Thinking about it, I'm somewhat surprised at the idea that passports and driving licenses could be removed consequent on a conviction for drug use. Surely the penalty should be related to the offence. And this seems to be a new idea, or at least one not used before in modern times. Wee could of course stop people with a conviction for drug offences coming here, as the US does.
The idea feels like it’s moving towards the idea of general social credit. You’re a good citizen so the government rewards you with your own liberties, if you’re naughty then your life becomes more difficult. No longer matching a specific transgression to a specific sanction.
Fundamentally changes the relationship between the individual and the state. I am not sure we want that here.
If the various reports about Omicron being very infectious but not very serious are correct, its inevitable spread may end up acting like a natural vaccination, one that the anti-vaxxer crowd probably won't be able to avoid.
Yeah, it could be the virus the British originally had a plan for, ie you can't stop it but it's not too serious, so if there's a response it's just to try to reduce the size of the peak to stop the healthcare system falling over.
I'm not sure whether they'll be able to adjust to this, or whether their system of always fighting the last war prevents them from fighting the last war but one.
They are not rising as fast as infections, but that is still a huge rate of increase. For all I know Omicron may be somewhat milder than Delta, but if it's as infectious as it looks that will far outweigh any moderate lessening of severe.
Wow so no 10 wants to just ignore judges rulings. You’d expect to see this in a banana Republic not the UK , very sad and disturbing . Good luck trying to lecture other countries on democracy.
The government can pass whatever laws they want anyway, as long as they persuade enough MPs to support whatever it is.
Really I never knew ! You’re missing the point entirely , enacting legislation that just overrides a judges ruling is quite different to enacting legislation that addresses any judgement and seeks to alter the original law.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
It's the sort of arrogant, "the Law is only for the little people" approach that you would expect to be cooked up by a bunch of cokeheads.
Make you wonder if this government isn’t the ultimate Oxford Bullingdon club escapade planned long, long ago. Perhaps after smashing up the country and doing what the hell they like, Boris and co will pay for the damage.
It really is quite hard to understand what is conservative about the current "Conservative Party".
They're conserving their grip on power very tightly.
They just don't have any idea about what to do with it other than enrich themselves.
The story that people should be looking in to is the likely enormous expansion of the prison population, which is the consequence of the tories various criminal justice policies and Johnson's 'listening to the people' rhetoric. They have noticeably taken the step from rhetoric to actual action; increasing the effective jail time for sexual and violent offences and legislating for the possibility of long (up to life) sentences for various unpopular crimes. We now have the promise of long sentences for drug dealing and users. So we are going down the American road, which almost everyone knows is a disaster.
The one woke/left wing idea that I like is prison abolition. Most of the people in prison should not be in prison. Subjecting people to severe psychological harm through locking them in a box for 23 hours a day is serving a base need for vengeance and will not really improve anything for anyone. It is a waste of money and punishment (deprivation of liberty) could take other forms, for instance through surveillance.
Wow so no 10 wants to just ignore judges rulings. You’d expect to see this in a banana Republic not the UK , very sad and disturbing . Good luck trying to lecture other countries on democracy.
The government can pass whatever laws they want anyway, as long as they persuade enough MPs to support whatever it is.
Really I never knew ! You’re missing the point entirely , enacting legislation that just overrides a judges ruling is quite different to enacting legislation that addresses any judgement and seeks to alter the original law.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
It's the sort of arrogant, "the Law is only for the little people" approach that you would expect to be cooked up by a bunch of cokeheads.
Make you wonder if this government isn’t the ultimate Oxford Bullingdon club escapade planned long, long ago. Perhaps after smashing up the country and doing what the hell they like, Boris and co will pay for the damage.
It really is quite hard to understand what is conservative about the current "Conservative Party".
We seem to have a very bizarre cross between radical, or near-radical nationalists on the one hand, and culture warriors including a group imported from the old Revolutionary Communist Party, like Munira Murza, on the other ; this is then acting as a sort of front and clearing-house for all sorts of hedge fund, city and foreign money.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
Wow so no 10 wants to just ignore judges rulings. You’d expect to see this in a banana Republic not the UK , very sad and disturbing . Good luck trying to lecture other countries on democracy.
The government can pass whatever laws they want anyway, as long as they persuade enough MPs to support whatever it is.
Really I never knew ! You’re missing the point entirely , enacting legislation that just overrides a judges ruling is quite different to enacting legislation that addresses any judgement and seeks to alter the original law.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
Sorry, that was a silly comment by me.
No worries . This latest attack on the judiciary is very worrying . This would mean that citizens seeking judicial review could win their case and the government could just ignore this , it would by effect put people off seeking judicial review . It’s an attack on the rights of citizens .
Yes - if they don't like judicial decisions then they need to change the law it is based on; not just nullify the decisions themselves. Otherwise they are circumventing due process.
(Trivia: the finale of the latest Bond movie, where Bond ****, was rather improbably supposed to be located in the disputed southern Kurile islands. If there’s one part of the world Mickey Mouse RN warships won’t be f’ing about it’s the Kurile islands.)
I had to sit through it last week as Mrs DA wanted to see it (she is a cultural anglophile). The only thing of any note I took from it was that the DB5 was obviously a fake with a modern DOHC inline 6 (maybe a 2JZ) and they hadn't bothered to overdub it with the correct engine sound.
Snap. Mrs SD is also an Anglophile. I reluctantly agreed to her insistence we go to see the new Bond film (residual nostalgia for the late great Connery), but our youngest one hated it. However, I drew the line when she wanted to go to the Proms: she had to take our eldest daughter instead and they both trolled me with photos of Union flags.
Incidentally, the young Mrs SD once moved in the same circles as the budding young actor Daniel Craig. Although she was the stand-out beauty among her group of stunning Nordic ladies, Craig foolishly dated one of her pals instead. Ta Daniel! My fate could have been very different.
Amazingly, the girl Daniel dated had one of those bizarre names that suddenly become hilariously crude in an English-speaking environment. I’d best not publish it in case by some miracle she has not long-ago changed it by deed poll. But imagine a Swedish “pingla” called something like Kissy Yerlongshaft and you’ll be in the right ballpark. Daniel can pick em!
Boris does seem to be routinely bringing the sort of proposals to the house that could be designed to smoke out malcontents.
One wonders if he is readying himself and trying to find a touchstone issue for a slew of whip suspensions around a commons vote that might simultaneously half his majority but also take a bunch of letters out of Graham Brady's desk drawer.
Whenever Boris takes the piss, there is usually some motive.
(Trivia: the finale of the latest Bond movie, where Bond ****, was rather improbably supposed to be located in the disputed southern Kurile islands. If there’s one part of the world Mickey Mouse RN warships won’t be f’ing about it’s the Kurile islands.)
I had to sit through it last week as Mrs DA wanted to see it (she is a cultural anglophile). The only thing of any note I took from it was that the DB5 was obviously a fake with a modern DOHC inline 6 (maybe a 2JZ) and they hadn't bothered to overdub it with the correct engine sound.
What's the automotive equivalent of 'rivet counter' ?
Thinking about it, I'm somewhat surprised at the idea that passports and driving licenses could be removed consequent on a conviction for drug use. Surely the penalty should be related to the offence. And this seems to be a new idea, or at least one not used before in modern times. Wee could of course stop people with a conviction for drug offences coming here, as the US does.
The idea feels like it’s moving towards the idea of general social credit. You’re a good citizen so the government rewards you with your own liberties, if you’re naughty then your life becomes more difficult. No longer matching a specific transgression to a specific sanction.
Fundamentally changes the relationship between the individual and the state. I am not sure we want that here.
Is such a fundamental change so far removed from the concept of vaccine passports though - for which many are wildly enthusiastic (even when their purpose is so unclear)?
Wow so no 10 wants to just ignore judges rulings. You’d expect to see this in a banana Republic not the UK , very sad and disturbing . Good luck trying to lecture other countries on democracy.
The government can pass whatever laws they want anyway, as long as they persuade enough MPs to support whatever it is.
Really I never knew ! You’re missing the point entirely , enacting legislation that just overrides a judges ruling is quite different to enacting legislation that addresses any judgement and seeks to alter the original law.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
Sorry, that was a silly comment by me.
No worries . This latest attack on the judiciary is very worrying . This would mean that citizens seeking judicial review could win their case and the government could just ignore this , it would by effect put people off seeking judicial review . It’s an attack on the rights of citizens .
Yes - if they don't like judicial decisions then they need to change the law it is based on; not just nullify the decisions themselves. Otherwise they are circumventing due process.
Circumventing due process is the idea. Johnson is in it up to his tits and is desperate to find a way to diminish the rules and the laws and the watchdogs. At the very least he wants people to be questioning the questioners so that when they due rule against him that people choose to disbelieve them. Or preferably just be allowed to abolish such oversight and do what he likes.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
We’re about to have the sorry spectacle of casual illegal drug taking journalists feast on the reputational corpses of casual illegal drug taking politicians, to be lapped up and morally condemned by a casual drug taking nation (albeit some preferring drugs that are arbitrarily legal).
He won’t spot it but again there’s a huge political opening for Starmer here. Don’t go the obvious route of attack because it will blow back on your side. Don’t go for smothering the story because you’re wasting an opportunity. Go full on with demands for a Royal Commission to reassess the UK’s prohibition laws.
Wow so no 10 wants to just ignore judges rulings. You’d expect to see this in a banana Republic not the UK , very sad and disturbing . Good luck trying to lecture other countries on democracy.
The government can pass whatever laws they want anyway, as long as they persuade enough MPs to support whatever it is.
Really I never knew ! You’re missing the point entirely , enacting legislation that just overrides a judges ruling is quite different to enacting legislation that addresses any judgement and seeks to alter the original law.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
Sorry, that was a silly comment by me.
No worries . This latest attack on the judiciary is very worrying . This would mean that citizens seeking judicial review could win their case and the government could just ignore this , it would by effect put people off seeking judicial review . It’s an attack on the rights of citizens .
Yes - if they don't like judicial decisions then they need to change the law it is based on; not just nullify the decisions themselves. Otherwise they are circumventing due process.
The government decides not to call an election after five years in office. It is taken to court in an effort to force it to do so. The courts rule against the government. The government overrides the courts. That is what this legislation would allow. As I say, you can either be a democrat or a supporter of this government. You cannot be both.
Boris does seem to be routinely bringing the sort of proposals to the house that could be designed to smoke out malcontents.
One wonders if he is readying himself and trying to find a touchstone issue for a slew of whip suspensions around a commons vote that might simultaneously half his majority but also take a bunch of letters out of Graham Brady's desk drawer.
