It's an excellent article. @rcs1000 describes one of the bottlenecks very well.
Why has it arisen? I'll tell you why - and it is exactly the same reason as I said in August 2019 -
"The legal system has few friends. There is an assumption that it mostly deals with the criminal and the feckless. Few politicians care about them. It has no “Aaah” factor. Most people hope never to encounter it. Those who are caught up in it are generally appalled by the experience. It has been in recent years put in the care, if that is the word, of politicians with little knowledge about it and little willingness to learn, let alone to fight to make it better.
For 6 years from 2012 to 2018, no lawyer was deemed worthy to be Minister of Justice, the choice instead falling on Chris Grayling and Liz Truss, about whom the word “second-rate” would be an undeserved compliment. Michael Gove spent much of his time undoing the damage caused by his predecessor. Few Ministers lasted more than a year. And who was responsible for the police? Well, one Mrs May, followed by Amber Rudd and Sajid Javid. Enough said.
Lawyers, however eloquent they may be on behalf of their clients, are generally hopeless at explaining why law and justice matter to anyone other than fellow lawyers. But our legal system does matter, very much indeed. There is no more important function of the state than the maintenance of law and order.
Crucial to that are a competent police force, a legal system which works and in which equality under the law and access to justice are not simply empty phrases, prisons which are something other than a breeding ground of violence and hopelessness and a probation service which works. All these aspects matter not just one of them.
The rule of law is not simply an airy phrase: it is the reality of a state able to keep its citizens safe, a state able to apprehend criminals, a state able to dispense justice, a state able find the right balance between the rights of the innocent and the guilty, a state able to enforce its laws, a state able to punish fairly and provide the hope of rehabilitation for those who have paid their dues. ........
The rule of law in its widest sense is something of which Britain ought to be proud; it has probably had a greater claim than the NHS to be considered “the envy of the world“. But for too long it has been neglected, downgraded, ignored and managed by penny pinchers who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Futile as this plea may be, it is long past the time for this to stop."
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
One of our problems derives from Mrs Thatcher's views. I recall her saying something like her preferring that the best minds from Oxford and Cambridge (I know, I know) should go into the City rather than public service. Up until then very bright students would include public service, as Civil Servants in their career options. After that, not so much.
This allows me to get back on my hobby horse of calling the big change of UK society and the divisions over the past 40 years. Before Fatch indeed bright young things would go into all kinds of occupations - doctors, civil servants, yes finance, but that was only one of several options. All paid roughly the same, perhaps the City a smidge more.
Then Big Bang happened, the US banks took over the UK merchant banks and began to pay megabucks for the people to work there (or at "their" bank, rather than another one). City salaries skyrocketed and hence any sensible grad, Oxbridge or not, would likely try to get a job in finance, rather than become a doctor or a civil servant, etc.
And linked to that, it means that the elite has lost a lot of its sense of the long term.
My Jenny-come-lately Cambridge College is over 150 years old. The British Army is 350 years old, depending on when you start counting. The Church of England, 450 years (same Ts and C's). All institutions that were around long before me, and intend to be around long after me. It ties in with that old Tory thing of inheritance as a duty.
High finance seems to think it's doing well with a ten year horizon. No wonder so much of the country gets sold off for parts.
Those are tiny numbers! You need bigger numbers! My school is 460 years old. My first degree was at a university 814 years old. My third was at a university approaching 1000. My city is approaching 2000.
Just the three degrees then...
At the risk of generating a swirling rabbit hole of argument, the Church of England is AD597 officially.
All we did was chuck out the tyrannical foreign management - in Tony Benn's words, we nationalised it.
But the Celtic church was earlier, no? I recall a Council of Whitby but forget what was discussed!
Of course. But the desire iirc (very potted history) was to align the church with the Governing structures, and around Rome's desire to take over by shmoozing royalty.
A very interesting video from Paul Whitewick (hiker/landscape history youtuber based in Wiltshire) on how Steve Schwarzman CEO of Blackstone bought a 4 sqm estate at Conhalt, and there now seem to be security goons crawling all over the countryside demanding to know what members of the public are doing.
I'd say the chap is trying to apply his USA values - Madonna did it a couple of decades ago when HER goons were confronting people on public footpaths.
Worth a watch. IMO Paul needs a bit of radicalising; he says "it's not my battle". Sorry, Paul, it's a battle for all of us - or we lose access over time. He talks to Guy Shrubsole, so he has the links.
From the OS map the park is split by one footpath. If you are on that you should certainly be allowed to proceed. Of the path maybe not so much (no right to roam in England, although its not an offence AIUI as long as no damage is caused on private land).
Interesting. Paul has now pulled the video - 300k views in a day or two and 4000 comments.
"I don't want to let it define the channel".
I suspect he does not want to end up as the tip of a campaign without the deliberate intention.
Yep, the picture of a technical parked outside the Kremlin is AI modified. The shadows of the men and the vehicle are not correct given the lights in the background, a common issue with AI images. Still funny, though.
