Tag Archives: speech

Jeremy Corbyn spoke on Anti-Racism Day; his message on asylum-seekers is clear

Lineker off MOTD because of “migrant” tweet; co-presenters join him. What will the show look like?

Empty chairs: is this how Match of the Day will look tomorrow?

The BBC has dug a hole for itself after dropping Gary Lineker from its flagship football show, Match of the Day, over his tweet linking government rhetoric on Channel migrants with that of Germany in the 1930s.

Mr Lineker will not be presenting Match of the Day this week – but the reason is not clear. The BBC is saying he’s “stepping back” until an agreement is reached on how he should use the social media – but Sky News reckons he has been forced off the programme for refusing to apologise.

Now, fellow presenters are lining up to refuse to take part. So far, Alan Shearer and Ian Wright have said they will not appear, in “solidarity” with Mr Lineker.

Jermaine Jenas has said if he were asked, he would say no.

Is Saturday’s edition of the show going to be a shot of empty chairs around a desk, with some football clips interspersed intermittently?

Elsewhere in the BBC, Good Morning Britain host Richard Madeley made himself both a hero and a villain in the eyes of the public when he talked about the row surrounding Mr Lineker’s Twitter comments on the BBC’s Question Time.

First, he stood by Mr Lineker’s right to say anything he wants on his personal Twitter account – to applause from the audience.

Then he said what had actually been declared on Twitter was “preposterous” – and received a less enthusiastic reaction.

See for yourself:

What do you think? Should Gary Lineker have his right to free speech curtailed, simply because he presents a programme that is not remotely related to the subject he was discussing?

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The Tory plan for Channel migrants is nothing but hate speech, and here’s the evidence

Keir Starmer unveils his new slogan: ‘sticking-plaster politics’

Labour leader Keir Starmer has announced his new slogan in his first speech of 2023: “sticking-plaster politics”.

It’s a label he has attached to the Conservative government, claiming that Rishi Sunak’s administration is only interested in short-term solutions to current political problems – attacking their symptoms without addressing their causes:

The medical analogy is appropriate, as the NHS is currently enduring its worst-ever winter crisis – a crisis that Sunak has refused even to acknowledge.

Starmer said Labour would restore the NHS by bringing its workforce back up to full strength:

Shadow Levelling-Up Secretary Lisa Nandy amplified Starmer’s words, claiming that Labour was making promises it knew it could deliver.

One example was a change to cheap, renewable energy rather than sticking with expensive fossil fuels like gas – the price of which is currently crippling households across the UK.

And she tried to justify Starmer’s attempt to co-opt the Brexit slogan “Take Back Control” into a solution for the problems created by the UK’s departure from the European Union:

But what was he actually promising, other than a new slogan?

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said Starmer had offered “a whole load of nothing”:

He said Starmer’s promise not to spend money that wasn’t available had already been broken with £90 billion of unfunded spending commitments that he said equated to £3,000 per household.

That’s not true, of course – the UK’s taxation system means more of any such burden would fall on the shoulders of richer people who can bear it more easily, and doesn’t take account of taxes on (for example) businesses.

If you can bear it – and for the sake of easy access in the future – here’s Starmer’s full speech:

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Sunak is hammered by journalists after ‘future plans’ speech that nobody believes

Rishi Sunak delivered a speech on his plans for the future of the UK – and nobody cared.

He delivered five promises: one was to halve inflation (not hard as it is expected to drop, to improve the economy, to cut the national debt, to cut NHS waiting times, and to stop small boats bringing illegal migrants to the UK.

Journalists took him to task over the Tory government’s failure to do what it said, over whether he would implement any of his five promises this year, over his refusal to negotiate pay with nurses, over what the public could do if he fails to deliver on his promises, over the failure of previous government laws to do what’s needed to combat illegal immigration, and over his failure to resolve the strikes.

His comments about nurses and funding for the NHS are particularly hard to stomach:

If you can be bothered to sit through his speech (and it might be worth having around so we can see if he ever bothers to stick to it), here it is:

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Did Rishi Sunak’s immigration speech seem… familiar to you?