Whenever Boris takes the piss, there is usually some motive.
The simplest explanation of most of BoJo's actions is that he still wants to be World King, and nobody tells World Kings what to do.
But yes, his intuitive understanding of power and how to hold on to it is top of the class.
And whilst that could be why he sends people like Raab out to say obviously stupid things in defence of The Team and The Boss... What else should Dom R have said?
He can't say it didn't happen; who knows what evidence is out there?
He can't say it did happen, but doesn't matter; that would kill any public health messaging going forward.
The best advice I have is "if you hate the speculation, don't break the regulation", but it's a bit late for that.
For those with an interest in welfare stuff, I was able to get this in today (though the quote they had from me fell victim to the subeditor's scissors):
We’re about to have the sorry spectacle of casual illegal drug taking journalists feast on the reputational corpses of casual illegal drug taking politicians, to be lapped up and morally condemned by a casual drug taking nation (albeit some preferring drugs that are arbitrarily legal).
He won’t spot it but again there’s a huge political opening for Starmer here. Don’t go the obvious route of attack because it will blow back on your side. Don’t go for smothering the story because you’re wasting an opportunity. Go full on with demands for a Royal Commission to reassess the UK’s prohibition laws.
I'd 'Like' your post, but I'm much happier with the first paragraph than the second!
We’re about to have the sorry spectacle of casual illegal drug taking journalists feast on the reputational corpses of casual illegal drug taking politicians, to be lapped up and morally condemned by a casual drug taking nation (albeit some preferring drugs that are arbitrarily legal).
He won’t spot it but again there’s a huge political opening for Starmer here. Don’t go the obvious route of attack because it will blow back on your side. Don’t go for smothering the story because you’re wasting an opportunity. Go full on with demands for a Royal Commission to reassess the UK’s prohibition laws.
Sadly I don't think that some of Starmer's team, who have shown themselves to be quite flat-footedly wedded to the Blairite template in too much of a literalist way recently, would go for this sort of brave stance. Blair's template was always heavily tied up with accommodating the tabloids on social issues.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
By ‘making it harder to vote’ you presumably refer to voter ID? I find it astonishing that people object to proving who you are when you vote. I have to use a fecking password to post on an anonymous chat room like PB FFS.
On topic - like Suella Braverman, Dominic Raab’s sole purpose as a minister is to provide legal cover for the government and the Prime Minister in particular. It’s yet another way in which our democracy is being debased.
If the various reports about Omicron being very infectious but not very serious are correct, its inevitable spread may end up acting like a natural vaccination, one that the anti-vaxxer crowd probably won't be able to avoid.
Yeah, it could be the virus the British originally had a plan for, ie you can't stop it but it's not too serious, so if there's a response it's just to try to reduce the size of the peak to stop the healthcare system falling over.
I'm not sure whether they'll be able to adjust to this, or whether their system of always fighting the last war prevents them from fighting the last war but one.
They are not rising as fast as infections, but that is still a huge rate of increase. For all I know Omicron may be somewhat milder than Delta, but if it's as infectious as it looks that will far outweigh any moderate lessening of severe.
My amateur epidemiology would query whether Guateng is a good model for what might happen in the UK though. In Gauteng the new variant isn't really "competing" to replace Delta (or any other variant). It is growing rapidly from a very small base concurrent with rise in Covid in general so it exaggerates the effect on things like the health services.
In the UK many of the developing "omicron wave" cases will be displacing existing Delta (if it is on a path to dominance). Therefore if it is less bad in terms of causing hospitalisation - or worse genuine serious illness - then it will be creating compensating beneficial impacts on health services along the way. The exception would be if it were targeting (in causing severe illness) the vaccinated population in a way that Delta is not (ie. effectively operating in a different pool of hosts). That is yet to be determined above level of anecdote i think.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
As I understand it, this isn't quite as bad as ending democracy, though it's bad enough. If correctly reported, it's a second U-turn on the right to judicial review. Originally the Government proposed to restrict the grounds on which you could ask courts to review whether the Government was obeying the law. That was largely dropped in the current Justice Bill after an outcry. They are now proposing to reintroduce leglislation on the subject, not aimed at review directly but giving them the power to overrule a judicial review decision that they don't like. Arguably that's worse than restricting access to review, since it does gives ministers power to ignore a verdict on how the existing law should be applied.
Judicial review is difficult and expensive in any case (I've conducted one for Compassion in World Farming which achieved its objective without having to get to the final stage). You're right that in theory any Government decision that was successfully challenged could under this proposal be maintained anyway. That said, abolishing elections would in fact certainly require new legislation. A more insidious example would be if the Government applied existing legislation unfairly, e.g. refusing to give reasonable compensation for something they'd done wrong.
Wow so no 10 wants to just ignore judges rulings. You’d expect to see this in a banana Republic not the UK , very sad and disturbing . Good luck trying to lecture other countries on democracy.
The government can pass whatever laws they want anyway, as long as they persuade enough MPs to support whatever it is.
Really I never knew ! You’re missing the point entirely , enacting legislation that just overrides a judges ruling is quite different to enacting legislation that addresses any judgement and seeks to alter the original law.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
Sorry, that was a silly comment by me.
No worries . This latest attack on the judiciary is very worrying . This would mean that citizens seeking judicial review could win their case and the government could just ignore this , it would by effect put people off seeking judicial review . It’s an attack on the rights of citizens .
Yes - if they don't like judicial decisions then they need to change the law it is based on; not just nullify the decisions themselves. Otherwise they are circumventing due process.
The government decides not to call an election after five years in office. It is taken to court in an effort to force it to do so. The courts rule against the government. The government overrides the courts. That is what this legislation would allow. As I say, you can either be a democrat or a supporter of this government. You cannot be both.
That may be what it allows - but it is probably more subtle than that. The process has been followed before - make the legislation so objectional that it creates an opportunity for Parliament (including sufficient numbers of its "awkward squad" to rebel). Compromise so that the more extreme elements of the legislation are removed.
Ultimately get the legislation through with all sorts of objectional stuff in but in a way that makes it look like the Government has listened and been reasonable.
We’re about to have the sorry spectacle of casual illegal drug taking journalists feast on the reputational corpses of casual illegal drug taking politicians, to be lapped up and morally condemned by a casual drug taking nation (albeit some preferring drugs that are arbitrarily legal).
He won’t spot it but again there’s a huge political opening for Starmer here. Don’t go the obvious route of attack because it will blow back on your side. Don’t go for smothering the story because you’re wasting an opportunity. Go full on with demands for a Royal Commission to reassess the UK’s prohibition laws.
You have to be poor or stupid to take illegal drugs anyway.
The properly rich and shameless get a tame private doctor who prescribes the finest products all the very best pharmaceutical companies.
The only question I have is this - many NHS doctors will re-write a private prescription as an NHS prescription, straight off. How many of the prescriptions I describe above have been transferred to the NHS and (mostly) paid for out of tax money?
FIA give Verstappen a 10 second time penalty for causing a collision
Still leaves him p2.
A fair penalty would have been a 20 place grid penalty for the next race.
I just watched the race again, with a clear head and a coffee - and the more you see it, the worse it gets.
The governance is a total shambles, and it looks like they want to turn it into wrestling rather than a fair competition. For how long will serious companies such as Mercedes want to be involved in such a farce?
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
By ‘making it harder to vote’ you presumably refer to voter ID? I find it astonishing that people object to proving who you are when you vote. I have to use a fecking password to post on an anonymous chat room like PB FFS.
Voter ID is all well and good but suppose that voters for one party are more (or less) likely to already have the specified ID documents than are voters for other parties. For instance, voters rich enough to drive cars and take foreign holidays. On pb we insist on ownership of a phone or computer in order to keep the riff-raff out.
(Trivia: the finale of the latest Bond movie, where Bond ****, was rather improbably supposed to be located in the disputed southern Kurile islands. If there’s one part of the world Mickey Mouse RN warships won’t be f’ing about it’s the Kurile islands.)
I had to sit through it last week as Mrs DA wanted to see it (she is a cultural anglophile). The only thing of any note I took from it was that the DB5 was obviously a fake with a modern DOHC inline 6 (maybe a 2JZ) and they hadn't bothered to overdub it with the correct engine sound.
Close on the 2JZ - it’s actually a BMW S54 from an E46 M3.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
It really is extraordinarily. The government is simultaneously working with its favoured press to drip-feed exactly the opposite story to its voters. According to the Daily Mail today here, for instance, Raab is seeking to "protect British freedom of speech from the drift towards Continental-style privacy laws".
This is designed to please libertarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What it's actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes to governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate here.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
As I understand it, this isn't quite as bad as ending democracy, though it's bad enough. If correctly reported, it's a second U-turn on the right to judicial review. Originally the Government proposed to restrict the grounds on which you could ask courts to review whether the Government was obeying the law. That was largely dropped in the current Justice Bill after an outcry. They are now proposing to reintroduce leglislation on the subject, not aimed at review directly but giving them the power to overrule a judicial review decision that they don't like. Arguably that's worse than restricting access to review, since it does gives ministers power to ignore a verdict on how the existing law should be applied.
Judicial review is difficult and expensive in any case (I've conducted one for Compassion in World Farming which achieved its objective without having to get to the final stage). You're right that in theory any Government decision that was successfully challenged could under this proposal be maintained anyway. That said, abolishing elections would in fact certainly require new legislation. A more insidious example would be if the Government applied existing legislation unfairly, e.g. refusing to give reasonable compensation for something they'd done wrong.
You don't abolish elections, you just decide not to hold them.
If the various reports about Omicron being very infectious but not very serious are correct, its inevitable spread may end up acting like a natural vaccination, one that the anti-vaxxer crowd probably won't be able to avoid.
Yeah, it could be the virus the British originally had a plan for, ie you can't stop it but it's not too serious, so if there's a response it's just to try to reduce the size of the peak to stop the healthcare system falling over.
I'm not sure whether they'll be able to adjust to this, or whether their system of always fighting the last war prevents them from fighting the last war but one.
They are not rising as fast as infections, but that is still a huge rate of increase. For all I know Omicron may be somewhat milder than Delta, but if it's as infectious as it looks that will far outweigh any moderate lessening of severe.
My amateur epidemiology would query whether Guateng is a good model for what might happen in the UK though. In Gauteng the new variant isn't really "competing" to replace Delta (or any other variant). It is growing rapidly from a very small base concurrent with rise in Covid in general so it exaggerates the effect on things like the health services.