It's about 20 years since Jamie Oliver got all confused about how the ingredients for a school meal could cost only 37p and caused a minor political scandal. With general inflation that's 66p today. I can't find an inflation calculator for food inflation but I suspect it would be higher.
To be honest, I think these wrappers on top of ChatGPT etc are unhelpful. Bog standard Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT are powerful enough to seriously improve productivity in professional services without paying for the wrappers.
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
How far would a serious restriction in jury trials help? The Anglosphere is I think unusual in the scope of jury trials, which is only defensible if we actually provide enough jury trial facilities,
It wouldn't help in the slightest. It just creates yet more problems and finishes the destruction of a system worth cherishing.
Surely jury trials take longer than non-jury trials? You have to instruct people and stuff like that. Doesn't that slow things down...
Do you really think it wont have any benefit on the backlog, or is it just that you'd rather keep jury trials?
Without jury trials you wouldn't have defence barristers throwing out a load of chaff for hours on end in an attempt to befuddle the jury into an incorrect Not Guilty verdict.
The big advantage of jury trials surely is that they can deliver 'perverse' verdicts in the view of the 'great and good' but just in the view of ordinary people.
Exactly this. They are a form of real democracy in action and in relation to a very important function - the power of the state to deprive someone of their liberty.
Judges like Leveson and Co always want to get rid of pesky ordinary people. But the law is not there for the benefit of lawyers: innocence until proven guilty, trial by our peers, the burden and standard of proof, the involvement of ordinary people are there for the benefit of us - to make sure that an absolutely vital function has our buy in, our support, our very real involvement by us actually making the decisions. It is one of the very few ways left in which the voice of the people really are heard and they have actual power. Not the pretend "we're listening to you /focus group " illusory nonsense.
It is one of the few ways in which ordinary people can say Fuck You to the powers in charge when they feel those powers in charge are behaving stupidly or oppressively: see Clive Ponting or the Colston statues, for instance. It is all the more valuable for that.
It is not juries which are the blockage in the system. Beware of those who are using the blockages that do exist as an excuse for getting rid of juries. People in power would prefer it if they could ignore ordinary people altogether
Being so late to the thread, has anyone come up with any brilliant ideas to solve the problem?
TSE wants to repeal the Forfeiture Act and bring back bills of attainder, along with hanging, drawing and quartering.
Well if @TSE wants to add in the bureaucrat, who has moved @David L's trial tomorrow from Edinburgh to Glasgow so that I will be deprived of the opportunity to tease the charming David about coffee, chocolate, cakes and sundry other important matters, to his list of Attaindees, he's very welcome to do so.
It's an excellent article. @rcs1000 describes one of the bottlenecks very well.
Why has it arisen? I'll tell you why - and it is exactly the same reason as I said in August 2019 -
"The legal system has few friends. There is an assumption that it mostly deals with the criminal and the feckless. Few politicians care about them. It has no “Aaah” factor. Most people hope never to encounter it. Those who are caught up in it are generally appalled by the experience. It has been in recent years put in the care, if that is the word, of politicians with little knowledge about it and little willingness to learn, let alone to fight to make it better.
For 6 years from 2012 to 2018, no lawyer was deemed worthy to be Minister of Justice, the choice instead falling on Chris Grayling and Liz Truss, about whom the word “second-rate” would be an undeserved compliment. Michael Gove spent much of his time undoing the damage caused by his predecessor. Few Ministers lasted more than a year. And who was responsible for the police? Well, one Mrs May, followed by Amber Rudd and Sajid Javid. Enough said.
Lawyers, however eloquent they may be on behalf of their clients, are generally hopeless at explaining why law and justice matter to anyone other than fellow lawyers. But our legal system does matter, very much indeed. There is no more important function of the state than the maintenance of law and order.
Crucial to that are a competent police force, a legal system which works and in which equality under the law and access to justice are not simply empty phrases, prisons which are something other than a breeding ground of violence and hopelessness and a probation service which works. All these aspects matter not just one of them.
The rule of law is not simply an airy phrase: it is the reality of a state able to keep its citizens safe, a state able to apprehend criminals, a state able to dispense justice, a state able find the right balance between the rights of the innocent and the guilty, a state able to enforce its laws, a state able to punish fairly and provide the hope of rehabilitation for those who have paid their dues. ........
The rule of law in its widest sense is something of which Britain ought to be proud; it has probably had a greater claim than the NHS to be considered “the envy of the world“. But for too long it has been neglected, downgraded, ignored and managed by penny pinchers who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Futile as this plea may be, it is long past the time for this to stop."
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
One of our problems derives from Mrs Thatcher's views. I recall her saying something like her preferring that the best minds from Oxford and Cambridge (I know, I know) should go into the City rather than public service. Up until then very bright students would include public service, as Civil Servants in their career options. After that, not so much.
This allows me to get back on my hobby horse of calling the big change of UK society and the divisions over the past 40 years. Before Fatch indeed bright young things would go into all kinds of occupations - doctors, civil servants, yes finance, but that was only one of several options. All paid roughly the same, perhaps the City a smidge more.
