UKMT September 2016: Arguing in good faith with sources where necessary

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT September 2016: Arguing in good faith with sources where necessary

«‹›180 »

tooterfish: Jul 13, 2013

thespaceinvader posted:

New Labour having done stupid poo poo doesn't mean it's not bad when the Tories do worse poo poo.

Well that told me. Because yes, that's exactly what I was saying there.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 18:34

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 11, 2024 15:08

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

So, anyone wanna give the speech a proper dissection just in case there are any other horrifying little bits hidden away in it?

# ? Sep 9, 2016 18:57

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Full text is here.

Straight off the bat, I enjoyed

quote:

This Government�s priorities are those of ordinary, working class people. People for whom life can sometimes be a struggle, but who get on with things without complaint.

The good proles are the ones that shut up and don't try to change things, stiff upper lip and all that.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 19:01

Cerv: Sep 14, 2004; This is a silly post with little news value.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

It's been a scam forever. Wander around your chosen inner city and count the amount of places above shops that claim to be language, business or IT schools (there's one opposite my office which claims to be four different schools, despite being at best a two-bedroom flat). Most of them are accredited and at least notionally offer some kind of tuition, sufficient for a student visa, but are extremely generous in logging how much tuition you turn up for. You're allowed to work for up to 20 hours a week on a student visa but there's almost no logging so all they have to do is spread their jobs around a bit.

It's a lucrative enough scam that it happens even at proper (well, proper-ish) universities - London Met got done for it when they started pushing it a bit far, and it's noticeable that two of the four schools in the flat across the road from my office turned up not long after that happened. University of East Anglia are alleged to be in trouble for it too, and the University of South Wales' Canary Wharf campus (well it should actually be "Canary Wharf" "campus" because it was a single office building a mile away from Canary Wharf) had it's plug pulled when UKBA started seriously cracking down on visa abuse.

you're being unfair to USW. the London campus was small but a bona fide teaching institution unlike a 'college' above a chicken shop. it was never intended to be cramming hundreds of students into fake lessons. USW pulled the plug before ever actually enrolling a single student because the market wasn't there that expected - in part because visa rules for students have become onerous with the intent of putting them off but that's not the only reason.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 19:21

Cerv: Sep 14, 2004; This is a silly post with little news value.

good news for the weekend. privatisation of the land registry is indefinitely delayed; could be dropped altogether.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e2ec0140-74dd-11e6-bf48-b372cdb1043a.html

quote:

A plan to privatise the Land Registry, the body that has recorded the ownership of property in the UK since 1862, has been quietly postponed by the government.

The sale of the Land Registry was expected to be included in the Neighbourhood Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which will go before parliament on Wednesday evening. But sources close to the government confirmed it has decided to delay the process.

The proposal was part of a �5bn programme of sell-offs planned by the Treasury under the former chancellor George Osborne.

But there was trenchant criticism from the Competition and Markets Authority and John Manthorpe, the former chief land registrar, who argued that a change in status could threaten the service that the registry provides.

The Open Data Institute, which was established by the government in 2012 to promote transparency, the unions and other anti-privatisation campaign groups also fought the sale.

One person with knowledge of the plans said: �No decision has been taken on the future of the Land Registry.

�A consultation on the Land Registry closed in May and we are carefully considering our response. It is only right that new ministers take time to look at all their options before making a decision.�

Sajid Javid, the former business secretary, announced the consultation before Easter and legislation to enable the privatisation was included in the Queen�s Speech in May.

Although the registry is part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, it is self-financing, so costs taxpayers nothing. As well as recording the ownership of land and property in England and Wales, the registry retains registers on land charges, writs and orders, and produces data on house prices and transactions that are used by the government to make policy decisions.

Vince Cable, former business secretary said that he blocked the privatisation during the coalition because it would not have raised much money. �The only rationale behind the proposed sell-off was dogma. I am glad the minister has seen sense.�

The main purpose of the neighbourhood bill is to help the government meet its ambition of delivering 1m new homes with an emphasis on �empowering local communities�.

The legislation includes a promise to ensure that �pre-commencement planning conditions� � seen as a barrier by some developers � are only imposed by councils where they are absolutely necessary.

It will also seek to speed up the compulsory purchase order system under which properties can be forcibly bought to make way for new developments.

The original bill also proposed putting the new National Infrastructure Commission, which oversees Britain�s priorities for new schemes, on a statutory basis, but this also appears to have been postponed. The government declined to say whether it still intended to give greater powers to the body, which was set up last year to remove critical decisions on roads, broadband, energy and housing from the five-year political cycle.

