LEAVE the Conservative Party and save your country!

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  • morstar
    morstar Posts: 6,190
    Seems the tories are all up for redistribution of wealth.
    From the public purse to their mates as quickly as possible.

    If I were to go full on cynical. The raft of spending measures is actually intentional solely to award the contracts to their mates. I.e. it’s not even a case if we need this service, which mate shall we contract it to but rather....

    I want to reward x for their loyalty, what contract can we make up?
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,702
    _
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 25,776
    I get the feeling they have lost the votes they gained up north last time round due to their own actions.
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 26,254
    See the u turn on school meals has happened.
  • elbowloh
    elbowloh Posts: 7,078
    The BEIS department has a team of about 100 PR / comms people full-time, but Bingham felt this wasn't enough.

    One of the things they have been charged with doing is setting up a podcast with Bingham as host.
    Felt F1 2014
    Felt Z6 2012
    Red Arthur Caygill steel frame
    Tall....
    www.seewildlife.co.uk
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 25,776
    kingstongraham said:

    See the u turn on school meals has happened.

    First thing I thought was; Who has the contract?
    Sad.
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,553
    kingstongraham said:

    See the u turn on school meals has happened.

    And it looks like the negotiation capitulation on Brexit is very close.

    Maggie must be turning in her grave with this current bunch.
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,670
    So we can add to the list that No 10's comms team can't even manage the basics of producing simple graphics for social media.

    Here's the slightly gritted teeth congratulations of Biden.



    And here's what you see if you download the image and tweak the levels.



    Credit to Guido Fawkes website for spotting this.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • Dorset_Boy
    Dorset_Boy Posts: 6,928
    rjsterry said:

    So we can add to the list that No 10's comms team can't even manage the basics of producing simple graphics for social media.

    Here's the slightly gritted teeth congratulations of Biden.



    And here's what you see if you download the image and tweak the levels.



    Credit to Guido Fawkes website for spotting this.
    Setting aside the graphics, why is the congratulatory statement in any way through gritted teeth?
    BoJo rightly refused to offer congratulations before the result was called even though the press tried to push him into doing so. That's being sensible.
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,670
    Possibly gritted teeth is overstating it, but I think it's pretty clear that Johnson had more in common with Trump than Biden.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • shirley_basso
    shirley_basso Posts: 6,195
    What's up with the graphics?
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 26,254
    shirley_basso said:

    What's up with the graphics?

    If you adjust the brightness etc, you can see that it originally was congratulating Trump on a second term, and they just put another image saying Joe Biden on top. I find it difficult to be surprised, but that is genuinely astonishingly amateurish.
  • bompington
    bompington Posts: 7,674
    kingstongraham said:

    shirley_basso said:

    What's up with the graphics?

    If you adjust the brightness etc, you can see that it originally was congratulating Trump on a second term, and they just put another image saying Joe Biden on top. I find it difficult to be surprised, but that is genuinely astonishingly amateurish.
    I call BS: given that it's all done digitally these days, it takes a bit of effort and skill not to wipe out the old when adding the new.

    That has been done deliberately.
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,670
    edited November 2020
    bompington said:

    kingstongraham said:

    shirley_basso said:

    What's up with the graphics?

    If you adjust the brightness etc, you can see that it originally was congratulating Trump on a second term, and they just put another image saying Joe Biden on top. I find it difficult to be surprised, but that is genuinely astonishingly amateurish.
    I call BS: given that it's all done digitally these days, it takes a bit of effort and skill not to wipe out the old when adding the new.

    That has been done deliberately.
    Never attribute to malice what can be explained by ineptitude. If you are knocking these things up in Photoshop but don't really know what you are doing it would be quite an easy error.

    Open previously drafted file. Realise that as it is already a flattened jpeg that you can't edit the original text. In a hurry, so rather than start from scratch, use the 'rubber' tool to (incompletely) blank out the first message and then insert the new text over the top. Save as a jpeg, locking in the mistake.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • shirley_basso
    shirley_basso Posts: 6,195
    Why would the rubber tool work more throughly round the edges and not in the middle?
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,670
    shirley_basso said:

    Why would the rubber tool work more throughly round the edges and not in the middle?

    Possibly if the background colour is already dark grey, then there's nothing to rub out around the edge. The above is only one possible explanation. Either way I think it's more likely than a carefully constructed deliberate act. What message would that be trying to send? That the UK PM doesn't have the staff for its official twitter feed?
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • bompington
    bompington Posts: 7,674
    Not buying any of that. The text looks too regular to have been hit by a poorly aimed eraser tool anyway.

    I guess the incompetence of the current government knows no limit, but I would be a bit surprised (and disappointed) if one of my S1s (Y7) was so dim as to choose to produce something like that using GX software on an old bitmap image rather than knock it up from scratch in 30 seconds using - well, practically anything: Word, Powerpoint, even Publisher dammit.

    In the unlikely event that they did choose to do it such an awkward and messy way, I would expect them to be able to set the opacity of the eraser tool a bit less carelessly.


    TLDR: even a dim child wouldn't do any of that.
  • sungod
    sungod Posts: 16,551
    shirley_basso said:

    Why would the rubber tool work more throughly round the edges and not in the middle?

    i'd guess to save time they took an image with the footer and skewed 0 and attempted to paint over the unwanted text, but missed a bit due to feathered edges on the brush and/or <100% opacity

    from a security perspective, reusing images is a bad idea, way too easy for 'masked' information to be recovered, which seems to be what's happened here
    my bike - faster than god's and twice as shiny
  • elbowloh
    elbowloh Posts: 7,078
    geek off!

