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Monday’s going to be a big day for Johnson – politicalbetting.com

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  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981

    The Torygraph story about removing isolation rules is weak, it’s just speculation about some undefined point in the future.

    Meanwhile, it has this:

    However, a requirement to wear face masks on public transport, in shops and in other settings is likely to stay beyond January 26.

    Looks like the masks are staying…

    I don't see the logic of saying you can all go into nightclubs with no vax passport and everybody back to the office, but you have to wear that mask in a shop.....
    I'm dubious about the logic too, but I suppose you can argue that the more vulnerable elderly are unlikely to be in nightclubs and may have retired from work, but still go shopping and travel on public transport.
    Or perhaps change the rules to enable the behaviour? If rules banning parties and boozing are removed then there can be no more PartyGate incidents from this point forward.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557

    Why are masks staying ffs

    Because when you can see Boris’ lips move, you can tell he’s lying ?
  • Seattle Times ($) - Before Tonga went quiet: A Washington woman tells of texting with her sister as the tsunami surged

    By Erik Lacitis - On Friday at 8:58 p.m. the first text arrived from her sister in Tonga. It was 5:58 p.m. Saturday over there.

    “Sis pray for us. There is a tsunami. It’s scary. We are escaping. It’s raining little rocks.”

    Every day, Susana Elika Fakapulia, 39, of Spanaway [WA], a mom of four who also works as a caregiver, is in some way chatting or texting on Facebook with her sister in Tonga.

    In an earlier voice call, the sister, Moala Sili, 40, who lives in an apartment near the ocean in the capital of Nuku’alofa, had described, “The water is going down. It’s very low.”

    The sister here warned, “That’s a sign for a tsunami. It will come back. When it does, it’ll overflow to land.” . . . .

    On Friday night, the texts continued.

    She answered, “We are at the airport,” which is on higher ground. She and her 16-year-old son had managed a ride there. A photo she sent from Tonga showed a bank in her neighborhood with water lapping on the steps, and water reaching the wood structure that’s the Royal Palace.

    Spanaway: “Were you able to pack anything? I watched some live videos. The water is already downtown. How are you guys doing? [A heart symbol].”

    Tonga: “My goodness this is scary. We’re OK. The rain with the rocks stopped. It’s now rain water mixed with ash.”

    Fakapulia says she wasn’t thinking she had to type out big, important thoughts.

    “I wasn’t scared. The Tongan community is very strong in their faith,” she says.

    “The little rocks are from the eruption of the volcano. It’s still up in the air,” Fakapulia told her sister in Tonga.

    panaway: “I thought people started to evacuate yesterday.”

    Tonga: “We started evacuating today. The waves are scary.”

    Tonga: Describes the scene at the airport. “It’s packed with people.”

    Spanaway: “Be careful.”

    At that point, apparently the volcano erupts again.

    Tonga: “Oh, my God, listen to the boom.”

    Spanaway: “Can you video.”

    Tonga: “The water is already downtown. I think it might wipe our car. The wave is already downtown.”

    Spanaway: “Look at how strong the current is. Keep me updated. I love you both.”

    Later Friday night, Fakapulia tries to reach her sister.

    11:02 p.m.: “Sister, how are you guys. I watched some videos. I think [the water] is probably where you guys are living. The water is probably destroying …”

    Fakapulia taps her keyboard again. There is no response from Tonga.

    NYT ($) Tonga Shrouded by Ash and Mystery After Powerful Volcano Erupts
    So far, the only deaths reported occurred 6,000 miles away, in Peru. But outside emergency workers have yet to make their way to the Pacific island nation. [posted half hour ago]
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Conscript them into the Navy and send them off to fight the Spaniards
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708
    Cookie said:

    The Torygraph story about removing isolation rules is weak, it’s just speculation about some undefined point in the future.

    Meanwhile, it has this:

    However, a requirement to wear face masks on public transport, in shops and in other settings is likely to stay beyond January 26.

    Looks like the masks are staying…

    So basically Boris:
    -Put in place a set of pointless Plan B restrictions to be in place until Jan 26.
    -Was talked out of a lockdown.
    -Won't actually unroll all the Plan B restrictions on 26th Jan.

    This is his fightback pitch?

    He will unroll them all except masks in shops and public transport plus send in the Navy to stop border crossings
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    edited January 2022

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    The Torygraph story about removing isolation rules is weak, it’s just speculation about some undefined point in the future.

    Meanwhile, it has this:

    However, a requirement to wear face masks on public transport, in shops and in other settings is likely to stay beyond January 26.

