Not sure I would trust that source. They are hardly disinterested.
No, but there is a kernel of truth in that. Look at how the post attack operation was bungled in Germany and the reports of officials interfering and blocking the release of identity pictures due to racial sensitivity or some other rubbish. I don't think the Germans would get on board with GCHQs data and statistics driven approach.
The problem with our IT driven intelligence systems is that they are most effective against long chains of command or large interrelated groups with regular communications to spot, break and analyse. It doesn't need a lot of detailed planning to hijack a truck and drive it into a crowd of innocent people. This is the problem all western intelligence services face and it is seriously tricky.
@CarlottaVance - not sure how much credibility to give to your post about German and British spies' spat. Remember that rt.com/uk is Putin's propaganda channel.
DavidL, something is going wrong when we have still one of the world's biggest military budgets, but would struggle to put 20,000 soldiers into the field.
Completely agree. In Afghanistan we struggled to maintain a force of 10K men over a very extended period of time with the front line troops having to do too many rotations which causes a great deal of family stress and resignations from your more experienced men.
Although there are plans to cut them we currently have in excess of 200 brigadiers and generals. That really should be plenty for an army of 500K, not 82K. These are the current plans: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30962007 They do not strike me as nearly drastic enough in respect of the senior officers.
Assume only half of those brigadiers and generals are in front line roles that still leaves 100.
Now assume 5 brigadiers and generals for a full division - that gives enough for 20 full sized divisions.
Is the army currently capable of deploying a full sized division ?
But nearly all the Downton people are BBC trained. Their lead Director was given his break on North and South where they showed him how to make a drama. He worked with me on commercials. It wasn't a 'Brian Percival film' but a BBC one. He was chosen by Julian Fellows on the strength on his work for the BBC and he won an Emmy fot Downton
If Russia starts shadowing our Trident subs 24/7, as suggested on the front page of the 'i' they would then be in a position to take them out prior to launching a preemptive nuclear strike on the UK. Under such a scenario, what is the point of renewing the 'deterrent'?
One reason would be to make the boats harder to track. But I wonder whether the Russians could do as the i suggests. Tracking the missile boats in the deep ocean is an exceptionally demanding task technically. An attack against a foreign power's nuclear missile boats also - as you note - as good an indicator of an imminent nuclear strike against that country. To undertake it therefore requires *all* the boats to be disabled at the least, as otherwise the attack may well trigger the launching of those missiles.
Not sure I would trust that source. They are hardly disinterested.
No, but there is a kernel of truth in that. Look at how the post attack operation was bungled in Germany and the reports of officials interfering and blocking the release of identity pictures due to racial sensitivity or some other rubbish. I don't think the Germans would get on board with GCHQs data and statistics driven approach.
The problem with our IT driven intelligence systems is that they are most effective against long chains of command or large interrelated groups with regular communications to spot, break and analyse. It doesn't need a lot of detailed planning to hijack a truck and drive it into a crowd of innocent people. This is the problem all western intelligence services face and it is seriously tricky.
With this particular attack it would have helped since there was contact between the terrorist and other known extremists earlier in the year. That the Germans let him roam free is a complete failure on their part. The minute he contacted known extremists offering to carry out terror attacks he'd have been picked up and sent down for 7-10 years.
It's been shown that even though Nice attack had a lot of planning and outside influence from foreign jihadists that the French initially missed. One of the reasons why the UK looks like an island of peace in amongst a huge rise in terrorism in Europe is because of the data driven approach that the Europeans are not willing to take. The French finally seem to have switched over but there is no hope in Germany. They seem to think that inviting a million "refugees" into their country will be without consequence.
But nearly all the Downton people are BBC trained. Their lead Director was given his break on North and South where they showed him how to make a drama. He worked with me on commercials. It wasn't a 'Brian Percival film' but a BBC one. He was chosen by Julian Fellows on the strength on his work for the BBC and he won an Emmy fot Downton
No doubt about it, The Crown was offered to the BBC first as well but they declined. Freed from the shackles of the state the BBC could rival HBO in terms of quality output, but as it stands it won't happen. Only the documentaries are truly world class. The BBC has nothing like Westworld in production at the moment.
Not sure I would trust that source. They are hardly disinterested.
No, but there is a kernel of truth in that. Look at how the post attack operation was bungled in Germany and the reports of officials interfering and blocking the release of identity pictures due to racial sensitivity or some other rubbish. I don't think the Germans would get on board with GCHQs data and statistics driven approach.
The problem with our IT driven intelligence systems is that they are most effective against long chains of command or large interrelated groups with regular communications to spot, break and analyse. It doesn't need a lot of detailed planning to hijack a truck and drive it into a crowd of innocent people. This is the problem all western intelligence services face and it is seriously tricky.
Yes, the fact that you or I could hijack a truck and aim it at a public event is a huge problem, given that we have to get them every time and they only need to succeed once. The intelligence is therefore imperative, we need to find these bastards before they find another Christmas market.
Squareroot The Democrats may not go as far as Corbyn but the first Democratic primary poll for 2020 has Sanders and Warren combined on 40% which is more than the 31% Biden gets. So it is likely one of Sanders or Warren or a similar candidate on the left of the Democratic Party will be the nominee to take on Trump in 2020 http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/12/democrats-have-mixed-feelings-on-2020-field.html
When was the last time a General (or equivalent in the RAF or RN) was killed in action?
The IRA would say 1979 when they took out Admiral Mountbatten.
The last conventional death in action I reckon is William Gott during WW2
Maj Gen Rennie was killed during the crossing of the Rhine in 1945, so certainly post-dates Gott (as does ACM Leigh Mallory, who was the most senior casualty of WWII.
"It's hard to see why anyone would want a career in the armed forces. Not only are you underfunded, but the government seems quite happy to hang you out to dry when this country's enemies complain about you."
I believe the armed forces are struggling to recruit and retain people. Not wholly for the reasons you give but hey are certainly part of the story.
The RN/RFA seems to be in desperate straights in this regard with ships tied up alongside because they do not have enough people with the essential skills to crew them. One of the big problems for the RN is that its base numbers have been cut too far and so sailors are spending more and more time at sea. That is fine when you are young, single rating (its what you joined for after all) but not so good for senior rates in their thirties with wives and children to consider and it is those senior chaps, particularly in the engineering branches, that are vital to keep a ship functioning let alone fighting.
Conversely, one of the problems with army recruiting is that there is no reasonable prospect of any actual action, unless you are in the special forces. Army recruiting fell of a cliff when we pulled out of Afghanistan. Some people struggle with this, but most squaddies join for the adventure and, whilst life in garrison towns can be violent (Catterick on a Saturday night used to be good for a fight), it is not adventurous. I have even read about people who have been in the parachute regiment for a couple of years, but have yet to make a parachute jump.
I am not sure what the situation with the Crabs is, but there is one poster on this site who was a fairly senior officer in Crab Air and chucked his hand early in disgust. I'll not speak for him.
Add to the above Cameron's complete failure to follow through on his pre-2010 promises in terms of conditions of service (especially housing), the continuous cuts, the false accounting, IHat investigations (and now even the PSNI going after blokes for events forty years ago whilst the PIRA fellows have immunity - don't bother knocking on my door, I won't be able to remember a thing), it is a wonder morale has not collapsed and that recruiting remains as high as it is.
Well said.
The contrast between how Cameron shat on military personnel and his MENA warmongering was sickening.
When was the last time a General (or equivalent in the RAF or RN) was killed in action?
The IRA would say 1979 when they took out Admiral Mountbatten.
The last conventional death in action I reckon is William Gott during WW2
Maj Gen Rennie was killed during the crossing of the Rhine in 1945, so certainly post-dates Gott (as does ACM Leigh Mallory, who was the most senior casualty of WWII.
I'd agree that Mountbatten ought to count though.
Oops forgot about Rennie, I didn't include Leigh Mallory because that was an accident rather than killed by enemy action.
Completely OT. If anyone saw the Agatha Christie on TV over the last few nights I'd just like to put in a plug for the BBC. Technically it was a tour de force. Without going into whether it was a great story or not the technical bravura of this two hours of TV could only be done by the BBC.
They get and train the very best and they unerringly know where to put their money. The people move on but the standards have been set. If any government decides to emasculate the organisation it's effect will appear some years down the line and even the likes of Hollywood will be the poorer for it.
Which is why it should be freed from government control and the consequent management timidity.
Skimming the thread it took me a few seconds to work out that this comment was about the BBC, not the British army. They both seem like strong candidates for privatization, for the same reasons.
Private armies did wonders for building up the empire (plus dragging the country into the odd unwanted war). Not sure that they're PC these days.
The problem with our IT driven intelligence systems is that they are most effective against long chains of command or large interrelated groups with regular communications to spot, break and analyse. It doesn't need a lot of detailed planning to hijack a truck and drive it into a crowd of innocent people. This is the problem all western intelligence services face and it is seriously tricky.
With this particular attack it would have helped since there was contact between the terrorist and other known extremists earlier in the year. That the Germans let him roam free is a complete failure on their part. The minute he contacted known extremists offering to carry out terror attacks he'd have been picked up and sent down for 7-10 years.
