small edit, the advert remains in place on the Conservative party’s social media channels, suggesting that the government’s recent bid to clamp down on online “disinformation” will not be extended to themselves. Nor, it appears, will it be extended to the Government’s own media allies or those charged with regulating them.

The ongoing impunity of the hard-right TV news channel GB News grows more remarkable by the day, as it continues to breach broadcasting regulations, without any effective action being taken by Ofcom.

The channel has repeatedly spread misinformation and conspiracy theories, and is staffed by a series of Conservative MPs, riding roughshod over impartiality requirements.

Their line up will soon be added to by the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is set to have his own show on the channel. The influence of the channel doesn’t stop there however. GB News’ key funder Paul Marshall is currently bidding to take over the Daily Telegraph, which has just hired the former Home Secretary and GB News favourite Suella Braverman as a columnist.

All of this should alarm anyone concerned about media regulation and the spread of misinformation. However, with Ofcom apparently unwilling to act, others are seeking to take action themselves.

As Julian Petley explained this week, he now plans to join with the Goodlaw Project and take Ofcom to court, unless they can explain why GB News is being held to different standards to every other broadcaster.

We are now at the end game of this appalling decision

Surprise surprise it was the conservatives who came up with it

They sold something that we already owned. much like council houses the rail network and other utility providers

Conservatism does not work

Privatisation is a con

Private water companies are in huge debt to reduce their tax burden

So as well as avoiding paying tax for years, they also want taxpayers to cough up

“Thames Water boss says bills need to rise by 40%.” Here’s why

https://twitter.com/ByDonkeys/status/1773364100208132482

Beautiful Barcelona.....lucky man.

Most of us only speak one language so you're well head of the rest of us.

So please don't apologise as your post was completely understandable.

But maybe your valuation of 70 pence is a little too much.

Cheers 🍻

.

UK car exports to Canada days away from facing 6% tariff🚘

⚡️Deadlock ahead of April 1 deadline

Wait and see Kemi Badenoch try and spin this as a “deep and meaningful” trade cooperation with Canada, which is very on brand given the Tories slide from anything approximating reality

Correction

Avacta.....47/48 atm

-Keysight Agrees to Buy Spirent Communications For £1.16 Bln