Then Big Bang happened, the US banks took over the UK merchant banks and began to pay megabucks for the people to work there (or at "their" bank, rather than another one). City salaries skyrocketed and hence any sensible grad, Oxbridge or not, would likely try to get a job in finance, rather than become a doctor or a civil servant, etc.
And linked to that, it means that the elite has lost a lot of its sense of the long term.
My Jenny-come-lately Cambridge College is over 150 years old. The British Army is 350 years old, depending on when you start counting. The Church of England, 450 years (same Ts and C's). All institutions that were around long before me, and intend to be around long after me. It ties in with that old Tory thing of inheritance as a duty.
High finance seems to think it's doing well with a ten year horizon. No wonder so much of the country gets sold off for parts.
Those are tiny numbers! You need bigger numbers! My school is 460 years old. My first degree was at a university 814 years old. My third was at a university approaching 1000. My city is approaching 2000.
Just the three degrees then...
Obviously I have more than three degrees! But the fourth is from somewhere a mere 199 years old.
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
How far would a serious restriction in jury trials help? The Anglosphere is I think unusual in the scope of jury trials, which is only defensible if we actually provide enough jury trial facilities,
It wouldn't help in the slightest. It just creates yet more problems and finishes the destruction of a system worth cherishing.
Surely jury trials take longer than non-jury trials? You have to instruct people and stuff like that. Doesn't that slow things down...
Do you really think it wont have any benefit on the backlog, or is it just that you'd rather keep jury trials?
Without jury trials you wouldn't have defence barristers throwing out a load of chaff for hours on end in an attempt to befuddle the jury into an incorrect Not Guilty verdict.
The big advantage of jury trials surely is that they can deliver 'perverse' verdicts in the view of the 'great and good' but just in the view of ordinary people.
Exactly this. They are a form of real democracy in action and in relation to a very important function - the power of the state to deprive someone of their liberty.
Judges like Leveson and Co always want to get rid of pesky ordinary people. But the law is not there for the benefit of lawyers: innocence until proven guilty, trial by our peers, the burden and standard of proof, the involvement of ordinary people are there for the benefit of us - to make sure that an absolutely vital function has our buy in, our support, our very real involvement by us actually making the decisions. It is one of the very few ways left in which the voice of the people really are heard and they have actual power. Not the pretend "we're listening to you /focus group " illusory nonsense.
It is one of the few ways in which ordinary people can say Fuck You to the powers in charge when they feel those powers in charge are behaving stupidly or oppressively: see Clive Ponting or the Colston statues, for instance. It is all the more valuable for that.
It is not juries which are the blockage in the system. Beware of those who are using the blockages that do exist as an excuse for getting rid of juries. People in power would prefer it if they could ignore ordinary people altogether
In simple terms, government has created the problem by massively cutting the funding for the criminal justice system over the last decade*. Trying to solve that problem by removing essential elements of the system is absolutely the wrong approach.
*Most of those cuts happened at the start of the coalition, and the consequences are still apparent. https://ifs.org.uk/publications/justice-spending-england-and-wales ...MoJ capital funding was cut by 70% over the early 2010s and, within this, capital funding for both HM Courts and Tribunals Service and HM Prison and Probation Service was cut by more than 90%. Capital funding was then increased after 2016, and sharp funding injections in recent years have taken the MoJ capital budget to a planned £2.0 billion in 2025–26, more than treble its pre-pandemic level and around 50% above its level prior to the cuts of the 2010s. Yet between 2007–08 and 2025–26, cumulative MoJ capital spending was 16% lower than it would have been had spending instead been maintained at its 2007–08 real-terms level for that entire period...
Being so late to the thread, has anyone come up with any brilliant ideas to solve the problem?
TSE wants to repeal the Forfeiture Act and bring back bills of attainder, along with hanging, drawing and quartering.
Well if @TSE wants to add in the bureaucrat, who has moved @David L's trial tomorrow from Edinburgh to Glasgow so that I will be deprived of the opportunity to tease the charming David about coffee, chocolate, cakes and sundry other important matters, to his list of Attaindees, he's very welcome to do so.
It's a real shame. I was so looking forward to shocking you with a cappuccino late in the afternoon. With chocolate of course.
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
How far would a serious restriction in jury trials help? The Anglosphere is I think unusual in the scope of jury trials, which is only defensible if we actually provide enough jury trial facilities,
It wouldn't help in the slightest. It just creates yet more problems and finishes the destruction of a system worth cherishing.
Surely jury trials take longer than non-jury trials? You have to instruct people and stuff like that. Doesn't that slow things down...
Do you really think it wont have any benefit on the backlog, or is it just that you'd rather keep jury trials?
Without jury trials you wouldn't have defence barristers throwing out a load of chaff for hours on end in an attempt to befuddle the jury into an incorrect Not Guilty verdict.
The big advantage of jury trials surely is that they can deliver 'perverse' verdicts in the view of the 'great and good' but just in the view of ordinary people.
