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."

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
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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.

 

[EddyRooney]

Don't worry, Zack will hypnotise the entire London Met police and all will be well.

Will they have bigger moobs ?

 

[Tony Martin's Force Ghost]

The heatwave shit is beyond infuriating; nigger it's called summer, it's not that deep.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

Don't worry, Zack will hypnotise the entire London Met police and all will be well.

He won't need to, we already know that when Labour or Green councillors or MPs make calls for violence that's their free speech.

 

[Goose the Redeemer]

Seems to be linked to yet another rightwing political party: Progress for Britain. Hasn't yet officially launched.

Rightwing? They're commie types (or retarded).

I don't know if there's something fishy going on, or if it's just typical incompetence... (see: "AI" slop: https://www.progressforbritain.org/civ.mp4)

The progressforbritain site links to nicksimulator, and there was also a link going around at the time to a https://progress-party.uk/ which is now parked, however, it was archived, "© 2024 Luke Thomas O'Brien". https://lukeobrien.uk/ "Software developer and Reform Party County Councillor for Haverhill East & Rural in Suffolk." I couldn't find any direct link to O'Brien, although there is a fun little diversion (it's been a while since I've come across someone who forgot to renew the domain name for their personal website... xD)

Both "progressforbritain" and "progress-party" refer to themselves as simple "Progress". rebrand or impersonation? place your bets

There is also another "Progress", but they're probably unrelated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_(organisation)

---

The site itself (https://www.progressforbritain.org/) is (almost) everything that is wrong with modern web development and I fucking hate it, but I did give it a quick skim. The "philosophy" section doesn't exactly inspire confindence;

An example which may serve to illustrate the importance of such an epistemic language is the current debate around assisted dying - literally a matter of life and death. Despite their advocacy, neither support nor opposition can actually articulate the underlying reasons for their positions. By digging deeper, one might learn:

The liberal (drawing on John Stuart Mill and others) might think:

1. Liberalism: "There is no authority higher than man and his own liberty."
2. Utilitarianism: "The highest moral good is in maximising the total happiness across all of humanity."
3. "Assisted dying reduces suffering, and is licit since every human is ultimately their own master. Therefore it should be legal and regarded favourably."

The conservative (drawing on Christianity and classical philosophy) might think:

1. "Human life is sacred as we are made in the image of God. The highest moral good is in advancing virtue, not freedom."
2. "Man is bound by an objective moral order, which includes rights and responsibilities. He does not have the right to take another's life, nor his own."
3. "Assisted dying is a heinous moral crime and must be made illegal."

How can we answer whether assisted dying should be legal or illegal, or whether it progress to give the most vulnerable in society the option to have their lives ended? We can only answer these questions if we use philosophy to judge which positions are better supported.

(The author presents this an an impartial comparison, yet his position (not only on this topic, but many others) is immediately apparent.)

The objection to "assisted dying" (and more) is quite simple, if you have to dress it up with euphemism then that is a good indication that what you're promoting is evil. A good specific point would be to look towards Canada and see how much more concerned they are with saving money by not having to provide long term/end-of-life care than they are with the well-being of thier victims patients.

I would be surprised if there are any further developments with this "party" (aside from another "game"), and it probably isn't worth digging into.

 

[KeeKeeCooch]

Rightwing? They're commie types (or retarded).

Soon as you open the website It's some white commie with his jeet commie girlfriend, absolutely not worth my time, communists are fucking retarded.

 

[Heinrich Maneuver]

Some kind of gathering outside Holyrood of young Scottish men, in all black, 'now's the day, now's the hour'. Psy op? Paramilitary? Street performance? Approved protest? (X) What is going on up there? Is the heat getting to the jocks?

This happened again (X) but in Glasgow (the Daily Record offices?) and the group name 'Alba Defensor' popped up. There's no active or 'official' social media I can find, but I did find the National Scot writing on this group (X) (who also mentions there is no social media for the group and they can't contact them) His wolf-Hitler connections are an absolute stretch though.