Ralph Smyth, head of infrastructure at the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: �With the National Infrastructure Commission not due to publish its first National Infrastructure Assessment until 2018, it appears that the new government feels there is no great rush to give it a statutory footing. Independence from government, secured through legislation, will be critical if the commission is to be credible in assessing future infrastructure needs.�

# ? Sep 9, 2016 19:32

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

While I appreciate all these backtracks is there not like, some sort of governmental equivalent of failing your driving test because you took seventy maneuvers to do your three point turn?

# ? Sep 9, 2016 19:42

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

Apparently it's called a 'turn in the road' in the UK test now, presumably to cover this kind of thing.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 19:44

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

Cerv posted:

you're being unfair to USW. the London campus was small but a bona fide teaching institution unlike a 'college' above a chicken shop. it was never intended to be cramming hundreds of students into fake lessons. USW pulled the plug before ever actually enrolling a single student because the market wasn't there that expected - in part because visa rules for students have become onerous with the intent of putting them off but that's not the only reason.

I used to work in that building. There was space for - at most - three decent-sized classrooms and a couple of offices. It would never have been viable as an actual self-contained college, and it's hard not to see it along with the other "campuses" in the area for places like University of Northumbria (literally one office in a block) as at best a diploma mill with an impressive address.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 20:14

Pesmerga: Aug 1, 2005; So nice to eat you

Jonathan Freedland on Theresa May's proposals for education is essentially 'she's wrong, but man we have to respect her for doing what she believes in'. Liberalism.txt

# ? Sep 9, 2016 20:25

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Terrorists are wrong but you have to respect them for doing what they believe in.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 20:32

feedmegin: Jul 30, 2008

Zephro posted:

The road from Cambridge station to the town centre is (used to be? Been a while since I was there) lined with schools and colleges trading more-or-less dishonestly on the Cambridge name. Some were reasonably substantial institutions with names like The Cambridge College of English Language or w/e, but a lot looked like flats above estate agents or newsagents shops and I always assumed they were basically scams, either financial (with the help of the "Cambridge" branding) or immigration-related. Or both I guess. But yeah you can see them all over the place.

Oxford, too, big surprise. 'Kings College Oxford Campus' is particularly cheeky.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 20:36

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

OwlFancier posted:

Terrorists are wrong but you have to respect them for doing what they believe in.

Owen Smith alt spotted.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 20:36

big scary monsters: Sep 2, 2011; -~Ｓｋｕｌｌｗａｖｅ~-

OwlFancier posted:

Terrorists are wrong but you have to respect them for doing what they believe in.

Historically, some terrorists have been right.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 20:41

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

big scary monsters posted:

Historically, some terrorists have been right.

No, no, those are freedom fighters.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 20:43

Regarde Aduck: Oct 19, 2012; c l o u d k i t t e n; Grimey Drawer

The entire GCHQ is now reading this thread. The pricks.

GCH...POO!!!!! ahhahahaha

# ? Sep 9, 2016 20:44

tooterfish: Jul 13, 2013

Regarde Aduck posted:

The entire GCHQ is now reading this thread. The pricks.

GCH...POO!!!!! ahhahahaha

I'm not with this guy!

# ? Sep 9, 2016 20:45

big scary monsters: Sep 2, 2011; -~Ｓｋｕｌｌｗａｖｅ~-

Darth Walrus posted:

No, no, those are freedom fighters.

I think when you're not quite sure yet whether they're right or not you just call them militants.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 20:46

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

big scary monsters posted:

Historically, some terrorists have been right.

Yes but they weren't right as a function of their sincerity.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 20:48

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

Regarde Aduck posted:

The entire GCHQ is now reading this thread. The pricks.

GCH...POO!!!!! ahhahahaha

# ? Sep 9, 2016 20:50

StoneOfShame: Jul 28, 2013; This is the best kitchen ever.

Which one of you has been in the pub I work in writing Jess Phillips is silly all over the toilet walls.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 21:14

JFairfax: Oct 23, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

OwlFancier posted:

Terrorists are wrong but you have to respect them for doing what they believe in.

Say what you want about the tenets of national socialism, at least it's an ethos

# ? Sep 9, 2016 21:49

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Administrative charge to enter the continent likely if the government don't agree a sufficiently acceptable free movement deal.

I'm getting a perverse sense of schadenfreude from this massive skullfucking we're going to get.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 22:21

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

No more money to the Eurocrats! Except whenever we want to leave the country!

