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
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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.

 

[Heinrich Maneuver]

The Treasury is pushing supermarkets to 'voluntarily' cap food prices. (X)

The UK Treasury is pushing large supermarkets to introduce voluntary price caps on key groceries in return for lifting some regulations, according to four people familiar with the situation.
Supermarkets have reacted furiously to the proposals, under which grocers would agree to identify and cap the prices of essential goods such as eggs, bread and milk.
In return, the government has said it would offer “incentives” to the supermarkets, which the people said could include easing packaging policies and potentially delaying costly changes to rules around healthy food. Some of these measures, such as the packaging regulations, generate revenue for the Treasury.
The Treasury has suggested to the supermarkets that they reinvest the savings to freeze grocery prices. One person close to the situation said that officials were working with retailers to keep prices down.
The proposals come as Sir Keir Starmer’s government is battling to address public concern over the cost of living.
Scottish retailers recently condemned a similar policy by the Scottish National Party as a “1970s-style” gimmick.
One person close to a supermarket said the Treasury’s initiative was “a rubbish, knee-jerk reaction to the SNP”. Unlike the SNP policy, the UK government’s proposed price caps would be voluntary.
The Treasury said: “The Chancellor has been clear we want to do more to help keep costs down for families, and will set out more detail in due course.”
UK food inflation rose to 3.7 per cent in April, and the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, has warned the world is “sleepwalking into a global food crisis”, with the Middle East war throttling supply chains.
The Treasury has also told supermarkets that it would like guarantees that British farmers would not lose income from shop price caps.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is scheduled to announce measures to help households with the cost of living on Thursday, and the Treasury is pushing for her to be in a position to announce the policy. However, people close to the talks said there had yet to be any agreement.
“It is a completely ill-thought-out, last-minute idea . . . The idea that the government can set prices better than the market is for the birds,” one person familiar with the discussions told the FT.
Reeves last month met supermarket bosses following industry warnings that food inflation could rise as high as 10 per cent as a result of the Middle East war.
The meeting initially had to be rescheduled after bosses balked at being summoned by the Treasury. When it took place, retailers asked ministers to address government policies that they blamed for contributing to inflation.
Large supermarkets typically stock between 30,000 and 60,000 individual products. Basic items such as milk, bread, eggs, potatoes, butter and bananas are the most frequently bought.
Supermarkets have long complained about operating on tight profit margins in the UK. However, Tesco, Britain’s biggest supermarket, recently posted an 8.5 per cent rise in annual pre-tax profits to £2.4bn on revenues of £66.6bn.
In Scotland, SNP leader John Swinney responded to industry criticism of his party’s price cap proposal by hinting that it could be implemented voluntarily. He has since hardened his position again to insist that he would legislate for a cap this parliamentary session.
Swinney, who was re-elected as Scotland’s first minister on Tuesday, previously acknowledged that the UK government could block the proposal. That would create a constitutional dispute.
Additional reporting by Jim Pickard and Simeon Kerr

Seeing Modi parade around Europe has made me fucking nauseous; Norway, Iceland, Ireland, all signing ''trade'' deals with that fucking snake. All our culture, our history, our peoples, our rivers, farmland, gone for jeets. Gone so corporations can have endless cheap retarded labour. Fucking disgraceful.

RE Americanisation. You guys are also gonna be shocked to hear that in Bham, we use 'mom' instead of mum and have done for decades. I've always heard shopping centres (or malls) be called pallasades, or arcades if they were the single streets. We have one called Minories Arcade and I always mispronounce it as Minorities.

 

[Clem Fandango]

Snicket or ginnel is getting dangerously close to the bap debate…

That's when the thread gets good.

And it's a barmcake.

 

[UselessRubberKeyboard]

That's when the thread gets good.

And it's a barmcake.

Batch.

Alley.

Entry.

Battle lines drawn. Fire your best bread products, the batches and alleys WILL win.