It's been shown that even though Nice attack had a lot of planning and outside influence from foreign jihadists that the French initially missed. One of the reasons why the UK looks like an island of peace in amongst a huge rise in terrorism in Europe is because of the data driven approach that the Europeans are not willing to take. The French finally seem to have switched over but there is no hope in Germany. They seem to think that inviting a million "refugees" into their country will be without consequence.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
Squareroot The Democrats may not go as far as Corbyn but the first Democratic primary poll for 2020 has Sanders and Warren combined on 40% which is more than the 31% Biden gets. So it is likely one of Sanders or Warren or a similar candidate on the left of the Democratic Party will be the nominee to take on Trump in 2020 http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/12/democrats-have-mixed-feelings-on-2020-field.html
Polls at this point are mostly name recognition, which is why you're getting them saying they want somebody young then naming two people in their mid-70s. That said, it's probably true that people aiming to win the primary shouldn't be positioning themselves as Clintonesque moderates.
So there is a new story in Germany making a lot of waves, at least on social media according to a friend of mine. 7 refugees from Syria have been charged with attempted murder because they tried to set a tramp on fire. He was unhurt because of some quick action to put the fire out by some nearby person. It has fuelled anger against the "refugees" and Merkel in the aftermath of the terrorist attack. My friend says that if anything people are more angry about this than Berlin because this is just random casual violence just because, rather than someone who has undergone radicalisation and brainwashing to carry out an atrocity.
The other issue is that these arseholes can't be deported and the German justice system is so weak that they are talking about a community sentence from which people are sure they will abscond.
' Nearly 100 people working in nail bars have been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences as part of a clampdown on illegal working.
Investigators targeted more than 280 nail bars in Edinburgh, London and Cardiff as part of the government's Operation Magnify on "risk" industries.
...
In all, 14 of those arrested were passed to the National Referral Mechanism hub, a service supporting those identified as possible victims of slavery and human trafficking.
Many people working in plain sight in UK nail bars, on construction sites, in brothels, on cannabis farms and in agriculture are in fact suspected to be modern slaves. '
The problem with our IT driven intelligence systems is that they are most effective against long chains of command or large interrelated groups with regular communications to spot, break and analyse. It doesn't need a lot of detailed planning to hijack a truck and drive it into a crowd of innocent people. This is the problem all western intelligence services face and it is seriously tricky.
With this particular attack it would have helped since there was contact between the terrorist and other known extremists earlier in the year. That the Germans let him roam free is a complete failure on their part. The minute he contacted known extremists offering to carry out terror attacks he'd have been picked up and sent down for 7-10 years.
It's been shown that even though Nice attack had a lot of planning and outside influence from foreign jihadists that the French initially missed. One of the reasons why the UK looks like an island of peace in amongst a huge rise in terrorism in Europe is because of the data driven approach that the Europeans are not willing to take. The French finally seem to have switched over but there is no hope in Germany. They seem to think that inviting a million "refugees" into their country will be without consequence.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
How much do we spend on intelligence that stops terrorist attacks here? That should be deducted from the economic P&L that immigration brings. I don't think anyone could dispute that commonwealth immigration since 1960 has increased the security risk
Maybe the BBC is good at some things (they are) and perhaps not so good at many others. Personally I just don't like being forced under the law to pay annual protection money subscriptions under threat of a court appearance to receive a TV channel I don't want or even need.
A couple of good programmes or series a year really do set cut the mustard as a broken clock is right a day etc. Put in under pay per view and then see how popular all these gravy train overpaid luvvies really are.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
I think the investigatory powers act goes way too far down the road in the freedom/security trade off and the number of agencies allowed to access the data was far too high and much like the terrorism laws being used by councils to spy on people putting the wrong items in their bins, it would have been completely abused by the lesser levers of state. What worries me is that Theresa May clearly sees the state as benevolent rather than malevolent. There is no other way her department would draw up such a wide access list of government bodies and departments that could access the data.
So there is a new story in Germany making a lot of waves, at least on social media according to a friend of mine. 7 refugees from Syria have been charged with attempted murder because they tried to set a tramp on fire. He was unhurt because of some quick action to put the fire out by some nearby person. It has fuelled anger against the "refugees" and Merkel in the aftermath of the terrorist attack. My friend says that if anything people are more angry about this than Berlin because this is just random casual violence just because, rather than someone who has undergone radicalisation and brainwashing to carry out an atrocity.
The other issue is that these arseholes can't be deported and the German justice system is so weak that they are talking about a community sentence from which people are sure they will abscond.
Among a million people there's going to be some ordinary criminal scum - probably proportionally more so as the migrants are people who have been unsuccessful in their own countries.
Has there been any data revealed as to the age, sex, educational level etc of Merkel's migrants.
But nearly all the Downton people are BBC trained. Their lead Director was given his break on North and South where they showed him how to make a drama. He worked with me on commercials. It wasn't a 'Brian Percival film' but a BBC one. He was chosen by Julian Fellows on the strength on his work for the BBC and he won an Emmy fot Downton
If the Beeb was funded from subscriptions rather than a poll tax, it could substantially increase its income, which is artificially capped due to political pressures. Remove those pressures and you could have a properly funded producer / studio / broadcaster.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
How much do we spend on intelligence that stops terrorist attacks here? That should be deducted from the economic P&L that immigration brings. I don't think anyone could dispute that commonwealth immigration since 1960 has increased the security risk
We spend £2.1bn a year on our intelligence services combined and we have a "slush fund" of another £500m or so the government can draw on as required. Presumably some of this is still aimed at the Russians etc but it is a fair bet that a lot more than half is now directed at the current Islamist threat.
Edit, these are 2012/13 figures so probably a bit out of date.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
I think the investigatory powers act goes way too far down the road in the freedom/security trade off and the number of agencies allowed to access the data was far too high and much like the terrorism laws being used by councils to spy on people putting the wrong items in their bins, it would have been completely abused by the lesser levers of state. What worries me is that Theresa May clearly sees the state as benevolent rather than malevolent. There is no other way her department would draw up such a wide access list of government bodies and departments that could access the data.
Oh I agree with that. I am talking about national security, not bin collections.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security.
The problem with this is that on any sensible threat analysis, the privacy you're giving up is costing you security, not giving you security. Terrorism is a very small, unusual risk. It kills tiny, tiny numbers of people. That's why it's newsworthy when it happens. Danger from your own government once it gets out of control has killed millions, multiple times over the course of this century. The scale of the damage from terrorism is minimal in comparison.
What you're doing is the equivalent of keeping a gun in your home. It makes you feel safe, and there are situations where it would help you, but it's far more likely to kill someone by accident.
When was the last time a General (or equivalent in the RAF or RN) was killed in action?
The IRA would say 1979 when they took out Admiral Mountbatten.
The last conventional death in action I reckon is William Gott during WW2
Maj Gen Rennie was killed during the crossing of the Rhine in 1945, so certainly post-dates Gott (as does ACM Leigh Mallory, who was the most senior casualty of WWII.
I'd agree that Mountbatten ought to count though.
Oops forgot about Rennie, I didn't include Leigh Mallory because that was an accident rather than killed by enemy action.
Fair enough, although it was an accident forced to some extent by the conditions of war (Mallory instructed the flight to go in unsafe conditions so that he could reach his Burma command more quickly).
"Is the army currently capable of deploying a full sized division ?"
Well there are divisions and divisions. Could the army no deploy an armoured division as per Gulf War 1? No. Could it deploy a mixed three brigade force with some armour support and a, short, artillery component? Yes, but probably not for long.
We must not, however, get carried away. One of the criticisms made of the army down the decades is that it has always been ready to fight the last war. Some thought is being given about what the next war might look like and what we would need to fight it. My fear is twofold. Firstly, the decisions are being driven by the ever shrinking budget and the answers are therefore more a result of wishful thinking than proper threat analysis. Secondly, the army is now so small that no matter what force structure is decided upon it is and will remain incapable of fighting a hot war against a reasonably equipped state actor even in an alliance.
My thoughts run to the idea that we should just disband the army, beef up the RM, and set limits on what sort of short term expeditionary warfare we are prepared to do. Our contribution to NATO should be limited to the war at sea, where an expanded RN could do something useful, more useful than our rather pathetic little army could do on land anyway.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
An incredibly naïve posting that ignores the fact that it is not just the security services that are now allowed to snoop on us but a vast range of different government agencies most of which have absolutely nothing to do with security.
Your 'trade off' comment of course invites the Franklin quote which seems very apt in these circumstances.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
How much do we spend on intelligence that stops terrorist attacks here? That should be deducted from the economic P&L that immigration brings. I don't think anyone could dispute that commonwealth immigration since 1960 has increased the security risk
We spend £2.1bn a year on our intelligence services combined and we have a "slush fund" of another £500m or so the government can draw on as required. Presumably some of this is still aimed at the Russians etc but it is a fair bet that a lot more than half is now directed at the current Islamist threat.