# ? Sep 9, 2016 22:24

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Zephro posted:

The road from Cambridge station to the town centre is (used to be? Been a while since I was there) lined with schools and colleges trading more-or-less dishonestly on the Cambridge name. Some were reasonably substantial institutions with names like The Cambridge College of English Language or w/e, but a lot looked like flats above estate agents or newsagents shops and I always assumed they were basically scams, either financial (with the help of the "Cambridge" branding) or immigration-related. Or both I guess. But yeah you can see them all over the place.

Oxford has the same.

CLP conference business meeting tonight devolved into angry shouting and procedural jargon about motions and confidence in the chair and overruling and gently caress I don't know, in respect to a motion someone made about the elected-shadow-cabinet thing.

All a bit messy. And to no avail either way since there was no procedural way for the point to be made even if the various motions had succeeded.

God I wish the PLP would get its poo poo together soon.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 22:39

feedmegin: Jul 30, 2008

thespaceinvader posted:

Oxford has the same.

CLP conference business meeting tonight devolved into angry shouting and procedural jargon about motions and confidence in the chair and overruling and gently caress I don't know, in respect to a motion someone made about the elected-shadow-cabinet thing.

All a bit messy. And to no avail either way since there was no procedural way for the point to be made even if the various motions had succeeded.

God I wish the PLP would get its poo poo together soon.

You wouldn't believe there was any argy bargy from the local party twitter account. Though I assume I have now seen a photo of you :shobon:

# ? Sep 9, 2016 22:50

big scary monsters: Sep 2, 2011; -~Ｓｋｕｌｌｗａｖｅ~-

OwlFancier posted:

No more money to the Eurocrats! Except whenever we want to leave the country!

Why would anyone ever want to leave glorious post-Brexit Britain?

# ? Sep 9, 2016 22:50

Angepain: Jul 13, 2012; what keeps happening to my clothes

thespaceinvader posted:

CLP conference business meeting tonight devolved into angry shouting and procedural jargon about motions and confidence in the chair and overruling and gently caress I don't know, in respect to a motion someone made about the elected-shadow-cabinet thing.

All a bit messy. And to no avail either way since there was no procedural way for the point to be made even if the various motions had succeeded.

This sounds like a great environment to get the new members enthusiastic to get stuck in. I am filled with hope and optimism for the future of the country.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 23:11

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

feedmegin posted:

You wouldn't believe there was any argy bargy from the local party twitter account. Though I assume I have now seen a photo of you

Entirely possible.

I didn't propose anything but I did speak a couple of times. Happy to introduce myself by PM if you're curious. E: there's a local party twitter account?

E: again: and to be fair, the vast majority of the meeting was actually sane and sensible and without shouting, and the motions which were approved for conference were very solid ones on anti-austerity and the NHS.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 23:16

communism bitch: Apr 24, 2009

Cool to see the government went full on reactionary racist while i was moving house today. This is what happens when i take my eye off the ball i guess...

# ? Sep 9, 2016 23:29

serious gaylord: Sep 16, 2007; what.

Oberleutnant posted:

Cool to see the government went full on reactionary racist while i was moving house today. This is what happens when i take my eye off the ball i guess...

You've let everybody down.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 23:39

Wolfsbane: Jul 29, 2009; What time is it, Eccles?

thespaceinvader posted:

there's a local party twitter account?

My local party twitter account has been completely silent all summer (through two CLP meetings), until today, when it ... retweeted a message about the Olympic torch from 2012 being on display in the town hall. I now wonder whether someone only just remembered it existed, or if that's really the most exciting political news around here in the last two months.

# ? Sep 9, 2016 23:40

thespaceinvader: Mar 30, 2011; The slightest touch from a Gol-Shogeg will result in Instant Death!

Oberleutnant posted:

Cool to see the government went full on reactionary racist while i was moving house today. This is what happens when i take my eye off the ball i guess...

Hey,. don't feel bad, we left the EU when I went on holiday, don't I feel guilty?

# ? Sep 9, 2016 23:42

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Ah, good, the man tasked with representing British trading interests is going around saying British businesses are shite. Just the sort of thing you want your trade secretary to be doing.

e: full article:

quote:

Britain has grown lazy and fat, with business executives more interested in playing golf on a Friday afternoon than exporting products overseas, Liam Fox, the trade secretary, has claimed.
In an extraordinary attack on those he represents in government, Dr Fox said that companies were not ready to take advantage of the trade deals he was planning to negotiate.
The minister, who is responsible for forging Britain�s place in the world after Brexit, even hinted that companies that did not take advantage of new export opportunities could face sanction. �If you want to share in the prosperity of our country, you have a duty to contribute to the prosperity of our country,� he said.
Dr Fox�s unguarded comments, made on Thursday night during a drinks reception for right-wing Tory activists in the House of Commons, will go down badly with business leaders and Downing Street.
Many companies have privately expressed concerns to Mrs May that the kind of �hard Brexit� favoured by Dr Fox would damage British industry. She will now have to contend with allegations that he is intent on blaming them if his plan to reinvent British trade is not successful.

