events, news

Love, Labour’s (almost) lost

32 Comments

When Iceland’s mount sends up a pall
  And turbine engines start to fail
And by and by the ash doth fall
  And stranded Britons home do sail,

Then nightly do the airlines howl :
  “Boo-hoo !  …  Oh shit !  Boo-hoo !”

A ferry’s not …
  As quick but, hell, it’s all we’ve got.

ΠΞ            

32 thoughts on “Love, Labour’s (almost) lost”

  1. British Airways Chief Willies ( giggle, giggle ) Walsh sent 26 long haul flights to land in London Heathrow Airport yesterday without Labour Government’s permission and demanded the air traffic controllers to let them land. Without any problems! This put pressure on the government to end their airport jet ban.

    Just another example of Labour’s health and safety gone mad culture.

    Earlier Brown and Mandelson had tried to play heroes ( in order to get votes ) by planning to use British navy ships to bring back stranded Brits from abroad. King P obviously wanted the press to take a picture of him standing on the bow of one of the ship. arms out stretching, doing Kate Winslet Titanic pose, shouting out loud: ” I AM A HEROINNNNNNNNNNNNNE “

  2. The CAA
    Kept flights grounded for many a day
    Hoping that Eyjafjallajoküll
    Would eventually run out of fuel
    While passengers, economy or first
    Drank airport coffee until they burst.
    Willie Walsh
    Protested that the ban was falsh
    Until Lord Adonis
    Said “I wonder what that loud groan is?”
    And gave the call
    That it was safe to fly after all.

    Moral: Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

    Other moral: Computer models are no match for experimental science.

  3. Pericles by any chance?

    b.a b.a b.a b.a’s to blame,
    they ignited Iceland’s molten flame,
    the ash it rose,
    and so it came,

    in league with unite,
    it stopped the planes,
    delayed the flights,
    so once again,

    The company that soars through the sky’s,
    felt profit lost,
    unable to fly,
    but none when compared to the cost,
    suffered by those who lost their jobs,

    voluntary redundancy,
    doesn’t seem too fun to me,
    but then, they turned up,
    the navy to save,
    those fed up,
    with the way’s of B.a,

    oh yay oh yay the girls did roar,
    shout of “hey good looking cworr!”
    as girllies oogled the sailors for,
    the whole trip home and now they say,
    the navy’s far better than B.A,
    no baggage lost,
    no delay’s,
    and amazing views,
    You cant find on a plane!

  4. Janina, now this mail I understand, well, I get the general drift anyway.
    The question that needs answering is how many of our hardworking Matelots and Marines had their leave interupted for this useless political gesture?

  5. @Norman Dee: Very true, i dont suppose they have gone and picked up every holiday maker all over the world that left assuming they could get back? Although its quite nice knowing that nature itself has turned against B.A. Who in my view have been using the media to their advantage to one up on unite, who have the interest of workers at heart.
    I hope that the ones that went to retrieve these stranded sun seekers, did not have to be anywhere that was in desperate need of backup …..
    Its a nice break for them i suppose, i am guessing they did not argue about all the attention they would of received from the female holiday makers?
    Then who can blame them 🙂

  6. Well !  Quite a poetry competition ;  Thank you, Tiresias and Janina.

    The original — mine, that is, not Shakespeare’s — was not intended to be critical of either the aviation industry or the officials whose responsibility is the safe management of controlled airspace.

    What many seem to have overlooked, in the row over the measures taken to deal with it developing in the wake of the ‘crisis’ (a process that seems more to do with point-scoring than with devising a means of dealing with similar problems), is that, although we have much experience of flying around volcanoes in places like the Pacific Ring of Fire, this is different :  Eyjafjallajökull is capped by ice, so that the nature of both the magma in its chamber and the material ejected during eruption are slightly but significantly different.

    Far be it from me to praise anything done by the Labour Party’s politicians but it was entirely reasonable for them to rely on the judgment of the C.A.A. — allowing that authority to take the decision to re-open controlled airspace — and for the C.A.A. in turn to await the outcome of tests of the atmosphere conducted by the Meteorological Office and, by the airlines independently, of the effects on aircraft engines.  Lord Adonis was wrong, in my respectful submission, to say that the C.A.A. and its sister authorities around Europe were excessively cautious in suspending flight operations ;  perhaps his mea culpa was intended only to absorb criticism.  (I’m convinced Lord Adonis is Sir John Major either in disguise or cloned ;  he need only say “not inconsiderable” and I shall have proof.)

    Like it or not, we live in a society averse from risk ;  had a single aircraft suffered engine failure or worse through flying through the ash cloud — and bear in mind it is invisible to weather radar because dry — the authorities and the politicians would not have been forgiven.

    On the other hand, safety is the management of risk and it was entirely reasonably therefore that the airlines and aerodrome operators continually sought reappraisal of the situation as it developed and more information on the nature of the threat became available.  This was the gist of what the Mayor was calling for in an interview with Martha Kearney on the B.B.C.’s The World At One on the 20th.

    Whether the tests were carried out with due expedition is another matter ;  I suspect the delay was due to our typical bureaucratic paralysis.