    Looks like the masks are staying…

    I don't see the logic of saying you can all go into nightclubs with no vax passport and everybody back to the office, but you have to wear that mask in a shop.....
    I'm dubious about the logic too, but I suppose you can argue that the more vulnerable elderly are unlikely to be in nightclubs and may have retired from work, but still go shopping and travel on public transport.
    That but also going to the nightclub is a choice (unless you work there) whereas people need to shop and use public transport.

    Seems reasonable to me. I mean ideally you'd leave it to individual businesses but you can see how there would be vulnerable old people with no car and not a lot of options and if their local supermarket goes no-mask they're kind of SOL.
  • Tonga clearly faces lots of challenges following volcano eruption & tsunami. Two of the most immediate:

    > potable water (likely not much available until help arrives)
    > anti-COVID protection (when help does arrive; up to now only 1 confirmed COVID case)
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981
    Dura_Ace said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Apparently by collecting them and sending then to Rwanda for consideration of their application
    Border Force could do that today if that were a viable solution. Why does it need the RN?
    Because it will fire up the reactionary types in the Conservative Party - the "send a gunboat" brigade
  • The Torygraph story about removing isolation rules is weak, it’s just speculation about some undefined point in the future.

    Meanwhile, it has this:

    However, a requirement to wear face masks on public transport, in shops and in other settings is likely to stay beyond January 26.

    Looks like the masks are staying…

    I don't see the logic of saying you can all go into nightclubs with no vax passport and everybody back to the office, but you have to wear that mask in a shop.....
    I'm dubious about the logic too, but I suppose you can argue that the more vulnerable elderly are unlikely to be in nightclubs and may have retired from work, but still go shopping and travel on public transport.
    That but also going to the nightclub is a choice (unless you work there) whereas people need to shop and use public transport.

    Seems reasonable to me. I mean ideally you'd leave it to individual businesses but you can see how there would be vulnerable old people with no car and not a lot of options and if their local supermarket goes no-mask they're kind of SOL.
    Re: supermarkets, on-line shopping with delivery is an option. But hardly for all AND the slots here I Seattle are filling up quick right now. So having mask requirement for shops is IMHO more than justified. Indeed, won't go into any store where it's flouted by management and staff, or other customers beyond the very occasional a-hole. Am of same mind when I have to ride the bus. Where the occasional a-hole is pretty much a given. Mask up to the max.

    AND if possible, I enjoy a big bowl of beans about an hour before my trip . . . to help enforce proper social distancing!
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435
    No10 really are flailing to move the story on from BJ's utter disregard for his own COVID rules... usual stories of BBC, migrants and Reds under the bed cosying up to Labour... I am just waiting for a new fight with Brussels and we have a full house. I think cool heads are likely to prevail in the 1922 committee but D Cummings' box of tricks might just have a little more to play yet. It took months for the May govt to fall and I suspect this will be the same (but have popcorn on standby to watch the action). what would drive things would be another tricky byelection but nothing on the horizon...
  • Dura_Ace said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Apparently by collecting them and sending then to Rwanda for consideration of their application
    Border Force could do that today if that were a viable solution. Why does it need the RN?
    Because it will fire up the reactionary types in the Conservative Party - the "send a gunboat" brigade
    Somebody keep tabs on Dilyn's tail!
  • MJWMJW Posts: 1,282
    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    The problem is, no one's currently set out a subscription model that can do a fraction of what the BBC does. Streamers have the benefit of being international, having no obligation to focus on niche or educational content and the big ones are either backed by giant companies, or have run billions of pounds of debt building their platform. A subscription BBC would have some advantages, such as its library, but to survive it would be cutting right back on many things people (especially often the old) find useful about it as unwieldy to do commercially and need the scale.

    Ultimately, that's why it'll be unpopular. "Sending granny to prison for not paying" is a scare story that doesn't really resonate as much as "They're putting The Archers and Strictly in jeopardy" for the overwhelming majority of people, especially older ones, who have always paid and generally find it ok value for what it provides and they'd be fearful of losing and having to pay more in several subscriptions to get without it.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    edited January 2022
    Cyclefree said:

    @IshmaelZ

    Re your questions from the previous thread
    "1. Yes. The external regulator is part of the legal blob too.

    2. Don't be patronising with the "Believe me - I know" stuff. I have conducted a lot of big ass Commercial Court litigation.

    3. Explain: how would it take more than a couple of hours, given access to the email accounts of all recipients of the invite (which is expressly mandated by the terms of ref), to establish what we want to know, which is: did BJ know the party was a party?"