Rishi Sunak in the House of Commons: neither he nor his fellow Tories seem to take their responsibilities seriously.

Rishi Sunak gave a speech in which he set out his plan to reduce illegal immigration.

Maybe you thought it contained some good ideas; on the face of it, it might have.

But it only attempts to handle the symptoms of the problem, and not the causes.

And This Writer fears that some of the measures he introduced may be used to persecute the innocent.

Also, there was something Nurembergian about his delivery – the “enough is enough” rhetoric and the assertion that he would “do what must be done”.

It reminded me of other characters from history and fiction – so I made a video comparison (in this case with a character from fiction).

Do I make a good point?

(For clarity, the clip I’m using is for commentary/satirical purposes and I would not wish to make any attempt to claim ownership.)

The measures announced by Sunak include:

a dedicated unit of 400 specialists to handle claims from Albanians
new guidance for asylum case workers making it clear Albania is a safe country and requiring evidence of modern slavery when considering a claim
UK border officials will also be posted at Albania’s main airport, under a new deal with the country
700 staff for a new unit to monitor small boats crossing the English Channel
a pledge to end the use of hotels for asylum seekers
plans to house 10,000 individuals waiting on claims in disused holiday parks, former student halls, and surplus military sites
a commitment to double the number of asylum caseworkers, who assess claims
more staff and funding for the National Crime Agency to tackle organised immigration crime in Europe
plans for Parliament to set an annual quota for refugees coming to the UK
new laws, to be introduced next year, to “make unambiguously clear that if you enter the UK illegally, you should not be able to remain here”

Refugee charities branded the plans “cruel” and “ineffective”.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer dismissed the proposals as “unworkable gimmicks”.

Sunak also pledged to “significantly raise the threshold someone has to meet” to be considered a victim of modern slavery.

But former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May warned modern slavery was “a very real and current threat”.

She urged Sunak not to “diminish our world-leading protections for the victims of this terrible, horrific crime”.

(He didn’t listen.)

And there are other problems:

It’s another Tory mess.

They could have done something useful but they decided not to – possibly because raising hysteria around immigration allows them to distract public attention away from all their other disasters.

And, considering the effect his plan is likely to have on people who are genuinely trying to flee life-threatening situations, he might just as well have pointed a giant cannon at them and shouted “fire!”

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Boris Johnson’s COP 27 speech: mumble, jumble, dissemble and lie

Take a few minutes out of your day to listen to Boris Johnson’s speech at the COP 27 summit in Egypt.

You may have heard methane making more sense while negotiating its way through a cow’s digestive system:

This man was prime minister of the United Kingdom for three years.

No wonder the country is in the state it’s in now.

And, inevitably, he skated right over his own climate change denial.

Fortunately, here’s Maximilien Robespierre to remind him of it:

The decision on the Cumbria coal mine, mentioned in the clip, was delayed for a third time only at the beginning of this month.

So we see in Johnson a man who says one thing now, but whose government did the opposite when he was in charge – and whose successor (Rishi Sunak) is continuing in similar vein.

And if you want to learn about his contribution to COP 27, I have a nice little article right here.

Liv Struss makes one last prime ministerial speech [VIDEO/PARODY]

Satire takes a little longer than commentary but can be twice as incisive.

However, its effectiveness is entirely up to the viewer or listener.

So here’s Liz Truss alter ego Liv Struss, giving her last speech as prime minister (although I think she may return in the future):

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Truss ends her time as prime minister with a speech full of falsehoods

Last words: Liz Truss delivers her final speech as UK prime minister. What a shame so much of it was untrue.

Typical. You have to spend a day seeing to family matters and everything kicks off at work.

This Writer was away from his desk on Tuesday (October 25) – so of course it was the day Liz Truss finally gave up being the prime minister, Rishi Sunak took over, and he went on to form a new cabinet of halfwits.

I missed the lot. Forgive me for playing catch-up now.

We’ll start with Truss’s final speech as prime minister. Here it is in its full, awkward glory:

Here’s that speech with a bit of fact-checking from Politics Joe:

Personally, I love the bit where she mentions “the philosophicer Sene…ca”. Was that bit written for her by someone else? Has she ever read Seneca? (I’ll admit I haven’t.)

