Something to the effect that lawyers don’t like ambiguity in the law?
Is this a generational thing? It seems to me that there are a number of lawyers who delight in using the law as a playground to create new rights and (effectively) new law.
I ask, because I am concerned by any drift to legislating courts. I think that a large chunk of the problems in the US is down to the Supreme Court becoming the third and most powerful chamber of the legislature.
If the law is clear you can advise clients without a lot of ifs buts and maybes
People aren't stupid. They know that cheap talk about being poor will, all else equal, scare the government into giving out more stuff. Governments also aren't stupid and don't get goaded. So it's just cheap talk. Real terms consumer spending talks.
I’m afraid I have to disagree on this one minor point
People ARE stupid
Yes, the "Korean style armistice" is recent proof of that.
You’re basically a human slug. No. You’re basically the kind of creature that lives in the toilets used by human slugs when they go to the toilet, that’s what I think of you
You get a higher class of insult on here.
Leon is particularly lyrical with his insults. It's often the highlight of my day, nay my week, when he turns his poetic ire on little old me.
It's rare that he indulges me, I admit, but I find that faux admiring posts like this often trigger him so I shall be breathlessly (and no doubt futilely) hitting the refresh button all morning in the hope of a withering barb.
It might even rhyme.
Tbh right now I’m more shocked - indeed, horrified - by this sequence of depraved stories in the Spectator
We have had a proposal from our financial advisor to put some money offshore to defer tax.
Can anyone explain in simple terms why it's worth it? As far as I understand we will end up paying exactly the same amount of tax when it is brought back as we would if it was in UK.
Am I missing something?
The advantage is that you can invest the gross amount.
Let’s say that you have £ 10,000, pay 25% tax and earn 10% a year on your investments.
Onshore: £10,000 - tax = £7,500 which generates income of £750 per year, on which you pay income tax (25%) so you end up with £562.50
Offshore: £10,000 generates income of £1,000. Of this you remit £750 to the UK and pay tax so you end up with £562.50. *But* your offshore assets are now worth £10,250 so your future income will be higher.
There are several considerations:
1) unless you are talking about large numbers is it worth the time, hassle and cost of doing this?
2) for this to work you would need to have an offshore company or a trust. UK citizens pay tax on direct foreign income. More hassle and cost.
3) Is it the *right* thing to do. It may be legal, but should you do it?
People aren't stupid. They know that cheap talk about being poor will, all else equal, scare the government into giving out more stuff. Governments also aren't stupid and don't get goaded. So it's just cheap talk. Real terms consumer spending talks.
I’m afraid I have to disagree on this one minor point
People ARE stupid
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity. People tend to be ignorant, but not stupid, in my experience.
Average iq is 100. Anyone with an iq under that is dumb as a daffodil. Thats half of humans right there
Anyone with an iq under 115 is not exactly bright
So yeah the majority of humans are fucking idiots. Hence the failure of democracy
UK average IQ is 100, global average IQ is closer to 90.
However representative, as opposed to direct, democracy is still better than dictatorship or absolute monarchy and means fewer revolutions
IQ is a touchy subject. It is difficult to define or measure. Tests can clearly be biased. However, should we choose to wade in to the topic, we can note that IQ is designed to have a typical score of 100. But IQ appears to be increasing over time: e.g.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261117 describes longitudinal data from Danish conscription. The causes of that are not entirely clear, but seem to include better education (which IQ isn't meant to be affected by, but is) and better childhood nutrition. That means that the UK average is probably higher than 100 (unless you choose to re-standardise your test).
IQ typically shows a slightly asymmetric distribution, with a heavier tail on the lower end (more with very low IQs than very high IQs), which means the arithmetic mean and the median will not coincide. Differences in mean IQ may just come down to differences in the very low IQ bulge, which typically relate to obstetric and health problems, rather than differences to most of the distribution.
If they are measuring IQ from Danish conscripts, maybe it's just all the thick ones got conscripted - and shot - first?
I like the post, but who the hell is shooting Danish conscripts. I would have thought the most dangerous thing they do is eat open sandwiches.
People aren't stupid. They know that cheap talk about being poor will, all else equal, scare the government into giving out more stuff. Governments also aren't stupid and don't get goaded. So it's just cheap talk. Real terms consumer spending talks.
I’m afraid I have to disagree on this one minor point
People ARE stupid
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity. People tend to be ignorant, but not stupid, in my experience.
Average iq is 100. Anyone with an iq under that is dumb as a daffodil. Thats half of humans right there
Anyone with an iq under 115 is not exactly bright
So yeah the majority of humans are fucking idiots. Hence the failure of democracy
UK average IQ is 100, global average IQ is closer to 90.
However representative, as opposed to direct, democracy is still better than dictatorship or absolute monarchy and means fewer revolutions
IQ is a touchy subject. It is difficult to define or measure. Tests can clearly be biased. However, should we choose to wade in to the topic, we can note that IQ is designed to have a typical score of 100. But IQ appears to be increasing over time: e.g.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261117 describes longitudinal data from Danish conscription. The causes of that are not entirely clear, but seem to include better education (which IQ isn't meant to be affected by, but is) and better childhood nutrition. That means that the UK average is probably higher than 100 (unless you choose to re-standardise your test).
IQ typically shows a slightly asymmetric distribution, with a heavier tail on the lower end (more with very low IQs than very high IQs), which means the arithmetic mean and the median will not coincide. Differences in mean IQ may just come down to differences in the very low IQ bulge, which typically relate to obstetric and health problems, rather than differences to most of the distribution.
If they are measuring IQ from Danish conscripts, maybe it's just all the thick ones got conscripted - and shot - first?
This is from the testing before you are conscripted, so it's nearly all men of the relevant age. (Actual conscription is then by lottery. Everyone has to turn up for the tests, but most aren't conscripted.) They happen to have used the same IQ test in the same way for many decades, which allows for longitudinal comparisons that are not usually possible.
Meanwhile, in "she's so close to getting it" news...
The Tory leader said: “Now, the Liberal Democrats are basically a protest party for mainly people on the left, and they don’t have much of an ideology other than being nice. They will go with all sorts of extreme things, you know, extreme gender ideology, etc...
She said: “They are not on Twitter, but they are in local communities. A typical Liberal Democrat will be somebody who is good at fixing their church roof. And, you know, the people in the community like them, they are like ‘Fix the church roof, you should be a member of parliament.'
People aren't stupid. They know that cheap talk about being poor will, all else equal, scare the government into giving out more stuff. Governments also aren't stupid and don't get goaded. So it's just cheap talk. Real terms consumer spending talks.
I’m afraid I have to disagree on this one minor point
People ARE stupid
Yes, the "Korean style armistice" is recent proof of that.
You’re basically a human slug. No. You’re basically the kind of creature that lives in the toilets used by human slugs when they go to the toilet, that’s what I think of you
You get a higher class of insult on here.
Leon is particularly lyrical with his insults. It's often the highlight of my day, nay my week, when he turns his poetic ire on little old me.
It's rare that he indulges me, I admit, but I find that faux admiring posts like this often trigger him so I shall be breathlessly (and no doubt futilely) hitting the refresh button all morning in the hope of a withering barb.
It might even rhyme.
Tbh right now I’m more shocked - indeed, horrified - by this sequence of depraved stories in the Spectator
Tbf it was how the US was dealing with it, until the guy won again and pardoned himself
A legal system that can’t bring charges, in 4 years, for a crime committed on live TV, must take some of the blame.
Assuming that history books are still written in the future — rather than recorded history simply being whatever the all-powerful AI says it is today — the Biden administration will rightfully receive a lot of blame for their failure to hold Trump to account.
Something to the effect that lawyers don’t like ambiguity in the law?
Is this a generational thing? It seems to me that there are a number of lawyers who delight in using the law as a playground to create new rights and (effectively) new law.
I ask, because I am concerned by any drift to legislating courts. I think that a large chunk of the problems in the US is down to the Supreme Court becoming the third and most powerful chamber of the legislature.
If the law is clear you can advise clients without a lot of ifs buts and maybes
@Gallowgate is exactly right. One of the reasons I found matrimonial work tiresome was that the huge discretion given to the courts and the reluctance to allow appeals made it very difficult to give clear cut advice or, sometimes, even to reach a deal.
Of course, there are some public law lawyers who seem to delight (and build careers on) in trying to stretch the likes of ECHR to particular cases but most of us, in my experience, find that tiresome and it makes us hostile to such Conventions which invite Judicial legislation.
People aren't stupid. They know that cheap talk about being poor will, all else equal, scare the government into giving out more stuff. Governments also aren't stupid and don't get goaded. So it's just cheap talk. Real terms consumer spending talks.
