Plane

[maggiebee]

Sorry I don't have a link for this but sure some bright spark on here will be able to find one.

No 10 have confirmed RAF voyager PM and Royal Family use is being repainted in the colours of the union flag.
Will cost £900,000

Boris Johnson won’t find an extra £20 a week to support the most vulnerable in society and help parents feed their children in these difficult times.

But he can find almost a million pounds to paint a plane.

Westminster is broken. Surely we can do better.

[Theland]

Spellinmgs :-(

[New Judge]

//NJ - you sicken me.//

I’ll get over it. As I’m sure will you.

//Are you ashamed?//

Nope. It’s not my fault and I’ve nothing to be ashamed of. But it seems I’m stuck with my share of the bill just the same.

Few people today can be worse off financially than my parents were. But they managed to house, feed and clothe their children with no Housing Benefit, no food banks, no free school meals, no food vouchers. In fact nothing except “Family Allowance” which everybody with children was (and still is) entitled to. Until I was six we lived in two rooms in the top of a house. We had no bath and just a kitchen sink. The shared toilet was on the landing. My father was without work from time to time (no benefits for short term unemployment then) but still he and my Mum managed. Looking back I don’t really know how they did it, but they did. So please don’t tell me that I should be ashamed that some children, whose parents almost certainly have far more disposable income than my parents could ever dream of, are “going hungry”. It’s their parents’ responsibility to feed them, not mine. Today’s so-called “disadvantaged” parents don’t know the half of it.

//The charity UNICEF estimates that 2.5m British children, or 19%, now live in food insecure households.//

Well they would, wouldn’t they? They’d have nothing to complain about if they said everything was tickety-boo. Their 36 member “Executive Board” would have no reason to exist or find ways to spend their $5bn budget (mainly provided by national governments – i.e. the taxpayer). In any case the UN is always criticising the way the UK treats people here. It makes you wonder why so many are risking their lives in rubber boats in their clamour to get here. The UN should stick its reports on lampposts in and around Calais so that would-be migrants can learn how terrible it is here.

[retrocop]

Thanks NJ. Another good post pointing out a few home truths. I wish I had your aplomb when dealing with fools.

[jourdain2]

I think, Theland, that New Judge has answered you well, if harshly - but sometimes we have to 'hit base'. Every generation has struggled. I had to choose between feeding my girls and myself, no carpets, no washing-machine (nappies, remember) and bare floor-boards which I covered with a cloth when babies were crawling because I didn't want them to get splinters. I got no help whatsoever because my husband earned VERY slightly over the level for state support - the snag was that we had a mortgage and the repayment rate went up from about 4% (they'd complain about that these days) to over 16%. I chose to feed my girls, learned to bake, grow food, make clothes etc.. A good spin-off was that I had to give up smoking and another was that we learned to make home-brew and hedgerow wines.

We lived. Our kids throve. By continuing to do without we even sent them to prep. school so that they had a very good basic grounding and eventually gained good degrees, as well as national honours in athletics.

This generation of children is no different. If anything they are more fortunate because there is more awareness of need and I am very active in helping to provide food etc. as are very many - far more than when my children were young and we were theoretically well-off. The main issue is to help others and strive for yourself and yours at the same time. Hope that makes sense.

[jim360]

Is it not the point of society as a whole to ensure that its children don't face, as far as possible, the same problems that they did? I may have misunderstood the tone of NJ's post so I'm reluctant to comment further, and perhaps it's born partly of anger anyway. But I was confused by the end of it.

[douglas9401]

Woman with gold chair and hat worth the same as the GDP of some countries manages to redecorate runabout for under a million.

Trump outraged!

[woofgang]

this is one of those "this will cost jobs" where the costs are manipulated.
The plane was due for an overhaul anyway.
The people who will do it are RAF personnel who we would be paying anyway.
There may be a small extra cost for choosing a "non standard" colour.

[Bazile]

I'm having a senior moment here

[alavahalf]

Dont worry no one is watching ! .. 8-)

[zebo]

//I think, Theland, that New Judge has answered you well, if harshly//
Nothing harsh about the truth.
I have said before that the management of money varies wildly in all income brackets, teaching I worked with people who lived from one over-draft to another because of their lifestyle choices. When my daughter was reliant on benefits for a few years she made sure her daughter was fed and adjusted her own lifestyle accordingly. Throwing money isn't the only solution, the precedent is now set for providing vouchers for meals in school holidays, it will then be expected to continue by those keen on making social media speeches from the comfort of their mult-million lives based on kicking a ball round for 90 minutes.

[shoota]

It isn't costing £900,000 is it?
It's only costing the difference between what a re-paint would have cost and £900,000.
On top of which it will be coming from money already earmarked for aircraft maintenance purposes.
Another thread about nothing really...

[New Judge]

//But I was confused by the end of it.//

What confused you, Jim?

[derek-33]

£900.000? hardly

https://www.travelstatsman.com/06052019/the-200000-paint-job/