In the UK many of the developing "omicron wave" cases will be displacing existing Delta (if it is on a path to dominance). Therefore if it is less bad in terms of causing hospitalisation - or worse genuine serious illness - then it will be creating compensating beneficial impacts on health services along the way. The exception would be if it were targeting (in causing severe illness) the vaccinated population in a way that Delta is not (ie. effectively operating in a different pool of hosts). That is yet to be determined above level of anecdote i think.
The biggest problem, in light of the level of testing and segmentation in the South African health care system is determining the true level of cases vs hospitalisations.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
It really is extraordinarily. The government is simultaneously working with its favoured press to drip-feed exactly the opposite story, to its voters. According to the Daily Mail today here, Raab is seeking to "protect British freedom of speech from the drift towards Continental-style privacy laws".
This is designed to please liberarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What its actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes on governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate now.
Ian Hislop recently said he thought a modern day Maxwell could hide behind 'privacy' laws to stop the press revealing what he did wrong.
The balance between a free press and 'privacy' has gone far too far the illiberal direction in recent years. If the press print something that is false, then that can be libel but if they print something that is true then truth should be an absolute defence.
Good morning everyone. Colder again, and rain is forecast. Rain can, if course, be expected in a British winter. Crackdown..... there's an appropriate word in the circumstances .... after crackdown has been tried in the 'War on Drugs' and doesn't seem to work. What would work is legalising one or two 'softer drugs', unless of course cocaine use, prevalent, certainly at one time, AIUI, among the nobility and gentry, is now so widespread that it's the drug of choice.
And if it is, then the war has been well and truly lost, and we'll have to think of a completely new strategy.
Several decades of Western drugs policy have been a total failure.
You either need to go down the full Bangkok / Dubai route, and throw users in prison for personal amounts - or you legalise them and sell drugs in pharmacies, rather than on the street.
It's a sobering thought that the only line of defence we have in this country against the government's attacks on our democracy is the unelected House of Lords.
More from the school of journalistic bollx concerning the virus.
Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson · 33m In the over 70s, 44% of those in ICU are unvaccinated compared to 55% who had two doses. In younger age groups, the no of unvaxxed in ICU is higher. By far the biggest factor for ICU COVID admission is not vaccination status but obesity.
That's mega vaccine efficacy when one considers that ~97% of over 70s are double jabbed.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
It really is extraordinarily. The government is simultaneously working with its favoured press to drip-feed exactly the opposite story to its voters. According to the Daily Mail today here, for instance, Raab is seeking to "protect British freedom of speech from the drift towards Continental-style privacy laws".
This is designed to please libertarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What it's actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes to governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate here.
FIA give Verstappen a 10 second time penalty for causing a collision
Still leaves him p2.
A fair penalty would have been a 20 place grid penalty for the next race.
I just watched the race again, with a clear head and a coffee - and the more you see it, the worse it gets.
The governance is a total shambles, and it looks like they want to turn it into wrestling rather than a fair competition. For how long will serious companies such as Mercedes want to be involved in such a farce?
The whole event was a shambles. A succession of dangerous crashes, which prompted Tilke to coo about how safe his new track was. Dangerous blocking during FP and qualifying - there has to be a stop on drivers crawling round whilst others are going full pelt. Open cheating during the various formation laps.
And then the incident. Note that the reason for the crash was Max backing off in an unsafe manner and Lewis not going round him - both with an eye on the DRS detection line. Whilst Max has clearly gone mad, the cheating from both Lewis and Valtteri was there to see as well - either we apply the rules uniformly or there are no rules.
It has been a long season where teams performance has ebbed and flowed up and down the grid (with the laughable exception of Haas). The simple truth now is that at the end of the season Mercedes have found performance and Red Bull have lost performance. Which means that its unlikely the Red Bull will be the faster car.
So, we're into the realm of incidents and skulduggery. Anyone can get caught up in chaos, and if that doesn't happen go create it. A crash between the two of them seems more likely than not for the last race.
Can F1 please not go back to head chopper land? That track is as dangerous as Qatar was boring.
More from the school of journalistic bollx concerning the virus.
Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson · 33m In the over 70s, 44% of those in ICU are unvaccinated compared to 55% who had two doses. In younger age groups, the no of unvaxxed in ICU is higher. By far the biggest factor for ICU COVID admission is not vaccination status but obesity.
That's mega vaccine efficacy when one considers that ~97% of over 70s are double jabbed.
Yup! Ms Pearson firmly in the “Most people injured in car accidents were wearing seatbelts” category of misleading statistics.
Too many people in the media are paid well to have a controversial opinion, and not enough are paid to be objective in their reporting.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
It really is extraordinarily. The government is simultaneously working with its favoured press to drip-feed exactly the opposite story, to its voters. According to the Daily Mail today here, Raab is seeking to "protect British freedom of speech from the drift towards Continental-style privacy laws".
This is designed to please liberarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What its actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes on governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate now.
Ian Hislop recently said he thought a modern day Maxwell could hide behind 'privacy' laws to stop the press revealing what he did wrong.
The balance between a free press and 'privacy' has gone far too far the illiberal direction in recent years. If the press print something that is false, then that can be libel but if they print something that is true then truth should be an absolute defence.
We need the equivalent of the US First Amendment.
Yep. Instead we have superinjunctions to stop us talking about Boris, Carrie and the musician.
More from the school of journalistic bollx concerning the virus.
Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson · 33m In the over 70s, 44% of those in ICU are unvaccinated compared to 55% who had two doses. In younger age groups, the no of unvaxxed in ICU is higher. By far the biggest factor for ICU COVID admission is not vaccination status but obesity.
That's mega vaccine efficacy when one considers that ~97% of over 70s are double jabbed.
Indeed.
It would be interesting to hear how many had had a booster.
England third jab numbers -
70 to 74 85.18% 75 to 79 92.84% 80 to 84 85.37% 85 to 89 83.82% 90+ 75.10%
It's a sobering thought that the only line of defence we have in this country against the government's attacks on our democracy is the unelected House of Lords.
Oh cut the histrionics.
The people are the line of defence. Your pretensions that there would be no further elections are just such obvious bullshit that you undermine any valid points you may have.
It's a sobering thought that the only line of defence we have in this country against the government's attacks on our democracy is the unelected House of Lords.
Oh cut the histrionics.
The people are the line of defence. Your pretensions that there would be no further elections are just such obvious bullshit that you undermine any valid points you may have.
If the government can just decide to override the courts it doesn't matter what any legislation says. You may be relaxed about ending the rule of law, Phil, but you are not a believer in freedom. Others are.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
It really is extraordinarily. The government is simultaneously working with its favoured press to drip-feed exactly the opposite story, to its voters. According to the Daily Mail today here, Raab is seeking to "protect British freedom of speech from the drift towards Continental-style privacy laws".
This is designed to please liberarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What its actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes on governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate now.
Ian Hislop recently said he thought a modern day Maxwell could hide behind 'privacy' laws to stop the press revealing what he did wrong.
The balance between a free press and 'privacy' has gone far too far the illiberal direction in recent years. If the press print something that is false, then that can be libel but if they print something that is true then truth should be an absolute defence.
We need the equivalent of the US First Amendment.
Maxwell successfully sued the press to a standstill - Private Eye included.
He was only brought down by the way that he had turned his personal finances and those of his company into a ponzi scheme, requiring ever more investment to keep from falling over, right then and there...
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
It really is extraordinarily. The government is simultaneously working with its favoured press to drip-feed exactly the opposite story, to its voters. According to the Daily Mail today here, Raab is seeking to "protect British freedom of speech from the drift towards Continental-style privacy laws".
This is designed to please liberarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What its actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes on governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate now.
Ian Hislop recently said he thought a modern day Maxwell could hide behind 'privacy' laws to stop the press revealing what he did wrong.
The balance between a free press and 'privacy' has gone far too far the illiberal direction in recent years. If the press print something that is false, then that can be libel but if they print something that is true then truth should be an absolute defence.
We need the equivalent of the US First Amendment.
Maxwell successfully sued the press to a standstill - Private Eye included.
He was only brought down by the way that he had turned his personal finances and those of his company into a ponzi scheme, requiring ever more investment to keep from falling over, right then and there...
Yes. Maxwell relied on libel laws to muzzle the press. The suggestion is now he (or his modern equivalents) can use privacy instead.
It's a sobering thought that the only line of defence we have in this country against the government's attacks on our democracy is the unelected House of Lords.
Oh cut the histrionics.
The people are the line of defence. Your pretensions that there would be no further elections are just such obvious bullshit that you undermine any valid points you may have.
If the government can just decide to override the courts it doesn't matter what any legislation says. You may be relaxed about ending the rule of law, Phil, but you are not a believer in freedom. Others are.
It's a sobering thought that the only line of defence we have in this country against the government's attacks on our democracy is the unelected House of Lords.
Oh cut the histrionics.
The people are the line of defence. Your pretensions that there would be no further elections are just such obvious bullshit that you undermine any valid points you may have.
If the government can just decide to override the courts it doesn't matter what any legislation says. You may be relaxed about ending the rule of law, Phil, but you are not a believer in freedom. Others are.
The article refers to passing new legislation to change the law. Parliament has always had that ability.
If the various reports about Omicron being very infectious but not very serious are correct, its inevitable spread may end up acting like a natural vaccination, one that the anti-vaxxer crowd probably won't be able to avoid.
Yeah, it could be the virus the British originally had a plan for, ie you can't stop it but it's not too serious, so if there's a response it's just to try to reduce the size of the peak to stop the healthcare system falling over.
I'm not sure whether they'll be able to adjust to this, or whether their system of always fighting the last war prevents them from fighting the last war but one.
They are not rising as fast as infections, but that is still a huge rate of increase. For all I know Omicron may be somewhat milder than Delta, but if it's as infectious as it looks that will far outweigh any moderate lessening of severe.
My amateur epidemiology would query whether Guateng is a good model for what might happen in the UK though. In Gauteng the new variant isn't really "competing" to replace Delta (or any other variant). It is growing rapidly from a very small base concurrent with rise in Covid in general so it exaggerates the effect on things like the health services.
In the UK many of the developing "omicron wave" cases will be displacing existing Delta (if it is on a path to dominance). Therefore if it is less bad in terms of causing hospitalisation - or worse genuine serious illness - then it will be creating compensating beneficial impacts on health services along the way. The exception would be if it were targeting (in causing severe illness) the vaccinated population in a way that Delta is not (ie. effectively operating in a different pool of hosts). That is yet to be determined above level of anecdote i think.
I agree it's very difficult to extrapolate from what's happening in Gauteng to the UK. And all the data from South Africa, including the data I posted for hospital admissions I posted, are quite difficult to interpret.
