Getting rid of jury trials is a completely rogue decision and it should be resisted by MPs and the Lords at every turn. This wasn't in the Labour manifesto and they have no remit to remove such a vital protection of our freedom and liberty. What's to stop the government from manipulating judicial selection to fill the benches with judges who will target their opponents? We're literally seeing this happen in real time across the pond and Labour want to walk down an even worse path without jury trials?
This government proves itself to be utterly unfit for purpose at every opportunity. I curse the million Tory voters who sat on their hands by getting caught up in a media witch hunt against the party. Complete numpties and they've made us all regret it.
So thanks to Lockdown causing massive court backlog we also lose the right to jury trial?
Just f-ing incredible. You could not make this stop up.
It's not just that, you see and hear stuff like this more and more, some jurors are fucking stupid.
A juror who collapsed a murder trial after doing his own research on the internet has been jailed for four months.
Paul Richards, 65, had been selected to be a juror in a trial of three people relating to a man's murder in Treforest, Rhondda Cynon Taf, in December 2023.
Newport Crown Court heard Richards, of Pentrebane Drive, St Fagans, Cardiff, had sworn an oath, and the jury had been given directions by the trial judge not to carry out their own research into the case.
About a week into the trial Richards, while in the jury room, was overheard by an usher telling other jurors about joint enterprise murder.
As a result, the jury had to be discharged and new jurors selected.
That is a genuinely fascinating. Difficult to square with our exceptionally high rates of in-work poverty (even before housing costs), though my suspicion is that the high rate of increase of pensioner incomes has significantly boosted median incomes, thereby increasing the poverty line and therefore poverty rate for working households.
No, the state pension is now less than half the rate the UK minimum wage will be from tomorrow. We will now have one of the highest minimum wages in the world, yet unemployment is now 5% and rising
Yet? Resulting is probably a better word to use
We will now have one of the highest minimum wages in the world, resulting in unemployment now at 5% and rising
Contemptible, but not entirely surprising given Witkoff's long term dodgy Russian ties.
If it were US rather than European security being sold out, it would be treasonous. But it's certainly acting as an agent of foreign influence, which is likely criminal in this context.
A call with Putin right before Zelensky arrived could explain why things seemed to go off the rails right away last time the Ukrainian delegation was in DC.
Witkoff: And here’s one more thing: Zelensky is coming to the White House on Friday. Putin envoy Ushakov: I know that. [chuckles] Witkoff: I will go to that meeting because they want me there, but I think if possible we have the call with your boss before that Friday meeting. Ushakov: Before, before — yeah? Witkoff: Correct https://x.com/prestonstew_/status/1993427622664032650
This is literally the US chief negotiator conspiring with Putin to sabotage Zelensky's meeting with Trump.
At this point, I think Ukraine needs to take a brutal step and say that they are not agreeing to Witkoff-led negotiations.
Contemptible, but not entirely surprising given Witkoff's long term dodgy Russian ties.
If it were US rather than European security being sold out, it would be treasonous. But it's certainly acting as an agent of foreign influence, which is likely criminal in this context.
Trump has himself an Administration of Deplorables...
Contemptible, but not entirely surprising given Witkoff's long term dodgy Russian ties.
If it were US rather than European security being sold out, it would be treasonous. But it's certainly acting as an agent of foreign influence, which is likely criminal in this context.
A call with Putin right before Zelensky arrived could explain why things seemed to go off the rails right away last time the Ukrainian delegation was in DC.
Witkoff: And here’s one more thing: Zelensky is coming to the White House on Friday. Putin envoy Ushakov: I know that. [chuckles] Witkoff: I will go to that meeting because they want me there, but I think if possible we have the call with your boss before that Friday meeting. Ushakov: Before, before — yeah? Witkoff: Correct https://x.com/prestonstew_/status/1993427622664032650
This is literally the US chief negotiator conspiring with Putin to sabotage Zelensky's meeting with Trump.
At this point, I think Ukraine needs to take a brutal step and say that they are not agreeing to Witkoff-led negotiations.
Getting rid of jury trials is a completely rogue decision and it should be resisted by MPs and the Lords at every turn. This wasn't in the Labour manifesto and they have no remit to remove such a vital protection of our freedom and liberty. What's to stop the government from manipulating judicial selection to fill the benches with judges who will target their opponents? We're literally seeing this happen in real time across the pond and Labour want to walk down an even worse path without jury trials?
