No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
I agree with your first para - essentially basic banking should be a human right of anyone living in a modern liberal society - whatever we think of them.
On the second point, the general shrugs that initially met the story (including from me) were only partly because Farage is seen as controversial and rich to the point that it's unlikely that he'll find himself unbanked. It's also that the bank is Coutts, which is relatively little-known to the general public and thought of as a bank for a small elite. It's a bit like a story that the Duke of Norfolk finds that Eton wouldn't put his son down for a place. "Oh, well" would be a natural reaction to that.
To the (limited) extent that the story has opened up the discussion of refusal of banking facilities more generally, it's a good development. And of course Farage should get his account back.
I think it's slightly more complex than the Duke of Norfolk example. I don't think it would be seen as a bad thing if Farage applied for a bank at Coutts and was turned down - like the Duke of Norfolk. The issue is that he had a bank account which was removed (because Coutts, it appears, decided they didn't like him). The analogy here is if the Duke of Norfolk's son had a place at Eton but was then thrown out of Eton because they wanted fewer posh people. Coutts/Natwest then compounded this by a) conducting a personal witchhunt against Farage, b) briefing the press about him, and c) lying about it. It's hardly the model of discretion which we'd associate with private banks. Or any sort of banks. I'm not in the market for private banking, but if I was I wouldn't now go to one which trawls the internet for dirt on its customers.
(In all honesty, my banking choices are largely driven by inertia. I'm also quite cross about First Direct's parent company HSBC cheerleading for the CPC in Hong Kong, and also for replacing the easy-to-see numbers on the front of the card with hard-to-see numbers on the back, but still haven't got around to moving banks.)
And, it would stick in my throat, to have people who have received fines for money laundering, presuming to sit in judgement on my "values."
Unilever has been bending over backwards in recent days to justify its continued trading in Russia and willingness to let Putin conscript its employees.
I remember this organisation was perfectly willing to hector Priti Patel over her asylum policies last year.
Loving the chat around reserve days for test cricket. Not so long ago everyone was bemoaning that all tests were finished inside four days or fewer, so why have five scheduled days.
I suspect if England had escaped with a draw on Sunday rather than the convicts, we wouldn't be having the discussion...
I don't mind too much about losing time to the weather. It's part of the charm of the game. But I do object to losing playable time because a) we insist on closing at 6.30, about three hours before sunset, and b) slow over rates.
There is room for improvement. Of time is lost in a day due to weather they can play an extra hour, so up to 7.30. So why not if there are overs still to be bowled? I'm less convinced by just going on endlessly, and it would be a rare day that you can't start at all by 6.00 but could play later (e.g. sunday, there would never have been play up to 10 pm).
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
Who would have thought, that briefing a journalist with lies about the personal details of a customer might be a bad thing?
She should have resigned yesterday when the story first appeared.
If an employee had done that it would have been instant dismissal for Gross Misconduct...
All of them couldn't have played it worse from the start. They have fallen into Farage's trap at every single step.
Farage is a wily coyote and smart, he is up against chinless no mark Tory duffers. A 5 year old could run rings round them.
"Wily coyote" is a slightly odd phrase to use, since isn't it a nod to the cartoon character (Wile E. Coyote), who was famously hapless and inept, and up against a much sharper, quicker adversary?
I agree he's an effective self publicist, though. The really odd thing isn't just that they closed his account on the basis they did, but that they apparently thought, "Well, I very much doubt Nigel will make a whole big thing out of this in the media".
Surely they did flag up that Farage would publicise this?
The general advice to deal with people you don't like, basically ignore them, don't give them the oxygen of publicity.....If Coutts had just kept his account, but under a close watch for anything dodgy, no news story, no tales of building dodgy dossiers, no bad PR, no getting called in by the government etc etc etc.
Instead they just given Farage a megaphone and a massive watch tower spotlight to be shone right at them AND worst of all now given his a new crusade to campaign on, one in which he is in the right.
I bet all the other banks are really thanking the morons at Natwest for this.
They should have done what they do with other people at Coutts they are getting rid of - transfer them automatically and seamlessly to a NatWest account. Includes moving all direct debits and standing orders. So no one misses a beat.
Downgrading someone to a regular account is a non story.
My experience of retail banks would suggest a "seamless" transfer might not be possible. Especially with RBS, which is probably super messy with all the various acquisitions.
I wouldn't risk it. I'd do it manually myself, moving over direct debits etc. by hand (and taking the chance to review them as well). You also need to double check all of them with the providers, and any linked savings accounts, anyway, so it doesn't much add to the work.
I've got 2 accounts, one with salary, mortgage, childcare (The big stuff) and another with a couple of grand & 2 direct debits which I just move around every so often for "switching" bonuses. The switching account is currently with Natwest cycling into their regular saver.
Who would have thought, that briefing a journalist with lies about the personal details of a customer might be a bad thing?
She should have resigned yesterday when the story first appeared.
If an employee had done that it would have been instant dismissal for Gross Misconduct...
All of them couldn't have played it worse from the start. They have fallen into Farage's trap at every single step.
Farage is a wily coyote and smart, he is up against chinless no mark Tory duffers. A 5 year old could run rings round them.
"Wily coyote" is a slightly odd phrase to use, since isn't it a nod to the cartoon character (Wile E. Coyote), who was famously hapless and inept, and up against a much sharper, quicker adversary?
I agree he's an effective self publicist, though. The really odd thing isn't just that they closed his account on the basis they did, but that they apparently thought, "Well, I very much doubt Nigel will make a whole big thing out of this in the media".
Recently I learned that coyotes are faster than roadrunners.
On power: "ten years is the maximum dose for adults".
The introduction to that interview supports my thesis that Ken Clarke bears heavy responsibility for the Tories losing power after he moved from department to department attacking Conservative-supporting professionals in the public sector.
Not sure about this. The pendulum always swings eventually, and you can't really be a Secretary of State whilst offending nobody.
That's not a defence of Clarke's record at Health and Education before he was Chancellor, but the Conservatives implemented a lot of controversial policies in the 1980s and early 1990s, some of which Clarke was directly involved in, some not. That isn't really what lost it for them in 1997 - there was simply a general feeling by the mid-1990s that the Conservatives had run out of steam and didn't fully appreciate or have compelling solutions for the most important issues for people. There was also a fairly large amount of sleaze going on, and it was widely felt that it was time for a change to the other lot.
Clarke was Health Secretary 1988-1990 and Education 1990-92. Are you really saying 1997 was some kind of delayed reaction to that (which was not felt in the 1992 General Election for some reason)? Feels a bit far-fetched to me, although he was one of a series of Conservative ministers who were unconvincing on those issues both within the professions involved and externally.
I think I am saying the Conservative government was wiped out because it had taken on so many voters who were its natural supporters. Not just Clarke with police, doctors and teachers, although that was a large part of it, but also the defence cuts, and then if you look at who was hurt by the ERM debacle, it was home owners and mortgage holders, it was entrepreneurs and small business owners.
That is how I conceptualise that part of our political history, rather than hand-waving about running out of ideas or fairness or time for a change. Whatever people thought of the cones hotline, that was not what changed their votes. Nor was it the poll tax, which had been neutralised by John Major. The blue team lost power because it systematically alienated its own voters. They'd played by the rules, done what was called for, and *their* government had screwed them over.
