A police source this morning tells Wings that by just 8am on Day 1, a single division has already received more than a dozen Hate Crime complaints about Humza Yousaf's "WHITE!" speech 😄
A truce, Malcolm? I won't report you if you don't report me!
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
A country that continually lives beyond its means inevitably sees more and more of its assets bought by foreigners in exchange for current goods and services.
Those assets sold to foreigners can include businesses as well as government bonds, Mayfair mansions and football clubs.
I don't disagree and in a free market that's one of the consequences. I recall the Thatcher Government was enthusiastic about the trading aspects of the Single European Act and indeed free marketers should support the four freedoms.
The problem is economic liberalism bumps up against cultual protectionism - many would prefer to buy British from British owned companies though we all know if the quality comes from abroad, we'll buy the import every time.
That isn't the end of cultural protectionism - the free market in goods and services is one thing but the free market in people is something else. People have always moved to where the money is and it was an inevitable consequence of freedom of movement people from poorer parts of Europe would move to the richer parts. There's economic sense in that just as there is for richer people in the north of Europe to move to the sunnier climes of the south bringing their capital to invigorate the local economies.
As to "living beyond its means", again, I don't disagree but where do you start in terms of reducing the deficit and returning to a balanced budget? Some on the Conservative side actively supported borrowing at low interest rates (thougn that's kicking an ever bigger can down the road) but how do you bring the public finances back?
Do we cut spending, raise taxes or both? What do we cut - apparently health, welfare and defence are off limits (not sure why) and we can't raise taxes without howls of anguish? Is it time for Land Value Taxation or do we continue to tax consumption?
The rich and consumers will have to pay more tax. The poor and old will have to receive less. The workers will have to work longer and increase their productivity.
The proportions of pain between the various groups will be where the debate is but there will be many unhappy whatever the outcome.
As to Thatcher and the development of the single market that was a time when the UK ran a trade surplus, had net emigration and the single market was a much smaller group of countries with fewer economic differences between them.
How she would have viewed the larger, more varied and more chaotic current global economy I don't know.
I normally baulk at your various theses. However the proclamations in your first paragraph are more than likely salient. I would add the caveat of how do "the poor and the (poor- my edit) old live on fresh air alone? The social contract between workers (and former workers) and society is broken. It was broken by your party over the last decade, either by accident or intent.
I'm not and have never been a member of a political party and have voted for multiple parties during my life.
Now as to those who receive the largest amounts of government payments and services - the old and the poor - they will have to do what anyone else does when their income isn't as high as they want that is adapt to their lesser means.
How much they will need to adapt depends on what 'proportion of pain' they have to accept.
Not to mention many oldies are among the affluent and as a group dominate the asset rich.
The government was predicted to spend £341bn on social protection, £245bn on health and £43bn on personal social services in the last year:
I'm not sure how that equates to the 'social contract is broken'.
As for workers we currently have full employment - something which for those whose formative years were after 1975 would never have been expected to happen.
And which, if those who predict the mass economic disruption of AI are correct, might be looked back on as a brief interlude between periods of high unemployment.
I don't dispute the financial reality.
The postwar social contract ensured universal health care and a basic state pension. We are now talking of means tested state pensions and formally rationed healthcare (something I am not opposed to provided it is reviewed sensibly).
You can quote statistical facts relating to full employment but you ignore zero hours etc. An awful lot of people (including working people) are in a desperate plight in our country and though your solution is probably what will come to pass, what you are proposing steps over the vagrant in Gregg's doorway to procure breakfast.
Two notes from R4 Today this morning, both indicative of trends.
The Scottish minister for hate crimes didn't want to talk about the criminal aspects of abuse etc towards JK Rowling.
The UN bloke in Gaza (BTW I am not unsympathetic and don't want his job) seemed remarkably well informed and full of opinions about the evils perpetrated by the IDF, but an absolute blank stone wall, both on facts and opinions, on the subject of Hamas's sub-optimal actions, and in particular whether it had interactions with Gaza hospital sites.
The impression that the UN and its agencies are not neutral actors is strong.
What are the criminal aspects of abuse etc towards JK Rowling? In any case she certainly seems to think there are limits to free speech. Luckily for her she's rich enough to wield the big stick of the law within previous legal structures.
Ha ha Scotland, you thought you could pass an act by a vote in your own parliament that then went through a series of cross party amendments, but no, those great moral philosophers of our age Musk and Rowling plus PB A.N.Other randoms have spoken, April Fool!
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
A country that continually lives beyond its means inevitably sees more and more of its assets bought by foreigners in exchange for current goods and services.
Those assets sold to foreigners can include businesses as well as government bonds, Mayfair mansions and football clubs.
I don't disagree and in a free market that's one of the consequences. I recall the Thatcher Government was enthusiastic about the trading aspects of the Single European Act and indeed free marketers should support the four freedoms.
The problem is economic liberalism bumps up against cultual protectionism - many would prefer to buy British from British owned companies though we all know if the quality comes from abroad, we'll buy the import every time.
That isn't the end of cultural protectionism - the free market in goods and services is one thing but the free market in people is something else. People have always moved to where the money is and it was an inevitable consequence of freedom of movement people from poorer parts of Europe would move to the richer parts. There's economic sense in that just as there is for richer people in the north of Europe to move to the sunnier climes of the south bringing their capital to invigorate the local economies.
As to "living beyond its means", again, I don't disagree but where do you start in terms of reducing the deficit and returning to a balanced budget? Some on the Conservative side actively supported borrowing at low interest rates (thougn that's kicking an ever bigger can down the road) but how do you bring the public finances back?
Do we cut spending, raise taxes or both? What do we cut - apparently health, welfare and defence are off limits (not sure why) and we can't raise taxes without howls of anguish? Is it time for Land Value Taxation or do we continue to tax consumption?
The rich and consumers will have to pay more tax. The poor and old will have to receive less. The workers will have to work longer and increase their productivity.
The proportions of pain between the various groups will be where the debate is but there will be many unhappy whatever the outcome.
As to Thatcher and the development of the single market that was a time when the UK ran a trade surplus, had net emigration and the single market was a much smaller group of countries with fewer economic differences between them.
How she would have viewed the larger, more varied and more chaotic current global economy I don't know.
There are other approaches you’ve not considered. We could grow the economy. For example, let’s try to remove frictions in trade. More free trade will be a boost.
Large multinationals have developed many ways of avoiding tax. Let’s target those, which will probably require multinational collaboration.
More free trade can also mean that production in this country is replaced by cheaper imports from countries which have lower worker earnings and fewer environmental regulations.
Taxing multinational business more comes under 'the rich and consumers will have to pay more tax' heading.
One of the mysteries of recent decades was the way British governments always supported Ireland's low corporation tax rates - possibly a wish to emulate it.
Anyway the rate of corporation tax has now been increased to 25% - a correct decision IMO.
Many of the points made in the header could be applied to recently added criminal offences in English Law, many with very long jail sentences. IE: Under the 'Serious crime act 2015'
"(1)A person (A) commits an offence if— (a)A repeatedly or continuously engages in behaviour towards another person (B) that is controlling or coercive... (c)the behaviour has a serious effect on B, and (d)A knows or ought to know that the behaviour will have a serious effect on B. ... (4)A’s behaviour has a “serious effect” on B if— (a)it causes B to fear, on at least two occasions, that violence will be used against B, or (b)it causes B serious alarm or distress which has a substantial adverse effect on B’s usual day-to-day activities."
The Opinion considers the Act in some detail. The principal author, Mr Dunlop KC, is the Dean of Faculty of the Scottish Bar*. He has not, to my knowledge, been an Advocate Depute responsible for marking controversial cases nor does he have, to my knowledge, much direct knowledge or experience of dealing with criminal proceedings. He is an acknowledged expert in regulatory and administrative law as well as human rights. His Junior in this matter has similar experience and lack of criminal experience.
I have 2 reservations about his opinion. Firstly, how the Act will be interpreted, at least as far as prosecution is concerned, will be determined by the policies and decisions of Crown Office. If the intention is that certain groups, specifically those advocating controversial positions on the transgender issue, be held accountable by this law I think that some of the Opinions as to what is thought to be an offence and what is not may not be agreed with.
Secondly, whilst he may well prove to be correct as to the view that a court or even a jury might take at the end of the day it is the threat of prosecution, successful or otherwise, that has the chilling effect on public discourse. I agree with @Cyclefree's observations on that.
*I am also a member of the Scottish bar and am currently a serving Advocate Depute but well below the pay grade of those responsible for policy.
I thought Dunlop was off to England because of the SNP's iniquitous tax regime? Great to hear that he's decided to stick around!
He's a tenant of Pump Court in London and does a fair amount of work there but he remains Dean of the Faculty at present. Quite a number of the Scottish bar have sought dual qualification in recent years with a view to having a bolt hole should the worst happen (or to take advantage of the generally higher rates of pay for counsel south of the border, take your pick).
The Opinion considers the Act in some detail. The principal author, Mr Dunlop KC, is the Dean of Faculty of the Scottish Bar*. He has not, to my knowledge, been an Advocate Depute responsible for marking controversial cases nor does he have, to my knowledge, much direct knowledge or experience of dealing with criminal proceedings. He is an acknowledged expert in regulatory and administrative law as well as human rights. His Junior in this matter has similar experience and lack of criminal experience.
I have 2 reservations about his opinion. Firstly, how the Act will be interpreted, at least as far as prosecution is concerned, will be determined by the policies and decisions of Crown Office. If the intention is that certain groups, specifically those advocating controversial positions on the transgender issue, be held accountable by this law I think that some of the Opinions as to what is thought to be an offence and what is not may not be agreed with.
Secondly, whilst he may well prove to be correct as to the view that a court or even a jury might take at the end of the day it is the threat of prosecution, successful or otherwise, that has the chilling effect on public discourse. I agree with @Cyclefree's observations on that.
*I am also a member of the Scottish bar and am currently a serving Advocate Depute but well below the pay grade of those responsible for policy.
I thought Dunlop was off to England because of the SNP's iniquitous tax regime? Great to hear that he's decided to stick around!
He's a tenant of Pump Court in London and does a fair amount of work there but he remains Dean of the Faculty at present. Quite a number of the Scottish bar have sought dual qualification in recent years with a view to having a bolt hole should the worst happen (or to take advantage of the generally higher rates of pay for counsel south of the border, take your pick).
I take it this is not the criminal bar because if the rates in England are better than the Scottish ones for criminal law you must be earning next to nothing...
Two notes from R4 Today this morning, both indicative of trends.
The Scottish minister for hate crimes didn't want to talk about the criminal aspects of abuse etc towards JK Rowling.
The UN bloke in Gaza (BTW I am not unsympathetic and don't want his job) seemed remarkably well informed and full of opinions about the evils perpetrated by the IDF, but an absolute blank stone wall, both on facts and opinions, on the subject of Hamas's sub-optimal actions, and in particular whether it had interactions with Gaza hospital sites.
The impression that the UN and its agencies are not neutral actors is strong.
What are the criminal aspects of abuse etc towards JK Rowling? In any case she certainly seems to think there are limits to free speech. Luckily for her she's rich enough to wield the big stick of the law within previous legal structures.
Not a Scottish lawyer, so not getting involved; but reading the opinion (does the word 'opine' ever arise non-ironically other than from Scottish lawyers?) suggests that the act itself is, with regard to convictions, reasonably harmless as long as Roddy Dunlop is your lawyer.
(But the greater substance of the criticism of this bad act is the 'chilling' effect on ordinary people who will be rendered doubtful in expressing views, and in the keeping of records by police of non-criminal activity in a world where no-one will trust what use will be made of them.)
I think we can rely on Wings Over Scotland and others to test all this out in court.
Welcome to the world of consultancy. We opine every day.
Opining is important. It makes it clear that you are not telling a client what they should do. And won't end up in court when things go pear shaped for them.
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
A country that continually lives beyond its means inevitably sees more and more of its assets bought by foreigners in exchange for current goods and services.
Those assets sold to foreigners can include businesses as well as government bonds, Mayfair mansions and football clubs.
I don't disagree and in a free market that's one of the consequences. I recall the Thatcher Government was enthusiastic about the trading aspects of the Single European Act and indeed free marketers should support the four freedoms.
The problem is economic liberalism bumps up against cultual protectionism - many would prefer to buy British from British owned companies though we all know if the quality comes from abroad, we'll buy the import every time.
That isn't the end of cultural protectionism - the free market in goods and services is one thing but the free market in people is something else. People have always moved to where the money is and it was an inevitable consequence of freedom of movement people from poorer parts of Europe would move to the richer parts. There's economic sense in that just as there is for richer people in the north of Europe to move to the sunnier climes of the south bringing their capital to invigorate the local economies.
As to "living beyond its means", again, I don't disagree but where do you start in terms of reducing the deficit and returning to a balanced budget? Some on the Conservative side actively supported borrowing at low interest rates (thougn that's kicking an ever bigger can down the road) but how do you bring the public finances back?
Do we cut spending, raise taxes or both? What do we cut - apparently health, welfare and defence are off limits (not sure why) and we can't raise taxes without howls of anguish? Is it time for Land Value Taxation or do we continue to tax consumption?
The rich and consumers will have to pay more tax. The poor and old will have to receive less. The workers will have to work longer and increase their productivity.
The proportions of pain between the various groups will be where the debate is but there will be many unhappy whatever the outcome.
As to Thatcher and the development of the single market that was a time when the UK ran a trade surplus, had net emigration and the single market was a much smaller group of countries with fewer economic differences between them.
How she would have viewed the larger, more varied and more chaotic current global economy I don't know.
There are other approaches you’ve not considered. We could grow the economy. For example, let’s try to remove frictions in trade. More free trade will be a boost.
Large multinationals have developed many ways of avoiding tax. Let’s target those, which will probably require multinational collaboration.
More free trade can also mean that production in this country is replaced by cheaper imports from countries which have lower worker earnings and fewer environmental regulations.
Taxing multinational business more comes under 'the rich and consumers will have to pay more tax' heading.
One of the mysteries of recent decades was the way British governments always supported Ireland's low corporation tax rates - possibly a wish to emulate it.
Anyway the rate of corporation tax has now been increased to 25% - a correct decision IMO.
Well your first paragraph sums up the last forty years of UK trade policy.
It's hard to see where genuine growth comes from when we have, and are still, closing primary and tertiary industries.
The promotion of new environmental technology programmes which use domestically procured resources are perhaps a way forward. Labour proposed a £28b programme, the Conservatives "sniggled" at it so Labour took their bat and ball home.
So yes tax rises and service cuts are probably the reality.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
If the Labour government continues to offer crap policies like Blair did under Iraq, ID cards, HIPs etc. than it is only sensible for the Liberal Democrats to oppose it.
Two notes from R4 Today this morning, both indicative of trends.
The Scottish minister for hate crimes didn't want to talk about the criminal aspects of abuse etc towards JK Rowling.