I read in the summer when they reallocated the Intelligence budget to Defence spending, the most money is spent on
1) Russia
2) Cyber security (which may be related to 1)
3) Irish republican terrorism (which is still pretty active)
4) Islamist terrorism
Reason 3 is why we have an advantage over our EU neighbours, which should be good in Brexit negotiations.
' Nearly 100 people working in nail bars have been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences as part of a clampdown on illegal working.
Investigators targeted more than 280 nail bars in Edinburgh, London and Cardiff as part of the government's Operation Magnify on "risk" industries. ...
In all, 14 of those arrested were passed to the National Referral Mechanism hub, a service supporting those identified as possible victims of slavery and human trafficking.
Many people working in plain sight in UK nail bars, on construction sites, in brothels, on cannabis farms and in agriculture are in fact suspected to be modern slaves. '
' Nearly 100 people working in nail bars have been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences as part of a clampdown on illegal working.
Investigators targeted more than 280 nail bars in Edinburgh, London and Cardiff as part of the government's Operation Magnify on "risk" industries. ...
In all, 14 of those arrested were passed to the National Referral Mechanism hub, a service supporting those identified as possible victims of slavery and human trafficking.
Many people working in plain sight in UK nail bars, on construction sites, in brothels, on cannabis farms and in agriculture are in fact suspected to be modern slaves. '
But nearly all the Downton people are BBC trained. Their lead Director was given his break on North and South where they showed him how to make a drama. He worked with me on commercials. It wasn't a 'Brian Percival film' but a BBC one. He was chosen by Julian Fellows on the strength on his work for the BBC and he won an Emmy fot Downton
If the Beeb was funded from subscriptions rather than a poll tax, it could substantially increase its income, which is artificially capped due to political pressures. Remove those pressures and you could have a properly funded producer / studio / broadcaster.
That depends how much people are willing to pay for the subscription.
A BBC licence currently costs £145pa.
A NOW TV subscription costs £84pa - or as little as £38pa if you buy two boxes with 6 month passes in them.
With an ever increasing amount of TV/films free on YouTube I would expect downward pressure on TV finances.
So there is a new story in Germany making a lot of waves, at least on social media according to a friend of mine. 7 refugees from Syria have been charged with attempted murder because they tried to set a tramp on fire. He was unhurt because of some quick action to put the fire out by some nearby person. It has fuelled anger against the "refugees" and Merkel in the aftermath of the terrorist attack. My friend says that if anything people are more angry about this than Berlin because this is just random casual violence just because, rather than someone who has undergone radicalisation and brainwashing to carry out an atrocity.
The other issue is that these arseholes can't be deported and the German justice system is so weak that they are talking about a community sentence from which people are sure they will abscond.
Will they be handing out community service for this New Year's Eve rapes too, or will that be too "culturally sensitive" to prosecute at all?
' Nearly 100 people working in nail bars have been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences as part of a clampdown on illegal working.
Investigators targeted more than 280 nail bars in Edinburgh, London and Cardiff as part of the government's Operation Magnify on "risk" industries. ...
In all, 14 of those arrested were passed to the National Referral Mechanism hub, a service supporting those identified as possible victims of slavery and human trafficking.
Many people working in plain sight in UK nail bars, on construction sites, in brothels, on cannabis farms and in agriculture are in fact suspected to be modern slaves. '
Now I support the legalisation of drugs but I am rather surprised that cannabis farms might be operating 'in plain sight'.
I wonder why nail bars.
I think it might be to do the reason that happened in Manchester during the summer, one of the nail bars were using chemicals that shouldn't be used on nails/skins and presented a health risk to customers.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
An incredibly naïve posting that ignores the fact that it is not just the security services that are now allowed to snoop on us but a vast range of different government agencies most of which have absolutely nothing to do with security.
Your 'trade off' comment of course invites the Franklin quote which seems very apt in these circumstances.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
See my subsequent post about bin collections etc. I completely agree that the Investigatory Powers provisions are absurdly widely drawn. But I don't back off from the need for our intelligence services having the powers and tools they need.
' Nearly 100 people working in nail bars have been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences as part of a clampdown on illegal working.
Investigators targeted more than 280 nail bars in Edinburgh, London and Cardiff as part of the government's Operation Magnify on "risk" industries. ...
In all, 14 of those arrested were passed to the National Referral Mechanism hub, a service supporting those identified as possible victims of slavery and human trafficking.
Many people working in plain sight in UK nail bars, on construction sites, in brothels, on cannabis farms and in agriculture are in fact suspected to be modern slaves. '
Now I support the legalisation of drugs but I am rather surprised that cannabis farms might be operating 'in plain sight'.
I wonder why nail bars.
I think it might be to do the reason that happened in Manchester during the summer, one of the nail bars were using chemicals that shouldn't be used on nails/skins and presented a health risk to customers.
Hmmm. Killing two birds comes to mind, but I wondered why nail bars were considered to be possible hotspots for modern slavery.
' Nearly 100 people working in nail bars have been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences as part of a clampdown on illegal working.
Investigators targeted more than 280 nail bars in Edinburgh, London and Cardiff as part of the government's Operation Magnify on "risk" industries. ...
In all, 14 of those arrested were passed to the National Referral Mechanism hub, a service supporting those identified as possible victims of slavery and human trafficking.
Many people working in plain sight in UK nail bars, on construction sites, in brothels, on cannabis farms and in agriculture are in fact suspected to be modern slaves. '
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
I think the investigatory powers act goes way too far down the road in the freedom/security trade off and the number of agencies allowed to access the data was far too high and much like the terrorism laws being used by councils to spy on people putting the wrong items in their bins, it would have been completely abused by the lesser levers of state. What worries me is that Theresa May clearly sees the state as benevolent rather than malevolent. There is no other way her department would draw up such a wide access list of government bodies and departments that could access the data.
F..k yeah. Not many disagree with GCHQ hacking into terrorists, but they sure as hell disagree with the local council getting involved in such activity.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
How much do we spend on intelligence that stops terrorist attacks here? That should be deducted from the economic P&L that immigration brings. I don't think anyone could dispute that commonwealth immigration since 1960 has increased the security risk
We spend £2.1bn a year on our intelligence services combined and we have a "slush fund" of another £500m or so the government can draw on as required. Presumably some of this is still aimed at the Russians etc but it is a fair bet that a lot more than half is now directed at the current Islamist threat.
I read in the summer when they reallocated the Intelligence budget to Defence spending, the most money is spent on
1) Russia
2) Cyber security (which may be related to 1)
3) Irish republican terrorism (which is still pretty active)
4) Islamist terrorism
Reason 3 is why we have an advantage over our EU neighbours, which should be good in Brexit negotiations.
Russian cyber-attacks are clearly a growing menace but that seems to be fighting the last war and the one before that to me.
' Nearly 100 people working in nail bars have been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences as part of a clampdown on illegal working.
Investigators targeted more than 280 nail bars in Edinburgh, London and Cardiff as part of the government's Operation Magnify on "risk" industries. ...
In all, 14 of those arrested were passed to the National Referral Mechanism hub, a service supporting those identified as possible victims of slavery and human trafficking.
Many people working in plain sight in UK nail bars, on construction sites, in brothels, on cannabis farms and in agriculture are in fact suspected to be modern slaves. '
When was the last time a General (or equivalent in the RAF or RN) was killed in action?
The IRA would say 1979 when they took out Admiral Mountbatten.
The last conventional death in action I reckon is William Gott during WW2
Maj Gen Rennie was killed during the crossing of the Rhine in 1945, so certainly post-dates Gott (as does ACM Leigh Mallory, who was the most senior casualty of WWII.
I'd agree that Mountbatten ought to count though.
Oops forgot about Rennie, I didn't include Leigh Mallory because that was an accident rather than killed by enemy action.
Fair enough, although it was an accident forced to some extent by the conditions of war (Mallory instructed the flight to go in unsafe conditions so that he could reach his Burma command more quickly).
General George C Patton in 1945 would probably qualify.
Dies in a *cough* road accident*cough* so may or may not have been enemy action or friendly fire? conspiracy theories remain to this day of course.
But nearly all the Downton people are BBC trained. Their lead Director was given his break on North and South where they showed him how to make a drama. He worked with me on commercials. It wasn't a 'Brian Percival film' but a BBC one. He was chosen by Julian Fellows on the strength on his work for the BBC and he won an Emmy fot Downton
If the Beeb was funded from subscriptions rather than a poll tax, it could substantially increase its income, which is artificially capped due to political pressures. Remove those pressures and you could have a properly funded producer / studio / broadcaster.
That depends how much people are willing to pay for the subscription.
A BBC licence currently costs £145pa.
A NOW TV subscription costs £84pa - or as little as £38pa if you buy two boxes with 6 month passes in them.
With an ever increasing amount of TV/films free on YouTube I would expect downward pressure on TV finances.
How much is a Sky package though?
People will still pay for quality new broadcasting unavailable elsewhere. And in the short term, there'd likely be a huge inertia effect with few people opting not to buy a subscription to continue on from the licence fee given that it could be made to follow on automatically.
"Is the army currently capable of deploying a full sized division ?"