Last night No 10 made clear that the comments represented Dr Fox�s personal views and not those of the government. Addressing supporters of the Conservative Way Forward group, Dr Fox said: �This country is not the free- trading nation that it once was. We have become too lazy, and too fat on our successes in previous generations.
�What is the point of us reshaping global trade, what is the point of us going out and looking for new markets for the United Kingdom, if we don�t have the exporters to fill those markets?�

Dr Fox, who was a GP before he entered parliament, added: �We�ve got to change the culture in our country. People have got to stop thinking about exporting as an opportunity and start thinking about it as a duty � companies who could be contributing to our national prosperity but choose not to because it might be too difficult or too time-consuming or because they can�t play golf on a Friday afternoon.�
Dr Fox, who was appointed to his job two months ago by Mrs May, also warned industry that his department was unlikely to protect any sector of the economy with import tariffs and was prepared to see them sink or swim in the post-Brexit trade world.

Such a move would have significant implications for industries such as steel, which has been made uneconomic by China �dumping� products at below cost price.
�We must turn our backs on [those] that tell us: it�s OK, you can protect bits of your industry, bits of your economy and no one will notice,� he said. �It is untrue. Protectionism has always ended in tears. We must be unreconstructed, unapologetic free traders.�

Business groups declined to comment publicly on Dr Fox�s remarks but privately one described them as �unhelpful, to say the least�.
A Downing Street spokesman said: �The principle behind our approach is to ensure British businesses can succeed in the world.�
Dr Fox also revealed that the government was preparing to change its investment policy to give greater weight to British companies looking to invest abroad, rather than encouraging foreign companies to invest in Britain.
�Up until the change of government, the policy was to get as much foreign direct investment into the United Kingdom as possible, but to largely ignore overseas direct investment elsewhere.
�And that�s a problem because it�s great the year we get the foreign investment and we get jobs created, but every year after that all their income flows that go to their parent companies or their parent countries are outward flows in our current account. Unless we have counterbalancing overseas development, overseas investment, we are unable to get those income flows to counterbalance that.
�That is why . . . we�re giving instructions tomorrow to our posts around the world to give equal weight to outward investment.�

"If you do not instantaneously reshape your business and the rest of reality to conform with my desires and the deals I have not yet negotiated, or outlined, or even begun work on in any way whatsoever, I will fine you!!!", said the perfectly sane man with a comprehensive understanding of his brief.

LemonDrizzle fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Sep 10, 2016

# ? Sep 10, 2016 00:09

dispatch_async: Nov 28, 2014; Imagine having the time to have played through 20 generations of one family in The Sims 2. Imagine making the original two members of that family Neil Buchanan and Cat Deeley. Imagine complaining to Maxis there was no technological progression. You've successfully imagined my life

Jesus christ make it stop.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/labour-leadership-hopeful-owen-smith-8803113

# ? Sep 10, 2016 00:13

Angepain: Jul 13, 2012; what keeps happening to my clothes

has he said anything more about his wang

please tell me he has told us more about his wang

# ? Sep 10, 2016 00:15

Coohoolin: Aug 5, 2012; Oor Coohoolie.

dispatch_async posted:

Jesus christ make it stop.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/labour-leadership-hopeful-owen-smith-8803113

Was just gonna post this. Jesus christ. I like the implicit admission that he had to fight for his wife, guessing she didn't like him enough to begin with?

# ? Sep 10, 2016 00:30

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

She really looks a lot like Peter Kay, like, maybe a sister or something.

# ? Sep 10, 2016 00:41

tooterfish: Jul 13, 2013

Coohoolin posted:

Was just gonna post this. Jesus christ. I like the implicit admission that he had to fight for his wife, guessing she didn't like him enough to begin with?

Are you suggesting she's some kind of super-villain, and Owen had to fly to her island to battle to the death with other hopefuls, before emerging as champion and being recruited into her evil organisation?

Because Man, you come right out of a comic book.

# ? Sep 10, 2016 00:52

Guavanaut: Nov 27, 2009; Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998; Toilet Rascal

There's a Yard-long Wang Man comic book?

# ? Sep 10, 2016 00:54

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 11, 2024 15:08

tooterfish: Jul 13, 2013

Dunno, probably. I don't really follow animes.

# ? Sep 10, 2016 00:56

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT September 2016: Arguing in good faith with sources where necessary

«‹›180 »