The UN bloke in Gaza (BTW I am not unsympathetic and don't want his job) seemed remarkably well informed and full of opinions about the evils perpetrated by the IDF, but an absolute blank stone wall, both on facts and opinions, on the subject of Hamas's sub-optimal actions, and in particular whether it had interactions with Gaza hospital sites.
The impression that the UN and its agencies are not neutral actors is strong.
That wasn't my impression of the interview (assuming we're talking about the same UN bloke). Basically he has a job to do - delivering aid - and can't do it. Israel controls access - they don't allow journalists in either - so there isn't anyone else to blame.
And no one knows who is doing what in Gaza, as there are no independent reporters there.
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
A country that continually lives beyond its means inevitably sees more and more of its assets bought by foreigners in exchange for current goods and services.
Those assets sold to foreigners can include businesses as well as government bonds, Mayfair mansions and football clubs.
I don't disagree and in a free market that's one of the consequences. I recall the Thatcher Government was enthusiastic about the trading aspects of the Single European Act and indeed free marketers should support the four freedoms.
The problem is economic liberalism bumps up against cultual protectionism - many would prefer to buy British from British owned companies though we all know if the quality comes from abroad, we'll buy the import every time.
That isn't the end of cultural protectionism - the free market in goods and services is one thing but the free market in people is something else. People have always moved to where the money is and it was an inevitable consequence of freedom of movement people from poorer parts of Europe would move to the richer parts. There's economic sense in that just as there is for richer people in the north of Europe to move to the sunnier climes of the south bringing their capital to invigorate the local economies.
As to "living beyond its means", again, I don't disagree but where do you start in terms of reducing the deficit and returning to a balanced budget? Some on the Conservative side actively supported borrowing at low interest rates (thougn that's kicking an ever bigger can down the road) but how do you bring the public finances back?
Do we cut spending, raise taxes or both? What do we cut - apparently health, welfare and defence are off limits (not sure why) and we can't raise taxes without howls of anguish? Is it time for Land Value Taxation or do we continue to tax consumption?
The rich and consumers will have to pay more tax. The poor and old will have to receive less. The workers will have to work longer and increase their productivity.
The proportions of pain between the various groups will be where the debate is but there will be many unhappy whatever the outcome.
As to Thatcher and the development of the single market that was a time when the UK ran a trade surplus, had net emigration and the single market was a much smaller group of countries with fewer economic differences between them.
How she would have viewed the larger, more varied and more chaotic current global economy I don't know.
I normally baulk at your various theses. However the proclamations in your first paragraph are more than likely salient. I would add the caveat of how do "the poor and the (poor- my edit) old live on fresh air alone? The social contract between workers (and former workers) and society is broken. It was broken by your party over the last decade, either by accident or intent.
I'm not and have never been a member of a political party and have voted for multiple parties during my life.
Now as to those who receive the largest amounts of government payments and services - the old and the poor - they will have to do what anyone else does when their income isn't as high as they want that is adapt to their lesser means.
How much they will need to adapt depends on what 'proportion of pain' they have to accept.
Not to mention many oldies are among the affluent and as a group dominate the asset rich.
The government was predicted to spend £341bn on social protection, £245bn on health and £43bn on personal social services in the last year:
I'm not sure how that equates to the 'social contract is broken'.
As for workers we currently have full employment - something which for those whose formative years were after 1975 would never have been expected to happen.
And which, if those who predict the mass economic disruption of AI are correct, might be looked back on as a brief interlude between periods of high unemployment.
I don't dispute the financial reality.
The postwar social contract ensured universal health care and a basic state pension. We are now talking of means tested state pensions and formally rationed healthcare (something I am not opposed to provided it is reviewed sensibly).
You can quote statistical facts relating to full employment but you ignore zero hours etc. An awful lot of people (including working people) are in a desperate plight in our country and though it is probably what will come to pass, what you are proposing steps over the vagrant in Gregg's doorway to procure breakfast.
There's just over a million people on zero hours contracts - some by choice and others because they're on the fringes of the labour force being teenagers, oldies or unskilled immigrants.
That's about 3% of those working - I doubt there's ever been many fewer on the margins of employment in some form or other, temp contracts or seasonal workers for example, if you look through history.
What we do currently have is demand such that someone with a useful skillset and a willingness to work can get a job and an opportunity to progress.
Something which did not always exist for many in the period after 1973, or for parts of the country well before that:
Not a Scottish lawyer, so not getting involved; but reading the opinion (does the word 'opine' ever arise non-ironically other than from Scottish lawyers?) suggests that the act itself is, with regard to convictions, reasonably harmless as long as Roddy Dunlop is your lawyer.
(But the greater substance of the criticism of this bad act is the 'chilling' effect on ordinary people who will be rendered doubtful in expressing views, and in the keeping of records by police of non-criminal activity in a world where no-one will trust what use will be made of them.)
I think we can rely on Wings Over Scotland and others to test all this out in court.
It won't survive the Fringe. Every comedian in the country will be desperate to be the first to get nicked.
Although the focus is understandably focused on s4 of the Act and the new offences of stirring up various hatreds I suspect that in practice the Act is much more likely to be cited in the context of s1 which is basically an aggravation of existing offences.
So, if someone's conduct amounts to a breach of the peace under s38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (S) Act 2010 it is quite common for this to include "aggravations" if the language used amounted to racial hatred, for example.
If the language includes aspects of a person's sexual orientation (eg a "poof") or chosen gender it will be deemed aggravated which means that the court is obliged to take that into account when fixing sentence. These types of aggravations can have important consequences as to the discretion and lack of it available to the procurator fiscal depute in court. A fiscal is not allowed, for example, to drop a charge with a racial aggravation as a part of any plea deal and I would expect the same to apply to aggravations under this Act.
Many of the points made in the header could be applied to recently added criminal offences in English Law, many with very long jail sentences. IE: Under the 'Serious crime act 2015'
"(1)A person (A) commits an offence if— (a)A repeatedly or continuously engages in behaviour towards another person (B) that is controlling or coercive... (c)the behaviour has a serious effect on B, and (d)A knows or ought to know that the behaviour will have a serious effect on B. ... (4)A’s behaviour has a “serious effect” on B if— (a)it causes B to fear, on at least two occasions, that violence will be used against B, or (b)it causes B serious alarm or distress which has a substantial adverse effect on B’s usual day-to-day activities."
Not to mention incitement to hatred. I wonder if there any figures for the extra workload dumped on the Met by these laws? I won't bother asking if they have diminished public trust & confidence in that fine body of public servants.
The offence of incitement to hatred occurs when someone acts in a way that is threatening and intended to stir up hatred. That could be in words, pictures, videos, music, and includes information posted on websites. Hate content may include:
messages calling for violence against a specific person or group web pages that show pictures, videos or descriptions of violence against anyone due to their perceived differences chat forums where people ask other people to commit hate crimes against a specific person or group'
Not a Scottish lawyer, so not getting involved; but reading the opinion (does the word 'opine' ever arise non-ironically other than from Scottish lawyers?) suggests that the act itself is, with regard to convictions, reasonably harmless as long as Roddy Dunlop is your lawyer.
(But the greater substance of the criticism of this bad act is the 'chilling' effect on ordinary people who will be rendered doubtful in expressing views, and in the keeping of records by police of non-criminal activity in a world where no-one will trust what use will be made of them.)
I think we can rely on Wings Over Scotland and others to test all this out in court.
Welcome to the world of consultancy. We opine every day.
Opining is important. It makes it clear that you are not telling a client what they should do. And won't end up in court when things go pear shaped for them.
Another reminder of one of the wisest things I was ever told: Opinions are free*, facts are expensive.
It explains in a few words the nature of modern journalism.
*Not literally free in the case of the opinions of lawyers of course.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
If the Labour government continues to offer crap policies like Blair did under Iraq, ID cards, HIPs etc. than it is only sensible for the Liberal Democrats to oppose it.
ID cards would be quite handy these days. And HIPs was only a bad idea because the Conservative Press opposed it on political grounds and Yvette panicked.
So the position in Scotland, beginning today, April Fool's Day, is as follows:
1. It's unlawful to say that all pregnant people are women. 2. It's unlawful to say that all people who have just given birth to babies are mothers. 3. The only major political party that opposes the law that has brought about 1 and 2 is the Conservative party.
How to bring down this law? There are two options:
A. Wait until an election and then vote Conservative. B. Do something else.
Personally I favour B. SO HERE IS WHAT TO DO:
draft a statement that is unlawful under 1 and 2, and get it signed by thousands of people as co-publishers.
See what happened with Michael Baumann's book "How it All Began" in West Germany, which the state banned but which then came out in a second edition signed by "intellectual luminaries" such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Heinrich Boll as "co-publishers". The state then caved.
The Opinion considers the Act in some detail. The principal author, Mr Dunlop KC, is the Dean of Faculty of the Scottish Bar*. He has not, to my knowledge, been an Advocate Depute responsible for marking controversial cases nor does he have, to my knowledge, much direct knowledge or experience of dealing with criminal proceedings. He is an acknowledged expert in regulatory and administrative law as well as human rights. His Junior in this matter has similar experience and lack of criminal experience.
I have 2 reservations about his opinion. Firstly, how the Act will be interpreted, at least as far as prosecution is concerned, will be determined by the policies and decisions of Crown Office. If the intention is that certain groups, specifically those advocating controversial positions on the transgender issue, be held accountable by this law I think that some of the Opinions as to what is thought to be an offence and what is not may not be agreed with.
Secondly, whilst he may well prove to be correct as to the view that a court or even a jury might take at the end of the day it is the threat of prosecution, successful or otherwise, that has the chilling effect on public discourse. I agree with @Cyclefree's observations on that.
*I am also a member of the Scottish bar and am currently a serving Advocate Depute but well below the pay grade of those responsible for policy.
I thought Dunlop was off to England because of the SNP's iniquitous tax regime? Great to hear that he's decided to stick around!
He's a tenant of Pump Court in London and does a fair amount of work there but he remains Dean of the Faculty at present. Quite a number of the Scottish bar have sought dual qualification in recent years with a view to having a bolt hole should the worst happen (or to take advantage of the generally higher rates of pay for counsel south of the border, take your pick).
I take it this is not the criminal bar because if the rates in England are better than the Scottish ones for criminal law you must be earning next to nothing...
No, I am talking about civil work but Roddy Dunlop KC is a civil lawyer. Scottish criminal lawyers, particularly those at the bar, are doing very well just now albeit the work is relentless.
Some of this comes to volume. A friend of mine who is dual qualified was asked to give an opinion on whether there was a good case against surveyors for negligence in a report done for a purchaser. This is something I used to do in Scotland from time to time. The difference was that my friend's English chambers had more than 70 of these cases that had been collated from various agents who were looking to source third party funding for potential litigation. Each had to be looked at from the point of view of their particular facts but the law and the relevant tests once set out once can be applied to each. The fact that England has 10x the population give rise to economies of scale or opportunities for profit that don't often exist north of the border.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Sounds like the old pals act to me.
What does Nick mean by this ? ...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
A country that continually lives beyond its means inevitably sees more and more of its assets bought by foreigners in exchange for current goods and services.
Those assets sold to foreigners can include businesses as well as government bonds, Mayfair mansions and football clubs.
I don't disagree and in a free market that's one of the consequences. I recall the Thatcher Government was enthusiastic about the trading aspects of the Single European Act and indeed free marketers should support the four freedoms.
The problem is economic liberalism bumps up against cultual protectionism - many would prefer to buy British from British owned companies though we all know if the quality comes from abroad, we'll buy the import every time.
That isn't the end of cultural protectionism - the free market in goods and services is one thing but the free market in people is something else. People have always moved to where the money is and it was an inevitable consequence of freedom of movement people from poorer parts of Europe would move to the richer parts. There's economic sense in that just as there is for richer people in the north of Europe to move to the sunnier climes of the south bringing their capital to invigorate the local economies.
As to "living beyond its means", again, I don't disagree but where do you start in terms of reducing the deficit and returning to a balanced budget? Some on the Conservative side actively supported borrowing at low interest rates (thougn that's kicking an ever bigger can down the road) but how do you bring the public finances back?
Do we cut spending, raise taxes or both? What do we cut - apparently health, welfare and defence are off limits (not sure why) and we can't raise taxes without howls of anguish? Is it time for Land Value Taxation or do we continue to tax consumption?
The rich and consumers will have to pay more tax. The poor and old will have to receive less. The workers will have to work longer and increase their productivity.
The proportions of pain between the various groups will be where the debate is but there will be many unhappy whatever the outcome.
As to Thatcher and the development of the single market that was a time when the UK ran a trade surplus, had net emigration and the single market was a much smaller group of countries with fewer economic differences between them.
How she would have viewed the larger, more varied and more chaotic current global economy I don't know.
There are other approaches you’ve not considered. We could grow the economy. For example, let’s try to remove frictions in trade. More free trade will be a boost.
Large multinationals have developed many ways of avoiding tax. Let’s target those, which will probably require multinational collaboration.
More free trade can also mean that production in this country is replaced by cheaper imports from countries which have lower worker earnings and fewer environmental regulations.
Taxing multinational business more comes under 'the rich and consumers will have to pay more tax' heading.
One of the mysteries of recent decades was the way British governments always supported Ireland's low corporation tax rates - possibly a wish to emulate it.
Anyway the rate of corporation tax has now been increased to 25% - a correct decision IMO.
Well your first paragraph sums up the last forty years of UK trade policy.
It's hard to see where genuine growth comes from when we have, and are still, closing primary and tertiary industries.
The promotion of new environmental technology programmes which use domestically procured resources are perhaps a way forward. Labour proposed a £28b programme, the Conservatives "sniggled" at it so Labour took their bat and ball home.
So yes tax rises and service cuts are probably the reality.
Investment is no more a magical cure to our problems than saying abracadabra is.
I'm happy to support investment which has a positive rate of return whoever makes that investment.
So, for example, I applaud Biden's industrial investments as I think they're a worthwhile risk.
But I would caution that an investment with a negative rate of return leaves you worse of.
Everyone on a betting website should be aware of that inconvenient fact.
And ensuring investment has a positive rate of return is no easy matter - especially when governments get involved.
So Starmer and Reeves can invest as much as they want but let them be publicly clear about the consequences before they start:
A positive rate of return and more money will be available to spend on other things.
A negative rate of return and the cuts will be deeper than they would have been.
Not a Scottish lawyer, so not getting involved; but reading the opinion (does the word 'opine' ever arise non-ironically other than from Scottish lawyers?) suggests that the act itself is, with regard to convictions, reasonably harmless as long as Roddy Dunlop is your lawyer.
(But the greater substance of the criticism of this bad act is the 'chilling' effect on ordinary people who will be rendered doubtful in expressing views, and in the keeping of records by police of non-criminal activity in a world where no-one will trust what use will be made of them.)
