UK British News Megathread - aka CWCissey's news thread

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.

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

#VEGANsausageroll thanks Greggs

7
10:07 AM - Jan 3, 2019
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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."

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

The hype got me like #Greggs #Veganuary

42
10:28 AM - Jan 3, 2019
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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.

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.

 

[FedPostalService]

Minimum wage increase+NI increase means more hit to the profit of big companies.

You can leverage a position by removing yourself from the books* and take away the pain of the NI increase, with the added bonus of setting new hours and focus job role specific to where the company is now hurting.

* Some companies pay contractors from a different budget than wages, allowing clever companies to juggle departmental budgets. They can pay you more while paying out less.

Please avoid power levelling, but if you’re a contractor why are you such a simp for unions? They legally can’t represent you as you aren’t an actual employee and you have to deal with the consequences of their spastic behaviour too?

Please feel free to tell me to kill myself if the above question is a bit arsey, it wasn’t meant in that spirit.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

Please avoid power levelling, but if you’re a contractor why are you such a simp for unions? They legally can’t represent you as you aren’t an actual employee and you have to deal with the consequences of their spastic behaviour too?

Please feel free to tell me to kill myself if the above question is a bit arsey, it wasn’t meant in that spirit.

Because unionised places do fuck all work, distract management by tard-wrangling them, and pay wages way, way, way beyond what they're worth.

I'm all for grafting and earning my money, but if a company wants to pay me double/triple what I would earn 9-5, why wouldn't I take advantage of that? Imagine working 12 months a year when I can work 6 months and live like a gypo, driving around europe in a rusty tranny van.

 

[FedPostalService]

Because unionised places do fuck all work, distract management by tard-wrangling them, and pay wages way, way, way beyond what they're worth.

I'm all for grafting and earning my money, but if a company wants to pay me double/triple what I would earn 9-5, why wouldn't I take advantage of that? Imagine working 12 months a year when I can work 6 months and live like a gypo, driving around europe in a rusty tranny van.

Avoiding power levelling but those times are coming to an end. The people who are doing fuck all, especially the union reps, are being watched as the money has dried up and we can’t afford their bullshit any more.

The unions are laying off people so it’s becoming more clear that, unless you actually fuck up so severely that a regular employment lawyer would represent someone no win no fee, unions are just weird commie protection rackets and can be ignored.

Having all the lazy fucks strike saves you a fortune on wages too and writes your redundancy list for you.

 

[Amin Yasister]

The government has a long history of utterly fucking up agriculture for vastly retarded reasons. In the 50s and 60s, they spent a fortune and a decade gripping and draining the yorkshire moors to try and make the more productive for agriculture (Against the advise of hill farmers, who knew what was coming) and ended up draining out hundreds of square miles of peat bog, which is now covered in tinder-dry heather and catches on fire every year. Sheep were happy enough prancing around the bogs (and are in fact necessary for a healthy peat bog), but the government of the day had a vision of endless flowing fields of wheat and barley. City slickers can't leave well enough alone and have to stick their noses in at every opportunity. Now you have the same sort of people actively opposing efforts to restore the old bogs because the heather looks pretty and because doing so would encourage more sheep grazing, which is bad for The Environment.


City boys don't realise just how managed the English countryside is these days and think the concerns of farmers are just the whining of "rich landowners". They just want the big kitties wandering around so they can take selfies with them.

You only have to watch "Clarkson's Farm" on Amazon to see how fucking hard it is, what with all the Government and local council interference, to make a living wage as a farmer.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

Avoiding power levelling but those times are coming to an end. The people who are doing fuck all, especially the union reps, are being watched as the money has dried up and we can’t afford their bullshit any more.

The unions are laying off people so it’s becoming more clear that, unless you actually fuck up so severely that a regular employment lawyer would represent someone no win no fee, unions are just weird commie protection rackets and can be ignored.

Having all the lazy fucks strike saves you a fortune on wages too and writes your redundancy list for you.

The unions will never go away. They may be tard wrangled by the tories but Unite and Momentum are labour backers through-and-through. Starmer may be a retard, but his party would not allow him to fuck the unions.

As for boots-on-the-ground level, the lazy fucks will be laid of, be they union staff or workers, as workers can also be union staff while grafting on both jobs. However, no company would lay-off a worker who does 3-5 times more work than the average bear, while learning skills/attending training courses to be more valuable to the company than three of his coworkers.

Here's the rub: A union plant at its's worst, most labourious, run by the harshest task master is Butlins, compared to the auschwitz of non-union, private companies. American corps are for some reason double-auschwitz x 9/11 in that analogy.

 

[FedPostalService]

Here's the rub: A union plant at its's worst, most labourious, run by the harshest task master is Butlins, compared to the auschwitz of non-union, private companies. American corps are for some reason double-auschwitz x 9/11 in that analogy.