 

[BongoMongo]

That's when the thread gets good.

And it's a barmcake.

Forget the impending race riots, true violence is here when we all start frothing at the gash over what we our our breakfast in.

 

[only shallow]

I’d call the pedestrian area between shops a precinct. That’s if they’re outside, I don’t think I have a name for what I’d call that when it’s inside. Usually just by its name - Armadale, Trafford Centre etc.

And yes a ginnel to me is a walkway between houses. Can be a public or private one.

 

[Pat Mustard]

(X)

This By-election is gonna be a fucking bloodbath lol, I want every party involved, The leader of the Monster Raving looney party is running, I think restore are running someone it's gonna be amazing. Get SNP and PC candidates in there as well for a laugh to see Burnham win with like 15% of the vote would be insane.


This is the Makerfield results from last election hahaha, I didn't even know the English democrats were still a thing last election I think they are BNP adjacent idk though I think Steve Laws used to be with them for a bit.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

With all the thousands and thousands in protest of at least open immigration, maybe things are gonna change for the better over there?

​

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

Hey, anyone else remember when Farage said those dodgy high street shops selling vapes /doing phone repair / dodgy barbers were money laundering fronts, and everyone lost their minds and called him racist?

Does this mean labour are now racist?

• Mate, it doesn't fucking happen racist. Stop coming up with lunatic conspiracy theories because you don't like people with darker skin than yours.
• Ok it happens, but it's not that big of a deal because it's a complete minority of a complete minority and most of them are white anyway.
• Ok sure it's widespread and trusted SOURCES like the BBC have admitted it happens but when you break it down by demographics it's still not anything to worry about <- you are here
• Mate it has always happened, why are you still banging on about this? I've been complaining about this for longer than you have. Find something else to whine about, racist.

This By-election is gonna be a fucking bloodbath lol, I want every party involved, The leader of the Monster Raving looney party is running

I'm surprised that the left hasn't done a massive hitpiece on the Monster Raving Looney party yet, I feel as more parties become valid to the point where MPs can win by mere tens of votes, the idea that some guy wearing a bin bag on his head could cause enough people to flip a district from Labour or Greens to Reform would see them get investigated by wet leftists with money.

 

[soulless guarantee]

Even if Burnham wins the by-election, which is a possibility, his vacated mayoral position is then up for grabs. Who would be the Labour candidate for that? Possibly some relative unknown, who the general populace of Manchester aren't going to know unless they are already really engaged with politics. They would be up against an unknown Reform candidate, and I think in a battle of unknowns, Reform has more scope to do well as they can just rely on the national party vibe. With all the Reform councillors being voted in, how many of these people did voters actually know vs. how many would be voting based on vaguely knowing Nige and the national party; and could this also be the case for the mayorality.

I don't know enough about Manchester politics, but just thinking about an element that has been kind of forgotten about in the hubbub about Burnham getting into the leadership contest.

 

[Just a boring name]

I’d call the pedestrian area between shops a precinct. That’s if they’re outside, I don’t think I have a name for what I’d call that when it’s inside. Usually just by its name - Armadale, Trafford Centre etc.

And yes a ginnel to me is a walkway between houses. Can be a public or private one.

Salford Precinct,
Swinton Precinct,
Walkden Precinct,
But these were all either fully outside or half outside and half covered over.
Except the Arndale that was fully enclosed...apart from that brief time we had no roof or side walls (Cheers IRA).

The only time I've ever heard a shopping centre being called a Mall was when they tried to rebrand Barnsley into "The Mall" instead of the Alhambra. Don't think the locals could say or spell either word, to be honest.

 

[Miriam Margoyles]

Remorseless electric yob

Is he a Pokémon Gym Leader?