I’m afraid I have to disagree on this one minor point
People ARE stupid
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity. People tend to be ignorant, but not stupid, in my experience.
Average iq is 100. Anyone with an iq under that is dumb as a daffodil. Thats half of humans right there
Anyone with an iq under 115 is not exactly bright
So yeah the majority of humans are fucking idiots. Hence the failure of democracy
UK average IQ is 100, global average IQ is closer to 90.
However representative, as opposed to direct, democracy is still better than dictatorship or absolute monarchy and means fewer revolutions
IQ is a touchy subject. It is difficult to define or measure. Tests can clearly be biased. However, should we choose to wade in to the topic, we can note that IQ is designed to have a typical score of 100. But IQ appears to be increasing over time: e.g.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261117 describes longitudinal data from Danish conscription. The causes of that are not entirely clear, but seem to include better education (which IQ isn't meant to be affected by, but is) and better childhood nutrition. That means that the UK average is probably higher than 100 (unless you choose to re-standardise your test).
IQ typically shows a slightly asymmetric distribution, with a heavier tail on the lower end (more with very low IQs than very high IQs), which means the arithmetic mean and the median will not coincide. Differences in mean IQ may just come down to differences in the very low IQ bulge, which typically relate to obstetric and health problems, rather than differences to most of the distribution.
If they are measuring IQ from Danish conscripts, maybe it's just all the thick ones got conscripted - and shot - first?
I like the post, but who the hell is shooting Danish conscripts. I would have thought the most dangerous thing they do is eat open sandwiches.
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
Is implying that you possibly were qualified to act as a solicitor the same as "...implying that he is qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor " ?
In this case, where he was a trainee, perhaps not ?
You’re getting into parsing words (how appropriate) but he said in 2014 that he had practiced as a solicitor in Manchester. I don’t know how long a professional registration would last but I think the man on the Clapham Omnibus would interpret “was” as “is” given the short passage of time
Simon Hart was the Conservative MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire from 2010 to 2024. Following a stint as secretary of state for Wales, he was appointed chief whip by Rishi Sunak in October 2022. His diary covers the ensuing 21 months until the general election.
November 24 2022
The phone rings at 2.45am from a 2019’er, clearly pissed but just about coherent: “Hi, chief. Hope I haven’t woken you.” (It’s 2.45am, FFS.)
Me: “What’s up?”
Him: “I’m stuck in a brothel in Bayswater and I’ve run out of money.”
Me: “Go on…”
Him: “I met a woman as I left the Carlton Club who offered me a drink, but I now think she is a KGB agent. She wants £500 and has left me in a room with 12 naked women and a CCTV.”
Me: “Give me a few moments and I will call you back.”
Bloody hell, this is a mess. I ring Spad [special adviser] Emma. She offers to leave her house and go personally to Bayswater on an extraction mission.
I suggest not (she sounded rather disappointed).
Instead, we devise a plan to send a taxi, extract our man, return him to the safety of his own hotel. I go back to sleep.
4.10am. Phone rings again.
Me: “Are you back safely?”
Him: “Yes, but you will never guess what happened next.” (The truest thing he said all evening.)
Me: “Go on…”
Him: “Well, I slipped out of the room and saw the taxi Emma ordered across the road, so I legged it over and jumped in. However, it turned out it was a different taxi being driven by an Afghan agent called Ahmed.”
Me: “So…”
Him: “Well, he demanded £3,000 for a blow job.”
Me: “And?”
Him: “I legged it back to the hotel and locked the door.”
£3k for a blow job? Is that on the ONS's check list for inflation?
It's juvenile, but one interesting aspect of the possible legalisation of prostitution would be seeing whether the Chancellor put VAT on such things.
I had a court case about that. HMRC tried to aggregate the brothel's earnings with that of the girls who they maintained were self employed contractors. I was for the brothel and we won. (And yes, I was paid in the normal way, not in kind).
Did it go to the First or Upper Tier? Or never appealed?
People aren't stupid. They know that cheap talk about being poor will, all else equal, scare the government into giving out more stuff. Governments also aren't stupid and don't get goaded. So it's just cheap talk. Real terms consumer spending talks.
I’m afraid I have to disagree on this one minor point
People ARE stupid
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity. People tend to be ignorant, but not stupid, in my experience.
Average iq is 100. Anyone with an iq under that is dumb as a daffodil. Thats half of humans right there
Anyone with an iq under 115 is not exactly bright
So yeah the majority of humans are fucking idiots. Hence the failure of democracy
UK average IQ is 100, global average IQ is closer to 90.
However representative, as opposed to direct, democracy is still better than dictatorship or absolute monarchy and means fewer revolutions
IQ is a touchy subject. It is difficult to define or measure. Tests can clearly be biased. However, should we choose to wade in to the topic, we can note that IQ is designed to have a typical score of 100. But IQ appears to be increasing over time: e.g.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261117 describes longitudinal data from Danish conscription. The causes of that are not entirely clear, but seem to include better education (which IQ isn't meant to be affected by, but is) and better childhood nutrition. That means that the UK average is probably higher than 100 (unless you choose to re-standardise your test).
IQ typically shows a slightly asymmetric distribution, with a heavier tail on the lower end (more with very low IQs than very high IQs), which means the arithmetic mean and the median will not coincide. Differences in mean IQ may just come down to differences in the very low IQ bulge, which typically relate to obstetric and health problems, rather than differences to most of the distribution.
If they are measuring IQ from Danish conscripts, maybe it's just all the thick ones got conscripted - and shot - first?
I like the post, but who the hell is shooting Danish conscripts. I would have thought the most dangerous thing they do is eat open sandwiches.
Wasn't Denmark quite heavily involved in the Afghan clusterfuck? I'm sure it's featured in several Scandi dramas.
In fact there seems to be a film specifically about it.
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
Something else on that web page that is not about solicitorgate but shines a light on another perennial debate is this bit: I had hoped to go to law school, but my plans changed considerably after the birth of my son Jack in January 2003. ... Becoming a father at a young age had a significant effect on me.
23 did not used to be a young age to have children. It might be the secular increase in this age (and not tax or benefits) is responsible for reshaping the age pyramid and turning the retirement system into a ponzi scheme depending on faster and faster immigration.
Age at first birth is now nearly 30 for women, slightly older still for males, but this is only part of the story. It's been going up since about 1970, when it was less than 24 years of age. Obviously this leaves less time to have a big family.
People aren't stupid. They know that cheap talk about being poor will, all else equal, scare the government into giving out more stuff. Governments also aren't stupid and don't get goaded. So it's just cheap talk. Real terms consumer spending talks.
I’m afraid I have to disagree on this one minor point
People ARE stupid
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity. People tend to be ignorant, but not stupid, in my experience.
Average iq is 100. Anyone with an iq under that is dumb as a daffodil. Thats half of humans right there
Anyone with an iq under 115 is not exactly bright
So yeah the majority of humans are fucking idiots. Hence the failure of democracy
UK average IQ is 100, global average IQ is closer to 90.
However representative, as opposed to direct, democracy is still better than dictatorship or absolute monarchy and means fewer revolutions
IQ is a touchy subject. It is difficult to define or measure. Tests can clearly be biased. However, should we choose to wade in to the topic, we can note that IQ is designed to have a typical score of 100. But IQ appears to be increasing over time: e.g.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261117 describes longitudinal data from Danish conscription. The causes of that are not entirely clear, but seem to include better education (which IQ isn't meant to be affected by, but is) and better childhood nutrition. That means that the UK average is probably higher than 100 (unless you choose to re-standardise your test).
IQ typically shows a slightly asymmetric distribution, with a heavier tail on the lower end (more with very low IQs than very high IQs), which means the arithmetic mean and the median will not coincide. Differences in mean IQ may just come down to differences in the very low IQ bulge, which typically relate to obstetric and health problems, rather than differences to most of the distribution.
If they are measuring IQ from Danish conscripts, maybe it's just all the thick ones got conscripted - and shot - first?
This is from the testing before you are conscripted, so it's nearly all men of the relevant age. (Actual conscription is then by lottery. Everyone has to turn up for the tests, but most aren't conscripted.) They happen to have used the same IQ test in the same way for many decades, which allows for longitudinal comparisons that are not usually possible.
We have had a proposal from our financial advisor to put some money offshore to defer tax.
Can anyone explain in simple terms why it's worth it? As far as I understand we will end up paying exactly the same amount of tax when it is brought back as we would if it was in UK.
Am I missing something?
The financial advisor earns commission?
Well yeah but they are getting that on some of the UK investments. But we currently are manging most outside of their product which they get Commission on.
Run.