I think we can rely on Wings Over Scotland and others to test all this out in court.
The real damage caused by this law is not the risk of prosecution but the fact that it allows subjective, evidence free reporting which then gets put on the NCHI database and punishes people without their knowledge, without recourse to evidence, and without recourse to a court or the chance to defend oneself.
Truly Kafkaesque and a disgrace in a liberal democracy.
We are also expected to trust a police force which described itself last year as institutionally racist and misogynist to decide whether something may or may not be a crime based on 2 hours online training and guidance which has yet to be published, when we already know that their NCHI policy is unlawful.
Scotland's politicians voting for this should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are not fit for purpose and a menace to good governance.
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
That's the best one I've heard so far today.
The Tories aren't so stupid as to put Mogg in as leader. I doubt even Mogg himself is so stupid. However, there may be a few moneybags in the US who think huge country houses are what the real England is all about who might be trollable on this.
Anything to do with nutcase anti-women law in Scotland or heifers sprouting hairs of the right or wrong colour on the West Bank is likely to be true rather than an April Fool's joke.
Not a Scottish lawyer, so not getting involved; but reading the opinion (does the word 'opine' ever arise non-ironically other than from Scottish lawyers?) suggests that the act itself is, with regard to convictions, reasonably harmless as long as Roddy Dunlop is your lawyer.
(But the greater substance of the criticism of this bad act is the 'chilling' effect on ordinary people who will be rendered doubtful in expressing views, and in the keeping of records by police of non-criminal activity in a world where no-one will trust what use will be made of them.)
I think we can rely on Wings Over Scotland and others to test all this out in court.
Welcome to the world of consultancy. We opine every day.
Opining is important. It makes it clear that you are not telling a client what they should do. And won't end up in court when things go pear shaped for them.
Another reminder of one of the wisest things I was ever told: Opinions are free*, facts are expensive.
Not a Scottish lawyer, so not getting involved; but reading the opinion (does the word 'opine' ever arise non-ironically other than from Scottish lawyers?) suggests that the act itself is, with regard to convictions, reasonably harmless as long as Roddy Dunlop is your lawyer.
(But the greater substance of the criticism of this bad act is the 'chilling' effect on ordinary people who will be rendered doubtful in expressing views, and in the keeping of records by police of non-criminal activity in a world where no-one will trust what use will be made of them.)
I think we can rely on Wings Over Scotland and others to test all this out in court.
The real damage caused by this law is not the risk of prosecution but the fact that it allows subjective, evidence free reporting which then gets put on the NCHI database and punishes people without their knowledge, without recourse to evidence, and without recourse to a court or the chance to defend oneself.
Truly Kafkaesque and a disgrace in a liberal democracy.
We are also expected to trust a police force which described itself last year as institutionally racist and misogynist to decide whether something may or may not be a crime based on 2 hours online training and guidance which has yet to be published, when we already know that their NCHI policy is unlawful.
Scotland's politicians voting for this should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are not fit for purpose and a menace to good governance.
I'm dearly hoping that the SNP get hammered electorally over this.
Do you know the stance of Scottish Labour and Lib Dems?
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Sounds like the old pals act to me.
What does Nick mean by this ? ...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
That's either disingenuous, or nonsense.
Not sure why you think that? My point is that if Labour wins a majority mainly consisting of seats in the cities and their suburbs, there will be a shortage of people who have direct experience of the issues that worry people in small towns and villages (my constituency is one such, but there are many others which aren't really rural but are certainly not cities either). We obviously aren't going to win every seat but we do need to have a sufficient variety to give a range of input into spending decisions.
Two notes from R4 Today this morning, both indicative of trends.
The Scottish minister for hate crimes didn't want to talk about the criminal aspects of abuse etc towards JK Rowling.
The UN bloke in Gaza (BTW I am not unsympathetic and don't want his job) seemed remarkably well informed and full of opinions about the evils perpetrated by the IDF, but an absolute blank stone wall, both on facts and opinions, on the subject of Hamas's sub-optimal actions, and in particular whether it had interactions with Gaza hospital sites.
The impression that the UN and its agencies are not neutral actors is strong.
Also on the Today prog, a Labour bloke whingeing about under-5s nursery provision. Apparently it's all a crying shame, not least because Labour haven't a clue what to do either. But at least they've found a tame knight who seems to know what he's talking about and will advise them in due course.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
If the Labour government continues to offer crap policies like Blair did under Iraq, ID cards, HIPs etc. than it is only sensible for the Liberal Democrats to oppose it.
ID cards would be quite handy these days. And HIPs was only a bad idea because the Conservative Press opposed it on political grounds and Yvette panicked.
Iraq, fair point.
ID cards, like "paper" currency are not only unpopular, but obsolete. Even Estonia, which has a very advanced ID card system, is moving towards a fully digital ID, with the token being, for example, the SIM of a mobile phone. Smart ID already works and the ability to prove who you are online is going to become essential in a world drowning in the dross of "AI". Some Brits get it; unfortunately few of them are politicians.
The UK has an opportunity to jump a generation of technology and develop a fully digital ID system, without the need for a physical card.... however, as with so many things in British politics, our leaders will probably try to spend an enormous amount of effort, political capital, and above all money on the wrong thing (cf NHS systems, transport etc), change their minds twice and end up with a very sub optimal version of obsolete thinking.
(Changing your mind costs a fortune: just look at HS2, where it is now going to cost more to cancel than to build. Labour should say they will not permit the land on the route to be sold, which is what the Tories are now trying to do, in order to wreck any chance that it ever gets built.)
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Sounds like the old pals act to me.
What does Nick mean by this ? ...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
That's either disingenuous, or nonsense.
Not sure why you think that? My point is that if Labour wins a majority mainly consisting of seats in the cities and their suburbs, there will be a shortage of people who have direct experience of the issues that worry people in small towns and villages (my constituency is one such, but there are many others which aren't really rural but are certainly not cities either). We obviously aren't going to win every seat but we do need to have a sufficient variety to give a range of input into spending decisions.
I get what you are saying.
Indeed it is much the same as how gaining "Red Wall" seats changed the Conservative Party for a while, until the fall of Johnson and rise of Sunak killed off "Levelling Up".
A Labour government with significant numbers of new MPs from semi-rural constituencies of England is going to be a different parliamentary party to one confined to metropolitan University cities.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
If the Labour government continues to offer crap policies like Blair did under Iraq, ID cards, HIPs etc. than it is only sensible for the Liberal Democrats to oppose it.
ID cards would be quite handy these days. And HIPs was only a bad idea because the Conservative Press opposed it on political grounds and Yvette panicked.
Iraq, fair point.
ID cards, like "paper" currency are not only unpopular, but obsolete. Even Estonia, which has a very advanced ID card system, is moving towards a fully digital ID, with the token being, for example, the SIM of a mobile phone. Smart ID already works and the ability to prove who you are online is going to become essential in a world drowning in the dross of "AI". Some Brits get it; unfortunately few of them are politicians.
The UK has an opportunity to jump a generation of technology and develop a fully digital ID system, without the need for a physical card.... however, as with so many things in British politics, our leaders will probably try to spend an enormous amount of effort, political capital, and above all money on the wrong thing (cf NHS systems, transport etc), change their minds twice and end up with a very sub optimal version of obsolete thinking.
(Changing your mind costs a fortune: just look at HS2, where it is now going to cost more to cancel than to build. Labour should say they will not permit the land on the route to be sold, which is what the Tories are now trying to do, in order to wreck any chance that it ever gets built.)
What else will the token be allowed to be in Estonia other than a mobile phone SIM?
The drift in all "advanced" countries is towards making it de facto compulsory to have a smartphone.
And...China leads the way. No Chinese person in China has used either cash or card to buy anything for years.
Face recognition technology and software is also developing apace and one of the cutting-edge places is Gaza. How they take the photos in the first place is not altogether clear. Before October 2023 many Gaza residents worked on the other side of the wire, and the majority of residents are refugees from outside of Gaza, but I'm not sure that's a full explanation.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Sounds like the old pals act to me.
What does Nick mean by this ? ...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
That's either disingenuous, or nonsense.
Not sure why you think that? My point is that if Labour wins a majority mainly consisting of seats in the cities and their suburbs, there will be a shortage of people who have direct experience of the issues that worry people in small towns and villages (my constituency is one such, but there are many others which aren't really rural but are certainly not cities either). We obviously aren't going to win every seat but we do need to have a sufficient variety to give a range of input into spending decisions.
So you are then saying Labour will ignore MPs from other parties ?
It's a very strange argument to say that a government can't properly represent areas unless it has MPs there. You're effectively saying that is constituencies have poor judgment to vote for someone else, then they are beyond your ken.
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
A country that continually lives beyond its means inevitably sees more and more of its assets bought by foreigners in exchange for current goods and services.
Those assets sold to foreigners can include businesses as well as government bonds, Mayfair mansions and football clubs.
I don't disagree and in a free market that's one of the consequences. I recall the Thatcher Government was enthusiastic about the trading aspects of the Single European Act and indeed free marketers should support the four freedoms.
The problem is economic liberalism bumps up against cultual protectionism - many would prefer to buy British from British owned companies though we all know if the quality comes from abroad, we'll buy the import every time.
That isn't the end of cultural protectionism - the free market in goods and services is one thing but the free market in people is something else. People have always moved to where the money is and it was an inevitable consequence of freedom of movement people from poorer parts of Europe would move to the richer parts. There's economic sense in that just as there is for richer people in the north of Europe to move to the sunnier climes of the south bringing their capital to invigorate the local economies.
As to "living beyond its means", again, I don't disagree but where do you start in terms of reducing the deficit and returning to a balanced budget? Some on the Conservative side actively supported borrowing at low interest rates (thougn that's kicking an ever bigger can down the road) but how do you bring the public finances back?
Do we cut spending, raise taxes or both? What do we cut - apparently health, welfare and defence are off limits (not sure why) and we can't raise taxes without howls of anguish? Is it time for Land Value Taxation or do we continue to tax consumption?
The rich and consumers will have to pay more tax. The poor and old will have to receive less. The workers will have to work longer and increase their productivity.
The proportions of pain between the various groups will be where the debate is but there will be many unhappy whatever the outcome.
As to Thatcher and the development of the single market that was a time when the UK ran a trade surplus, had net emigration and the single market was a much smaller group of countries with fewer economic differences between them.
How she would have viewed the larger, more varied and more chaotic current global economy I don't know.
I normally baulk at your various theses. However the proclamations in your first paragraph are more than likely salient. I would add the caveat of how do "the poor and the (poor- my edit) old live on fresh air alone? The social contract between workers (and former workers) and society is broken. It was broken by your party over the last decade, either by accident or intent.
I'm not and have never been a member of a political party and have voted for multiple parties during my life.
Now as to those who receive the largest amounts of government payments and services - the old and the poor - they will have to do what anyone else does when their income isn't as high as they want that is adapt to their lesser means.
How much they will need to adapt depends on what 'proportion of pain' they have to accept.
Not to mention many oldies are among the affluent and as a group dominate the asset rich.
The government was predicted to spend £341bn on social protection, £245bn on health and £43bn on personal social services in the last year:
I'm not sure how that equates to the 'social contract is broken'.
As for workers we currently have full employment - something which for those whose formative years were after 1975 would never have been expected to happen.
And which, if those who predict the mass economic disruption of AI are correct, might be looked back on as a brief interlude between periods of high unemployment.
I don't dispute the financial reality.
The postwar social contract ensured universal health care and a basic state pension. We are now talking of means tested state pensions and formally rationed healthcare (something I am not opposed to provided it is reviewed sensibly).
You can quote statistical facts relating to full employment but you ignore zero hours etc. An awful lot of people (including working people) are in a desperate plight in our country and though your solution is probably what will come to pass, what you are proposing steps over the vagrant in Gregg's doorway to procure breakfast.
But, did it really deliver? By any measure, most people were worse off 30 years ago than today, and poverty in old age was a lot more common.
Not a Scottish lawyer, so not getting involved; but reading the opinion (does the word 'opine' ever arise non-ironically other than from Scottish lawyers?) suggests that the act itself is, with regard to convictions, reasonably harmless as long as Roddy Dunlop is your lawyer.
(But the greater substance of the criticism of this bad act is the 'chilling' effect on ordinary people who will be rendered doubtful in expressing views, and in the keeping of records by police of non-criminal activity in a world where no-one will trust what use will be made of them.)
I think we can rely on Wings Over Scotland and others to test all this out in court.
The real damage caused by this law is not the risk of prosecution but the fact that it allows subjective, evidence free reporting which then gets put on the NCHI database and punishes people without their knowledge, without recourse to evidence, and without recourse to a court or the chance to defend oneself.
Truly Kafkaesque and a disgrace in a liberal democracy.
We are also expected to trust a police force which described itself last year as institutionally racist and misogynist to decide whether something may or may not be a crime based on 2 hours online training and guidance which has yet to be published, when we already know that their NCHI policy is unlawful.
Scotland's politicians voting for this should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are not fit for purpose and a menace to good governance.
There are alleged to be incompatibilities with the current Hate Crime National Guidance and the Human Rights Act, specifically articles 6, 8 and 10, the Data Protection Act, s35 and the Equality Act s149 (the public duty on public authorities). I expect this to be tested shortly and this will have implications for the procedures set up under the Hate Crime Act.
So the position in Scotland, beginning today, April Fool's Day, is as follows:
1. It's unlawful to say that all pregnant people are women. 2. It's unlawful to say that all people who have just given birth to babies are mothers. 3. The only major political party that opposes the law that has brought about 1 and 2 is the Conservative party.
How to bring down this law? There are two options:
A. Wait until an election and then vote Conservative. B. Do something else.
Personally I favour B. SO HERE IS WHAT TO DO:
draft a statement that is unlawful under 1 and 2, and get it signed by thousands of people as co-publishers.
See what happened with Michael Baumann's book "How it All Began" in West Germany, which the state banned but which then came out in a second edition signed by "intellectual luminaries" such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Heinrich Boll as "co-publishers". The state then caved.
Not sure if this is an April fool or not, but just in case it isn't, the bit I have italicised above is simply false. Which is not to be taken as support for the act.
Not a Scottish lawyer, so not getting involved; but reading the opinion (does the word 'opine' ever arise non-ironically other than from Scottish lawyers?) suggests that the act itself is, with regard to convictions, reasonably harmless as long as Roddy Dunlop is your lawyer.
(But the greater substance of the criticism of this bad act is the 'chilling' effect on ordinary people who will be rendered doubtful in expressing views, and in the keeping of records by police of non-criminal activity in a world where no-one will trust what use will be made of them.)
I think we can rely on Wings Over Scotland and others to test all this out in court.
The real damage caused by this law is not the risk of prosecution but the fact that it allows subjective, evidence free reporting which then gets put on the NCHI database and punishes people without their knowledge, without recourse to evidence, and without recourse to a court or the chance to defend oneself.