Exactly this. They are a form of real democracy in action and in relation to a very important function - the power of the state to deprive someone of their liberty.
Judges like Leveson and Co always want to get rid of pesky ordinary people. But the law is not there for the benefit of lawyers: innocence until proven guilty, trial by our peers, the burden and standard of proof, the involvement of ordinary people are there for the benefit of us - to make sure that an absolutely vital function has our buy in, our support, our very real involvement by us actually making the decisions. It is one of the very few ways left in which the voice of the people really are heard and they have actual power. Not the pretend "we're listening to you /focus group " illusory nonsense.
It is one of the few ways in which ordinary people can say Fuck You to the powers in charge when they feel those powers in charge are behaving stupidly or oppressively: see Clive Ponting or the Colston statues, for instance. It is all the more valuable for that.
It is not juries which are the blockage in the system. Beware of those who are using the blockages that do exist as an excuse for getting rid of juries. People in power would prefer it if they could ignore ordinary people altogether
I've not served on a jury, but have talked at length to people who have. They all insisted they did their best, but admitted that they were sometimes overwhelmed by the complexity of the issues, and they definitely felt that the jury system had its own biases, biases which would vary over time (e.g. the level of sympathy for people with complex gender preferences). If I was accused of something and was in fact innocent, I'd feel greater confidence in judges and barristers coming to the truth than in 12 random people of unknown preferences.
I agree that in rare cases the jury can effectively nullify oppressive legislation by upholding the opinion of ordinary people over the powers that be. But on the whole I'd rather trust the system than a random jury.
On a point of fact, are Juries mainly a feature of the Anglosphere, and if so how do other countries cope with the perceived bias to the establishment?
I see Farage is tying himself in knots re Pochin's comments.
This is another risk for Reform in the coming years. It's quite clear Farage wants to walk a tightrope when others in the party make inflammatory comments - he doesn't want to alienate the voters he needs to win a GE but on the same basis he will upset others by equivocating.
Remember that in time, Farage pretty much falls out with everyone. Pochin seems to be the latest on the naughty step. Is it possible she will flounce?
It isn't the cost of the breakfast. Its that many parents need to be in work earlier than school starts...
Are you new to PB? Just stick to the Daily Telegraph unhinged headlines please.
I don't read the Telegraph, I quoted the Labour Party
I didn't question anything except for what I considered to be a rather inflated saving for families at £450 per month
Your straw man factory is still working at high capacity, producing really shit Worzels
I was responding to Rochdale.
I wasn't specifically focused on your post, but if you feel the cap fits, wear it.
Look, you don't like me posting, and I suspect many of your fans concur, so have a word with the mods and get me removed. No skin off my nose mate.
Unbelievable thing is that there are miriads of idiots taken in by their bullshit. Most of tehm will not spend that feeding the whole family in a month. A couple of weetabix or suchlike and some toast woudl not run to 50p a day. They will have selected the price of some toffee nosed breakfast club run by Harrods or Fortnum & Mason that serves the Junior Hoorays cavier on toast etc
Nope employing staff to run a pre and after school club is expensive.
Take 1 child being looked after between 7:45 and 9 and £10 a day isn’t out of the question - minimum staff ratios, minimum wage, backup staff for when things go wrong and some management overhead an the costs increase quickly
So 2 children is £20 a day, £100 a week or on a bad month (23 school days) £460 a month
People should be looking after their own children, these clowns don't know what to splash other people's hard earned money on. They are obsessed with shovelling out more and more benefits without having the money to pay for it.
It's been repeatedly explained that the cost to parents is not the breakfast but the time. Childcare is very expensive and can be the difference between it being worthwhile for a parent to work or not.
I appreciate from your posting history that you bitterly resent any penny not spent on the triple-lock but you should bear in mind that you risk making a strong case for euthanasia
I see Farage is tying himself in knots re Pochin's comments.
This is another risk for Reform in the coming years. It's quite clear Farage wants to walk a tightrope when others in the party make inflammatory comments - he doesn't want to alienate the voters he needs to win a GE but on the same basis he will upset others by equivocating.
Remember that in time, Farage pretty much falls out with everyone. Pochin seems to be the latest on the naughty step. Is it possible she will flounce?
Not many normal people see much wrong in pointing out the quasi affirmative action in the media, particularly adverts. Farage’s press conference today seems to show he isn’t going to apologise for anything on this matter. Won’t link because it’s a banned subject
Guyana would probably be pleased if Maduro fell to the Americans, and his acquisitive eyeing of newfound Guyanan (Guyanese?) oil fields came to nought.
Some of the largest oil reserves in the world are in the Orinoco tar sands in Venezuela.
I see Farage is tying himself in knots re Pochin's comments.
This is another risk for Reform in the coming years. It's quite clear Farage wants to walk a tightrope when others in the party make inflammatory comments - he doesn't want to alienate the voters he needs to win a GE but on the same basis he will upset others by equivocating.
Remember that in time, Farage pretty much falls out with everyone. Pochin seems to be the latest on the naughty step. Is it possible she will flounce?