She said her government had acted “urgently and decisively on the side of hard-working families and businesses” – but the headlines showed that the UK economy is expected to be weak until 2024, with rising costs hitting households and companies.

Also shown was a headline stating that a primary school running a foodbank said people are struggling hugely. Another said “toast is a luxury” and families have “never been more scared” over where money will come from. And a third said one-fifth of households are considering cancelling their Christmas celebration – with many considering loans to get them through the festive season, due to the cost-of-living crisis that Truss did nothing to ease.

Businesses stated that her energy assistance plan was no good, and her mini-budget caused political and market turmoil.

She said her government had “helped millions of households with their energy bills” – but headlines indicated that families were still struggling after energy bills skyrocketed from £74 to more than £1,300.

She said her government had “helped thousands of businesses avoid bankruptcy” – but headlines said supply and staffing issues, inflation and high energy bills meant the UK hospitality industry alone was expecting a “tidal wave” of closures.

“We are taking back our energy independence,” she said, “so we are never again beholden to global market fluctuations or malign foreign powers.

Firstly, let’s take a moment to remind ourselves that Tory governments of the past were warned about the dangers of allowing power over our energy supply to pass to foreign owners – and ignored those warnings.

Now, let’s look at the headlines, which stated that the whole UK electricity system is under private ownership due to Tory privatisation in 1989, and its dependency on imports has increased in the decades since (after being more or less self-sufficient previously).

“We simply cannot afford to be a low-growth country where the government takes up an increasing share of our national wealth,” she said, expanding on this later in her speech by saying, “It means lower taxes, so people can keep more of what they earn”. But the headlines contradicted her, showing that the International Monetary Fund had openly criticised her tax plans, adding that Jeremy Hunt, as Chancellor, has reversed her income tax breaks along with almost all other measures from the disastrous mini-budget of September 23.

She spoke about “restoring power to democratic institutions” and said “we must be able to out-compete autocratic regimes where power lies in the hands of a few” – ignoring the fact that “Rishi Sunak’s coronation as PM would shame a banana republic” because he was elected by fewer than 200 people – all of them Tory MPs. Another headline highlighted Sunak’s “lack of mandate”.

“And it means delivering growth that will lead to more job security, higher wages, and greater opportunities for our children and grandchildren,” she said. But figures show that “under-30s lost more than 20 per cent of disposable income in the last 12 months”, blaming rising energy prices.

So almost everything she said in her speech was contradicted by the facts.

Thank goodness she has gone. Can you imagine having to put up with two more years of this ridiculous, easily-dismissed doubletalk?

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Rishi Sunak’s speechifying: have we swapped one robot for another?

Take a look at this:

How can you describe that delivery? Robotic? “Blissed off his bonce” (has he been talking to Michael Gove)?

And what was going on with that long pause at the end? How painful was that?

It hasn’t gone unnoticed…

I think we all want to know what was going on, now that we’ve seen it, right?

The awkward silence at the end was particularly similar to Truss – and jarring, especially after all the table-thumping when Graham Brady announced Sunak’s accession to the leadership.

Are we to hope that he gets better?

Or should we just pray that whoever’s operating him gets a software upgrade soon – the one they didn’t get in time for the Trussbot?

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Tag Archives: speech

Jeremy Corbyn spoke on Anti-Racism Day; his message on asylum-seekers is clear

Like this:

The Tory plan for Channel migrants is nothing but hate speech, and here’s the evidence

Like this:

Keir Starmer unveils his new slogan: ‘sticking-plaster politics’

Like this:

Sunak is hammered by journalists after ‘future plans’ speech that nobody believes

Like this:

Did Rishi Sunak’s immigration speech seem… familiar to you?

Like this:

Boris Johnson’s COP 27 speech: mumble, jumble, dissemble and lie

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Liv Struss makes one last prime ministerial speech [VIDEO/PARODY]

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Truss ends her time as prime minister with a speech full of falsehoods

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Rishi Sunak’s speechifying: have we swapped one robot for another?

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