    Apologies - was travelling. So no time to respond.

    I too have done lots of big ass Commercial Court litigation. But I am not being patronising when I say that you are missing the point. Investigations are NOT like Commercial Court litigation even though a lot of lawyers wrongly assume they are and that any litigation lawyer or lawyer can do them.

    They can't. Some lawyers can become good investigators. But you need particular skills to do good investigations. Far fewer lawyers have these skills than they like to think.

    Investigations and Commercial Court litigation are very different. Wanting shortened litigation as in civil courts tells you little about how a fact-finding investigation needs to be done.

    You are also assuming a very narrow remit. You need to establish the following (IMO)

    1. The relevant laws and guidelines at all the applicable times.
    2. All internal instructions that were given, by whom and to whom, both written and verbal.
    3. What proof there was of people having received them.
    4. All the communications relating to social events - when sent, by whom, to who copied etc and all responses, both written and verbal.

    Just getting all those emails and chats and any that were deleted and making sure you have a complete set takes more than a couple of hours.

    5. Any other electronic or other records relating to the events.
    6. Interviews of all those involved

    and so on.

    That is how I'd approach something like this if I wanted to do a complete and accurate fact-finding investigation with a view to determining whether people had broken internal rules and/or lied about what they had done ie as a basis for an internal disciplinary proceeding.

    That takes more than a few hours.

    It is not even clear that Ms Gray has the authority to obtain the necessary material to do any meaningful interviews.

    If you want a quick and dirty take we have that already, as I've said.

    But what we have already would not allow anyone to be disciplined. Or sacked. Not fairly anyway. Nor would it be sufficient to say that a criminal offence had potentially occurred.

    If I wanted to collect evidence for possible use in criminal proceedings (and I've done plenty of these as well) then the requirements become even more onerous.

    Whether it is sufficient to allow MPs or the public to make a political judgment is quite another matter but that is not dependant on a detailed fact-finding investigation.

    It isn't an inquiry it's a whitewash, which is why it can be done on a fag packet over a lunchtime.

    Ms Gray has been set up as a patsy. What can she say? a) there is an unhealthy culture in Downing St, b) because of that culture the demarcation between a party and a work event merged to the extent the work/party Venn diagram became a circle, and from b) Johnson claims vindication.

    Conservative MPs need to become Johnson's conscience and sack his sorry ****.
  • Cyclefree said:

    @IshmaelZ

    Re your questions from the previous thread
    "1. Yes. The external regulator is part of the legal blob too.

    2. Don't be patronising with the "Believe me - I know" stuff. I have conducted a lot of big ass Commercial Court litigation.

    3. Explain: how would it take more than a couple of hours, given access to the email accounts of all recipients of the invite (which is expressly mandated by the terms of ref), to establish what we want to know, which is: did BJ know the party was a party?"

    Apologies - was travelling. So no time to respond.

    I too have done lots of big ass Commercial Court litigation. But I am not being patronising when I say that you are missing the point. Investigations are NOT like Commercial Court litigation even though a lot of lawyers wrongly assume they are and that any litigation lawyer or lawyer can do them.

    They can't. Some lawyers can become good investigators. But you need particular skills to do good investigations. Far fewer lawyers have these skills than they like to think.

    Investigations and Commercial Court litigation are very different. Wanting shortened litigation as in civil courts tells you little about how a fact-finding investigation needs to be done.

    You are also assuming a very narrow remit. You need to establish the following (IMO)

    1. The relevant laws and guidelines at all the applicable times.
    2. All internal instructions that were given, by whom and to whom, both written and verbal.
    3. What proof there was of people having received them.
    4. All the communications relating to social events - when sent, by whom, to who copied etc and all responses, both written and verbal.

    Just getting all those emails and chats and any that were deleted and making sure you have a complete set takes more than a couple of hours.

    5. Any other electronic or other records relating to the events.
    6. Interviews of all those involved

    and so on.

    That is how I'd approach something like this if I wanted to do a complete and accurate fact-finding investigation with a view to determining whether people had broken internal rules and/or lied about what they had done ie as a basis for an internal disciplinary proceeding.

    That takes more than a few hours.

    It is not even clear that Ms Gray has the authority to obtain the necessary material to do any meaningful interviews.

    If you want a quick and dirty take we have that already, as I've said.

    But what we have already would not allow anyone to be disciplined. Or sacked. Not fairly anyway. Nor would it be sufficient to say that a criminal offence had potentially occurred.