But in a white collar setting the opposite is true; union mongs start demanding hard and fast rules and then find out that the rules do apply to them. They actually make good workplaces worse and wonder why it’s getting worse when they completely fucking themselves over when they should just be looking for a different job.

 

[Snekposter]

City boys don't realise just how managed the English countryside is these days and think the concerns of farmers are just the whining of "rich landowners". They just want the big kitties wandering around so they can take selfies with them.

Would it be gay if we have a group hug and sob to each other about the devastation overeducated and underknowledgeable city slickers have inflicted on the natural environment of both our countries? It really is positively heart-wrenching to think about.

 

[East_Clintwood]

Would it be gay if we have a group hug and sob to each other about the devastation overeducated and underknowledgeable city slickers have inflicted on the natural environment of both our countries?

Depends. Would our balls be touching during, if not it's not homo, everyone on the internet knows that

 

[SirCliveSinclairdabbing]

Depends. Would our balls be touching during, if not it's not homo, everyone on the internet knows that

That's why I stick to Eiffel tower. Next door neighbours, rubbing plums has never worked for me.

 

[f4t2h7gc]

I think that young ‘uns now don’t get how materially poor most working class people were though. It’s a strange paradox; the bigger things, like houses were more affordable but consumer goods were vastly more expensive.

A lot has changed. Society has lost all cohesion, and most of that change is entirely negative. Things were better before

Many good points. As a point of balance though, many young people who complain about how it was 'so much easier back in your day' simply don't appreciate quite how much quality of life and ergonomics have improved over the decades. And this is something worth remembering. Technology, medicine, the range and variety of food and nutrition, the affordability of consumer goods (as you mentioned), access to information, transport options, communications, health and safety, a greater variety of job opportunities and an escape from serious back breaking graft for more and more people (not exclusively, but definitely noticeable). All of this has greatly improved how people live - and for how long - when compared to the 60's and 70's. My grandfather and father are not in a rush to get back down the mines again. And for good reason.

All of your points on social cohesion and product quality remain as true as ever. Manufacturers are watering the soup to make it go further and it's just not what it used to be anymore.

Soft people drunk on excesses are part of the problem. The people from the cushier neighborhoods may go round every weekend to break bread with their nice Somali neighbour, but this is just not the reality for most of the country. People do not trust each other. There are big cultural rifts at play, and the government plan has, so far, been to pretend that these problems don't exist, or postpone any discussion of the matter further and further down the road.

You only have to watch "Clarkson's Farm" on Amazon to see how fucking hard it is

Clarkson's Farm has done much to raise the stark realities of farming in the UK. It's hard, tough, unrelenting work. And people should remember that when they complain about the lack of organic aubergine in their local Waitrose.

 

[AnOminous]

There are big cultural rifts at play, and the government plan has, so far, been to pretend that these problems don't exist, or postpone any discussion of the matter further and further down the road.

Not merely to avoid it, but to smear anyone who even wants to discuss it at all as some kind of hate criminal. Or worse, literally criminally prosecute them just for disagreeing with the prevailing narrative.

 

[Tony Martin's Force Ghost]

This budget was a whole lot of nothing but extorting the middle class, wealthy and SMEs. They did nothing to boost sectors that are screaming for homegrown employees. There is not incentive to be a doctor or nurse for example and we have a huge lack of staff who can do diagnostic. This would speed up qs but also clear wards quicker but surgeons are in very short supply. On top of that they only get their 5.5% pay rise and ARPNs get nothing as they are band 7 but really overworked. The problem for example if you are single and work in this field you are at £35k pre tax so still could not buy a house securely. Reeves said about HMRC being more responsive but failed to address their staffing crisis along with DWP making it null and void.

People on benefits were left unpunished and whilst there are a very small subsector who legitimately are entitled to those because birth etc. I am so sick of working 60+ hours and seeing someone near me who does nothing high on weed, eating good and paying no rent etc. The weird thing is these types of people you never see in hospitak but they do make ambulance requests. These people are a fucking scourgemy disdain is very high.

Small businesses got railed by this though, the amount of closures is going to be phonomenal.

 

[Midwit]

Small businesses got railed by this though

You know what isn't? The HS2 route from Birmingham to Manchester.

 

[6MillionCoofs]

You know what isn't? The HS2 route from Birmingham to Manchester.

Lol

 

[Coolio55]

You know what isn't? The HS2 route from Birmingham to Manchester.

It's like K'nex but with blobs of poo.
Maybe we can join all the shit cities together like one of those Japanese robot cartoons and they'll fly off into space.

 

[Overly Serious]

Well my view on the Budget is that I need to learn how to become an exporter / build business abroad somehow. But then my dark view on Britain's trajectory has made me think that for sometime now. The Budget is just another notch turned on the rack.

