Best Of

A genuine question for the floor as I've never looked at any of their manifestos etc.

Do Reform actually know with any level of clarity what it is they're going to reform and how they're going to reform it, or are they going to do a Starmer Labour and suddenly wake up in power but with no apparent idea of what they're actually going to do with it?

I suspect there'll be a DOGE thing and pulling out of ECHR; they would be relatively easy to fire off but what they would actually achieve is open to question. Thereafter? A crackdown on mickey-mouse degrees and some 1970s-style picking-winners state funding for parts of the business sector. Daily prayers in school perhaps.

Remembrance Day a bank holiday?

In her strongest criticisms of the tax to date, Ms Nandy went on to insist that a “fairer” and “more sustainable” funding model must be found, declaring the current system “unenforceable”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/04/25/bbc-licence-fee-targets-women-lisa-nandy-culture-secretary/

When a politician talks about fairer, that normally results in anything but and at increased cost...her comments scream some sort of media tax on your council tax bill.

They'll just kick the can down the road by announcing some sort of extension to the existing model while a commission is set up to explore other options.
In related news, I've had my 7th letter in 6 months in our new house. "The Legal Occupier" is under the final stages of investigation.
What investigation? If they ever do send round a telly licence sales assistant, I'll just say "no thanks" and that'll be it.
It's just a never ending harrassment, but fortunately I know I'm doing nothing illegal and they just spend licence payers money for nowt.

We've been getting letters like that for ten years. I think they'll twig one day (or maybe not).

The letters can just go unopened into the recycling. You're under no obligation to even read them. Unfortunately, most people don't know that, and think the BBC is an arm of the state with actual enforcement powers. People only get prosecuted because they admit to watching it or let Capita into their house and the sales assistant bullies them into to admitting something. There is no other way they can find out.
They mostly prosecute women and the elderly.

I understand that one of the letters they may send informs you that you are being charged in court. If you throw that in the bin unopened you won't reply to refute the charge and you will be found guilty in absentia.

Sorry I don't have a link.

That's just not true.
You can't be charged with not having a TV licence unless a Capita employee has knocked on your door and you've told them you watch telly without a licence.
Any correspondence after that obviously has to be dealt with properly.
You can't just have a letter turn up out of the blue saying you're being prosecuted.

Why can’t you have a summons out of the blue? Or is this something specific to the license fee?

How do they know if you need a TV licence or not? It's not mandatory. You don't have to engage with TV licence enforcement at all. They have to prove you're watching broadcast TV without a licence. They can only prove that by knocking on you're door and you telling them or they clearly see you watching it from the door. They then caution you and your goose is cooked.
There is no way you get a letter out of the blue telling you you're being prosecuted.

How about if they see you watching through your front window

'Cyclists who kill pedestrians by acting dangerously on the road could face life imprisonment under a proposed change to the law.

Currently, cycling offenders can be imprisoned for no more than two years under an 1861 law originally intended for drivers of horse-drawn carriages.

A government amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill - which is currently going through Parliament - would see cycling offences brought in line with driving offences, the Department for Transport (DfT) said.

The changes would also mean serious injury caused by dangerous cycling - or death by careless or inconsiderate cycling - could incur punishments of five years in jail, fines, or both.

A serious injury caused by careless or inconsiderate cycling would result in a two-year sentence, a fine or both under the proposed changes.'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0w8g18x9no

This feels like a massive miscarriage of justice.

A lawyer from Aberdeen has been found guilty of dealing nearly £87,000 worth of ketamine.

Amanda Lothian, a criminal defence lawyer who specialised in organised crime, had her house raided by police in August 2020, during the pandemic.

Officers, aided by a sniffer dog called Buster, searched the 65-year-old lawyer's house and Volvo and discovered around £72k worth of Ketamine in two bags - enough Cat Valium to sedate not just a clowder of cats, but a family of elephants as well.

Police also seized a further £15k worth of the drug from a man, James Hanlon, who said he had collected the Ketamine from Lothian. And officers also found cash totalling almost £4k around the lawyer's property.

Lothian, who represented herself at the trial, said that she had "absolutely no idea" about the drugs at her house. "I certainly wasn't selling Ketamine," she told the court.

She claimed she was a victim of cuckooing by Hanlon, suggesting that he had used her home as a base for drug dealing, without her knowledge, and that she was "furious" with him.

When the prosecutor told the court that Lothian's DNA was found on a shopping bag that contained some of the drugs, Lothian stated that she had moved the bag, believing that it contained a muscle-building supplement.

The prosecutor said it must have been "incredibly poor luck" for Lothian's DNA to be on illegal drugs that she claimed to know nothing about.

The jury found Lothian guilty by a unanimous verdict, according to a report. She will be sentenced next month.

https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/scottish-criminal-lawyer-convicted-dealing-ketamine

Clowder?

That’s the correct name for a group of cats.

Sorry, I misread that as chowder,

Don't encourage our travel correspondent! Otherwise he will be posting photos of the cat chowder he sampled on a remote Pacific island.

You’re really quite obsessed with me. Don’t you ever ask yourself why?

It's not some homo-erotic fantasy if that's what you are alluding to.

But you mention me constantly even when I’m not here. It’s borderline weird

I don’t come on here and go on about “mexicanpete”

I guess I should be flattered. Just don’t start stalking me. You’d find the air tickets too expensive anyway