Warning over 'echoes of early Hitler’ as protesters target journalists

Professor Thomas Weber, a German-born University of Aberdeen historian known for his books on Hitler, said he suspected that extremist groups in Scotland had been “studying how the far right managed to get majority support in Europe in the inter-war years” because they are “really following the playbook”.
On Saturday, a “Unite the Clans” rally in Glasgow resulted in 15 arrests – including for possession of an offensive weapon, assault, and breach of the peace – as well as videos showing people of colour being confronted on the street and a delivery driver being attacked with a traffic cone

The previous day, around 60-80 men dressed in black had arranged into a fascist-style “drill square” outside the offices of the Daily Record newspaper in Glasgow. It followed similar demonstrations outside Glasgow Cathedral and the Holyrood Parliament in Edinburgh.
Craig Houston, a Scottish podcaster and member of the neo-Nazi-backed Restore Britain party, shared a video of Friday’s demonstration which featured a crest of a new group calling themselves “Alba Defensor”.
A flag featuring the crest – which contains a wolf, a sword, and the words “protecting Scotland, loyalty, action” – was also unfurled at the protest. It appears to be the first time the group has ever been publicly named.

After viewing the video, Weber said: “I'm just looking here at the patterns, patterns of what I've now seen in recent weeks as well as patterns of the past, and I've seen escalation. Now it's at the next stage.”
He noted that the words and symbols deployed by “Alba Defensor” echoed those used by Hitler.
“The wolf in the crest is either an accidental or a deliberate echo of the past,” the expert historian said. “Hitler called himself ‘wolf’ … Even if it's an accidental parallel, there's a reason why both Hitler as well as these people are being drawn to the same kind of symbols.”

Weber added: “The wolf, it's a dangerous symbol on the one hand because of the Hitler echo, on the one hand it's the kind of ‘lone wolf’ association that in a way is also an invitation for other Scots, young Scots, to feel emboldened.
“It says, ‘look, you're not on your own, we're all on the same page here and if the state is not doing what the state should be doing, it's acceptable to take violence against the state and against immigrants’.”

“So, I find it troubling that this group is using the wolf as their symbol, that they use slogans such as ‘loyalty’ and ‘action’, which really all have very eerie echoes of earlier [movements],” he said.
The University of Aberdeen professor further said that the demonstrators with “Alba Defensor” would believe that they represent a “silent majority”, and that their public displays would be a signal to others to join them.
“With this going from being secret now into the open, that has eerie echoes of the early Nazi movement,” he explained. “When initially the Nazi Party was founded as the German Workers' Party, it was actually set up as a secret society, the Thule Society. [It] was properly a secret society, then the next stage was also to give itself a name and to go into the public.
“Whether they're deliberately trying to learn their lessons from how the extreme right has risen in the inter-war years or whether they instinctively understand how this works, it seems to me they're really following the playbook of the inter-war years.

“They're following the playbook of far-right and extreme-right movements on how you build a majority movement, how you create street violence, and how you find followers who are willing to take violent action.”
Scottish Green MSP and justice spokesperson Maggie Chapman said that the demonstrations amounted to “fascist thugs ... openly intimidating journalists outside their offices and proudly bragging about their blackshirt-style fantasies”.
“On the same weekend as we’ve seen people being attacked on the streets in Glasgow for simply going about their daily business, we must see action by the police and others against this threat to our democracy and society,” she went on.
“We’ve got to the point of fascists roaming our streets and threatening journalists because politicians and others who should know better have normalised and appeased the lies and conspiracy theories that the far-right and elites are spewing out on social media to divide our society.
"We must stand against the far right in all its forms – on our streets, in our media, in our politics, wherever we find them.”

Houston, who filmed all four Alba Defensor demonstrations but has denied being involved in organising them, said in a video on YouTube that the group’s “ultimate goals and achievements” are “unknown”.
He went on: “However, using common sense and logic, I think most people can come up with their own ideas of that, but that will get spun as being far right, racist, fascist, and all these other ‘isms’ that you can think and throw at it.”
Alba Defensor does not appear to have any online presence. The National was unable to approach the group for comment.

And this is the youtuber (a Restore member) who filmed the... vigil?