It's true that, over the course of a period in government, you collect enemies like a rolling stone gathering moss, and they tend to be a bit stickier than the friends you make.
But I think you underestimate things like the Cones Hotline. It's not that it was an awful policy in itself - there have been many worse and if it had been proposed in 1985 alongside a broad programme it would barely have been newsworthy. But by the mid-90s it was emblematic of a fag end administration that struggled to get things done, to grasp the scale of challenges in public services, or to have meaningful solutions. And it's that broad impression more than the fact a couple of professions had been narked with the Tories for a while that really lost it for them in 1997, in my view.
Sunak and Starmer could be doing exactly the same things they both are now under the same economic circumstances, but in 2015 rather than 2023, and I'd be very confident Sunak would trounce Starmer in the GE.
Sometimes, it really is a matter of timing.
Well yes, because in 2015 the Tories hadn’t yet trashed our economy, international credibility or public services. Though they were certainly making a start.
Probably not trounced either. Similar result to Cameron-Miliband or a bit worse.
Labour had trashed our economy in 2010, and our international credibility over things like extraordinary rendition, Iraq and the Expenses Scandal. Public services were on a totally unsustainable footing and largely unreformed.
Motes and Beams.
International credibility yes, though the current government has taken that up multiple notches.
The expenses scandal featured as many if not more conservative MPs as Labour. The Lib Dems on the other hand showed disproportionately less likely to have hands in the till.
The economy and public finances were in a far far better shape in 2010, despite only just emerging from a global crisis, than now.
Bear in mind Miliband only lost narrowly in 2015 and largely because of a collapse in LD support in the South West and the rise of the SNP after Indy ref. So unless we think Starmer would have gone down worse with the public than Miliband, it’s likely he would have done roughly as well or better.
He might also have desisted from reforming the Labour membership rules in the way that allowed Corbyn in by the back door in 2015.
Rubbish. All the MPs that were prosecuted were Labour. The stench was deep. And we were staring down the biggest budget deficit in our history and a sovereign debt crisis. They were absolutely not in a "much better shape" - palpable nonsense.
Please don't try rewriting history now because you want to egg on a victory next year. It insults our intelligence.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
Huge, if this proves out. It could change everything.
The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008 ..For the first time in the world, we succeeded in synthesizing the room-temperature superconductor (Tc≥400 K, 127∘C) working at ambient pressure with a modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure. The superconductivity of LK-99 is proved with the Critical temperature (Tc), Zero-resistivity, Critical current (Ic), Critical magnetic field (Hc), and the Meissner effect. The superconductivity of LK-99 originates from minute structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage (0.48 %), not by external factors such as temperature and pressure. The shrinkage is caused by Cu2+ substitution of Pb2+(2) ions in the insulating network of Pb(2)-phosphate and it generates the stress. It concurrently transfers to Pb(1) of the cylindrical column resulting in distortion of the cylindrical column interface, which creates superconducting quantum wells (SQWs) in the interface. The heat capacity results indicated that the new model is suitable for explaining the superconductivity of LK-99. The unique structure of LK-99 that allows the minute distorted structure to be maintained in the interfaces is the most important factor that LK-99 maintains and exhibits superconductivity at room temperatures and ambient pressure...
I'd be shorting helium futures, if such a thing were possible.
Absolutely huge if its valid and can be scaled into everyday use. And yes, bye bye helium!
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
A related problem to banking: financial checks for punters. Sfaict this relates only to affordability checks (which the minister said earlier should be frictionless) but there is also the whole KYC and AML schtick which is related to PEP bank checks.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
Loving the chat around reserve days for test cricket. Not so long ago everyone was bemoaning that all tests were finished inside four days or fewer, so why have five scheduled days.
I suspect if England had escaped with a draw on Sunday rather than the convicts, we wouldn't be having the discussion...
I don't mind too much about losing time to the weather. It's part of the charm of the game. But I do object to losing playable time because a) we insist on closing at 6.30, about three hours before sunset, and b) slow over rates.
What was going on on day one of the Old Trafford test. A test we needed to win and we only managed to bowl 83 overs on the first day.
The schedule of time lost to par was as follows for OT.
Day 1: 7 overs lost - Eng 83 overs
Day 2: 79 overs, 2 balls & innings change (8 overs 4 balls lost) Eng 7.2 overs, Aus 72
Day 3: 76.4 overs & innings change (11 overs 2 balls lost) - No time lost for rain on day 3 I believe because the finish was extended. Aus 35.4 overs / Eng 41 overs
Day 4: 30 overs between lunch and tea !!! No overs lost for slow play I think ! / 60 overs lost to rain. Eng 30 overs.
Day 5: 90 overs lost to rain.
So the test consisted of 150 overs lost to rain, 27 to slow play.
If the match had been played at the correct rate we'd have won - I have no idea why we dawdled so badly on day 1 - I did point out at the time...
Comment on July 19th: England bowling at a snail's pace. Australia won't mind one bit.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut. The only reason he's polling so high is because people hear the name Kennedy.
What's his policy that resonates? Where is the Democratic Party ignoring its base?
And let's not forget, someone stood for the Democrats on the RFK platform last time. She was bigged up by some on here ("the only one who can beat Trump"), and she was massacred in the polls.
A related problem to banking: financial checks for punters. Sfaict this relates only to affordability checks (which the minister said earlier should be frictionless) but there is also the whole KYC and AML schtick which is related to PEP bank checks.
Same with lawyers. I know of a firm that insisted on a full KYC and AML for two clients of long standing to act as executors for a relative who had his will with them.And there was nothing very odd about it - in fact it was presented as a routine but necessary obligation before the firm would do the work.
Implication is that it could be made impossible even to sell a house? Or is that a misunderstanding?
BBC: Kevin Spacey found not guilty on all charges.
Yet with reputation forever tarnished.
'Not guilty' does not necessarily mean the evidence given against the accused was false; it just means it wasn't sufficient to convict beyond reasonable doubt.
Even so, found innocent, but name tarnished. Why not have anonymity for the accused?
Found not guilty.
Courts being held in public is a good thing. That inevitably has to mean the defendant/s being known publicly too.
Bit of a shock to hear that the fires in Greece may have been caused by arson, according to local officials.
Not to me. That's pretty normal in most med countries. Also seen reports that the severity may be down to poor management of forest and scrub land. I live in , if anything a slightly drier part of the world. For many years the authorities have been on the ball each year maintaining fire breaks and managing the land generally especially when significant numbers of homes, etc are close. We have had nothing significant here since 2009.
BBC: Kevin Spacey found not guilty on all charges.
Yet with reputation forever tarnished.
'Not guilty' does not necessarily mean the evidence given against the accused was false; it just means it wasn't sufficient to convict beyond reasonable doubt.
Even so, found innocent, but name tarnished. Why not have anonymity for the accused?
Found not guilty.
Courts being held in public is a good thing. That inevitably has to mean the defendant/s being known publicly too.
Media publicity is banned in some jurisdictions. Not saying it is better - just that it is possible.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte wasn't elected president of France in 1848 for his dazzling personal qualities.
He may well have had a little dazzle about him. Maybe it was all dazzle. Are you sure?
What was it his friend said in 1872? 'It wasn't a proper empire, but we had a damn good time.'