This government proves itself to be utterly unfit for purpose at every opportunity. I curse the million Tory voters who sat on their hands by getting caught up in a media witch hunt against the party. Complete numpties and they've made us all regret it.
So thanks to Lockdown causing massive court backlog we also lose the right to jury trial?
Just f-ing incredible. You could not make this stop up.
It's not just that, you see and hear stuff like this more and more, some jurors are fucking stupid.
A juror who collapsed a murder trial after doing his own research on the internet has been jailed for four months.
Paul Richards, 65, had been selected to be a juror in a trial of three people relating to a man's murder in Treforest, Rhondda Cynon Taf, in December 2023.
Newport Crown Court heard Richards, of Pentrebane Drive, St Fagans, Cardiff, had sworn an oath, and the jury had been given directions by the trial judge not to carry out their own research into the case.
About a week into the trial Richards, while in the jury room, was overheard by an usher telling other jurors about joint enterprise murder.
As a result, the jury had to be discharged and new jurors selected.
This really feels like a turning point for this country. If Labour manage to somehow remove jury trials for all but two types of crime then I truly believe we will no longer be living in a free or just country.
From beginning to end agents of the state will be able to investigate, charge, prosecute, adjudicate and sentence on criminal cases in very serious matters. There won't be a single break point or sanity check in that process where someone who isn't paid by the state can actually check the state's reasoning.
This is fundamentally wrong.
I don’t agree with this proposal, but the idea that we wouldn’t be a “free” country…? Germany doesn’t have jury trials. Is Germany not a free country? Ditto the Netherlands. France only has jury trials for certain serious cases. Is France not a free country?
Who cares what the French et al do? Trial by jury in England dates back to at least Henry II.
There's also the point that different countries have their own sets of checks and balances.
We don't, for example, have Germany's strong written constitution. You can't make direct comparisons with different legal traditions.
Contemptible, but not entirely surprising given Witkoff's long term dodgy Russian ties.
If it were US rather than European security being sold out, it would be treasonous. But it's certainly acting as an agent of foreign influence, which is likely criminal in this context.
A call with Putin right before Zelensky arrived could explain why things seemed to go off the rails right away last time the Ukrainian delegation was in DC.
Witkoff: And here’s one more thing: Zelensky is coming to the White House on Friday. Putin envoy Ushakov: I know that. [chuckles] Witkoff: I will go to that meeting because they want me there, but I think if possible we have the call with your boss before that Friday meeting. Ushakov: Before, before — yeah? Witkoff: Correct https://x.com/prestonstew_/status/1993427622664032650
This is literally the US chief negotiator conspiring with Putin to sabotage Zelensky's meeting with Trump.
At this point, I think Ukraine needs to take a brutal step and say that they are not agreeing to Witkoff-led negotiations.
I think there is a good chance. We saw on the Epstein files that they are not tame Trump lackeys where their constituents are frim in their views. The anti-Ukraine tendency is over-represented in DC, but there are still many who feel that Ukraine is the right country to be supporting.
Contemptible, but not entirely surprising given Witkoff's long term dodgy Russian ties.
If it were US rather than European security being sold out, it would be treasonous. But it's certainly acting as an agent of foreign influence, which is likely criminal in this context.
A call with Putin right before Zelensky arrived could explain why things seemed to go off the rails right away last time the Ukrainian delegation was in DC.
Witkoff: And here’s one more thing: Zelensky is coming to the White House on Friday. Putin envoy Ushakov: I know that. [chuckles] Witkoff: I will go to that meeting because they want me there, but I think if possible we have the call with your boss before that Friday meeting. Ushakov: Before, before — yeah? Witkoff: Correct https://x.com/prestonstew_/status/1993427622664032650
This is literally the US chief negotiator conspiring with Putin to sabotage Zelensky's meeting with Trump.
At this point, I think Ukraine needs to take a brutal step and say that they are not agreeing to Witkoff-led negotiations.
Trump's Ukraine policy is highly unpopular even with GOP voters, and Witkoff's behaviour is very close to treason. Any Republican in a halfway competitive election in the midterms will be thinking hard about this one.