    ~ · ~

    Now that, for the time being, airspace is open and the disruption coming to an end, the aviation industry — particularly airlines based in the E.U. — seeks from the tax-payer compensation for the consequent losses ;  should it get it ? 

    Consider this :  the banks came to grief owing entirely to their own fault and were baled out — thanks to politicians’ not understanding the concept of moral hazard or, perhaps, to their cowardice — with hundreds of billions taken from the pockets of the tax-payer ;  the aviation industry has come up against a natural disaster, no-one’s fault, and now asks for a few hundreds of millions.

    ΠΞ

  7. I notice that the European Transport Ministers managed to conduct business by video conferencing during the emergency. Will junket loving M.P’s and quangocrats be adopting this method instead of continuing to bag their convenient freebies to exotic locations on the slimmest of pretexts? What do you think?

  9. @circus monkey
    It’s easy to see why they don’t want video conferencing. No opportunities for piss-ups, adultery, side deals, and other skullduggery. Worse, all their dealings would be visible!
    All the fun would be taken away. And since the purpose of entering politics is to have fun and make money, they ain’t gonna change it, are they?
    Our local council’s transport quango recently organised a trip to Vienna, to look at a car park. I’m sure everyone can provide a similar example where politico expense could be cut to a tiny fraction by someone asking, ‘do we need to spend the public’s money?’

  13. @Pericles Isn’t it surprising that, be it ash , smoke, ice , heat or SNOW. The country can do nothing – unless it benefits someone somewhere along the line? I think its disgusting that there is a claim for compensation? Have we not already given the E.U enough? Don’t get me wrong im sure (can you sense the sarcasm) that the 100++billion we have given to the E.U was well worth it…..

    Perhaps if they wanted more from us, they should not be at war with us over the value of currency? Then each pound we handed over would be worth slightly more! What they do not realize is they can devalue (with the help of labour of course) our legal tender as much as they like. However, they can only lower its price in comparison to other currency. They cannot lower its value, Its worth all the tea in china!

    How about this…… we abandon the euro and the whole of Europe starts using sterling? Well, i see no problem. They have no problem the other way round. We could even let each country put their desired monarch or head of state in place of the queen?

    Ummm…. when we consumers take out insurance , are we protected against natural disasters and ‘acts of god’ ? We don’t get our money back so why should they? In fact insurance is our money, they are talking about money they only expect to come their way are they not?
    My second ummm….. perhaps we could ask the army and the raf to come and save us from the snow?……
    …..actually…..maybe not……
    ……there isn’t enough helicopters as it is….!
    🙂

  14. @janina davison-forder:

    “… I think it’s disgusting that there is a claim for compensation … Have we not already given the E.U enough? …”

    This is not a claim by the E.U. upon British funds but by the airlines against the E.U.  E.U. law mandates that airlines based here provide support for passengers held over — for any reason — away from their destinations and it is this cost that the airlines are hoping to recover from the E.U.

    The rate of exchange between Sterling and the Euro is not actually dictated by the European Central Bank but a consequence of the markets’ assessment of the divers economies underlying the currencies.  The decline in the value of Sterling — till the Euro started to suffer from the effects of the revelation of the extent of disorder in the Greek economy — was due to the effects of British-government policy (the budget deficit and the national debt) :  ‘quantitative easing’ (a euphemism for ‘printing money’) exacerbated this.

    ~ · ~

    “How about this … we abandon the euro and the whole of Europe starts using sterling?”

    When the whole ridiculous project started, I thought and it was suggested by many that, if we were to abandon our own currencies, it made most sense to adopt the universal one :  the U.S. Dollar.

    ~ · ~

    “…  We could even let each country put their desired monarch or head of state in place of the queen?”

    What ?  Oh, you mean on the bank-notes.  Phew.

    ΠΞ

  15. @ed gibbs. Oh is that why they do it Ed. Here’s me thinking it was because they wanted to add to the sum of human knowledge and so benefit all of mankind in their usual selfless manner…..or something

  16. @Pericles: Oh ok , i see now , im afraid i wasn’t that awake whilst writing that last comment. Although did a labour M.P not agree to devalue the pound by 14% ?

    Ill admit i am not a banker (thank god), did they not say last night that we are now in the same position as Greece now? (financially,that is).

    I really like that last bit! Brilliant 🙂
    My coin collection is getting very worried though, i shall have to give up on that soon i think. Unless i start collecting the laurel and hardy banknotes ones again (sigh)

    I have a few million pound notes i could give to the ‘national debt collector’ if that helps?

    Would it not be more useful for us all….. to speak one launguage rather than use a single currency perhaps?

  17. Next time, we ought to try feeding power to all those windmills, so that they could blow all the ash back to Iceland.