Louis Napoleon was certainly adept at having a good time wherever he went!
This must have been a rather long-lived friend if it was said in 1872. Napoleon seems to have been a remarkable man. (Ludicrous to say remarkable I guess)
BBC: Kevin Spacey found not guilty on all charges.
Yet with reputation forever tarnished.
'Not guilty' does not necessarily mean the evidence given against the accused was false; it just means it wasn't sufficient to convict beyond reasonable doubt.
Even so, found innocent, but name tarnished. Why not have anonymity for the accused?
Found not guilty.
Courts being held in public is a good thing. That inevitably has to mean the defendant/s being known publicly too.
Unless there is a superinjunction.
This led to possibly the most brilliant piece of legal explanation ever by Joshua Rosenberg:
'Well, the law is clear. There is an injunction in place saying we must not name Ryan Giggs.'
Bit of a shock to hear that the fires in Greece may have been caused by arson, according to local officials.
I don't think its that uncommon. Wild fires are overwhelmingly started by humans, either deliberately, semi-deliberately (i.e. it will be a laugh to start a small fire, ohhhhhh shit) or by carelessness.
If there are already restrictions in place, I think you can be done for arson in lots of places if you then go out and start any kind of fire.
Does there need to be any malicious intent (as opposed to crass stupidity or accident)?
Accidentally no, but you don't need to be planning on causing an island wild fires. Although, in some places there are laws around "reckless burning" i.e. and under some provisions you might not have even tried to deliberately start a fire, but your actions where reckless and ultimately to blame for the fire starting.
Strict rules here each summer about outdoor Barbie's etc.
BBC: Kevin Spacey found not guilty on all charges.
Yet with reputation forever tarnished.
'Not guilty' does not necessarily mean the evidence given against the accused was false; it just means it wasn't sufficient to convict beyond reasonable doubt.
Even so, found innocent, but name tarnished. Why not have anonymity for the accused?
Found not guilty.
Courts being held in public is a good thing. That inevitably has to mean the defendant/s being known publicly too.
Unless there is a superinjunction.
This led to possibly the most brilliant piece of legal explanation ever by Joshua Rosenberg:
'Well, the law is clear. There is an injunction in place saying we must not name Ryan Giggs.'
Edit - btw, it's great to see you back.
If it's secret, how do you know you have broken it? And how do you know any lawyer for Mr X is telling the truth when a letter of desist is sent?
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut. The only reason he's polling so high is because people hear the name Kennedy.
What's his policy that resonates? Where is the Democratic Party ignoring its base?
And let's not forget, someone stood for the Democrats on the RFK platform last time. She was bigged up by some on here ("the only one who can beat Trump"), and she was massacred in the polls.
From what I can see none of them have come out with policies yet.
As it is I happen to agree with the 7 out of 10 Americans who dont want to see another Trump Biden run off.
If RFK is the nut job you claim he will be found out, but he is currently doing a reasonable job of cutting through a hostile establishment media. and raising his profile I want to see the US run with younger more sensible candidates rather than the geriatric mud wrestling weve had for the last 10 years.
Bit of a shock to hear that the fires in Greece may have been caused by arson, according to local officials.
I don't think its that uncommon. Wild fires are overwhelmingly started by humans, either deliberately, semi-deliberately (i.e. it will be a laugh to start a small fire, ohhhhhh shit) or by carelessness.
If there are already restrictions in place, I think you can be done for arson in lots of places if you then go out and start any kind of fire.
Does there need to be any malicious intent (as opposed to crass stupidity or accident)?
Accidentally no, but you don't need to be planning on causing an island wild fires. Although, in some places there are laws around "reckless burning" i.e. and under some provisions you might not have even tried to deliberately start a fire, but your actions where reckless and ultimately to blame for the fire starting.
Strict rules here each summer about outdoor Barbie's etc.
Another pod of pilot whales seems to know something. First it was ~50 dead in the Outer Hebrides, now it's ~50 dead in Western Australia. In the latter case they formed themselves into a heart shape apparently. What are the poor souls trying to tell us?
Who's to say that the aliens when they come to Earth are most interested in a revolting phone-carrying species that hangs out on the 29% of the planet's surface that's dry, and whose greatest "geniuses" seem to want computers to take over?
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
Bit of a shock to hear that the fires in Greece may have been caused by arson, according to local officials.
How else would they be caused ? No volcanic eruptions or asteroid strikes on Rhodes recently that I'm aware of.
Many wildfires start without deliberate arson. Sunlight concentrated through a lens can do it. I believe that that can even be a drop of water acting as the lens, but modern times is often broken glass. Other sources can be lightening, sparks from rockfalls, spontaneous combustion.
After all, fires and burning are part of the Australian ecosystem, and would definitely have evolved without the hand of man to start the pesky fires.
Ah yes lightning, forgot about that one. That'll be the biggy for "natural" fires but there weren't any storms in Rhodes before the heatwave afaik. So I'd expect it them to be human created.
It doesn't really matter does it? I think OP is trying to push the line this is not about climate change at all it's arsonists, but arsonists need conditions in which they can work
Of course it matters. Climate change increases the risk and it's therefore essential to manage the land better and ensure rules are in place to prevent fires occurring. I suspect that has not been the case in Rhodes from reports I've read.
BBC: Kevin Spacey found not guilty on all charges.
Yet with reputation forever tarnished.
'Not guilty' does not necessarily mean the evidence given against the accused was false; it just means it wasn't sufficient to convict beyond reasonable doubt.
Even so, found innocent, but name tarnished. Why not have anonymity for the accused?
Found not guilty.
Courts being held in public is a good thing. That inevitably has to mean the defendant/s being known publicly too.
Unless there is a superinjunction.
This led to possibly the most brilliant piece of legal explanation ever by Joshua Rosenberg:
'Well, the law is clear. There is an injunction in place saying we must not name Ryan Giggs.'
Edit - btw, it's great to see you back.
If it's secret, how do you know you have broken it? And how do you know any lawyer for Mr X is telling the truth when a letter of desist is sent?
Bit of a shock to hear that the fires in Greece may have been caused by arson, according to local officials.
I don't think its that uncommon. Wild fires are overwhelmingly started by humans, either deliberately, semi-deliberately (i.e. it will be a laugh to start a small fire, ohhhhhh shit) or by carelessness.
If there are already restrictions in place, I think you can be done for arson in lots of places if you then go out and start any kind of fire.
Does there need to be any malicious intent (as opposed to crass stupidity or accident)?
Accidentally no, but you don't need to be planning on causing an island wild fires. Although, in some places there are laws around "reckless burning" i.e. and under some provisions you might not have even tried to deliberately start a fire, but your actions where reckless and ultimately to blame for the fire starting.
Strict rules here each summer about outdoor Barbie's etc.
A related problem to banking: financial checks for punters. Sfaict this relates only to affordability checks (which the minister said earlier should be frictionless) but there is also the whole KYC and AML schtick which is related to PEP bank checks.
Same with lawyers. I know of a firm that insisted on a full KYC and AML for two clients of long standing to act as executors for a relative who had his will with them.And there was nothing very odd about it - in fact it was presented as a routine but necessary obligation before the firm would do the work.
Implication is that it could be made impossible even to sell a house? Or is that a misunderstanding?
