UK British News Megathread - aka CWCissey's news thread

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
https://news.sky.com/story/row-over-new-greggs-vegan-sausage-rolls-heats-up-11597679 (https://archive.ph/5Ba6o)

A heated row has broken out over a move by Britain's largest bakery chain to launch a vegan sausage roll.

The pastry, which is filled with a meat substitute and encased in 96 pastry layers, is available in 950 Greggs stores across the country.

It was promised after 20,000 people signed a petition calling for the snack to be launched to accommodate plant-based diet eaters.


But the vegan sausage roll's launch has been greeted by a mixed reaction: Some consumers welcomed it, while others voiced their objections.

View image on Twitter


spread happiness@p4leandp1nk
https://twitter.com/p4leandp1nk/status/1080767496569974785

#VEGANsausageroll thanks Greggs
2764.png


7
10:07 AM - Jan 3, 2019
See spread happiness's other Tweets
Twitter Ads info and privacy


Cook and food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe declared she was "frantically googling to see what time my nearest opens tomorrow morning because I will be outside".

While TV writer Brydie Lee-Kennedy called herself "very pro the Greggs vegan sausage roll because anything that wrenches veganism back from the 'clean eating' wellness folk is a good thing".

One Twitter user wrote that finding vegan sausage rolls missing from a store in Corby had "ruined my morning".

Another said: "My son is allergic to dairy products which means I can't really go to Greggs when he's with me. Now I can. Thank you vegans."

View image on Twitter


pg often@pgofton
https://twitter.com/pgofton/status/1080772793774624768

The hype got me like #Greggs #Veganuary

42
10:28 AM - Jan 3, 2019
See pg often's other Tweets
Twitter Ads info and privacy


TV presenter Piers Morgan led the charge of those outraged by the new roll.

"Nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage, you PC-ravaged clowns," he wrote on Twitter.

Mr Morgan later complained at receiving "howling abuse from vegans", adding: "I get it, you're all hangry. I would be too if I only ate plants and gruel."

Another Twitter user said: "I really struggle to believe that 20,000 vegans are that desperate to eat in a Greggs."

"You don't paint a mustach (sic) on the Mona Lisa and you don't mess with the perfect sausage roll," one quipped.

Journalist Nooruddean Choudry suggested Greggs introduce a halal steak bake to "crank the fume levels right up to 11".

The bakery chain told concerned customers that "change is good" and that there would "always be a classic sausage roll".

It comes on the same day McDonald's launched its first vegetarian "Happy Meal", designed for children.

The new dish comes with a "veggie wrap", instead of the usual chicken or beef option.
Click to expand...

It should be noted that Piers Morgan and Greggs share the same PR firm, so I'm thinking this is some serious faux outrage and South Park KKK gambiting here.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Click to expand...
Chunky Salsa said:
It's just more of a general rejection of the idea that the people within a society, have a responsibility towards that society. The tories are rife with it.
Click to expand...
It's saying that individuals form and have a responsibility to society, not society forms ( and has a responsibilty for ) the individuals. I'd recommend "The Society of Individuals" by Norbert Elias.

My take would be if BP want to sell leaded petrol, they should be allowed to, but the demand in the market should be zero ( i.e. no individual would want to buy it ) hence BP would make a loss producing it and would have no motivation to do so.

"then you have to acknowledge that there are certain indicative traits common to the members of that society rather than all humans being interchangeable economic units"

So, do individuals shape society, or does society shape individuals or is there a correlation ? It seems to me that our old society ( and its culture ) certainly isn't doing a very good job of shaping the immigrant individuals.
 