Well there are divisions and divisions. Could the army no deploy an armoured division as per Gulf War 1? No. Could it deploy a mixed three brigade force with some armour support and a, short, artillery component? Yes, but probably not for long.
We must not, however, get carried away. One of the criticisms made of the army down the decades is that it has always been ready to fight the last war. Some thought is being given about what the next war might look like and what we would need to fight it. My fear is twofold. Firstly, the decisions are being driven by the ever shrinking budget and the answers are therefore more a result of wishful thinking than proper threat analysis. Secondly, the army is now so small that no matter what force structure is decided upon it is and will remain incapable of fighting a hot war against a reasonably equipped state actor even in an alliance.
My thoughts run to the idea that we should just disband the army, beef up the RM, and set limits on what sort of short term expeditionary warfare we are prepared to do. Our contribution to NATO should be limited to the war at sea, where an expanded RN could do something useful, more useful than our rather pathetic little army could do on land anyway.
I've heard ex-squaddies complain that politicians, especially Conservative ministers, think the way your last paragraph does -- that all we need are special forces and the regulars are a waste of rations.
When was the last time a General (or equivalent in the RAF or RN) was killed in action?
The IRA would say 1979 when they took out Admiral Mountbatten.
The last conventional death in action I reckon is William Gott during WW2
Maj Gen Rennie was killed during the crossing of the Rhine in 1945, so certainly post-dates Gott (as does ACM Leigh Mallory, who was the most senior casualty of WWII.
I'd agree that Mountbatten ought to count though.
Oops forgot about Rennie, I didn't include Leigh Mallory because that was an accident rather than killed by enemy action.
Fair enough, although it was an accident forced to some extent by the conditions of war (Mallory instructed the flight to go in unsafe conditions so that he could reach his Burma command more quickly).
General George C Patton in 1945 would probably qualify.
Dies in a *cough* road accident*cough* so may or may not have been enemy action or friendly fire? conspiracy theories remain to this day of course.
I thought we were talking about British casualties? If we're including foreigners then an Iraqi general was killed in March this year in an attack by ISIS, to take one recent example.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
How much do we spend on intelligence that stops terrorist attacks here? That should be deducted from the economic P&L that immigration brings. I don't think anyone could dispute that commonwealth immigration since 1960 has increased the security risk
We spend £2.1bn a year on our intelligence services combined and we have a "slush fund" of another £500m or so the government can draw on as required. Presumably some of this is still aimed at the Russians etc but it is a fair bet that a lot more than half is now directed at the current Islamist threat.
I read in the summer when they reallocated the Intelligence budget to Defence spending, the most money is spent on
1) Russia
2) Cyber security (which may be related to 1)
3) Irish republican terrorism (which is still pretty active)
4) Islamist terrorism
Reason 3 is why we have an advantage over our EU neighbours, which should be good in Brexit negotiations.
Russian cyber-attacks are clearly a growing menace but that seems to be fighting the last war and the one before that to me.
They say resources are allocated on a needs basis.
I guess when it comes to the security and intelligence services we seldom see their successes and only their failures, touch wood, we've not see a major terrorist attack in the UK in 2016 so far.
But nearly all the Downton people are BBC trained. Their lead Director was given his break on North and South where they showed him how to make a drama. He worked with me on commercials. It wasn't a 'Brian Percival film' but a BBC one. He was chosen by Julian Fellows on the strength on his work for the BBC and he won an Emmy fot Downton
If the Beeb was funded from subscriptions rather than a poll tax, it could substantially increase its income, which is artificially capped due to political pressures. Remove those pressures and you could have a properly funded producer / studio / broadcaster.
That depends how much people are willing to pay for the subscription.
A BBC licence currently costs £145pa.
A NOW TV subscription costs £84pa - or as little as £38pa if you buy two boxes with 6 month passes in them.
With an ever increasing amount of TV/films free on YouTube I would expect downward pressure on TV finances.
How much is a Sky package though?
People will still pay for quality new broadcasting unavailable elsewhere. And in the short term, there'd likely be a huge inertia effect with few people opting not to buy a subscription to continue on from the licence fee given that it could be made to follow on automatically.
I'm currently paying just over a £100 for Sky, that's for all the channels including sports and movies, and three boxes.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
How much do we spend on intelligence that stops terrorist attacks here? That should be deducted from the economic P&L that immigration brings. I don't think anyone could dispute that commonwealth immigration since 1960 has increased the security risk
We spend £2.1bn a year on our intelligence services combined and we have a "slush fund" of another £500m or so the government can draw on as required. Presumably some of this is still aimed at the Russians etc but it is a fair bet that a lot more than half is now directed at the current Islamist threat.
I read in the summer when they reallocated the Intelligence budget to Defence spending, the most money is spent on
1) Russia
2) Cyber security (which may be related to 1)
3) Irish republican terrorism (which is still pretty active)
4) Islamist terrorism
Reason 3 is why we have an advantage over our EU neighbours, which should be good in Brexit negotiations.
Russian cyber-attacks are clearly a growing menace but that seems to be fighting the last war and the one before that to me.
Yup. Its Cold War Bogeyman to me in spades. Islamism is clear and present.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
How much do we spend on intelligence that stops terrorist attacks here? That should be deducted from the economic P&L that immigration brings. I don't think anyone could dispute that commonwealth immigration since 1960 has increased the security risk
We spend £2.1bn a year on our intelligence services combined and we have a "slush fund" of another £500m or so the government can draw on as required. Presumably some of this is still aimed at the Russians etc but it is a fair bet that a lot more than half is now directed at the current Islamist threat.
I read in the summer when they reallocated the Intelligence budget to Defence spending, the most money is spent on
1) Russia
2) Cyber security (which may be related to 1)
3) Irish republican terrorism (which is still pretty active)
4) Islamist terrorism
Reason 3 is why we have an advantage over our EU neighbours, which should be good in Brexit negotiations.
So Islamic terrorism is only the 4th biggest terrorist threat according to our govt? That's quite incredible
Even so, the money we spend defending ourselves from it should be deducted from any supposed economic benefit immigration brings
' Nearly 100 people working in nail bars have been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences as part of a clampdown on illegal working.
Investigators targeted more than 280 nail bars in Edinburgh, London and Cardiff as part of the government's Operation Magnify on "risk" industries. ...
In all, 14 of those arrested were passed to the National Referral Mechanism hub, a service supporting those identified as possible victims of slavery and human trafficking.
Many people working in plain sight in UK nail bars, on construction sites, in brothels, on cannabis farms and in agriculture are in fact suspected to be modern slaves. '
Now I support the legalisation of drugs but I am rather surprised that cannabis farms might be operating 'in plain sight'.
I wonder why nail bars.
Professional manicures aren't cheap so there was scope in the market for cheap immigrant labour to be employed - legally and illegally.
And a fair few are probably fronts for other 'personal services' operations too. The workers appear to have a legitimate day job to cover the more profitable night work.
We spend £2.1bn a year on our intelligence services combined and we have a "slush fund" of another £500m or so the government can draw on as required. Presumably some of this is still aimed at the Russians etc but it is a fair bet that a lot more than half is now directed at the current Islamist threat.
I read in the summer when they reallocated the Intelligence budget to Defence spending, the most money is spent on
1) Russia
2) Cyber security (which may be related to 1)
3) Irish republican terrorism (which is still pretty active)
4) Islamist terrorism
Reason 3 is why we have an advantage over our EU neighbours, which should be good in Brexit negotiations.
Russian cyber-attacks are clearly a growing menace but that seems to be fighting the last war and the one before that to me.
They say resources are allocated on a needs basis.
I guess when it comes to the security and intelligence services we seldom see their successes and only their failures, touch wood, we've not see a major terrorist attack in the UK in 2016 so far.
In fairness one of the places we see their successes is in the criminal courts and there has been a marked pick up in the number of convictions. This is the list in 2016 and the names concerned rather suggest where our focus should be: https://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/ctd_2016.html
But nearly all the Downton people are BBC trained. Their lead Director was given his break on North and South where they showed him how to make a drama. He worked with me on commercials. It wasn't a 'Brian Percival film' but a BBC one. He was chosen by Julian Fellows on the strength on his work for the BBC and he won an Emmy fot Downton
If the Beeb was funded from subscriptions rather than a poll tax, it could substantially increase its income, which is artificially capped due to political pressures. Remove those pressures and you could have a properly funded producer / studio / broadcaster.
That depends how much people are willing to pay for the subscription.
A BBC licence currently costs £145pa.
A NOW TV subscription costs £84pa - or as little as £38pa if you buy two boxes with 6 month passes in them.
With an ever increasing amount of TV/films free on YouTube I would expect downward pressure on TV finances.
How much is a Sky package though?
People will still pay for quality new broadcasting unavailable elsewhere. And in the short term, there'd likely be a huge inertia effect with few people opting not to buy a subscription to continue on from the licence fee given that it could be made to follow on automatically.
I'm currently paying just over a £100 for Sky, that's for all the channels including sports and movies, and three boxes.
That's a month, presumably? cf £145 a year for the BBC.