Not many normal people see much wrong in pointing out the quasi affirmative action in the media, particularly adverts. Farage’s press conference today seems to show he isn’t going to apologise for anything on this matter. Won’t link because it’s a banned subject
Agree 100%. Pochin was just pointing out the reality of the situation. Nothing racist about it.
Being so late to the thread, has anyone come up with any brilliant ideas to solve the problem?
TSE wants to repeal the Forfeiture Act and bring back bills of attainder, along with hanging, drawing and quartering.
Well if @TSE wants to add in the bureaucrat, who has moved @David L's trial tomorrow from Edinburgh to Glasgow so that I will be deprived of the opportunity to tease the charming David about coffee, chocolate, cakes and sundry other important matters, to his list of Attaindees, he's very welcome to do so.
It's a real shame. I was so looking forward to shocking you with a cappuccino late in the afternoon. With chocolate of course.
I see Farage is tying himself in knots re Pochin's comments.
This is another risk for Reform in the coming years. It's quite clear Farage wants to walk a tightrope when others in the party make inflammatory comments - he doesn't want to alienate the voters he needs to win a GE but on the same basis he will upset others by equivocating.
Remember that in time, Farage pretty much falls out with everyone. Pochin seems to be the latest on the naughty step. Is it possible she will flounce?
Not many normal people see much wrong in pointing out the quasi affirmative action in the media, particularly adverts. Farage’s press conference today seems to show he isn’t going to apologise for anything on this matter. Won’t link because it’s a banned subject
I see Farage is tying himself in knots re Pochin's comments.
This is another risk for Reform in the coming years. It's quite clear Farage wants to walk a tightrope when others in the party make inflammatory comments - he doesn't want to alienate the voters he needs to win a GE but on the same basis he will upset others by equivocating.
Remember that in time, Farage pretty much falls out with everyone. Pochin seems to be the latest on the naughty step. Is it possible she will flounce?
Not many normal people see much wrong in pointing out the quasi affirmative action in the media, particularly adverts. Farage’s press conference today seems to show he isn’t going to apologise for anything on this matter. Won’t link because it’s a banned subject
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
How far would a serious restriction in jury trials help? The Anglosphere is I think unusual in the scope of jury trials, which is only defensible if we actually provide enough jury trial facilities,
It wouldn't help in the slightest. It just creates yet more problems and finishes the destruction of a system worth cherishing.
Surely jury trials take longer than non-jury trials? You have to instruct people and stuff like that. Doesn't that slow things down...
Do you really think it wont have any benefit on the backlog, or is it just that you'd rather keep jury trials?
Without jury trials you wouldn't have defence barristers throwing out a load of chaff for hours on end in an attempt to befuddle the jury into an incorrect Not Guilty verdict.
The big advantage of jury trials surely is that they can deliver 'perverse' verdicts in the view of the 'great and good' but just in the view of ordinary people.
Exactly this. They are a form of real democracy in action and in relation to a very important function - the power of the state to deprive someone of their liberty.
Judges like Leveson and Co always want to get rid of pesky ordinary people. But the law is not there for the benefit of lawyers: innocence until proven guilty, trial by our peers, the burden and standard of proof, the involvement of ordinary people are there for the benefit of us - to make sure that an absolutely vital function has our buy in, our support, our very real involvement by us actually making the decisions. It is one of the very few ways left in which the voice of the people really are heard and they have actual power. Not the pretend "we're listening to you /focus group " illusory nonsense.
It is one of the few ways in which ordinary people can say Fuck You to the powers in charge when they feel those powers in charge are behaving stupidly or oppressively: see Clive Ponting or the Colston statues, for instance. It is all the more valuable for that.
It is not juries which are the blockage in the system. Beware of those who are using the blockages that do exist as an excuse for getting rid of juries. People in power would prefer it if they could ignore ordinary people altogether
In simple terms, government has created the problem by massively cutting the funding for the criminal justice system over the last decade*. Trying to solve that problem by removing essential elements of the system is absolutely the wrong approach.
*Most of those cuts happened at the start of the coalition, and the consequences are still apparent. https://ifs.org.uk/publications/justice-spending-england-and-wales ...MoJ capital funding was cut by 70% over the early 2010s and, within this, capital funding for both HM Courts and Tribunals Service and HM Prison and Probation Service was cut by more than 90%. Capital funding was then increased after 2016, and sharp funding injections in recent years have taken the MoJ capital budget to a planned £2.0 billion in 2025–26, more than treble its pre-pandemic level and around 50% above its level prior to the cuts of the 2010s. Yet between 2007–08 and 2025–26, cumulative MoJ capital spending was 16% lower than it would have been had spending instead been maintained at its 2007–08 real-terms level for that entire period...
\I have to admit that, as one who campaigned for the Liberals/LibDems from around 1965 to 1990, and has spasmodically supported them ever since, the more I learn about the long-term effects of the Coalition, the less I'm likely to do so in the future. I never thought I'd go Green, because of their (one-time at any rate) health policies but I might have to. Particularly if Labour go on making the dogs breakfast that they are doing at the moment. I don't have PC or SNP as an option!