I believe you had to have some form of valid id to engage a solicitor so yes, last time I had to goto one I was almost out of luck as she would not accept my drivers licence (still paper) but she decided to let me use my expired passport.
Air raid warnings in Lviv. Klaxons. But it’s ok, the cafe I am at has given me my Aperol Spritzer “to go”, so I can “take it to the bomb shelter”. Highly civilised
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut.
If you compare what Trump has said about Jews with what RFK has said about Jews, rather than Trump's immigration and foreign policies with what RFK has said about Jews, you might decide that of the two of them it's Trump who is anti-Semitic.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut. The only reason he's polling so high is because people hear the name Kennedy.
What's his policy that resonates? Where is the Democratic Party ignoring its base?
And let's not forget, someone stood for the Democrats on the RFK platform last time. She was bigged up by some on here ("the only one who can beat Trump"), and she was massacred in the polls.
From what I can see none of them have come out with policies yet.
As it is I happen to agree with the 7 out of 10 Americans who dont want to see another Trump Biden run off.
If RFK is the nut job you claim he will be found out, but he is currently doing a reasonable job of cutting through a hostile establishment media. and raising his profile I want to see the US run with younger more sensible candidates rather than the geriatric mud wrestling weve had for the last 10 years.
You accuse others of having no policies. But read through that website, and other than on race relations, find even one policy. I mean, "The time has come to reverse America’s economic decline" is a great soundbite, but what does he suggest? Literally nothing.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut.
If you compare what Trump has said about Jews with what RFK has said about Jews, rather than Trump's immigration and foreign policies with what RFK has said about Jews, you might decide that of the two of them it's Trump who is anti-Semitic.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut. The only reason he's polling so high is because people hear the name Kennedy.
What's his policy that resonates? Where is the Democratic Party ignoring its base?
And let's not forget, someone stood for the Democrats on the RFK platform last time. She was bigged up by some on here ("the only one who can beat Trump"), and she was massacred in the polls.
From what I can see none of them have come out with policies yet.
As it is I happen to agree with the 7 out of 10 Americans who dont want to see another Trump Biden run off.
If RFK is the nut job you claim he will be found out, but he is currently doing a reasonable job of cutting through a hostile establishment media. and raising his profile I want to see the US run with younger more sensible candidates rather than the geriatric mud wrestling weve had for the last 10 years.
If you say you're looking for more sensible candidates, and talk about RFK Jnr in the same paragraph, then you simply don't know anything about the man and his views.
I tend to agree with your point that Trump v Biden 2 is an unappealing prospect. But, in betting terms, you need to think in an informed way about how that realistically comes about. Because it definitely isn't via RFK Jnr.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut. The only reason he's polling so high is because people hear the name Kennedy.
What's his policy that resonates? Where is the Democratic Party ignoring its base?
And let's not forget, someone stood for the Democrats on the RFK platform last time. She was bigged up by some on here ("the only one who can beat Trump"), and she was massacred in the polls.
From what I can see none of them have come out with policies yet.
As it is I happen to agree with the 7 out of 10 Americans who dont want to see another Trump Biden run off.
If RFK is the nut job you claim he will be found out, but he is currently doing a reasonable job of cutting through a hostile establishment media. and raising his profile I want to see the US run with younger more sensible candidates rather than the geriatric mud wrestling weve had for the last 10 years.
You accuse others of having no policies. But read through that website, and other than on race relations, find even one policy. I mean, "The time has come to reverse America’s economic decline" is a great soundbite, but what does he suggest? Literally nothing.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut. The only reason he's polling so high is because people hear the name Kennedy.
What's his policy that resonates? Where is the Democratic Party ignoring its base?
And let's not forget, someone stood for the Democrats on the RFK platform last time. She was bigged up by some on here ("the only one who can beat Trump"), and she was massacred in the polls.
From what I can see none of them have come out with policies yet.
As it is I happen to agree with the 7 out of 10 Americans who dont want to see another Trump Biden run off.
If RFK is the nut job you claim he will be found out, but he is currently doing a reasonable job of cutting through a hostile establishment media. and raising his profile I want to see the US run with younger more sensible candidates rather than the geriatric mud wrestling weve had for the last 10 years.
You accuse others of having no policies. But read through that website, and other than on race relations, find even one policy. I mean, "The time has come to reverse America’s economic decline" is a great soundbite, but what does he suggest? Literally nothing.
The democrat establishment must really be crapping itself if this is the current line.
A related problem to banking: financial checks for punters. Sfaict this relates only to affordability checks (which the minister said earlier should be frictionless) but there is also the whole KYC and AML schtick which is related to PEP bank checks.
This depresses me. One thing that separates me from the bulk of PB commentators is the fact that I'm pro-gambling. After the liberalisation of UK gambling from 1959 to the Blair/Brown years, it saddens me that the burden of pensionerism should fall upon gamblers, as a patronising (in the original sense) cohort of older people drape their morals on the young. It will be instructive, and depressing, to see who comes out in favour of this.
BBC: Kevin Spacey found not guilty on all charges.
Yet with reputation forever tarnished.
'Not guilty' does not necessarily mean the evidence given against the accused was false; it just means it wasn't sufficient to convict beyond reasonable doubt.
Even so, found innocent, but name tarnished. Why not have anonymity for the accused?
Found not guilty.
Courts being held in public is a good thing. That inevitably has to mean the defendant/s being known publicly too.
Unless there is a superinjunction.
This led to possibly the most brilliant piece of legal explanation ever by Joshua Rosenberg:
'Well, the law is clear. There is an injunction in place saying we must not name Ryan Giggs.'
Edit - btw, it's great to see you back.
Didn't Mainwaring get there first? Don't tell him Pike.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut. The only reason he's polling so high is because people hear the name Kennedy.
What's his policy that resonates? Where is the Democratic Party ignoring its base?
And let's not forget, someone stood for the Democrats on the RFK platform last time. She was bigged up by some on here ("the only one who can beat Trump"), and she was massacred in the polls.
From what I can see none of them have come out with policies yet.
As it is I happen to agree with the 7 out of 10 Americans who dont want to see another Trump Biden run off.
If RFK is the nut job you claim he will be found out, but he is currently doing a reasonable job of cutting through a hostile establishment media. and raising his profile I want to see the US run with younger more sensible candidates rather than the geriatric mud wrestling weve had for the last 10 years.
BBC: Kevin Spacey found not guilty on all charges.
Yet with reputation forever tarnished.
'Not guilty' does not necessarily mean the evidence given against the accused was false; it just means it wasn't sufficient to convict beyond reasonable doubt.
Even so, found innocent, but name tarnished. Why not have anonymity for the accused?
Found not guilty.
Courts being held in public is a good thing. That inevitably has to mean the defendant/s being known publicly too.
Media publicity is banned in some jurisdictions. Not saying it is better - just that it is possible.
Possible, certainly. But closed courts makes life a hell of a lot easier for the state.
I'm 41, and it would affect me, but I basically think HMG should phase out the state pension.
It's essentially a UBI for anyone over 66 and is increasingly unaffordable. Spend the c.£125bn on 40-50bn of tax cuts and 75bn on extra funding for science, R&D and education both minor and adult. It would set our public finances on a sustainable footing for the very long term and also invest in productivity and things that mattered.