Like I say, freed from the artificial cap that the Licence Fee imposes, the scope for increasing income for the Beeb is considerable.
But nearly all the Downton people are BBC trained. Their lead Director was given his break on North and South where they showed him how to make a drama. He worked with me on commercials. It wasn't a 'Brian Percival film' but a BBC one. He was chosen by Julian Fellows on the strength on his work for the BBC and he won an Emmy fot Downton
If the Beeb was funded from subscriptions rather than a poll tax, it could substantially increase its income, which is artificially capped due to political pressures. Remove those pressures and you could have a properly funded producer / studio / broadcaster.
That depends how much people are willing to pay for the subscription.
A BBC licence currently costs £145pa.
A NOW TV subscription costs £84pa - or as little as £38pa if you buy two boxes with 6 month passes in them.
With an ever increasing amount of TV/films free on YouTube I would expect downward pressure on TV finances.
How much is a Sky package though?
People will still pay for quality new broadcasting unavailable elsewhere. And in the short term, there'd likely be a huge inertia effect with few people opting not to buy a subscription to continue on from the licence fee given that it could be made to follow on automatically.
Don't know about a Sky package but NOW TV gives GoT, Westworld and lots of other quality, new broadcasting. Including Sky Arts, which is superior to the BBC equivalent.
Some people will pay significant amounts for sport and to a lesser extent new films.
Maybe some people will pay heavy subscriptions to watch Eastenders, Strictly, Masterchef and Bake-Off.
"I've heard ex-squaddies complain that politicians, especially Conservative ministers, think the way your last paragraph does -- that all we need are special forces and the regulars are a waste of rations."
I think that is to confuse my argument. For years we did have a situation where the planners and politicians did undoubtedly think that the only units who could fight were the Paras, the RM and their respective elite arms (see Sierra Leone for an example). However, Iraq and Afghanistan showed that idea for the stupidity it always was.
However, what I am suggesting is that the army has now been cut back so far that it is too small to be worth the effort of maintaining it. Let us perhaps accept that in terms of ground operations we should be able to do some short term expeditionary stuff and that is all. If you accept that idea then it makes no sense to keep two separate forces for one job and that the Royal Marines could be beefed up (with its own artillery for example) and use the money saved to expand the fleet. We could then present to our allies a coherent and useful set of capabilities rather than trying to pretend we can, as of old, be a force on the continent.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
We spend £2.1bn a year on our intelligence services combined and we have a "slush fund" of another £500m or so the government can draw on as required. Presumably some of this is still aimed at the Russians etc but it is a fair bet that a lot more than half is now directed at the current Islamist threat.
I read in the summer when they reallocated the Intelligence budget to Defence spending, the most money is spent on
1) Russia
2) Cyber security (which may be related to 1)
3) Irish republican terrorism (which is still pretty active)
4) Islamist terrorism
Reason 3 is why we have an advantage over our EU neighbours, which should be good in Brexit negotiations.
So Islamic terrorism is only the 4th biggest terrorist threat according to our govt? That's quite incredible
In terms of capability for causing damage, death & destruction I would say that's the right order.....unless you think Islamist terrorists have ICMBs with 800 kiloton warheads at their disposal.....
We spend £2.1bn a year on our intelligence services combined and we have a "slush fund" of another £500m or so the government can draw on as required. Presumably some of this is still aimed at the Russians etc but it is a fair bet that a lot more than half is now directed at the current Islamist threat.
I read in the summer when they reallocated the Intelligence budget to Defence spending, the most money is spent on
1) Russia
2) Cyber security (which may be related to 1)
3) Irish republican terrorism (which is still pretty active)
4) Islamist terrorism
Reason 3 is why we have an advantage over our EU neighbours, which should be good in Brexit negotiations.
Russian cyber-attacks are clearly a growing menace but that seems to be fighting the last war and the one before that to me.
They say resources are allocated on a needs basis.
I guess when it comes to the security and intelligence services we seldom see their successes and only their failures, touch wood, we've not see a major terrorist attack in the UK in 2016 so far.
In fairness one of the places we see their successes is in the criminal courts and there has been a marked pick up in the number of convictions. This is the list in 2016 and the names concerned rather suggest where our focus should be: https://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/ctd_2016.html
One of our clients who works in the field of cyber security said a successful cyber attack on the UK from Russia has the potential to cause more harm than a terrorist attack by Islamists.
I honestly despair when every time one of these outrages occurs the first thing that is asked is whether the security services or police had ever had them cross their radar. It is based on a fantastical concept of the resources and capability available.
.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
We spend £2.1bn a year on our intelligence services combined and we have a "slush fund" of another £500m or so the government can draw on as required. Presumably some of this is still aimed at the Russians etc but it is a fair bet that a lot more than half is now directed at the current Islamist threat.
I read in the summer when they reallocated the Intelligence budget to Defence spending, the most money is spent on
1) Russia
2) Cyber security (which may be related to 1)
3) Irish republican terrorism (which is still pretty active)
4) Islamist terrorism
Reason 3 is why we have an advantage over our EU neighbours, which should be good in Brexit negotiations.
So Islamic terrorism is only the 4th biggest terrorist threat according to our govt? That's quite incredible
In terms of capability for causing damage, death & destruction I would say that's the right order.....unless you think Islamist terrorists have ICMBs with 800 kiloton warheads at their disposal.....
Surprising to me, but I will accept that its the right order as I wouldn't know where to start finding out the real costs and am not going to make things up. Doesn't affect the point that whatever it is should be deducted when people talk of economic benefit. The other 3 are going to be there whatever, we invited the Islamist threat
But nearly all the Downton people are BBC trained. Their lead Director was given his break on North and South where they showed him how to make a drama. He worked with me on commercials. It wasn't a 'Brian Percival film' but a BBC one. He was chosen by Julian Fellows on the strength on his work for the BBC and he won an Emmy fot Downton
If the Beeb was funded from subscriptions rather than a poll tax, it could substantially increase its income, which is artificially capped due to political pressures. Remove those pressures and you could have a properly funded producer / studio / broadcaster.
That depends how much people are willing to pay for the subscription.
A BBC licence currently costs £145pa.
A NOW TV subscription costs £84pa - or as little as £38pa if you buy two boxes with 6 month passes in them.
With an ever increasing amount of TV/films free on YouTube I would expect downward pressure on TV finances.
How much is a Sky package though?
People will still pay for quality new broadcasting unavailable elsewhere. And in the short term, there'd likely be a huge inertia effect with few people opting not to buy a subscription to continue on from the licence fee given that it could be made to follow on automatically.
I'm currently paying just over a £100 for Sky, that's for all the channels including sports and movies, and three boxes.
That's a month, presumably? cf £145 a year for the BBC.
Like I say, freed from the artificial cap that the Licence Fee imposes, the scope for increasing income for the Beeb is considerable.
I read in the summer when they reallocated the Intelligence budget to Defence spending, the most money is spent on
1) Russia
2) Cyber security (which may be related to 1)
3) Irish republican terrorism (which is still pretty active)
4) Islamist terrorism
Reason 3 is why we have an advantage over our EU neighbours, which should be good in Brexit negotiations.
So Islamic terrorism is only the 4th biggest terrorist threat according to our govt? That's quite incredible
Even so, the money we spend defending ourselves from it should be deducted from any supposed economic benefit immigration brings
It is a fallacy, surely, to assume that the amount spent correlates directly to the size of the threat? Different threats requires different responses to combat them, and that will come at differing costs.
So Islamic terrorism is only the 4th biggest terrorist threat according to our govt? That's quite incredible
Even so, the money we spend defending ourselves from it should be deducted from any supposed economic benefit immigration brings
Sounds about right to me. Islamic terrorists can drive a truck into a crowded market. A cyber attack could shut down hospitals and power stations, economically crippling us and killing tens of thousands.
We spend £2.1bn a year on our intelligence services combined and we have a "slush fund" of another £500m or so the government can draw on as required. Presumably some of this is still aimed at the Russians etc but it is a fair bet that a lot more than half is now directed at the current Islamist threat.
I read in the summer when they reallocated the Intelligence budget to Defence spending, the most money is spent on
1) Russia
2) Cyber security (which may be related to 1)
3) Irish republican terrorism (which is still pretty active)
4) Islamist terrorism
Reason 3 is why we have an advantage over our EU neighbours, which should be good in Brexit negotiations.
Russian cyber-attacks are clearly a growing menace but that seems to be fighting the last war and the one before that to me.
They say resources are allocated on a needs basis.
I guess when it comes to the security and intelligence services we seldom see their successes and only their failures, touch wood, we've not see a major terrorist attack in the UK in 2016 so far.
In fairness one of the places we see their successes is in the criminal courts and there has been a marked pick up in the number of convictions. This is the list in 2016 and the names concerned rather suggest where our focus should be: https://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/prosecution/ctd_2016.html
One of our clients who works in the field of cyber security said a successful cyber attack on the UK from Russia has the potential to cause more harm than a terrorist attack by Islamists.
He's completely right. The potential from what Russia is doing is massive.