    If I wanted to collect evidence for possible use in criminal proceedings (and I've done plenty of these as well) then the requirements become even more onerous.

    Whether it is sufficient to allow MPs or the public to make a political judgment is quite another matter but that is not dependant on a detailed fact-finding investigation.

    It isn't an inquiry it's a whitewash, which is why it can be done on a fag packet over a lunchtime.

    Ms Gray has been set up as a patsy. What can she say? a) there is an unhealthy culture in Downing St, b) because of that culture the demarcation between a party and a work event merged to the extent the work/party Venn diagram became a circle, and from b) Johnson claims vindication.

    Conservative MPs need to become Johnson's conscience and sack his sorry ****.
    You are probably right. Whitewash seems to be a feature of most inquiries, and this is a rush job. However, key questions surround the BYOB email: who is "we"? Was Boris cc'd? If 60 invitees did not show up, did they make their objections known and if so, to whom?
  • Cyclefree said:

    @IshmaelZ

    Re your questions from the previous thread
    "1. Yes. The external regulator is part of the legal blob too.

    2. Don't be patronising with the "Believe me - I know" stuff. I have conducted a lot of big ass Commercial Court litigation.

    3. Explain: how would it take more than a couple of hours, given access to the email accounts of all recipients of the invite (which is expressly mandated by the terms of ref), to establish what we want to know, which is: did BJ know the party was a party?"

    Apologies - was travelling. So no time to respond.

    I too have done lots of big ass Commercial Court litigation. But I am not being patronising when I say that you are missing the point. Investigations are NOT like Commercial Court litigation even though a lot of lawyers wrongly assume they are and that any litigation lawyer or lawyer can do them.

    They can't. Some lawyers can become good investigators. But you need particular skills to do good investigations. Far fewer lawyers have these skills than they like to think.

    Investigations and Commercial Court litigation are very different. Wanting shortened litigation as in civil courts tells you little about how a fact-finding investigation needs to be done.

    You are also assuming a very narrow remit. You need to establish the following (IMO)

    1. The relevant laws and guidelines at all the applicable times.
    2. All internal instructions that were given, by whom and to whom, both written and verbal.
    3. What proof there was of people having received them.
    4. All the communications relating to social events - when sent, by whom, to who copied etc and all responses, both written and verbal.

    Just getting all those emails and chats and any that were deleted and making sure you have a complete set takes more than a couple of hours.

    5. Any other electronic or other records relating to the events.
    6. Interviews of all those involved

    and so on.

    That is how I'd approach something like this if I wanted to do a complete and accurate fact-finding investigation with a view to determining whether people had broken internal rules and/or lied about what they had done ie as a basis for an internal disciplinary proceeding.

    That takes more than a few hours.

    It is not even clear that Ms Gray has the authority to obtain the necessary material to do any meaningful interviews.

    If you want a quick and dirty take we have that already, as I've said.

    But what we have already would not allow anyone to be disciplined. Or sacked. Not fairly anyway. Nor would it be sufficient to say that a criminal offence had potentially occurred.

    If I wanted to collect evidence for possible use in criminal proceedings (and I've done plenty of these as well) then the requirements become even more onerous.

    Whether it is sufficient to allow MPs or the public to make a political judgment is quite another matter but that is not dependant on a detailed fact-finding investigation.

    It isn't an inquiry it's a whitewash, which is why it can be done on a fag packet over a lunchtime.

    Ms Gray has been set up as a patsy. What can she say? a) there is an unhealthy culture in Downing St, b) because of that culture the demarcation between a party and a work event merged to the extent the work/party Venn diagram became a circle, and from b) Johnson claims vindication.

    Conservative MPs need to become Johnson's conscience and sack his sorry ****.
    You are probably right. Whitewash seems to be a feature of most inquiries, and this is a rush job. However, key questions surround the BYOB email: who is "we"? Was Boris cc'd? If 60 invitees did not show up, did they make their objections known and if so, to whom?
    fresh doubts were raised on the PM’s claim he did not know in advance about the No10 garden bash on May 20 of that year after Sunday Times columnist Dominic Lawson claimed at least two people had warned him the email invite to staff made it clear it was a party and it should have been stopped.
    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/new-no10-party-revealed-boris-25962670
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited January 2022
    HYUFD said:
    No Tory leadership challenger is going to want to take over before the May elections, so that automatically gives Boris breathing space of nearly 4 months. Question is whether he can use that time to turn things around.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited January 2022
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:
    No Tory leadership challenger is going to want to take over before the May elections, so that automatically gives Boris breathing space of nearly 4 months. Question is whether he can use that time to turn things around.
    He might not have to. From summer onwards there are a lot of feelgood events to lift the national mood. For a start, it will be warmer. Then there's the Platinum Jubilee; we host the Commonwealth Games where we (all the home nations) should pick up a hatful of gold medals; and so on up to the World Cup at the end of the year.

