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.

View image on Twitter


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

#VEGANsausageroll thanks Greggs

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.

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.

 

[GratsTheat783]

There are genuinely times when you look at supermarket prices and wonder if they are actively colluding to drive their customers mad. Finding that now many prices are online only but not marked as such was the point when I was sorely tempted to torch the local Tesco.

I was told the "price lock" thing that you see supermarkets doing is collusion to keep the prices up. If one shop tries to lower their prices, all the others will also lower with them removing any advantage of lowering the prices.

 

[Overly Serious]

The slap fights in this thread are excellent,

The smaller the cake, the bigger the squabbling. Not for us the grand epics of Capitol Hill. Far more squalid is the petty backroom dealing of the British state. 'The Thick of It' shows well the state of the state today and is well worth a watch for the omnishambles alone.

Quite possibly. She is somewhat headstrong though. At least the opposition may have some bite to it if nothing else. Starmer didn't seem too strong willed when he was debating with Sunak, so I don't rate his chances against Badenoch.

When Starmer is replaced by Discount Donna Noble, the sparks will really fly. Starmer has the mannerisms of a petty office tyrant. He'd rather shank you in the dark or wank in your milk in shared fridge than lampoon you across the chamber floor. But Rayner is filled to the brim with vinegar and smugness. Not much policy and not much vision, but lots of red-headed invective. Badenoch is much more measured but no less stong-willed. Going to be Fire and Ice watching those two go at it.

Adeptas Sororitas, apparently. Some Sisters paraphernalia was spotted in the background of one several of his interviews.

Funny. On his twitter he posted a Dark Angel he'd painted and he made some comment about having boxes of Dark Angels and Orks. Maybe he's more of a painter than a player.

Sainsbury's are selling fake fruit and something is fucky with their milk. It doesn't taste milky or creamy and goes off in no time.

Is this a story somewhere you can link to? I bought some banannas a while back and there was something very weird and unpleasant about them. They had the texture of flaky rubber. Impossible to fully convey. Never tasted anything like it and threw them away. I searched online and found stories about a product called "aPEEL" produced by Bill Gates used to preserve things. Apparently the UK govt. has given a special pass saying that it doesn't need to be listed as an ingredient or anything else because it's made from seed oils and is therefore "natural". Lots of people saying it makes food taste rubbery and fake. My suspicion is I got some bananas that got a higher than usual dose of the stuff and ever since I've been paranoid about whether I can taste the rubberiness or not. I've tried to find out if they're using it or not but they lock the information down tight and none of the supermarkets have easy means of sending them questions anymore.

They ruined milk in the UK over the last few years, including whole milk, it used to be 4% fat, now it’s only 3.6-3.7 % and more processed.

Was this something that was a govt. policy or something?

Unfortunately, I live in the Isle of Man, so there's no Lidi here.

I'll bring you some over next time I come!

How is the IOM? I've not been in ages and I have a hankering to go on the Railway.

Probably even more appealing since the recent budget, given IoM gets to set its own tax and control who is allowed to immigrate there. Getting more expensive to travel on the ferry, though.

 

[Hazel Motes]

But, but muh black Thatcher.

As Minister for Equalities, Badenoch built a strong reputation on the back of her 2022 command paper, Inclusive Britain: An Action Plan, which set out to Parliament the Conservative government’s official response to the Sewell Commission’s report on ethnic disparities. Hitting all the right buzz phrases, the paper won praise in the right-wing press for its attacks on terms like “BAME” (“black and minority ethic”) and “white privilege”, and Mrs Badenoch’s fiery press statements about the perils of “critical race theory”.

Begin working through Kemi’s 97-page action plan, however, and it’s hard to escape the creeping impression that neither its nominal author, nor her adoring pundits, read it.

Action 17, for example, pledges to “consider the scale and causes of the ethnicity pay gap across the NHS and produce actionable recommendations on how to reduce it.” The latest progress report, also published under Mrs Badenoch’s name, notes with approval the completion of the NHS Equality, Diversity and Inclusion improvement plan which “requires employers across the NHS to take action to ensure year-on-year reductions in pay gaps.”

Said plan actually goes rather beyond this, mandating that:

Every (NHS hospital) board and executive team member must have EDI [‘Equality Diversity & Inclusion’] objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timebound and be assessed against these as part of their annual appraisal process.