So Islamic terrorism is only the 4th biggest terrorist threat according to our govt? That's quite incredible
Even so, the money we spend defending ourselves from it should be deducted from any supposed economic benefit immigration brings
Sounds about right to me. Islamic terrorists can drive a truck into a crowded market. A cyber attack could shut down hospitals and power stations, economically crippling us and killing tens of thousands.
Of course a cyber attack from Islamists is possible. Is that factored in?
So Islamic terrorism is only the 4th biggest terrorist threat according to our govt? That's quite incredible
Even so, the money we spend defending ourselves from it should be deducted from any supposed economic benefit immigration brings
Sounds about right to me. Islamic terrorists can drive a truck into a crowded market. A cyber attack could shut down hospitals and power stations, economically crippling us and killing tens of thousands.
Wasn’t there a cyber-attack on Estonia recently which all sorts of mayhem?
Back on theme. Unless you have experienced a supplementary vote election you may not realise that the second preference is only taken into account of those who voted in the first round but whose candidate was neither first nor second. Therefore all the redistributed votes in Copeland in 2015 were of Conservatives whose candidate came third (of three). What is remarkable is that better than two in three of these expressed a second preference. What is less than remarkable is that these second preferences were overwhelmingly for the non-Labour candidate. The turnout will also have been much higher than is likely in a by-election. This result is interesting but draw inferences from it with caution, especially if you are chancing money on those inferences.
Seems to be in conflict with other (more generally reliable) sources http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/588730-tu154-out-sochi-missing-8.html Looks like they retracted the flaps rather than the gear - an almightly f-up but can be attributed by the Russian authorities to the dead pilots...
"Islamic State militants are trying to develop the ability to launch deadly cyber-attacks on UK targets such as air traffic control or hospitals, Chancellor George Osborne has said.
He is set to double UK funding to fight cybercrime to £1.9bn over five years"
I agree with Mr Herdson. The BBC could lose a large percentage of its current base and still considerably undercut the competition. It could also withdraw from Sky platforms and so make Sky packages much less attractive as people would be forced into a choice. On top of all that, it would also be able to raise considerable sums from investors. With the brand that it has the BBC could quite feasibly be the biggest media player in the world.
"Islamic State militants are trying to develop the ability to launch deadly cyber-attacks on UK targets such as air traffic control or hospitals, Chancellor George Osborne has said.
He is set to double UK funding to fight cybercrime to £1.9bn over five years"
"Islamic State militants are trying to develop the ability to launch deadly cyber-attacks on UK targets such as air traffic control or hospitals, Chancellor George Osborne has said.
He is set to double UK funding to fight cybercrime to £1.9bn over five years"
"Islamic State militants are trying to develop the ability to launch deadly cyber-attacks on UK targets such as air traffic control or hospitals, Chancellor George Osborne has said.
He is set to double UK funding to fight cybercrime to £1.9bn over five years"
But nearly all the Downton people are BBC trained. Their lead Director was given his break on North and South where they showed him how to make a drama. He worked with me on commercials. It wasn't a 'Brian Percival film' but a BBC one. He was chosen by Julian Fellows on the strength on his work for the BBC and he won an Emmy fot Downton
If the Beeb was funded from subscriptions rather than a poll tax, it could substantially increase its income, which is artificially capped due to political pressures. Remove those pressures and you could have a properly funded producer / studio / broadcaster.
That depends how much people are willing to pay for the subscription.
A BBC licence currently costs £145pa.
A NOW TV subscription costs £84pa - or as little as £38pa if you buy two boxes with 6 month passes in them.
With an ever increasing amount of TV/films free on YouTube I would expect downward pressure on TV finances.
How much is a Sky package though?
People will still pay for quality new broadcasting unavailable elsewhere. And in the short term, there'd likely be a huge inertia effect with few people opting not to buy a subscription to continue on from the licence fee given that it could be made to follow on automatically.
Don't know about a Sky package but NOW TV gives GoT, Westworld and lots of other quality, new broadcasting. Including Sky Arts, which is superior to the BBC equivalent.
Some people will pay significant amounts for sport and to a lesser extent new films.
Maybe some people will pay heavy subscriptions to watch Eastenders, Strictly, Masterchef and Bake-Off.
Well scrap bake-off as that heads to C4. I wouldn't pay a monthly sub for the Beeb, then again TV subs are low down in my personal priorities (I am on broadband only with Sky) - my personal monthly elective outgoings are a couple of subscriptions to Activision-Blizzard and Adobe.
Sometimes I wonder what the price of the sport sub fees would be without the Prem rights...
Seems to be in conflict with other (more generally reliable) sources http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/588730-tu154-out-sochi-missing-8.html Looks like they retracted the flaps rather than the gear - an almightly f-up but can be attributed by the Russian authorities to the dead pilots...
Its also a Tu-154B - not the (more) modern Tu-154M
Apparently a bunch of the 'Bs have been taken out of storage and put back into service in the last few years. There is a video on the internet of one falling all over the sky (really insanely unstable) on an initial test flight because of misconnection of the flight controls -
So Islamic terrorism is only the 4th biggest terrorist threat according to our govt? That's quite incredible
Even so, the money we spend defending ourselves from it should be deducted from any supposed economic benefit immigration brings
Sounds about right to me. Islamic terrorists can drive a truck into a crowded market. A cyber attack could shut down hospitals and power stations, economically crippling us and killing tens of thousands.
Of course a cyber attack from Islamists is possible. Is that factored in?
I think cyber defences are equally effective (or ineffective) irrespective of where the attack is coming from.
"Islamic State militants are trying to develop the ability to launch deadly cyber-attacks on UK targets such as air traffic control or hospitals, Chancellor George Osborne has said.
He is set to double UK funding to fight cybercrime to £1.9bn over five years"
Thought as much. But I guess this isn't necessarily something that is to do solely with immigration to the UK.
The budget is for cyber-*crime*, so not much to do with terrorism either, apart from making the press release spicier.
Oh I see. Is that different to the "Cyber Security" which is No2 on @TheScreamingEagles list or the "cyber attacks" that @rcs1000 speaks of?
Imagine it without the "cyber" to see the relationship between these things. (Often you can also add much-needed perspective by replacing "cyber" with "spider".)
Basically there's security, which involves securing lots of different things against lots of different adversaries. A subset of that is securing against attacks by terrorist adversaries, which is what @rcs1000 is talking about. I don't think there have been any of these yet, but presumably they'll happen in the future.
If you want to get a budget for security, and justify it to the media, it makes sense to talk about the terrorism part. But since terrorism is very unusual, and cyber-terrorism is mostly hypothetical, it makes sense for most of the budget to be spent on normal crimes.
So Islamic terrorism is only the 4th biggest terrorist threat according to our govt? That's quite incredible
Even so, the money we spend defending ourselves from it should be deducted from any supposed economic benefit immigration brings
Sounds about right to me. Islamic terrorists can drive a truck into a crowded market. A cyber attack could shut down hospitals and power stations, economically crippling us and killing tens of thousands.
Of course a cyber attack from Islamists is possible. Is that factored in?
I think cyber defences are equally effective (or ineffective) irrespective of where the attack is coming from.
I meant in terms of the budget, not effectiveness. Islamic terrorists can be behind Cyber attacks, as George Osborne said.
Back on theme. Unless you have experienced a supplementary vote election you may not realise that the second preference is only taken into account of those who voted in the first round but whose candidate was neither first nor second. Therefore all the redistributed votes in Copeland in 2015 were of Conservatives whose candidate came third (of three). What is remarkable is that better than two in three of these expressed a second preference. What is less than remarkable is that these second preferences were overwhelmingly for the non-Labour candidate. The turnout will also have been much higher than is likely in a by-election. This result is interesting but draw inferences from it with caution, especially if you are chancing money on those inferences.
I would certainly be cautious about drawing too many conclusions from an election where the voting system was different and the type of which - mayoral elections - have always been focussed more than usual on individuals rather than parties, and, consequently, been favourable to independents and minor parties.
That said, I'd take some issue with your expectations for turnout. While the mayoral turnout was unusually high in Copeland (60%), I'd expect a turnout of around 50% for a closely contested Con/Lab marginal by-election. Lower, yes, but not so much so as to wholly change the nature of the campaign.
So Islamic terrorism is only the 4th biggest terrorist threat according to our govt? That's quite incredible
Even so, the money we spend defending ourselves from it should be deducted from any supposed economic benefit immigration brings
Sounds about right to me. Islamic terrorists can drive a truck into a crowded market. A cyber attack could shut down hospitals and power stations, economically crippling us and killing tens of thousands.
Of course a cyber attack from Islamists is possible. Is that factored in?
I think cyber defences are equally effective (or ineffective) irrespective of where the attack is coming from.
Yes and no, a lot of the same practices will work but security is always going to depend a little bit on who you think the adversary is and what their goals are, and that's certainly true when somebody threatens your cybers.
But nearly all the Downton people are BBC trained. Their lead Director was given his break on North and South where they showed him how to make a drama. He worked with me on commercials. It wasn't a 'Brian Percival film' but a BBC one. He was chosen by Julian Fellows on the strength on his work for the BBC and he won an Emmy fot Downton
If the Beeb was funded from subscriptions rather than a poll tax, it could substantially increase its income, which is artificially capped due to political pressures. Remove those pressures and you could have a properly funded producer / studio / broadcaster.