 

[Heinrich Maneuver]

his vacated mayoral position is then up for grabs

At the cost of millions to the tax-payer might I add. Elections purely for politicians egos. Burnham's cult of personality won't translate to automatic Labour votes either, and Manchester/Manchesterism has been getting a bad rep with the youths after the council sued TikTok "journalist" Zoe Bread for exposing their parking fines scam and now she's going around exposing the flats and failed building projects that netted friends of Burnham huge amounts of money (+ Crackadilly gardens still exists).
I wish he had to stand down as Mayor to even run for MP, no elected representative should be able to abandon the people who elected him/her for another region and a chance at a better position.

 

[AnOminous]

Why isn't it just time to start killing gooners? How are Britcucks so pathetic they literally let gooners rule them?

They literally openly admit they're gooners, and you LET THEM RULE YOU!

 

[Clem Fandango]

The only time I've ever heard a shopping centre being called a Mall was when they tried to rebrand Barnsley into "The Mall" instead of the Alhambra. Don't think the locals could say or spell either word, to be honest.

They tried to rename St George's Centre in Preston to "The Mall" years ago. They changed it back quick fucking smart when they realised everyone hated it.

Anyway, back to the by-election. I think there's some true comedy to be had in Starmer campaigning for Burnham to win when literally the only reason Burnham is even running is to knife him in the back and take his job. I want to see lots of journalists pointing this out to Kier, and asking how he feels about it.

He will give his usual robot/npc ansewrs of course. But they should still keep doing it.

 

[Chunky Salsa]

I

Why isn't it just time to start killing gooners? How are Britcucks so pathetic they literally let gooners rule them?

They literally openly admit they're gooners, and you LET THEM RULE YOU!

I just don't care about football tbh.

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

Personally I don't give a fuck about election costs if people leave, like sure it's going to cost a bit for a new Manchester Mayoral election but that's just the cost of doing business. If a guy fell ill or died or was convicted of sexual relations with livestock then it'd go up for election anyway.

I'd probably care more about it if there wasn't the chance of something REALLY funny happening, with labour eating complete shit. Any potential election that boots Labour or Tories out is worth it no matter the cost.

 

[Overly Serious]

How are these supposed price caps supposed to work when different supermarkets and shops have such variationin the same thing? One price cap across them all? Say if they introduce a price cap for whole milk. M&S sell their Irish whole milk, their regular whole milk, their organic whole milk which is likely to be different (and more expensive) than Aldi's whole milk. Which will be different again to the whole milk you might get delivered to your doorstep by McQueens Dairies. The latter you can get glass bottles or plastic bottles. Which believe it or not, people care about.

So what does the government plan to do? Squash every tiny variation in quality into some price-fixed lowest common denominator? How does this work in Scotland where they apparently already have price controls?

This sounds unworkable for more reasons than just the usual fact that imposing price controls is just denying the problem.

In the words of the great Pagliacci the Hated, why are Afghan men applying for asylum in the west? what are they fleeing from, oppressing women?

Pagliacci is just great. I hope they nail the guy that attacked her recently to the fucking wall.

 

[SirCliveSinclairdabbing]

So what does the government plan to do? Squash every tiny variation in quality into some price-fixed lowest common denominator? How does this work in Scotland where they apparently already have price controls?

Squash those milk vending machines at farm shops.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Personally I don't give a fuck about election costs if people leave, like sure it's going to cost a bit for a new Manchester Mayoral election but that's just the cost of doing business. If a guy fell ill or died or was convicted of sexual relations with livestock then it'd go up for election anyway.

I'd probably care more about it if there wasn't the chance of something REALLY funny happening, with labour eating complete shit. Any potential election that boots Labour or Tories out is worth it no matter the cost.

People only complain about the cost of an election if there's a risk their side will lose.

How are these supposed price caps supposed to work when different supermarkets and shops have such variationin the same thing? One price cap across them all? Say if they introduce a price cap for whole milk. M&S sell their Irish whole milk, their regular whole milk, their organic whole milk which is likely to be different (and more expensive) than Aldi's whole milk. Which will be different again to the whole milk you might get delivered to your doorstep by McQueens Dairies. The latter you can get glass bottles or plastic bottles. Which believe it or not, people care about.