Over a 50+ year career people should be able to save and make provision for themselves, and there can be a income support safety net for the truly destitute.
That is probably the silliest assertion I have seen in a long while, over a 50year career at minimum wage which many will be on all their lives the value of their pension pot will buy an annuity south of 5k. I have worked all my life and not on min wage and I certainly would not be able to afford to live on my private pension. I doubt most in the bottom 70% could.
Tough titty. Work longer.
Retiring completely at a relatively young and healthy age isn't a Right, probably isn't good for your health and the State doesn't owe you a living.
So in other words only the top 20% can ever retire....just wow no wonder you tories are seen as a bunch of twats.
Firstly most of those unable to retire won't be sitting on their fat arse all day doing office work like those that could afford to retire.
Secondly who the hell is going to be employing all these 70 years olds. Hard enough to get a new job if you lose yours in your late 50's let alone in your 60's and 70's.
What do you expect all those that never earn enough to retire yet can't find work or physically no longer capable of work to do? Die quietly in a gutter no doubt.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut.
If you compare what Trump has said about Jews with what RFK has said about Jews, rather than Trump's immigration and foreign policies with what RFK has said about Jews, you might decide that of the two of them it's Trump who is anti-Semitic.
BBC: Kevin Spacey found not guilty on all charges.
Yet with reputation forever tarnished.
'Not guilty' does not necessarily mean the evidence given against the accused was false; it just means it wasn't sufficient to convict beyond reasonable doubt.
Even so, found innocent, but name tarnished. Why not have anonymity for the accused?
Found not guilty.
Courts being held in public is a good thing. That inevitably has to mean the defendant/s being known publicly too.
Unless there is a superinjunction.
This led to possibly the most brilliant piece of legal explanation ever by Joshua Rosenberg:
'Well, the law is clear. There is an injunction in place saying we must not name Ryan Giggs.'
Edit - btw, it's great to see you back.
If it's secret, how do you know you have broken it? And how do you know any lawyer for Mr X is telling the truth when a letter of desist is sent?
(More seriously, as it would be contempt of court wouldn't it be the judge that would deal with it, not a lawyer?)
Ah, thanks. But with a *super*injunction we're not allowed to know it exists. So I could say "Sorry, Your Puisne Honour, I didn't even know there was an injunction over saying how many ***** that ***** has." Cast iron excuse. By which time the damage has been done, and the information out?
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut. The only reason he's polling so high is because people hear the name Kennedy.
What's his policy that resonates? Where is the Democratic Party ignoring its base?
And let's not forget, someone stood for the Democrats on the RFK platform last time. She was bigged up by some on here ("the only one who can beat Trump"), and she was massacred in the polls.
From what I can see none of them have come out with policies yet.
As it is I happen to agree with the 7 out of 10 Americans who dont want to see another Trump Biden run off.
If RFK is the nut job you claim he will be found out, but he is currently doing a reasonable job of cutting through a hostile establishment media. and raising his profile I want to see the US run with younger more sensible candidates rather than the geriatric mud wrestling weve had for the last 10 years.
If you say you're looking for more sensible candidates, and talk about RFK Jnr in the same paragraph, then you simply don't know anything about the man and his views.
I tend to agree with your point that Trump v Biden 2 is an unappealing prospect. But, in betting terms, you need to think in an informed way about how that realistically comes about. Because it definitely isn't via RFK Jnr.
Well lets see when Trump was a democrat he was great guy, then when he wasnt - whack job. When RFK was on side - great guy, great family - now he isnt hes building the 4th Reich.
There seems to be too much strangling at birth. If he was that bad, then why was he a young prince at the heart of the democrats for so long, If he was that bad why did the dems not kick him out ?
And for the record I happened to say casually yesterday he was one of the more interesting candidates. I have no fixed view of the man but from the reaction to an innocent statement I can sense Bidenites are shit scared.
Well lets see when Trump was a democrat he was great guy, then when he wasnt - whack job. When RFK was on side - great guy, great family - now he isnt hes building the 4th Reich.
There seems to be too much strangling at birth. If he was that bad, then why was he a young prince at the heart of the democrats for so long, If he was that bad why did the dems not kick him out ?
And for the record I happened to say casually yesterday he was one of the more interesting candidates. I have no fixed view of the man but from the reaction to an innocent statement I can sense Bidenites are shit scared.
BBC: Kevin Spacey found not guilty on all charges.
Yet with reputation forever tarnished.
'Not guilty' does not necessarily mean the evidence given against the accused was false; it just means it wasn't sufficient to convict beyond reasonable doubt.
Even so, found innocent, but name tarnished. Why not have anonymity for the accused?
Found not guilty.
Courts being held in public is a good thing. That inevitably has to mean the defendant/s being known publicly too.
Unless there is a superinjunction.
This led to possibly the most brilliant piece of legal explanation ever by Joshua Rosenberg:
'Well, the law is clear. There is an injunction in place saying we must not name Ryan Giggs.'
Edit - btw, it's great to see you back.
If it's secret, how do you know you have broken it? And how do you know any lawyer for Mr X is telling the truth when a letter of desist is sent?
(More seriously, as it would be contempt of court wouldn't it be the judge that would deal with it, not a lawyer?)
Ah, thanks. But with a *super*injunction we're not allowed to know it exists. So I could say "Sorry, Your Puisne Honour, I didn't even know there was an injunction over saying how many ***** that ***** has." Cast iron excuse. By which time the damage has been done, and the information out?
Again, my understanding is that all people who know, or may know, about the case are served with it individually.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut. The only reason he's polling so high is because people hear the name Kennedy.
What's his policy that resonates? Where is the Democratic Party ignoring its base?
And let's not forget, someone stood for the Democrats on the RFK platform last time. She was bigged up by some on here ("the only one who can beat Trump"), and she was massacred in the polls.
From what I can see none of them have come out with policies yet.
As it is I happen to agree with the 7 out of 10 Americans who dont want to see another Trump Biden run off.
If RFK is the nut job you claim he will be found out, but he is currently doing a reasonable job of cutting through a hostile establishment media. and raising his profile I want to see the US run with younger more sensible candidates rather than the geriatric mud wrestling weve had for the last 10 years.
If you say you're looking for more sensible candidates, and talk about RFK Jnr in the same paragraph, then you simply don't know anything about the man and his views.
I tend to agree with your point that Trump v Biden 2 is an unappealing prospect. But, in betting terms, you need to think in an informed way about how that realistically comes about. Because it definitely isn't via RFK Jnr.
Well lets see when Trump was a democrat he was great guy, then when he wasnt - whack job. When RFK was on side - great guy, great family - now he isnt hes building the 4th Reich.
There seems to be too much strangling at birth. If he was that bad, then why was he a young prince at the heart of the democrats for so long, If he was that bad why did the dems not kick him out ?
And for the record I happened to say casually yesterday he was one of the more interesting candidates. I have no fixed view of the man but from the reaction to an innocent statement I can sense Bidenites are shit scared.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Not the Graun, it's been pretty good of late.
I havent seen the notion of challenging the entire idea of unbanked, including for money launderers, from anyone else at all. It is simply not compatible with modern life to leave tens of thousands of people unbanked, and an open invititation for criminal gangs to exploit such individuals.