He’s selling you a product which will be opaque and charge high fees
Simon Hart was the Conservative MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire from 2010 to 2024. Following a stint as secretary of state for Wales, he was appointed chief whip by Rishi Sunak in October 2022. His diary covers the ensuing 21 months until the general election.
November 24 2022
The phone rings at 2.45am from a 2019’er, clearly pissed but just about coherent: “Hi, chief. Hope I haven’t woken you.” (It’s 2.45am, FFS.)
Me: “What’s up?”
Him: “I’m stuck in a brothel in Bayswater and I’ve run out of money.”
Me: “Go on…”
Him: “I met a woman as I left the Carlton Club who offered me a drink, but I now think she is a KGB agent. She wants £500 and has left me in a room with 12 naked women and a CCTV.”
Me: “Give me a few moments and I will call you back.”
Bloody hell, this is a mess. I ring Spad [special adviser] Emma. She offers to leave her house and go personally to Bayswater on an extraction mission.
I suggest not (she sounded rather disappointed).
Instead, we devise a plan to send a taxi, extract our man, return him to the safety of his own hotel. I go back to sleep.
4.10am. Phone rings again.
Me: “Are you back safely?”
Him: “Yes, but you will never guess what happened next.” (The truest thing he said all evening.)
Me: “Go on…”
Him: “Well, I slipped out of the room and saw the taxi Emma ordered across the road, so I legged it over and jumped in. However, it turned out it was a different taxi being driven by an Afghan agent called Ahmed.”
Me: “So…”
Him: “Well, he demanded £3,000 for a blow job.”
Me: “And?”
Him: “I legged it back to the hotel and locked the door.”
£3k for a blow job? Is that on the ONS's check list for inflation?
It's juvenile, but one interesting aspect of the possible legalisation of prostitution would be seeing whether the Chancellor put VAT on such things.
I had a court case about that. HMRC tried to aggregate the brothel's earnings with that of the girls who they maintained were self employed contractors. I was for the brothel and we won. (And yes, I was paid in the normal way, not in kind).
We have had a proposal from our financial advisor to put some money offshore to defer tax.
Can anyone explain in simple terms why it's worth it? As far as I understand we will end up paying exactly the same amount of tax when it is brought back as we would if it was in UK.
Am I missing something?
Presumably the idea is to defer tax to a time that you are on a lower rate.
For a similar example getting pension tax relief at 40% but being a basic rate taxpayer when you take the pension.
Oh yes that could well be it I expect.
Thanks
I would get secondary advice there - That area of tax changed when the Personal Savings Allowance was introduced...
Exactly and if you do not plan to be below the 40% tax rate then pointless.
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
Trump might have misunderstood his predecessor as darling of the right, Ronald Reagan: Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace – and you can have it in the next second – surrender. (2m30s video, extracted from his Rendezvous with Destiny speech if you want to find the full version without the annoying, stirring music) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpVvgNs8tqI
Gods, Trump and the Russians ate such blatant gaslighters. Russia seriously talks about 'the West' not liking countries rejecting pressure from external forces.
People aren't stupid. They know that cheap talk about being poor will, all else equal, scare the government into giving out more stuff. Governments also aren't stupid and don't get goaded. So it's just cheap talk. Real terms consumer spending talks.
I’m afraid I have to disagree on this one minor point
People ARE stupid
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity. People tend to be ignorant, but not stupid, in my experience.
Average iq is 100. Anyone with an iq under that is dumb as a daffodil. Thats half of humans right there
Anyone with an iq under 115 is not exactly bright
So yeah the majority of humans are fucking idiots. Hence the failure of democracy
UK average IQ is 100, global average IQ is closer to 90.
However representative, as opposed to direct, democracy is still better than dictatorship or absolute monarchy and means fewer revolutions
IQ is a touchy subject. It is difficult to define or measure. Tests can clearly be biased. However, should we choose to wade in to the topic, we can note that IQ is designed to have a typical score of 100. But IQ appears to be increasing over time: e.g.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261117 describes longitudinal data from Danish conscription. The causes of that are not entirely clear, but seem to include better education (which IQ isn't meant to be affected by, but is) and better childhood nutrition. That means that the UK average is probably higher than 100 (unless you choose to re-standardise your test).
IQ typically shows a slightly asymmetric distribution, with a heavier tail on the lower end (more with very low IQs than very high IQs), which means the arithmetic mean and the median will not coincide. Differences in mean IQ may just come down to differences in the very low IQ bulge, which typically relate to obstetric and health problems, rather than differences to most of the distribution.
If they are measuring IQ from Danish conscripts, maybe it's just all the thick ones got conscripted - and shot - first?
I like the post, but who the hell is shooting Danish conscripts. I would have thought the most dangerous thing they do is eat open sandwiches.
Wasn't Denmark quite heavily involved in the Afghan clusterfuck? I'm sure it's featured in several Scandi dramas.
In fact there seems to be a film specifically about it.
We have had a proposal from our financial advisor to put some money offshore to defer tax.
Can anyone explain in simple terms why it's worth it? As far as I understand we will end up paying exactly the same amount of tax when it is brought back as we would if it was in UK.
Am I missing something?
You're a socialist whose commitment to your principles is only skin-deep?
A Socialist with a disabled wife whose annual care bill is over £300k per annum. She has a forecast life expectancy of another 12 to 15 year (10 less than before she became a paraplegic).
In order for her to make the most of those years and have sufficient funds. We are exploring options with regards to her negligence settlement.
Wouldn't expect you to care about that mind.
It
We all have our families and reasons to protect our wealth and take care of them.
Your life mate, and you can believe what you want. But if you decide to seek to offshore your wealth to protect it - whilst making judgements about the rest of us, and suggesting we face high taxes, and aren't entitled to the same - then expect the piss to be taken out of you a bit.
Inflation and the price of chocolate: People's sense of life being more expensive is structural - built in from preceding events.
The three bedroom suburban London semi I was brought up in has increased in value well over 100 fold since about 1960. What you buy one for now would then, in cash terms, have bought the whole road.
A few pence or pounds up or down in the price of chocolate makes no difference to how that seems.
I don't buy chocolate, don't really have a sweet tooth. Are Mars bars and the like expensive now ?
I don't buy them but you see packs of them , snickers etc at really low prices. Real chocolate and chocoaltes have gone up , Belgian ones in M&S have gone from £10 to £14.50
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
You just made me go to Guido’s website you bastard.
It says “ He also worked as a solicitor in the Manchester office of law firm Addleshaw Goddard. ”
If that is true then he is guilty, but he should get a conditional discharge and be bound over not to commit the offence again in future. Plus costs and the victim surcharge of course.
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
Something else on that web page that is not about solicitorgate but shines a light on another perennial debate is this bit: I had hoped to go to law school, but my plans changed considerably after the birth of my son Jack in January 2003. ... Becoming a father at a young age had a significant effect on me.
23 did not used to be a young age to have children. It might be the secular increase in this age (and not tax or benefits) is responsible for reshaping the age pyramid and turning the retirement system into a ponzi scheme depending on faster and faster immigration.
Age at first birth is now nearly 30 for women, slightly older still for males, but this is only part of the story. It's been going up since about 1970, when it was less than 24 years of age. Obviously this leaves less time to have a big family.
People generally don’t want to bring children into the world when they can’t afford to support them. Under 30, and most of the joint income will be used to pay the rent, or to try and save a deposit for a house.
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
To clarify, if the alleged issue is with the following, then he has done nothing wrong in my view.
“In 2007 I was finally able to enrol in law school, now as a mature student, and went on to achieve my Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and Legal Practice Course (LPC) at BPP Law School in Manchester. I was delighted to be offered a training contract to become a solicitor with Addleshaw Goddard LLP in Manchester. Addleshaw was a fantastic place to work.”
This is all very normal terminology within the legal industry. I guess he doesn’t make it entirely clear he didn’t complete his training contract but I doubt it is that deep. To suggest this is some sort of fraudulent “gotcha”? Talk about focusing on the big issues.
I’ve provided a link where he says he “worked as a solicitor” at AG.
It’s not big stuff, of course. Guido’s a muck-raker and scandal-monkey. But it is an offence with strict liability. I guess lawyers don’t like people pretending to be lawyers. Competition or something.
This is were the 'anti-woke' agenda has been heading for some time: not just against woke, but against women, and against anyone who dares to be different.
Thus ensuring you double-down against it, turn up the volume of your hyper-liberalism, further fuelling polarisation and, in your everything or nothing duel, risk losing everything. Including losing liberalism itself.
See where this ends? See how important it is to moderate it?
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
We have had a proposal from our financial advisor to put some money offshore to defer tax.