    ETA Boris's problems are carried over from previous years: partygate; wallpapergate; cash for honours; cash for access; bid-free contracts for mates and so on.
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435

    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:
    No Tory leadership challenger is going to want to take over before the May elections, so that automatically gives Boris breathing space of nearly 4 months. Question is whether he can use that time to turn things around.
    He might not have to. From summer onwards there are a lot of feelgood events to lift the national mood. For a start, it will be warmer. Then there's the Platinum Jubilee; we host the Commonwealth Games where we (all the home nations) should pick up a hatful of gold medals; and so on up to the World Cup at the end of the year.

    ETA Boris's problems are carried over from previous years: partygate; wallpapergate; cash for honours; cash for access; bid-free contracts for mates and so on.
    COP26 was meant to showcase Boris Johnson's statesman skills... it didnt really work out that way. I wonder whether Tory MPs really want him on the big stage for the above events
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Broad pushback against claims of “in office drinking culture” in Whitehall:

    https://twitter.com/johnmcternan/status/1482768498803843074?s=21
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    Turbocharging productivity, rather than chasing absolute GDP, might be a better target. With full employment, the UK should be looking to release capital investment.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.

    the simplest/closest way I can think of `turbocharging growth' would be to rejoin the EU's Single Market
    How is Greece doing these days
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    Cookie said:

    The Torygraph story about removing isolation rules is weak, it’s just speculation about some undefined point in the future.

    Meanwhile, it has this:

    However, a requirement to wear face masks on public transport, in shops and in other settings is likely to stay beyond January 26.

    Looks like the masks are staying…

    So basically Boris:
    -Put in place a set of pointless Plan B restrictions to be in place until Jan 26.
    -Was talked out of a lockdown.
    -Won't actually unroll all the Plan B restrictions on 26th Jan.

    This is his fightback pitch?

    Fortunately the backbenchers will almost certainly object to this, and he will have no option other to change course. The rules all have to go. How are things different now to last autumn?
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    edited January 2022
    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435
    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Could you give an example of woke agenda creeping into BBC? Its all news, sports, radio and celebs to me....

    IIRC Labour also had problems with the BBC - wasnt it the dodgy dossier Iraq story that saw all the pain and misery and of course the strange death of Dr Kelly, not to mention the DG Greg Dyke's departure - this idea that BBC news is anti Tory is a nonsense... it just keeps reporting difficult stories.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    BBC: The largest consumers of the BBC are concentrated in the Tory core vote. The alleged lowest consumers are the U30s. Any move away from a universal funding model will inevitably lead to higher charges for the largest consumers or a significant (and I mean significant) cutting back of what the BBC does. Especially the bits of the BBC which have little commercial value (and are usually the only things that Tory fanatics claim the BBC should be doing).

    They think this is going to be a vote winner?

    And then there’s the costs of various bits of infrastructure that the licence fee currently pays for that will probably in future have to be met from general taxation. All this being pushed by somebody who has a claim to being one of the thickest Cabinet members of all time who has demonstrated that she has little understanding of her brief.

    All for a short term headline to save Johnson and curry favour with his backbenchers.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    "Christian, decent, honest, honourable types of conservative voters.'
    Good grief.

    The consciences of Christian, decent, honest, honourable Tories know nothing of such wordly things as polls of course.
    Of the potential leadership candidate alternatives to Boris (a Roman Catholic), as far as I can see only Hunt and Raab are Christians (and Raab is half Jewish). Both are Church of England.

    Sunak is Hindu, as is Patel and Javid is Muslim and Truss does not seem to have any religion at all, at least in terms of active participation in it
    What point are you trying to make?
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    I wondered what other peoples experience is of on train wifi. I've been finding that it is useless recently. I am on a train in Kent at the moment, browser wasn't working for spotify so I ran a speed test, the download speed is 0.1 Mbbs per second, on an empty train. Its completely useless, about ok for checking emails if your mobile broadband is down for some reason. My experience is that it is a similar story on other train companies, but Avanti and LNER are a bit better.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    O/T it is scary how we are days after the Pacific volcanic eruption and we still appear to have no clue about what is going on in Tonga. Just shows how remote some parts of the world really are.