Last edited:
EddyRooney said:
It's saying that individuals form and have a responsibility to society, not society forms ( and has a responsibilty for ) the individuals. I'd recommend "The Society of Individuals" by Norbert Elias.
My take would be if BP want to sell leaded petrol, they should be allowed to, but the demand in the market should be zero ( i.e. no individual would want to buy it ) hence BP would make a loss producing it and would have no motivation to do so.
Click to expand...
You are demonstrably incorrect about this. The free market when unregulated creates absolute shitholes without any deviation. It always has, and it always will. Businesses like BP should exist in a state of mild, constant unease that if they fuck up, all their directors get raped to death by dogs. If you permit companies to do as they please, what they please will always be to be taking you for a ride, and then cornering the market so that you can't choose anything BUT being taken for a ride.

EDIT; You can literally see the failure of the 'should be allowed to, the market will regulate!' method of thinking by looking outside. One of the pillars keeping this country poor is the vampire like lust for cheaper and cheaper and cheaper labour across the entire west. At a certain size and stage of integration into the economy, a business does not have to actually compete as capitalism demands; and the lack of access to real capital beyond boondoggles means that all this ends up doing is aggregating all the assets, which then get whored out in mass rent seeking endeavours.

EDIT2: The free market part that is. Individuals shape society and are shaped in turn by that society. It's not a one way street. A society emerges from individuals, and that society sets the guardrails and expectations of further individuals born into said society. These in turn are comfortable and accepting of the society because they are the same sorts of people that initially formed it. That society can flex and change by adjusting the guardrails as the individuals in turn react and change according to the world. Dumping in 10 million retarded, low IQ shitskins into a society built by and for actual humans of course, does nothing but absolutely wreck shit on that society.
 
Last edited:
Chunky Salsa said:
If you permit companies to do as they please, what they please will always be to be taking you for a ride, and then cornering the market so that you can't choose anything BUT being taken for a ride.
Click to expand...
The problem that pops up here is regulatory capture, where the largest companies create a regulatory regime that is mildly burdensome to them, but deadly to smaller competitors (as well as any equal that isn't sufficiently cooperative). It requires a large, regulatory state to work, which is why the argument against regulation in general persists so strongly, in opposition to the equally retarded "all rich people are bad!" line taken by the instinctive regulators. I'd suggest that the solution is to treat company executives and politicians (and their media servitors) as the same creatures, and ensure they all feel the same fear. WE could even eat one of them now and then, as a treat. It would keep the rest in line.
 
teriyakiburns said:
The problem that pops up here is regulatory capture, where the largest companies create a regulatory regime that is mildly burdensome to them, but deadly to smaller competitors (as well as any equal that isn't sufficiently cooperative). It requires a large, regulatory state to work, which is why the argument against regulation in general persists so strongly. I'd suggest that the solution is to treat company executives and politicians (and their media servitors) as the same creatures, and ensure they all feel the same fear. Perhaps if we ate one of them every now and then, completely at random, the rest would fall in line.
Click to expand...
I think it's a symptom of a globalised economic system. Regulation on Mike the guy who runs a corner shop and regulation on Globodynamics that runs guns, pharma, cars and IVF facilities are somehow treated as the same thing, and people seem unwilling to accept that at some point an entity grows large enough and wealthy enough where it turns into something inherently anti-competition just by existing.

I do not know how you fix this lmao. It absolutely drives me up the fucking wall some of the hoops I have to jump through to get access to certain chemicals. Take for example a type of platinum activated polymer I work with. It needs a bunch of certs and paperwork and oversight and all that bullshit, and I go "This is retarded, why can't I just buy it." And then it turns out I can't buy it because Union Carbide dumped 80'000 litres of it into a bay in bumfuckistan and when the sun degraded it, it turned into toxic heavy metal soup and dissolved fifty children. I know I'm not going to pour chemicals into the drinking water to save on disposal costs, but like...a fuck load of people very apparently will do that.

My only solution that I always come back to is that we just need to become completely, nationally self sufficient, close our borders and then violently police ourselves internally. But the Japs tried that and it left them 400 years out of date when America came knocking so I don't fucking know.