In particular, the figures for hospital admissions and severity of COVID-19 in hospital patients may be misleading because routine testing in hospitals is picking up increased prevalence of infection within the population in general. Most COVID-19 infections are mild anyway, so those additional incidental cases they pick up will mostly be mild. (Also if there is immune escape, a higher proportion of infections will be in those previously infected and/or vaccinated, which should also be conducive towards milder effects on average.)
But similar problems apply to all the evidence we have that Omicron is intrinsically milder. That evidence is still very weak. The default assumption at the moment should be that it is not intrinsically much different. I watched the beginning of a video in which John Campbell was enthusing about how wonderful Omicron was going to be, because it was mild and so infectious. That would be very nice if it turned out to be true, but publicly promoting the idea now on the basis of effectively anecdotal data is the worst kind of irresponsible speculation.
I really don't think that this idea of Omicron "displacing" Delta infections is right. The only way Omicron will actually reduce the number of Delta infections is by increasing the percentage of the population with immunity acquired through infection. That won't happen unless and until Omicron has infected a significant proportion of the population. In the immediate future, the effects of Delta and Omicron will simply be additive.
Close on the 2JZ - it’s actually a BMW S54 from an E46 M3.
I'm glad I illegally downloaded it then so I am not financially complicit in a terrorist atrocity.
I have a 22,000km S54 (the 350hp one with a carbon fibre intake plenum from an M3 CSL). I am going to put in a clean base model E36 316i 2 door shell if such a thing still exists and can be found.
The original DB5 engine was an asthmatic boat anchor that runs out of what little steam it has at 5,000rpm. The DB5 in the film is banging limiter at 7,000rpm+.
It's a sobering thought that the only line of defence we have in this country against the government's attacks on our democracy is the unelected House of Lords.
Oh cut the histrionics.
The people are the line of defence. Your pretensions that there would be no further elections are just such obvious bullshit that you undermine any valid points you may have.
If the government can just decide to override the courts it doesn't matter what any legislation says. You may be relaxed about ending the rule of law, Phil, but you are not a believer in freedom. Others are.
The article refers to passing new legislation to change the law. Parliament has always had that ability.
The article refers to new annual legislation that would give ministers carte blanche to override any decision about any government action that ministers believe to be wrong. Ministers can already legislate to change the law.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
It really is extraordinarily. The government is simultaneously working with its favoured press to drip-feed exactly the opposite story, to its voters. According to the Daily Mail today here, Raab is seeking to "protect British freedom of speech from the drift towards Continental-style privacy laws".
This is designed to please liberarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What its actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes on governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate now.
Ian Hislop recently said he thought a modern day Maxwell could hide behind 'privacy' laws to stop the press revealing what he did wrong.
The balance between a free press and 'privacy' has gone far too far the illiberal direction in recent years. If the press print something that is false, then that can be libel but if they print something that is true then truth should be an absolute defence.
We need the equivalent of the US First Amendment.
Maxwell successfully sued the press to a standstill - Private Eye included.
He was only brought down by the way that he had turned his personal finances and those of his company into a ponzi scheme, requiring ever more investment to keep from falling over, right then and there...
Yes. Maxwell relied on libel laws to muzzle the press. The suggestion is now he (or his modern equivalents) can use privacy instead.
It's very interesting how the Mail even openly references the case lost by the Mail on Sunday against Meghan a few days ago. We all know what this is about, and it's not in any way related to the press holding British governments politically to account, or protecting freedom of speech, either of which it's signally failed to do for two decades.
More from the school of journalistic bollx concerning the virus.
Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson · 33m In the over 70s, 44% of those in ICU are unvaccinated compared to 55% who had two doses. In younger age groups, the no of unvaxxed in ICU is higher. By far the biggest factor for ICU COVID admission is not vaccination status but obesity.
That's mega vaccine efficacy when one considers that ~97% of over 70s are double jabbed.
It does show dramatic efficacy, but those figures also illustrate that if the number of infections rises dramatically the hospitalisations will be coming from the unvaccinated and vaccinated populations in comparable numbers.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
It really is extraordinarily. The government is simultaneously working with its favoured press to drip-feed exactly the opposite story, to its voters. According to the Daily Mail today here, Raab is seeking to "protect British freedom of speech from the drift towards Continental-style privacy laws".
This is designed to please liberarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What its actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes on governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate now.
Ian Hislop recently said he thought a modern day Maxwell could hide behind 'privacy' laws to stop the press revealing what he did wrong.
The balance between a free press and 'privacy' has gone far too far the illiberal direction in recent years. If the press print something that is false, then that can be libel but if they print something that is true then truth should be an absolute defence.
We need the equivalent of the US First Amendment.
Hislop's point would have more force if the press had in fact exposed Maxwell. But they didn't. It was legal and financial investigations after his death which did that.
I don't believe for a moment that the government is concerned about privacy laws by stealth. Such laws would suit those in power very well indeed. On the contrary they are simply using this to attack judges making decisions - completely ignoring the fact that in a common law system case law ie decisions by judges is how the law develops.
On the Xmas party issue last year, I only say this. I have sympathy on a personal level with people who have been working hard together wanting to celebrate at the end of the working day. Lots of us feel like that and felt in need of some human contact at the end of last year after what was a shit year.
But for the first time ever in my life, we had Xmas with my family all separated. I had not seen my two sons for months. Nor had my Daughter. We were apart from my husband. The result of that was that he and one of my sons caught Covid. I did not see my brother either, who lives alone. Daughter lost business because of the rules which were in place. It was a tough time.
I am utterly fucked off with having people in power who cannot be arsed to even try to follow the rules they impose on the rest of us, who can't be bothered to admit it when they get it wrong, who lie to us openly and brazenly and who talk nonsense at us because they have utter contempt for us.
Now we have this crackdown on drug misuse. Yeah - whatever. MPs are doubtless flouting the rules and will suffer no consequences for doing so. But if Daughter were to break any of the rules she is under the police and licensing authorities would be on to her like a ton of bricks.
I am sick of this, sick of being taken granted, sick of a ruling class which treats those of us who try to do the right thing as mugs. I am weary and cynical at it all. But I am also absolutely furious at how this shower of lying, corrupt, incompetent, arrogant and amoral twats are destroying a political culture which, for all its faults, used to try and stand for something worthwhile.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
By ‘making it harder to vote’ you presumably refer to voter ID? I find it astonishing that people object to proving who you are when you vote. I have to use a fecking password to post on an anonymous chat room like PB FFS.
That doesn't prove who you are, though, does it ? And I'm reasonably sure you're not really called turbotubbs.
Surely you have to judge legislation (and precedent) on what future governments could do with it, not just the current government.
This is a government that wanted to close down Parliament for five weeks because it was concerned Parliament might not do as it wished. I am not sure we need to think too far forward to imagine what the same government would do with powers that enabled it to override court decisions it did not like.
Close on the 2JZ - it’s actually a BMW S54 from an E46 M3.
I'm glad I illegally downloaded it then so I am not financially complicit in a terrorist atrocity.
I have a 22,000km S54 (the 350hp one with a carbon fibre intake plenum from an M3 CSL). I am going to put in a clean base model E36 316i 2 door shell if such a thing still exists and can be found.
The original DB5 engine was an asthmatic boat anchor that runs out of what little steam it has at 5,000rpm. The DB5 in the film is banging limiter at 7,000rpm+.
Which is presumably why Bond dispensed with the asthmatic original ? Fairly sure the twin gatlings weren't Goldfinger era, either.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
By ‘making it harder to vote’ you presumably refer to voter ID? I find it astonishing that people object to proving who you are when you vote. I have to use a fecking password to post on an anonymous chat room like PB FFS.
That doesn't prove who you are, though, does it ? And I'm reasonably sure you're not really called turbotubbs.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
It really is extraordinarily. The government is simultaneously working with its favoured press to drip-feed exactly the opposite story, to its voters. According to the Daily Mail today here, Raab is seeking to "protect British freedom of speech from the drift towards Continental-style privacy laws".
This is designed to please liberarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What its actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes on governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate now.
Ian Hislop recently said he thought a modern day Maxwell could hide behind 'privacy' laws to stop the press revealing what he did wrong.
The balance between a free press and 'privacy' has gone far too far the illiberal direction in recent years. If the press print something that is false, then that can be libel but if they print something that is true then truth should be an absolute defence.
We need the equivalent of the US First Amendment.
Hislop's point would have more force if the press had in fact exposed Maxwell. But they didn't. It was legal and financial investigations after his death which did that.
I don't believe for a moment that the government is concerned about privacy laws by stealth. Such laws would suit those in power very well indeed. On the contrary they are simply using this to attack judges making decisions - completely ignoring the fact that in a common law system case law ie decisions by judges is how the law develops.
On the Xmas party issue last year, I only say this. I have sympathy on a personal level with people who have been working hard together wanting to celebrate at the end of the working day. Lots of us feel like that and felt in need of some human contact at the end of last year after what was a shit year.
But for the first time ever in my life, we had Xmas with my family all separated. I had not seen my two sons for months. Nor had my Daughter. We were apart from my husband. The result of that was that he and one of my sons caught Covid. I did not see my brother either, who lives alone. Daughter lost business because of the rules which were in place. It was a tough time.
I am utterly fucked off with having people in power who cannot be arsed to even try to follow the rules they impose on the rest of us, who can't be bothered to admit it when they get it wrong, who lie to us openly and brazenly and who talk nonsense at us because they have utter contempt for us.
Now we have this crackdown on drug misuse. Yeah - whatever. MPs are doubtless flouting the rules and will suffer no consequences for doing so. But if Daughter were to break any of the rules she is under the police and licensing authorities would be on to her like a ton of bricks.
I am sick of this, sick of being taken granted, sick of a ruling class which treats those of us who try to do the right thing as mugs. I am weary and cynical at it all. But I am also absolutely furious at how this shower of lying, corrupt, incompetent, arrogant and amoral twats are destroying a political culture which, for all its faults, used to try and stand for something worthwhile.
That's not a political manifesto - but if anyone could harness that sentiment, they'd probably win a majority at the next election.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
As I understand it, this isn't quite as bad as ending democracy, though it's bad enough. If correctly reported, it's a second U-turn on the right to judicial review. Originally the Government proposed to restrict the grounds on which you could ask courts to review whether the Government was obeying the law. That was largely dropped in the current Justice Bill after an outcry. They are now proposing to reintroduce leglislation on the subject, not aimed at review directly but giving them the power to overrule a judicial review decision that they don't like. Arguably that's worse than restricting access to review, since it does gives ministers power to ignore a verdict on how the existing law should be applied.