I think we have a new Crossing the Floor World Record. Not Agent Anderson, but Alan Amos.
Conservative Councillor, Enfield. 197x to 1985. Conservative MP, Hexham 1987-1992. Labour Candidate, Hitchin and Harpenden 2001. Labour Councillor, Tower Hamlets, 2002. Labour Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2008-2014. Independent Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2014. Mayor of Worcester, nominated by Conservatives, 2014. Mayor of Worcester, joined the Conservatives, 2015. Conservative Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2024. Last Con standing. Independent Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2025. Reform Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2025 (from April). Reform Councillor, Worcestershire County Council, 2025 (elected May).
There are a lot of interesting statements, but I'll leave those to lie.
Being so late to the thread, has anyone come up with any brilliant ideas to solve the problem?
TSE wants to repeal the Forfeiture Act and bring back bills of attainder, along with hanging, drawing and quartering.
Well if @TSE wants to add in the bureaucrat, who has moved @David L's trial tomorrow from Edinburgh to Glasgow so that I will be deprived of the opportunity to tease the charming David about coffee, chocolate, cakes and sundry other important matters, to his list of Attaindees, he's very welcome to do so.
It's a real shame. I was so looking forward to shocking you with a cappuccino late in the afternoon. With chocolate of course.
I see Farage is tying himself in knots re Pochin's comments.
This is another risk for Reform in the coming years. It's quite clear Farage wants to walk a tightrope when others in the party make inflammatory comments - he doesn't want to alienate the voters he needs to win a GE but on the same basis he will upset others by equivocating.
Remember that in time, Farage pretty much falls out with everyone. Pochin seems to be the latest on the naughty step. Is it possible she will flounce?
Not many normal people see much wrong in pointing out the quasi affirmative action in the media, particularly adverts. Farage’s press conference today seems to show he isn’t going to apologise for anything on this matter. Won’t link because it’s a banned subject
It isn't too hard to figure out why people who want to sell their products to as broad a set of people as possible use adverts with a broad and diverse set of people in them. To get riled up about it is absolutely nuts. And what do they want firms to do, coordinate across the myriad adverts produced to ensure some kind of acceptable ethnic quota? "Guys, McDonalds featured a black family so Burger King has to have some Asians and KFC need to have some working class white people from outside the M25, and Boots had some lesbians last month so Superdrug have to have a straight couple..." Is it just me or does the right now embody everything it claims to hate? Racial quotas, cancel culture, identity politics, the nanny state... they're losing their mind.
Guyana would probably be pleased if Maduro fell to the Americans, and his acquisitive eyeing of newfound Guyanan (Guyanese?) oil fields came to nought.
Some of the largest oil reserves in the world are in the Orinoco tar sands in Venezuela.
I think we have a new Crossing the Floor World Record. Not Agent Anderson, but Alan Amos.
Conservative Councillor, Enfield. 197x to 1985. Conservative MP, Hexham 1987-1992. Labour Candidate, Hitchin and Harpenden 2001. Labour Councillor, Tower Hamlets, 2002. Labour Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2008-2014. Independent Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2014. Mayor of Worcester, nominated by Conservatives, 2014. Mayor of Worcester, joined the Conservatives, 2015. Conservative Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2024. Last Con standing. Independent Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2025. Reform Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2025 (from April). Reform Councillor, Worcestershire County Council, 2025 (elected May).
There are a lot of interesting statements, but I'll leave those to lie.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
Yes, and the judge seemed to throw the (verbal) book at him: "Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke described Richards' actions as a "flagrant disobedience of the court's directions".'
Surely the discharge of him and his fellow jurors and a lecture on wasting the Court's time would have been sufficient.
The last and only time I did jury duty, I had the vague feeling I had had dealing with the defence solicitor before so I mentioned this to the usher. Was brought in front of the judge to explain this. Said I could easily go home and check my paperwork to see if I had or not. Judge basically said don't bother and dismissed me so that was the end of my duty. Had waited a week to be called, and there wasn't enough time to select me for another trial so off I went.
So if you want to duck jury duty....
Oh, I just told the Judge that the defendent and I had been part of a notorious Post Office robbery gang in the early 2000s, and that worked. (Albeit, he may not have realized I was talking about Fujitsu.)
Guyana would probably be pleased if Maduro fell to the Americans, and his acquisitive eyeing of newfound Guyanan (Guyanese?) oil fields came to nought.
Some of the largest oil reserves in the world are in the Orinoco tar sands in Venezuela.
Guyana would probably be pleased if Maduro fell to the Americans, and his acquisitive eyeing of newfound Guyanan (Guyanese?) oil fields came to nought.
Some of the largest oil reserves in the world are in the Orinoco tar sands in Venezuela.
It's an excellent article. @rcs1000 describes one of the bottlenecks very well.