Getting rid of jury trials is a completely rogue decision and it should be resisted by MPs and the Lords at every turn. This wasn't in the Labour manifesto and they have no remit to remove such a vital protection of our freedom and liberty. What's to stop the government from manipulating judicial selection to fill the benches with judges who will target their opponents? We're literally seeing this happen in real time across the pond and Labour want to walk down an even worse path without jury trials?
This government proves itself to be utterly unfit for purpose at every opportunity. I curse the million Tory voters who sat on their hands by getting caught up in a media witch hunt against the party. Complete numpties and they've made us all regret it.
I'm genuinely curious to see the rationale for the decision. Obviously there are some issues with jury trials, examples have been given on here of really long and complex trials as one, but it's so easy to attack such plans in a way which will cut across party lines, and if the motivation is financial that looks bad too, so even if it is not as bad as the picture you paint, it is not an easy sell, so they surely have some really big hitting arguments to come?
Maybe some fools are willing to trust this government to not manipulate judicial selection. I'm not. Also, what about future governments?
Both the Tories and Reform must pledge to bring back jury trials as manifesto commitments from day one. Anything less and they are complicit in a huge erosion of our rights.
I'll be interested to see if this divides tory/reform. I'd imagine this is a no-brainer Conservative position. Reform? Not so sure.
Also, what the actual f**k are Labour doing?
Starmer is at heart an authoritarian who thinks people should be managed, that the law is perfect and never makes mistakes, that more law and regulation is the way to cure things, and cannot understand why concepts like ID cards or jury removal repel people. He lied to become leader of the party, he lied to become PM, and now he has unlimited power we see what he's really like. It's not a pretty sight.
Getting rid of jury trials is a completely rogue decision and it should be resisted by MPs and the Lords at every turn. This wasn't in the Labour manifesto and they have no remit to remove such a vital protection of our freedom and liberty. What's to stop the government from manipulating judicial selection to fill the benches with judges who will target their opponents? We're literally seeing this happen in real time across the pond and Labour want to walk down an even worse path without jury trials?
This government proves itself to be utterly unfit for purpose at every opportunity. I curse the million Tory voters who sat on their hands by getting caught up in a media witch hunt against the party. Complete numpties and they've made us all regret it.
I'm genuinely curious to see the rationale for the decision. Obviously there are some issues with jury trials, examples have been given on here of really long and complex trials as one, but it's so easy to attack such plans in a way which will cut across party lines, and if the motivation is financial that looks bad too, so even if it is not as bad as the picture you paint, it is not an easy sell, so they surely have some really big hitting arguments to come?
Maybe some fools are willing to trust this government to not manipulate judicial selection. I'm not. Also, what about future governments?
Both the Tories and Reform must pledge to bring back jury trials as manifesto commitments from day one. Anything less and they are complicit in a huge erosion of our rights.
I'll be interested to see if this divides tory/reform. I'd imagine this is a no-brainer Conservative position. Reform? Not so sure.
Also, what the actual f**k are Labour doing?
Starmer is at heart an authoritarian who thinks people should be managed, that the law is perfect and never makes mistakes, that more law and regulation is the way to cure things, and cannot understand why concepts like ID cards or jury removal repel people. He lied to become leader of the party, he lied to become PM, and now he has unlimited power we see what he's really like. It's not a pretty sight.
I've just found a great and very informative Instagram account called "reformarenotyourfriends"
I had a look at yours yesterday… interesting set of followers you have!
Wow!
I think it might time I left this place.
Speaking seriously, people on PB are lulled into a false sense of security by the general wonderfulness of us all, and start posting personally-identifiable details. This can get weird - @Charles posted so much info I could have handed his birthday card to him in person - and it should never be forgotten it's also dangerous. I have an article patiently waiting for @rcs1000 or @TheScreamingEagles to check the metadata to confirm it's anonymised, and I think such caution is wise.
I agree there is a need for caution, but then sometimes there is paranoia. I have never posted anything I wouldn’t be prepared to say in a court of law, or to someone’s face.
I may be being very stupid but where is the metadata in a header than one writes? It's not like the original word doc just gets uploaded online.
In Windows, right-click on the downloaded document, select "properties", search through the tabs and eventually you'll find the name of the author. If the file is properly anonymised it'll be blank. If it isn't it'll be your name. I anonymised mine before I uploaded it but I want to make sure.