EDIT: I know people hate regulatory oversight, because it's tedious and gay and most of the time overly burdensome, but just image for a second Thames Water. How do people think they would act if they could get away with it. Because how they act now is atrocious, let alone if they could just tell you to go fuck yourself rather than suffer the absolute lukewarm government slaps. We have a body of very profitable, very efficient businesses that solely exist to take in assets, gut them, slice them up, extract the remaining wealth and then burn them down. That is a functional and thriving area of business in the UK. While something like that exists, the "Hand of the free market" is dumb.
 
Last edited:
Chunky Salsa said:
ust image for a second Thames Water. How do people think they would act if they could get away with it
Click to expand...
We're about two posts away from EddyRooney suggesting we live in a world where the general public are all experts in water sanitation and if it wasn't for the guberment we would have an economy that could support fifty competing companies all building pipes to our homes to give us the freshest, cleanest water at a cost not worth metering.
 
Chunky Salsa said:
If you permit companies to do as they please, what they please will always be to be taking you for a ride, and then cornering the market so that you can't choose anything BUT being taken for a ride.
Click to expand...
Not true. Unless you're talking about an absolute nigh on perfect monopoly situation the consumer has the power to not buy the product and vote with his money. Look at all the woke advertising with Gilette, Bud Light, etc - they tried to cram the ideology down peoples' throats, their sales and revenues dropped, boardroom heads rolled and lo and behold company policy has reverted back.
You have a very pessimistic, naive view of how the markets work. I'm prepared to admit that free markets aren't perfect ( especially in monopoly situations, when government intervention or at least monitoring is required ) but tell me what is the alternative ? And don't say central planning or socialism, because only a university lecturer ( or a student of them ) that has failed in and doesn't understand the real world would argue for that.

Edit ( part one - what's going on here Chunky, you writing a book ?! ) the argument you put forward sounds dangerously like Marxism to me in how the workers are exploited by Imperialism, Comrade. I think the reasons behind this are more complicated than just a few capitalists search for cheap labour. Also, is it always the capitalists' fault that they are looking to push down costs through cheaper labour - who is it that creates these conditions - it's the consumers that use Sainsburys instead of the local butcher, Tesco instead of the local grocer and Amazon instead of the local hardware store - why is that, because the consumer wants a cheaper product and convenience - so who is it that is responsible for the shift in market conditions and forcing cheaper labour by demanding lower prices ( and hence forcing the creation of massive market cap companies rather than keeping smaller more boutique outfits ? )

I'm not arguing with the migration point of edit 2, I agree entirely, but I think the argument of society versus individuals is more nuanced, if the topic interests you and you haven't read it, I really would recommend the book by Elias.

"While something like that exists, the "Hand of the free market" is dumb." - And yet in your argument, you freely admit that you can't think of a superior alternative. The only solution is to allow the free market to work and allow the government to intervene when it doesn't and the problem with that is the intervention's successfulness is always going to subjective in nature.

Crispy Jakes - don't put words in my mouth, cunt.​

 
There has to be oversight.
Chunky Salsa said:
I think it's a symptom of a globalised economic system
Click to expand...
Yeah and this as well - so many of our modern woes are tied to no immediate local feedback. People behave badly because there are no consequences for them. I’m not sure we want to go back to parochial curtain twitching, and everyone knowing everyone else’s business but there has to be a middle road between there are total globalism.
The police for example used to have local men with a local station and theyexisted within the local community. They had an incentive to not piss that community off. Now it’s regional mega stations
If your HQ is in America and your CEO lives behind gates how does him fucking up a stream of water in rural England matter to him? If he lives locally and his wife’s in tears because everyone hates her now and she can’t play tennis any more at the local club then there’s your local feedback. Doesn’t happen any more.
We have out scaled the rules that kept us decent.
 
Last edited:
Kier Starmer said:
Basically, the UK lied to the Americans. Expect a U-Turn
Click to expand...
Depends what these "viral cables" actually are. Nobody in the press seems to have bothered to do their job and actually say what's viral about them besides "fibre optic".