So what does the government plan to do? Squash every tiny variation in quality into some price-fixed lowest common denominator? How does this work in Scotland where they apparently already have price controls?

This sounds unworkable for more reasons than just the usual fact that imposing price controls is just denying the problem.

OMG WHY DO YOU HATE POOR PEOPLE?!?

What we're seeing is the government building a consensus to implement price controls at a later point. The first step is to ask for voluntary action from stakeholders, then ask for the creation of an industry body to create standardised guidelines, then "encourage" the industry to regulate itself through the industry body, then finally implement government regulation and turn the industry body into a national regulator when the self-regulation "fails". It's a tail as old as time. Or at least as old as the great war.

 

[Heinrich Maneuver]

This sounds unworkable for more reasons than just the usual fact that imposing price controls is just denying the problem.

Inflation really does feel like an unfixable issue right now. Ik M&S was complaining about the price of electricity cutting into their profits, but even if we built a ton of nuclear reactors, would the price go down? Even if we supported farmers, would the cost go down? If we start prosecuting farms that use illegal/cheap foreign labour, does it go up? Price controls are absolutely not the way forward. I think we should just remove all jeets and arabs from the country tbh, and see what happens.

I hope they nail the guy that attacked her recently to the fucking wall.

And yes I love Ms Pagliacci. I cannot fucking believe that natives there get a special court, yet everyone loves to protest and picket and 'say her name' for murdered indigenous women. WHO DO YOU THINK IS KILLING THEM??? Their INDIGENOUS boyfriends and husbands!! ARGH. She should self identify as indigenous if he can.


Southwark Council is getting rinsed for giving Council Housing to the First Lady of Sierra Leone. She insists she 'hasn't broken the law' by continuing to rent the property (X). She is a former 'asylum seeker' due to child marriage

Sierra Leone’s first lady has defended having a London council flat despite living in a presidential palace.
Fatima Jabbe-Bio, a former actress and model, insisted she had “not committed any crime” by continuing to rent the two-bedroom flat in Southwark.
The 46-year-old is reported to have lived in the property from 2007-2018 before returning to Sierra Leone when her husband, Julius Maada Bio, won the presidency.
They now live in the presidential lodge, a mansion in the hills above Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, which has a swimming pool, tennis courts and a helipad.
But she has retained tenancy of the flat in Southwark, where more than 18,000 people are on the borough’s waiting list for housing, with waits of more than five years to be offered a home.
Mrs Jabbe-Bio has defended her situation. “My children are all British citizens,” she told the BBC. “I’m paying for my council house myself. I have not committed any crime.”

By continuing to rent the property, Mrs Jabbe-Bio would appear to be in breach of Southwark council’s regulations, which require tenants to occupy a council property as their “only or principal home”.
Southwark council refused to comment on whether Mrs Jabbe-Bio had breached the rules. A spokesman said investigations would be carried out “if there is doubt that tenants are meeting the obligations in their tenancy agreement”.
Born in Sierra Leone, Mrs Jabbe-Bio moved to the UK as an asylum seeker in 1996, aged 16, after escaping an arranged child marriage to a man in his 30s.
She initially moved in with a distant relative and began working in the African film industry when she was in London, appearing in a handful of low-budget Nigerian movies. She also pursued a career as a model.
She reportedly moved into the flat in Southwark in 2007 and electoral records show she registered to vote there several times since 2009. She also registered a company at the address in 2008.
The property is set on a quiet, residential street of terraced houses, less than two miles from central London. A two-bed property in the area is estimated to sell for £385,000 and cost more than £2,300 in monthly rent , although tenants of council homes will typically pay less than market rent.
In 2012, Mrs Jabbe-Bio met Maada Bio, now 60, in London, when she was interviewing him about influential Sierra Leoneans in the diaspora. He was fundraising for his first presidential run at the time.