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Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
Irony is we have many MPs and public figures queuing up to demand compensation for the WASPE women who don’t deserve a penny.
Taz
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Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
'The picture in my report is profoundly disturbing'Chair of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, Sir Wyn Williams, speaks as a public inquiry into the Post Office scandal finds at least 13 postmasters may have taken their own lives.https://t.co/iEfMAYAD1v? Sky 501/YT pic.twitter.com/tnjx0mEiFd
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Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
It’s all part of the shift from principles-based regulation to a rules-based approach.
Principles-based is hard work. It requires integrity, trust and judgement from both the regulator and the regulated. But when it works it’s so much better.
I remember being told once about the bank of England’s regulatory approach: rock up to a meeting with senior management of a bank every quarter and spend the meeting asking about management’s concerns about their competitors… they believed it gave a much clearer view of systemic risk
Principles-based is hard work. It requires integrity, trust and judgement from both the regulator and the regulated. But when it works it’s so much better.
I remember being told once about the bank of England’s regulatory approach: rock up to a meeting with senior management of a bank every quarter and spend the meeting asking about management’s concerns about their competitors… they believed it gave a much clearer view of systemic risk
Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
Given how this scandal is so utterly dwarfed by other vaster scandals, I find it hard to get exercised by it. Indeed I have suspicions of those that do. This one is so much easier to take - the villains are nasty managers - so let’s make tv dramas about it and write 5000 word essays about it and ventilate about it endlesslyTalking bollocks again I see.
Rather than focusing on much greater and more troubling problems
In short: this is chaff
I have written quite a few headers on even more serious scandals and there have also been TV dramas about them and they share with this one the same essential elements which cause them to happen, to continue and to involve cruelty to the victims.
What I wrote here could and does apply to every other scandal. I am writing about it today because a report came out and to remind those with goldfish memories that nothing has changed. I have written in my book about Grenfell and blood contamination and many others and if I included every single scandal pointing out the depressing similarities it wouldn't be so much a book as a bloody enormous encyclopaedia - Cyclefree's Big Book of British Scandals.
The people mentioned in the case studies are not chaff. (The last time I heard that word used so dismissively it was by an MP in a Select Committee aimed at Dr David Kelly. He committed suicide shortly after.)
They are people like us. One of them is your age and at about the age you stopped taking drugs and turned your life around, he had a good business, a family and was looking forward to doing even better. Instead, he was wrongly convicted, had his reputation trashed, lost everything and has never been able to find employment again. He lives on charity from his family and friends. His name is Harjinder Butoy.
Don't you fucking dare call him and everyone like him and what happened to them all "chaff".
For shame, @Leon. For shame.
Cyclefree
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Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
For those who don't wade through long headers, Cyclefree's last two paragraphs make the essential point of the article.Isn't the not being willing to read something "long" (i.e. takes five minutes instead of one) part of the problem. Read the thing in full, it really won't hurt.
I agree with every word.
Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
There is only one significant figure who was involved with this scandal who still holds signifcant minor public office. He should consider his position, which is not at all good. His present colleagues need to consider whether they are prepared to work with him. People of honour would not.Has Badenoch adopted new pronouns?
Foxy
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Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
Given how this scandal is so utterly dwarfed by other vaster scandals, I find it hard to get exercised by it. Indeed I have suspicions of those that do. This one is so much easier to take - the villains are nasty managers - so let’s make tv dramas about it and write 5000 word essays about it and ventilate about it endlesslyShorter Leon: "why aren't we discussing my hobbyhorse ?"
Rather than focusing on much greater and more troubling problems
In short: this is chaff
Nigelb
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Re: Wholly Unacceptable Behaviour – politicalbetting.com
Before I book this, I have to ask, how immersive?


Re: Will the Lib Dems win more seats than the Tories? – politicalbetting.com
They could be a lot more effective at selling a cohesive vision.Problem is Starmer and Reeves get it but a significant chunk of the PLP are fiscal dunces who will always vote against any change.Widespread support for the triple lock on the BBC news article. Lots of entitlement, lots of talk about it being too low.
This country is nearly ungovernable.
See this poll from last year (source) which showed that over a quarter of people think MPs expenses are amongst the top 3 costs for government.
We overlook this massively when analysing politics - an absolute ton of voters are very disconnected from fiscal reality.
Algarkirk hit the nail on the head in saying "Time for a grown up PM, quite prepared to risk being a one term wonder, to go on all media every week for 10 minutes to tell the truth and explain the problems and the plan. When it has a plan.
At this point Starmer and Labour might genuinely have a better chance in 2029 by sticking to their guns on widespread reform of the above, hoping that the bond markets etc decisively back their bravery, and that the people start to see the benefits of this action in 2029. Instead they are left hoping for a sudden growth miracle, or FPTP and a divided opposition seeing them squeak out another majority.
The WFA situation was part of this.
If there was a much more consistent narrative that "We can't just keep paying tons to rich pensioners who often don't need it, when 27% of pensioners are in millionaire households - but we want to make sure we can still pay for those who need it" - then maybe it's easier to overturn the triple lock too.
Parties of all stripes are too scared of losing the grey vote. Quite frankly - Labour should be prepared to lose 2029 if it means delivering the long term reform this country needs
Re: How many Reform MPs on the 31st of December 2025? – politicalbetting.com
I get the sense, from an accumulation of discussions over some time, that an increasing number of people have given up on the idea of life improving from one generation to the next.
Not just that they're angry that it isn't, or they have no hope that it will, but they've internalised the failure of it to happen to the extent of chiding those who complain about the failure. They see it as the natural order of things.
I remember some daft person expecting the post-pandemic 2020s to be a riotous explosion of revelry to rival the roaring twenties that followed the Spanish Flu, but it really feels as though we've entered a period of profound pessimism.
People say to me that they're being realistic rather than pessimistic, but I think a key difference is that you can be realistic about the difficulties that exist, while retaining some degree of optimism about the potential to fix those problems. And the problem with pessimism is that it is a self-fulfilling state that disables people from acting to take those steps that might improve them.
When the politicians refuse to level with the voters the public finances and the necessary steps to being them into equilibrium they are being pessimistic about their ability to communicate with the public and the public's willingness to follow a lead.
But what if they're wrong? What if they give it a go?
We've seen similar with the Ukraine War - pessimism over the ability to defeat the Russians, and so support has been delayed and rationed. Pessimism abounds.
Somehow we need to snap out of it.
Not just that they're angry that it isn't, or they have no hope that it will, but they've internalised the failure of it to happen to the extent of chiding those who complain about the failure. They see it as the natural order of things.
I remember some daft person expecting the post-pandemic 2020s to be a riotous explosion of revelry to rival the roaring twenties that followed the Spanish Flu, but it really feels as though we've entered a period of profound pessimism.
People say to me that they're being realistic rather than pessimistic, but I think a key difference is that you can be realistic about the difficulties that exist, while retaining some degree of optimism about the potential to fix those problems. And the problem with pessimism is that it is a self-fulfilling state that disables people from acting to take those steps that might improve them.
When the politicians refuse to level with the voters the public finances and the necessary steps to being them into equilibrium they are being pessimistic about their ability to communicate with the public and the public's willingness to follow a lead.
But what if they're wrong? What if they give it a go?
We've seen similar with the Ukraine War - pessimism over the ability to defeat the Russians, and so support has been delayed and rationed. Pessimism abounds.
Somehow we need to snap out of it.
LostPassword
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