I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be regular last mile Openreach, Virgin Media or some other broadband altnet that's under every street in the country. This story stinks of the tabloids pretending the Chinese will listen into "the nation's conversations" by "phone hacking" the "cables".

That MHCLG are involved would imply we're not talking about secret infrastructure of upmost importance. In fact that's why I'm pretty confident this is just some paper pushing over the green box that serves people their £30 a month broadband for the surrounding hundred or so houses and not actually "the viral cable of Britain".
 
Last edited:
Crispy Jakes said:
We're about two posts away from EddyRooney suggesting we live in a world where the general public are all experts in water sanitation and if it wasn't for the guberment we would have an economy that could support fifty competing companies all building pipes to our homes to give us the freshest, cleanest water at a cost not worth metering.
Click to expand...
It's annoying because I actually agree that the government is over-regulating. But at the same time, those regulations are onerous for the people that are the least likely to require regulating. I often think about the feasibility of things like "Tripwire laws" which just has like, a guy who reads through the case and goes "Oh yeah, you're blatantly skirting it and finding deliberate loopholes and exemptions and trying to play fuck fuck games. No, company dissolved." Then he bangs a little hammer and all the execs are put in the pain booths from that one mirror episode of Star Trek. I then immediately go 'well that wouldn't work.' sadly. Not the pain booths, we can totally make those, but rather the nuance in large systems.

I just keep circling back to the fact that fundamentally, we are a globalised economy, and that means that you can just loot the country; move to Dubai and not be bothered by the consequence of said looting. Much like how the guy who initially leaded gasoline also desperately avoided going anywhere near cars because he really didn't care if everyone else got lead brains, but he sure as shit wasn't up to getting it. He also named the lead 'ethyl' rather than calling it what it was: Lead. The UK also fundamentally is in a bad place to invest and build anything right now. We lack for good power production; and will do for the next decade even if we ramp it up now. We have no mines open and getting it abroad is more competitive even if we did. Fundamentally we cannot compete with near slave labour even if we did de-regulate. From a pure business standpoint, it is always cheaper to make a widget in Bengal than it is the Midlands, because in the Midlands we have an expectation about quality of life. Someone, somewhere along the chain of production is going to get shafted in a global economy.

I think a very basic example is something like food. We could absolutely produce enough to sustain ourselves - provided we kick out the unwanted masses of foreigners clogging up our economy - but even in ideal circumstances, that is going to make things cost. People always say they don't mind paying a bit extra for milk so the farmers are doing okay, but they are lying. It's not a value judgement, it's the objective reality of how they spend their money. You can pay to have milk dropped off from farms, very, very few people do. Because it's expensive and you don't get as much as just going to Tesco and getting the 6 pint one which pays farmers about 2p.
 
EddyRooney said:
Not true. Unless you're talking about an absolute nigh on perfect monopoly situation the consumer has the power to not buy the product and vote with his money. Look at all the woke advertising with Gilette, Bud Light, etc - they tried to cram the ideology down peoples' throats, their sales and revenues dropped, boardroom heads rolled and lo and behold company policy has reverted back.
You have a very pessimistic, naive view of how the markets work. I'm prepared to admit that free markets aren't perfect ( especially in monopoly situations, when government intervention or at least monitoring is required ) but tell me what is the alternative ? And don't say central planning or socialism, because only a university lecturer ( or a student of them ) that has failed in and doesn't understand the real world would argue for that.
Click to expand...
Absolutely true. It doesn't even need to be close to a perfect monopoly situation.