Judicial review is difficult and expensive in any case (I've conducted one for Compassion in World Farming which achieved its objective without having to get to the final stage). You're right that in theory any Government decision that was successfully challenged could under this proposal be maintained anyway. That said, abolishing elections would in fact certainly require new legislation. A more insidious example would be if the Government applied existing legislation unfairly, e.g. refusing to give reasonable compensation for something they'd done wrong.
You don't abolish elections, you just decide not to hold them.
Or redraw constituencies at county level so Greater London gets 1 seat just like Gloucestershire. After all the public wanted fewer leeching politicians.
It's a sobering thought that the only line of defence we have in this country against the government's attacks on our democracy is the unelected House of Lords.
Oh cut the histrionics.
The people are the line of defence. Your pretensions that there would be no further elections are just such obvious bullshit that you undermine any valid points you may have.
If the government can just decide to override the courts it doesn't matter what any legislation says. You may be relaxed about ending the rule of law, Phil, but you are not a believer in freedom. Others are.
The article refers to passing new legislation to change the law. Parliament has always had that ability.
The article refers to new annual legislation that would give ministers carte blanche to override any decision about any government action that ministers believe to be wrong. Ministers can already legislate to change the law.
The Govt thinks that laws are created by the Govt rather than by passed by Parliament. One of the courts’ role is to seek to interpret the intention of Parliament when passing the law. Because of the Govt’s conflating of the Executive with Parliament it think that it’s interpretation of the law is superior to the Courts - “it created it, so it, not the courts, knows how it should be interpreted”
Close on the 2JZ - it’s actually a BMW S54 from an E46 M3.
I'm glad I illegally downloaded it then so I am not financially complicit in a terrorist atrocity.
I have a 22,000km S54 (the 350hp one with a carbon fibre intake plenum from an M3 CSL). I am going to put in a clean base model E36 316i 2 door shell if such a thing still exists and can be found.
The original DB5 engine was an asthmatic boat anchor that runs out of what little steam it has at 5,000rpm. The DB5 in the film is banging limiter at 7,000rpm+.
Brilliant project idea. Good luck finding a clean donor though, most old E36s are made of iron oxide these days.
It's a sobering thought that the only line of defence we have in this country against the government's attacks on our democracy is the unelected House of Lords.
Oh cut the histrionics.
The people are the line of defence. Your pretensions that there would be no further elections are just such obvious bullshit that you undermine any valid points you may have.
If the government can just decide to override the courts it doesn't matter what any legislation says. You may be relaxed about ending the rule of law, Phil, but you are not a believer in freedom. Others are.
The article refers to passing new legislation to change the law. Parliament has always had that ability.
The article refers to new annual legislation that would give ministers carte blanche to override any decision about any government action that ministers believe to be wrong. Ministers can already legislate to change the law.
The Govt thinks that laws are created by the Govt rather than by passed by Parliament. One of the courts’ role is to seek to interpret the intention of Parliament when passing the law. Because of the Govt’s conflating of the Executive with Parliament it think that it’s interpretation of the law is superior to the Courts - “it created it, so it, not the courts, knows how it should be interpreted”
And most law is not created by the government that is currently in power.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
It really is extraordinarily. The government is simultaneously working with its favoured press to drip-feed exactly the opposite story, to its voters. According to the Daily Mail today here, Raab is seeking to "protect British freedom of speech from the drift towards Continental-style privacy laws".
This is designed to please liberarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What its actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes on governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate now.
Ian Hislop recently said he thought a modern day Maxwell could hide behind 'privacy' laws to stop the press revealing what he did wrong.
The balance between a free press and 'privacy' has gone far too far the illiberal direction in recent years. If the press print something that is false, then that can be libel but if they print something that is true then truth should be an absolute defence.
We need the equivalent of the US First Amendment.
Hislop's point would have more force if the press had in fact exposed Maxwell. But they didn't. It was legal and financial investigations after his death which did that.
I don't believe for a moment that the government is concerned about privacy laws by stealth. Such laws would suit those in power very well indeed. On the contrary they are simply using this to attack judges making decisions - completely ignoring the fact that in a common law system case law ie decisions by judges is how the law develops.
On the Xmas party issue last year, I only say this. I have sympathy on a personal level with people who have been working hard together wanting to celebrate at the end of the working day. Lots of us feel like that and felt in need of some human contact at the end of last year after what was a shit year.
But for the first time ever in my life, we had Xmas with my family all separated. I had not seen my two sons for months. Nor had my Daughter. We were apart from my husband. The result of that was that he and one of my sons caught Covid. I did not see my brother either, who lives alone. Daughter lost business because of the rules which were in place. It was a tough time.
I am utterly fucked off with having people in power who cannot be arsed to even try to follow the rules they impose on the rest of us, who can't be bothered to admit it when they get it wrong, who lie to us openly and brazenly and who talk nonsense at us because they have utter contempt for us.
Now we have this crackdown on drug misuse. Yeah - whatever. MPs are doubtless flouting the rules and will suffer no consequences for doing so. But if Daughter were to break any of the rules she is under the police and licensing authorities would be on to her like a ton of bricks.
I am sick of this, sick of being taken granted, sick of a ruling class which treats those of us who try to do the right thing as mugs. I am weary and cynical at it all. But I am also absolutely furious at how this shower of lying, corrupt, incompetent, arrogant and amoral twats are destroying a political culture which, for all its faults, used to try and stand for something worthwhile.
That's not a political manifesto - but if anyone could harness that sentiment, they'd probably win a majority at the next election.
Sadly I don't think this is true. Enough establishment voters either think they are all at it, or allow themselves to justify that as an excuse.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
It really is extraordinarily. The government is simultaneously working with its favoured press to drip-feed exactly the opposite story, to its voters. According to the Daily Mail today here, Raab is seeking to "protect British freedom of speech from the drift towards Continental-style privacy laws".
This is designed to please liberarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What its actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes on governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate now.
Ian Hislop recently said he thought a modern day Maxwell could hide behind 'privacy' laws to stop the press revealing what he did wrong.
The balance between a free press and 'privacy' has gone far too far the illiberal direction in recent years. If the press print something that is false, then that can be libel but if they print something that is true then truth should be an absolute defence.
We need the equivalent of the US First Amendment.
Hislop's point would have more force if the press had in fact exposed Maxwell. But they didn't. It was legal and financial investigations after his death which did that.
I don't believe for a moment that the government is concerned about privacy laws by stealth. Such laws would suit those in power very well indeed. On the contrary they are simply using this to attack judges making decisions - completely ignoring the fact that in a common law system case law ie decisions by judges is how the law develops.
On the Xmas party issue last year, I only say this. I have sympathy on a personal level with people who have been working hard together wanting to celebrate at the end of the working day. Lots of us feel like that and felt in need of some human contact at the end of last year after what was a shit year.
But for the first time ever in my life, we had Xmas with my family all separated. I had not seen my two sons for months. Nor had my Daughter. We were apart from my husband. The result of that was that he and one of my sons caught Covid. I did not see my brother either, who lives alone. Daughter lost business because of the rules which were in place. It was a tough time.
I am utterly fucked off with having people in power who cannot be arsed to even try to follow the rules they impose on the rest of us, who can't be bothered to admit it when they get it wrong, who lie to us openly and brazenly and who talk nonsense at us because they have utter contempt for us.
Now we have this crackdown on drug misuse. Yeah - whatever. MPs are doubtless flouting the rules and will suffer no consequences for doing so. But if Daughter were to break any of the rules she is under the police and licensing authorities would be on to her like a ton of bricks.
I am sick of this, sick of being taken granted, sick of a ruling class which treats those of us who try to do the right thing as mugs. I am weary and cynical at it all. But I am also absolutely furious at how this shower of lying, corrupt, incompetent, arrogant and amoral twats are destroying a political culture which, for all its faults, used to try and stand for something worthwhile.
That's not a political manifesto - but if anyone could harness that sentiment, they'd probably win a majority at the next election.
Sadly I don't think this is true. Enough establishment voters either think they are all at it, or allow themselves to justify that as an excuse.
And yet when the Mail, among others, really did turn its investigative fire on the government, for only a few weeks after Paterson, look what happened. Part of the reason our democracy is failing is that our press is failing, and the government is rewarding its worst tendencies.
Surely you have to judge legislation (and precedent) on what future governments could do with it, not just the current government.
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered."
(Trivia: the finale of the latest Bond movie, where Bond ****, was rather improbably supposed to be located in the disputed southern Kurile islands. If there’s one part of the world Mickey Mouse RN warships won’t be f’ing about it’s the Kurile islands.)
I had to sit through it last week as Mrs DA wanted to see it (she is a cultural anglophile). The only thing of any note I took from it was that the DB5 was obviously a fake with a modern DOHC inline 6 (maybe a 2JZ) and they hadn't bothered to overdub it with the correct engine sound.
Judging by the morning's radio, the drug initiative seems to be as much about rehab as about punishment for users and crims. And about hitting criminal networks, which is OK if the Govt are not going to remove any incentive for such a supply chain.
But the needs of PB junkies have not been properly addressed; now is presumably the time to respond to the consultation with a call for legalisation. Another potentially great post-Brexit industry - exporting cannabis to the Netherlands.
Taking the license away from druggies caught driving outside the law seems reasonable, as does removing passports from druggies caught smuggling - though I'd rather we got them for tax fiddling in a decriminalised system.
For twignoramuses @RobD and @Theuniondivvie on the deleted poll tweet - The screenshot of the poll was taken by the same guy who originally tweeted the poll, deleted it (to stop it after 24hrs), then tweeted about deleting it.
@FacundoSavala Dec 5 I had a Scottish Indy poll recently. Flag of Scotland I meant to run it for a day, rather than 7, so stopped it after 24hrs. Winking face After 24 hours, the nats were marginally ahead, so well done to them. Thumbs up My question of course was a hypothetical one, as there is no date set for #IndyRef2 Grimacing face https://twitter.com/FacundoSavala/status/1467413219589476352
(Trivia: the finale of the latest Bond movie, where Bond ****, was rather improbably supposed to be located in the disputed southern Kurile islands. If there’s one part of the world Mickey Mouse RN warships won’t be f’ing about it’s the Kurile islands.)
I had to sit through it last week as Mrs DA wanted to see it (she is a cultural anglophile). The only thing of any note I took from it was that the DB5 was obviously a fake with a modern DOHC inline 6 (maybe a 2JZ) and they hadn't bothered to overdub it with the correct engine sound.
As you say, you are not the audience
Morning everyone.
Neither am I. I have not seen it.