Truly Kafkaesque and a disgrace in a liberal democracy.
We are also expected to trust a police force which described itself last year as institutionally racist and misogynist to decide whether something may or may not be a crime based on 2 hours online training and guidance which has yet to be published, when we already know that their NCHI policy is unlawful.
Scotland's politicians voting for this should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are not fit for purpose and a menace to good governance.
It's a really bad law. And it would still be a really bad law if it included women in the "protected characteristic" list.
This from the Guardian was interesting. What form of legislation was Kennedy recommending - would it be a better model ?
The group later recommended that the Scottish government introduce a misogyny act to crack down on street harassment and organised online hate. It was included in Yousaf’s programme for government last September but has yet to be published and there is no further information available about its timetabling..
So the position in Scotland, beginning today, April Fool's Day, is as follows:
1. It's unlawful to say that all pregnant people are women. 2. It's unlawful to say that all people who have just given birth to babies are mothers. 3. The only major political party that opposes the law that has brought about 1 and 2 is the Conservative party.
How to bring down this law? There are two options:
A. Wait until an election and then vote Conservative. B. Do something else.
Personally I favour B. SO HERE IS WHAT TO DO:
draft a statement that is unlawful under 1 and 2, and get it signed by thousands of people as co-publishers.
See what happened with Michael Baumann's book "How it All Began" in West Germany, which the state banned but which then came out in a second edition signed by "intellectual luminaries" such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Heinrich Boll as "co-publishers". The state then caved.
Not sure if this is an April fool or not, but just in case it isn't, the bit I have italicised above is simply false. Which is not to be taken as support for the act.
I thought it was true. Surely if a woman who says she's a man gets pregnant and has a baby and I call her a woman and a mother, I'm breaking the law because I'd be "misgendering" a "trans" person? Let's not be pedantic and note that I'm allowed to say what I like to myself in private. I mean if I say it in public.
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
I see labour abandoning its pledge to nationalise water companies.
Privatisation is not so much the issue than lax regulation and allowing these companies to be acquired and effectively taken private.
Again, I don't disagree. The likes of OFCOM and OFWHAT really are toothless but who put the regulatory regime in place and on what basis?
Regulation is a dirty word (apposite in terms of Thames Water however). For example, I'm a big supporter of an active and properly regulated public and private property rental market. We need a strong rental sector as people's circumstances vary and not everyone wants or can afford to buy outright. Renting is a step forward for many but the private rental sector is a disgrace with rapacious landlords encouraging a new generation of slums on top of which the monstrosity of HMOs where in London 12-20 people live in a 3-bedroom semi which is effectively dormitory accommodation for construction workers from all over the world.
Yes, it's not slavery but it's not a dignified or civilised way for people to live in the 21st century.
The problem is not so much regulation as a culture of the following
1) A rule book as thick as a telephone directory is awesome. A rule book as thick as two telephone directories is twice as awesome 2) no interest in the contents of said tomes 3) no one actually reads them 4) little or no effective enforcement.
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
A country that continually lives beyond its means inevitably sees more and more of its assets bought by foreigners in exchange for current goods and services.
Those assets sold to foreigners can include businesses as well as government bonds, Mayfair mansions and football clubs.
I don't disagree and in a free market that's one of the consequences. I recall the Thatcher Government was enthusiastic about the trading aspects of the Single European Act and indeed free marketers should support the four freedoms.
The problem is economic liberalism bumps up against cultual protectionism - many would prefer to buy British from British owned companies though we all know if the quality comes from abroad, we'll buy the import every time.
That isn't the end of cultural protectionism - the free market in goods and services is one thing but the free market in people is something else. People have always moved to where the money is and it was an inevitable consequence of freedom of movement people from poorer parts of Europe would move to the richer parts. There's economic sense in that just as there is for richer people in the north of Europe to move to the sunnier climes of the south bringing their capital to invigorate the local economies.
As to "living beyond its means", again, I don't disagree but where do you start in terms of reducing the deficit and returning to a balanced budget? Some on the Conservative side actively supported borrowing at low interest rates (thougn that's kicking an ever bigger can down the road) but how do you bring the public finances back?
Do we cut spending, raise taxes or both? What do we cut - apparently health, welfare and defence are off limits (not sure why) and we can't raise taxes without howls of anguish? Is it time for Land Value Taxation or do we continue to tax consumption?
The rich and consumers will have to pay more tax. The poor and old will have to receive less. The workers will have to work longer and increase their productivity.
The proportions of pain between the various groups will be where the debate is but there will be many unhappy whatever the outcome.
As to Thatcher and the development of the single market that was a time when the UK ran a trade surplus, had net emigration and the single market was a much smaller group of countries with fewer economic differences between them.
How she would have viewed the larger, more varied and more chaotic current global economy I don't know.
I normally baulk at your various theses. However the proclamations in your first paragraph are more than likely salient. I would add the caveat of how do "the poor and the (poor- my edit) old live on fresh air alone? The social contract between workers (and former workers) and society is broken. It was broken by your party over the last decade, either by accident or intent.
I'm not and have never been a member of a political party and have voted for multiple parties during my life.
Now as to those who receive the largest amounts of government payments and services - the old and the poor - they will have to do what anyone else does when their income isn't as high as they want that is adapt to their lesser means.
How much they will need to adapt depends on what 'proportion of pain' they have to accept.
Not to mention many oldies are among the affluent and as a group dominate the asset rich.
The government was predicted to spend £341bn on social protection, £245bn on health and £43bn on personal social services in the last year:
I'm not sure how that equates to the 'social contract is broken'.
As for workers we currently have full employment - something which for those whose formative years were after 1975 would never have been expected to happen.
And which, if those who predict the mass economic disruption of AI are correct, might be looked back on as a brief interlude between periods of high unemployment.
I don't dispute the financial reality.
The postwar social contract ensured universal health care and a basic state pension. We are now talking of means tested state pensions and formally rationed healthcare (something I am not opposed to provided it is reviewed sensibly).
You can quote statistical facts relating to full employment but you ignore zero hours etc. An awful lot of people (including working people) are in a desperate plight in our country and though it is probably what will come to pass, what you are proposing steps over the vagrant in Gregg's doorway to procure breakfast.
There's just over a million people on zero hours contracts - some by choice and others because they're on the fringes of the labour force being teenagers, oldies or unskilled immigrants.
That's about 3% of those working - I doubt there's ever been many fewer on the margins of employment in some form or other, temp contracts or seasonal workers for example, if you look through history.
What we do currently have is demand such that someone with a useful skillset and a willingness to work can get a job and an opportunity to progress.
Something which did not always exist for many in the period after 1973, or for parts of the country well before that:
Yes and no. There are a lot of people who cannot get the "good" jobs they want, even in tech.
Zero hours contracts are trickier because a lot are exploitative, but others welcomed by different people and I do not think politicians of either main party have noticed. Take Uber or Deliveroo. Some do it as a full-time job and want all the usual protections. Others treat them as gig employment to which they turn up whenever, wherever and for how long they feel like. It will take a bit of nuance to square the circle.
Not a Scottish lawyer, so not getting involved; but reading the opinion (does the word 'opine' ever arise non-ironically other than from Scottish lawyers?) suggests that the act itself is, with regard to convictions, reasonably harmless as long as Roddy Dunlop is your lawyer.
(But the greater substance of the criticism of this bad act is the 'chilling' effect on ordinary people who will be rendered doubtful in expressing views, and in the keeping of records by police of non-criminal activity in a world where no-one will trust what use will be made of them.)
I think we can rely on Wings Over Scotland and others to test all this out in court.
The real damage caused by this law is not the risk of prosecution but the fact that it allows subjective, evidence free reporting which then gets put on the NCHI database and punishes people without their knowledge, without recourse to evidence, and without recourse to a court or the chance to defend oneself.
Truly Kafkaesque and a disgrace in a liberal democracy.
We are also expected to trust a police force which described itself last year as institutionally racist and misogynist to decide whether something may or may not be a crime based on 2 hours online training and guidance which has yet to be published, when we already know that their NCHI policy is unlawful.
Scotland's politicians voting for this should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are not fit for purpose and a menace to good governance.
I'm dearly hoping that the SNP get hammered electorally over this.
Do you know the stance of Scottish Labour and Lib Dems?
they fully support it , they are as big arseholes as SNP
Two notes from R4 Today this morning, both indicative of trends.
The Scottish minister for hate crimes didn't want to talk about the criminal aspects of abuse etc towards JK Rowling.
The UN bloke in Gaza (BTW I am not unsympathetic and don't want his job) seemed remarkably well informed and full of opinions about the evils perpetrated by the IDF, but an absolute blank stone wall, both on facts and opinions, on the subject of Hamas's sub-optimal actions, and in particular whether it had interactions with Gaza hospital sites.
The impression that the UN and its agencies are not neutral actors is strong.
What are the criminal aspects of abuse etc towards JK Rowling? In any case she certainly seems to think there are limits to free speech. Luckily for her she's rich enough to wield the big stick of the law within previous legal structures.
Belated Easter greetings to all and another day which has dawned fine in my part of the world but whether it will remain as pleasant is open to question.
As usual, I'm about 16 threads behind the curve so a quick catch up - anyone who thinks MRP seat projections are a sound basis for political betting investments probably also thinks a morning dip in the Thames a nice healthy way to start the day.
At the moment, credibility is staring down reality. The polling figures are there and consistent and yet no one seems quite to believe or trust them. I'm all for healthy scepticism but poll after poll suggests Labour are well ahead (15-20 points) and the combined Lab/LD/Green number of 58-60 sits in front of the Con/Ref number of 35-37.
What of the Reform vote? As @Sean_Fear pointed out, and according to R&W, roughly two thirds of that share is 2019 Conservative voters with the rest coming from ex-Brexit party supporters and those who didn't vote last time.
Assuming Reform are on 12%, IF all the former Conservatives returned to the fold, you'd see Reform back to 4% and the Conservatives at 31-33% (in other words more akin to the Conservative-Referendum split in 1997).
However, all the evidence shows only one third of the Reform vote would go back to the Conservatives in the event of there being no Reform candidate in their constituency (as far as I am aware, Tice intends to run a full slate of candidates) so that would leave Reform on 8% and the Conservatives in the high twenties.
Roughly a sixth of the Reform vote say they would vote Labour absent a Reform candidate with half staying at home so this notion a wave of ex-Reform voters will come over the hill to save the Tories doesn't stand up to evidence at this time. Indeed, I'd argue the leadership of Reform (Tice, Farage) are essentially small state tax cutting Thatcherites yet the Reform voters are more in the Boris Johnson mould of wanting to see plenty of public money in WWC areas. That will probably be what does for Reform after the election when I suspect some of the leadership will move back over to a Badenoch or Braverman-led opposition.
I can’t see the Reform vote showing up anywhere in actual elections. Even with a near full slate of candidates, I don’t think they’ll outpoll the Referendum Party.
Reform did okay in the by elections at Wellingborough and Kingswood and will fulfil the NOTA option in a number of seats where the LDs and Greens are absent.
So the position in Scotland, beginning today, April Fool's Day, is as follows:
1. It's unlawful to say that all pregnant people are women. 2. It's unlawful to say that all people who have just given birth to babies are mothers. 3. The only major political party that opposes the law that has brought about 1 and 2 is the Conservative party.
How to bring down this law? There are two options:
A. Wait until an election and then vote Conservative. B. Do something else.
Personally I favour B. SO HERE IS WHAT TO DO:
draft a statement that is unlawful under 1 and 2, and get it signed by thousands of people as co-publishers.
See what happened with Michael Baumann's book "How it All Began" in West Germany, which the state banned but which then came out in a second edition signed by "intellectual luminaries" such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Heinrich Boll as "co-publishers". The state then caved.
Not sure if this is an April fool or not, but just in case it isn't, the bit I have italicised above is simply false. Which is not to be taken as support for the act.
I thought it was true. Surely if a woman who says she's a man gets pregnant and has a baby and I call her a woman and a mother, I'm breaking the law because I'd be "misgendering" a "trans" person? Let's not be pedantic and note that I'm allowed to say what I like to myself in private. I mean if I say it in public.
'However, writing in the Herald, Adam Tomkins – the John Millar Professor of Public Law at the University of Glasgow and a former Tory MSP who served as convener of the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee when the Hate Crime Bill was enacted – called out “propagandists on both sides [who] want to turn up the heat”.
He wrote: “The act specifies that ‘discussion or criticism’ of matters relating to sexual orientation, transgender identity, age or disability, is not to be taken as threatening or abusive.
“For example, asserting that sex is a biological fact or that it is not changed just by virtue of the gender by which someone chooses to identify is not and never can be a hate crime under this legislation.
“As such, the new law is going to disappoint those transgender activists who think all acts of misgendering are instances of hateful transphobia, just as it is going to disappoint those culture warriors whose nightmarish vision is that the new law poses the greatest threat to free speech since the abolition of the Licensing Act.” '
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Sounds like the old pals act to me.
What does Nick mean by this ? ...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
That's either disingenuous, or nonsense.
Not sure why you think that? My point is that if Labour wins a majority mainly consisting of seats in the cities and their suburbs, there will be a shortage of people who have direct experience of the issues that worry people in small towns and villages (my constituency is one such, but there are many others which aren't really rural but are certainly not cities either). We obviously aren't going to win every seat but we do need to have a sufficient variety to give a range of input into spending decisions.
So you are then saying Labour will ignore MPs from other parties ?
It's a very strange argument to say that a government can't properly represent areas unless it has MPs there. You're effectively saying that is constituencies have poor judgment to vote for someone else, then they are beyond your ken.
That's weird.
Much better would be STV in multimember constituencies, then both Labour voters in Didcot are very likely to have an MP of their political persuasion to go too, Conservatives in Bootle, Reform in Brum and LibDems in Leics. And none of us need to vote tactically again, simply for the party we want.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
If the Labour government continues to offer crap policies like Blair did under Iraq, ID cards, HIPs etc. than it is only sensible for the Liberal Democrats to oppose it.
ID cards would be quite handy these days. And HIPs was only a bad idea because the Conservative Press opposed it on political grounds and Yvette panicked.
Iraq, fair point.
Never mind HIPs. What I would like to see is advertisements selling houses/flats be compelled to show the "square footage" like ads for offices do.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
The aim then to become a truly national party with 450 seats as the minimum.
As we know, big majorities often cause big problems in terms of the width of the tent and internal discipline as the opportunities for Ministerial advancement become limited.
The old maxim is of course true - the Conservatives are the opposition, the Liberal Democrats are the enemy.
I think were by electoral chance Davey to become LOTO it would be much harder for Prime Minister Starmer as pointing to the opposition front bench and blaming them for everything wouldn't cut much ice. Better to have the familiar Conservatives opposite, perhaps?
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
I see labour abandoning its pledge to nationalise water companies.
