Best Of

lol

We’re a nation of mugs.

I’m sure this Judge has considered any potential victims. Nonces are known for their honesty.

‘ Paedophile migrant who failed to disclose child sex offence after coming to UK wins appeal against deportation as judge rules it was 'honest mistake’

https://x.com/dailymail/status/2036053935606124883?s=61

This judge should have liability for this person's future crimes. When he commits rape and sexual assaults against children in this country the judge should also be put on trial for this completely ridiculous decision.

Making judges accountable for their stupid rulings is going to be the only way to change things.

The problem is, of course, that you have to be a bit careful when criticising judges due to contempt of court rules.

But how can you not hold them in contempt when they say and do stupid things like this?

It's not as though it's recent either. Tom Denning and David Eady were both pretty dodgy.

There's just a complete lack of accountability for judges. They exist isolation from their decisions and the havoc they can have on the wider community. Obviously this government won't do anything about it but I think both the Tories and Reform should propose something similar to this in their manifestoes on a justice reform section.

To repeat what I posted earlier on this:


I have not seen the judgment but the report indicates, sotto voce, that the decision the judge had to make was whether he could have a hearing, not that he could remain in the UK. SFAICS that remains to be decided. Which means that the case is deciding much less than the story suggests.

And judicial independence is an essential element of our liberties. Do we really want judges that account to politicians for their decisions? Absolutely not. If the price is the odd daft decision that gets corrected on appeal it is a price worth paying.

What's wrong with judges being accountable?

We have a Parliament. If a judge makes a decision they don't like, they can change the law.

Parliament shouldn't need to mandate to judges that failure to disclose convictions for sexual abuse of children should disqualify the applicant from further appeals but yes someone needs to examine what on earth this judge has ruled and changed the law asap so it can't happen

A grim prognosis from Professor Azeem Ibrahim:

https://x.com/AzeemIbrahim/status/2035361179879547244

Britain is now in accelerated decline - gradual for decades, now at risk of sudden collapse.

My stark verdict: unchecked, UK heading for relative poverty - a deindustrialised, sectarian, indebted island with first-rate pretensions & third-rate power.

I thought the Right viewed the 'relative poverty' metric as a load of cobblers.

Relative poverty is more about equality than measuring how many people are essentially destitute. It feels like shifting the goalposts. If poverty was about not being able to heat your home or choose heat or eat, relative measures can be affected by perverse incentives.

Exactly. So why worry about the UK becoming 'relatively' impoverished?

Because, as @williamglenn notes, it means Britain looks relatively impoverished, more and more, compared to other countries. For the main reason that we ARE

I travel the globe, in case you haven't noticed, and I see this all the time. Britain looking more and more clapped out in comparison to others

HOWEVER, and to be fair, this is true of many western European nations, with exceptions like Denmark, Norway, Switzerland - they look increasingly bedraggled compared to the USA, East Asia, Australia, etc

Much of it is immigration of the most astonishingly stupid variety. It's hard for a country to look rich when you've got illiterate Afghans or Somalians aimlessly wandering the streets with nothing to do because there is literally nothing for them to do - even if they want to work (as of course very many do) they don't have the skills. So they become welfare bums, or just itinerants

So relative poverty is meaningful then. I happen to agree - both between countries and within.

Just looking for some coherence on the point.

I think it does have utility in the sense of comparing national prestige, and internally for looking at inequalities, it's just not as useful if it is used as a synonym for a kind of fixed idea of a standard of living, in which case people could get the wrong impression based on a shift in the rate.

So it depends how it is being used.

Agreed. I'm not arguing for 'relative' as always trumping 'absolute'. But usually it does. In any case both are relevant.

lol

We’re a nation of mugs.

I’m sure this Judge has considered any potential victims. Nonces are known for their honesty.

‘ Paedophile migrant who failed to disclose child sex offence after coming to UK wins appeal against deportation as judge rules it was 'honest mistake’

https://x.com/dailymail/status/2036053935606124883?s=61

This judge should have liability for this person's future crimes. When he commits rape and sexual assaults against children in this country the judge should also be put on trial for this completely ridiculous decision.

Making judges accountable for their stupid rulings is going to be the only way to change things.

The problem is, of course, that you have to be a bit careful when criticising judges due to contempt of court rules.

But how can you not hold them in contempt when they say and do stupid things like this?

It's not as though it's recent either. Tom Denning and David Eady were both pretty dodgy.