Specific metrics include “year-on-year improvement in race and disability representation leading to parity” in senior leadership roles. In other words, this plan entails forcing the leadership of every NHS hospital to meet annual racial and disability promotion quotas.

To see what this plan looks like in practice, one can walk 5 minutes from Kemi’s parliamentary offices to Guy St. Thomas NHS Hospital Trust, whose racial action plan includes “Reverse Mentoring”. When I enquired with a seasoned NHS administrator who had been subject to this now widespread practice, I was told it had entailed being followed around all day by a junior black employee, who gave her pointers on fighting “normative whiteness”.

https://thecritic.co.uk/kemi-badenoch-is-a-useful-idiot/

 

[Bloom Worm Cross Field]

But, but muh black Thatcher.

Honestly, Badenoch could be an A10 called Chad Enoch promising to bring back the Two Power Standard of the navy and position the entire fleet in the channel vaporising small boats, and I still wouldn't vote for her as long as she was standing under the Tory banner. Zero seats wasn't a one-time thing, I am never voting for the Conservatives in my life. The party has to die out.

 

[isalaide]

I don't care what party they lead, or what policy programme they endorse.

I am never voting for someone who isn't white.

I know many people believe in civic nationalism. I don't. If a person wants to speak about "traditions, culture, values" and suchlike of any part of the UK, which are white nations, they better be white.

A person who is a third generation immigrant hasn't lost all of the traditions, culture and values of their grandparents' home. It is rightly considered stupid and insulting to think otherwise.

It is not possible for someone who is not a white person descended from other white people native to this island to represent or "return to" traditions, cultures and values that they do not share, for better or worse.

This is a white country. It will not remain in its culture and values a white country unless it is led by white people. BAME, Asian people do not "get" being white in the same way white people do not "get" being BAME or Asian. The cultural experience, the lived experience, the shared ethnic history, are too different.

If a 'nation' is comprised of its land, its people, its history, its evolution towards a shared culture, and shared values, no one who isn't part of that people can be a nationalist. If you can walk off the boat and within an eyeblink, a handful of years, belong to that nation, it isn't a nation. It's a fucking corporate entity with a flag instead of branding. A nation with no ties to its land or its people is a paper nation, and any idea of being nationalistic towards it is nonsense. Yes, nations are more than 'just' blood and soil. But without the blood and soil, none of the rest of it matters even a little.

This is a white country. It must be led by white people. Even white people I disagree with are still white. As long as the voters of this country are prepared to elect those from other cultures and ethnicities as long as they say more or less whatever they agree with, the alleged 'special character' of the nations of the UK will continue to wither away until we are just a collection of micro communities only united by a shared passport. Like the Americans. Look how that works out for them.

 

[Hubelublub]

I like Kemi. I like her views, I like her approach, and I like her intellect.

But for leading a country, that person must be from some ethnic group of that country. The cost of being an immigrant is that you never will get to be in charge of that country. If you don't like it, go back home.

Kemi isn't ethnically British or Welsh or Scot or Irish, and while that's not her fault, that's not the fault of 80 million Brits either.

There are thousands of important roles an immigrant can play in their adopted country. Leading it is not one of them.

 

[NoReturn]

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.

SLAY TROONS KWEEN

Just another male feminist saying aloud he wants a woman to "not exist" or "shut up."

No hot water though, see he's a good ally so he gets a misogyny pass when it's targeting someone who doesn't support progressive politics.

https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/david-tennant-fans-turn-jk-30288462

Original quote:

https://variety.com/2024/politics/global/david-tennant-kemi-badenoch-lgbt-1236048181/

Kemi's response


Rowling's tweet

 

[Eekum Bokum]

"you may espose all the right things and want to implement all the things we want but your not white so fuck off" - People who wonder why they never win.

 

[gamer2014]

The fact that Tesco have jacked their prices up to near-Waitrose levels unless you have a clubcard boils my piss, I just hope they are deriving little to no value from knowing how often I buy fancy scented arse paper, Gü desserts and Charlie Bingbong ready meals (in each case, it's when they're on offer or in the whoops section) as they're extortionate otherwise.