Stick that in your tautological pipe and smoke it.
If the various reports about Omicron being very infectious but not very serious are correct, its inevitable spread may end up acting like a natural vaccination, one that the anti-vaxxer crowd probably won't be able to avoid.
Yeah, it could be the virus the British originally had a plan for, ie you can't stop it but it's not too serious, so if there's a response it's just to try to reduce the size of the peak to stop the healthcare system falling over.
I'm not sure whether they'll be able to adjust to this, or whether their system of always fighting the last war prevents them from fighting the last war but one.
They are not rising as fast as infections, but that is still a huge rate of increase. For all I know Omicron may be somewhat milder than Delta, but if it's as infectious as it looks that will far outweigh any moderate lessening of severe.
My amateur epidemiology would query whether Guateng is a good model for what might happen in the UK though. In Gauteng the new variant isn't really "competing" to replace Delta (or any other variant). It is growing rapidly from a very small base concurrent with rise in Covid in general so it exaggerates the effect on things like the health services.
In the UK many of the developing "omicron wave" cases will be displacing existing Delta (if it is on a path to dominance). Therefore if it is less bad in terms of causing hospitalisation - or worse genuine serious illness - then it will be creating compensating beneficial impacts on health services along the way. The exception would be if it were targeting (in causing severe illness) the vaccinated population in a way that Delta is not (ie. effectively operating in a different pool of hosts). That is yet to be determined above level of anecdote i think.
I agree it's very difficult to extrapolate from what's happening in Gauteng to the UK. And all the data from South Africa, including the data I posted for hospital admissions I posted, are quite difficult to interpret.
In particular, the figures for hospital admissions and severity of COVID-19 in hospital patients may be misleading because routine testing in hospitals is picking up increased prevalence of infection within the population in general. Most COVID-19 infections are mild anyway, so those additional incidental cases they pick up will mostly be mild. (Also if there is immune escape, a higher proportion of infections will be in those previously infected and/or vaccinated, which should also be conducive towards milder effects on average.)
But similar problems apply to all the evidence we have that Omicron is intrinsically milder. That evidence is still very weak. The default assumption at the moment should be that it is not intrinsically much different. I watched the beginning of a video in which John Campbell was enthusing about how wonderful Omicron was going to be, because it was mild and so infectious. That would be very nice if it turned out to be true, but publicly promoting the idea now on the basis of effectively anecdotal data is the worst kind of irresponsible speculation.
I really don't think that this idea of Omicron "displacing" Delta infections is right. The only way Omicron will actually reduce the number of Delta infections is by increasing the percentage of the population with immunity acquired through infection. That won't happen unless and until Omicron has infected a significant proportion of the population. In the immediate future, the effects of Delta and Omicron will simply be additive.
Indeed, probably the only reasons any of the other Coronaviruses are mild are because they have to operate by little bits of immune escape in a population whose immune systems have seen versions of that virus multiple times. Which is where we are heading with COVID. Omicron is a huge milestone along this path - immune escape (and rapid onward transmission) rather than mere higher infectiousness has become the easiest way to gain evolutionary advantage in, perhaps. a good deal of the world, but there are still enough immunity gaps to cause pandemic type problems when it does hop across into those gaps.
Stick current OC43 in a naive population and, though it wouldn't be optimised for high R in that population, I imagine it would be a sure fire killer.
Wow so no 10 wants to just ignore judges rulings. You’d expect to see this in a banana Republic not the UK , very sad and disturbing . Good luck trying to lecture other countries on democracy.
The government can pass whatever laws they want anyway, as long as they persuade enough MPs to support whatever it is.
Really I never knew ! You’re missing the point entirely , enacting legislation that just overrides a judges ruling is quite different to enacting legislation that addresses any judgement and seeks to alter the original law.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
It's the sort of arrogant, "the Law is only for the little people" approach that you would expect to be cooked up by a bunch of cokeheads.
“Bunch of cokeheads” being the correct medical term for a group of Conservative cabinet ministers.
(Trivia: the finale of the latest Bond movie, where Bond ****, was rather improbably supposed to be located in the disputed southern Kurile islands. If there’s one part of the world Mickey Mouse RN warships won’t be f’ing about it’s the Kurile islands.)
I had to sit through it last week as Mrs DA wanted to see it (she is a cultural anglophile). The only thing of any note I took from it was that the DB5 was obviously a fake with a modern DOHC inline 6 (maybe a 2JZ) and they hadn't bothered to overdub it with the correct engine sound.
As you say, you are not the audience
Morning everyone.
Neither am I. I have not seen it.
Stick that in your tautological pipe and smoke it.
Judging by your Avatar, I have you down as a Monopoly enthusiast.
A good example of this government interfering with judicial independence is Harper's Law, trailed a couple of weeks ago, making the killing of emergency workers carry a mandatory life sentence regardless of whether intent to kill can be proven. It's a wholly unnecessary move to remove judges' sentencing discretion in a very small number of cases. It's not as if Henry Long got off lightly (19 years). So why are they doing it? Pure populism, probably following a Mail or Sun campaign. It's worth reading the press release - it's not something that needed fixing, but Raab and Patel think there may be some votes in it:
(Trivia: the finale of the latest Bond movie, where Bond ****, was rather improbably supposed to be located in the disputed southern Kurile islands. If there’s one part of the world Mickey Mouse RN warships won’t be f’ing about it’s the Kurile islands.)
I had to sit through it last week as Mrs DA wanted to see it (she is a cultural anglophile). The only thing of any note I took from it was that the DB5 was obviously a fake with a modern DOHC inline 6 (maybe a 2JZ) and they hadn't bothered to overdub it with the correct engine sound.
My wife got huge credit in her Ferrari: Race to Immortality* documentary for getting the sound spot on for all the gear changes in the two 1950's Ferraris as they whizzed around Brands Hatch. The petrol heads were wondering how the hell she'd found period interior cockpit footage.... She just spent a hell of a long time in the edit suite getting it right.
The bigger thing to mull over about James Bond is how the greatest globe-spanning criminal conspiracies all manage to buy their henchman from the same "can't shoot for shit" suppliers. He must have had 10,000 bullets fired in his general direction over the franchise. About the only one that hit him was from a colleague in Skyfall....
Wow so no 10 wants to just ignore judges rulings. You’d expect to see this in a banana Republic not the UK , very sad and disturbing . Good luck trying to lecture other countries on democracy.
The government can pass whatever laws they want anyway, as long as they persuade enough MPs to support whatever it is.
Really I never knew ! You’re missing the point entirely , enacting legislation that just overrides a judges ruling is quite different to enacting legislation that addresses any judgement and seeks to alter the original law.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
It's the sort of arrogant, "the Law is only for the little people" approach that you would expect to be cooked up by a bunch of cokeheads.
“Bunch of cokeheads” being the correct medical term for a group of Conservative cabinet ministers.
"Parliament to pass an interpretation bill" . . . that's not ministers overruling judges, that's Parliament passing laws as its sovereign to do.
That is entirely reasonable. If the courts pass anything that Parliament doesn't like then Parliament must be allowed to correct the course by passing a new bill to override it.
Depends what they mean, which is far from clear to my non-expert eyes. If they mean legislating forwards then yeah, ok, but I don't feel comfortable about converyor-belt legislation. If it's striking down judges' decisions, then it resembles (is?) retroactive legislation. That cannot be tolerated, even by you.
I mean the former.
If a Judge interprets a law badly, and Parliament clarifies the law for next time, then that is Parliament doing its own job.
It is for Parliament to determine what the law is, not Judges.
Please don't embarrass yourself talking nonsense about the law again. I have fee-paying work to do this week and won't have the time to correct the many mistakes you will undoubtedly make. Thank you.
There's always the Northern Irish protocol. We haven't heard about that for a while. 🤔
I didn't say anything about the law, I was referring to Parliament's ability to change the law. That's different.
Do you deny that if Parliament is unhappy with how the law is applied that they can change the law for going forwards?
I specifically agreed that Parliament should NOT pass retrospective changes. Though it does have the ability to do so too, I find it extremely unethical to do it.
Seems pretty clear thats the plan though. The rules do not apply to them. If a court makes a judgement they don't like, just strike it down.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
What Johnson is proposing would allow the government to extend its life indefinitely. Should it become law it would end our democracy. Johnson is often described as an instinctive libertarian. That. of course, is nonsense. From making it harder to vote and removing the right to public protest to making UK citizens less able as individuals to live, work and study where they choose, he has presided over the removal of more personal freedoms than any other peacetime Prime Minister in modern British history. He has no attachment to democracy. The only liberty he has any interest in is his own.
It really is extraordinarily. The government is simultaneously working with its favoured press to drip-feed exactly the opposite story, to its voters. According to the Daily Mail today here, Raab is seeking to "protect British freedom of speech from the drift towards Continental-style privacy laws".
This is designed to please liberarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What its actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes on governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate now.
Ian Hislop recently said he thought a modern day Maxwell could hide behind 'privacy' laws to stop the press revealing what he did wrong.
The balance between a free press and 'privacy' has gone far too far the illiberal direction in recent years. If the press print something that is false, then that can be libel but if they print something that is true then truth should be an absolute defence.
We need the equivalent of the US First Amendment.
Which would mean that the media could pick on a random person and improperly obtain and print their entire medical records. If 'truth' is an absolute defence then confidentiality and privacy cease to exist. Which is all very well until they come for you.
A moment's reflection will reveal that we all value immensely NHS confidentiality, and because it works well is not noticed. Philip Thompson would overturn it. Other examples abound.
A good example of this government interfering with judicial independence is Harper's Law, trailed a couple of weeks ago, making the killing of emergency workers carry a mandatory life sentence regardless of whether intent to kill can be proven. It's a wholly unnecessary move to remove judges' sentencing discretion in a very small number of cases. It's not as if Henry Long got off lightly (19 years). So why are they doing it? Pure populism, probably following a Mail or Sun campaign. It's worth reading the press release - it's not something that needed fixing, but Raab and Patel think there may be some votes in it:
FIA give Verstappen a 10 second time penalty for causing a collision
Still leaves him p2.
A fair penalty would have been a 20 place grid penalty for the next race.
I just watched the race again, with a clear head and a coffee - and the more you see it, the worse it gets.
The governance is a total shambles, and it looks like they want to turn it into wrestling rather than a fair competition. For how long will serious companies such as Mercedes want to be involved in such a farce?
This piece nails it.
Max Verstappen looks ready to crash for the title - his driving has become more reckless than audacious.
Dutchman is facing a rival who makes precious few mistakes leaving a repeat of 1990 in their Abu Dhabi showdown on the cards
It's interesting to note the European press have turned against Verstappen.