Why has it arisen? I'll tell you why - and it is exactly the same reason as I said in August 2019 -
"The legal system has few friends. There is an assumption that it mostly deals with the criminal and the feckless. Few politicians care about them. It has no “Aaah” factor. Most people hope never to encounter it. Those who are caught up in it are generally appalled by the experience. It has been in recent years put in the care, if that is the word, of politicians with little knowledge about it and little willingness to learn, let alone to fight to make it better.
For 6 years from 2012 to 2018, no lawyer was deemed worthy to be Minister of Justice, the choice instead falling on Chris Grayling and Liz Truss, about whom the word “second-rate” would be an undeserved compliment. Michael Gove spent much of his time undoing the damage caused by his predecessor. Few Ministers lasted more than a year. And who was responsible for the police? Well, one Mrs May, followed by Amber Rudd and Sajid Javid. Enough said.
Lawyers, however eloquent they may be on behalf of their clients, are generally hopeless at explaining why law and justice matter to anyone other than fellow lawyers. But our legal system does matter, very much indeed. There is no more important function of the state than the maintenance of law and order.
Crucial to that are a competent police force, a legal system which works and in which equality under the law and access to justice are not simply empty phrases, prisons which are something other than a breeding ground of violence and hopelessness and a probation service which works. All these aspects matter not just one of them.
The rule of law is not simply an airy phrase: it is the reality of a state able to keep its citizens safe, a state able to apprehend criminals, a state able to dispense justice, a state able find the right balance between the rights of the innocent and the guilty, a state able to enforce its laws, a state able to punish fairly and provide the hope of rehabilitation for those who have paid their dues. ........
The rule of law in its widest sense is something of which Britain ought to be proud; it has probably had a greater claim than the NHS to be considered “the envy of the world“. But for too long it has been neglected, downgraded, ignored and managed by penny pinchers who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Futile as this plea may be, it is long past the time for this to stop."
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
One of our problems derives from Mrs Thatcher's views. I recall her saying something like her preferring that the best minds from Oxford and Cambridge (I know, I know) should go into the City rather than public service. Up until then very bright students would include public service, as Civil Servants in their career options. After that, not so much.
This allows me to get back on my hobby horse of calling the big change of UK society and the divisions over the past 40 years. Before Fatch indeed bright young things would go into all kinds of occupations - doctors, civil servants, yes finance, but that was only one of several options. All paid roughly the same, perhaps the City a smidge more.
Then Big Bang happened, the US banks took over the UK merchant banks and began to pay megabucks for the people to work there (or at "their" bank, rather than another one). City salaries skyrocketed and hence any sensible grad, Oxbridge or not, would likely try to get a job in finance, rather than become a doctor or a civil servant, etc.
And linked to that, it means that the elite has lost a lot of its sense of the long term.
My Jenny-come-lately Cambridge College is over 150 years old. The British Army is 350 years old, depending on when you start counting. The Church of England, 450 years (same Ts and C's). All institutions that were around long before me, and intend to be around long after me. It ties in with that old Tory thing of inheritance as a duty.
High finance seems to think it's doing well with a ten year horizon. No wonder so much of the country gets sold off for parts.
Those are tiny numbers! You need bigger numbers! My school is 460 years old. My first degree was at a university 814 years old. My third was at a university approaching 1000. My city is approaching 2000.
Just the three degrees then...
At the risk of generating a swirling rabbit hole of argument, the Church of England is AD597 officially.
All we did was chuck out the tyrannical foreign management - in Tony Benn's words, we nationalised it.
But the Celtic church was earlier, no? I recall a Council of Whitby but forget what was discussed!
As I recal it was over Irish or Roman rites.
Yes. Despite the rhetoric about 597 and Augustine of Canterbury, in the west and north there is a decent degree of Christian continuity from around the time of Constantine. But not in the south east where it had mostly vanished. Charles Thomas is the classic work on this, but more up to date is Robin Fleming: Britain After Rome, Penguin 2011, especially the excellent chapter 5. A bishop of York is recorded in 314, nearly 300 years before Canterbury.
The ancient Irish/Welsh/British church met the Roman innovators and there was a good degree of mutual incomprehension. Rome won the day (how to date Easter, liturgical matters, haircuts for religious) at the Synod of Whitby, 664.
In Cumberland where I live there is almost certainly Christian continuity for 1700 years, and continuing.
The lack of knowledge in the UK about the extraordinary history is remarkable.
"School mornings just got easier for families across the country as 750 schools open breakfast clubs today, offering 30 minutes of free childcare, a healthy start for kids and a little more breathing room before the school bell rings.
Parents will be supported with additional time at the start of the day to attend appointments, get to work on time and run errands. In total, this means parents will be able to save up to 95 additional hours and £450 per year if their child attends free breakfast clubs every day.
This amount rises to a saving of up to £8,000 every year when combining the free breakfast clubs with further support through the expansion of government-funded childcare and new school uniform cap on branded items."
So it seems plausible the £450 a month should have been £450 a year. Although they are saying the overall saving is even bigger.