Privatisation is not so much the issue than lax regulation and allowing these companies to be acquired and effectively taken private.
Again, I don't disagree. The likes of OFCOM and OFWHAT really are toothless but who put the regulatory regime in place and on what basis?
Regulation is a dirty word (apposite in terms of Thames Water however). For example, I'm a big supporter of an active and properly regulated public and private property rental market. We need a strong rental sector as people's circumstances vary and not everyone wants or can afford to buy outright. Renting is a step forward for many but the private rental sector is a disgrace with rapacious landlords encouraging a new generation of slums on top of which the monstrosity of HMOs where in London 12-20 people live in a 3-bedroom semi which is effectively dormitory accommodation for construction workers from all over the world.
Yes, it's not slavery but it's not a dignified or civilised way for people to live in the 21st century.
The problem is not so much regulation as a culture of the following
1) A rule book as thick as a telephone directory is awesome. A rule book as thick as two telephone directories is twice as awesome 2) no interest in the contents of said tomes 3) no one actually reads them 4) little or no effective enforcement.
The result is expensive and useless,
At company X, we had a term for documents that were written, and never to be read:
WORN.
Write Once, Read Never.
(Taken from types of storage devices, e.g. Write Once Read Many)
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Sounds like the old pals act to me.
What does Nick mean by this ? ...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
That's either disingenuous, or nonsense.
Not sure why you think that? My point is that if Labour wins a majority mainly consisting of seats in the cities and their suburbs, there will be a shortage of people who have direct experience of the issues that worry people in small towns and villages (my constituency is one such, but there are many others which aren't really rural but are certainly not cities either). We obviously aren't going to win every seat but we do need to have a sufficient variety to give a range of input into spending decisions.
So you are then saying Labour will ignore MPs from other parties ?
It's a very strange argument to say that a government can't properly represent areas unless it has MPs there. You're effectively saying that is constituencies have poor judgment to vote for someone else, then they are beyond your ken.
That's weird.
Much better would be STV in multimember constituencies, then both Labour voters in Didcot are very likely to have an MP of their political persuasion to go too, Conservatives in Bootle, Reform in Brum and LibDems in Leics. And none of us need to vote tactically again, simply for the party we want.
Well, yes. FPTP encourages the tendentious argument - even from well meaning sorts like Nick - that less than half of the vote entitles something approaching a one party state, and that this is desirable.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
The aim then to become a truly national party with 450 seats as the minimum.
As we know, big majorities often cause big problems in terms of the width of the tent and internal discipline as the opportunities for Ministerial advancement become limited.
The old maxim is of course true - the Conservatives are the opposition, the Liberal Democrats are the enemy.
I think were by electoral chance Davey to become LOTO it would be much harder for Prime Minister Starmer as pointing to the opposition front bench and blaming them for everything wouldn't cut much ice. Better to have the familiar Conservatives opposite, perhaps?
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Sounds like the old pals act to me.
What does Nick mean by this ? ...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
That's either disingenuous, or nonsense.
Not sure why you think that? My point is that if Labour wins a majority mainly consisting of seats in the cities and their suburbs, there will be a shortage of people who have direct experience of the issues that worry people in small towns and villages (my constituency is one such, but there are many others which aren't really rural but are certainly not cities either). We obviously aren't going to win every seat but we do need to have a sufficient variety to give a range of input into spending decisions.
So you are then saying Labour will ignore MPs from other parties ?
It's a very strange argument to say that a government can't properly represent areas unless it has MPs there. You're effectively saying that is constituencies have poor judgment to vote for someone else, then they are beyond your ken.
That's weird.
No, but 13 years in Parliament does make me realise the dynamics. Opposition MPs nearly always spin their pitch in a hostile way - "Why is this useless Government failing to do X, which is so important to my constituents?" Government MPs have easy access to Ministers in the division lobbies and can exert pressure more effectively - "You did want my support on Y, didn't you? So when are you doing something about X?"
Also, there is genuine ignorance. As an MP I knew literally nothing about conditions on oil rigs, for instance, so I never raised the issue. It's useful to have a range of experience in your Parliamentary party. I'm still puzzled why you think that's a controversial/weird/disingenuous/nonsense idea.
Two notes from R4 Today this morning, both indicative of trends.
The Scottish minister for hate crimes didn't want to talk about the criminal aspects of abuse etc towards JK Rowling.
The UN bloke in Gaza (BTW I am not unsympathetic and don't want his job) seemed remarkably well informed and full of opinions about the evils perpetrated by the IDF, but an absolute blank stone wall, both on facts and opinions, on the subject of Hamas's sub-optimal actions, and in particular whether it had interactions with Gaza hospital sites.
The impression that the UN and its agencies are not neutral actors is strong.
UN is full of crooks and wrong un's, it is a joke and only for grifters.
The UN won't criticise Hamas because if they did it would put the lives of their own workers in Gaza at risk. It might be better if the media spelled this out rather than allowing a biased picture of wrongdoing to emerge.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Sounds like the old pals act to me.
What does Nick mean by this ? ...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
That's either disingenuous, or nonsense.
Not sure why you think that? My point is that if Labour wins a majority mainly consisting of seats in the cities and their suburbs, there will be a shortage of people who have direct experience of the issues that worry people in small towns and villages (my constituency is one such, but there are many others which aren't really rural but are certainly not cities either). We obviously aren't going to win every seat but we do need to have a sufficient variety to give a range of input into spending decisions.
So you are then saying Labour will ignore MPs from other parties ?
It's a very strange argument to say that a government can't properly represent areas unless it has MPs there. You're effectively saying that is constituencies have poor judgment to vote for someone else, then they are beyond your ken.
That's weird.
Much better would be STV in multimember constituencies, then both Labour voters in Didcot are very likely to have an MP of their political persuasion to go too, Conservatives in Bootle, Reform in Brum and LibDems in Leics. And none of us need to vote tactically again, simply for the party we want.
Well, yes. FPTP encourages the tendentious argument - even from well meaning sorts like Nick - that less than half of the vote entitles something approaching a one party state, and that this is desirable.
It isn't.
Clearly a hugely lopsided result would give the proponents of electoral reform some real ammunition. If the Conservatives end up second in votes and third in seats or Reform ends up third in votes and with zero or one seat the illogic of the current system will be laid bare.
Those who support FPTP continue to witter on about the constituency link - well perhaps but that's no excuse for such obvious inequity.
The same applies in local elections - I've long pointed out the situation in Newham, Richmond and no doubt other places where FPTP produces huge majorities on minority vote shares.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
If the Labour government continues to offer crap policies like Blair did under Iraq, ID cards, HIPs etc. than it is only sensible for the Liberal Democrats to oppose it.
ID cards would be quite handy these days. And HIPs was only a bad idea because the Conservative Press opposed it on political grounds and Yvette panicked.
Iraq, fair point.
Never mind HIPs. What I would like to see is advertisements selling houses/flats be compelled to show the "square footage" like ads for offices do.
For the 2,455,666th time
The problem with the ID card law scheme wasn’t the ID cards. It was the insane attempt to link the cards to every single database possessed by government *and* private data (such as bank details) *and* make it accessible with completely inadequate controls. Including a plan for your biometric data, unencrypted.
It was, by the way, completely incompatible with modern EU legislation on data privacy and protection.
Oh, and just for a topping, to make things easier, the initial cards would be issued by mashing together data from the NHS, DVLA and Passport office.
Since we know that all three data sets are full of duplicates and inappropriately issued numbers, the ID cards would have not been an improvement there.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Sounds like the old pals act to me.
What does Nick mean by this ? ...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
That's either disingenuous, or nonsense.
Not sure why you think that? My point is that if Labour wins a majority mainly consisting of seats in the cities and their suburbs, there will be a shortage of people who have direct experience of the issues that worry people in small towns and villages (my constituency is one such, but there are many others which aren't really rural but are certainly not cities either). We obviously aren't going to win every seat but we do need to have a sufficient variety to give a range of input into spending decisions.
I get what you are saying.
Indeed it is much the same as how gaining "Red Wall" seats changed the Conservative Party for a while, until the fall of Johnson and rise of Sunak killed off "Levelling Up".
A Labour government with significant numbers of new MPs from semi-rural constituencies of England is going to be a different parliamentary party to one confined to metropolitan University cities.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Ironically, with my background as a past North London city dweller, I might not like the difference personally, but I do recognise that it'd be healthy.
To change the mood a little (I've been posing down the cafe - well, I haven't but everyone seems to be putting in nods to song lyrics these days so why shouldn't I?)
Anecdotal observation - I've had three friends in my social circle who have all inherited property and money and not from parents but from brothers, sisters and other relatives who don't have children.
With more people not having children to whom an inheritance can be passed, other relatives are the beneficiaries and to receive a cash or property boost in your 50s and 60s can sometimes obviate the need to continue working. Debt can be cleared, mortgages paid off and there's enough to live on before a pension needs to be taken.
The consequence of demographic change is the ability of older middle aged people to walk away from work if they have no children and are the beneficiaries of siblings who are also childless.
Whether this can or should inform the IHT debate I'm not sure.
Two notes from R4 Today this morning, both indicative of trends.
The Scottish minister for hate crimes didn't want to talk about the criminal aspects of abuse etc towards JK Rowling.
The UN bloke in Gaza (BTW I am not unsympathetic and don't want his job) seemed remarkably well informed and full of opinions about the evils perpetrated by the IDF, but an absolute blank stone wall, both on facts and opinions, on the subject of Hamas's sub-optimal actions, and in particular whether it had interactions with Gaza hospital sites.
The impression that the UN and its agencies are not neutral actors is strong.
UN is full of crooks and wrong un's, it is a joke and only for grifters.
The UN won't criticise Hamas because if they did it would put the lives of their own workers in Gaza at risk. It might be better if the media spelled this out rather than allowing a biased picture of wrongdoing to emerge.
If the media spelt out the situation, then this would put the lives of those working for the media organisations in danger. Quite a few employ local stringers. Which means people who are Gazans and live there.
Running a campaign of “We can’t saying certain things because a Hamas minder is just off camera” - what do you think would happen when the camera gets switched off?
Belated Easter greetings to all and another day which has dawned fine in my part of the world but whether it will remain as pleasant is open to question.
As usual, I'm about 16 threads behind the curve so a quick catch up - anyone who thinks MRP seat projections are a sound basis for political betting investments probably also thinks a morning dip in the Thames a nice healthy way to start the day.
At the moment, credibility is staring down reality. The polling figures are there and consistent and yet no one seems quite to believe or trust them. I'm all for healthy scepticism but poll after poll suggests Labour are well ahead (15-20 points) and the combined Lab/LD/Green number of 58-60 sits in front of the Con/Ref number of 35-37.
What of the Reform vote? As @Sean_Fear pointed out, and according to R&W, roughly two thirds of that share is 2019 Conservative voters with the rest coming from ex-Brexit party supporters and those who didn't vote last time.
Assuming Reform are on 12%, IF all the former Conservatives returned to the fold, you'd see Reform back to 4% and the Conservatives at 31-33% (in other words more akin to the Conservative-Referendum split in 1997).
However, all the evidence shows only one third of the Reform vote would go back to the Conservatives in the event of there being no Reform candidate in their constituency (as far as I am aware, Tice intends to run a full slate of candidates) so that would leave Reform on 8% and the Conservatives in the high twenties.
Roughly a sixth of the Reform vote say they would vote Labour absent a Reform candidate with half staying at home so this notion a wave of ex-Reform voters will come over the hill to save the Tories doesn't stand up to evidence at this time. Indeed, I'd argue the leadership of Reform (Tice, Farage) are essentially small state tax cutting Thatcherites yet the Reform voters are more in the Boris Johnson mould of wanting to see plenty of public money in WWC areas. That will probably be what does for Reform after the election when I suspect some of the leadership will move back over to a Badenoch or Braverman-led opposition.
I can’t see the Reform vote showing up anywhere in actual elections. Even with a near full slate of candidates, I don’t think they’ll outpoll the Referendum Party.
Reform did okay in the by elections at Wellingborough and Kingswood and will fulfil the NOTA option in a number of seats where the LDs and Greens are absent.
2-3,000 votes is pisspoor, compared to what UKIP achieved, with similar poll ratings.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Two initial thoughts come to mind with the Labour bar charts for Didcot:
a) As has been discussed here many of the projections from this poll are clearly nonsense eg Guildford, Wokingham, etc.
b) If people believe that bar charts then it will encourage soft Tories to vote LD to keep Labour out if they believe the chart that Labour are in the lead and the Tories 3rd.
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
A country that continually lives beyond its means inevitably sees more and more of its assets bought by foreigners in exchange for current goods and services.
Those assets sold to foreigners can include businesses as well as government bonds, Mayfair mansions and football clubs.
I don't disagree and in a free market that's one of the consequences. I recall the Thatcher Government was enthusiastic about the trading aspects of the Single European Act and indeed free marketers should support the four freedoms.
The problem is economic liberalism bumps up against cultual protectionism - many would prefer to buy British from British owned companies though we all know if the quality comes from abroad, we'll buy the import every time.
That isn't the end of cultural protectionism - the free market in goods and services is one thing but the free market in people is something else. People have always moved to where the money is and it was an inevitable consequence of freedom of movement people from poorer parts of Europe would move to the richer parts. There's economic sense in that just as there is for richer people in the north of Europe to move to the sunnier climes of the south bringing their capital to invigorate the local economies.
As to "living beyond its means", again, I don't disagree but where do you start in terms of reducing the deficit and returning to a balanced budget? Some on the Conservative side actively supported borrowing at low interest rates (thougn that's kicking an ever bigger can down the road) but how do you bring the public finances back?
Do we cut spending, raise taxes or both? What do we cut - apparently health, welfare and defence are off limits (not sure why) and we can't raise taxes without howls of anguish? Is it time for Land Value Taxation or do we continue to tax consumption?
The rich and consumers will have to pay more tax. The poor and old will have to receive less. The workers will have to work longer and increase their productivity.
The proportions of pain between the various groups will be where the debate is but there will be many unhappy whatever the outcome.
As to Thatcher and the development of the single market that was a time when the UK ran a trade surplus, had net emigration and the single market was a much smaller group of countries with fewer economic differences between them.
How she would have viewed the larger, more varied and more chaotic current global economy I don't know.
I normally baulk at your various theses. However the proclamations in your first paragraph are more than likely salient. I would add the caveat of how do "the poor and the (poor- my edit) old live on fresh air alone? The social contract between workers (and former workers) and society is broken. It was broken by your party over the last decade, either by accident or intent.
I'm not and have never been a member of a political party and have voted for multiple parties during my life.
Now as to those who receive the largest amounts of government payments and services - the old and the poor - they will have to do what anyone else does when their income isn't as high as they want that is adapt to their lesser means.
How much they will need to adapt depends on what 'proportion of pain' they have to accept.
Not to mention many oldies are among the affluent and as a group dominate the asset rich.