Can anyone explain in simple terms why it's worth it? As far as I understand we will end up paying exactly the same amount of tax when it is brought back as we would if it was in UK.
Am I missing something?
You're a socialist whose commitment to your principles is only skin-deep?
A Socialist with a disabled wife whose annual care bill is over £300k per annum. She has a forecast life expectancy of another 12 to 15 year (10 less than before she became a paraplegic).
In order for her to make the most of those years and have sufficient funds. We are exploring options with regards to her negligence settlement.
Wouldn't expect you to care about that mind.
It
Sorry to see this. Just want to check - is it £300k or is that a typo for £30k/annum? Had not realised even complex care could cost that much...
I'm unsure calling Trump a fascist at the moment is useful. The problem is that, unlike terms such as 'dictator'. fascism is poorly defined, with many differing definitions that also cover other categories such as Communism. I'd strongly argue that Putin is a fascist, but others point at definitions where he is not. We end up arguing about definitions.
And we should not let people think Trump is a-okay just because he is not a fascist.
Trump may turn into a fascist; but it is also possible that he turns into something that is not fascist, but just as bad. A new category, all to himself and his acolytes. If so, that needs calling out just as much as if he was a fascist.
A handy list of 14 to cut out and keep, appearing on PB several times before, helpfully listing a number of power elements more visible in North Korea than Norway. Whether or not they are fascist, they are not great to live under and are happening:
(Others can be added like, as here, Blurring or abolishing the independence of the legal process and judiciary),
1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scape-goats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/ avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labour suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
Something else on that web page that is not about solicitorgate but shines a light on another perennial debate is this bit: I had hoped to go to law school, but my plans changed considerably after the birth of my son Jack in January 2003. ... Becoming a father at a young age had a significant effect on me.
23 did not used to be a young age to have children. It might be the secular increase in this age (and not tax or benefits) is responsible for reshaping the age pyramid and turning the retirement system into a ponzi scheme depending on faster and faster immigration.
Age at first birth is now nearly 30 for women, slightly older still for males, but this is only part of the story. It's been going up since about 1970, when it was less than 24 years of age. Obviously this leaves less time to have a big family.
Context for that - life expectancy is up by 10 years from 1970 to 2023, from 71 to 81. According to an ai enquiry, Covid has not reduced that by very much.
OTOH healthy life expectancy is only up from ~61 to ~63.
People aren't stupid. They know that cheap talk about being poor will, all else equal, scare the government into giving out more stuff. Governments also aren't stupid and don't get goaded. So it's just cheap talk. Real terms consumer spending talks.
I’m afraid I have to disagree on this one minor point
People ARE stupid
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity. People tend to be ignorant, but not stupid, in my experience.
Average iq is 100. Anyone with an iq under that is dumb as a daffodil. Thats half of humans right there
Anyone with an iq under 115 is not exactly bright
So yeah the majority of humans are fucking idiots. Hence the failure of democracy
UK average IQ is 100, global average IQ is closer to 90.
However representative, as opposed to direct, democracy is still better than dictatorship or absolute monarchy and means fewer revolutions
IQ is a touchy subject. It is difficult to define or measure. Tests can clearly be biased. However, should we choose to wade in to the topic, we can note that IQ is designed to have a typical score of 100. But IQ appears to be increasing over time: e.g.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261117 describes longitudinal data from Danish conscription. The causes of that are not entirely clear, but seem to include better education (which IQ isn't meant to be affected by, but is) and better childhood nutrition. That means that the UK average is probably higher than 100 (unless you choose to re-standardise your test).
IQ typically shows a slightly asymmetric distribution, with a heavier tail on the lower end (more with very low IQs than very high IQs), which means the arithmetic mean and the median will not coincide. Differences in mean IQ may just come down to differences in the very low IQ bulge, which typically relate to obstetric and health problems, rather than differences to most of the distribution.
If they are measuring IQ from Danish conscripts, maybe it's just all the thick ones got conscripted - and shot - first?
This is from the testing before you are conscripted, so it's nearly all men of the relevant age. (Actual conscription is then by lottery. Everyone has to turn up for the tests, but most aren't conscripted.) They happen to have used the same IQ test in the same way for many decades, which allows for longitudinal comparisons that are not usually possible.
Ah, the Danish Heavy Balls scandal. Only now can we tell how the bright sons of the rich and famous managed for decades to evade conscription through buying lead balls that never rose to the top in the consciption lottery...
People aren't stupid. They know that cheap talk about being poor will, all else equal, scare the government into giving out more stuff. Governments also aren't stupid and don't get goaded. So it's just cheap talk. Real terms consumer spending talks.
I’m afraid I have to disagree on this one minor point
People ARE stupid
Yes, the "Korean style armistice" is recent proof of that.
You’re basically a human slug. No. You’re basically the kind of creature that lives in the toilets used by human slugs when they go to the toilet, that’s what I think of you
You get a higher class of insult on here.
Leon is particularly lyrical with his insults. It's often the highlight of my day, nay my week, when he turns his poetic ire on little old me.
It's rare that he indulges me, I admit, but I find that faux admiring posts like this often trigger him so I shall be breathlessly (and no doubt futilely) hitting the refresh button all morning in the hope of a withering barb.
It might even rhyme.
Tbh right now I’m more shocked - indeed, horrified - by this sequence of depraved stories in the Spectator
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
To clarify, if the alleged issue is with the following, then he has done nothing wrong in my view.
“In 2007 I was finally able to enrol in law school, now as a mature student, and went on to achieve my Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and Legal Practice Course (LPC) at BPP Law School in Manchester. I was delighted to be offered a training contract to become a solicitor with Addleshaw Goddard LLP in Manchester. Addleshaw was a fantastic place to work.”
This is all very normal terminology within the legal industry. I guess he doesn’t make it entirely clear he didn’t complete his training contract but I doubt it is that deep. To suggest this is some sort of fraudulent “gotcha”? Talk about focusing on the big issues.
I’ve provided a link where he says he “worked as a solicitor” at AG.
It’s not big stuff, of course. Guido’s a muck-raker and scandal-monkey. But it is an offence with strict liability. I guess lawyers don’t like people pretending to be lawyers. Competition or something.
Aye @Foss already provided that link. My bad for missing it.
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
To clarify, if the alleged issue is with the following, then he has done nothing wrong in my view.
“In 2007 I was finally able to enrol in law school, now as a mature student, and went on to achieve my Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and Legal Practice Course (LPC) at BPP Law School in Manchester. I was delighted to be offered a training contract to become a solicitor with Addleshaw Goddard LLP in Manchester. Addleshaw was a fantastic place to work.”
This is all very normal terminology within the legal industry. I guess he doesn’t make it entirely clear he didn’t complete his training contract but I doubt it is that deep. To suggest this is some sort of fraudulent “gotcha”? Talk about focusing on the big issues.
I’ve provided a link where he says he “worked as a solicitor” at AG.
It’s not big stuff, of course. Guido’s a muck-raker and scandal-monkey. But it is an offence with strict liability. I guess lawyers don’t like people pretending to be lawyers. Competition or something.
I have seen four occasions where he has claimed to be a solicitor/lawyer, verbally and in written form. I think he is beginning to believe it himself.
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
Something else on that web page that is not about solicitorgate but shines a light on another perennial debate is this bit: I had hoped to go to law school, but my plans changed considerably after the birth of my son Jack in January 2003. ... Becoming a father at a young age had a significant effect on me.
23 did not used to be a young age to have children. It might be the secular increase in this age (and not tax or benefits) is responsible for reshaping the age pyramid and turning the retirement system into a ponzi scheme depending on faster and faster immigration.
Age at first birth is now nearly 30 for women, slightly older still for males, but this is only part of the story. It's been going up since about 1970, when it was less than 24 years of age. Obviously this leaves less time to have a big family.
People generally don’t want to bring children into the world when they can’t afford to support them. Under 30, and most of the joint income will be used to pay the rent, or to try and save a deposit for a house.
Indeed, this is the position me and my other half are in. Both 35, well paid, but rent is 2k a month. We are just about there with a deposit, to look later this year, but definitely no kids until house is sorted! (My personal triumph to speed things along, the last of my student loan went last week! Bring on the good times!)
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
You just made me go to Guido’s website you bastard.
It says “ He also worked as a solicitor in the Manchester office of law firm Addleshaw Goddard. ”
If that is true then he is guilty, but he should get a conditional discharge and be bound over not to commit the offence again in future. Plus costs and the victim surcharge of course.
One imagines a computer-literate CCHQ intern has automated trawling archive.org for changes to the web pages of Labour MPs, and is drip feeding them to friendly media outlets.
This is were the 'anti-woke' agenda has been heading for some time: not just against woke, but against women, and against anyone who dares to be different.
Thus ensuring you double-down against it, turn up the volume of your hyper-liberalism, further fuelling polarisation and, in your everything or nothing duel, risk losing everything. Including losing liberalism itself.
See where this ends? See how important it is to moderate it?
Of course you don't and won't. Not a bit of it.
…and everyone ends up ignoring the facts.
Which are, so far, that the aircraft landed at twice the sink rate that would have been a hard landing.
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
You just made me go to Guido’s website you bastard.
It says “ He also worked as a solicitor in the Manchester office of law firm Addleshaw Goddard. ”
If that is true then he is guilty, but he should get a conditional discharge and be bound over not to commit the offence again in future. Plus costs and the victim surcharge of course.
"[Trump] is now making the USA a force against democracy in Europe and the world.
This will have far reaching implications—and many states which have been hoping beyond hope (or more likely hoping beyond reason) that Trump was not exactly what he said he was, can now longer pretend that the USA is their friend or a defender of their freedom.
It is the most momentous challenge to the international order since 1939—and needs to be faced clearly and coldly."
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
Something else on that web page that is not about solicitorgate but shines a light on another perennial debate is this bit: I had hoped to go to law school, but my plans changed considerably after the birth of my son Jack in January 2003. ... Becoming a father at a young age had a significant effect on me.
23 did not used to be a young age to have children. It might be the secular increase in this age (and not tax or benefits) is responsible for reshaping the age pyramid and turning the retirement system into a ponzi scheme depending on faster and faster immigration.
Age at first birth is now nearly 30 for women, slightly older still for males, but this is only part of the story. It's been going up since about 1970, when it was less than 24 years of age. Obviously this leaves less time to have a big family.
Context for that - life expectancy is up by 10 years from 1970 to 2023, from 71 to 81. According to an ai enquiry, Covid has not reduced that by very much.
OTOH healthy life expectancy is only up from ~61 to ~63.
Which explains where all the extra NHS spending, and government spending generally, is going.
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
Something else on that web page that is not about solicitorgate but shines a light on another perennial debate is this bit: I had hoped to go to law school, but my plans changed considerably after the birth of my son Jack in January 2003. ... Becoming a father at a young age had a significant effect on me.
23 did not used to be a young age to have children. It might be the secular increase in this age (and not tax or benefits) is responsible for reshaping the age pyramid and turning the retirement system into a ponzi scheme depending on faster and faster immigration.
Age at first birth is now nearly 30 for women, slightly older still for males, but this is only part of the story. It's been going up since about 1970, when it was less than 24 years of age. Obviously this leaves less time to have a big family.
Context for that - life expectancy is up by 10 years from 1970 to 2023, from 71 to 81. According to an ai enquiry, Covid has not reduced that by very much.
OTOH healthy life expectancy is only up from ~61 to ~63.
More context and the likely true cause:-
The pill was first introduced in the UK in the early 1960’s after clinical trials in London, Birmingham and Slough. Around this time, the UK health minister Enoch Powell announced that married women who wished to use oral contraceptives would be able access it through the NHS. At first, contraception advice was only given to older married women who no longer wanted children, or to those whose health would be at serious risk during pregnancy. In 1967 the NHS Family Planning Act 1967 was passed, which recognised that unwanted children in low income households caused a serious financial strain for those families. As a result, the oral contraceptive pill became more widely available on the NHS, and the FPA (Family Planning Association) were able to approve the use of it in their clinics. https://onlinedoctor.lloydspharmacy.com/uk/contraception-advice/when-was-the-pill-invented
So I've got halfway through painting a wall before realising the ***Ing *****ers sent the wrong paint! It's the wrong tone of blue, and not a *nice* wrong.
I had that "That looks wrong, but it'll probably lighten as it dries..." feeling, followed by a dawning realisation that it was not.
The paintshop have been most apologetic, but it still means a lot of work, and unnecessary trip and a delay...
On topic - people notice and remember price increases more than they do price falls.
I also wonder if freezing tax allowances is having an effect - traditionally people would get an income rise when the annual higher tax code was applied to their wages.
Whereas currently many people are getting lower tax codes applied as they breach the £1000 tax free interest limit.
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
To clarify, if the alleged issue is with the following, then he has done nothing wrong in my view.
“In 2007 I was finally able to enrol in law school, now as a mature student, and went on to achieve my Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and Legal Practice Course (LPC) at BPP Law School in Manchester. I was delighted to be offered a training contract to become a solicitor with Addleshaw Goddard LLP in Manchester. Addleshaw was a fantastic place to work.”
This is all very normal terminology within the legal industry. I guess he doesn’t make it entirely clear he didn’t complete his training contract but I doubt it is that deep. To suggest this is some sort of fraudulent “gotcha”? Talk about focusing on the big issues.
I’ve provided a link where he says he “worked as a solicitor” at AG.
It’s not big stuff, of course. Guido’s a muck-raker and scandal-monkey. But it is an offence with strict liability. I guess lawyers don’t like people pretending to be lawyers. Competition or something.
Aye @Foss already provided that link. My bad for missing it.
I’m at a loss as to the issue that pay says “ training contract to become a solicitor” which to me is very, very clear cut - your complaint appears to be if I ignore the “training contract to become” bit he’s claiming to be a solicitor
This is were the 'anti-woke' agenda has been heading for some time: not just against woke, but against women, and against anyone who dares to be different.
Thus ensuring you double-down against it, turn up the volume of your hyper-liberalism, further fuelling polarisation and, in your everything or nothing duel, risk losing everything. Including losing liberalism itself.
See where this ends? See how important it is to moderate it?
Of course you don't and won't. Not a bit of it.
How is not automatically blaming the women 'hyper-liberalism' ?
That's what I'm commenting on. The way when anything like this happens, certain people look for any woman to blame. It happens time and time again with incidents. Often followed by some guff about DEI.
Sometimes a woman might be to blame; but it's the automatic "Oh my God it's a woman's fault!" that is indefensible.
Sorry to see @Sandpit take a break. A different view, even though I don't agree on that many things with him these days.
For a diversion. Yesterday we were talking about the Bismarck wreck having lost it's gun turrets.
Gun turrets were also involved in the wreck of HMS Victoria, a battlecruiser which sank off the coast of Lebanon in 1893 - and is one of a very few wrecks which is stuck vertically in the seabed (mud), with the stern poking up 100 ft or more. It had an enormous turret that took it straight down, after a collision caused by Admiral Tryon, trying too hard. He went down with the ship and ~350 others. It had a ram bow which helped it keep together.
It reportedly still has one of Nelson's swords on board, but is in about 400ft of water.
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
So I've got halfway through painting a wall before realising the ***Ing *****ers sent the wrong paint! It's the wrong tone of blue, and not a *nice* wrong.
I had that "That looks wrong, but it'll probably lighten as it dries..." feeling, followed by a dawning realisation that it was not.
The paintshop have been most apologetic, but it still means a lot of work, and unnecessary trip and a delay...
Still. Could be worse.
This is why I have some sympathy for people who missed red flags they should have seen.
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
The 4% approval rating is a straight out ridiculous lie.
Zelensky's approval rating in Russia? Afterall, why would Trump care about Ukrainians' opinions?
It's over. At least for time being. The US as a defender of democracy is finished. We are on our own. O'Brien is right - we need a cold hard look at where we go from here.
People aren't stupid. They know that cheap talk about being poor will, all else equal, scare the government into giving out more stuff. Governments also aren't stupid and don't get goaded. So it's just cheap talk. Real terms consumer spending talks.
I’m afraid I have to disagree on this one minor point
People ARE stupid
There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity. People tend to be ignorant, but not stupid, in my experience.
Average iq is 100. Anyone with an iq under that is dumb as a daffodil. Thats half of humans right there
Anyone with an iq under 115 is not exactly bright
So yeah the majority of humans are fucking idiots. Hence the failure of democracy
UK average IQ is 100, global average IQ is closer to 90.
However representative, as opposed to direct, democracy is still better than dictatorship or absolute monarchy and means fewer revolutions
IQ is a touchy subject. It is difficult to define or measure. Tests can clearly be biased. However, should we choose to wade in to the topic, we can note that IQ is designed to have a typical score of 100. But IQ appears to be increasing over time: e.g.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0261117 describes longitudinal data from Danish conscription. The causes of that are not entirely clear, but seem to include better education (which IQ isn't meant to be affected by, but is) and better childhood nutrition. That means that the UK average is probably higher than 100 (unless you choose to re-standardise your test).
IQ typically shows a slightly asymmetric distribution, with a heavier tail on the lower end (more with very low IQs than very high IQs), which means the arithmetic mean and the median will not coincide. Differences in mean IQ may just come down to differences in the very low IQ bulge, which typically relate to obstetric and health problems, rather than differences to most of the distribution.