Just out from Lab on X
Labour is rolling out free breakfast clubs, helping children start the day ready to learn and saving parents up to £450 a year. --
Heh. Suddenly that seems like very good value for about 100 hours of childcare + food.
Apart from the policy itself, which seems a good one, families with young children are a demographic Labour absolutely should be targeting. A demographic that Reform and the Tories barely hide their disdain for.
Comments
https://x.com/seanm1997/status/1982770236605735322
Eastern Airways has cancelled all scheduled flights today. The reason is unclear at this time
Routes impacted:
Humberside - Aberdeen
Aberdeen - Wick
Aberdeen - Teesside
Newquay - London Gatwick
"I don't want to let it define the channel".
I suspect he does not want to end up as the tip of a campaign without the deliberate intention.
https://bsky.app/profile/tenderchris.bsky.social/post/3m42lrqewvk2n
https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/37135568/airline-goes-into-administration-axes-flights/
Judges like Leveson and Co always want to get rid of pesky ordinary people. But the law is not there for the benefit of lawyers: innocence until proven guilty, trial by our peers, the burden and standard of proof, the involvement of ordinary people are there for the benefit of us - to make sure that an absolutely vital function has our buy in, our support, our very real involvement by us actually making the decisions. It is one of the very few ways left in which the voice of the people really are heard and they have actual power. Not the pretend "we're listening to you /focus group " illusory nonsense.
It is one of the few ways in which ordinary people can say Fuck You to the powers in charge when they feel those powers in charge are behaving stupidly or oppressively: see Clive Ponting or the Colston statues, for instance. It is all the more valuable for that.
It is not juries which are the blockage in the system. Beware of those who are using the blockages that do exist as an excuse for getting rid of juries. People in power would prefer it if they could ignore ordinary people altogether
I have written about juries too - here: https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/06/24/12-good-men/
In simple terms, government has created the problem by massively cutting the funding for the criminal justice system over the last decade*. Trying to solve that problem by removing essential elements of the system is absolutely the wrong approach.
*Most of those cuts happened at the start of the coalition, and the consequences are still apparent.
https://ifs.org.uk/publications/justice-spending-england-and-wales
...MoJ capital funding was cut by 70% over the early 2010s and, within this, capital funding for both HM Courts and Tribunals Service and HM Prison and Probation Service was cut by more than 90%. Capital funding was then increased after 2016, and sharp funding injections in recent years have taken the MoJ capital budget to a planned £2.0 billion in 2025–26, more than treble its pre-pandemic level and around 50% above its level prior to the cuts of the 2010s. Yet between 2007–08 and 2025–26, cumulative MoJ capital spending was 16% lower than it would have been had spending instead been maintained at its 2007–08 real-terms level for that entire period...
I agree that in rare cases the jury can effectively nullify oppressive legislation by upholding the opinion of ordinary people over the powers that be. But on the whole I'd rather trust the system than a random jury.
On a point of fact, are Juries mainly a feature of the Anglosphere, and if so how do other countries cope with the perceived bias to the establishment?
This is another risk for Reform in the coming years. It's quite clear Farage wants to walk a tightrope when others in the party make inflammatory comments - he doesn't want to alienate the voters he needs to win a GE but on the same basis he will upset others by equivocating.
Remember that in time, Farage pretty much falls out with everyone. Pochin seems to be the latest on the naughty step. Is it possible she will flounce?
Childcare is very expensive and can be the difference between it being worthwhile for a parent to work or not.
I appreciate from your posting history that you bitterly resent any penny not spent on the triple-lock but you should bear in mind that you risk making a strong case for euthanasia
I don't have PC or SNP as an option!
NEW THREAD
Conservative Councillor, Enfield. 197x to 1985.
Conservative MP, Hexham 1987-1992.
Labour Candidate, Hitchin and Harpenden 2001.
Labour Councillor, Tower Hamlets, 2002.
Labour Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2008-2014.
Independent Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2014.
Mayor of Worcester, nominated by Conservatives, 2014.
Mayor of Worcester, joined the Conservatives, 2015.
Conservative Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2024. Last Con standing.
Independent Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2025.
Reform Councillor, Worcester City Council, 2025 (from April).
Reform Councillor, Worcestershire County Council, 2025 (elected May).
There are a lot of interesting statements, but I'll leave those to lie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Amos
(Bray is in Berkshire, not Enfield, Tower Hamlets, or Worcestershire.)
Is it just me or does the right now embody everything it claims to hate? Racial quotas, cancel culture, identity politics, the nanny state... they're losing their mind.
What about Tasman’s Ahmed-Sheikh, she’s moved about a bit too.
The ones seen by Sarah Pochin MP.
The ancient Irish/Welsh/British church met the Roman innovators and there was a good degree of mutual incomprehension. Rome won the day (how to date Easter, liturgical matters, haircuts for religious) at the Synod of Whitby, 664.
In Cumberland where I live there is almost certainly Christian continuity for 1700 years, and continuing.
The lack of knowledge in the UK about the extraordinary history is remarkable.