I’ve been raising it for a while. We need data on what the actually blocks are - proper addresses, financial, credit score etc.
In theory it is trivial to sign up to any number of banks and alt-banks.
After moving to Ireland it took us seven months to open a joint bank account. A lot of the delays was because we didn't have acceptable proof of address. It was a right pain in the arse.
Do you have an Irish Passport ?
No address in a passport.
It is the same in the UK. You need a few utility bills to open accounts so you need to be somewhere for some months.
I ask only because my daughter found it a lot easier to get things done when she moved to Waterford if she used her Irish passport. It cut out some of the admin. From memory she set up her bank account in a fortnight,
I'm off to Waterford in a week or so to stay with friends. This being the short haul alternative to my cancelled Georgia holiday. Never been before and looking forward to it.
Lots of nice scenery around,. Waterford itself is like a UK market town. I enjoyed the Commeragh Mountains ( try the magic road), the copper coast, Dunmore East, Tramore, Mount Congreve gardens and if you want to splash cash Waterford Castle for a meal or afternoon tea,
PLUS Waterford is but a skip and a jump from ancestral homestead, near New Ross, of . . . wait for it . . . Robert Fizgerald Kennedy, Jr.
Currently the most popular candidate for President.
FWIW, which policies* of RFK do you think resonate particularly well with Democratic voters?
* Having the surname "Kennedy" is not a policy
LOL nor is being called Forrest Gump=Biden.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
Trump's policies, though, were what a lot of Republicans had been calling out for for years, while being ignored by the party hierarchy. Specifically, Trump cared about the border and immigration, and wanted a more isolationist foreign policy. By contrast, the Bushes had pushed for amnesties for illegal immigrants and taken the US into wars.
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut. The only reason he's polling so high is because people hear the name Kennedy.
What's his policy that resonates? Where is the Democratic Party ignoring its base?
And let's not forget, someone stood for the Democrats on the RFK platform last time. She was bigged up by some on here ("the only one who can beat Trump"), and she was massacred in the polls.
From what I can see none of them have come out with policies yet.
As it is I happen to agree with the 7 out of 10 Americans who dont want to see another Trump Biden run off.
If RFK is the nut job you claim he will be found out, but he is currently doing a reasonable job of cutting through a hostile establishment media. and raising his profile I want to see the US run with younger more sensible candidates rather than the geriatric mud wrestling weve had for the last 10 years.
If you say you're looking for more sensible candidates, and talk about RFK Jnr in the same paragraph, then you simply don't know anything about the man and his views.
I tend to agree with your point that Trump v Biden 2 is an unappealing prospect. But, in betting terms, you need to think in an informed way about how that realistically comes about. Because it definitely isn't via RFK Jnr.
Well lets see when Trump was a democrat he was great guy, then when he wasnt - whack job. When RFK was on side - great guy, great family - now he isnt hes building the 4th Reich.
There seems to be too much strangling at birth. If he was that bad, then why was he a young prince at the heart of the democrats for so long, If he was that bad why did the dems not kick him out ?
And for the record I happened to say casually yesterday he was one of the more interesting candidates. I have no fixed view of the man but from the reaction to an innocent statement I can sense Bidenites are shit scared.
Why ?
Donald Trump has ALWAYS been a shithead. Even as a "Democrat".
Can still remember when he first came to my personal attention, which was in late 1980s, when I worked one summer just outside Atlantic City.
Pegged him them as a entrepreneurial socio-path, and also visa versa.
Fact that Bill and Hilary were guests at his 3rd wedding, speaking volumes about THEIR standards. NOT those of all Democrats.
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
I agree with your first para - essentially basic banking should be a human right of anyone living in a modern liberal society - whatever we think of them.
On the second point, the general shrugs that initially met the story (including from me) were only partly because Farage is seen as controversial and rich to the point that it's unlikely that he'll find himself unbanked. It's also that the bank is Coutts, which is relatively little-known to the general public and thought of as a bank for a small elite. It's a bit like a story that the Duke of Norfolk finds that Eton wouldn't put his son down for a place. "Oh, well" would be a natural reaction to that.
To the (limited) extent that the story has opened up the discussion of refusal of banking facilities more generally, it's a good development. And of course Farage should get his account back.
I think it's slightly more complex than the Duke of Norfolk example. I don't think it would be seen as a bad thing if Farage applied for a bank at Coutts and was turned down - like the Duke of Norfolk. The issue is that he had a bank account which was removed (because Coutts, it appears, decided they didn't like him). The analogy here is if the Duke of Norfolk's son had a place at Eton but was then thrown out of Eton because they wanted fewer posh people. Coutts/Natwest then compounded this by a) conducting a personal witchhunt against Farage, b) briefing the press about him, and c) lying about it. It's hardly the model of discretion which we'd associate with private banks. Or any sort of banks. I'm not in the market for private banking, but if I was I wouldn't now go to one which trawls the internet for dirt on its customers.
(In all honesty, my banking choices are largely driven by inertia. I'm also quite cross about First Direct's parent company HSBC cheerleading for the CPC in Hong Kong, and also for replacing the easy-to-see numbers on the front of the card with hard-to-see numbers on the back, but still haven't got around to moving banks.)
And, it would stick in my throat, to have people who have received fines for money laundering, presuming to sit in judgement on my "values."
Unilever has been bending over backwards in recent days to justify its continued trading in Russia and willingness to let Putin conscript
On power: "ten years is the maximum dose for adults".
The introduction to that interview supports my thesis that Ken Clarke bears heavy responsibility for the Tories losing power after he moved from department to department attacking Conservative-supporting professionals in the public sector.
Not sure about this. The pendulum always swings eventually, and you can't really be a Secretary of State whilst offending nobody.
That's not a defence of Clarke's record at Health and Education before he was Chancellor, but the Conservatives implemented a lot of controversial policies in the 1980s and early 1990s, some of which Clarke was directly involved in, some not. That isn't really what lost it for them in 1997 - there was simply a general feeling by the mid-1990s that the Conservatives had run out of steam and didn't fully appreciate or have compelling solutions for the most important issues for people. There was also a fairly large amount of sleaze going on, and it was widely felt that it was time for a change to the other lot.
Clarke was Health Secretary 1988-1990 and Education 1990-92. Are you really saying 1997 was some kind of delayed reaction to that (which was not felt in the 1992 General Election for some reason)? Feels a bit far-fetched to me, although he was one of a series of Conservative ministers who were unconvincing on those issues both within the professions involved and externally.
I think I am saying the Conservative government was wiped out because it had taken on so many voters who were its natural supporters. Not just Clarke with police, doctors and teachers, although that was a large part of it, but also the defence cuts, and then if you look at who was hurt by the ERM debacle, it was home owners and mortgage holders, it was entrepreneurs and small business owners.
That is how I conceptualise that part of our political history, rather than hand-waving about running out of ideas or fairness or time for a change. Whatever people thought of the cones hotline, that was not what changed their votes. Nor was it the poll tax, which had been neutralised by John Major. The blue team lost power because it systematically alienated its own voters. They'd played by the rules, done what was called for, and *their* government had screwed them over.
It's true that, over the course of a period in government, you collect enemies like a rolling stone gathering moss, and they tend to be a bit stickier than the friends you make.