This from El Pais is typical.
Verstappen performed a “strange manoeuvre” causing the touch with Hamilton....and that he turned the struggle for the championship into a dirty fight.”
Wow so no 10 wants to just ignore judges rulings. You’d expect to see this in a banana Republic not the UK , very sad and disturbing . Good luck trying to lecture other countries on democracy.
The government can pass whatever laws they want anyway, as long as they persuade enough MPs to support whatever it is.
Really I never knew ! You’re missing the point entirely , enacting legislation that just overrides a judges ruling is quite different to enacting legislation that addresses any judgement and seeks to alter the original law.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
It's the sort of arrogant, "the Law is only for the little people" approach that you would expect to be cooked up by a bunch of cokeheads.
“Bunch of cokeheads” being the correct medical term for a group of Conservative cabinet ministers.
Wow so no 10 wants to just ignore judges rulings. You’d expect to see this in a banana Republic not the UK , very sad and disturbing . Good luck trying to lecture other countries on democracy.
The government can pass whatever laws they want anyway, as long as they persuade enough MPs to support whatever it is.
Really I never knew ! You’re missing the point entirely , enacting legislation that just overrides a judges ruling is quite different to enacting legislation that addresses any judgement and seeks to alter the original law.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
It's the sort of arrogant, "the Law is only for the little people" approach that you would expect to be cooked up by a bunch of cokeheads.
“Bunch of cokeheads” being the correct medical term for a group of Conservative cabinet ministers.
Wow so no 10 wants to just ignore judges rulings. You’d expect to see this in a banana Republic not the UK , very sad and disturbing . Good luck trying to lecture other countries on democracy.
The government can pass whatever laws they want anyway, as long as they persuade enough MPs to support whatever it is.
Really I never knew ! You’re missing the point entirely , enacting legislation that just overrides a judges ruling is quite different to enacting legislation that addresses any judgement and seeks to alter the original law.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
It's the sort of arrogant, "the Law is only for the little people" approach that you would expect to be cooked up by a bunch of cokeheads.
Make you wonder if this government isn’t the ultimate Oxford Bullingdon club escapade planned long, long ago. Perhaps after smashing up the country and doing what the hell they like, Boris and co will pay for the damage.
It really is quite hard to understand what is conservative about the current "Conservative Party".
We seem to have a very bizarre cross between radical, or near-radical nationalists on the one hand, and culture warriors including a group imported from the old Revolutionary Communist Party, like Munira Murza, on the other ; this is then acting as a sort of front and clearing-house for all sorts of hedge fund, city and foreign money.
You make them sound exciting! I wonder if Claire Fox has joined? It sounds just like her cup of tea.
FIA give Verstappen a 10 second time penalty for causing a collision
Still leaves him p2.
A fair penalty would have been a 20 place grid penalty for the next race.
I just watched the race again, with a clear head and a coffee - and the more you see it, the worse it gets.
The governance is a total shambles, and it looks like they want to turn it into wrestling rather than a fair competition. For how long will serious companies such as Mercedes want to be involved in such a farce?
This piece nails it.
Max Verstappen looks ready to crash for the title - his driving has become more reckless than audacious.
Dutchman is facing a rival who makes precious few mistakes leaving a repeat of 1990 in their Abu Dhabi showdown on the cards
It's interesting to note the European press have turned against Verstappen.
This from El Pais is typical.
Verstappen performed a “strange manoeuvre” causing the touch with Hamilton....and that he turned the struggle for the championship into a dirty fight.”
Brake test... "...in deciding to penalise the driver of car 33, the key point for the Stewards was that the driver of car 33 then braked suddenly (69 bar) and significantly, resulting in 2.4g deceleration...".
(Trivia: the finale of the latest Bond movie, where Bond ****, was rather improbably supposed to be located in the disputed southern Kurile islands. If there’s one part of the world Mickey Mouse RN warships won’t be f’ing about it’s the Kurile islands.)
I had to sit through it last week as Mrs DA wanted to see it (she is a cultural anglophile). The only thing of any note I took from it was that the DB5 was obviously a fake with a modern DOHC inline 6 (maybe a 2JZ) and they hadn't bothered to overdub it with the correct engine sound.
My wife got huge credit in her Ferrari: Race to Immortality* documentary for getting the sound spot on for all the gear changes in the two 1950's Ferraris as they whizzed around Brands Hatch. The petrol heads were wondering how the hell she'd found period interior cockpit footage.... She just spent a hell of a long time in the edit suite getting it right.
The bigger thing to mull over about James Bond is how the greatest globe-spanning criminal conspiracies all manage to buy their henchman from the same "can't shoot for shit" suppliers. He must have had 10,000 bullets fired in his general direction over the franchise. About the only one that hit him was from a colleague in Skyfall....
*regularly shown on SKY
A regular on the EvilOverLords Lists is "Proper marksmanship training for my henchmen"
(Trivia: the finale of the latest Bond movie, where Bond ****, was rather improbably supposed to be located in the disputed southern Kurile islands. If there’s one part of the world Mickey Mouse RN warships won’t be f’ing about it’s the Kurile islands.)
I had to sit through it last week as Mrs DA wanted to see it (she is a cultural anglophile). The only thing of any note I took from it was that the DB5 was obviously a fake with a modern DOHC inline 6 (maybe a 2JZ) and they hadn't bothered to overdub it with the correct engine sound.
My wife got huge credit in her Ferrari: Race to Immortality* documentary for getting the sound spot on for all the gear changes in the two 1950's Ferraris as they whizzed around Brands Hatch. The petrol heads were wondering how the hell she'd found period interior cockpit footage.... She just spent a hell of a long time in the edit suite getting it right.
The bigger thing to mull over about James Bond is how the greatest globe-spanning criminal conspiracies all manage to buy their henchman from the same "can't shoot for shit" suppliers. He must have had 10,000 bullets fired in his general direction over the franchise. About the only one that hit him was from a colleague in Skyfall....
*regularly shown on SKY
It’s a great untapped potential business - set up a school where baddies can learn to shoot. The standard of shooting by henchmen is appalling.
Also someone at the MOD should find out where you can buy the specially modified guns they use where normally they would only hold say 12 or 30 rounds but these seem to hold thousands!
It's a sobering thought that the only line of defence we have in this country against the government's attacks on our democracy is the unelected House of Lords.
Oh cut the histrionics.
The people are the line of defence. Your pretensions that there would be no further elections are just such obvious bullshit that you undermine any valid points you may have.
If the government can just decide to override the courts it doesn't matter what any legislation says. You may be relaxed about ending the rule of law, Phil, but you are not a believer in freedom. Others are.
The article refers to passing new legislation to change the law. Parliament has always had that ability.
The article refers to new annual legislation that would give ministers carte blanche to override any decision about any government action that ministers believe to be wrong. Ministers can already legislate to change the law.
No it doesn't that's not what it says. If you're going to make up your own windmills no wonder you're tilting.
It says that Parliament would pass a bill to clarify the law, that is Parliament doing its job not giving carte blanche to Ministers.
The law would only be changed if Parliament voted to pass the bill, not at the whim of Ministers.
Wow so no 10 wants to just ignore judges rulings. You’d expect to see this in a banana Republic not the UK , very sad and disturbing . Good luck trying to lecture other countries on democracy.
The government can pass whatever laws they want anyway, as long as they persuade enough MPs to support whatever it is.
Really I never knew ! You’re missing the point entirely , enacting legislation that just overrides a judges ruling is quite different to enacting legislation that addresses any judgement and seeks to alter the original law.
The fact that this story isn’t the main headline across all outlets is deeply troubling .
It's the sort of arrogant, "the Law is only for the little people" approach that you would expect to be cooked up by a bunch of cokeheads.
“Bunch of cokeheads” being the correct medical term for a group of Conservative cabinet ministers.
Very amusingly, the story about "Priti Patel's crackdown on middle-class drug users with curfews" today includes a picture of Lindsey Hoyle with a dog sitting in the Speakers' chair, and mention of "sniffer dogs in the Commons" as if it was always part of the original initiative, with a not word breathed on the cocaine in Boris Johnson's office toilets.
Comments
Fundamentally changes the relationship between the individual and the state. I am not sure we want that here.
Week 45: 144
Week 46: 308
Week 47: 826
Week 48: 1260
https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covid-19/surveillance-reports/daily-hospital-surveillance-datcov-report/
They are not rising as fast as infections, but that is still a huge rate of increase. For all I know Omicron may be somewhat milder than Delta, but if it's as infectious as it looks that will far outweigh any moderate lessening of severe.
They just don't have any idea about what to do with it other than enrich themselves.
The one woke/left wing idea that I like is prison abolition. Most of the people in prison should not be in prison. Subjecting people to severe psychological harm through locking them in a box for 23 hours a day is serving a base need for vengeance and will not really improve anything for anyone. It is a waste of money and punishment (deprivation of liberty) could take other forms, for instance through surveillance.
I agree that parliament is free to pass any law that it sees fit, including laws that reverse court rulings. But you and I both know that this lot have zero interest in the rule of law so won't bother to wait for the new law to pass before ignoring the existing law.
The police never investigate the past apparently. So why would they investigate ministers in flagrant breach of a law they are about to change?
Incidentally, the young Mrs SD once moved in the same circles as the budding young actor Daniel Craig. Although she was the stand-out beauty among her group of stunning Nordic ladies, Craig foolishly dated one of her pals instead. Ta Daniel! My fate could have been very different.
Amazingly, the girl Daniel dated had one of those bizarre names that suddenly become hilariously crude in an English-speaking environment. I’d best not publish it in case by some miracle she has not long-ago changed it by deed poll. But imagine a Swedish “pingla” called something like Kissy Yerlongshaft and you’ll be in the right ballpark. Daniel can pick em!
One wonders if he is readying himself and trying to find a touchstone issue for a slew of whip suspensions around a commons vote that might simultaneously half his majority but also take a bunch of letters out of Graham Brady's desk drawer.
Whenever Boris takes the piss, there is usually some motive.
He won’t spot it but again there’s a huge political opening for Starmer here. Don’t go the obvious route of attack because it will blow back on your side. Don’t go for smothering the story because you’re wasting an opportunity. Go full on with demands for a Royal Commission to reassess the UK’s prohibition laws.
But yes, his intuitive understanding of power and how to hold on to it is top of the class.
And whilst that could be why he sends people like Raab out to say obviously stupid things in defence of The Team and The Boss... What else should Dom R have said?
He can't say it didn't happen; who knows what evidence is out there?