If you are correct and the Word doc that arrives at the uploaded place isn't the same as the one that was sent, then I am worrying about nothing. But I want to make sure.
To be fair, I think @Charles once said that he didn't try to hide who he was (because it was relevant) - until someone abused it and he left
Already done. Yes, he was hardly liberal in his views. But I suspect he was not alone in the judiciary, especially not wanting to consider that the justice dispensed by the courts could be flawed. But his contribution to easing the restrictions on divorce was huge. He reduced the suffering of a large number of women in the 1960s trapped in a system that made divorce damn near impossible for them. My mother was one such woman.
I've just found a great and very informative Instagram account called "reformarenotyourfriends"
I had a look at yours yesterday… interesting set of followers you have!
Wow!
I think it might time I left this place.
Please don't.
He will be back. He needs this place like an alcoholic needs booze.
You might be comfortable with some idiot stalking you, but on this occasion that is not for me.
Otherwise your analysis is accurate.
Isam always picks fights. Always has done. Ignore.
I got insulted on here today by someone I've actually met! (He's changed his username) To add insult to injury he described me as 'little' when I'm at least five inches taller than he is!
If a business can't pay people fairly the business has been a business too long.
What is dramatically unfair about paying an 18 year old with no work experience, no kids, living with mum and dad and working for beer money £9.50 per hour?
Well it's breaking the law but apart from that fundamental issue...
Nice to see which side of the Reform voter you are on (see my comment earlier today for gory details).
I have not seen the comment earlier but you missed my edit that unemployment rates are by far the highest in that demographic.
Driving up minimum wage fastest in a demographic already suffering the highest unemployment rates, might not be the smartest move.
That demographic if I'm correct is between 18-24, which includes a lot of people going to Uni because there were no jobs available and a lot of people who cost £12.21 an hour not £10.
It's a mess that is I think unfixable, because companies at the moment simply are not recruiting which isn't surprising when it costs £15 an hour to employ someone...
Yes, some get Student Loans to live on rather than work then face 9% extra tax on minimum wage jobs afterwards. Great ...
But a staggering one in eight are NEET.
If you are on minimum wage you will be below the threshold for repaying student loans.
40 x 12.71 x 52 = £26,438.80
Threshold = £25,000
There aren't fifty-two work weeks in a work year. The number usually used is I think forty-eight. This is due to Bank Holidays (and other things?)
Alas, in this barbaric age, us poor benighted employers have to pay people not just to be at work, but also whilst they are sloping off on holiday. Thus a full time minimum wage worker is paid for 261 days work, despite only being present at work on 233 of them.
With a 8 hr working day, that's £26.5k at £12.71/hr.
Getting rid of jury trials is a completely rogue decision and it should be resisted by MPs and the Lords at every turn. This wasn't in the Labour manifesto and they have no remit to remove such a vital protection of our freedom and liberty. What's to stop the government from manipulating judicial selection to fill the benches with judges who will target their opponents? We're literally seeing this happen in real time across the pond and Labour want to walk down an even worse path without jury trials?
This government proves itself to be utterly unfit for purpose at every opportunity. I curse the million Tory voters who sat on their hands by getting caught up in a media witch hunt against the party. Complete numpties and they've made us all regret it.
I'm genuinely curious to see the rationale for the decision. Obviously there are some issues with jury trials, examples have been given on here of really long and complex trials as one, but it's so easy to attack such plans in a way which will cut across party lines, and if the motivation is financial that looks bad too, so even if it is not as bad as the picture you paint, it is not an easy sell, so they surely have some really big hitting arguments to come?
Maybe some fools are willing to trust this government to not manipulate judicial selection. I'm not. Also, what about future governments?
Both the Tories and Reform must pledge to bring back jury trials as manifesto commitments from day one. Anything less and they are complicit in a huge erosion of our rights.
I'll be interested to see if this divides tory/reform. I'd imagine this is a no-brainer Conservative position. Reform? Not so sure.
Also, what the actual f**k are Labour doing?
Starmer is at heart an authoritarian who thinks people should be managed, that the law is perfect and never makes mistakes, that more law and regulation is the way to cure things, and cannot understand why concepts like ID cards or jury removal repel people. He lied to become leader of the party, he lied to become PM, and now he has unlimited power we see what he's really like. It's not a pretty sight.