I have a pessimistic view of the market because I work in chemical production, I've worked in defence, and have managed industrial production. I know how these companies act and think, and how they act and think is that they would literally pour mercury down your babies throat if it means they shave 1p off of a 2p production cost. You're listing organisations that market a single first order product to a consumer base that have previously engaged with them on an ideological level. That's not the same thing as companies skirting regulation to engage in destructive practices. The immediate consequences of the examples you give are both easy to see and easy to react to becuase of the nature of those corporations. If BAE tomorrow suddenly didn't have - for example - the regulatory control requiring they buy very specific, very expensive anti static bags; nothing would happen. Probably nothing would happen for quite a while actually, and then one day a town would vanish because someone had a static discharge (ha) onto a 20 tonne explosive mound and it all went off. This is not a hypothetical about some evil penny pincher, this is how these industries operate. In America an entire production plant got blown sky high because it was and still is - hence why it still regularly explodes every decade or so - cheaper to just take the fines on the chin, than it is to hire the needed 5 extra skilled workers needed to monitor line safety. Gillette and Busch are companies that lost money because they boldly and loudly and aggressively announced that they hated their consumer. That's not really something replicable with the majority of large business. Amazon isn't losing money because it spies on you, destroys local business, uses slave labour and is all around scum. Amazon is still making money because people value the convenience of it over the long term benefits of Amazon not elbow dropping their local economy.

I wouldn't say I have a pessimistic view of markets, I would say I have a pessimistic view of people.


EddyRooney said:
Edit ( part one - what's going on here Chunky, you writing a book ?! ) the argument you put forward sounds dangerously like Marxism to me in how the workers are exploited by Imperialism, Comrade. I think the reasons behind this are more complicated than just a few capitalists search for cheap labour. Also, is it always the capitalists' fault that they are looking to push down costs through cheaper labour - who is it that creates these conditions - it's the consumers that use Sainsburys instead of the local butcher, Tesco instead of the local grocer and Amazon instead of the local hardware store - why is that, because the consumer wants a cheaper product and convenience - so who is it that is responsible for the shift in market conditions and forcing cheaper labour by demanding lower prices ( and hence forcing the creation of massive market cap companies rather than keeping smaller more boutique outfits ? )
Click to expand...
I fucking love to hear myself talk. I'm doing the written version of Patrick Bateman looking at himself in the mirror right now lmao.

I have ... complicated feelings towards Marxism (in the sense that I have complicated feelings about race), and I think there are criticisms within it that can charitably called valid. I agree that it is the consumer that helps drive business practices, absolutely, but much as society is directed and in turn directs people in a feedback loop, people can be readily and easily influenced by things that offer upfront convenience but long term damage. Second and third order impacts that aren't immediately visible to the consumer don't register anywhere close to immediate - not even particularly impactful - things. Consumers can certainly create and drive these shifts yes, but the people that capitalise, widen and then turbocharge them are the ones that should be regulated; and they fundamentally aren't. That's not even touching on the reality that the consumer in many cases is not the general public, but other transnational entities beholden to each other engaging in asset gutting and wealth transfer.
EddyRooney said:
I'm not arguing with the migration point of edit 2, I agree entirely, but I think the argument of society versus individuals is more nuanced, if the topic interests you and you haven't read it, I really would recommend the book by Elias.

"While something like that exists, the "Hand of the free market" is dumb." - And yet in your argument, you freely admit that you can't think of a superior alternative. The only solution is to allow the free market to work and allow the government to intervene when it doesn't and the problem with that is the intervention's successfulness is always going to subjective in nature.

@Crispy Jakes - don't put words in my mouth, cunt.​

Click to expand...
I'm very used to dealing with systems that are completely retarded but also the best we've got. I really am not trying to offer an alternative thesis of economic ideas. However I do not think that de-regulation in the will work. It worked before under Thatcher because the government had assets to de-regulate to kick start things; and the UK was a land capable of undergoing growth through ingenuity, grit, and a shared social consensus on what is and is not acceptable. I don't think we have that anymore. I think if you de-regulated now, we'd very quickly become a third world nation, whored out to the highest bidder. The over-regulation that we have keeps us in this gross homeostatic position where everything is slowly grinding down the side of a mountain because the stays are stretching. I don't think cutting the stays is a good idea for getting back up the mountain.
 
