Best Of

Lower Thames Crossing going ahead - let's hope it actually does.

I agree. Thamesmead has been snakebit by a lack of rail linkage for decades. Apparently the rail extension is going ahead.

Be nice if she made some similar commitments outside of London. A brief statement on TRU - which is already happening - and a vague statement of support without commitment on NPR. Not really enough. But maybe there's no room in the speech for detail.

The Treasury only cares about London because their internal rules on measuring return on investment woefully underestimate the demand for transport. We’ve seen it again and again in recent times - a new transport link finally opens and “surprise!” demand for it turns out to be 5x the original predictions. This persistent error leads them to believe that transport investment only delivers a return in London, and not anywhere else in the country.

You’d think by now they ought to have noticed that their models are shit - presumably there’s some Treasury-specific ideological reason that prevents them from doing so.

FPT ref DavidL's comments on juries

1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete
2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above?
3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.

None of the above has to be on the critical path.

My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.

There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.

Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.

FPT ref DavidL's comments on juries

1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete
2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above?
3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.

None of the above has to be on the critical path.

My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.

There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.

Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.

There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else

Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.

Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.

So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.

Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”

You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.

Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.

It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.

Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.

The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.

I have no idea if this is true, but it is rational for opinions to come in related sets, and opinions which don't arise in related ways lack an underlying coherence. Rather than turning the point into a meaningless (and maybe unverified) piece of ad hominem, it would be more useful to examine the relation of the set of opinions, and consider its worth.

What is irrational about wanting to have a much smaller state while keeping the jury system? We had juries when we had a much smaller state. (I am not proposing either, personally, but there is nothing counter intuitive about it.)

The frustration is the party led by this group of people have been in power most of my lifetime, and to be fair match the views of the electorate in not wanting to increase taxes.

So we have court rooms out of use because of leaks, because we don't want to spend money.
We have a lack of lawyers and judges, because we don't want to spend money.
Our prisons can't cope, because we don't want to spend money.
Prisoners come out early, without any thought of rehabilitation and commit more crime.

Whilst I would prefer jury trials and functioning prisons myself, it does grate to hear the attacks on the status quo from the supporters of the establishment party with zero consideration of how we get here, or any serious thought on how we can change course and what resources that requires.

Except for a very short time under Mrs T, public expenditure has risen throughout the last decades. The state in various forms manages 44% of total expenditure, over £40,000 per household, just a little short of the highest in Europe and in the middle of the developed pack. Despite that there is not a single area not crying out for much more spending. Something is wrong with the model, but it isn't that taxes are very significantly too low.

We have no money

Yet we are spending £700 million on saving a handful of salmon. Billions on an armoured vehicle that literally makes the occupants chronically ill. We can’t find GPs, while we train GPs who can’t get jobs. We have no money to look after children with special needs, but councils are block booking taxis to send them to school - as opposed to a school bus.

It’s feast-or-famine mode spending. Often on insane things.

Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.

I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?

As always, two things can be true at once.

Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.

But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.

More fundamentally, chess champion/enthusiast or not, why would she have a chess set placed so prominently in front of her at her desk at work, if not for the photo op and to get people like us talking about her chess prowess?

Whenever I see a chess board strategically placed in a promotional photo I always check to see if it is correctly set up. You would be amazed how often the board is the wrong way round. Non-players might be surprised to know there is a right and wrong way. Regular players spot the mistake instantly.

I guess the job of placing the board is delegated to an oik and the chances of that person knowing about this is less than fifty-fifty.

Spot the deliberate mistake...

All the pieces are the same colour?

I am going out to lunch at a pub overlooking the estuary, while I still have the money to afford it.

The existence of jury trials is NOT the reason for court delays. The reasons are:

1. Reducing court sitting days even though the Lady Chief Justice has said judges can sit for more days so there is no lack of availability.
2. Closure and selling of courts.
3. A lack of sufficient funding for the justice system at every level.

1 and 2 are easily remediable. You do not abolish an 800 year old fundamental principle because of a lack of short-term funding. Unless you're an illiberal cretin, that is.

This is a power grab by the state of one of the few areas in British life which really is democratic, generally - though not invariably - works well and, crucially, is not controlled by the state and cannot be pressured by it. And can tell the state to get stuffed when it overreaches eg Ponting, the Colston Four. That is why authoritarians hate it and want to get rid of it. It must be resisted by all possible means.

This proposal shows how much contempt Labour has for us and our liberties.

FPT ref DavidL's comments on juries

1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete
2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above?
3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.

None of the above has to be on the critical path.

My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.

There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.

Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.

There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else

Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.

Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.

So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.

Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”

You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.

Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.

It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.

Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.

The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.

I have no idea if this is true, but it is rational for opinions to come in related sets, and opinions which don't arise in related ways lack an underlying coherence. Rather than turning the point into a meaningless (and maybe unverified) piece of ad hominem, it would be more useful to examine the relation of the set of opinions, and consider its worth.

What is irrational about wanting to have a much smaller state while keeping the jury system? We had juries when we had a much smaller state. (I am not proposing either, personally, but there is nothing counter intuitive about it.)

The frustration is the party led by this group of people have been in power most of my lifetime, and to be fair match the views of the electorate in not wanting to increase taxes.

So we have court rooms out of use because of leaks, because we don't want to spend money.
We have a lack of lawyers and judges, because we don't want to spend money.
Our prisons can't cope, because we don't want to spend money.
Prisoners come out early, without any thought of rehabilitation and commit more crime.

Whilst I would prefer jury trials and functioning prisons myself, it does grate to hear the attacks on the status quo from the supporters of the establishment party with zero consideration of how we get here, or any serious thought on how we can change course and what resources that requires.