The government was predicted to spend £341bn on social protection, £245bn on health and £43bn on personal social services in the last year:
I'm not sure how that equates to the 'social contract is broken'.
As for workers we currently have full employment - something which for those whose formative years were after 1975 would never have been expected to happen.
And which, if those who predict the mass economic disruption of AI are correct, might be looked back on as a brief interlude between periods of high unemployment.
I don't dispute the financial reality.
The postwar social contract ensured universal health care and a basic state pension. We are now talking of means tested state pensions and formally rationed healthcare (something I am not opposed to provided it is reviewed sensibly).
You can quote statistical facts relating to full employment but you ignore zero hours etc. An awful lot of people (including working people) are in a desperate plight in our country and though it is probably what will come to pass, what you are proposing steps over the vagrant in Gregg's doorway to procure breakfast.
There's just over a million people on zero hours contracts - some by choice and others because they're on the fringes of the labour force being teenagers, oldies or unskilled immigrants.
That's about 3% of those working - I doubt there's ever been many fewer on the margins of employment in some form or other, temp contracts or seasonal workers for example, if you look through history.
What we do currently have is demand such that someone with a useful skillset and a willingness to work can get a job and an opportunity to progress.
Something which did not always exist for many in the period after 1973, or for parts of the country well before that:
Yes and no. There are a lot of people who cannot get the "good" jobs they want, even in tech.
Zero hours contracts are trickier because a lot are exploitative, but others welcomed by different people and I do not think politicians of either main party have noticed. Take Uber or Deliveroo. Some do it as a full-time job and want all the usual protections. Others treat them as gig employment to which they turn up whenever, wherever and for how long they feel like. It will take a bit of nuance to square the circle.
It always has been and always will be the case that not everyone gets the job they want at the pay they want.
But when we're talking about the quality of jobs instead of the quantity then the overall situation has improved over what we had become accustomed to.
Now are there cases where there is a mismatch between the skills required for the better jobs available and the skills of the unhappy workers ?
Certainly. And that is something governments should help in providing opportunities for workers to improve their skillsets. But its also something that individual people need to achieve themselves rather than expecting governments to micromanage (which they would do badly in any case).
As an example I favour training to be tax deductible (up to a certain limit) for an individual as it already is for businesses.
"HAPPY EASTER TO ALL, INCLUDING CROOKED AND CORRUPT PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES THAT ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024, AND PUT ME IN PRISON, INCLUDING THOSE MANY PEOPLE THAT I COMPLETELY & TOTALLY DESPISE BECAUSE THEY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA, A NOW FAILING NATION..."
So the position in Scotland, beginning today, April Fool's Day, is as follows:
1. It's unlawful to say that all pregnant people are women. 2. It's unlawful to say that all people who have just given birth to babies are mothers. 3. The only major political party that opposes the law that has brought about 1 and 2 is the Conservative party.
How to bring down this law? There are two options:
A. Wait until an election and then vote Conservative. B. Do something else.
Personally I favour B. SO HERE IS WHAT TO DO:
draft a statement that is unlawful under 1 and 2, and get it signed by thousands of people as co-publishers.
See what happened with Michael Baumann's book "How it All Began" in West Germany, which the state banned but which then came out in a second edition signed by "intellectual luminaries" such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Heinrich Boll as "co-publishers". The state then caved.
Not sure if this is an April fool or not, but just in case it isn't, the bit I have italicised above is simply false. Which is not to be taken as support for the act.
I thought it was true. Surely if a woman who says she's a man gets pregnant and has a baby and I call her a woman and a mother, I'm breaking the law because I'd be "misgendering" a "trans" person? Let's not be pedantic and note that I'm allowed to say what I like to myself in private. I mean if I say it in public.
You would have to show how it comes within the terms of the act, including the reasonableness test, intent, and hatred. The (terrible) act does not criminalise opinion as such.
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
I see labour abandoning its pledge to nationalise water companies.
Privatisation is not so much the issue than lax regulation and allowing these companies to be acquired and effectively taken private.
Again, I don't disagree. The likes of OFCOM and OFWHAT really are toothless but who put the regulatory regime in place and on what basis?
Regulation is a dirty word (apposite in terms of Thames Water however). For example, I'm a big supporter of an active and properly regulated public and private property rental market. We need a strong rental sector as people's circumstances vary and not everyone wants or can afford to buy outright. Renting is a step forward for many but the private rental sector is a disgrace with rapacious landlords encouraging a new generation of slums on top of which the monstrosity of HMOs where in London 12-20 people live in a 3-bedroom semi which is effectively dormitory accommodation for construction workers from all over the world.
Yes, it's not slavery but it's not a dignified or civilised way for people to live in the 21st century.
The problem is not so much regulation as a culture of the following
1) A rule book as thick as a telephone directory is awesome. A rule book as thick as two telephone directories is twice as awesome 2) no interest in the contents of said tomes 3) no one actually reads them 4) little or no effective enforcement.
The result is expensive and useless,
At company X, we had a term for documents that were written, and never to be read:
WORN.
Write Once, Read Never.
(Taken from types of storage devices, e.g. Write Once Read Many)
So the position in Scotland, beginning today, April Fool's Day, is as follows:
1. It's unlawful to say that all pregnant people are women. 2. It's unlawful to say that all people who have just given birth to babies are mothers. 3. The only major political party that opposes the law that has brought about 1 and 2 is the Conservative party.
How to bring down this law? There are two options:
A. Wait until an election and then vote Conservative. B. Do something else.
Personally I favour B. SO HERE IS WHAT TO DO:
draft a statement that is unlawful under 1 and 2, and get it signed by thousands of people as co-publishers.
See what happened with Michael Baumann's book "How it All Began" in West Germany, which the state banned but which then came out in a second edition signed by "intellectual luminaries" such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Heinrich Boll as "co-publishers". The state then caved.
Not sure if this is an April fool or not, but just in case it isn't, the bit I have italicised above is simply false. Which is not to be taken as support for the act.
I thought it was true. Surely if a woman who says she's a man gets pregnant and has a baby and I call her a woman and a mother, I'm breaking the law because I'd be "misgendering" a "trans" person? Let's not be pedantic and note that I'm allowed to say what I like to myself in private. I mean if I say it in public.
You would have to show how it comes within the terms of the act, including the reasonableness test, intent, and hatred. The (terrible) act does not criminalise opinion as such.
"HAPPY EASTER TO ALL, INCLUDING CROOKED AND CORRUPT PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES THAT ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024, AND PUT ME IN PRISON, INCLUDING THOSE MANY PEOPLE THAT I COMPLETELY & TOTALLY DESPISE BECAUSE THEY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA, A NOW FAILING NATION..."
From today a couple both working a 40 hour week on minimum wage will together earn 40x52x11.44x2=47,590.
For a single earner the higher rate tax band starts at £50,271 - just £2681 more.
Nuts.
Fiscal drag will convert average earners into higher rate taxpayers if the thresholds are frozen for long enough. It's most likely the plan, to keep up with the colossal healthcare and pensions bill for the retired.
From today a couple both working a 40 hour week on minimum wage will together earn 40x52x11.44x2=47,590.
For a single earner the higher rate tax band starts at £50,271 - just £2681 more.
Nuts.
Fiscal drag will convert average earners into higher rate taxpayers if the thresholds are frozen for long enough. It's most likely the plan, to keep up with the colossal healthcare and pensions bill for the retired.
And would allow for the steady elimination of National Insurance, which would equalise (for a number of circumstances) tax paid on income
Edit: I wouldn’t do it by Fiscal drag, but that is what is currently happening. Further, Labour are likely to continue with fiscal drag, since it seems to be a politically cheap way of increasing income tax yield. Until, I suspect, there is Petrol Strike type awakening.
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
I see labour abandoning its pledge to nationalise water companies.
Privatisation is not so much the issue than lax regulation and allowing these companies to be acquired and effectively taken private.
Again, I don't disagree. The likes of OFCOM and OFWHAT really are toothless but who put the regulatory regime in place and on what basis?
Regulation is a dirty word (apposite in terms of Thames Water however). For example, I'm a big supporter of an active and properly regulated public and private property rental market. We need a strong rental sector as people's circumstances vary and not everyone wants or can afford to buy outright. Renting is a step forward for many but the private rental sector is a disgrace with rapacious landlords encouraging a new generation of slums on top of which the monstrosity of HMOs where in London 12-20 people live in a 3-bedroom semi which is effectively dormitory accommodation for construction workers from all over the world.
Yes, it's not slavery but it's not a dignified or civilised way for people to live in the 21st century.
The problem is not so much regulation as a culture of the following
1) A rule book as thick as a telephone directory is awesome. A rule book as thick as two telephone directories is twice as awesome 2) no interest in the contents of said tomes 3) no one actually reads them 4) little or no effective enforcement.
The result is expensive and useless,
At company X, we had a term for documents that were written, and never to be read:
WORN.
Write Once, Read Never.
(Taken from types of storage devices, e.g. Write Once Read Many)
So the position in Scotland, beginning today, April Fool's Day, is as follows:
1. It's unlawful to say that all pregnant people are women. 2. It's unlawful to say that all people who have just given birth to babies are mothers. 3. The only major political party that opposes the law that has brought about 1 and 2 is the Conservative party.
How to bring down this law? There are two options:
A. Wait until an election and then vote Conservative. B. Do something else.
Personally I favour B. SO HERE IS WHAT TO DO:
draft a statement that is unlawful under 1 and 2, and get it signed by thousands of people as co-publishers.
See what happened with Michael Baumann's book "How it All Began" in West Germany, which the state banned but which then came out in a second edition signed by "intellectual luminaries" such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Heinrich Boll as "co-publishers". The state then caved.
Not sure if this is an April fool or not, but just in case it isn't, the bit I have italicised above is simply false. Which is not to be taken as support for the act.
I thought it was true. Surely if a woman who says she's a man gets pregnant and has a baby and I call her a woman and a mother, I'm breaking the law because I'd be "misgendering" a "trans" person? Let's not be pedantic and note that I'm allowed to say what I like to myself in private. I mean if I say it in public.
You would have to show how it comes within the terms of the act, including the reasonableness test, intent, and hatred. The (terrible) act does not criminalise opinion as such.
Except that the Police will feel constrained to put the allegation into the various databases. And then you start failing background checks.
Which is Social Credit, pretty much.
Very much agree, but that is not the point I was answering - which was just about what the (bad) act renders unlawful. The expression of opinion as such is not rendered unlawful. The fact that state authorities can be dim and untrustworthy is of course a reason which makes this bad act a bad act.
From today a couple both working a 40 hour week on minimum wage will together earn 40x52x11.44x2=47,590.
For a single earner the higher rate tax band starts at £50,271 - just £2681 more.
Nuts.
Fiscal drag will convert average earners into higher rate taxpayers if the thresholds are frozen for long enough. It's most likely the plan, to keep up with the colossal healthcare and pensions bill for the retired.
With salary sacrifice and reducing hours being used to reduce tax payments.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Sounds like the old pals act to me.
What does Nick mean by this ? ...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
That's either disingenuous, or nonsense.
Not sure why you think that? My point is that if Labour wins a majority mainly consisting of seats in the cities and their suburbs, there will be a shortage of people who have direct experience of the issues that worry people in small towns and villages (my constituency is one such, but there are many others which aren't really rural but are certainly not cities either). We obviously aren't going to win every seat but we do need to have a sufficient variety to give a range of input into spending decisions.
I get what you are saying.
Indeed it is much the same as how gaining "Red Wall" seats changed the Conservative Party for a while, until the fall of Johnson and rise of Sunak killed off "Levelling Up".
A Labour government with significant numbers of new MPs from semi-rural constituencies of England is going to be a different parliamentary party to one confined to metropolitan University cities.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Ironically, with my background as a past North London city dweller, I might not like the difference personally, but I do recognise that it'd be healthy.
Labour had a significant rural vote in the past, even winning seats in Norfolk now considered bedrock Tory. Indeed 30% Lab in Harborough in 2017 realised my eyebrows, showing that it doesn't have to be Tory lite agenda to get votes out.
On Conhome a post saying Rishi will step down after the locals to be replaced by Mogg. April fool....but with the Tories you never quite know....
Nah. JRM is a fool every month of the year.
(Yes, I know he's made squillions. But as he would no doubt put it, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? And a fool can still be successful and a successful fool is still a fool.)
Yet he’s right about Shamima Begums citizenship and right about letting Thames Water fall and the shareholders take the hit.
So he's right as often as the average stopped clock?
Sorry, I’m forgetting the PB rule. All Tories are wrong uns and labour can do no wrong 👍
As balanced as Bart’s view on the Israel Gaza conflict.
Oh, please. I see there's plenty of room in the ditch for you and Rishi.
JRM is right on Thames Water, no argument, but then a broken clock is correct twice a day. The truth is the privatisation regime put in place by the Conservatives has brought us to this point and I don't hear JRM criticising that.
I see labour abandoning its pledge to nationalise water companies.
Privatisation is not so much the issue than lax regulation and allowing these companies to be acquired and effectively taken private.
Again, I don't disagree. The likes of OFCOM and OFWHAT really are toothless but who put the regulatory regime in place and on what basis?
Regulation is a dirty word (apposite in terms of Thames Water however). For example, I'm a big supporter of an active and properly regulated public and private property rental market. We need a strong rental sector as people's circumstances vary and not everyone wants or can afford to buy outright. Renting is a step forward for many but the private rental sector is a disgrace with rapacious landlords encouraging a new generation of slums on top of which the monstrosity of HMOs where in London 12-20 people live in a 3-bedroom semi which is effectively dormitory accommodation for construction workers from all over the world.
Yes, it's not slavery but it's not a dignified or civilised way for people to live in the 21st century.
The problem is not so much regulation as a culture of the following
1) A rule book as thick as a telephone directory is awesome. A rule book as thick as two telephone directories is twice as awesome 2) no interest in the contents of said tomes 3) no one actually reads them 4) little or no effective enforcement.
The result is expensive and useless,
At company X, we had a term for documents that were written, and never to be read:
WORN.
Write Once, Read Never.
(Taken from types of storage devices, e.g. Write Once Read Many)
AI looks to turbo charge that. And add reading the documents. For extra LOLs
Another approach is creating a specific expert system (deterministic) that can be queried by the end user. You could even use AI to read the data.
So instead of thumbing through the 1,854 pages, the user would type a query and get a paragraph or 2 to read.
Sounds like that QA isn't a promising career.
Oh well.
If people went the route I suggest, there could be a massive boom in high quality jobs (but fewer) and skills in document production. Documents that might actually be read and actually be useful.
This act is criticised often by the same people as being anti free speech, but not including women in the list of protected characteristics, of being so vague that anyone could be caught up in it and too prescriptive in the protections it provides.
It also incorporates a large amount of existing legislation on hate crimes.