It was obvious from his behaviour over Covid that he wasn't fit to govern - always calling for more lockdown, whether the country had millions of Covid cases or virtually none. To say nothing of the "Johnson variant", and all the fuss about us using the initial vaccines as single doses (when that was obviously the best use for them). Every single bit of this was done, not from wisdom, or even honest misguided belief, but solely in the hope of political gain.
I said so on here at the time - by the end of Covid I had concluded that he wouldn't be a fit and proper person to run a whelk stall in the national interest.
Now we've stupidly let him be prime minister, he's exactly the same, except on a grander scale, and causing considerably more harm.
1 in 8 is pretty average and it rarely goes that much higher or lower. Say 12.5% plus or minus 2.5%.
Unfortunately for them (and wider society), there is a percentage of the population who are very difficult to employ (and I salute the people wo try to make work work for them.) Their issues are much deper than a change in the minimum wage.
As someone who has employed various “persons of dubious abilities*“, the minimum wage is a big deal. I can get really good lads for £15/hr. I've just employed an engineering graduate on £13.50/hr as a starting rate - employment is a buyers market right now.
I'm increasingly wondering why I'd bother trying someone dubious again - between the employees rights bill and the NMW, there is just no point bothering with someone who isn't top notch.
There is a whole class of people who, frankly, need a massive kick up the backside to get them into work. Two halves to it - we should be slashing benefits for people who have no good reason to be unemployed, other than being lazy and useless, and we should abolish the NMW so employers can pay what the bottom 10% of the "workforce" is worth an hour.
*not all of them have had the ability to turn up to work semi-regularly, never mind do anything useful once there.
Getting rid of jury trials is a completely rogue decision and it should be resisted by MPs and the Lords at every turn. This wasn't in the Labour manifesto and they have no remit to remove such a vital protection of our freedom and liberty. What's to stop the government from manipulating judicial selection to fill the benches with judges who will target their opponents? We're literally seeing this happen in real time across the pond and Labour want to walk down an even worse path without jury trials?
This government proves itself to be utterly unfit for purpose at every opportunity. I curse the million Tory voters who sat on their hands by getting caught up in a media witch hunt against the party. Complete numpties and they've made us all regret it.
Whether it's right or wrong on its merits, it's terrible optics and undermines the case they will want to make at the time of the next election against Reform being a threat to civil liberties.
Axing the right to trial by jury would probably be enough for me to hold my nose and vote for REF/Farage, if they were the only party pledging to bring it back.
They wouldn’t be the only party pledging to bring it back.
Who else would? LDs perhaps.
Not sure about the LDs. They tend to to be the most illiberal and undemocratic of the lot 😂
Quislings. Labour supporters in yellow these days. You see it on here, the government's primary defenders aren't Labour voters they're mostly so called Lib Dems.
That’s a load of bollocks. Because you’re a right winger and Labour is (sort of, when they feel like it) not right wing, you see people criticising right wing views - often extreme right wing views - on here and assume that must mean they are defending Labour.
There are in fact opinions available that are neither hard right nor Labour supporter.
Quislings is also a somewhat unpleasant slur, given there are actual Quislings in contemporary British politics who have taken the Putin shilling.
Nah, he's right. You doth protest too much.
Liberal Democrats don't do "liberalism" any more, and vociferously defend this administration. You see it on here every day.
It's just an identity thing (socially, they don't want to be seen as Labour or "red") but back what the government does all the way, and with plenty of pomposity to boot.
This really feels like a turning point for this country. If Labour manage to somehow remove jury trials for all but two types of crime then I truly believe we will no longer be living in a free or just country.
From beginning to end agents of the state will be able to investigate, charge, prosecute, adjudicate and sentence on criminal cases in very serious matters. There won't be a single break point or sanity check in that process where someone who isn't paid by the state can actually check the state's reasoning.
This is fundamentally wrong.
The right for an Englishman to be tried by a jury of his or her peers goes all the way back to Magna Carta. There's no way fools like Lammy and here today, gone tomorrow PMs like Starmer can be allowed to get away with axing a Centuries old right like this - Especially as it wasn't even a manifesto commitment.
It's surprising that 20-30 years of underfunding, under-reforming, can lead to simplistic revoking of nearly a millennia of tradition.
