Best Of

Hadush Kebatu is deported.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly9rxlvp85o

I wonder what Roger now thinks ?

Not Roger, but this looks like the state doing its job effectively.

Clearly there was an omnishambles last Friday. But since then, this guy has been tracked down and deported, and a process introduced which should reduce the chances of a repeat. An inherited problem fixed.

Boring competence and incremental improvement, in other words. Repeat it a few thousand times and we might start to be getting somewhere.

"An inherited problem fixed". You really don't think that there will not be another mistaken release within the next 10 days? It is utterly inevitable with such an overwhelmed system being operated by relatively low paid staff and an ever changing discount regime trying to keep the lid on the prison population. The Home Secretary has been able to act decisively in relation to this case and is due credit for that but "fixed" borders on delusional.

Hadush Kebatu is deported.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly9rxlvp85o

I wonder what Roger now thinks ?

Not Roger, but this looks like the state doing its job effectively.

Clearly there was an omnishambles last Friday. But since then, this guy has been tracked down and deported, and a process introduced which should reduce the chances of a repeat. An inherited problem fixed.

Boring competence and incremental improvement, in other words. Repeat it a few thousand times and we might start to be getting somewhere.

He wasn't actually tracked down. The MET didn't have a scooby where he was. A member of the public found him hanging around in a park. And incorrect releases are up under this government.

Surrey Councils owe £5 billion?

The residents should be forced to pony up, at least for the debt servicing and a reasonable repayment schedule.

Otherwise you just have moral hazard.
Although I do realise that local government in the UK is largely a figment of the imagination.

This Woking resident disagrees.

This has its origin in Cameron's bonfire of the quangos, when he abolished the audit commission to save money*, and there was no longer anyone checking that councils weren't taking on stupid financial risks or making poor investment decisions.
Conservative-run Woking spent £millions to turn it into Manhattan gambling on borrowing short-term to pay off longterm debt and came unstuck when short-term interest rates went up. If they'd been subject to a proper audit, it would have been pointed out that a) Woking will never be Manhattan, b) their gamble was far too risky.

*reportedly it didn't even save money before the loss of an effective audit function is accounted for...

Right.

And the ratepayers of Woking should pay for electing a bunch of shysters.

Trouble is, which Woking ratepayers?

The ones who voted foolishly while their council did dumb things? Or the ones still to come over the next few decades? Even if you ignore the acturial turnover, do we persue Woking ratepayers who decide to become ratepayers in Guildford or (if they are very smart) Gosport?

OK, part of this is another manifestation of what I suspect the British problem is- we've spent decades voting for governments to keep topping up the punchbowl, and now the hangover has finally arrived and we don't like it. And at some level, I'm OK with saying "tough-hangovers aren't meant to be fun". I don't have to win an election. But when local councils screw up, it seems so trivially easy for the better-off to evade the consequences by moving house, and that doesn't seem entirely on.

(The nearest I have to an answer is that this is why councils shouldn't be able to build up risky debt, but that's closing a stable door a decade too late.)

Conservative party should have been surcharged, it was their councillors' financial mismanagement.
Also their fault that there is no longer a body checking that councils aren't being financially mismanaged.

I actually have a tiny bit of sympathy for the councillors, who were trying to raise some income to pay for council services, but it was a poor financial decision.

I have zero sympathy for the councillors. They were way off mission investing in shopping centres