Which is not to say the critics are necessarily wrong or that this is a good bit of legislation. But I do think it's a bit more nuanced than many in this board are making it out to be.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
If the Labour government continues to offer crap policies like Blair did under Iraq, ID cards, HIPs etc. than it is only sensible for the Liberal Democrats to oppose it.
ID cards would be quite handy these days. And HIPs was only a bad idea because the Conservative Press opposed it on political grounds and Yvette panicked.
Iraq, fair point.
Never mind HIPs. What I would like to see is advertisements selling houses/flats be compelled to show the "square footage" like ads for offices do.
Sfaict all listings on Rightmove, Zoopla and other sites already list square footage, as do a couple of estate agents I've checked. It looks like the market has already caught up with you. Now we can move on to the real debate: square feet vs square metres.
On topic: if it's now an offence under Scots Law to publish various things, which are only illegal in Scotland and not in the jurisdiction where they are being published, if they can be read in Scotland - even if they are created in the other jurisdiction, by someone residing and operating in that jurisdiction - then how are the offenders meant to be prosecuted? Presumably any extradition requests to authorities outside of the UK will be laughed at, but what about within it? Are we going to have Police Scotland snatch squads abducting people from inside England, or are they going to expect the English plods to do the job for them? Is there a due process for extradition on these dubious charges? Is this, at some stage, going to involve a Supreme Court battle between the Scottish Justice Secretary and some gender critical feminist in Devon who said trans women aren't really women under an article on the Totnes Shopper website, which a perennially offended activist in Peterhead then read one night and reported as hate speech? It's barking.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
If the Labour government continues to offer crap policies like Blair did under Iraq, ID cards, HIPs etc. than it is only sensible for the Liberal Democrats to oppose it.
ID cards would be quite handy these days. And HIPs was only a bad idea because the Conservative Press opposed it on political grounds and Yvette panicked.
Iraq, fair point.
HIPs were a very bad idea, not in themselves but because they didn't replace the need for buyers to carry out their own checks. So they were a large extra payment for the seller and a colossal amount of extra work for surveyors that they didn't have the capacity to carry out.
If HIPs had been considered a legally binding summary of all issues that buyers had to accept, then that would have been different. Problematic in other ways, of course, but different.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Sounds like the old pals act to me.
What does Nick mean by this ? ...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
That's either disingenuous, or nonsense.
Not seen the whole thing in context, but on its own that looks like pablum.
Swap Labour and Tory around and it'd make little difference.
This act is criticised often by the same people as being anti free speech, but not including women in the list of protected characteristics, of being so vague that anyone could be caught up in it and too prescriptive in the protections it provides.
It also incorporates a large amount of existing legislation on hate crimes.
Which is not to say the critics are necessarily wrong or that this is a good bit of legislation. But I do think it's a bit more nuanced than many in this board are making it out to be.
Yes, it's bad but differently bad to what some critics are saying. It will have the good effect of making most Scots realise that the protections of a UK parliament are worth keeping and that the SNP are a narrow political movement.
"HAPPY EASTER TO ALL, INCLUDING CROOKED AND CORRUPT PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES THAT ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024, AND PUT ME IN PRISON, INCLUDING THOSE MANY PEOPLE THAT I COMPLETELY & TOTALLY DESPISE BECAUSE THEY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA, A NOW FAILING NATION..."
I know. Utterly bewildering and so so depressing. Donald Trump is a truly and openly despicable individual with not a single redeeming feature. It simply has to break away from him as this election year progresses. I have to believe that and it's not my Big Short talking. If not, I might as well just give up, stop trying to understand things, and devote myself to stroking cats and reading light fiction. In fact ...
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
Sounds like the old pals act to me.
What does Nick mean by this ? ...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
That's either disingenuous, or nonsense.
Not sure why you think that? My point is that if Labour wins a majority mainly consisting of seats in the cities and their suburbs, there will be a shortage of people who have direct experience of the issues that worry people in small towns and villages (my constituency is one such, but there are many others which aren't really rural but are certainly not cities either). We obviously aren't going to win every seat but we do need to have a sufficient variety to give a range of input into spending decisions.
I get what you are saying.
Indeed it is much the same as how gaining "Red Wall" seats changed the Conservative Party for a while, until the fall of Johnson and rise of Sunak killed off "Levelling Up".
A Labour government with significant numbers of new MPs from semi-rural constituencies of England is going to be a different parliamentary party to one confined to metropolitan University cities.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Ironically, with my background as a past North London city dweller, I might not like the difference personally, but I do recognise that it'd be healthy.
Labour had a significant rural vote in the past, even winning seats in Norfolk now considered bedrock Tory. Indeed 30% Lab in Harborough in 2017 realised my eyebrows, showing that it doesn't have to be Tory lite agenda to get votes out.
I wonder if they will quite a few rural areas. The LD underperformance there that means Labour are second in many will help push them as favourites.
So the position in Scotland, beginning today, April Fool's Day, is as follows:
1. It's unlawful to say that all pregnant people are women. 2. It's unlawful to say that all people who have just given birth to babies are mothers. 3. The only major political party that opposes the law that has brought about 1 and 2 is the Conservative party.
How to bring down this law? There are two options:
A. Wait until an election and then vote Conservative. B. Do something else.
Personally I favour B. SO HERE IS WHAT TO DO:
draft a statement that is unlawful under 1 and 2, and get it signed by thousands of people as co-publishers.
See what happened with Michael Baumann's book "How it All Began" in West Germany, which the state banned but which then came out in a second edition signed by "intellectual luminaries" such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Heinrich Boll as "co-publishers". The state then caved.
Not sure if this is an April fool or not, but just in case it isn't, the bit I have italicised above is simply false. Which is not to be taken as support for the act.
I thought it was true. Surely if a woman who says she's a man gets pregnant and has a baby and I call her a woman and a mother, I'm breaking the law because I'd be "misgendering" a "trans" person? Let's not be pedantic and note that I'm allowed to say what I like to myself in private. I mean if I say it in public.
You would have to show how it comes within the terms of the act, including the reasonableness test, intent, and hatred. The (terrible) act does not criminalise opinion as such.
Except that the Police will feel constrained to put the allegation into the various databases. And then you start failing background checks.
Which is Social Credit, pretty much.
Very much agree, but that is not the point I was answering - which was just about what the (bad) act renders unlawful. The expression of opinion as such is not rendered unlawful. The fact that state authorities can be dim and untrustworthy is of course a reason which makes this bad act a bad act.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act was a fairly sensible piece of legislation, as a theoretical law.
In practice, 98% of those arrested under the PTA were young black men. When asked, the police were incredulous that, given a power, they might not use it.
"HAPPY EASTER TO ALL, INCLUDING CROOKED AND CORRUPT PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES THAT ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024, AND PUT ME IN PRISON, INCLUDING THOSE MANY PEOPLE THAT I COMPLETELY & TOTALLY DESPISE BECAUSE THEY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA, A NOW FAILING NATION..."
I know. Utterly bewildering and so so depressing. Donald Trump is a truly and openly despicable individual with not a single redeeming feature. It simply has to break away from him as this election year progresses. I have to believe that and it's not my Big Short talking. If not, I might as well just give up, stop trying to understand things, and devote myself to stroking cats and reading light fiction. In fact ...
I'm a pessimist and think he will win. What could he do to repulse people he has not already done? And are there enough people disappointed by Biden to sink him?
"HAPPY EASTER TO ALL, INCLUDING CROOKED AND CORRUPT PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES THAT ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024, AND PUT ME IN PRISON, INCLUDING THOSE MANY PEOPLE THAT I COMPLETELY & TOTALLY DESPISE BECAUSE THEY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA, A NOW FAILING NATION..."
I know. Utterly bewildering and so so depressing. Donald Trump is a truly and openly despicable individual with not a single redeeming feature. It simply has to break away from him as this election year progresses. I have to believe that and it's not my Big Short talking. If not, I might as well just give up, stop trying to understand things, and devote myself to stroking cats and reading light fiction. In fact ...
Alternatively, Yankland is being torn in two by mutually antagonistic tribes, who loathe each other so much that they'd happily vote for a reincarnated Pol Pot if they thought he was their best chance of defeating the other lot. It's the logical endpoint of the Culture Wars bullshit. We must make sure we don't go there.
(2)A person commits an offence if— (a)the person— (i)behaves in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive, or (ii)communicates to another person material that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive, and (b)in doing so, the person intends to stir up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to a characteristic mentioned in subsection (3). (3)The characteristics are— (a)age, (b)disability, (c)religion or, in the case of a social or cultural group, perceived religious affiliation, (d)sexual orientation, (e)transgender identity, (f)variations in sex characteristics. (4)It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to show that the behaviour or the communication of the material was, in the particular circumstances, reasonable. (5)For the purposes of subsection (4), in determining whether behaviour or communication was reasonable, particular regard must be had to the importance of the right to freedom of expression by virtue of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the general principle that the right applies to the expression of information or ideas that offend, shock or disturb. (6)For the purposes of subsection (4), it is shown that the behaviour or the communication of the material was, in the particular circumstances, reasonable if— (a)evidence adduced is enough to raise an issue as to whether that is the case, and (b)the prosecution does not prove beyond reasonable doubt that it is not the case.
It is still perfectly legal to offend, shock and disturb, what's not allowed is to promote violence against a group of people. I'm amazed that anyone wants to defend such behaviour.
This act is criticised often by the same people as being anti free speech, but not including women in the list of protected characteristics, of being so vague that anyone could be caught up in it and too prescriptive in the protections it provides.
It also incorporates a large amount of existing legislation on hate crimes.
Which is not to say the critics are necessarily wrong or that this is a good bit of legislation. But I do think it's a bit more nuanced than many in this board are making it out to be.
The two questions I am interested in are:
Does this act provide protections that weren't available before? No-one seems to be discussing this, but I would think it crucial to whether this act is worth having.
The chilling effect that seems to be the substantive criticism. Is this a direct effect of the law or due to a misconception of the law? A problem if it's the first, but not if it's the second, in my view.
That in turn has prompted calls this morning from two senior national Labour people promising help. So much in politics is about snowball effects.
If the Labour government continues to offer crap policies like Blair did under Iraq, ID cards, HIPs etc. than it is only sensible for the Liberal Democrats to oppose it.
ID cards would be quite handy these days. And HIPs was only a bad idea because the Conservative Press opposed it on political grounds and Yvette panicked.
Iraq, fair point.
HIPs were a very bad idea, not in themselves but because they didn't replace the need for buyers to carry out their own checks. So they were a large extra payment for the seller and a colossal amount of extra work for surveyors that they didn't have the capacity to carry out.
If HIPs had been considered a legally binding summary of all issues that buyers had to accept, then that would have been different. Problematic in other ways, of course, but different.
I must confess a vested interest. I was making an awful lot of money taking Solicitors and Estate Agents through the NVQ package required to complete the HIPs portfolio including the energy rating element. And then Yvette pulled the rug from under me.
This act is criticised often by the same people as being anti free speech, but not including women in the list of protected characteristics, of being so vague that anyone could be caught up in it and too prescriptive in the protections it provides.
It also incorporates a large amount of existing legislation on hate crimes.
Which is not to say the critics are necessarily wrong or that this is a good bit of legislation. But I do think it's a bit more nuanced than many in this board are making it out to be.
I assume from all the pearl clutching about misogyny not (yet) being included in the Holyrood bill, that it's part of existing Westminster legislation?
This act is criticised often by the same people as being anti free speech, but not including women in the list of protected characteristics, of being so vague that anyone could be caught up in it and too prescriptive in the protections it provides.
It also incorporates a large amount of existing legislation on hate crimes.
Which is not to say the critics are necessarily wrong or that this is a good bit of legislation. But I do think it's a bit more nuanced than many in this board are making it out to be.
The two questions I am interested in are:
Does this act provide protections that weren't available before? No-one seems to be discussing this, but I would think it crucial to whether this act is worth having.
The chilling effect that seems to be the substantive criticism. Is this a direct effect of the law or due to a misconception of the law? A problem if it's the first, but not if it's the second, in my view.
Given how police frequently misunderstand law and guidance, and that most people will not educate themselves on the nuances of legislation, I'd give more critical weight to problems arising from misconceptions.
Positives would need to be significant to make up for even indirect effects of a new law i think. Indirect effects are relevant in many contexts after all.
"HAPPY EASTER TO ALL, INCLUDING CROOKED AND CORRUPT PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES THAT ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024, AND PUT ME IN PRISON, INCLUDING THOSE MANY PEOPLE THAT I COMPLETELY & TOTALLY DESPISE BECAUSE THEY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA, A NOW FAILING NATION..."
I know. Utterly bewildering and so so depressing. Donald Trump is a truly and openly despicable individual with not a single redeeming feature. It simply has to break away from him as this election year progresses. I have to believe that and it's not my Big Short talking. If not, I might as well just give up, stop trying to understand things, and devote myself to stroking cats and reading light fiction. In fact ...
Alternatively, Yankland is being torn in two by mutually antagonistic tribes, who loathe each other so much that they'd happily vote for a reincarnated Pol Pot if they thought he was their best chance of defeating the other lot. It's the logical endpoint of the Culture Wars bullshit. We must make sure we don't go there.
When have Democrats voted for someone even close to Trump or Gaetz or MTG or Boebert? This is entirely on one side.
Comments
The postwar social contract ensured universal health care and a basic state pension. We are now talking of means tested state pensions and formally rationed healthcare (something I am not opposed to provided it is reviewed sensibly).
You can quote statistical facts relating to full employment but you ignore zero hours etc. An awful lot of people (including working people) are in a desperate plight in our country and though your solution is probably what will come to pass, what you are proposing steps over the vagrant in Gregg's doorway to procure breakfast.
"All the people in Scotland who believe the universe accidentally made itself out of nothing are in egregious error and are bampots."
I shall await the call from Police Scotland.
Taxing multinational business more comes under 'the rich and consumers will have to pay more tax' heading.
One of the mysteries of recent decades was the way British governments always supported Ireland's low corporation tax rates - possibly a wish to emulate it.
Anyway the rate of corporation tax has now been increased to 25% - a correct decision IMO.
IE: Under the 'Serious crime act 2015'
"(1)A person (A) commits an offence if—
(a)A repeatedly or continuously engages in behaviour towards another person (B) that is controlling or coercive...
(c)the behaviour has a serious effect on B, and
(d)A knows or ought to know that the behaviour will have a serious effect on B.
... (4)A’s behaviour has a “serious effect” on B if—
(a)it causes B to fear, on at least two occasions, that violence will be used against B, or
(b)it causes B serious alarm or distress which has a substantial adverse effect on B’s usual day-to-day activities."
Opining is important. It makes it clear that you are not telling a client what they should do. And won't end up in court when things go pear shaped for them.
It's hard to see where genuine growth comes from when we have, and are still, closing primary and tertiary industries.