But I think you underestimate things like the Cones Hotline. It's not that it was an awful policy in itself - there have been many worse and if it had been proposed in 1985 alongside a broad programme it would barely have been newsworthy. But by the mid-90s it was emblematic of a fag end administration that struggled to get things done, to grasp the scale of challenges in public services, or to have meaningful solutions. And it's that broad impression more than the fact a couple of professions had been narked with the Tories for a while that really lost it for them in 1997, in my view.
Sunak and Starmer could be doing exactly the same things they both are now under the same economic circumstances, but in 2015 rather than 2023, and I'd be very confident Sunak would trounce Starmer in the GE.
Sometimes, it really is a matter of timing.
Well yes, because in 2015 the Tories hadn’t yet trashed our economy, international credibility or public services. Though they were certainly making a start.
Probably not trounced either. Similar result to Cameron-Miliband or a bit worse.
Labour had trashed our economy in 2010, and our international credibility over things like extraordinary rendition, Iraq and the Expenses Scandal. Public services were on a totally unsustainable footing and largely unreformed.
Motes and Beams.
International credibility yes, though the current government has taken that up multiple notches.
The expenses scandal featured as many if not more conservative MPs as Labour. The Lib Dems on the other hand showed disproportionately less likely to have hands in the till.
The economy and public finances were in a far far better shape in 2010, despite only just emerging from a global crisis, than now.
Bear in mind Miliband only lost narrowly in 2015 and largely because of a collapse in LD support in the South West and the rise of the SNP after Indy ref. So unless we think Starmer would have gone down worse with the public than Miliband, it’s likely he would have done roughly as well or better.
He might also have desisted from reforming the Labour membership rules in the way that allowed Corbyn in by the back door in 2015.
Rubbish. All the MPs that were prosecuted were Labour. The stench was deep. And we were staring down the biggest budget deficit in our history and a sovereign debt crisis. They were absolutely not in a "much better shape" - palpable nonsense.
Please don't try rewriting history now because you want to egg on a victory next year. It insults our intelligence.
"Prosecuted" doing some very loaded work there.
Duck houses.
Nope, and by Keir Starmer no less. Educate yourself:
Huge, if this proves out. It could change everything.
The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008 ..For the first time in the world, we succeeded in synthesizing the room-temperature superconductor (Tc≥400 K, 127∘C) working at ambient pressure with a modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure. The superconductivity of LK-99 is proved with the Critical temperature (Tc), Zero-resistivity, Critical current (Ic), Critical magnetic field (Hc), and the Meissner effect. The superconductivity of LK-99 originates from minute structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage (0.48 %), not by external factors such as temperature and pressure. The shrinkage is caused by Cu2+ substitution of Pb2+(2) ions in the insulating network of Pb(2)-phosphate and it generates the stress. It concurrently transfers to Pb(1) of the cylindrical column resulting in distortion of the cylindrical column interface, which creates superconducting quantum wells (SQWs) in the interface. The heat capacity results indicated that the new model is suitable for explaining the superconductivity of LK-99. The unique structure of LK-99 that allows the minute distorted structure to be maintained in the interfaces is the most important factor that LK-99 maintains and exhibits superconductivity at room temperatures and ambient pressure...
I'd be shorting helium futures, if such a thing were possible.
Maybe. I guess it depends what its maximum current capacity is and whether it can be made into wires.
Sure, lots of caveats - we don't yet know for sure if the claimed result is reproducible - but the implications of a practical, ambient temp/pressure superconductor are immense.
Huge, if this proves out. It could change everything.
The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008 ..For the first time in the world, we succeeded in synthesizing the room-temperature superconductor (Tc≥400 K, 127∘C) working at ambient pressure with a modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure. The superconductivity of LK-99 is proved with the Critical temperature (Tc), Zero-resistivity, Critical current (Ic), Critical magnetic field (Hc), and the Meissner effect. The superconductivity of LK-99 originates from minute structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage (0.48 %), not by external factors such as temperature and pressure. The shrinkage is caused by Cu2+ substitution of Pb2+(2) ions in the insulating network of Pb(2)-phosphate and it generates the stress. It concurrently transfers to Pb(1) of the cylindrical column resulting in distortion of the cylindrical column interface, which creates superconducting quantum wells (SQWs) in the interface. The heat capacity results indicated that the new model is suitable for explaining the superconductivity of LK-99. The unique structure of LK-99 that allows the minute distorted structure to be maintained in the interfaces is the most important factor that LK-99 maintains and exhibits superconductivity at room temperatures and ambient pressure...
I'd be shorting helium futures, if such a thing were possible.
Maybe. I guess it depends what its maximum current capacity is and whether it can be made into wires.
Sure, lots of caveats - we don't yet know for sure if the claimed result is reproducible - but the implications of a practical, ambient temp/pressure superconductor are immense.
Indeed. Even if it can't be made into wires.
Superconducting AI chips running at THz instead of GHz. What could possibly go wrong?
At least Malmesbury will be able to run a fusion reactor in his shed.
Politicians as a class are at higher risk of bribery and need more supervision, esp cos it is in public office. Ditto their families. So they pass laws to deal with that (good) and whine when they get it in the neck as the banks CBA with the hassle. And try to piggyback on the Farage affair to get the laws watered down.
'“Banks have also more widely been overzealously interpreting the PEP rules, which meant many MPs have had trouble getting access to financial services. MPs’ families as well, spouses and children even, so they have been a bit overzealous,” Philp told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He called the closure of Farage’s account “particularly bad” and said there was a wider issue of banks potentially not providing banking services to people because of their lawful political views.
“We believe in free speech in this country, we believe in political freedom and that means no one should be denied banking services,” said Philp.'
Yebbut loads of people are denied banking services?
The extent to which our media and politicians bend over backwards for Brexit Squidward is inexplicable to me.
That's actually a different matter entirely. Ordinary people are fallign foul of the CIFAS system as implemented by the banking industry.
But it's a good point because the pols are also trying to claim they are hard done by in the same way, when it's am entirely different issue which is the primary problem for pols (although the results are also mediated by the CIFAS system, it's silly to blame it on CIFAS).
But the principal of access to banking as a universal right (ideally) is fundamental to both. If anything good comes out of the highly unedifying affair, it would be recognition of that.
I can't see how you can force them to take anyone's accounts. Doesn't make sense. It's central to moneylaundering legislation that banks have a responsibility over whom they accept.
The issue is not "forcing them to take accounts" its "closing existing accounts" - some of which they have held for decades.
Either the bank didn't do KYC properly in the first place - or they suspect criminality in which case the police should be involved.
In Farage's case it boiled down to "we don't like his politics" - I wonder why they have closed the accounts of Professor Lesley Sawers, 64, the Equalities and Human Rights commissioner for Scotland, who has been with them 32 years....
So the big question - does Nicola Sturgeon still have a bank account ?
I assumed that RBS = Royal Bank of Sturgeon. Have I got that wrong?
Yes, Sturgeon banks with HBOS, well the Bank of Scotland branch.
Though SNP did comically publish her entire account and tax returns.
If she is charged and depending on the charges, she may become an unbanked person.
Right now she'll struggle to get mainstream insurance, which is another scandal like the unbanked.