  19. Janina D-f. You have confused me, you are Boris’s stalker, thats clear from your web site, you appear to be as eurosceptic as me (very), then you say “Unite, who have the workers interests at heart” !!! these are the guys who are paying Charlie Whelan, who think Jack Jones was a regular guy not a soviet agent, who wept on the death of Michael Foot who organised strikes in the docks during the war !, they only have one thing at heart and that is maintaining a socialist government, ok they might want to look at their timing vis a vi organising strikes whilst labour are trying to stay in power, but they are not our friends.
    I don’t like BA either, but they are only trying to stay competitive with employees who are the best paid and have more benefits than any other airline in the world

  20. METRO newspaper ( April 19, 2010 ) awards gaffe of the day to Harriet Harman for this quote, in respone to people repeatedly mistaking her for ex Home secretary Jacqui Smith while out canvassing for the Labour Party: ” I am NOT Jacqui Smith. I do NOT claim a second home allowance and my husband does NOT watch porn! “. Yes, Sir!

  22. @circus monkeys
    “Why did you enter politics?”
    The stock politico response is to gush,
    “To make a difference”
    Well, over thirteen years they sure have made a difference to me –
    GB sovereignty over GB? Forget it!
    Privacy? Forget it!
    Keep most of the money you earn? Don’t be silly!
    And if you think that’s bad, just wait for the Lab/Lib
    axis to surrender completely, utterly, pathetically, to Brussels.

  23. a political monarchy came to an end,
    probability of recession stuck once again,
    critical fiscal hits,
    if we’d known this back then,
    would we of cursed our female p.m?
    a nation that’s most famous for free speech and big Ben,
    though our status,
    our place and reputation,
    is based upon patience and political toleration,
    faced with raising rates of crime and immigration,
    concentrating we find,
    not on public but international relations,
    with red tape holding back economical growth,
    failing sectors not private nor public, but both,

    A national health service falling apart at the seams,
    appalling practice that leaves you and me,
    wondering why in fact it is free,
    improper diagnoses wards lay unclean,
    fatal results that should not of been seen,
    pole-vaulting over the matters that count,
    like expenses that that end up in members accounts,
    whilst national debt climbs oh so high,
    caused partly by lies,
    disheartened we cry,
    our tartan p.m could’ve ended all this,
    with a few regulations but couldn’t resist,
    to play into the banks hands,
    we cant thank him for this,

    in foreign lands sending soldiers to war,
    but could not supply the equipment needed for,
    their safe return and so we saw,
    lives lost like our trust at the hands
    of an iron chancellor,
    riddled with rust,
    labour fiddled the books,
    although it was us,
    who took to the dole as our companies,
    liquidated before us,
    and they want us to vote for these corrupt,
    mp’s who care nothing at all about us?

    We must make a change and one for the better,
    to relieve our pain and aim for good weather,
    start to repair our economy put things right,
    on may the 6th when labour have lost,
    only then can we fix,
    the aftermath of recession,
    and start again ,
    by bringing in a new party,
    and no!
    I DONT MEAN THE LIB-DEMS!!!!

  24. Janina D-f, I sympathise, I could have gone the same way, my dad was a lorry driver, chauffeur, horse box driver, a crane driver and generally drove my poor old mum wild. He was a shop steward with one of his lorry driving companies, but refused to take part in secondary picketing and was blacklegged. This and the fact the Conservative club had better snooker tables turned him blue. Consequently this council house boy was brought up basically Tory, and 21 years in the navy didn’t change that.
    I thought David Cameron did very well with Paxo do you agree?

  25. @Norman Dee: My whole family were actually labour,although have recently convinced my aunt and uncle to vote tory! They never forced any belief of any sort onto me so i have been able to make up my own mind as to who i want to vote for. The tory’s i feel have the most worthwhile and logical ideas to help so that is why i am voting for them. Am not old enough to remember mrs t but after researching her have become quite a fan of her ideas.
    I don’t actually watch televison normally, just the debates as of late and this mornings marr show. So i havent seen it, i will see if i can watch it online though.

  27. Also: hey, is that some kind of secret government code at the bottom of the post there? For a second I thought it was Hebrew. [Ed: Dear R, that is code for Pericles]

  29. “… secret government code at the bottom of the post there? For a second I thought it was Hebrew.” — raincoaster

    Yes ;  that’s to indicate we know where you live.

    ΠΞ

  30. “Why does Pericles sign his posts in Hebrew?  I didn’t know he was even Jewish!” — raincoaster

    Funny :  I don’t look it.  Had a good laugh at that, raincoaster.  Actually it’s a pair of Greek initials ;  here’s the name in full :  ΠΕΡΙΚΛΗΣ ΞΑΝΘΙΠΠΟΥ.

    (I’m not sure one would have to be Jewish to write in Hebrew ;  I’m not — although one of my godfathers was — but I’d very much like to know the language, which is so rich a part of our own linguistic heritage.  Already.)

    ΠΞ

  32. “… my own [keyboards] (which are, by law, only allowed to display French in one part of the country and English in another).” — raincoaster

    The following assumes you to be using a Windows P.C.

    You can usually have two alternative layouts running simultaneously on your keyboard.  From the Control Panel choose Regional and Language Options, from the Languages tab Details and from the Settings tab Add.  Assuming you already have English (Canada) listed, choose French (Canada) et voilà !

    To switch between the two just press Alt-Shift (together).

    ΠΞ

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