Maybe not that surprising. Now that I think about it.
Yes, sadly, I think it's primarily a cost saving measure.
There's a huge backlog and the MoJ is never going to get funded properly to clear it.
This really feels like a turning point for this country. If Labour manage to somehow remove jury trials for all but two types of crime then I truly believe we will no longer be living in a free or just country.
From beginning to end agents of the state will be able to investigate, charge, prosecute, adjudicate and sentence on criminal cases in very serious matters. There won't be a single break point or sanity check in that process where someone who isn't paid by the state can actually check the state's reasoning.
This is fundamentally wrong.
I don’t agree with this proposal, but the idea that we wouldn’t be a “free” country…? Germany doesn’t have jury trials. Is Germany not a free country? Ditto the Netherlands. France only has jury trials for certain serious cases. Is France not a free country?
Those are countries are based on more of a top-down legal structure where the law is based on the Napoleonic Code rather than Common Law and the rights of the individual as established by documents like Magna Carta.
It's a more circumscribed and regulated concept of liberty, as we saw play out during Covid, so not my idea of freedom.
Why does the Chancellor have a chess board on her desk, and not her first female Chancellor trophy?
Who does she play chess with? Genuine question.
She doesn't. Everything in that photo has been very carefully laid out, and staged. The chess set wiĺl have been taken away straight after.
She's trying to telegraph she's clever and a deep strategic thinker, even though we might find that laughable.
The chess thing was another thing Rachel from Accounts was caught being ecomonically with the truth about in regards her abilities, along with her plargised book, her cv, her letting licence...sorry am I mansplaining?
The BBC has been accused of cowardice by a writer it selected to give its flagship annual lecture, after it removed his remarks about alleged corruption by Donald Trump.
With the corporation already threatened with a multibillion-dollar lawsuit by the US president, Rutger Bregman, a Dutch author and historian, said the BBC had removed a “key line” from his address when it was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
Bregman’s claim that Trump was “the most openly corrupt president in American history” was removed from the first of his Reith Lectures, the BBC’s prestigious annual address. The corporation has already received complaints about the decision.
This really feels like a turning point for this country. If Labour manage to somehow remove jury trials for all but two types of crime then I truly believe we will no longer be living in a free or just country.
From beginning to end agents of the state will be able to investigate, charge, prosecute, adjudicate and sentence on criminal cases in very serious matters. There won't be a single break point or sanity check in that process where someone who isn't paid by the state can actually check the state's reasoning.
This is fundamentally wrong.
I don’t agree with this proposal, but the idea that we wouldn’t be a “free” country…? Germany doesn’t have jury trials. Is Germany not a free country? Ditto the Netherlands. France only has jury trials for certain serious cases. Is France not a free country?
Why compare us to these other countries wrt jury trials?
This really feels like a turning point for this country. If Labour manage to somehow remove jury trials for all but two types of crime then I truly believe we will no longer be living in a free or just country.
From beginning to end agents of the state will be able to investigate, charge, prosecute, adjudicate and sentence on criminal cases in very serious matters. There won't be a single break point or sanity check in that process where someone who isn't paid by the state can actually check the state's reasoning.
This is fundamentally wrong.
The right for an Englishman to be tried by a jury of his or her peers goes all the way back to Magna Carta. There's no way fools like Lammy and here today, gone tomorrow PMs like Starmer can be allowed to get away with axing a Centuries old right like this - Especially as it wasn't even a manifesto commitment.
It's surprising that 20-30 years of underfunding, under-reforming, can lead to simplistic revoking of nearly a millennia of tradition.
Maybe not that surprising. Now that I think about it.
Yes, sadly, I think it's primarily a cost saving measure.
There's a huge backlog and the MoJ is never going to get funded properly to clear it.
The issue is that the existing courts often don’t sit in parallel because they can’t get the magistrates. This is more about allowing a single judge to replace the jury AND the magistrates
What Levinson recommended was 1 judge and 2 magistrates (with no jury) - the important thing is not the jury per se, but having the consent of the population - and magistrates as lay representatives can provide that as well as a jury.
I was given by my team a mug where the handle made the "C" in the word "cock".
They then bet me that I could not get the phrase "cock mug" in that order into a talk I was giving to a very well known professional services firm and their clients later that evening, without anyone (bar them) noticing.
