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[-NIM-]Orangelily
17-07-2001, 12:02
Here's today's "Sun Says" to be mocked...


Cure, please

TONY BLAIR has set himself a momentous challenge - to improve public services beyond recognition in just five years.

Yesterday he spelled out what he expects from the NHS.

He vowed that no vested interests - not the unions nor the BMA - would stand in his way.

That is exactly what the public want to hear.

Blair was elected because people trust him to deliver what he has promised.

Nothing must deflect him from achieving the high standards we all demand.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn sounded an odd note on the radio when he appeared to be sympathising more with the unions than the taxpayers who foot the bills.

He insisted that private enterprise had achieved very little in the NHS and that private cleaning and catering firms invariably did a worse job than State employees.

That sounds a bit off-message.

He should make an appointment with Dr Blair for a quick cure.


For a ride

REMEMBER last autumn, when the price of crude oil topped 30 dollars a barrel?

The Government certainly will.

As petrol soared past 80p a litre, there was a national revolt.

So great was it that the Tories actually went ahead in the opinion polls for a week or two.

Today, crude oil is down to 25 dollars a barrel, a drop of over 15 per cent.

But the price at the pumps is still around 77p a litre.

Drivers don't have the same problem of sky-high petrol over in Germany.

There, a litre of unleaded is 61p.

And the Germans don't have motorway speed limits or jumped-up jobsworths planning to charge cars £5 a day to drive through city centres.

Do you ever think the British motorist is being taken for a ride?

Bon voyage

THE world's most beautiful plane will take to the skies again today.

Concorde will lift off from Heathrow after being grounded for a year after the Paris disaster.

We wish British Airways and its chief executive Rod Eddington the best of luck for today's test flight.

Concorde may be so expensive none of us can afford to fly on it, it may use more fuel than conventional planes and it may be very noisy.

But it has the key ingredient that is lacking on other planes: Glamour.

Have a great flight, Big Bird.

Mock appropriately :D



[Edited by [-NIM-]Orangelily on 17-07-2001 at 12:09 PM]

Ironheart
17-07-2001, 14:25
The first one in particular highlights a new problem Blair has, the interests of the Unions (who have traditionally been a big source of funding for the Labour party) versus public services. They've already chewed him off for the low level of the minimum wage (what a cop-out that was) and he has a hard time balancing the interests of both perfectly.

OliverCloseov
17-07-2001, 16:34
I don't think Blair should ignore the BMA. You can't improve the NHS unless the healthcare staff are satisfied with their working conditions.

Skunk
17-07-2001, 19:31
Pfft - that can't be The Sun Says... where are the bits ALL IN BOLD CAPITALS? :P

dogsdinner
17-07-2001, 21:58
And the HUGE PAIR OF KNOCKERS?

RED
18-07-2001, 11:21
Without a decent opposition, I hope the unions cling on to the power they have, they're the last real opposition Blair has.

In a nutshell though, The Sun is utter tripe and The Sun Says part is the most embarassing part of a cringeworthy newspaper. The fact it's the biggest selling newspaper in the country and has so much political and social power makes me cry :bigcry:

But then I'm a Grauniad reader, they should string me up like the refugees, it's the only language we understand etc etc.

The Sun is only good for one thing: Private Eye taking the piss out of it :)

LeeLee
18-07-2001, 12:22
The part about the Germans having cheap petrol isn't completely true. For a start the figure of 61p a litre is more realistically 65p a litre these days, as German petrol has also gone up about 10p a litre in the last year. Admittedly, this still isn't as much as the price increases in England have amounted to, but the German motorists are not happy either. There may be no speed restrictions on most stretches of motorway, but the motorways are mostly still two-laned and in desperate need of repair. Within towns a lot of streets are still cobbled, even in Hamburg, where I live, this is the case!

Another thing that is often forgotten, is that Germans have really high levels of income tax and national insurance to pay - some of my colleagues only have a take-home pay of 50% of their gross. This means that indirect taxation is lower and so it would be fair to say that they expect petrol to therefore, also be in line lower in cost.

So I basically just wanted to point out the amount of thought and research The Sun puts into it's nice little snippets of news. Fair enough, the British motorist is being taken for a ride, but it cannot be considered fair to compare the situtation with Germany without fully understanding why their petrol may be cheaper.

RED
18-07-2001, 12:47
Lee Lee - Careful, wouldn't want to confuse White Van Man now! :)

feigned innocence
18-07-2001, 14:02
No capitals, so I thought it couldn't be the Sun, but then I realized no typo's either, so not the Grauniad [sic]...:D

Diablos
18-07-2001, 21:18
Grauniad?

Skunk
19-07-2001, 01:19
Grauniad = Private Eye's nickname for the Gaurdian. The Gaurdian used to have a fantastic reputation for spelling errors and typos, in particur one occasion when a reporter spelt the name of the paper wrong in an article :) Unfortunately nowadays they tend to use a spell checker so another great british tradition has ben lost ;(

Parasite-old
19-07-2001, 14:56
Pfft, the Guardian woundln't know a good news story if it landed on the desk of the editor and jumped around shouting out "I'm a great bit of news, print me".

The Sun isn't much better but at least it's a more enjoyable read.

RED
19-07-2001, 15:09
"The Sun isn't much better but at least it's a more enjoyable read."

Yeah, if you enjoy being shown how low the lowest common denominator actually is in this country that is.

The Guardian's a decent read - the G2 supplement is great and I also like the comment and analysis section. They're about the most even keel on demonstrations like Mayday, Genoa etc.

Ironheart
19-07-2001, 15:40
I must admit whenever I got a hankering to read a broadsheet (usually when travelling on the train to university open days) it was usually The Guardian.

LeeLee
20-07-2001, 08:37
Nothing better than The Guardian Saturday morning and the Observer Sunday morning, with a load of tea and toast. Don't normally get time during the week to read a paper before the news is out of date, so it's great on a weekend. :)