The problem with laissez-faire, invisible hand bullshit is it requires morality from a fundamentally amoral creation, the limited liability company. The primary duty of a company is to maximise returns for the shareholders and if that involved grinding up kittens they'd do it.

Much like friend Salsa above I have worked for a globomegacorp and they would absolutely still be spunking tetra ethyl lead, hexavalent chromium, asbestos etc all over the place if it hadn't been banned. Water companies have literally been dumping human shit in lakes and rivers because it's cheaper than dealing with it properly for Christ's sake.

You want laissez-faire capitalism? Do away with limited liability and legalise duelling because the only way to instill even the pretence of morality in corporate lizard folk is to force them to have their knackers on the chopping block.
 
Chunky Salsa said:
I actually have a very controversial take on Asbestos not being that bad and it was demonised by America to kill the Canadian economy. But no one is ready for that.
Click to expand...
Honestly, asbestos in it's place (encapsulated and undisturbed in ceiling tiles or such) I've no beef with. When I think back to us fucking about with asbestos mats in chemistry as retarded 14 year olds though, I'm cringing hard. I know that if I ever find it while doing DIY it'll be on with a tyvek and respirator, wet it down, double bag it when it's ripped out and it's "domestic waste" if the tip man asks.

It's not just asbestos though, being as northern as I am I've known several old people, including a relative, who were done in by working in t'mill and getting byssinosis from inhaling cotton dust all day. I've had dermatitis in the past myself from occupational exposure to chemicals.

Brown lung, black lung, vibration white finger, all these and more can be yours in a deregulated capitalist wonderland, and if you don't like it Nigel will import an Indian to replace you.
 
BongoMongo said:
People haven't rioted yet and it's highly unlikely they ever will.
Click to expand...
What? Do you not remember the second half of 2024? Or Dublin a couple months ago? Yea we haven't had any shit about the specific stuff recently but you can't pretend that we have not had riots over immigration and that sort of shit.
 
So Shabana Mamad has put in a proposal to the police

  • Facial recognition will be rolled out across the UK and Wales from next year.
  • 43 police forces cut down to 12 "mega forces."
  • A British FBI called the National Police Service
  • Police responses in 15 minutes max and 20 if rural
  • All police officers will need a loicense to practice
  • A head honcho to lead all the Police
  • A new Police AI
  • A new national forensics authority
  • Police governance will go through to mayors - CORRUPT AS FUCK!!! The CCP does a similar thing to this, and it turns cities into territories.
All of this is absolute fantasy, and this will cost billions, on a Police force that is being cut. This is the fantasy of someone scared of being thrown through a window. There are 7.5 million security cameras in the UK. Yet the MET has a crimes solved rate of 0%. The UK does not have the staffing or the electrical capacity alone; it can barely handle a fucking storm at this point.
 
How will this new 'British FBI' be different from the already existing 'National Crime Agency' ? As far as I know, they already serve this function.
 
Kier Starmer said:
So Shabana Mamad has put in a proposal to the police

  • Facial recognition will be rolled out across the UK and Wales from next year.
  • 43 police forces cut down to 12 "mega forces."
  • A British FBI called the National Police Service
  • Police responses in 15 minutes max and 20 if rural
  • All police officers will need a loicense to practice
  • A head honcho to lead all the Police
  • A new Police AI
  • A new national forensics authority
  • Police governance will go through to mayors - CORRUPT AS FUCK!!! The CCP does a similar thing to this, and it turns cities into territories.
All of this is absolute fantasy, and this will cost billions, on a Police force that is being cut. This is the fantasy of someone scared of being thrown through a window. There are 7.5 million security cameras in the UK. Yet the MET has a crimes solved rate of 0%. The UK does not have the staffing or the electrical capacity alone; it can barely handle a fucking storm at this point.
Click to expand...
1769461522580.png

my head is going faint
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom