Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
I suspect Connolly was told she would get a very minor punishment if she pleaded guilty.
It would be interesting to know who told her that, if it's true.
IIRC part of her appeal against sentence was the advice was bad.
I stand by my opinion that Lucy Connolly was very badly advised. Always plead not guilty and take it to a jury.
Not always. If don't have a leg to stand on you might be better pleading guilty and getting a shorter sentence than if you'd fought it and lost.
Thing is, if it's the difference between three years in prison and a suspended sentence, then fair enough. But you want to know what you're agreeing to when pleading guilty, and we don't do that in this country.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
I suspect Connolly was told she would get a very minor punishment if she pleaded guilty.
It would be interesting to know who told her that, if it's true.
I would guess plod regularly do similar.
Hasn't it been regularly mentioned that plod encourage people to accept cautions without mentioning that cautions count as a criminal record ?
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
I suspect Connolly was told she would get a very minor punishment if she pleaded guilty.
It would be interesting to know who told her that, if it's true.
I would guess plod regularly do similar.
Hasn't it been regularly mentioned that plod encourage people to accept cautions without mentioning that cautions count as a criminal record ?
A Labour councillor who called for far-right protesters' throats to be cut at an anti-racism rally has been found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder.
Ricky Jones, 58, has been on trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court after he called demonstrators "disgusting Nazi fascists" and said "we need to get rid of them all" while addressing a crowd in Walthamstow on 7 August last year.
Mr Jones told police his remarks, captured on video, were "ill-advised" and not intended to incite or encourage violence.
The Dartford councillor, who has since been suspended by the Labour Party, had denied the charge.
He was arrested the day after making the comments and told the court he felt it was his "duty" to attend counter-protests.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version
I don't know how the jury could possibly have reached this verdict.
Because they heard all the evidence and arguments and we PBers rely on X posts?
I just heard a vox pop asking people why they were protesting outside a hotel and the first person they interviewed said with a shaking voice "I'm just an ordinary person scared for the children in our community" I should say this followed a tweet by our Shadow Justice secretary Jenrick saying he supports the protests ouside hotels 'because he cares more about the safety of his daughters than the rights of foreigners.........'
All that money spent educating people in the UK and those are the sort of attitudes spewed out at the other end......God help us!
(PS Didn't Jenrick go to Cambridge?)
Did I ever see Jenrick protesting at the grave of Sir Jimmy Savile?
Maybe he can’t find it since they removed all trace of it.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were against the early releases of prisoners.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
I suspect Connolly was told she would get a very minor punishment if she pleaded guilty.
It would be interesting to know who told her that, if it's true.
I would guess plod regularly do similar.
Hasn't it been regularly mentioned that plod encourage people to accept cautions without mentioning that cautions count as a criminal record ?
Didn’t that happen recently with the guy who was carrying a trowel and other garden tools home.
If people’s starting point in life is ACAB and work back based on personal experience they won’t be badly served
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
It is quite remarkable how PBers are buying into the "injustice" served on Lucy Connolly. I couldn't give a flying f*"* about her or Councillor Jones. They both read like a pair of nasty barstewards.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were against the early releases of prisoners.
Youve just made that up
I havent expressed a view one way or the other.for all the time Ive been on PB
A Labour councillor who called for far-right protesters' throats to be cut at an anti-racism rally has been found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder.
Ricky Jones, 58, has been on trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court after he called demonstrators "disgusting Nazi fascists" and said "we need to get rid of them all" while addressing a crowd in Walthamstow on 7 August last year.
Mr Jones told police his remarks, captured on video, were "ill-advised" and not intended to incite or encourage violence.
The Dartford councillor, who has since been suspended by the Labour Party, had denied the charge.
He was arrested the day after making the comments and told the court he felt it was his "duty" to attend counter-protests.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version
Two tier Keir justice? What is wrong with jurors*?
And PB favourite Lucy Connolly is still banged up.
* Ricky was at the very least, very, very naughty. I wonder if Sir Two Tier will let him back into the Red Tories?
There is no link betwen a case where the jury decided that NG was the verdict and a guilty plea. Perhaps the first was not guilty, and the second person was. There is no evidence here of two tier justice, nothing wrong with jurors, and nothing arises from this case about the imprisonment of Connolly. (IMO too long; it should have been suspended or a community order)
Inter alia it might be evidence that the jury system is breaking down due to multiracialism. There is overwhelming evidence from the USA that black jurors show a racial preference in trials (eg much more likely to acquit a black defendant) whereas white jurors show almost no racial preference
I’m not sure if we have similar evidence from the UK, and the American racial experience is very different from the UK’s - but it is far from impossible that this phenomenon has crossed the Atlantic
How did you find out the ethnicity of the jurors, and how they voted?
“Over 34 studies of jury behavior, 7397 participants, White jurors show essentially 0 racial bias, while Blacks have strong bias in favor of their own race.”
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
Texan politicians seem to believe they should be able to tell other states how to vote.
We had the Texas GOP trying to interfere in Pennsylvania's presidential vote in 2020 and now we have the Texas Dems wanting the California districts drawn to their own liking.
Texas Democrats said on Thursday they are prepared to return to the state under certain conditions, ending a nearly two-week-long effort to block Republicans from passing a new congressional map that would add five GOP seats.
The lawmakers said they would return as long as the legislature ends its first special session on Friday, which Republicans have said they plan to do. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has said he will immediately call another special session.
The Democrats also said they would return once California introduces a new congressional map that would add five Democratic seats, offsetting the gains in Texas. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is expected to announce what he has teased as a “major” redistricting announcement on Thursday.
Incidentally if the California GOP representatives leave the state would that stop Newsom's second stage gerrymandering on quorum grounds ? If they did we'd likely to have a reversal of the cheering/jeering reaction to the Texan Dems doing so.
A Labour councillor who called for far-right protesters' throats to be cut at an anti-racism rally has been found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder.
Ricky Jones, 58, has been on trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court after he called demonstrators "disgusting Nazi fascists" and said "we need to get rid of them all" while addressing a crowd in Walthamstow on 7 August last year.
Mr Jones told police his remarks, captured on video, were "ill-advised" and not intended to incite or encourage violence.
The Dartford councillor, who has since been suspended by the Labour Party, had denied the charge.
He was arrested the day after making the comments and told the court he felt it was his "duty" to attend counter-protests.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version
Two tier Keir justice? What is wrong with jurors*?
And PB favourite Lucy Connolly is still banged up.
* Ricky was at the very least, very, very naughty. I wonder if Sir Two Tier will let him back into the Red Tories?
There is no link betwen a case where the jury decided that NG was the verdict and a guilty plea. Perhaps the first was not guilty, and the second person was. There is no evidence here of two tier justice, nothing wrong with jurors, and nothing arises from this case about the imprisonment of Connolly. (IMO too long; it should have been suspended or a community order)
Inter alia it might be evidence that the jury system is breaking down due to multiracialism. There is overwhelming evidence from the USA that black jurors show a racial preference in trials (eg much more likely to acquit a black defendant) whereas white jurors show almost no racial preference
I’m not sure if we have similar evidence from the UK, and the American racial experience is very different from the UK’s - but it is far from impossible that this phenomenon has crossed the Atlantic
How did you find out the ethnicity of the jurors, and how they voted?
“Over 34 studies of jury behavior, 7397 participants, White jurors show essentially 0 racial bias, while Blacks have strong bias in favor of their own race.”
I stand by my opinion that Lucy Connolly was very badly advised. Always plead not guilty and take it to a jury.
Not always. If don't have a leg to stand on you might be better pleading guilty and getting a shorter sentence than if you'd fought it and lost.
Thing is, if it's the difference between three years in prison and a suspended sentence, then fair enough. But you want to know what you're agreeing to when pleading guilty, and we don't do that in this country.
Yes, it's an Expected Value calc.
Plead guilty - what is the expected sentence. Plead NG - what is the expected sentence if you lose, what is the chance of losing.
You need all of that info (not exactly but to a level of confidence) in order to make the call. That's if you're acting purely rationally.
A Labour councillor who called for far-right protesters' throats to be cut at an anti-racism rally has been found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder.
Ricky Jones, 58, has been on trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court after he called demonstrators "disgusting Nazi fascists" and said "we need to get rid of them all" while addressing a crowd in Walthamstow on 7 August last year.
Mr Jones told police his remarks, captured on video, were "ill-advised" and not intended to incite or encourage violence.
The Dartford councillor, who has since been suspended by the Labour Party, had denied the charge.
He was arrested the day after making the comments and told the court he felt it was his "duty" to attend counter-protests.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version
Two tier Keir justice? What is wrong with jurors*?
And PB favourite Lucy Connolly is still banged up.
* Ricky was at the very least, very, very naughty. I wonder if Sir Two Tier will let him back into the Red Tories?
There is no link betwen a case where the jury decided that NG was the verdict and a guilty plea. Perhaps the first was not guilty, and the second person was. There is no evidence here of two tier justice, nothing wrong with jurors, and nothing arises from this case about the imprisonment of Connolly. (IMO too long; it should have been suspended or a community order)
Inter alia it might be evidence that the jury system is breaking down due to multiracialism. There is overwhelming evidence from the USA that black jurors show a racial preference in trials (eg much more likely to acquit a black defendant) whereas white jurors show almost no racial preference
I’m not sure if we have similar evidence from the UK, and the American racial experience is very different from the UK’s - but it is far from impossible that this phenomenon has crossed the Atlantic
How did you find out the ethnicity of the jurors, and how they voted?
“Over 34 studies of jury behavior, 7397 participants, White jurors show essentially 0 racial bias, while Blacks have strong bias in favor of their own race.”
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
I suspect Connolly was told she would get a very minor punishment if she pleaded guilty.
It would be interesting to know who told her that, if it's true.
I would guess plod regularly do similar.
Hasn't it been regularly mentioned that plod encourage people to accept cautions without mentioning that cautions count as a criminal record ?
Didn’t that happen recently with the guy who was carrying a trowel and other garden tools home.
If people’s starting point in life is ACAB and work back based on personal experience they won’t be badly served
General rule is to never accept a police caution as it can be career-ending (teachers etc) or life-limiting (DBS check for helping out with your kid's sports team)
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were against the early releases of prisoners.
Youve just made that up
I havent expressed a view one way or the other.for all the time Ive been on PB
I thought we had a discussion about Blair’s early release of IRA prisoners. Apologies if it wasn’t you.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
Texan politicians seem to believe they should be able to tell other states how to vote.
We had the Texas GOP trying to interfere in Pennsylvania's presidential vote in 2020 and now we have the Texas Dems wanting the California districts drawn to their own liking.
Texas Democrats said on Thursday they are prepared to return to the state under certain conditions, ending a nearly two-week-long effort to block Republicans from passing a new congressional map that would add five GOP seats.
The lawmakers said they would return as long as the legislature ends its first special session on Friday, which Republicans have said they plan to do. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has said he will immediately call another special session.
The Democrats also said they would return once California introduces a new congressional map that would add five Democratic seats, offsetting the gains in Texas. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is expected to announce what he has teased as a “major” redistricting announcement on Thursday.
Incidentally if the California GOP representatives leave the state would that stop Newsom's second stage gerrymandering on quorum grounds ? If they did we'd likely to have a reversal of the cheering/jeering reaction to the Texan Dems doing so.
The whole lot of them are acting like children, playing games and acting righteous while accusing the other side of being evil.
The actual problem of redistricting and US House map Gerrymandering has been going on for two centuries (Elmbridge Gerry, 1812), and is one of those Prisoners’ Dilemma problems where it’s always to the advantage of incumbents to keep it going, even though everyone would benefit from an impartial drawing of lines as we see in the UK.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
When my eldest son was being clinically diagnosed as autistic my wife asked the consultant for his best advice on how my son should progress his life as a juvenile and adult. The consultant suggested he never answers a question from the police without legal representation. He quoted Stefan Kiszko as a salutary lesson.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
Do we have anyone who can explain the history of Parliament Piece in Kenilworth?
I am told it is important.
To do with Simon Montfort ISTR. Kenilworth Castle is quite something by the way if you are thinking of a visit - albeit much of it is Tudor magnate grandstanding.
Open Spaces Society have a members day there on Sat 13 September for their 160th anniversary, and they have the contacts and know the history, and it's a big anniversary since their foundation was in 1865.
If anyone were interested I'd be happy to sub one or two (PM me) - I've had really great debate from PBers here recently, giving different views on important questions. It's quite good for a requested donation of £15, and they even take cheques. Kate Ashbrook has been the Gen Sec since 1983, so there will be some good stories. The first obstruction she attempted to clear back then was a marquee at the Henley Regatta pitched on a footpath.
Kenilworth, Warwickshire, is a special place in the very middle of England—and it is a special place for the society because there we own the historic 15-acre Parliament Piece, and that open space will be at the heart of the celebration of our 160th birthday.
We hope you will come and join the celebration and enjoy the day’s programme we have devised (below). Among other things we have new trees to reveal, and some intriguing all-user friendly gates to show off. And Kenilworth itself is a historic market town with a great castle which served as a mediaeval fortress and an Elizabethan palace.
Come for coffee, talks, and lunch, a visit to the historic Abbey Barn, and an afternoon walk around Parliament Piece led by Nick Martin, nature reserves manager from Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. There’ll be time to chat to other members, our staff, and trustees.
Venue: St Nicolas Parochial Hall, 28 High Street, Kenilworth CV8 1LZ, a half-mile walk from Kenilworth railway station (on the Nuneaton-Coventry-Leamington Spa line). Parking in Abbey Fields car park.
Outline programme (11.00-16.00)
11.00 Meet at the hall for coffee.
11.30 Introduction from our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook.
11.45 Introduction to Kenilworth by the Mayor James Kennedy
11.50 ‘Parliament Piece: birthplace of democracy’. Talk by Jan Cooper, former Chair of the Kenilworth History and Archaeology Society.
12.05 Visit to Abbey Museum (including exhibition to mark the 450th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth 1’s visit to Kenilworth Castle).
13.00 Lunch.
13.45 Walk to Parliament Piece.
14.00 Conducted tour of Parliament Piece, led by Nick Martin, nature reserves manager, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. We shall unveil the trees planted to celebrate our anniversary, and you can test our new gates, and visit the bees with beekeeper Andy Threlfall.
15.30 Return to hall for tea and depart.
I'll be examining those alleged "all user friendly gates". I need to ask them if it is all accessible, and get modestly grumpy if it is not.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
Do you mean that in MEGA world alternate facts are truths?
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
Texan politicians seem to believe they should be able to tell other states how to vote.
We had the Texas GOP trying to interfere in Pennsylvania's presidential vote in 2020 and now we have the Texas Dems wanting the California districts drawn to their own liking.
Texas Democrats said on Thursday they are prepared to return to the state under certain conditions, ending a nearly two-week-long effort to block Republicans from passing a new congressional map that would add five GOP seats.
The lawmakers said they would return as long as the legislature ends its first special session on Friday, which Republicans have said they plan to do. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has said he will immediately call another special session.
The Democrats also said they would return once California introduces a new congressional map that would add five Democratic seats, offsetting the gains in Texas. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is expected to announce what he has teased as a “major” redistricting announcement on Thursday.
Incidentally if the California GOP representatives leave the state would that stop Newsom's second stage gerrymandering on quorum grounds ? If they did we'd likely to have a reversal of the cheering/jeering reaction to the Texan Dems doing so.
Remember the old PB maxim.
It’s only bad when the Republicans do it.
It’s quite astonishing just how brazen Newsom is being about his plans.
Clearly he’s running for President in 2028 and trying to make a name for himself, but I’m not sure that “Make America California Again” is a message that resonates much even inside his home State, let alone elsewhere in the country.
It’s rather amusing that someone trolled him by sending him a hat with “Trump 2028” written on it, and he lost his mind saying that Trump’s clearly running again. https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1956096374161768836 He isn’t running again, it’s a joke, and they keep making the joke because it winds up people like Newsom.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
I suspect Connolly was told she would get a very minor punishment if she pleaded guilty.
It would be interesting to know who told her that, if it's true.
I would guess plod regularly do similar.
Hasn't it been regularly mentioned that plod encourage people to accept cautions without mentioning that cautions count as a criminal record ?
Didn’t that happen recently with the guy who was carrying a trowel and other garden tools home.
If people’s starting point in life is ACAB and work back based on personal experience they won’t be badly served
General rule is to never accept a police caution as it can be career-ending (teachers etc) or life-limiting (DBS check for helping out with your kid's sports team)
But if everybody did that there'd be lots more CJS resource absorbed dealing with minor offences.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
One big change of the past 20 years is the removal of all discretion a judge used to have when deciding and passing sentencing
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
When my eldest son was being clinically diagnosed as autistic my wife asked the consultant for his best advice on how my son should progress his life as a juvenile and adult. The consultant suggested he never answers a question from the police without legal representation. He quoted Stefan Kiszko as a salutary lesson.
The fury at the "Nightjack" police blogger for saying the same thing was spectacular.
SMT got a tame journalist to unmask him, so they could bin him from the job.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
I saw this ages ago. It is a brilliant lecture. I’d also never attend a voluntary interview. It’s a fishing expedition.
Hmm... What I would say is those that give a clear explanation to the police about what happened of the alleged rape at interview have, in my experience, a much higher prospect of being acquitted than those who exercise their right to silence. The interview will nearly always be played to the Jury and can be highly persuasive. It is not subject to cross examination and it frequently means that the accused does not have to give evidence but can still have their version of events before the jury. If I was ever falsely accused of such a thing I think I would speak up, based on my experience.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
When my eldest son was being clinically diagnosed as autistic my wife asked the consultant for his best advice on how my son should progress his life as a juvenile and adult. The consultant suggested he never answers a question from the police without legal representation. He quoted Stefan Kiszko as a salutary lesson.
The fury at the "Nightjack" police blogger for saying the same thing was spectacular.
SMT got a tame journalist to unmask him, so they could bin him from the job.
The police are never going to want people saying don’t do things that make life easier for the police.
One thing I think the police should be forced to say is what the consequences of accepting a caution is before they ask if you will accept one
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
Why do people think Cleverly is clever? Is it down to his name? Or simply the pathetic standard of his rivals?
He thought it funny to tell a joke in public about raping his wife whilst he was Home Secretary and responsible for law and order. Of course he has poor judgement.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
Lets shoot this Fox - Lucy Letby is not pretty. At best a 5/10.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
Lets shoot this Fox - Lucy Letby is not pretty. At best a 5/10.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
I suspect Connolly was told she would get a very minor punishment if she pleaded guilty.
It would be interesting to know who told her that, if it's true.
I would guess plod regularly do similar.
Hasn't it been regularly mentioned that plod encourage people to accept cautions without mentioning that cautions count as a criminal record ?
Didn’t that happen recently with the guy who was carrying a trowel and other garden tools home.
If people’s starting point in life is ACAB and work back based on personal experience they won’t be badly served
General rule is to never accept a police caution as it can be career-ending (teachers etc) or life-limiting (DBS check for helping out with your kid's sports team)
But if everybody did that there'd be lots more CJS resource absorbed dealing with minor offences.
The maybe the stupid twats who keep passing laws should gear up the system to accommodate their legislation.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
I saw this ages ago. It is a brilliant lecture. I’d also never attend a voluntary interview. It’s a fishing expedition.
Hmm... What I would say is those that give a clear explanation to the police about what happened of the alleged rape at interview have, in my experience, a much higher prospect of being acquitted than those who exercise their right to silence. The interview will nearly always be played to the Jury and can be highly persuasive. It is not subject to cross examination and it frequently means that the accused does not have to give evidence but can still have their version of events before the jury. If I was ever falsely accused of such a thing I think I would speak up, based on my experience.
But you *are* a lawyer, a lawyer who works in criminal law and who knows exactly what to say or what not to say in any given interaction with the police.
The rest of the population can too often either incriminate themselves or omit a key detail that means we get found guilty.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
You are Jeffrey Archer and I claim my five pounds.
Yeah, there's some truth in that- visceral experience beats numbers. To a degree. But there are two important buts.
First is that human progress tends to come from paying more attention to the factual and less to the visceral. It's uncomfortable, but it's what makes our lives relatively pleasant.
Second is that numbers can only be trumped so far. We have a situation where a near-majority of British people think that there is more illegal migration to the UK than legal. And that's not true. It's a lie. How the hell do you run a country on the basis of a lie, even if it's commonly held? And why is that lie so commonly held? (See also polling that shows that the public think that international aid and MPs expenses are meaningful items in the national budget.)
I don't really have answers to either of those questions, but they're important.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
I saw this ages ago. It is a brilliant lecture. I’d also never attend a voluntary interview. It’s a fishing expedition.
Hmm... What I would say is those that give a clear explanation to the police about what happened of the alleged rape at interview have, in my experience, a much higher prospect of being acquitted than those who exercise their right to silence. The interview will nearly always be played to the Jury and can be highly persuasive. It is not subject to cross examination and it frequently means that the accused does not have to give evidence but can still have their version of events before the jury. If I was ever falsely accused of such a thing I think I would speak up, based on my experience.
Isn't that selection bias, and you've confused the causality? You'd need to control for whether they actually did it or not, which is obviously difficult in this circumstance because the jury decides that.
The rapist is less likely to be able to construct a good explanation because lying is difficult.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
I suspect Connolly was told she would get a very minor punishment if she pleaded guilty.
It would be interesting to know who told her that, if it's true.
I would guess plod regularly do similar.
Hasn't it been regularly mentioned that plod encourage people to accept cautions without mentioning that cautions count as a criminal record ?
Didn’t that happen recently with the guy who was carrying a trowel and other garden tools home.
If people’s starting point in life is ACAB and work back based on personal experience they won’t be badly served
General rule is to never accept a police caution as it can be career-ending (teachers etc) or life-limiting (DBS check for helping out with your kid's sports team)
But if everybody did that there'd be lots more CJS resource absorbed dealing with minor offences.
Or it would be dropped because there isn't a case or it's not in the public interest, they're offering you a caution because it's an easy way of closing the paperwork with a result for them and the offence, if any, is minor.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
I saw this ages ago. It is a brilliant lecture. I’d also never attend a voluntary interview. It’s a fishing expedition.
Hmm... What I would say is those that give a clear explanation to the police about what happened of the alleged rape at interview have, in my experience, a much higher prospect of being acquitted than those who exercise their right to silence. The interview will nearly always be played to the Jury and can be highly persuasive. It is not subject to cross examination and it frequently means that the accused does not have to give evidence but can still have their version of events before the jury. If I was ever falsely accused of such a thing I think I would speak up, based on my experience.
But in Scotland, IIRC, a jury is not allowed to draw adverse inference from post-arrest silence as they are in England? So there's that to consider too.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
Again - sentencing guidelines implemented between 2010 and 2024 - made any sentencing leeway impossible .
I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
Again - defending guidelines implemented between 2010 and 2024 - made any sentencing leeway impossible .
I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it
There's nothing to grasp. The Law as it is structured can be arbitrary and guidelines are guidelines. The System has screwed up. The old quote " the law is an ass" is a constant.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
You are Jeffrey Archer and I claim my five pounds.
Yeah, there's some truth in that- visceral experience beats numbers. To a degree. But there are two important buts.
First is that human progress tends to come from paying more attention to the factual and less to the visceral. It's uncomfortable, but it's what makes our lives relatively pleasant.
Second is that numbers can only be trumped so far. We have a situation where a near-majority of British people think that there is more illegal migration to the UK than legal. And that's not true. It's a lie. How the hell do you run a country on the basis of a lie, even if it's commonly held? And why is that lie so commonly held? (See also polling that shows that the public think that international aid and MPs expenses are meaningful items in the national budget.)
I don't really have answers to either of those questions, but they're important.
How many do you think there are?
I've seen reasonable estimates that there are about 500K people in the workforce who don't have the right to work here.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
You are Jeffrey Archer and I claim my five pounds.
Yeah, there's some truth in that- visceral experience beats numbers. To a degree. But there are two important buts.
First is that human progress tends to come from paying more attention to the factual and less to the visceral. It's uncomfortable, but it's what makes our lives relatively pleasant.
Second is that numbers can only be trumped so far. We have a situation where a near-majority of British people think that there is more illegal migration to the UK than legal. And that's not true. It's a lie. How the hell do you run a country on the basis of a lie, even if it's commonly held? And why is that lie so commonly held? (See also polling that shows that the public think that international aid and MPs expenses are meaningful items in the national budget.)
I don't really have answers to either of those questions, but they're important.
How many do you think there are?
I've seen reasonable estimates that there are about 500K people in the workforce who don't have the right to work here.
On Reddit this week I saw a story from a husband whose ex wife has a tax bill of £x0,000 because she was renting out her NI number to people on Deliveroo and similar for £x00 a week
He was rather shocked when multiple people pointed out that in her case HMRC was the very least of their worries
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
You are Jeffrey Archer and I claim my five pounds.
Yeah, there's some truth in that- visceral experience beats numbers. To a degree. But there are two important buts.
First is that human progress tends to come from paying more attention to the factual and less to the visceral. It's uncomfortable, but it's what makes our lives relatively pleasant.
Second is that numbers can only be trumped so far. We have a situation where a near-majority of British people think that there is more illegal migration to the UK than legal. And that's not true. It's a lie. How the hell do you run a country on the basis of a lie, even if it's commonly held? And why is that lie so commonly held? (See also polling that shows that the public think that international aid and MPs expenses are meaningful items in the national budget.)
I don't really have answers to either of those questions, but they're important.
Because the government doesn’t want to say “we only have 50,000 boat people but 500,000 new legal immigrants”, nor “the international aid budget is only £10bn and MPs only have £250k each in expenses”.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
I suspect Connolly was told she would get a very minor punishment if she pleaded guilty.
It would be interesting to know who told her that, if it's true.
I would guess plod regularly do similar.
Hasn't it been regularly mentioned that plod encourage people to accept cautions without mentioning that cautions count as a criminal record ?
Didn’t that happen recently with the guy who was carrying a trowel and other garden tools home.
If people’s starting point in life is ACAB and work back based on personal experience they won’t be badly served
General rule is to never accept a police caution as it can be career-ending (teachers etc) or life-limiting (DBS check for helping out with your kid's sports team)
But if everybody did that there'd be lots more CJS resource absorbed dealing with minor offences.
Or it would be dropped because there isn't a case or it's not in the public interest, they're offering you a caution because it's an easy way of closing the paperwork with a result for them and the offence, if any, is minor.
Even questioning evidence, in the right way, can get cases dropped. There is the famous "When was the breathalyser/speed camera last calibrated?....
There was one lawyer who had a nice line in demanding a better, more stringent drugs test for his clients at magistrates court. Because of extra cost, this usually led to cases being dropped.
Fearing the creation of a new Mr Loophole, some quiet words were said. Every time he asked demanded the extra test, the test was granted and it was made sure the case was pushed to a conclusion - no more dropping smaller cases for time etc. So all his clients started going down.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
Do you mean that in MEGA world alternate facts are truths?
Best illustrated with an example, I think, since it's a complex philosophical area:
The vast majority of immigrants to the UK come here legally and are decent, law-abiding people. This is FACT.
We are being swamped by illegals most of whom get put up in luxury hotels leaving their rooms only to rape and pillage. This is TRUTH.
President Trump grasps this important distinction better than anyone on earth. Hence the name of his platform. It's not FACT SOCIAL is it.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
I suspect Connolly was told she would get a very minor punishment if she pleaded guilty.
It would be interesting to know who told her that, if it's true.
I would guess plod regularly do similar.
Hasn't it been regularly mentioned that plod encourage people to accept cautions without mentioning that cautions count as a criminal record ?
Didn’t that happen recently with the guy who was carrying a trowel and other garden tools home.
If people’s starting point in life is ACAB and work back based on personal experience they won’t be badly served
General rule is to never accept a police caution as it can be career-ending (teachers etc) or life-limiting (DBS check for helping out with your kid's sports team)
But if everybody did that there'd be lots more CJS resource absorbed dealing with minor offences.
Or it would be dropped because there isn't a case or it's not in the public interest, they're offering you a caution because it's an easy way of closing the paperwork with a result for them and the offence, if any, is minor.
I have heard of exactly one experience when someone I know turned down a caution, and it went exactly that way. Released without charge
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
You are Jeffrey Archer and I claim my five pounds.
Yeah, there's some truth in that- visceral experience beats numbers. To a degree. But there are two important buts.
First is that human progress tends to come from paying more attention to the factual and less to the visceral. It's uncomfortable, but it's what makes our lives relatively pleasant.
Second is that numbers can only be trumped so far. We have a situation where a near-majority of British people think that there is more illegal migration to the UK than legal. And that's not true. It's a lie. How the hell do you run a country on the basis of a lie, even if it's commonly held? And why is that lie so commonly held? (See also polling that shows that the public think that international aid and MPs expenses are meaningful items in the national budget.)
I don't really have answers to either of those questions, but they're important.
How many do you think there are?
I've seen reasonable estimates that there are about 500K people in the workforce who don't have the right to work here.
A lot, but not a majority. After all, net migration last year was about 400k. The curse of flows and totals strikes again.
(And to put 0.5 million in context, the total UK workforce is about 34 million.)
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
Why do people think Cleverly is clever? Is it down to his name? Or simply the pathetic standard of his rivals?
He thought it funny to tell a joke in public about raping his wife whilst he was Home Secretary and responsible for law and order. Of course he has poor judgement.
Sorry but there is a massive difference between what Cleverly said, stupid as it was, and what you claim was him joking about raping his wife.
Cleverly said “ a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night” was “not really illegal if it’s only a little bit” and that the secret to a long marriage was ensuring your spouse was “someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there” according to the Guardian.
To twist that into him joking about raping his wife is pretty low. If he wasn’t a Tory would you have been so careless with such a statement?
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
Do you mean that in MEGA world alternate facts are truths?
Best illustrated with an example, I think, since it's a complex philosophical area:
The vast majority of immigrants to the UK come here legally and are decent, law-abiding people. This is FACT.
We are being swamped by illegals most of whom get put up in luxury hotels leaving their rooms only to rape and pillage. This is TRUTH.
President Trump grasps this important distinction better than anyone on earth. Hence the name of his platform. It's not FACT SOCIAL is it.
I did like that anguished letter from some French philosophers, who said that when they rejected the idea of objective Truth or even reality, they hadn't meant the MAGA version.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
You are Jeffrey Archer and I claim my five pounds.
Yeah, there's some truth in that- visceral experience beats numbers. To a degree. But there are two important buts.
First is that human progress tends to come from paying more attention to the factual and less to the visceral. It's uncomfortable, but it's what makes our lives relatively pleasant.
Second is that numbers can only be trumped so far. We have a situation where a near-majority of British people think that there is more illegal migration to the UK than legal. And that's not true. It's a lie. How the hell do you run a country on the basis of a lie, even if it's commonly held? And why is that lie so commonly held? (See also polling that shows that the public think that international aid and MPs expenses are meaningful items in the national budget.)
I don't really have answers to either of those questions, but they're important.
How many do you think there are?
I've seen reasonable estimates that there are about 500K people in the workforce who don't have the right to work here.
A lot, but not a majority. After all, net migration last year was about 400k. The curse of flows and totals strikes again.
(And to put 0.5 million in context, the total UK workforce is about 34 million.)
So in a company employing 68 people, on average one of them will be illegal.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
Do you mean that in MEGA world alternate facts are truths?
Best illustrated with an example, I think, since it's a complex philosophical area:
The vast majority of immigrants to the UK come here legally and are decent, law-abiding people. This is FACT.
We are being swamped by illegals most of whom get put up in luxury hotels leaving their rooms only to rape and pillage. This is TRUTH.
President Trump grasps this important distinction better than anyone on earth. Hence the name of his platform. It's not FACT SOCIAL is it.
I did like that anguished letter from some French philosophers, who said that when they rejected the idea of objective Truth or even reality, they hadn't meant the MAGA version.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
You are Jeffrey Archer and I claim my five pounds.
Yeah, there's some truth in that- visceral experience beats numbers. To a degree. But there are two important buts.
First is that human progress tends to come from paying more attention to the factual and less to the visceral. It's uncomfortable, but it's what makes our lives relatively pleasant.
Second is that numbers can only be trumped so far. We have a situation where a near-majority of British people think that there is more illegal migration to the UK than legal. And that's not true. It's a lie. How the hell do you run a country on the basis of a lie, even if it's commonly held? And why is that lie so commonly held? (See also polling that shows that the public think that international aid and MPs expenses are meaningful items in the national budget.)
I don't really have answers to either of those questions, but they're important.
How many do you think there are?
I've seen reasonable estimates that there are about 500K people in the workforce who don't have the right to work here.
A lot, but not a majority. After all, net migration last year was about 400k. The curse of flows and totals strikes again.
(And to put 0.5 million in context, the total UK workforce is about 34 million.)
So in a company employing 68 people, on average one of them will be illegal.
Some estimates on the numbers of illegals are significantly lower. Even so, I suspect the illegals are concentrated in specific geographies and workplaces. Most of them overstayers or on visas not permitting working rather than completely in the underground economy.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
You are Jeffrey Archer and I claim my five pounds.
Yeah, there's some truth in that- visceral experience beats numbers. To a degree. But there are two important buts.
First is that human progress tends to come from paying more attention to the factual and less to the visceral. It's uncomfortable, but it's what makes our lives relatively pleasant.
Second is that numbers can only be trumped so far. We have a situation where a near-majority of British people think that there is more illegal migration to the UK than legal. And that's not true. It's a lie. How the hell do you run a country on the basis of a lie, even if it's commonly held? And why is that lie so commonly held? (See also polling that shows that the public think that international aid and MPs expenses are meaningful items in the national budget.)
I don't really have answers to either of those questions, but they're important.
How many do you think there are?
I've seen reasonable estimates that there are about 500K people in the workforce who don't have the right to work here.
A lot, but not a majority. After all, net migration last year was about 400k. The curse of flows and totals strikes again.
(And to put 0.5 million in context, the total UK workforce is about 34 million.)
So in a company employing 68 people, on average one of them will be illegal.
It's also one estimate - they range up to 1.5 million, IIRC.
The other thing that is going on, is the selling of visas by companies that are allowed to direct recruit. In some cases, care home providers were recruiting 300% of their staff, each year, under the direct receipt abroad scheme.
You also get extreme concentration in particular industries. You need a job where the workers can be abused and underpaid - Deliveroo is excellent for this.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
Again - defending guidelines implemented between 2010 and 2024 - made any sentencing leeway impossible .
I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it
There's nothing to grasp. The Law as it is structured can be arbitrary and guidelines are guidelines. The System has screwed up. The old quote " the law is an ass" is a constant.
An ignorant violence-inciting racist loudmouth jailed for slightly too long (if indeed she has been) is hardly the most egregious example of "The System" screwing up.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
You are Jeffrey Archer and I claim my five pounds.
Yeah, there's some truth in that- visceral experience beats numbers. To a degree. But there are two important buts.
First is that human progress tends to come from paying more attention to the factual and less to the visceral. It's uncomfortable, but it's what makes our lives relatively pleasant.
Second is that numbers can only be trumped so far. We have a situation where a near-majority of British people think that there is more illegal migration to the UK than legal. And that's not true. It's a lie. How the hell do you run a country on the basis of a lie, even if it's commonly held? And why is that lie so commonly held? (See also polling that shows that the public think that international aid and MPs expenses are meaningful items in the national budget.)
I don't really have answers to either of those questions, but they're important.
How many do you think there are?
I've seen reasonable estimates that there are about 500K people in the workforce who don't have the right to work here.
A lot, but not a majority. After all, net migration last year was about 400k. The curse of flows and totals strikes again.
(And to put 0.5 million in context, the total UK workforce is about 34 million.)
So in a company employing 68 people, on average one of them will be illegal.
Some estimates on the numbers of illegals are significantly lower. Even so, I suspect the illegals are concentrated in specific geographies and workplaces. Most of them overstayers or on visas not permitting working rather than completely in the underground economy.
Agreed, there will be specific industries and even companies with much higher concentrations.
Are the delivery companies like Deliveroo still hiding behind their drivers being contractors and not employees, in the same way they allow their drivers to use illegal vehicles such as unregistered motorbikes with no insurance? Ditto the ‘definitely not a taxi’ apps.
It would be good to see a test case of a large company that’s clearly not doing due diligence on the people working under its brand name.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
Again - defending guidelines implemented between 2010 and 2024 - made any sentencing leeway impossible .
I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it
There's nothing to grasp. The Law as it is structured can be arbitrary and guidelines are guidelines. The System has screwed up. The old quote " the law is an ass" is a constant.
An ignorant violence-inciting racist loudmouth jailed for slightly too long (if indeed she has been) is hardly the most egregious example of "The System" screwing up.
she's been made a cause celebre.
it was the same with Kneecap, the CPS gave them the best PR boost they could ever get
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
Again - defending guidelines implemented between 2010 and 2024 - made any sentencing leeway impossible .
I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it
There's nothing to grasp. The Law as it is structured can be arbitrary and guidelines are guidelines. The System has screwed up. The old quote " the law is an ass" is a constant.
An ignorant violence-inciting racist loudmouth jailed for slightly too long (if indeed she has been) is hardly the most egregious example of "The System" screwing up.
I note that yesterday this ignorant violent loudmouth was jailed.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
You are Jeffrey Archer and I claim my five pounds.
Yeah, there's some truth in that- visceral experience beats numbers. To a degree. But there are two important buts.
First is that human progress tends to come from paying more attention to the factual and less to the visceral. It's uncomfortable, but it's what makes our lives relatively pleasant.
Second is that numbers can only be trumped so far. We have a situation where a near-majority of British people think that there is more illegal migration to the UK than legal. And that's not true. It's a lie. How the hell do you run a country on the basis of a lie, even if it's commonly held? And why is that lie so commonly held? (See also polling that shows that the public think that international aid and MPs expenses are meaningful items in the national budget.)
I don't really have answers to either of those questions, but they're important.
How many do you think there are?
I've seen reasonable estimates that there are about 500K people in the workforce who don't have the right to work here.
A lot, but not a majority. After all, net migration last year was about 400k. The curse of flows and totals strikes again.
(And to put 0.5 million in context, the total UK workforce is about 34 million.)
So in a company employing 68 people, on average one of them will be illegal.
Some estimates on the numbers of illegals are significantly lower. Even so, I suspect the illegals are concentrated in specific geographies and workplaces. Most of them overstayers or on visas not permitting working rather than completely in the underground economy.
Agreed, there will be specific industries and even companies with much higher concentrations.
Are the delivery companies like Deliveroo still hiding behind their drivers being contractors and not employees, in the same way they allow their drivers to use illegal vehicles such as unregistered motorbikes with no insurance?
It would be good to see a test case of a large company that’s clearly not doing due diligence on the people working under its brand name.
Yup - look for companies using "contractors" for low paid jobs. Often with clauses allowing the "contractors" to farm out work to others.
Some Deliveroo "riders" are actually gangmasters for groups of workers - they get the contract and parcel out the work. It's a big business and full of utter scumbags.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
I saw this ages ago. It is a brilliant lecture. I’d also never attend a voluntary interview. It’s a fishing expedition.
Hmm... What I would say is those that give a clear explanation to the police about what happened of the alleged rape at interview have, in my experience, a much higher prospect of being acquitted than those who exercise their right to silence. The interview will nearly always be played to the Jury and can be highly persuasive. It is not subject to cross examination and it frequently means that the accused does not have to give evidence but can still have their version of events before the jury. If I was ever falsely accused of such a thing I think I would speak up, based on my experience.
But you *are* a lawyer, a lawyer who works in criminal law and who knows exactly what to say or what not to say in any given interaction with the police.
The rest of the population can too often either incriminate themselves or omit a key detail that means we get found guilty.
That's fair but i am telling you about the outcomes of people who are not. With DNA etc it is very rarely in doubt that sex actually happened between the complainer and the accused. The critical question is consent. And on that front you want your position clear from day 1.
Doesn't always work, of course, some people are guilty after all. But of the last half dozen acquittals I have had in rape trials I can't think of one who didn't speak up.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
I saw this ages ago. It is a brilliant lecture. I’d also never attend a voluntary interview. It’s a fishing expedition.
Hmm... What I would say is those that give a clear explanation to the police about what happened of the alleged rape at interview have, in my experience, a much higher prospect of being acquitted than those who exercise their right to silence. The interview will nearly always be played to the Jury and can be highly persuasive. It is not subject to cross examination and it frequently means that the accused does not have to give evidence but can still have their version of events before the jury. If I was ever falsely accused of such a thing I think I would speak up, based on my experience.
That's an interesting possible exception to the general rule.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
Again - defending guidelines implemented between 2010 and 2024 - made any sentencing leeway impossible .
I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it
There's nothing to grasp. The Law as it is structured can be arbitrary and guidelines are guidelines. The System has screwed up. The old quote " the law is an ass" is a constant.
An ignorant violence-inciting racist loudmouth jailed for slightly too long (if indeed she has been) is hardly the most egregious example of "The System" screwing up.
I note that yesterday this ignorant violent loudmouth was jailed.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
Why do people think Cleverly is clever? Is it down to his name? Or simply the pathetic standard of his rivals?
He thought it funny to tell a joke in public about raping his wife whilst he was Home Secretary and responsible for law and order. Of course he has poor judgement.
Sorry but there is a massive difference between what Cleverly said, stupid as it was, and what you claim was him joking about raping his wife.
Cleverly said “ a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night” was “not really illegal if it’s only a little bit” and that the secret to a long marriage was ensuring your spouse was “someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there” according to the Guardian.
To twist that into him joking about raping his wife is pretty low. If he wasn’t a Tory would you have been so careless with such a statement?
Surely that is exactly what he was doing. Ok, going for "risque", touch of the old pseudo-suave self-dep in there with "better men", not a hanging offence, where's your SoH you po-faced lefties bla bla, but it really is not a great comment imo. It reflects badly on James Cleverly (who I've always had time for) that he thought it worthy of making the journey from head to mouth.
Texan politicians seem to believe they should be able to tell other states how to vote.
We had the Texas GOP trying to interfere in Pennsylvania's presidential vote in 2020 and now we have the Texas Dems wanting the California districts drawn to their own liking.
Texas Democrats said on Thursday they are prepared to return to the state under certain conditions, ending a nearly two-week-long effort to block Republicans from passing a new congressional map that would add five GOP seats.
The lawmakers said they would return as long as the legislature ends its first special session on Friday, which Republicans have said they plan to do. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, has said he will immediately call another special session.
The Democrats also said they would return once California introduces a new congressional map that would add five Democratic seats, offsetting the gains in Texas. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, is expected to announce what he has teased as a “major” redistricting announcement on Thursday.
Incidentally if the California GOP representatives leave the state would that stop Newsom's second stage gerrymandering on quorum grounds ? If they did we'd likely to have a reversal of the cheering/jeering reaction to the Texan Dems doing so.
The whole lot of them are acting like children, playing games and acting righteous while accusing the other side of being evil.
The actual problem of redistricting and US House map Gerrymandering has been going on for two centuries (Elmbridge Gerry, 1812), and is one of those Prisoners’ Dilemma problems where it’s always to the advantage of incumbents to keep it going, even though everyone would benefit from an impartial drawing of lines as we see in the UK.
Texas Republicans (after Trump asked them to find a few extra seats) are attempting to do a mid-decade redistricting for partisan gain. This is extremely unusual - the only other post-1900 examples I can find are Texas Republicans and Colorado Republicans from 2002.
California already has its version of "impartial drawing of lines as we see in the UK", which Newsom is trying to temporarily set aside to be able to retaliate (but would need approval from voters to be able to).
Republicans in Congress have blocked attempts to introduce federal restrictions on gerrymandering.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
I saw this ages ago. It is a brilliant lecture. I’d also never attend a voluntary interview. It’s a fishing expedition.
Hmm... What I would say is those that give a clear explanation to the police about what happened of the alleged rape at interview have, in my experience, a much higher prospect of being acquitted than those who exercise their right to silence. The interview will nearly always be played to the Jury and can be highly persuasive. It is not subject to cross examination and it frequently means that the accused does not have to give evidence but can still have their version of events before the jury. If I was ever falsely accused of such a thing I think I would speak up, based on my experience.
Would a rape suspect always be asked to attend a voluntary interview then ?
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
Again - defending guidelines implemented between 2010 and 2024 - made any sentencing leeway impossible .
I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it
There's nothing to grasp. The Law as it is structured can be arbitrary and guidelines are guidelines. The System has screwed up. The old quote " the law is an ass" is a constant.
An ignorant violence-inciting racist loudmouth jailed for slightly too long (if indeed she has been) is hardly the most egregious example of "The System" screwing up.
Perhaps not.
But if you believe that we imprison people either unnecessarily, or for too long, which tends to be my view, then you shouldn't be making exceptions for those you dislike.
A shorter sentence would likely still have had the intended salutary effect.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
I saw this ages ago. It is a brilliant lecture. I’d also never attend a voluntary interview. It’s a fishing expedition.
Hmm... What I would say is those that give a clear explanation to the police about what happened of the alleged rape at interview have, in my experience, a much higher prospect of being acquitted than those who exercise their right to silence. The interview will nearly always be played to the Jury and can be highly persuasive. It is not subject to cross examination and it frequently means that the accused does not have to give evidence but can still have their version of events before the jury. If I was ever falsely accused of such a thing I think I would speak up, based on my experience.
But in Scotland, IIRC, a jury is not allowed to draw adverse inference from post-arrest silence as they are in England? So there's that to consider too.
We don't refer to or lead evidence about no comment interviews but it does tend to sneak in. So, for example, the DNA report will state what the complainer said happened but "we have no alternative version from the accused." As I say, it puts pressure on the accused to give evidence and that rarely goes well. Its anecdotal of course but its pretty consistent.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
Do you mean that in MEGA world alternate facts are truths?
Best illustrated with an example, I think, since it's a complex philosophical area:
The vast majority of immigrants to the UK come here legally and are decent, law-abiding people. This is FACT.
We are being swamped by illegals most of whom get put up in luxury hotels leaving their rooms only to rape and pillage. This is TRUTH.
President Trump grasps this important distinction better than anyone on earth. Hence the name of his platform. It's not FACT SOCIAL is it.
I did like that anguished letter from some French philosophers, who said that when they rejected the idea of objective Truth or even reality, they hadn't meant the MAGA version.
The jury system is the bulwark of the English criminal legal system, and we are rightly proud of it.
Except when a) they give verdicts we don't like, and/or b) they're at Snaresbrook Crown Court.
The jury system had to be abolished in Northern Ireland because members of each community wouldn't convict someone from the same community as them, and would always find someone guilty from the opposite community.
Jury trial is the default in NI.
The Diplock courts were for terrorist offences only
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
Why do people think Cleverly is clever? Is it down to his name? Or simply the pathetic standard of his rivals?
He thought it funny to tell a joke in public about raping his wife whilst he was Home Secretary and responsible for law and order. Of course he has poor judgement.
Sorry but there is a massive difference between what Cleverly said, stupid as it was, and what you claim was him joking about raping his wife.
Cleverly said “ a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night” was “not really illegal if it’s only a little bit” and that the secret to a long marriage was ensuring your spouse was “someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there” according to the Guardian.
To twist that into him joking about raping his wife is pretty low. If he wasn’t a Tory would you have been so careless with such a statement?
Surely that is exactly what he was doing. Ok, going for "risque", touch of the old pseudo-suave self-dep in there with "better men", not a hanging offence, where's your SoH you po-faced lefties bla bla, but it really is not a great comment imo. It reflects badly on James Cleverly (who I've always had time for) that he thought it worthy of making the journey from head to mouth.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
Again - defending guidelines implemented between 2010 and 2024 - made any sentencing leeway impossible .
I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it
There's nothing to grasp. The Law as it is structured can be arbitrary and guidelines are guidelines. The System has screwed up. The old quote " the law is an ass" is a constant.
An ignorant violence-inciting racist loudmouth jailed for slightly too long (if indeed she has been) is hardly the most egregious example of "The System" screwing up.
I note that yesterday this ignorant violent loudmouth was jailed.
The sentence in this case seems far too short. I hope it gets reviewed.
I disagree
This guy sounds like a monstrous tw@t, but all he did was make verbal threats. They were hideous, so he deserves jail time, but he didn't actually do any violence (as I understand it)
We are far too swift to jail people for mere words (hello Lucy Connolly), whereas actual violence - rape, assault, violent theft - is often treated with leniency. It's all wrong and it should change
OT - Bear in mind that the current Rep redistricting in TX is aimed to exploit their gains among Latinos. There is at least some evidence as above that they are chasing voters who no longer exist and so putting other districts at risk by shaving their Rep margin of lead.
If the Latin vote does move hard then the Senate elections in TX and FL would be back into play and southwestern states would move beyond the Reps. I'd need to see more evidence yet but the Reps should learn from Biden that whatever else you do the economic feelgood factor is vital fr reelection
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
Again - defending guidelines implemented between 2010 and 2024 - made any sentencing leeway impossible .
I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it
There's nothing to grasp. The Law as it is structured can be arbitrary and guidelines are guidelines. The System has screwed up. The old quote " the law is an ass" is a constant.
An ignorant violence-inciting racist loudmouth jailed for slightly too long (if indeed she has been) is hardly the most egregious example of "The System" screwing up.
I note that yesterday this ignorant violent loudmouth was jailed.
The sentence in this case seems far too short. I hope it gets reviewed.
The online aviation community is furious at the leniency of that sentence.
Unconfirmed rumours that the cabin crew union is pushing hard for it to be appealed. From the transcript of the trial it sounded like an utterly horrific ordeal for the lady victim.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
I saw this ages ago. It is a brilliant lecture. I’d also never attend a voluntary interview. It’s a fishing expedition.
Hmm... What I would say is those that give a clear explanation to the police about what happened of the alleged rape at interview have, in my experience, a much higher prospect of being acquitted than those who exercise their right to silence. The interview will nearly always be played to the Jury and can be highly persuasive. It is not subject to cross examination and it frequently means that the accused does not have to give evidence but can still have their version of events before the jury. If I was ever falsely accused of such a thing I think I would speak up, based on my experience.
But you *are* a lawyer, a lawyer who works in criminal law and who knows exactly what to say or what not to say in any given interaction with the police.
The rest of the population can too often either incriminate themselves or omit a key detail that means we get found guilty.
That's fair but i am telling you about the outcomes of people who are not. With DNA etc it is very rarely in doubt that sex actually happened between the complainer and the accused. The critical question is consent. And on that front you want your position clear from day 1.
Doesn't always work, of course, some people are guilty after all. But of the last half dozen acquittals I have had in rape trials I can't think of one who didn't speak up.
But that doesn't mean much. Maybe they would have been acquitted anyway - some people are innocent after all.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
Again - defending guidelines implemented between 2010 and 2024 - made any sentencing leeway impossible .
I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it
There's nothing to grasp. The Law as it is structured can be arbitrary and guidelines are guidelines. The System has screwed up. The old quote " the law is an ass" is a constant.
An ignorant violence-inciting racist loudmouth jailed for slightly too long (if indeed she has been) is hardly the most egregious example of "The System" screwing up.
she's been made a cause celebre.
it was the same with Kneecap, the CPS gave them the best PR boost they could ever get
Well that's how things go sometimes - Tommy Robinson is our Mandela according to some. What can you do. Not much except not join in.
Someone on X has just pointed out that the jury in the Jones case retired for 30 minutes
Thirty fecking minutes??? It took them just half an hour to dismiss the overwhelming evidence that he was guilty, and decide that as he was "dyslexic" as a child he must be innocent
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
Lets shoot this Fox - Lucy Letby is not pretty. At best a 5/10.
Here's more recent polling that you won't hear Trump or Farage supporters mentioning.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx ...Americans have grown markedly more positive toward immigration over the past year, with the share wanting immigration reduced dropping from 55% in 2024 to 30% today. At the same time, a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country.
These shifts reverse a four-year trend of rising concern about immigration that began in 2021 and reflect changes among all major party groups...
The paradox of the migration debate.
Most people want the total numbers to fall, but don't want the numbers in most migration scenarios to fall. It's not quite "less migrants in theory but not in practice", but it's pretty close;
The way that most people square that circle is to massively overestimate the proportion of immigration that is irregular/illegal because the boats are so visible. From that YouGov link,
Our research shows that almost half of Britons (47%) think there are more migrants staying in the UK illegally rather than legally, including fully a third of the public (32%) who think the illegal figure is “much higher”.
As our American friends are currently discovering, anti-immigrant talk is much more popular than anti-immigrant action.
Those YouGov findings are really important. The radical right has done a very good propaganda job of convincing people that most immigrants are illegal and coming for benefits. Instead of pandering to them, the Labour government needs to push back and make clear how that's not true and that immigrants are mostly the sort of immigration people like.
lol
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
Centrist dads don't understand the difference between facts and truth. And they get all upset when others do.
Do you mean that in MEGA world alternate facts are truths?
Best illustrated with an example, I think, since it's a complex philosophical area:
The vast majority of immigrants to the UK come here legally and are decent, law-abiding people. This is FACT.
We are being swamped by illegals most of whom get put up in luxury hotels leaving their rooms only to rape and pillage. This is TRUTH.
President Trump grasps this important distinction better than anyone on earth. Hence the name of his platform. It's not FACT SOCIAL is it.
I did like that anguished letter from some French philosophers, who said that when they rejected the idea of objective Truth or even reality, they hadn't meant the MAGA version.
Yes, but they're French.
Yes, they suffer under that curse.
We who were born lucky (God is an Englishman) should always have compassion for the unfortunate.
Note that compassion doesn’t preclude pounding on them like cheap veal.
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
I saw this ages ago. It is a brilliant lecture. I’d also never attend a voluntary interview. It’s a fishing expedition.
Hmm... What I would say is those that give a clear explanation to the police about what happened of the alleged rape at interview have, in my experience, a much higher prospect of being acquitted than those who exercise their right to silence. The interview will nearly always be played to the Jury and can be highly persuasive. It is not subject to cross examination and it frequently means that the accused does not have to give evidence but can still have their version of events before the jury. If I was ever falsely accused of such a thing I think I would speak up, based on my experience.
Isn't that selection bias, and you've confused the causality? You'd need to control for whether they actually did it or not, which is obviously difficult in this circumstance because the jury decides that.
The rapist is less likely to be able to construct a good explanation because lying is difficult.
I can't tell that because I don't have an objective truth about guilt or innocence. All I can say is that juries seem to like it.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
Lets shoot this Fox - Lucy Letby is not pretty. At best a 5/10.
Quite
Nor is Lucy Connolly. She's a 4
Shamima Begum on the other hand. Ding dong!
Welcome to PB. Welcome to the 1970s. Ding dong!
Very senior female politicians, too. On a political discussion website. Sometimes you'd think the expert analysis and sober cogitation on here (well, some of it) was considering the odds for Miss Westminster 1956.
August 15 is a good day for talks with Russia about war and peace. On this day 105 years ago during the Battle of Warsaw Poles stopped the Red Army in its march on Europe. Luckily we didn’t know that Russia „is invincible” - and we beat them. Peace through strength, nothing else. https://x.com/donaldtusk/status/1956277253991440718
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
Lets shoot this Fox - Lucy Letby is not pretty. At best a 5/10.
Quite
Nor is Lucy Connolly. She's a 4
Shamima Begum on the other hand. Ding dong!
Welcome to PB. Welcome to the 1970s. Ding dong!
If a PB-er is going to make the claim that other PB-ers are sympathetic to "criminals" because they are pretty, then we are surely allowed to point out that, in fact, they are not pretty
You're right about Shamima Begum., however One of my best friends has met her several times (he works in security and intel). He said "oh my god, you totally would"
Lucy Connolly was bullied into pleading guilty by a police force and prosecution service determined to make examples. Weirdly, they didn’t do that to Ricky Jones
Ricky Jones knew his rights and used them and has been rewarded.
Don’t talk to the Police and don’t co-operate with them. They are not your friends
This video is 13 years old, and still as true as ever.
I saw this ages ago. It is a brilliant lecture. I’d also never attend a voluntary interview. It’s a fishing expedition.
Hmm... What I would say is those that give a clear explanation to the police about what happened of the alleged rape at interview have, in my experience, a much higher prospect of being acquitted than those who exercise their right to silence. The interview will nearly always be played to the Jury and can be highly persuasive. It is not subject to cross examination and it frequently means that the accused does not have to give evidence but can still have their version of events before the jury. If I was ever falsely accused of such a thing I think I would speak up, based on my experience.
Isn't that selection bias, and you've confused the causality? You'd need to control for whether they actually did it or not, which is obviously difficult in this circumstance because the jury decides that.
The rapist is less likely to be able to construct a good explanation because lying is difficult.
I can't tell that because I don't have an objective truth about guilt or innocence. All I can say is that juries seem to like it.
I appreciate that. I'm just pondering if it's actually better for the guilty to stay silent, and the innocent to speak up. But then if that becomes known, juries were still start to infer from that decision who is guilty. And then the advice would be to always give the explanation a go.
"MP James Cleverly, the shadow secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, said on social media platform X that the verdict was "unacceptable".
"Perverse decisions like this are adding to the anger that people feel and amplifying the belief that there isn't a dispassionate criminal justice system," he said."
It seems a weird decision but I do not think that even shadow Ministers should be undermining the courts or our jury system like this. Its not a responsible thing to do for someone in such a position. I thought Cleverly was supposed to be one of the smarter ones.
That's pretty disgraceful from Cleverly. It's tantamount to saying that the 12 jurors, who have no stake in the criminal justice system but simply give a verdict based on the evidence they hear and the guidance they are given by the judge, of being corrupt. He should withdraw that tweet.
The big question is: why did Lucy Connelly plead guilty? I hope she wasn't pressured into it.
At best she was badly advised, and pleaded guilty to a serious offence at a time of heightened tensions.
If she’d been up in front of a jury a year or more later, her case might have had a different outcome.
I’ve commented in the past - that I don’t think anyone grasped how the sentencing would play out so what looked liked she would end up with a suspended sentence become something different as the aggravating circumstances (rioting) seriously increased the severity of the crime.
So I can see why a quick guilt admission was recommended and how everyone ended up in this mess
Maybe.
But that doesnt explain why she's still in prison.
I thought you were good at maths - 31 months *.4 is a minimum of 12 months before release and I don’t know why when she was jailed or placed on remand
She still is in prison.
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
No they haven’t - sentences are tied to strict guidelines and the two tier justice you seem to want is because the person in jail is female and pretty (look g at both Lucy Connelly and Lucy Letby).
LOL the two tier justice works the other way. The resort to "because she's pretty" is from a 1970s sitcom.
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
Again - defending guidelines implemented between 2010 and 2024 - made any sentencing leeway impossible .
I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it
There's nothing to grasp. The Law as it is structured can be arbitrary and guidelines are guidelines. The System has screwed up. The old quote " the law is an ass" is a constant.
An ignorant violence-inciting racist loudmouth jailed for slightly too long (if indeed she has been) is hardly the most egregious example of "The System" screwing up.
I note that yesterday this ignorant violent loudmouth was jailed.
Yes per Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp. So it's not just Connolly. He also wants this Pakistani guy's sentence commut ... no, hang on, he wants this one increased. Yes, increased. Sorry, I get confused by all this politicking around criminal sentences sometimes. Hope the courts don't.
Comments
Hasn't it been regularly mentioned that plod encourage people to accept cautions without mentioning that cautions count as a criminal record ?
If people’s starting point in life is ACAB and work back based on personal experience they won’t be badly served
I havent expressed a view one way or the other.for all the time Ive been on PB
Don’t Talk to the Police.
It’s only bad when the Republicans do it.
Plead guilty - what is the expected sentence. Plead NG - what is the expected sentence if you lose, what is the chance of losing.
You need all of that info (not exactly but to a level of confidence) in order to make the call. That's if you're acting purely rationally.
You should put that on the bus along with "they're not really 4 star hotels because often room service is slow"
The actual problem of redistricting and US House map Gerrymandering has been going on for two centuries (Elmbridge Gerry, 1812), and is one of those Prisoners’ Dilemma problems where it’s always to the advantage of incumbents to keep it going, even though everyone would benefit from an impartial drawing of lines as we see in the UK.
If anyone were interested I'd be happy to sub one or two (PM me) - I've had really great debate from PBers here recently, giving different views on important questions. It's quite good for a requested donation of £15, and they even take cheques. Kate Ashbrook has been the Gen Sec since 1983, so there will be some good stories. The first obstruction she attempted to clear back then was a marquee at the Henley Regatta pitched on a footpath.
Kenilworth, Warwickshire, is a special place in the very middle of England—and it is a special place for the society because there we own the historic 15-acre Parliament Piece, and that open space will be at the heart of the celebration of our 160th birthday.
We hope you will come and join the celebration and enjoy the day’s programme we have devised (below). Among other things we have new trees to reveal, and some intriguing all-user friendly gates to show off. And Kenilworth itself is a historic market town with a great castle which served as a mediaeval fortress and an Elizabethan palace.
Come for coffee, talks, and lunch, a visit to the historic Abbey Barn, and an afternoon walk around Parliament Piece led by Nick Martin, nature reserves manager from Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. There’ll be time to chat to other members, our staff, and trustees.
Venue: St Nicolas Parochial Hall, 28 High Street, Kenilworth CV8 1LZ, a half-mile walk from Kenilworth railway station (on the Nuneaton-Coventry-Leamington Spa line). Parking in Abbey Fields car park.
Outline programme (11.00-16.00)
11.00 Meet at the hall for coffee.
11.30 Introduction from our general secretary, Kate Ashbrook.
11.45 Introduction to Kenilworth by the Mayor James Kennedy
11.50 ‘Parliament Piece: birthplace of democracy’. Talk by Jan Cooper, former Chair of the Kenilworth History and Archaeology Society.
12.05 Visit to Abbey Museum (including exhibition to mark the 450th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth 1’s visit to Kenilworth Castle).
13.00 Lunch.
13.45 Walk to Parliament Piece.
14.00 Conducted tour of Parliament Piece, led by Nick Martin, nature reserves manager, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. We shall unveil the trees planted to celebrate our anniversary, and you can test our new gates, and visit the bees with beekeeper Andy Threlfall.
15.30 Return to hall for tea and depart.
I'll be examining those alleged "all user friendly gates". I need to ask them if it is all accessible, and get modestly grumpy if it is not.
https://www.oss.org.uk/membersday/
Theres nothing stopping the courts to send her home and put a tag on her to restrict her movements. And hasnt been sice she was sentenced.
The courts have screwed up on the sentencing and then doubled down on it.
Clearly he’s running for President in 2028 and trying to make a name for himself, but I’m not sure that “Make America California Again” is a message that resonates much even inside his home State, let alone elsewhere in the country.
It’s rather amusing that someone trolled him by sending him a hat with “Trump 2028” written on it, and he lost his mind saying that Trump’s clearly running again. https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1956096374161768836
He isn’t running again, it’s a joke, and they keep making the joke because it winds up people like Newsom.
One big change of the past 20 years is the removal of all discretion a judge used to have when deciding and passing sentencing
SMT got a tame journalist to unmask him, so they could bin him from the job.
One thing I think the police should be forced to say is what the consequences of accepting a caution is before they ask if you will accept one
He thought it funny to tell a joke in public about raping his wife whilst he was Home Secretary and responsible for law and order. Of course he has poor judgement.
Nor is Lucy Connolly. She's a 4
The system have made her a martyr of sorts - newspaper deals, TV interviews etc. beckon when she leaves. Whereas a suspended sentence would have meant nobody would have heard of her.
The rest of the population can too often either incriminate themselves or omit a key detail that means we get found guilty.
Yeah, there's some truth in that- visceral experience beats numbers. To a degree. But there are two important buts.
First is that human progress tends to come from paying more attention to the factual and less to the visceral. It's uncomfortable, but it's what makes our lives relatively pleasant.
Second is that numbers can only be trumped so far. We have a situation where a near-majority of British people think that there is more illegal migration to the UK than legal. And that's not true. It's a lie. How the hell do you run a country on the basis of a lie, even if it's commonly held? And why is that lie so commonly held? (See also polling that shows that the public think that international aid and MPs expenses are meaningful items in the national budget.)
I don't really have answers to either of those questions, but they're important.
The rapist is less likely to be able to construct a good explanation because lying is difficult.
I don’t know how many times I’m going go have to repeat the same point until you grasp it
I've seen reasonable estimates that there are about 500K people in the workforce who don't have the right to work here.
He was rather shocked when multiple people pointed out that in her case HMRC was the very least of their worries
There was one lawyer who had a nice line in demanding a better, more stringent drugs test for his clients at magistrates court. Because of extra cost, this usually led to cases being dropped.
Fearing the creation of a new Mr Loophole, some quiet words were said. Every time he asked demanded the extra test, the test was granted and it was made sure the case was pushed to a conclusion - no more dropping smaller cases for time etc. So all his clients started going down.
The vast majority of immigrants to the UK come here legally and are decent, law-abiding people. This is FACT.
We are being swamped by illegals most of whom get put up in luxury hotels leaving their rooms only to rape and pillage. This is TRUTH.
President Trump grasps this important distinction better than anyone on earth. Hence the name of his platform. It's not FACT SOCIAL is it.
(And to put 0.5 million in context, the total UK workforce is about 34 million.)
Cleverly said “ a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night” was “not really illegal if it’s only a little bit” and that the secret to a long marriage was ensuring your spouse was “someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there” according to the Guardian.
To twist that into him joking about raping his wife is pretty low. If he wasn’t a Tory would you have been so careless with such a statement?
The other thing that is going on, is the selling of visas by companies that are allowed to direct recruit. In some cases, care home providers were recruiting 300% of their staff, each year, under the direct receipt abroad scheme.
You also get extreme concentration in particular industries. You need a job where the workers can be abused and underpaid - Deliveroo is excellent for this.
Are the delivery companies like Deliveroo still hiding behind their drivers being contractors and not employees, in the same way they allow their drivers to use illegal vehicles such as unregistered motorbikes with no insurance? Ditto the ‘definitely not a taxi’ apps.
It would be good to see a test case of a large company that’s clearly not doing due diligence on the people working under its brand name.
it was the same with Kneecap, the CPS gave them the best PR boost they could ever get
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/pakistan-businessman-jailed-in-london-for-15-months-for-threatening-to-rape-air-hostess-9033708
Was this the System screwing up too?
Some Deliveroo "riders" are actually gangmasters for groups of workers - they get the contract and parcel out the work. It's a big business and full of utter scumbags.
Doesn't always work, of course, some people are guilty after all. But of the last half dozen acquittals I have had in rape trials I can't think of one who didn't speak up.
California already has its version of "impartial drawing of lines as we see in the UK", which Newsom is trying to temporarily set aside to be able to retaliate (but would need approval from voters to be able to).
Republicans in Congress have blocked attempts to introduce federal restrictions on gerrymandering.
But if you believe that we imprison people either unnecessarily, or for too long, which tends to be my view, then you shouldn't be making exceptions for those you dislike.
A shorter sentence would likely still have had the intended salutary effect.
The Diplock courts were for terrorist offences only
Shadow justice secretary lays out his plans to depoliticise the judiciary
Ben Riley-Smith
Political Editor" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/15/time-to-sack-activist-judges-says-robert-jenrick
This guy sounds like a monstrous tw@t, but all he did was make verbal threats. They were hideous, so he deserves jail time, but he didn't actually do any violence (as I understand it)
We are far too swift to jail people for mere words (hello Lucy Connolly), whereas actual violence - rape, assault, violent theft - is often treated with leniency. It's all wrong and it should change
If the Latin vote does move hard then the Senate elections in TX and FL would be back into play and southwestern states would move beyond the Reps. I'd need to see more evidence yet but the Reps should learn from Biden that whatever else you do the economic feelgood factor is vital fr reelection
Unconfirmed rumours that the cabin crew union is pushing hard for it to be appealed. From the transcript of the trial it sounded like an utterly horrific ordeal for the lady victim.
"Badenoch: I would cut migrant Channel crossings to zero"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/12/record-channel-migrant-numbers-not-labours-fault
Thirty fecking minutes??? It took them just half an hour to dismiss the overwhelming evidence that he was guilty, and decide that as he was "dyslexic" as a child he must be innocent
THIRTY. MINUTES.
That's a jury intending to acquit, no matter what
Welcome to PB. Welcome to the 1970s. Ding dong!
We who were born lucky (God is an Englishman) should always have compassion for the unfortunate.
Note that compassion doesn’t preclude pounding on them like cheap veal.
Vance banned.
https://www.rawstory.com/jd-vance-uk-2673886864/
https://x.com/donaldtusk/status/1956277253991440718
The only saving grace is that she is very unlikely to be put in a position where she is accountable for making it happen.
You're right about Shamima Begum., however One of my best friends has met her several times (he works in security and intel). He said "oh my god, you totally would"
Ding dong!!
https://x.com/yarotrof/status/1956257440091267365
First he couldnt organise a fishing trip, next it;s a pub lunch - piss up and brewery beckon.
A smart guy promoting populist untruths.
Some of it is being triggered daily by not being in government, but it can't just be that.
Maybe it's the heat.
I'm going to deeeeply regret saying this, but I am now slightly bored of the heat, especially in my south facing flat with insanely big windows
I find these games fascinating.