There's just a complete lack of accountability for judges. They exist isolation from their decisions and the havoc they can have on the wider community. Obviously this government won't do anything about it but I think both the Tories and Reform should propose something similar to this in their manifestoes on a justice reform section.

To repeat what I posted earlier on this:


I have not seen the judgment but the report indicates, sotto voce, that the decision the judge had to make was whether he could have a hearing, not that he could remain in the UK. SFAICS that remains to be decided. Which means that the case is deciding much less than the story suggests.

And judicial independence is an essential element of our liberties. Do we really want judges that account to politicians for their decisions? Absolutely not. If the price is the odd daft decision that gets corrected on appeal it is a price worth paying.

lol

We’re a nation of mugs.

I’m sure this Judge has considered any potential victims. Nonces are known for their honesty.

‘ Paedophile migrant who failed to disclose child sex offence after coming to UK wins appeal against deportation as judge rules it was 'honest mistake’

https://x.com/dailymail/status/2036053935606124883?s=61

This judge should have liability for this person's future crimes. When he commits rape and sexual assaults against children in this country the judge should also be put on trial for this completely ridiculous decision.

Making judges accountable for their stupid rulings is going to be the only way to change things.

If this is as presented, it is a simply astonishing ruling that completely undermines any pretensions of natural justice within the immigration system

Since when were mistakes a defence under the law?

Seems an utterly bizzare ruling.

Working in finance, my work is subject to specific rulings that not reporting makes me guilty of a crime. "I forgot" is not a defence.

Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.

Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average

Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".

And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.

The ironic thing is that Green voters are probably slightly better off than average, and thus doing better under capitalism than a lot of other people.

Not now, the recent polling on it had Green voters now the poorest of any party just below Reform voters on average

That probably reflects the surge in support for the Greens from younger folk. They're poor because they are young, even though they are probably mostly from middle class backgrounds. Your average Reform voter is more likely to be poor because they are in a poorly paying job, even though they are older.

Having said that, both parties will also have a few rich supporters: the traditional older middle class Greens, and the very wealthy Reform types close to the party leadership who hope to benefit from a future low regulation environment.

Royal Navy to lead coalition efforts to reopen Strait of Hormuz

https://www.thetimes.com/world/middle-east/israel-iran/article/iran-war-latest-news-trumps-talks-tehran-gz8wv9598

It’s behind a paywall but I doubt that will be happening until Trump does his wonderful deal to end the war !

And the UK does have autonomous drones for mine clearing.

Minesweeping is one of the few strengths we still have after 14 years of wilful neglect and cost cutting

When is the government going to get round to publishing the defence spending plan (promised since last summer) ?

I don't disagree about the last couple of decades of defence rundown, but the current government needs now to decide about its own priorities. Something it keeps putting off.

Can kicking is a surprisingly resilient option.

Defence, Parliament refurbishment, social care, it's baby steps or no steps (or backwards steps) if they become even slightly difficult, even if it means more difficult down the line. Our politicians (and voters I guess) are actually remarkably optimistic about coming up with something down the line to solve problems.

I don't understand where "cost cutting" comes in - defence has, iiuc held fast with % gdp since the late 90s a fact the graph below seems to support.

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/4fz6tm/uk_defence_spending_19002015_of_gdp/

That it has apparently gone backwards points to poor spending of the allocated money quite frankly.

A lot of it is perception due to troop numbers reducing I think. Which of course does not necessarily mean capability reduction. All a bit tabloid "bobbies on the beat".

It's hard to imagine the Conservatives being in power after 2029 except as the willing junior partner in a Farage government. Badenoch and Farage don't seem miles apart in their political outlooks, so that fits too.

Which is precisely their dilemma. If you support Reform, you vote Reform, if you don't then you don't vote for a party who would be the junior partner. The Tories have two routes out of this, which could be worked together:

1) Be so brilliant that the polling shifts so that by the end of 2027 the question is reversed. Not 'Will the Tories support Reform' (Kemi's dilemma) but 'Will Reform support the Tories' (Farage's dilemma).

2) Make it clear that the Tories are One Nation Centre Right and won't touch Reform with a bargepole.

The only other option, inconsistent with (1) and (2) is an electoral pact with Reform. IMO that is the only way the Right of Centre might possibly actually win in 2029. Hopefully it won't happen. Scorpions in a cage and all that.

I'm not sure the Tory Party could survive a pact. It would be the centre right equivalent of the SDP (or the old Liberal Party) evolving (I know there were centre-rights in the SDP but it would not have happened without the longest suicide note in history)