My immediate senses tell me 'weirdo honeypot group', but there's no social media for them like I said, unless its somewhere on Telegram or similar. It genuinely looks like some kind of performance art to me. They're hardly 'legitimate' masked blackshirts, like SUTR Scotland want to claim, but General Emilio (user) made a good point when he said that a calm controlled protest (the Unite the Clans rally) was more telling than a random spergout protest. Whatever it is, the flag is fucking ugly.

SUTR Scotland also posted this hoodie from the Unite the Clans rally, lol. Imagine you run a print shop and some guy comes in to get this made.

 

[UselessRubberKeyboard]

The heatwave shit is beyond infuriating; nigger it's called summer, it's not that deep.

I’ll have you know that humans apparently totally caused all this strange hot weather we’re having, and only going back to living like stone-age people will make the heat stop. EVERYWHERE IS BURNING DON’T YOU CARE BAN OIL BAN GAS EAT WALLPAPER PASTE.

At least, that’s what Reddit told me.

Why do people fail to understand that the climate is changing but humans can’t control it? We’re not fucking wizards. No amount of frogs’ legs and windmill vanes will make the rains come more often. We just live on this spinning rock and have to make do with it.

Still no excuse for the rest of the world to attempt to move to England, though.

 

[Oxyjen]

And this is the youtuber (a Restore member) who filmed the... vigil?

Craig Houston filmed the previous ones too, so some connection seems likely. He also got nicked at Edinburgh airport just a few weeks ago, not heard any more about why.

 

[Snekposter]

human sacrifice? Probably more likely than the water companies building more capacity or fixing leaks.

Fortunately there's a ton of unwanted non-English around you could use if you guys ever get back in the mood for a wicker man.

If it was good enough for the Romans...

 

[Heinrich Maneuver]

Craig Houston filmed the previous ones too, so some connection seems likely. He also got nicked at Edinburgh airport just a few weeks ago, not heard any more about why.

Picked up at the airport for Section 7 under the Terror Act 2000. Could be a fed I guess, or the charges were so bogus they had to let him go, but they did search his electronics. I'm 50/50 and deeply intrigued.

Protests have continued regarding sex offenders being placed in Midlothian, Scotland. (X)

Holylands.spotted posted a plea; Belfast is a SHITHOLE. Open drug use, homelessness, racial tensions, sky high rent, anti social youths.
This is a student page, kind of libshitty, so for plaves like this to post about how bad the drug use and violence is you know its super bad (please note there is no slide 9, either its a mistake or it, if it existed, was removed)


French warship fires 17 rounds at Tory MP with no warning or notice of a training exercise. The British vessel was 2 miles from the coast of France. (X) Kind of hoping this turns out he blundered into an exercise but also, what the fuck.

A French warship has been accused of firing at a boat in the English channel which had a British Member of Parliament on board.

In a post shared online the Conservative MP Chris Philp showed a video appearing to be of a warship monitoring the Channel firing in the vicinity of a boat he was on.

Mr Philp was filming with a local broadcaster, and wrote online: "On the channel today monitoring illegal migrant crossings ... as I was being interviewed by the BBC just now a French warship approached close and fired 17 live rounds behind us."

He added: "There was no notice or training exercise in place. Felt like warning shots or attempted intimidation.


Michael Keohan, a local BBC reporter who was with Mr Philp at the time, described the moment as "surreal". Writing online he claimed that "the French patrol vessel came within 300m of our boat and shot down towards their stern (Back of their boat)."

He added: "Photos of the french boat appear to show a small handgun aimed towards the sea. Around 17 shots fired."


Marine tracking data suggests the ship is a Flamant-class patrol vessel, a 54 meter long warship carrying up to 21 servicemen. The warship boats two 12.7mm machine guns and is primarily used for patrolling the French side of the Channel.

Mr Philp later spoke to the Daily Telegraph saying: "We left Dover early this morning and we were about two miles off the French coast near Cap Grinez.

"There was a French warship patrolling in the vicinity. I was on the back of the boat doing an interview with the BBC as the French warship approached.

"As it came to its closest point of approach - about 300m away - they let off 17 live rounds from the back of the boat."

Mr Philp said the incident "felt to me it was warning shots or an attempt to intimidate", adding: "They were not firing before they approached and nor were they firing after.