Same with Sainsbury's and their Nectarcard

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

Is this a story somewhere you can link to? I bought some banannas a while back and there was something very weird and unpleasant about them. They had the texture of flaky rubber. Impossible to fully convey. Never tasted anything like it and threw them away. I searched online and found stories about a product called "aPEEL" produced by Bill Gates used to preserve things. Apparently the UK govt. has given a special pass saying that it doesn't need to be listed as an ingredient or anything else because it's made from seed oils and is therefore "natural". Lots of people saying it makes food taste rubbery and fake. My suspicion is I got some bananas that got a higher than usual dose of the stuff and ever since I've been paranoid about whether I can taste the rubberiness or not. I've tried to find out if they're using it or not but they lock the information down tight and none of the supermarkets have easy means of sending them questions anymore.

No link to hand other than a few tiktoks and youtube vids about american watermelon not dissolving or going off.

It's funny you say banana because that's what one of my fruits were, the other a pink lady apple. The banana felt like plastercine, it had a rubbery, almost play-doh like texture to it and it was spackled with little black dots that I thought was bruising. It wasn't. It was tiny brown solid lumps, like large grape pips. Bananas instantly binned.
Pink lady was similar, no crunch like it should have, no softness like some red apples have, just an odd texture for an apple, more akin to a solid donut or cold nougat. Apples binned.
FWIW, I have bought the same brand and style of apple and banana for the last 6 months. Something is very wrong with our food.

Edit:

I've just read about Apeel, funded by the WEF and Bill gates. It's an odourless, colourless organic compound made of monoglycerides and diglicerides. It DOUBLES she shelf life of fruit - nothing horrifying about that, and the kicker? the side effects are DISCOMFORT FROM INGESTION, REDNESS AND IRRITATION WHEN IN CONTACT WITH THE SKIN AND SEVERE BURNING AND TEARING WHEN IT COMES IN CONTACT WITH THE EYES.

THIS IS ON OUR FRUIT AND VEG. ASDA, SAINSBURY'S AND TESCO ALL USE THIS SHIT!!!!!!!

Horrifying beyond comprehension.

 

[teriyakiburns]

THIS IS ON OUR FRUIT AND VEG. ASDA, SAINSBURY'S AND TESCO ALL USE THIS SHIT!!!!!!!

They say this apeel stuff is "plant-based", but given what goes into other "plant-based" products, I'm starting to think the "plant" in question is a chemical plant. It wouldn't be the first time they've told the truth like that. Fortunately, the soil association hasn't yet been conned into letting them use it on organic-labelled produce, so there's always that sodding expensive alternative.

I've noticed a general drop in quality for both Asda and Tesco over the last year or two. Switching to Morrisons has been night and day in terms of quality and the price isn't all that much different. A fiver more for my usual shopping list.

 

[ThrobbingWalloper]

Brits continue to feed their children to dogs.

 

[Mao Hao Hao]

They say this apeel stuff is "plant-based", but given what goes into other "plant-based" products, I'm starting to think the "plant" in question is a chemical plant. It wouldn't be the first time they've told the truth like that. Fortunately, the soil association hasn't yet been conned into letting them use it on organic-labelled produce, so there's always that sodding expensive alternative.

'Plant-based' doesn't even mean healthy or good like everyone seems to think it does. Sure, some plants are great, but there's so many toxic, deadly plants out there too. It's the same with 'natural' and 'organic', which people belive means it is 100% safe and fine (think someone earlier in this thread explained even organic stuff is covered in things that are not great for consumption).
Cyanide is also natural and organic, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go around eating peach pits.
If a product overly advertises itself as any of those things, I get a bit suspicious, since normal, perfectly fine fruit and veg do not need to be hammered down my neck as natural and organic, they already are by default.

 

[Overly Serious]

@Bog-standard Poster , @teriyakiburns I feel a little bad following that horrifying story with more about bananas but it can't be helped. Having read more about the effect I'm about 90% sure they were treated with aPeel. My concern is that given the ones I had were utterly disgusting but it's impossible that I bought the only ones that were so treated, my guess is that this is now routine but they only get the amount 'wrong' on occasion and the rest of the time it's less (but imo still) noticeable. On that basis I've been avoiding buying bananas from there since. I've not tried the apples you mentioned but I got some courgettes which seemed a bit weird.

The information about the soil association is useful to know.