    ;-)
    Felt F1 2014
    Felt Z6 2012
    Red Arthur Caygill steel frame
    Tall....
    www.seewildlife.co.uk
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,622
    rjsterry said:

    Possibly gritted teeth is overstating it, but I think it's pretty clear that Johnson had more in common with Trump than Biden.

    Most of what I read before the election said that Boris preferred Biden.
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,702
    TheBigBean said:

    rjsterry said:

    Possibly gritted teeth is overstating it, but I think it's pretty clear that Johnson had more in common with Trump than Biden.

    Most of what I read before the election said that Boris preferred Biden.
    Both statements can be true.
    _
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,670
    edited November 2020
    bompington said:

    Not buying any of that. The text looks too regular to have been hit by a poorly aimed eraser tool anyway.

    I guess the incompetence of the current government knows no limit, but I would be a bit surprised (and disappointed) if one of my S1s (Y7) was so dim as to choose to produce something like that using GX software on an old bitmap image rather than knock it up from scratch in 30 seconds using - well, practically anything: Word, Powerpoint, even Publisher dammit.

    In the unlikely event that they did choose to do it such an awkward and messy way, I would expect them to be able to set the opacity of the eraser tool a bit less carelessly.


    TLDR: even a dim child wouldn't do any of that.

    So what are they intending to convey with the barely visible text?

    It also reeks of someone senior trying to operate software that they have only ever watched the staff using.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • john80
    john80 Posts: 2,965
    edited November 2020
    rjsterry said:

    Possibly gritted teeth is overstating it, but I think it's pretty clear that Johnson had more in common with Trump than Biden.

    I disagree. Negotiating with Trump would terrify most people as he is renowned for saying one thing to your face and then another when out the room. I would rather take on Biden and the UK government would probably take the same view. Christ even the queen did not want to deal with trump and she has shaken some very shady hands at the bequest of the UK government.
  • shirley_basso
    shirley_basso Posts: 6,195
    BBC and Gov't confirm it was a cock up on their part. Seems like an honest, but wildly amateur screw up.
  • surrey_commuter
    surrey_commuter Posts: 18,866
    john80 said:

    rjsterry said:

    Possibly gritted teeth is overstating it, but I think it's pretty clear that Johnson had more in common with Trump than Biden.

    I disagree. Negotiating with Trump would terrify most people as he is renowned for saying one thing to your face and then another when out the room. I would rather take on Biden and the UK government would probably take the same view. Christ even the queen did not want to deal with trump and she has shaken some very shady hands at the bequest of the UK government.
    So you disagree that Boris has more in common with Trump because Trump is a known liar?

    We have assumed the position and will get fvcked hard regardless of who is President
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,702
    shirley_basso said:

    BBC and Gov't confirm it was a censored up on their part. Seems like an honest, but wildly amateur screw up.

    Honestly, this to me was a super British thing.

    Everything is amateur hour - for good and for bad.
    _
  • pinkbikini
    pinkbikini Posts: 876
    Normal office
    Senior admin: "We need to get a congratulatory message ready so that Spaffer can suck up to Donnie. Can you draft something, with the No.10 footer on it?"
    Junior designer: "Sure. What if Biden wins though?"
    Senior admin: "Good point. Do two options, I'll get the different messages from Spaffer. Then clearly label each file. How long will that take?"
    Junior designer: "10 mins max. I'll do it as soon as I have the text."

    Office of No.10
    Senior admin: "We need to get a congratulatory message ready so that Spaffer can suck up to Donnie. Can you draft something, with the No.10 footer on it?"
    Junior designer: "Sure. What if Biden wins though?"
    Senior admin: "We're a lean org now. No point reinventing the wheel. Spaffer will only talk to Donnie anyway - one message, let's not waste time. We can change it later if the unthinkable happens."
    Junior designer: "OK."
    Senior admin: "Oh no, it's Biden. Designer? DESIGNER? Where are they? Sod it, I'll do it myself - mask, colourise, feather, what the hell does all this mean? What are these layers anyway? Bodge bodge bodge - hmm, looks good, only took me 30 mins. Send."
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,622
    rick_chasey said:

    shirley_basso said:

    BBC and Gov't confirm it was a censored up on their part. Seems like an honest, but wildly amateur screw up.

    Honestly, this to me was a super British thing.

    Everything is amateur hour - for good and for bad.
    Quickly outdone by Micheál Martin to prove that it is not purely a British thing.

  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,702
    TheBigBean said:

    rick_chasey said:

    shirley_basso said:

    BBC and Gov't confirm it was a censored up on their part. Seems like an honest, but wildly amateur screw up.

    Honestly, this to me was a super British thing.

    Everything is amateur hour - for good and for bad.
    Quickly outdone by Micheál Martin to prove that it is not purely a British thing.

    Sure but the whole British things for everything being amateur is real.

    It's usually charming but Brits have a natural disdain for anything too professional or polished.
    _
  • Jezyboy
    Jezyboy Posts: 2,917
    I find it slightly bewildering that the message was knocked up in a program where the interface was more complex than a text box on a plain background.

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