If they are measuring IQ from Danish conscripts, maybe it's just all the thick ones got conscripted - and shot - first?
This is from the testing before you are conscripted, so it's nearly all men of the relevant age. (Actual conscription is then by lottery. Everyone has to turn up for the tests, but most aren't conscripted.) They happen to have used the same IQ test in the same way for many decades, which allows for longitudinal comparisons that are not usually possible.
Ah, the Danish Heavy Balls scandal. Only now can we tell how the bright sons of the rich and famous managed for decades to evade conscription through buying lead balls that never rose to the top in the consciption lottery...
Right up until the end of that, I was reading it as some wheeze to fail the medical or something, with lead balls located in underpants!
Sorry to see @Sandpit take a break. A different view, even though I don't agree on that many things with him these days.
For a diversion. Yesterday we were talking about the Bismarck wreck having lost it's gun turrets.
Gun turrets were also involved in the wreck of HMS Victoria, a battlecruiser which sank off the coast of Lebanon in 1893 - and is one of a very few wrecks which is stuck vertically in the seabed (mud), with the stern poking up 100 ft or more. It had an enormous turret that took it straight down, after a collision caused by Admiral Tryon, trying too hard. He went down with the ship and ~350 others. It had a ram bow which helped it keep together.
It reportedly still has one of Nelson's swords on board, but is in about 400ft of water.
Madri, Peroni, Stella, etc it’s all basically the same stuff brewed at scale in the same factories outside Preston and Newcastle. Hard to get excited about. Victory gin.
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
The 4% approval rating is a straight out ridiculous lie.
Zelensky's approval rating in Russia? Afterall, why would Trump care about Ukrainians' opinions?
It's over. At least for time being. The US as a defender of democracy is finished. We are on our own. O'Brien is right - we need a cold hard look at where we go from here.
From October 2024
Zelensky has 69% approve Vs 29% disapprove. With only 12% on strongly disapprove.
My guess is that Trump and Co. will try and claim the result of the next Ukrainian Presidential election is fake.
OK, so what should I be drinking then, you bellends?
Choose my next beverage for me.
Creme de Menthe Frappe
Also, why are you drinking at 11am?!
I know you've quit your job, but maybe you don't want to dive IMMEDIATELY into alcoholism. I mean, if it's your choice, far enough! - but take a while to choose?
This is were the 'anti-woke' agenda has been heading for some time: not just against woke, but against women, and against anyone who dares to be different.
Thus ensuring you double-down against it, turn up the volume of your hyper-liberalism, further fuelling polarisation and, in your everything or nothing duel, risk losing everything. Including losing liberalism itself.
See where this ends? See how important it is to moderate it?
Of course you don't and won't. Not a bit of it.
How is not automatically blaming the women 'hyper-liberalism' ?
That's what I'm commenting on. The way when anything like this happens, certain people look for any woman to blame. It happens time and time again with incidents. Often followed by some guff about DEI.
Sometimes a woman might be to blame; but it's the automatic "Oh my God it's a woman's fault!" that is indefensible.
It's offensive, wrong, and dickish. But if you seek knobbish views out you will find them.
Which you will because, for you, this is about confirmation bias and finding any reason possible to dismiss the (very real and serious) concerns about Woke and its overreach.
This idiotic guy and you. You both need each other.
OK, so what should I be drinking then, you bellends?
Choose my next beverage for me.
Creme de Menthe Frappe
Also, why are you drinking at 11am?!
I know you've quit your job, but maybe you don't want to dive IMMEDIATELY into alcoholism. I mean, if it's your choice, far enough! - but take a while to choose?
I'm on holiday mate. Been up since 5am with a noisy 2 year old and took my daughter electric jet skiing in the pool at 8am!
Sorry to see @Sandpit take a break. A different view, even though I don't agree on that many things with him these days.
For a diversion. Yesterday we were talking about the Bismarck wreck having lost it's gun turrets.
Gun turrets were also involved in the wreck of HMS Victoria, a battlecruiser which sank off the coast of Lebanon in 1893 - and is one of a very few wrecks which is stuck vertically in the seabed (mud), with the stern poking up 100 ft or more. It had an enormous turret that took it straight down, after a collision caused by Admiral Tryon, trying too hard. He went down with the ship and ~350 others. It had a ram bow which helped it keep together.
It reportedly still has one of Nelson's swords on board, but is in about 400ft of water.
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
"[Trump] is now making the USA a force against democracy in Europe and the world.
This will have far reaching implications—and many states which have been hoping beyond hope (or more likely hoping beyond reason) that Trump was not exactly what he said he was, can now longer pretend that the USA is their friend or a defender of their freedom.
It is the most momentous challenge to the international order since 1939—and needs to be faced clearly and coldly."
Some European politicians remain in denial . The current US administration is actively working against the UK and EU and all this talk about shared values is tripe .
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
"[Trump] is now making the USA a force against democracy in Europe and the world.
This will have far reaching implications—and many states which have been hoping beyond hope (or more likely hoping beyond reason) that Trump was not exactly what he said he was, can now longer pretend that the USA is their friend or a defender of their freedom.
It is the most momentous challenge to the international order since 1939—and needs to be faced clearly and coldly."
I think one could quibble about the exact date. (I don't think it's as much of a challenge to the international as the Korean War.) But, yes, basically, this.
OK, so what should I be drinking then, you bellends?
Choose my next beverage for me.
Stout works well with a cooked breakfast. Which now gives you an excuse to have a cooked breakfast.
Stout? Yuk.
Come on. Choose me something good.
We need to know your aims. Do you want to be quietly and steadily drunk through the day, or are you looking to get fucking hammered and oblivious ASAP?
Or perhaps you are merely beginning a celebratory lunch quite early?
Sorry to see @Sandpit take a break. A different view, even though I don't agree on that many things with him these days.
For a diversion. Yesterday we were talking about the Bismarck wreck having lost it's gun turrets.
Gun turrets were also involved in the wreck of HMS Victoria, a battlecruiser which sank off the coast of Lebanon in 1893 - and is one of a very few wrecks which is stuck vertically in the seabed (mud), with the stern poking up 100 ft or more. It had an enormous turret that took it straight down, after a collision caused by Admiral Tryon, trying too hard. He went down with the ship and ~350 others. It had a ram bow which helped it keep together.
It reportedly still has one of Nelson's swords on board, but is in about 400ft of water.
He was anoter good diverse voice. Are you guys going to chase every singe non centrist dad into the sea?
Pile on from the Ukrainian Ultras because he wouldn't toe the line. They seemed to feel they were entitled to some sort of Maoist self-criticism session from him.
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
To clarify, if the alleged issue is with the following, then he has done nothing wrong in my view.
“In 2007 I was finally able to enrol in law school, now as a mature student, and went on to achieve my Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) and Legal Practice Course (LPC) at BPP Law School in Manchester. I was delighted to be offered a training contract to become a solicitor with Addleshaw Goddard LLP in Manchester. Addleshaw was a fantastic place to work.”
This is all very normal terminology within the legal industry. I guess he doesn’t make it entirely clear he didn’t complete his training contract but I doubt it is that deep. To suggest this is some sort of fraudulent “gotcha”? Talk about focusing on the big issues.
I’ve provided a link where he says he “worked as a solicitor” at AG.
It’s not big stuff, of course. Guido’s a muck-raker and scandal-monkey. But it is an offence with strict liability. I guess lawyers don’t like people pretending to be lawyers. Competition or something.
Aye @Foss already provided that link. My bad for missing it.
I’m at a loss as to the issue that pay says “ training contract to become a solicitor” which to me is very, very clear cut - your complaint appears to be if I ignore the “training contract to become” bit he’s claiming to be a solicitor
Inflation and the price of chocolate: People's sense of life being more expensive is structural - built in from preceding events.
The three bedroom suburban London semi I was brought up in has increased in value well over 100 fold since about 1960. What you buy one for now would then, in cash terms, have bought the whole road.
A few pence or pounds up or down in the price of chocolate makes no difference to how that seems.
Extra: The 3 bed semi in SW London my in laws bought for £99k in 1991, in need of some work, is now worth ~£700-750k. It fluctuates within +/- 10-15% recently, and has been higher in 2022 and is now back down a bit.
The cottage I bought for £35k (valuation 35-40k) in 1989 up here is now worth around £160-170k. Very ish - I price it by the 3 bed semis across the road, where it has been in lockstep throughout.
Prices have levelled up somewhat for comparables over the last 10 years, as London prices stalled a little.
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
"Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it — three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal.