I'm going to try and get information about if they use it or not and find out for sure. I do NOT like the idea of eating this stuff and I despise that someone can just write "plant based" and not have to list it. I do not believe this can be healthy and it certainly makes the produce unpleasant.

 

[teriyakiburns]

If a product overly advertises itself as any of those things, I get a bit suspicious, since normal, perfectly fine fruit and veg do not need to be hammered down my neck as natural and organic, they already are by default.

It's like "plant based meat", which is already a contradiction in terms. Nothing is called vegetarian any more; it's all "plant based". And disgusting.

@Bog-standard Poster @Overly Serious So this will make you laugh, just a bit. There's a cleaning product called Apeel, which I think some people have been mixing up with this "treatment". The side effects people attributed to the preservative shit are the ones you'd expect from a surface cleaner. They've had to put a disclaimer on their listing (live) disavowing any connection with the other Apeel, apparently since april of last year.



I bet they chose the name on purpose so they could use the subsequent uproar to call any complaints a conspiracy theory.

 

[isalaide]

It's like "plant based meat", which is already a contradiction in terms. Nothing is called vegetarian any more; it's all "plant based". And disgusting.

@Bog-standard Poster @Overly Serious So this will make you laugh, just a bit. There's a cleaning product called Apeel, which I think some people have been mixing up with this "treatment". The side effects people attributed to the preservative shit are the ones you'd expect from a surface cleaner. They've had to put a disclaimer on their listing (live) disavowing any connection with the other Apeel, apparently since april of last year.

View attachment 6600222

I bet they chose the name on purpose so they could use the subsequent uproar to call any complaints a conspiracy theory.

Never used this but big fan of the Method Clementine surfaces spray. Really lovely smell

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

I appreciate the additional information @teriyakiburns and @Overly Serious. I know my post seemed dramatic and it was on purpose. I would rather be labelled a nutter, than correct, where matters of food are concerned.
Though there is a chance the Apeel cleaner and Apeel sciences are different products - not a high chance, mind, I did feel gastronomically uneasy for the rest of the day after eating most of the apple.
I will look out for the fresh/organic labels to avoid eating any of this turd again and will do more in the future to buy from farmers markets etc, or just swap to tinned fruit, as I reason and pray to Gaia and God that they haven't screwed with that stuff as well.

 

[FedPostalService]

View attachment 6600046
Brits continue to feed their children to dogs.

They’re travellers. They’re Irish at best.

 

[Otterly]

aPEEL" produced by Bill Gates used to preserve things.

Ahhhhh….. mystery solved. May he rot in the darkest pit hell has to offer him.

The banana felt like plastercine, it had a rubbery, almost play-doh like texture to it

Fortunately, the soil association hasn't yet been conned into letting them use it on organic-labelled produce, so there's always that sodding expensive alternative.

I will look out for the fresh/organic labels

Just so you know:
The little stickers on fruit and veg have a numeric PLU (price lookup) code on them. It can be read thus:
- four digits = conventionally grown and can be assumed to be doused in anything
-five digits starting with 9 = organic - much more restricted in what it can be doused in
-five digits starting with an 8 was reserved for GMOs, but this is patchy because they were generally rejected by consumers.
ALWAYS buy organic lemons and citrus. Non organic are waxed with weird shit, and unless you only use the juice, you’re eating it.
Each variety of apple or whatever tends to have its own code. I would suggest if you have a garden plant an apple tree or two (cross pollinators preferably.) apples can be dried, put in jars, lightly cooked and frozen and if washed well and dried they will store for MONTHS if stored in the fridge. We still have plenty from this year fresh in the fridge, the rest are apple sauce, freezer apple pie filling or dried.
If you have a local farmers market use it, and talk to the people selling at it about what they use. Not everything is terrible, some things are fine, and it’s hard to grow fruit industrially without using anything.
Fruit grows really well in the uk - apples, pears, peaches, all sorts of berry, and if you can shove it in jars, make jam and freeze or dry it it’ll last you until the next harvest time. If you have a garden, plant an apple tree. Shove some berry canes in. Strawberries can be grown in almost anything, they have very shallow roots. But if you have to buy, buy local.

 

[Monopolywheel]

Rory Stewart once again showing that he was never right wing and always belonged with the Lib Dems