Unless they've blanket declared all their contractors inside ir35, which means they assess and deduct your ni and income tax. The budget appears to extend that to all off-books employees, with the requirement to assess PAYE regardless of ir35 status. I'm still looking into it.

If you come up with any thoughts on that, feel free to share. I used to thing IR35 was just a tax dodge and had little sympathy for those complaining about it. When I actually learned the mess it is, I joined them. I'm not against making sure people don't dodge paying taxes, but IR35 is a clusterfuck. Are you telling me they made it worse?

The government is not obliged to fund "my dream of owning a full organic crystal healing launderette".

There's a difference between funding, which is giving your business money, and simply taking less of your profits.

If you don't like "charity", you better fucking hope the neds don't snap to the concept of justice instead.

Equity =/= Justice. I get that your catapultation into the landed classes gives you a particular viewpoint on this, indeed I sympathise with having to somehow maintain your class consciousness whilst surrounded by David Camerons. But outside of that rarified set, the majority of the Haves are there because they or their families put the work in to get there. And the majority of the Have Nots are there because they and their families did not. If they come in a horde for what the rest of us have, it wont because because of "Justice," I feel. Envy probably, desperation maybe. But not Justice.

However, no company would lay-off a worker who does 3-5 times more work than the average bear,

Not to P/L, but they will if the worker makes the others look bad. Especially when said "average bear" is the boss and finds fellow bears now go to that worker rather than him.

There are heavily unionised environments where absolutely the egos of the many, outweigh the value of the few.

Would it be gay if we have a group hug and sob to each other about the devastation overeducated and underknowledgeable city slickers have inflicted on the natural environment of both our countries? It really is positively heart-wrenching to think about.

Come here bro/lass. *hugs*

No homo!

 

[isalaide]

@Overly Serious I bet it is possible to craft a just-plausible enough business plan to get the seed funding for the organic crystal healing laundrette out of a commercial lender in this country.

Or perhaps I am blackpilled by having just been to someone's 'dream of owning a cafe' where they paid thousands of pounds to install a geuine parquet floor and failed to care that they only have room for four tables of two people each.

This is an organic smashed avocado on ancient seed sourdough for £17 kind of place, so how the fuck this is a viable business is fucking beyond me.

I would suspect it was set up for money laundering, but they have wasted such a colossal amount on the refit it can't even be that. Honestly this person has basically built themselves a little clubhouse for their mates and completely blinded themselves to the need to operate like a business and make money.

They put steamed milk in my tea

 

[Overly Serious]

They put steamed milk in my tea

Ah-ha-ha-ha! Why would someone do that? I just searched this online and apparently this is for making a "tea latte".

Oddly enough, I had some mates who did the same thing but from the opposite class end. Made an anarchist cafe that had zero chance of making a profit but again, that wasn't the point - it was meant to be a place for some mates to hang out and reflect their aesthetic. And whereas yours has steamed milk, ours had margarine-heavy seed flapjacks. We are all awful, but we all have our own way to be awful in. Anyway, as above, so below. Or rather, humans just like to do this.

Despite the odd disagreement I do feel for you and get a lot of where you're coming from. I too found myself in a displaced demographic, though by a different route and probably not to quite such an extreme. My general finding is that most people are just... people. Most of them aren't actively ill-intentioned, but a lot are harmful through ignorance or just through where they've been placed in society. Most of us are cogs and if we try to change the machine we get kicked out and another cog put in place. That happens at all levels of society, weirdly. There are just different methods of cog removal.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Are you telling me they made it worse?

It's not quite as bad as I feared, but it's not great. The changes are to contractors who comply with IR35 by working through a so-called umbrella company, which is essentially an employment agency that does your accounts and handles the administrative crap. The contractor is an employee of the umbrella company on paper, so the umbrella performs PAYE assessments to calculate what counts as income for tax purposes. The budget has changed the rules so that the responsibility for PAYE falls on the company to which the contractor is supplying services. This is an administrative nightmare for everyone involved and is going to fuck over a lot of businesses that rely on contractors. The meme is that they're all laptop strokers, but there are all sorts of industries that rely on the flexibility of contract workers for short-term or ad-hoc job requirements. Truck drivers, for instance, or farm workers. Working through an umbrella (or a "personal service company") means they don't unfairly pay more tax than they should, just because they earn in an unpredictable way.

Meanwhile, Capita and co are dodging taxes left and right, while bunging "gifts" to cabinet members and civil servants to tighten the screws on everyone else.

 

[GratsTheat783]

Kemi Badenoch won to be the leader of the Conservatives. 53,000 votes, compared to 41,000 for Robert Jenrick was what I heard on the news, though I couldn't find it in the article.