He can't say it did happen, but doesn't matter; that would kill any public health messaging going forward.
The best advice I have is "if you hate the speculation, don't break the regulation", but it's a bit late for that.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shoppers-want-animal-welfare-labels-on-meat-3hxmpt09n
I'd love to be proven wrong.
In the UK many of the developing "omicron wave" cases will be displacing existing Delta (if it is on a path to dominance). Therefore if it is less bad in terms of causing hospitalisation - or worse genuine serious illness - then it will be creating compensating beneficial impacts on health services along the way. The exception would be if it were targeting (in causing severe illness) the vaccinated population in a way that Delta is not (ie. effectively operating in a different pool of hosts). That is yet to be determined above level of anecdote i think.
Judicial review is difficult and expensive in any case (I've conducted one for Compassion in World Farming which achieved its objective without having to get to the final stage). You're right that in theory any Government decision that was successfully challenged could under this proposal be maintained anyway. That said, abolishing elections would in fact certainly require new legislation. A more insidious example would be if the Government applied existing legislation unfairly, e.g. refusing to give reasonable compensation for something they'd done wrong.
Ultimately get the legislation through with all sorts of objectional stuff in but in a way that makes it look like the Government has listened and been reasonable.
The properly rich and shameless get a tame private doctor who prescribes the finest products all the very best pharmaceutical companies.
The only question I have is this - many NHS doctors will re-write a private prescription as an NHS prescription, straight off. How many of the prescriptions I describe above have been transferred to the NHS and (mostly) paid for out of tax money?
The governance is a total shambles, and it looks like they want to turn it into wrestling rather than a fair competition. For how long will serious companies such as Mercedes want to be involved in such a farce?
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a37809189/aston-martin-db5-stunt-car/
This is designed to please libertarians on the right, like anti-mask wearers. What it's actually about is a compact with the favourable press, to allow them to continue raising revenue, while favourably supporting the government through all its extremely concerning changes to governmental accountability and freedom. The term "Orwellian" has become a vastly over-used cliche, but it really is appropriate here.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10278469/Vow-stop-British-drift-privacy-law-Dominic-Raab-eyes-overhaul-Human-Rights-Act.html
The balance between a free press and 'privacy' has gone far too far the illiberal direction in recent years. If the press print something that is false, then that can be libel but if they print something that is true then truth should be an absolute defence.
We need the equivalent of the US First Amendment.
You either need to go down the full Bangkok / Dubai route, and throw users in prison for personal amounts - or you legalise them and sell drugs in pharmacies, rather than on the street.
And then the incident. Note that the reason for the crash was Max backing off in an unsafe manner and Lewis not going round him - both with an eye on the DRS detection line. Whilst Max has clearly gone mad, the cheating from both Lewis and Valtteri was there to see as well - either we apply the rules uniformly or there are no rules.
It has been a long season where teams performance has ebbed and flowed up and down the grid (with the laughable exception of Haas). The simple truth now is that at the end of the season Mercedes have found performance and Red Bull have lost performance. Which means that its unlikely the Red Bull will be the faster car.
So, we're into the realm of incidents and skulduggery. Anyone can get caught up in chaos, and if that doesn't happen go create it. A crash between the two of them seems more likely than not for the last race.
Can F1 please not go back to head chopper land? That track is as dangerous as Qatar was boring.
Too many people in the media are paid well to have a controversial opinion, and not enough are paid to be objective in their reporting.
It would be interesting to hear how many had had a booster.
England third jab numbers -
70 to 74 85.18%
75 to 79 92.84%
80 to 84 85.37%
85 to 89 83.82%
90+ 75.10%
The people are the line of defence. Your pretensions that there would be no further elections are just such obvious bullshit that you undermine any valid points you may have.
He was only brought down by the way that he had turned his personal finances and those of his company into a ponzi scheme, requiring ever more investment to keep from falling over, right then and there...
In particular, the figures for hospital admissions and severity of COVID-19 in hospital patients may be misleading because routine testing in hospitals is picking up increased prevalence of infection within the population in general. Most COVID-19 infections are mild anyway, so those additional incidental cases they pick up will mostly be mild. (Also if there is immune escape, a higher proportion of infections will be in those previously infected and/or vaccinated, which should also be conducive towards milder effects on average.)
But similar problems apply to all the evidence we have that Omicron is intrinsically milder. That evidence is still very weak. The default assumption at the moment should be that it is not intrinsically much different. I watched the beginning of a video in which John Campbell was enthusing about how wonderful Omicron was going to be, because it was mild and so infectious. That would be very nice if it turned out to be true, but publicly promoting the idea now on the basis of effectively anecdotal data is the worst kind of irresponsible speculation.
I really don't think that this idea of Omicron "displacing" Delta infections is right. The only way Omicron will actually reduce the number of Delta infections is by increasing the percentage of the population with immunity acquired through infection. That won't happen unless and until Omicron has infected a significant proportion of the population. In the immediate future, the effects of Delta and Omicron will simply be additive.
I have a 22,000km S54 (the 350hp one with a carbon fibre intake plenum from an M3 CSL). I am going to put in a clean base model E36 316i 2 door shell if such a thing still exists and can be found.
The original DB5 engine was an asthmatic boat anchor that runs out of what little steam it has at 5,000rpm. The DB5 in the film is banging limiter at 7,000rpm+.
The justice secretary @DominicRaab doesn’t think it’s the police’s job to investigate crime.
And the policing minister @KitMalthouse thinks that if someone tells him no one’s done anything wrong then they didn’t.
https://twitter.com/tompeck/status/1467774710717071364
I don't believe for a moment that the government is concerned about privacy laws by stealth. Such laws would suit those in power very well indeed. On the contrary they are simply using this to attack judges making decisions - completely ignoring the fact that in a common law system case law ie decisions by judges is how the law develops.
On the Xmas party issue last year, I only say this. I have sympathy on a personal level with people who have been working hard together wanting to celebrate at the end of the working day. Lots of us feel like that and felt in need of some human contact at the end of last year after what was a shit year.
But for the first time ever in my life, we had Xmas with my family all separated. I had not seen my two sons for months. Nor had my Daughter. We were apart from my husband. The result of that was that he and one of my sons caught Covid. I did not see my brother either, who lives alone. Daughter lost business because of the rules which were in place. It was a tough time.
I am utterly fucked off with having people in power who cannot be arsed to even try to follow the rules they impose on the rest of us, who can't be bothered to admit it when they get it wrong, who lie to us openly and brazenly and who talk nonsense at us because they have utter contempt for us.
Now we have this crackdown on drug misuse. Yeah - whatever. MPs are doubtless flouting the rules and will suffer no consequences for doing so. But if Daughter were to break any of the rules she is under the police and licensing authorities would be on to her like a ton of bricks.
I am sick of this, sick of being taken granted, sick of a ruling class which treats those of us who try to do the right thing as mugs. I am weary and cynical at it all. But I am also absolutely furious at how this shower of lying, corrupt, incompetent, arrogant and amoral twats are destroying a political culture which, for all its faults, used to try and stand for something worthwhile.
BoJo, I'm sure, doesn't want to be Lord Protector really... He's just a deeply inadequate manchild who still has issues about being told what to do.
But it sounds like these changes will open pathways to bad things that weren't open before, and I'd like to know what the protections are.
And if the protection is ultimately The People Manning The Barricades, there are plenty of examples of that not working.
Besides, I'm getting a bit old for that.
And I'm reasonably sure you're not really called turbotubbs.
Fairly sure the twin gatlings weren't Goldfinger era, either.
https://twitter.com/aljwhite/status/1467775748249468930?s=20
Morning everyone.
But the needs of PB junkies have not been properly addressed; now is presumably the time to respond to the consultation with a call for legalisation. Another potentially great post-Brexit industry - exporting cannabis to the Netherlands.
Taking the license away from druggies caught driving outside the law seems reasonable, as does removing passports from druggies caught smuggling - though I'd rather we got them for tax fiddling in a decriminalised system.
@FacundoSavala
Dec 5
I had a Scottish Indy poll recently. Flag of Scotland
I meant to run it for a day, rather than 7, so stopped it after 24hrs. Winking face
After 24 hours, the nats were marginally ahead, so well done to them. Thumbs up
My question of course was a hypothetical one, as there is no date set for #IndyRef2 Grimacing face
https://twitter.com/FacundoSavala/status/1467413219589476352
Stick that in your tautological pipe and smoke it.
Stick current OC43 in a naive population and, though it wouldn't be optimised for high R in that population, I imagine it would be a sure fire killer.
Or a Bullingdonian.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-to-introduce-harper-s-law
The bigger thing to mull over about James Bond is how the greatest globe-spanning criminal conspiracies all manage to buy their henchman from the same "can't shoot for shit" suppliers. He must have had 10,000 bullets fired in his general direction over the franchise. About the only one that hit him was from a colleague in Skyfall....
*regularly shown on SKY
https://order-order.com/2021/06/01/exclusive-keir-starmer-boasted-of-taking-lsd/
Count the trade deals after brexit
Weigh me down with NI raises
You had a busy day today
A moment's reflection will reveal that we all value immensely NHS confidentiality, and because it works well is not noticed. Philip Thompson would overturn it. Other examples abound.
Max Verstappen looks ready to crash for the title - his driving has become more reckless than audacious.
Dutchman is facing a rival who makes precious few mistakes leaving a repeat of 1990 in their Abu Dhabi showdown on the cards
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/formula-1/2021/12/06/max-verstappens-daredevil-spirit-may-cost-title-tussle-measured/
It's interesting to note the European press have turned against Verstappen.
This from El Pais is typical.
Verstappen performed a “strange manoeuvre” causing the touch with Hamilton....and that he turned the struggle for the championship into a dirty fight.”
"...in deciding to penalise the driver of car 33, the key point for the Stewards was that the driver of car 33 then braked suddenly (69 bar) and significantly, resulting in 2.4g deceleration...".
Verstappen: "I don't quite know what happened."
https://twitter.com/CatMcKinnell/status/1467787288407117824
https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1467786397595709443
Also someone at the MOD should find out where you can buy the specially modified guns they use where normally they would only hold say 12 or 30 rounds but these seem to hold thousands!
Verstappen nominated for BBC SPOTY World Sports Star award
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/verstappen-nominated-for-bbc-spoty-world-sports-star-award/6856331/
It says that Parliament would pass a bill to clarify the law, that is Parliament doing its job not giving carte blanche to Ministers.
The law would only be changed if Parliament voted to pass the bill, not at the whim of Ministers.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10278355/Police-message-middle-class-drug-buyers-dealers-phones-Priti-Patels-crime-crackdown.html