We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine — I mean I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% approval rating — and the country’s been blown to smithereens,”
the most recent one has Zelensky in 2nd place on 24%
Trump probably got the 4% figure straight from Putin, or just made it up himself.
Zaluzhnyi the only candidate who currently leads Zelensky and arguably even more anti Putin than he is (as well as currently being Ukranian UK Ambassador)
This is were the 'anti-woke' agenda has been heading for some time: not just against woke, but against women, and against anyone who dares to be different.
Thus ensuring you double-down against it, turn up the volume of your hyper-liberalism, further fuelling polarisation and, in your everything or nothing duel, risk losing everything. Including losing liberalism itself.
See where this ends? See how important it is to moderate it?
Of course you don't and won't. Not a bit of it.
How is not automatically blaming the women 'hyper-liberalism' ?
That's what I'm commenting on. The way when anything like this happens, certain people look for any woman to blame. It happens time and time again with incidents. Often followed by some guff about DEI.
Sometimes a woman might be to blame; but it's the automatic "Oh my God it's a woman's fault!" that is indefensible.
It's offensive, wrong, and dickish. But if you seek knobbish views out you will find them.
Which you will because, for you, this is about confirmation bias and finding any reason possible to dismiss the (very real and serious) concerns about Woke and its overreach.
This idiotic guy and you. You both need each other.
The problem is that the dickish and knobbish are now in power in the US.
OK, so what should I be drinking then, you bellends?
Choose my next beverage for me.
Creme de Menthe Frappe
Also, why are you drinking at 11am?!
I know you've quit your job, but maybe you don't want to dive IMMEDIATELY into alcoholism. I mean, if it's your choice, far enough! - but take a while to choose?
I'm on holiday mate. Been up since 5am with a noisy 2 year old and took my daughter electric jet skiing in the pool at 8am!
PS. Creme de Menthe is disgusting.
Fair enough, then you've probably earned it
I'd go with a sparkling wine, personally. You can get some great value Argie sparkling Malbecs
Creme de Menthe is indeed utterly yuk. In fact it's so yuk I'm not sure I've ever had it, THAT's how bad it is
OK, so what should I be drinking then, you bellends?
Choose my next beverage for me.
Creme de Menthe Frappe
Also, why are you drinking at 11am?!
I know you've quit your job, but maybe you don't want to dive IMMEDIATELY into alcoholism. I mean, if it's your choice, far enough! - but take a while to choose?
I'm on holiday mate. Been up since 5am with a noisy 2 year old and took my daughter electric jet skiing in the pool at 8am!
PS. Creme de Menthe is disgusting.
How do you electric jet ski in a pool? Don't you run out of pool quite quickly?
We have had a proposal from our financial advisor to put some money offshore to defer tax.
Can anyone explain in simple terms why it's worth it? As far as I understand we will end up paying exactly the same amount of tax when it is brought back as we would if it was in UK.
Am I missing something?
You're a socialist whose commitment to your principles is only skin-deep?
A Socialist with a disabled wife whose annual care bill is over £300k per annum. She has a forecast life expectancy of another 12 to 15 year (10 less than before she became a paraplegic).
In order for her to make the most of those years and have sufficient funds. We are exploring options with regards to her negligence settlement.
Wouldn't expect you to care about that mind.
It
Sorry to see this. Just want to check - is it £300k or is that a typo for £30k/annum? Had not realised even complex care could cost that much...
24:7 care needs about 3.5 professionals full time (to cover holidays etc)
Assuming they are on £50k (made up) then that’s £175,000 before you even start talking about medical intervention and products
Sorry to see @Sandpit take a break. A different view, even though I don't agree on that many things with him these days.
For a diversion. Yesterday we were talking about the Bismarck wreck having lost it's gun turrets.
Gun turrets were also involved in the wreck of HMS Victoria, a battlecruiser which sank off the coast of Lebanon in 1893 - and is one of a very few wrecks which is stuck vertically in the seabed (mud), with the stern poking up 100 ft or more. It had an enormous turret that took it straight down, after a collision caused by Admiral Tryon, trying too hard. He went down with the ship and ~350 others. It had a ram bow which helped it keep together.
It reportedly still has one of Nelson's swords on board, but is in about 400ft of water.
He was anoter good diverse voice. Are you guys going to chase every singe non centrist dad into the sea?
Pile on from the Ukrainian Ultras because he wouldn't toe the line. They seemed to feel they were entitled to some sort of Maoist self-criticism session from him.
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
Something else on that web page that is not about solicitorgate but shines a light on another perennial debate is this bit: I had hoped to go to law school, but my plans changed considerably after the birth of my son Jack in January 2003. ... Becoming a father at a young age had a significant effect on me.
23 did not used to be a young age to have children. It might be the secular increase in this age (and not tax or benefits) is responsible for reshaping the age pyramid and turning the retirement system into a ponzi scheme depending on faster and faster immigration.
Age at first birth is now nearly 30 for women, slightly older still for males, but this is only part of the story. It's been going up since about 1970, when it was less than 24 years of age. Obviously this leaves less time to have a big family.
It is self evident that the Business Secretary has committed a criminal offence by describing himself as a "Solicitor" when non-articled trainee clerk would have been the correct designation. That is straight forward.
However, as a member of the legal profession surely there is also a duty on Starmer to ensure those who work with him are properly described, in the same way as a doctor has a duty to report fellow "doctors" if it transpires they might not have elementary competence. Particularly now it has come to light is Starmer not in real jepardy if he does not remove the whip from Reynolds with all convenient haste ?
FPT
In true PB tradition this isn’t technically correct. A trainee solicitor can legitimately call themselves a “trainee solicitor”. I don’t know what this chap referred to himself as but “an articled clerk” hasn’t been a thing in England and Wales for over 30 years.
Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974 states:
“Any unqualified person who wilfully pretends to be, or takes or uses any name, title, addition or description implying that he is, qualified or recognised by law as qualified to act as a solicitor shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the fourth level on the standard scale.”
He told the Commons that he worked as a solicitor in Manchester before changing career.
Apparently there are also misleading linked in snaps on Guido but I haven’t checked that website.
Surely the offence is to practise as a solicitor when you are not qualified to be one, not to leave out the word "trainee" on a CV for a non-legal job.
It would be interesting to get a representative sample of CVs from a range of senior people and see how many have been embellished in some way, I would suspect all of them.
I assumed though but @Gallowgate ’s quote from the act suggests not.
In my view he’s broken the law (strict liability) and the punishment should be a conditional discharge.
I wish these lazy websites/journalists would actually quote or screenshot the website referenced rather than just “alleged” or “reported”.
https://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-me/ This bit seems acceptable - he did accept a training contract to be a solicitor and that isn’t in contravention of any laws as far as I understand them.
Looking at the same website on archive.org that quote hasn’t changed in 5 years.
Unless I am missing something, or it’s a different website or part of the website, this may be fake news.
Something else on that web page that is not about solicitorgate but shines a light on another perennial debate is this bit: I had hoped to go to law school, but my plans changed considerably after the birth of my son Jack in January 2003. ... Becoming a father at a young age had a significant effect on me.
23 did not used to be a young age to have children. It might be the secular increase in this age (and not tax or benefits) is responsible for reshaping the age pyramid and turning the retirement system into a ponzi scheme depending on faster and faster immigration.
Age at first birth is now nearly 30 for women, slightly older still for males, but this is only part of the story. It's been going up since about 1970, when it was less than 24 years of age. Obviously this leaves less time to have a big family.
Indeed, fertility rates are highest between 20-30, then drop a bit and decline more rapidly after 40 to effectively nothing at all after 45 for women.
Yet most young people, especially young graduates, want to have fun in their 20s before settling down in their 30s
OK, so what should I be drinking then, you bellends?
Choose my next beverage for me.
Creme de Menthe Frappe
Also, why are you drinking at 11am?!
I know you've quit your job, but maybe you don't want to dive IMMEDIATELY into alcoholism. I mean, if it's your choice, far enough! - but take a while to choose?
I'm on holiday mate. Been up since 5am with a noisy 2 year old and took my daughter electric jet skiing in the pool at 8am!
PS. Creme de Menthe is disgusting.
Fair enough, then you've probably earned it
I'd go with a sparkling wine, personally. You can get some great value Argie sparkling Malbecs
Creme de Menthe is indeed utterly yuk. In fact it's so yuk I'm not sure I've ever had it, THAT's how bad it is
2/3rds brandy, 1/3rd *white* Crème de Menthe. Shake with ice.
The Stinger is a very old cocktail. And one of the best.
Comments
Let’s say that you have £ 10,000, pay 25% tax and earn 10% a year on your investments.