I won the bet.
Looks like we have the same team, although I don't drink tea or coffee but I do have a mug with a knuckle duster handle.
I once was challenged to put in the title of 5 songs by Steps into a report and presentation, I managed 8.
Once I put in my (in)famous statistics/bikini analogy, there was brief intake of breath/silence then I had two hundred people laughing their heads off.
PBers will be shocked to learn I put in/make the occasional innuendo in speeches.
This really feels like a turning point for this country. If Labour manage to somehow remove jury trials for all but two types of crime then I truly believe we will no longer be living in a free or just country.
From beginning to end agents of the state will be able to investigate, charge, prosecute, adjudicate and sentence on criminal cases in very serious matters. There won't be a single break point or sanity check in that process where someone who isn't paid by the state can actually check the state's reasoning.
This is fundamentally wrong.
And it’s a short step from there to the US system of appointing explicitly political judges, where in so many cases just the name of the judge and the nature of the charge can tell you the verdict in advance.
Comments
We will now have one of the highest minimum wages in the world, resulting in unemployment now at 5% and rising
At this point, I think Ukraine needs to take a brutal step and say that they are not agreeing to Witkoff-led negotiations.
It will unleash Trump’s wrath for like a week, but
@ZelenskyyUawill receive the backing of Europe, U.S. Congress and most importantly Ukrainian people.
https://x.com/mrsorokaa/status/1993436886971695118
Europe should - must - say exactly the same.
https://www.legalcheek.com/2017/11/7-of-lord-dennings-most-controversial-comments/amp/
Which rather reinforces the point about the importance of juries.
We don't, for example, have Germany's strong written constitution.
You can't make direct comparisons with different legal traditions.
I suspect it's now reasonably likely.
Trump's Ukraine policy is highly unpopular even with GOP voters, and Witkoff's behaviour is very close to treason.
Any Republican in a halfway competitive election in the midterms will be thinking hard about this one.
I got insulted on here today by someone I've actually met! (He's changed his username) To add insult to injury he described me as 'little' when I'm at least five inches taller than he is!
Thus a full time minimum wage worker is paid for 261 days work, despite only being present at work on 233 of them.
With a 8 hr working day, that's £26.5k at £12.71/hr.
I said so on here at the time - by the end of Covid I had concluded that he wouldn't be a fit and proper person to run a whelk stall in the national interest.
Now we've stupidly let him be prime minister, he's exactly the same, except on a grander scale, and causing considerably more harm.
I'm increasingly wondering why I'd bother trying someone dubious again - between the employees rights bill and the NMW, there is just no point bothering with someone who isn't top notch.
There is a whole class of people who, frankly, need a massive kick up the backside to get them into work. Two halves to it - we should be slashing benefits for people who have no good reason to be unemployed, other than being lazy and useless, and we should abolish the NMW so employers can pay what the bottom 10% of the "workforce" is worth an hour.
*not all of them have had the ability to turn up to work semi-regularly, never mind do anything useful once there.
She's trying to telegraph she's clever and a deep strategic thinker, even though we might find that laughable.
Liberal Democrats don't do "liberalism" any more, and vociferously defend this administration. You see it on here every day.
It's just an identity thing (socially, they don't want to be seen as Labour or "red") but back what the government does all the way, and with plenty of pomposity to boot.
There's a huge backlog and the MoJ is never going to get funded properly to clear it.
It's a more circumscribed and regulated concept of liberty, as we saw play out during Covid, so not my idea of freedom.
RFM: 25% (-2)
LAB: 19% (=)
CON: 18% (+1)
GRN: 16% (-1)
LDM: 15% (+2)
SNP: 3% (=)
Via @YouGov, 23-24 Nov.
Changes w/ 16-17 Nov.
With the corporation already threatened with a multibillion-dollar lawsuit by the US president, Rutger Bregman, a Dutch author and historian, said the BBC had removed a “key line” from his address when it was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
Bregman’s claim that Trump was “the most openly corrupt president in American history” was removed from the first of his Reith Lectures, the BBC’s prestigious annual address. The corporation has already received complaints about the decision.
What Levinson recommended was 1 judge and 2 magistrates (with no jury) - the important thing is not the jury per se, but having the consent of the population - and magistrates as lay representatives can provide that as well as a jury.