That depends how much people are willing to pay for the subscription.
A BBC licence currently costs £145pa.
A NOW TV subscription costs £84pa - or as little as £38pa if you buy two boxes with 6 month passes in them.
With an ever increasing amount of TV/films free on YouTube I would expect downward pressure on TV finances.
How much is a Sky package though?
People will still pay for quality new broadcasting unavailable elsewhere. And in the short term, there'd likely be a huge inertia effect with few people opting not to buy a subscription to continue on from the licence fee given that it could be made to follow on automatically.
Don't know about a Sky package but NOW TV gives GoT, Westworld and lots of other quality, new broadcasting. Including Sky Arts, which is superior to the BBC equivalent.
Some people will pay significant amounts for sport and to a lesser extent new films.
Maybe some people will pay heavy subscriptions to watch Eastenders, Strictly, Masterchef and Bake-Off.
Well scrap bake-off as that heads to C4. I wouldn't pay a monthly sub for the Beeb, then again TV subs are low down in my personal priorities (I am on broadband only with Sky) - my personal monthly elective outgoings are a couple of subscriptions to Activision-Blizzard and Adobe.
I pay for Prime Amazon - mainly for shopping, but then TV - mostly watch Netflix - and subs for CBS at times. I don't use iplayer/website/TV or radio. I refuse to pay for a service I don't use.
I'm missing nothing compared to the richness of everyone else with adverts/can FFW using a DVR.
The world has moved on, I dislike the whole over-acting style of BBC dramas so much that I ignore them when they turn up elsewhere. I can spot them in 30 secs - all angst, loud, same scores, political agenda moralising. No thanks.
"Islamic State militants are trying to develop the ability to launch deadly cyber-attacks on UK targets such as air traffic control or hospitals, Chancellor George Osborne has said.
He is set to double UK funding to fight cybercrime to £1.9bn over five years"
Thought as much. But I guess this isn't necessarily something that is to do solely with immigration to the UK.
The budget is for cyber-*crime*, so not much to do with terrorism either, apart from making the press release spicier.
Oh I see. Is that different to the "Cyber Security" which is No2 on @TheScreamingEagles list or the "cyber attacks" that @rcs1000 speaks of?
Imagine it without the "cyber" to see the relationship between these things. (Often you can also add much-needed perspective by replacing "cyber" with "spider".)
Basically there's security, which involves securing lots of different things against lots of different adversaries. A subset of that is securing against attacks by terrorist adversaries, which is what @rcs1000 is talking about. I don't think there have been any of these yet, but presumably they'll happen in the future.
If you want to get a budget for security, and justify it to the media, it makes sense to talk about the terrorism part. But since terrorism is very unusual, and cyber-terrorism is mostly hypothetical, it makes sense for most of the budget to be spent on normal crimes.
Well we are straying far, far away from the original point, as always. My simple contention was, and is, that when we weigh up the economic costs and benefits of mass immigration, we should include the money we spend on intelligence that prevents attacks that wouldn't happen but for immigration.
Whether it's 1p or £1bn, the most dangerous or the 10th most dangerous is by the by
Well we are straying far, far away from the original point, as always. My simple contention was, and is, that when we weigh up the economic costs and benefits of mass immigration, we should include the money we spend on intelligence that prevents attacks that wouldn't happen but for immigration.
Whether it's 1p or £1bn, the most dangerous or the 10th most dangerous is by the by
If you can figure them out then sure, but when you get that broad it gets very subjective and you'll inevitably end up cherry-picking. For example, UK intelligence needs people who understand the language of the UK's adversaries in the Middle East. It needs them to be loyal to Britain and keep secrets, so they can't just hire random foreigners. So translated into cash, what's the value of having those Arabic-speaking second-generation immigrants?
Well we are straying far, far away from the original point, as always. My simple contention was, and is, that when we weigh up the economic costs and benefits of mass immigration, we should include the money we spend on intelligence that prevents attacks that wouldn't happen but for immigration.
Whether it's 1p or £1bn, the most dangerous or the 10th most dangerous is by the by
If you can figure them out then sure, but when you get that broad it gets very subjective and you'll inevitably end up cherry-picking. For example, UK intelligence needs people who understand the language of the UK's adversaries in the Middle East. It needs them to be loyal to Britain and keep secrets, so this must be hard to hire from. So translated into cash, what's the value of having those Arabic-speaking second-generation immigrants?
Hahaha brilliant! x
Maybe we should add the economic benefit to the UK terrorism department of mass immigration of Muslims then, fair enough, one way or the other whichever it is, it should be counted
Some people just attack the BBC no matter what. It's an ideological thing.
And you treat this organisation like a religion where those who disagree are heretics.
I worked at the highest levels with them for over three years and was an enormous fan in the 90s. They're nothing compared to their former selves now. A huge fall from grace.
Some people just attack the BBC no matter what. It's an ideological thing.
And you treat this organisation like a religion where those who disagree are heretics.
I worked at the highest levels with them for over three years and was an enormous fan in the 90s. They're nothing compared to their former selves now. A huge fall from grace.
You're entitled to your opinion, but I disagree. The BBC takes far more shit than it deserves and is a national asset that we should develop for UK Plc.
Some people just attack the BBC no matter what. It's an ideological thing.
And you treat this organisation like a religion where those who disagree are heretics.
I worked at the highest levels with them for over three years and was an enormous fan in the 90s. They're nothing compared to their former selves now. A huge fall from grace.
You're entitled to your opinion, but I disagree. The BBC takes far more shit than it deserves and is a national asset that we should develop for UK Plc.
It's quite difficult to improve it when suggesting it can be improved (which implies that there is something about it which isn't perfect) is treated as heresy.
Some people just attack the BBC no matter what. It's an ideological thing.
And you treat this organisation like a religion where those who disagree are heretics.
I worked at the highest levels with them for over three years and was an enormous fan in the 90s. They're nothing compared to their former selves now. A huge fall from grace.
You're entitled to your opinion, but I disagree. The BBC takes far more shit than it deserves and is a national asset that we should develop for UK Plc.
It's quite difficult to improve it when suggesting it can be improved (which implies that there is something about it which isn't perfect) is treated as heresy.
Some people just attack the BBC no matter what. It's an ideological thing.
And you treat this organisation like a religion where those who disagree are heretics.
I worked at the highest levels with them for over three years and was an enormous fan in the 90s. They're nothing compared to their former selves now. A huge fall from grace.
You're entitled to your opinion, but I disagree. The BBC takes far more shit than it deserves and is a national asset that we should develop for UK Plc.
It's quite difficult to improve it when suggesting it can be improved (which implies that there is something about it which isn't perfect) is treated as heresy.
A. It is too successful, damages commercial programming. B. It is not successful enough, it's not what it was in the good old days before Netflix C. It shows programme X they I do not like
Miss Plato, said it before, but I considered sending Sir Edric (politically incorrect comedy) to various people/organisations just so their wailing and gnashing of teeth might get me some free publicity. Of course, I'm too decent a chap to actually do that. Though it was rather tempting...
I don't think the burning (or attempted burning) of the homeless man will change much in Germany. The PR system is practically designed to prevent a single party gaining power, so even if AfD leapt forward in the polls, the other parties would unite to stop them getting in.
Germany's imported more than 2% of its population in the last two years. Worth noting the UK's taking in about 0.5% a year. There's a serious risk of increasing social breakdown and a political backlash, I fear.
Mr. Jonathan, to be fair, the BBC did deliberately open the door to F1 being on pay TV, where it will be exclusively in a couple of years. Hard to see an upside for the licence fee-payer.
Yes, Mr Herdson, you're right that they think an election is on the offing - coz as you impyly, there is. I was just wondering how many people are going to bother opening the door to them today?
How about the BBC is funded by a poll tax under threat of criminal sanctions? In the 1920s when the BBC was the sole source of radio the idea of a licence might have been justifiable. Nearly 100 years later in a multi-media age forcing people to pay for some consumer service they do not use seems less justifiable.
Comments
Russia admits to doping in sport, but says that the higher echelons of government knew nothing about it.
Of course they didn't, despite what several whistleblowers have said.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4039080/GCHQ-fear-German-spies-t-trusted.html
https://www.thelocal.de/20150205/gchq-bnd-snowden-british-spies-threaten-germany-over-inquiry-fears
Now assume 5 brigadiers and generals for a full division - that gives enough for 20 full sized divisions.
Is the army currently capable of deploying a full sized division ?
But nearly all the Downton people are BBC trained. Their lead Director was given his break on North and South where they showed him how to make a drama. He worked with me on commercials. It wasn't a 'Brian Percival film' but a BBC one. He was chosen by Julian Fellows on the strength on his work for the BBC and he won an Emmy fot Downton
It's been shown that even though Nice attack had a lot of planning and outside influence from foreign jihadists that the French initially missed. One of the reasons why the UK looks like an island of peace in amongst a huge rise in terrorism in Europe is because of the data driven approach that the Europeans are not willing to take. The French finally seem to have switched over but there is no hope in Germany. They seem to think that inviting a million "refugees" into their country will be without consequence.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2016/12/democrats-have-mixed-feelings-on-2020-field.html
I'd agree that Mountbatten ought to count though.