The promotion of new environmental technology programmes which use domestically procured resources are perhaps a way forward. Labour proposed a £28b programme, the Conservatives "sniggled" at it so Labour took their bat and ball home.
So yes tax rises and service cuts are probably the reality.
Basically he has a job to do - delivering aid - and can't do it. Israel controls access - they don't allow journalists in either - so there isn't anyone else to blame.
And no one knows who is doing what in Gaza, as there are no independent reporters there.
That's about 3% of those working - I doubt there's ever been many fewer on the margins of employment in some form or other, temp contracts or seasonal workers for example, if you look through history.
What we do currently have is demand such that someone with a useful skillset and a willingness to work can get a job and an opportunity to progress.
Something which did not always exist for many in the period after 1973, or for parts of the country well before that:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p053r2q1/waiting-for-work
So, if someone's conduct amounts to a breach of the peace under s38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (S) Act 2010 it is quite common for this to include "aggravations" if the language used amounted to racial hatred, for example.
If the language includes aspects of a person's sexual orientation (eg a "poof") or chosen gender it will be deemed aggravated which means that the court is obliged to take that into account when fixing sentence. These types of aggravations can have important consequences as to the discretion and lack of it available to the procurator fiscal depute in court. A fiscal is not allowed, for example, to drop a charge with a racial aggravation as a part of any plea deal and I would expect the same to apply to aggravations under this Act.
https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/hco/hate-crime/what-is-hate-crime/
'Incitement to hatred
The offence of incitement to hatred occurs when someone acts in a way that is threatening and intended to stir up hatred. That could be in words, pictures, videos, music, and includes information posted on websites.
Hate content may include:
messages calling for violence against a specific person or group
web pages that show pictures, videos or descriptions of violence against anyone due to their perceived differences
chat forums where people ask other people to commit hate crimes against a specific person or group'
It explains in a few words the nature of modern journalism.
*Not literally free in the case of the opinions of lawyers of course.
Iraq, fair point.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-best-qubits-for-quantum-computing-might-just-be-atoms-20240325/
One to watch.
1. It's unlawful to say that all pregnant people are women.
2. It's unlawful to say that all people who have just given birth to babies are mothers.
3. The only major political party that opposes the law that has brought about 1 and 2 is the Conservative party.
How to bring down this law? There are two options:
A. Wait until an election and then vote Conservative.
B. Do something else.
Personally I favour B. SO HERE IS WHAT TO DO:
draft a statement that is unlawful under 1 and 2, and get it signed by thousands of people as co-publishers.
See what happened with Michael Baumann's book "How it All Began" in West Germany, which the state banned but which then came out in a second edition signed by "intellectual luminaries" such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Heinrich Boll as "co-publishers". The state then caved.
Some of this comes to volume. A friend of mine who is dual qualified was asked to give an opinion on whether there was a good case against surveyors for negligence in a report done for a purchaser. This is something I used to do in Scotland from time to time. The difference was that my friend's English chambers had more than 70 of these cases that had been collated from various agents who were looking to source third party funding for potential litigation. Each had to be looked at from the point of view of their particular facts but the law and the relevant tests once set out once can be applied to each. The fact that England has 10x the population give rise to economies of scale or opportunities for profit that don't often exist north of the border.
...Communities will benefit from having a Labour MP who can represent the area’s concerns as a member of the new majority – not by the sort of discrimination in government funding that has been a particular disgraceful hallmark of the Tory years, but simply in terms of understanding local needs...
That's either disingenuous, or nonsense.
I'm happy to support investment which has a positive rate of return whoever makes that investment.
So, for example, I applaud Biden's industrial investments as I think they're a worthwhile risk.
But I would caution that an investment with a negative rate of return leaves you worse of.
Everyone on a betting website should be aware of that inconvenient fact.
And ensuring investment has a positive rate of return is no easy matter - especially when governments get involved.
So Starmer and Reeves can invest as much as they want but let them be publicly clear about the consequences before they start:
A positive rate of return and more money will be available to spend on other things.
A negative rate of return and the cuts will be deeper than they would have been.
Truly Kafkaesque and a disgrace in a liberal democracy.
We are also expected to trust a police force which described itself last year as institutionally racist and misogynist to decide whether something may or may not be a crime based on 2 hours online training and guidance which has yet to be published, when we already know that their NCHI policy is unlawful.
Scotland's politicians voting for this should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are not fit for purpose and a menace to good governance.
The Tories aren't so stupid as to put Mogg in as leader. I doubt even Mogg himself is so stupid. However, there may be a few moneybags in the US who think huge country houses are what the real England is all about who might be trollable on this.
Anything to do with nutcase anti-women law in Scotland or heifers sprouting hairs of the right or wrong colour on the West Bank is likely to be true rather than an April Fool's joke.
Do you know the stance of Scottish Labour and Lib Dems?
The UK has an opportunity to jump a generation of technology and develop a fully digital ID system, without the need for a physical card.... however, as with so many things in British politics, our leaders will probably try to spend an enormous amount of effort, political capital, and above all money on the wrong thing (cf NHS systems, transport etc), change their minds twice and end up with a very sub optimal version of obsolete thinking.
(Changing your mind costs a fortune: just look at HS2, where it is now going to cost more to cancel than to build. Labour should say they will not permit the land on the route to be sold, which is what the Tories are now trying to do, in order to wreck any chance that it ever gets built.)
Indeed it is much the same as how gaining "Red Wall" seats changed the Conservative Party for a while, until the fall of Johnson and rise of Sunak killed off "Levelling Up".
A Labour government with significant numbers of new MPs from semi-rural constituencies of England is going to be a different parliamentary party to one confined to metropolitan University cities.
The drift in all "advanced" countries is towards making it de facto compulsory to have a smartphone.
And...China leads the way. No Chinese person in China has used either cash or card to buy anything for years.
Face recognition technology and software is also developing apace and one of the cutting-edge places is Gaza. How they take the photos in the first place is not altogether clear. Before October 2023 many Gaza residents worked on the other side of the wire, and the majority of residents are refugees from outside of Gaza, but I'm not sure that's a full explanation.
It's a very strange argument to say that a government can't properly represent areas unless it has MPs there. You're effectively saying that is constituencies have poor judgment to vote for someone else, then they are beyond your ken.
That's weird.
And it would still be a really bad law if it included women in the "protected characteristic" list.
This from the Guardian was interesting. What form of legislation was Kennedy recommending - would it be a better model ?
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/31/scotlands-new-hate-act-what-does-it-cover-and-why-is-it-controversial
..There was anger at the time that the bill excluded hatred of women. Even before it was passed, an independent working group, led by Helena Kennedy KC, was established to consider whether adding sex to the list of other protected characteristics or creating a standalone offence would better tackle misogynist abuse.
The group later recommended that the Scottish government introduce a misogyny act to crack down on street harassment and organised online hate. It was included in Yousaf’s programme for government last September but has yet to be published and there is no further information available about its timetabling..
1) A rule book as thick as a telephone directory is awesome. A rule book as thick as two telephone directories is twice as awesome
2) no interest in the contents of said tomes
3) no one actually reads them
4) little or no effective enforcement.
The result is expensive and useless,
Zero hours contracts are trickier because a lot are exploitative, but others welcomed by different people and I do not think politicians of either main party have noticed. Take Uber or Deliveroo. Some do it as a full-time job and want all the usual protections. Others treat them as gig employment to which they turn up whenever, wherever and for how long they feel like. It will take a bit of nuance to square the circle.
He wrote: “The act specifies that ‘discussion or criticism’ of matters relating to sexual orientation, transgender identity, age or disability, is not to be taken as threatening or abusive.
“For example, asserting that sex is a biological fact or that it is not changed just by virtue of the gender by which someone chooses to identify is not and never can be a hate crime under this legislation.
“As such, the new law is going to disappoint those transgender activists who think all acts of misgendering are instances of hateful transphobia, just as it is going to disappoint those culture warriors whose nightmarish vision is that the new law poses the greatest threat to free speech since the abolition of the Licensing Act.” '
https://tinyurl.com/cvvx8c3m
You have committed the thought crime of making stuff up in your head. Fortunately you won't be prosecuted for it.
As we know, big majorities often cause big problems in terms of the width of the tent and internal discipline as the opportunities for Ministerial advancement become limited.
The old maxim is of course true - the Conservatives are the opposition, the Liberal Democrats are the enemy.
I think were by electoral chance Davey to become LOTO it would be much harder for Prime Minister Starmer as pointing to the opposition front bench and blaming them for everything wouldn't cut much ice. Better to have the familiar Conservatives opposite, perhaps?
WORN.
Write Once, Read Never.
(Taken from types of storage devices, e.g. Write Once Read Many)
FPTP encourages the tendentious argument - even from well meaning sorts like Nick - that less than half of the vote entitles something approaching a one party state, and that this is desirable.
It isn't.
Also, there is genuine ignorance. As an MP I knew literally nothing about conditions on oil rigs, for instance, so I never raised the issue. It's useful to have a range of experience in your Parliamentary party. I'm still puzzled why you think that's a controversial/weird/disingenuous/nonsense idea.
Those who support FPTP continue to witter on about the constituency link - well perhaps but that's no excuse for such obvious inequity.
The same applies in local elections - I've long pointed out the situation in Newham, Richmond and no doubt other places where FPTP produces huge majorities on minority vote shares.
The problem with the ID card law scheme wasn’t the ID cards. It was the insane attempt to link the cards to every single database possessed by government *and* private data (such as bank details) *and* make it accessible with completely inadequate controls. Including a plan for your biometric data, unencrypted.
It was, by the way, completely incompatible with modern EU legislation on data privacy and protection.
Oh, and just for a topping, to make things easier, the initial cards would be issued by mashing together data from the NHS, DVLA and Passport office.
Since we know that all three data sets are full of duplicates and inappropriately issued numbers, the ID cards would have not been an improvement there.
Anecdotal observation - I've had three friends in my social circle who have all inherited property and money and not from parents but from brothers, sisters and other relatives who don't have children.
With more people not having children to whom an inheritance can be passed, other relatives are the beneficiaries and to receive a cash or property boost in your 50s and 60s can sometimes obviate the need to continue working. Debt can be cleared, mortgages paid off and there's enough to live on before a pension needs to be taken.
The consequence of demographic change is the ability of older middle aged people to walk away from work if they have no children and are the beneficiaries of siblings who are also childless.
Whether this can or should inform the IHT debate I'm not sure.
Running a campaign of “We can’t saying certain things because a Hamas minder is just off camera” - what do you think would happen when the camera gets switched off?
a) As has been discussed here many of the projections from this poll are clearly nonsense eg Guildford, Wokingham, etc.
b) If people believe that bar charts then it will encourage soft Tories to vote LD to keep Labour out if they believe the chart that Labour are in the lead and the Tories 3rd.
But when we're talking about the quality of jobs instead of the quantity then the overall situation has improved over what we had become accustomed to.
Now are there cases where there is a mismatch between the skills required for the better jobs available and the skills of the unhappy workers ?
Certainly. And that is something governments should help in providing opportunities for workers to improve their skillsets. But its also something that individual people need to achieve themselves rather than expecting governments to micromanage (which they would do badly in any case).
As an example I favour training to be tax deductible (up to a certain limit) for an individual as it already is for businesses.
"HAPPY EASTER TO ALL, INCLUDING CROOKED AND CORRUPT PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES THAT ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024, AND PUT ME IN PRISON, INCLUDING THOSE MANY PEOPLE THAT I COMPLETELY & TOTALLY DESPISE BECAUSE THEY WANT TO DESTROY AMERICA, A NOW FAILING NATION..."
Jill and I send our warmest wishes to Christians around the world celebrating the power of hope and the promise of Christ’s Resurrection this Easter Sunday.
https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1774436488677142724/photo/1
And this is pretty much 50:50 in the polling?
And see Roddy Dunlop KC opinion here:
https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-thousand-paper-cranes/
SBR
Shred Before Reading
Part of the Process State (https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/02/04/the-state-of-process-the-process-state/) is the use of IT to enable vast, pointless documents
AI looks to turbo charge that. And add reading the documents. For extra LOLs
Another approach is creating a specific expert system (deterministic) that can be queried by the end user. You could even use AI to read the data.
So instead of thumbing through the 1,854 pages, the user would type a query and get a paragraph or 2 to read.
From today a couple both working a 40 hour week on minimum wage will together earn 40x52x11.44x2=47,590.
For a single earner the higher rate tax band starts at £50,271 - just £2681 more.
Nuts.
Which is Social Credit, pretty much.
It turned out that he had become a higher rate tax payer.
A carpenter is now a rich barsteward. That’s not quite how they sold income tax, back in the day…
Edit: I wouldn’t do it by Fiscal drag, but that is what is currently happening. Further, Labour are likely to continue with fiscal drag, since it seems to be a politically cheap way of increasing income tax yield. Until, I suspect, there is Petrol Strike type awakening.
Oh well.
It also incorporates a large amount of existing legislation on hate crimes.
Which is not to say the critics are necessarily wrong or that this is a good bit of legislation. But I do think it's a bit more nuanced than many in this board are making it out to be.
If HIPs had been considered a legally binding summary of all issues that buyers had to accept, then that would have been different. Problematic in other ways, of course, but different.
Swap Labour and Tory around and it'd make little difference.
In practice, 98% of those arrested under the PTA were young black men. When asked, the police were incredulous that, given a power, they might not use it.
(a)the person—
(i)behaves in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive, or
(ii)communicates to another person material that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive, and
(b)in doing so, the person intends to stir up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to a characteristic mentioned in subsection (3).
(3)The characteristics are—
(a)age,
(b)disability,
(c)religion or, in the case of a social or cultural group, perceived religious affiliation,
(d)sexual orientation,
(e)transgender identity,
(f)variations in sex characteristics.
(4)It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to show that the behaviour or the communication of the material was, in the particular circumstances, reasonable.
(5)For the purposes of subsection (4), in determining whether behaviour or communication was reasonable, particular regard must be had to the importance of the right to freedom of expression by virtue of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the general principle that the right applies to the expression of information or ideas that offend, shock or disturb.
(6)For the purposes of subsection (4), it is shown that the behaviour or the communication of the material was, in the particular circumstances, reasonable if—
(a)evidence adduced is enough to raise an issue as to whether that is the case, and
(b)the prosecution does not prove beyond reasonable doubt that it is not the case.
It is still perfectly legal to offend, shock and disturb, what's not allowed is to promote violence against a group of people. I'm amazed that anyone wants to defend such behaviour.
Does this act provide protections that weren't available before? No-one seems to be discussing this, but I would think it crucial to whether this act is worth having.
The chilling effect that seems to be the substantive criticism. Is this a direct effect of the law or due to a misconception of the law? A problem if it's the first, but not if it's the second, in my view.
Positives would need to be significant to make up for even indirect effects of a new law i think. Indirect effects are relevant in many contexts after all.