"The boat's skipper has never seen anything like this before. There was no notice in place about live firing exercises. There was no warning over the radio or anything else."

The MoD has been approached for comment.

 

[SYN-ACK-ACK-ACK]

https://news.sky.com/story/armed-officers-to-patrol-uks-largest-pride-event-amid-heightened-safety-fears-13567552

Diversity is our strength.

Armed officers will be deployed for the UK's largest Pride festival this weekend, police have announced, following an attack on an LGBT+ event in Berlin.

Sussex Police said uniformed police, officers in plain clothing and "specialist teams" including armed police would be patrolling the Brighton & Hove Pride event, amid heightened concerns about safety.

The van and stabbing attack in the German capital on Saturday night left one person dead and at least 29 injured.

A spokesperson for Sussex Police said: "As we look ahead to Brighton and Hove Pride, I want to reassure those attending, as well as residents, businesses and visitors across the city, that their safety remains our top priority.

"We will be working tirelessly this week and throughout the weekend, building on the extensive planning that has taken place over many months with event organisers, Brighton and Hove City Council and other partners, to keep everyone safe and ensure an effective policing operation is in place.

"Uniformed policing, plain-clothed officers and specialist teams including armed officers will be deployed across the city, which all form part of our comprehensive plans for policing this event."

The leader of Brighton & Hove City Council, Bella Sankey, said in a post on the council's Facebook page: "We are deeply saddened by the attacks at Berlin Pride and our thoughts with all those affected.

"We stand in solidarity with the LGBTQI+ community and, as we look forward to Brighton & Hove Pride this weekend, we want to reassure all those attending that we are working closely with Brighton & Hove Pride, Sussex Police and our other partners to keep everyone safe.

"We look forward to Pride being a celebration of the diversity, joy and, above all, the unity of our community."

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting condemned the attack as "absolutely horrific" and added that the Berlin incident showed why Pride events were still necessary.

He added that such events in the UK are "always well policed" and struck the right balance between public safety and allowing people to celebrate.

 

[Breadbassket]

French warship fires 17 rounds at Tory MP with no warning or notice of a training exercise. The British vessel was 2 miles from the coast of France. (X) Kind of hoping this turns out he blundered into an exercise but also, what the fuck.

Here is some footage of that:

0:40

 

[KeeKeeCooch]

Diversity is our strength.

Not one mention that he was a Islamist, no shocker.

Here is some footage of that:
1.mp4

How much are we paying France to patrol the waters and stop small boats? It's ironic that he's one of the Tory MPs who worked under Priti Patel and the home office (when they were in power) to give more millions to France in order to try stop more small boats, you really can't make this shit up.

 

[Eekum Bokum]

Here is some footage of that:
1.mp4

Bit anti-climatic I was expecting big guns. Also, Warship? that's a warship? if that's the state of the French Navy we could invade them with HMS Victory.

 

[Oxyjen]

Dovertards are letting the country down. Get yourselves some RC boats with FPV link and tape a pair of scissors to the front.

IN MINECRAFT, FOR A JOKE

 

[teriyakiburns]

Bit anti-climatic I was expecting big guns. Also, Warship? that's a warship? if that's the state of the French Navy we could invade them with HMS Victory.

That's just their coastguard. Retarded journalists call it a WARSHIP because it has GUNS.

 

[femboy fart huffer]

Bit anti-climatic I was expecting big guns. Also, Warship? that's a warship? if that's the state of the French Navy we could invade them with HMS Victory.

France has a larger navy than we do.

 

[KeeKeeCooch]

France has a larger navy than we do.

I thought you already made your own kink thread!

 

[2 Faces 2 Colours]

Holylands.spotted posted a plea; Belfast is a SHITHOLE. Open drug use, homelessness, racial tensions, sky high rent, anti social youths.

I've been to Belfast recently to see family, and I agree it's wretched. I'm not convinced it's worse than London, however.

 

[femboy fart huffer]

I have a theory about the world. I think that the inflection point for when everything started to go to shit was when apparently they fucking stopped selling lemon juice in little plastic lemons and switched to just all using fucking green bottles for some reason.

Objectively this is a bigger hit to English culture than the queen dying.