Home & car insurance becomes invalidated the moment you get charged with most mainstream insurers, the ones that will accept you charge up to 10 times the standard price.
Edit - You don't even have to be charged/convicted, if you live with someone or are financially associated with somebody in those circumstances, then you are in the same boat.
I didn't know that. Pretty disgraceful as it's effectively punishment before trial - and collective punishment.
Yeah, this is (well should be) a massive civil liberties story with a bureaucracy that has gone mad following kafkaesque rules that have been introduced without consideration of why society should leave anyone "unbanked".
No-one should be "unbanked" regardless of what they have done. By all means monitor and control high risk accounts differently but absolutely do not shut them off from employment and housing.
But because its Farage, those who would normally be loudly complaining about civil liberties have been too quiet, and left the story mostly about him and the idiots at Coutts/Natwest.
Is that really the case ? Or is it rather that most of us, including journalists, are only slowly becoming aware of how arbitrary, and difficult to challenge banking rules have become ?
The Farage affair has opened that conversation, even if the details are loosely related to the problems that are likely to face most people.
The "no sympathy for Farage" posts were dominant on here, at least from the centrists and left, until it became clear Coutts had lied. A big part of civil liberties is surely about defending the liberties of those you dislike or disagree with.
Nothing wrong with reserving sympathy for when it became clear he had been wronged.
Comments
I remember this organisation was perfectly willing to hector Priti Patel over her asylum policies last year.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/business-66274358.amp
Duck houses.
From what I can see the man is leveraging what he has and throwing in "contoversy" to get more coverage. Early candidate Trump did much the same.
A public consultation process has been launched to look at how to conduct financial risk checks for problem gambling
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/gambling-white-paper-consultations-published-in-step-forward-for-reform
A related problem to banking: financial checks for punters. Sfaict this relates only to affordability checks (which the minister said earlier should be frictionless) but there is also the whole KYC and AML schtick which is related to PEP bank checks.
Louis Napoleon was certainly adept at having a good time wherever he went!
The schedule of time lost to par was as follows for OT.
Day 1: 7 overs lost - Eng 83 overs
Day 2: 79 overs, 2 balls & innings change (8 overs 4 balls lost) Eng 7.2 overs, Aus 72
Day 3: 76.4 overs & innings change (11 overs 2 balls lost) - No time lost for rain on day 3 I believe because the finish was extended. Aus 35.4 overs / Eng 41 overs
Day 4: 30 overs between lunch and tea !!! No overs lost for slow play I think ! / 60 overs lost to rain. Eng 30 overs.
Day 5: 90 overs lost to rain.
So the test consisted of 150 overs lost to rain, 27 to slow play.
If the match had been played at the correct rate we'd have won - I have no idea why we dawdled so badly on day 1 - I did point out at the time...
Comment on July 19th: England bowling at a snail's pace. Australia won't mind one bit.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/measures-relating-to-the-land-based-gambling-sector
By contrast, RFK is an antisemitic conspiracy nut. The only reason he's polling so high is because people hear the name Kennedy.
What's his policy that resonates? Where is the Democratic Party ignoring its base?
And let's not forget, someone stood for the Democrats on the RFK platform last time. She was bigged up by some on here ("the only one who can beat Trump"), and she was massacred in the polls.
Implication is that it could be made impossible even to sell a house? Or is that a misunderstanding?
Courts being held in public is a good thing. That inevitably has to mean the defendant/s being known publicly too.
This led to possibly the most brilliant piece of legal explanation ever by Joshua Rosenberg:
'Well, the law is clear. There is an injunction in place saying we must not name Ryan Giggs.'
Edit - btw, it's great to see you back.
As it is I happen to agree with the 7 out of 10 Americans who dont want to see another Trump Biden run off.
If RFK is the nut job you claim he will be found out, but he is currently doing a reasonable job of cutting through a hostile establishment media. and raising his profile I want to see the US run with younger more sensible candidates rather than the geriatric mud wrestling weve had for the last 10 years.
Another pod of pilot whales seems to know something. First it was ~50 dead in the Outer Hebrides, now it's ~50 dead in Western Australia. In the latter case they formed themselves into a heart shape apparently. What are the poor souls trying to tell us?
Who's to say that the aliens when they come to Earth are most interested in a revolting phone-carrying species that hangs out on the 29% of the planet's surface that's dry, and whose greatest "geniuses" seem to want computers to take over?
https://youtu.be/8mxyIHly7hQ
(More seriously, as it would be contempt of court wouldn't it be the judge that would deal with it, not a lawyer?)
Machines that payout tokens I feel are more suitable for children.
EDIT: Nevermind, if that means penny push machines. Playing for pennies is entirely reasonable for kids.
https://theweek.com/articles/835714/what-donald-trump-said-about-jews
Here's his speech announcing his Presidential run: https://www.c-span.org/video/?527511-1/robert-kennedy-jr-announces-2024-presidential-campaign
What does he focus on? What is the biggest portion of his speech?
Vaccines.
But don't take my word for it, watch it yourself.
And let's look at his website: https://www.kennedy24.com/
You accuse others of having no policies. But read through that website, and other than on race relations, find even one policy. I mean, "The time has come to reverse America’s economic decline" is a great soundbite, but what does he suggest? Literally nothing.
I tend to agree with your point that Trump v Biden 2 is an unappealing prospect. But, in betting terms, you need to think in an informed way about how that realistically comes about. Because it definitely isn't via RFK Jnr.
Really bonkers.
as I said if he's a baddun hell get found out.
[edit: desires replaced by morals]
Firstly most of those unable to retire won't be sitting on their fat arse all day doing office work like those that could afford to retire.
Secondly who the hell is going to be employing all these 70 years olds. Hard enough to get a new job if you lose yours in your late 50's let alone in your 60's and 70's.
What do you expect all those that never earn enough to retire yet can't find work or physically no longer capable of work to do? Die quietly in a gutter no doubt.
It didn't help Labour under Corbyn, for example.
There seems to be too much strangling at birth. If he was that bad, then why was he a young prince at the heart of the democrats for so long, If he was that bad why did the dems not kick him out ?
And for the record I happened to say casually yesterday he was one of the more interesting candidates. I have no fixed view of the man but from the reaction to an innocent statement I can sense Bidenites are shit scared.
Why ?
AND here is link to summary from Harris-Harvard
https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/HHP_July2023_KeyResults.pdf
Relevant numbers re: favorablity or otherwise see page 14
Note that undecided/don't knows on RFKjr = 27%
My own guess is that most of these end up as unfavorable . . . along with a chunk of current favorables.
Seeing as how much of his current positive numbers are based solely on the K-word factor. As with boomlet for DJT + JFKjr ticket.
NEW THREAD
Can still remember when he first came to my personal attention, which was in late 1980s, when I worked one summer just outside Atlantic City.
Pegged him them as a entrepreneurial socio-path, and also visa versa.
Fact that Bill and Hilary were guests at his 3rd wedding, speaking volumes about THEIR standards. NOT those of all Democrats.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/business-66274358.amp Nope, and by Keir Starmer no less. Educate yourself:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_parliamentary_expenses_scandal
Thankfully, they are about to take a hell of a beating.
Superconducting AI chips running at THz instead of GHz. What could possibly go wrong?
At least Malmesbury will be able to run a fusion reactor in his shed.