The contrast between how Cameron shat on military personnel and his MENA warmongering was sickening.
We still have idiots in this country who think it is outrageous that the Intelligence services store more information than hindsight might prove to have been necessary. There was one of them on the radio the other day who was taking the government to court about it (again) claiming that the UK legislation was incompatible with the EU Data Directive.
I don't like the idea of the State spying on me or knowing my business but personally I would trade off a fair bit of privacy for some security. In the EU the traditional balance has been much further down the scale. I do not think this recognises the threat that a disgruntled, alienated and unintegrated minority running into the millions has created for the rest of us. It wasn't in my top 10 reasons for leaving but perhaps it should have been.
The other issue is that these arseholes can't be deported and the German justice system is so weak that they are talking about a community sentence from which people are sure they will abscond.
' Nearly 100 people working in nail bars have been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences as part of a clampdown on illegal working.
Investigators targeted more than 280 nail bars in Edinburgh, London and Cardiff as part of the government's Operation Magnify on "risk" industries.
...
In all, 14 of those arrested were passed to the National Referral Mechanism hub, a service supporting those identified as possible victims of slavery and human trafficking.
Many people working in plain sight in UK nail bars, on construction sites, in brothels, on cannabis farms and in agriculture are in fact suspected to be modern slaves. '
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38447101
Now I support the legalisation of drugs but I am rather surprised that cannabis farms might be operating 'in plain sight'.
protection moneysubscriptions under threat of a court appearance to receive a TV channel I don't want or even need.A couple of good programmes or series a year really do set cut the mustard as a broken clock is right a day etc. Put in under pay per view and then see how popular all these gravy train overpaid luvvies really are.
Has there been any data revealed as to the age, sex, educational level etc of Merkel's migrants.
Edit, these are 2012/13 figures so probably a bit out of date.
What you're doing is the equivalent of keeping a gun in your home. It makes you feel safe, and there are situations where it would help you, but it's far more likely to kill someone by accident.
Well there are divisions and divisions. Could the army no deploy an armoured division as per Gulf War 1? No. Could it deploy a mixed three brigade force with some armour support and a, short, artillery component? Yes, but probably not for long.
We must not, however, get carried away. One of the criticisms made of the army down the decades is that it has always been ready to fight the last war. Some thought is being given about what the next war might look like and what we would need to fight it. My fear is twofold. Firstly, the decisions are being driven by the ever shrinking budget and the answers are therefore more a result of wishful thinking than proper threat analysis. Secondly, the army is now so small that no matter what force structure is decided upon it is and will remain incapable of fighting a hot war against a reasonably equipped state actor even in an alliance.
My thoughts run to the idea that we should just disband the army, beef up the RM, and set limits on what sort of short term expeditionary warfare we are prepared to do. Our contribution to NATO should be limited to the war at sea, where an expanded RN could do something useful, more useful than our rather pathetic little army could do on land anyway.
Your 'trade off' comment of course invites the Franklin quote which seems very apt in these circumstances.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
1) Russia
2) Cyber security (which may be related to 1)
3) Irish republican terrorism (which is still pretty active)
4) Islamist terrorism
Reason 3 is why we have an advantage over our EU neighbours, which should be good in Brexit negotiations.
A BBC licence currently costs £145pa.
A NOW TV subscription costs £84pa - or as little as £38pa if you buy two boxes with 6 month passes in them.
With an ever increasing amount of TV/films free on YouTube I would expect downward pressure on TV finances.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2396774/Is-manicurist-sex-slave-Nail-salons-human-trafficking.html
Dies in a *cough* road accident*cough* so may or may not have been enemy action or friendly fire? conspiracy theories remain to this day of course.
People will still pay for quality new broadcasting unavailable elsewhere. And in the short term, there'd likely be a huge inertia effect with few people opting not to buy a subscription to continue on from the licence fee given that it could be made to follow on automatically.
I guess when it comes to the security and intelligence services we seldom see their successes and only their failures, touch wood, we've not see a major terrorist attack in the UK in 2016 so far.
Even so, the money we spend defending ourselves from it should be deducted from any supposed economic benefit immigration brings
Like I say, freed from the artificial cap that the Licence Fee imposes, the scope for increasing income for the Beeb is considerable.
Some people will pay significant amounts for sport and to a lesser extent new films.
Maybe some people will pay heavy subscriptions to watch Eastenders, Strictly, Masterchef and Bake-Off.
"I've heard ex-squaddies complain that politicians, especially Conservative ministers, think the way your last paragraph does -- that all we need are special forces and the regulars are a waste of rations."
I think that is to confuse my argument. For years we did have a situation where the planners and politicians did undoubtedly think that the only units who could fight were the Paras, the RM and their respective elite arms (see Sierra Leone for an example). However, Iraq and Afghanistan showed that idea for the stupidity it always was.
However, what I am suggesting is that the army has now been cut back so far that it is too small to be worth the effort of maintaining it. Let us perhaps accept that in terms of ground operations we should be able to do some short term expeditionary stuff and that is all. If you accept that idea then it makes no sense to keep two separate forces for one job and that the Royal Marines could be beefed up (with its own artillery for example) and use the money saved to expand the fleet. We could then present to our allies a coherent and useful set of capabilities rather than trying to pretend we can, as of old, be a force on the continent.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-01/u-k-s-hammond-warns-of-increasing-vulnerability-to-cyber-attack
One of our clients who works in the field of cyber security said a successful cyber attack on the UK from Russia has the potential to cause more harm than a terrorist attack by Islamists.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/12/28/mark-clattenburg-named-best-referee-world/
BBC report on Russian plane crash.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38449058
Seems to be in conflict with other (more generally reliable) sources
http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/588730-tu154-out-sochi-missing-8.html
Looks like they retracted the flaps rather than the gear - an almightly f-up but can be attributed by the Russian authorities to the dead pilots...
He is set to double UK funding to fight cybercrime to £1.9bn over five years"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34839800
Thought as much. But I guess this isn't necessarily something that is to do solely with immigration to the UK.
Sometimes I wonder what the price of the sport sub fees would be without the Prem rights...
Apparently a bunch of the 'Bs have been taken out of storage and put back into service in the last few years. There is a video on the internet of one falling all over the sky (really insanely unstable) on an initial test flight because of misconnection of the flight controls -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mM9UM33EKqY&feature=youtu.be
Basically there's security, which involves securing lots of different things against lots of different adversaries. A subset of that is securing against attacks by terrorist adversaries, which is what @rcs1000 is talking about. I don't think there have been any of these yet, but presumably they'll happen in the future.
If you want to get a budget for security, and justify it to the media, it makes sense to talk about the terrorism part. But since terrorism is very unusual, and cyber-terrorism is mostly hypothetical, it makes sense for most of the budget to be spent on normal crimes.
That said, I'd take some issue with your expectations for turnout. While the mayoral turnout was unusually high in Copeland (60%), I'd expect a turnout of around 50% for a closely contested Con/Lab marginal by-election. Lower, yes, but not so much so as to wholly change the nature of the campaign.
I'm missing nothing compared to the richness of everyone else with adverts/can FFW using a DVR.
The world has moved on, I dislike the whole over-acting style of BBC dramas so much that I ignore them when they turn up elsewhere. I can spot them in 30 secs - all angst, loud, same scores, political agenda moralising. No thanks.
Whether it's 1p or £1bn, the most dangerous or the 10th most dangerous is by the by
Maybe we should add the economic benefit to the UK terrorism department of mass immigration of Muslims then, fair enough, one way or the other whichever it is, it should be counted
Old Holbornski
6 of the 7 migrants arrested in Berlin for torching a homeless man were already known to the Police https://t.co/HNTIQAVTgM
I worked at the highest levels with them for over three years and was an enormous fan in the 90s. They're nothing compared to their former selves now. A huge fall from grace.
To those who are upset by Richard Hammond's joke about ice cream being a bit gay, I have one thing to say. Get a f*****g life.
Couldn't agree more - who are these sad, no life nitwits?
Remind you of something else?
The BBC should be scaled back because...
A. It is too successful, damages commercial programming.
B. It is not successful enough, it's not what it was in the good old days before Netflix
C. It shows programme X they I do not like
That's it.
I don't think the burning (or attempted burning) of the homeless man will change much in Germany. The PR system is practically designed to prevent a single party gaining power, so even if AfD leapt forward in the polls, the other parties would unite to stop them getting in.
Germany's imported more than 2% of its population in the last two years. Worth noting the UK's taking in about 0.5% a year. There's a serious risk of increasing social breakdown and a political backlash, I fear.
How about the BBC is funded by a poll tax under threat of criminal sanctions? In the 1920s when the BBC was the sole source of radio the idea of a licence might have been justifiable. Nearly 100 years later in a multi-media age forcing people to pay for some consumer service they do not use seems less justifiable.