Onshore: £10,000 - tax = £7,500 which generates income of £750 per year, on which you pay income tax (25%) so you end up with £562.50
Offshore: £10,000 generates income of £1,000. Of this you remit £750 to the UK and pay tax so you end up with £562.50. *But* your offshore assets are now worth £10,250 so your future income will be higher.
There are several considerations:
1) unless you are talking about large numbers is it worth the time, hassle and cost of doing this?
2) for this to work you would need to have an offshore company or a trust. UK citizens pay tax on direct foreign income. More hassle and cost.
3) Is it the *right* thing to do. It may be legal, but should you do it?
The Tory leader said: “Now, the Liberal Democrats are basically a protest party for mainly people on the left, and they don’t have much of an ideology other than being nice. They will go with all sorts of extreme things, you know, extreme gender ideology, etc...
She said: “They are not on Twitter, but they are in local communities. A typical Liberal Democrat will be somebody who is good at fixing their church roof. And, you know, the people in the community like them, they are like ‘Fix the church roof, you should be a member of parliament.'
https://www.politics.co.uk/news/2025/02/19/kemi-badenoch-says-lib-dems-not-on-twitter-but-they-are-in-local-communities/
But Trump did the bad things! The person who did the bad things deserves most of the blame.
Of course, there are some public law lawyers who seem to delight (and build careers on) in trying to stretch the likes of ECHR to particular cases but most of us, in my experience, find that tiresome and it makes us hostile to such Conventions which invite Judicial legislation.
In fact there seems to be a film specifically about it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35250491
He’s selling you a product which will be opaque and charge high fees
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpVvgNs8tqI
Despicable stuff, but the world must suffer it.
Your life mate, and you can believe what you want. But if you decide to seek to offshore your wealth to protect it - whilst making judgements about the rest of us, and suggesting we face high taxes, and aren't entitled to the same - then expect the piss to be taken out of you a bit.
This is the link he provides (from 2012)
https://web.archive.org/web/20130103050717/http://www.jonathanreynolds.org.uk/about-jonathan-reynolds
It says “ He also worked as a solicitor in the Manchester office of law firm Addleshaw Goddard. ”
If that is true then he is guilty, but he should get a conditional discharge and be bound over not to commit the offence again in future. Plus costs and the victim surcharge of course.
It’s not big stuff, of course. Guido’s a muck-raker and scandal-monkey. But it is an offence with strict liability. I guess lawyers don’t like people pretending to be lawyers. Competition or something.
See where this ends? See how important it is to moderate it?
Of course you don't and won't. Not a bit of it.
Just want to check - is it £300k or is that a typo for £30k/annum? Had not realised even complex care could cost that much...
6 (not)
8 (partial)
9 (partial)
14 (partial)
So I’d score Trump at 11/14…
OTOH healthy life expectancy is only up from ~61 to ~63.
Fuxsake.
Which are, so far, that the aircraft landed at twice the sink rate that would have been a hard landing.
Why that happened is the question.
Food inflation at 3.1%.
He's also said it in the House.
This will have far reaching implications—and many states which have been hoping beyond hope (or more likely hoping beyond reason) that Trump was not exactly what he said he was, can now longer pretend that the USA is their friend or a defender of their freedom.
It is the most momentous challenge to the international order since 1939—and needs to be faced clearly and coldly."
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-us-has-taken-sides-against-democracy?r=1tgexa&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true
Quite a few politicians would kill for numbers like that.
The pill was first introduced in the UK in the early 1960’s after clinical trials in London, Birmingham and Slough. Around this time, the UK health minister Enoch Powell announced that married women who wished to use oral contraceptives would be able access it through the NHS. At first, contraception advice was only given to older married women who no longer wanted children, or to those whose health would be at serious risk during pregnancy. In 1967 the NHS Family Planning Act 1967 was passed, which recognised that unwanted children in low income households caused a serious financial strain for those families. As a result, the oral contraceptive pill became more widely available on the NHS, and the FPA (Family Planning Association) were able to approve the use of it in their clinics.
https://onlinedoctor.lloydspharmacy.com/uk/contraception-advice/when-was-the-pill-invented
I had that "That looks wrong, but it'll probably lighten as it dries..." feeling, followed by a dawning realisation that it was not.
The paintshop have been most apologetic, but it still means a lot of work, and unnecessary trip and a delay...
Still. Could be worse.
Beaten to it.
Twice!
I also wonder if freezing tax allowances is having an effect - traditionally people would get an income rise when the annual higher tax code was applied to their wages.
Whereas currently many people are getting lower tax codes applied as they breach the £1000 tax free interest limit.
That's what I'm commenting on. The way when anything like this happens, certain people look for any woman to blame. It happens time and time again with incidents. Often followed by some guff about DEI.
Sometimes a woman might be to blame; but it's the automatic "Oh my God it's a woman's fault!" that is indefensible.
We shouldn't mock as it creates jobs, incomes, tax revenues in this country.
Sorry to see @Sandpit take a break. A different view, even though I don't agree on that many things with him these days.
For a diversion. Yesterday we were talking about the Bismarck wreck having lost it's gun turrets.
Gun turrets were also involved in the wreck of HMS Victoria, a battlecruiser which sank off the coast of Lebanon in 1893 - and is one of a very few wrecks which is stuck vertically in the seabed (mud), with the stern poking up 100 ft or more. It had an enormous turret that took it straight down, after a collision caused by Admiral Tryon, trying too hard. He went down with the ship and ~350 others. It had a ram bow which helped it keep together.
It reportedly still has one of Nelson's swords on board, but is in about 400ft of water.
My image quota.
Short video about finding it in 2004:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKVymgGyYKo
Next focus leaflet sorted.
He was anoter good diverse voice. Are you guys going to chase every singe non centrist dad into the sea?
Zelensky has 69% approve Vs 29% disapprove. With only 12% on strongly disapprove.
My guess is that Trump and Co. will try and claim the result of the next Ukrainian Presidential election is fake.
OK, so what should I be drinking then, you bellends?
Choose my next beverage for me.
Unsurprising
Shadow home office minister issues warning after UK couple Craig and Lindsay Foreman detained in Iran and charged with espionage
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/alicia-kearns-iran-instagram-craig-lindsay-foreman-hostages-b2700713.html
Shadow is the interesting word there. Is Alicia Kearns one to watch?
Also, why are you drinking at 11am?!
I know you've quit your job, but maybe you don't want to dive IMMEDIATELY into alcoholism. I mean, if it's your choice, far enough! - but take a while to choose?
Which you will because, for you, this is about confirmation bias and finding any reason possible to dismiss the (very real and serious) concerns about Woke and its overreach.
This idiotic guy and you. You both need each other.
PS. Creme de Menthe is disgusting.
See the pictures of the sinking which show the propellers turning as she sank - Captain was trying to beach her.
So after she sank, she was pulled into a vertical position and sinking fast. Embedded for about 1/3 of her length in the sea bed.
Trump is at -1.5% net favourability and +3.8% net approval according to 538.
I'm not sure what the difference is between "favourable" and "approval" apart from the 5.3%!
But both are less than 4%.
Come on. Choose me something good.
Very light but tasty. I had it in Moravia once. Trouble is it's so nice you soon forget about breakfast
https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=1466&page=1
which has
"To what extent do you trust or distrust Volodymyr Zelenskyi?"
Dec 24 Trust 52%, Do not trust 39%
There is presidential polling:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_Ukrainian_presidential_election
the most recent one has Zelensky in 2nd place on 24%
Trump probably got the 4% figure straight from Putin, or just made it up himself.
Or perhaps you are merely beginning a celebratory lunch quite early?
Otherwise a good Bloody Mary.
https://x.com/jreynoldsMP/status/29517557834
https://x.com/jreynoldsMP/status/21877577878601729
Linkedin, his own website - it's just weird, a fantasist that seems to have started to believe it himself.
The cottage I bought for £35k (valuation 35-40k) in 1989 up here is now worth around £160-170k. Very ish - I price it by the 3 bed semis across the road, where it has been in lockstep throughout.
Prices have levelled up somewhat for comparables over the last 10 years, as London prices stalled a little.
Insert that scene from Casablanca with the gendarme here.
I'd go with a sparkling wine, personally. You can get some great value Argie sparkling Malbecs
Creme de Menthe is indeed utterly yuk. In fact it's so yuk I'm not sure I've ever had it, THAT's how bad it is
Enjoy the holiday!
Assuming they are on £50k (made up) then that’s £175,000 before you even start talking about medical intervention and products
Good riddance, in that case
So far, it's going down rather well.
Yet most young people, especially young graduates, want to have fun in their 20s before settling down in their 30s
The Stinger is a very old cocktail. And one of the best.