    It really has the feel of one of those sorts of events where people initial say reassuring things like “no reports (so far) of any deaths” or numbers officially reported are very low, and then over time the true scale of the disaster becomes clear and people pretty much start talking in figures larger than ballparks :(
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    "Christian, decent, honest, honourable types of conservative voters.'
    Good grief.

    The consciences of Christian, decent, honest, honourable Tories know nothing of such wordly things as polls of course.
    Of the potential leadership candidate alternatives to Boris (a Roman Catholic), as far as I can see only Hunt and Raab are Christians (and Raab is half Jewish). Both are Church of England.

    Sunak is Hindu, as is Patel and Javid is Muslim and Truss does not seem to have any religion at all, at least in terms of active participation in it
    What point are you trying to make?

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    "Christian, decent, honest, honourable types of conservative voters.'
    Good grief.

    The consciences of Christian, decent, honest, honourable Tories know nothing of such wordly things as polls of course.
    Of the potential leadership candidate alternatives to Boris (a Roman Catholic), as far as I can see only Hunt and Raab are Christians (and Raab is half Jewish). Both are Church of England.

    Sunak is Hindu, as is Patel and Javid is Muslim and Truss does not seem to have any religion at all, at least in terms of active participation in it
    What point are you trying to make?
    Presumably that the secular majority are woefully underrepresented?
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087
    darkage said:

    Cookie said:

    The Torygraph story about removing isolation rules is weak, it’s just speculation about some undefined point in the future.

    Meanwhile, it has this:

    However, a requirement to wear face masks on public transport, in shops and in other settings is likely to stay beyond January 26.

    Looks like the masks are staying…

    So basically Boris:
    -Put in place a set of pointless Plan B restrictions to be in place until Jan 26.
    -Was talked out of a lockdown.
    -Won't actually unroll all the Plan B restrictions on 26th Jan.

    This is his fightback pitch?

    Fortunately the backbenchers will almost certainly object to this, and he will have no option other to change course. The rules all have to go. How are things different now to last autumn?
    Yes, there's no justification for pissing around with masks. They can stay in the NHS. That's it. Enough.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    Christmas 2022 has come very early indeed.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    pigeon said:

    darkage said:

    Cookie said:

    The Torygraph story about removing isolation rules is weak, it’s just speculation about some undefined point in the future.

    Meanwhile, it has this:

    However, a requirement to wear face masks on public transport, in shops and in other settings is likely to stay beyond January 26.

    Looks like the masks are staying…

    So basically Boris:
    -Put in place a set of pointless Plan B restrictions to be in place until Jan 26.
    -Was talked out of a lockdown.
    -Won't actually unroll all the Plan B restrictions on 26th Jan.

    This is his fightback pitch?

    Fortunately the backbenchers will almost certainly object to this, and he will have no option other to change course. The rules all have to go. How are things different now to last autumn?
    Yes, there's no justification for pissing around with masks. They can stay in the NHS. That's it. Enough.
    I have no intention of wearing a mask for two hours plus a day just to get to and from the office. If WFH is at an end, I’ll be printing out one of those badges in case anyone gets lairy on the train.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Could you give an example of woke agenda creeping into BBC? Its all news, sports, radio and celebs to me....

    IIRC Labour also had problems with the BBC - wasnt it the dodgy dossier Iraq story that saw all the pain and misery and of course the strange death of Dr Kelly, not to mention the DG Greg Dyke's departure - this idea that BBC news is anti Tory is a nonsense... it just keeps reporting difficult stories.
    The example I gave yesterday was 6 Music presenters continually praising BLM in the summer of 2020. It wouldn't care if it was a commercial station, but to hear it from a supposedly impartial, objective public service broadcaster felt a bit too close to communism.

    There are other examples, but that was the worst one.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    Cyclefree said:

    @IshmaelZ

    Re your questions from the previous thread
    "1. Yes. The external regulator is part of the legal blob too.

    2. Don't be patronising with the "Believe me - I know" stuff. I have conducted a lot of big ass Commercial Court litigation.

    3. Explain: how would it take more than a couple of hours, given access to the email accounts of all recipients of the invite (which is expressly mandated by the terms of ref), to establish what we want to know, which is: did BJ know the party was a party?"

    Apologies - was travelling. So no time to respond.

    I too have done lots of big ass Commercial Court litigation. But I am not being patronising when I say that you are missing the point. Investigations are NOT like Commercial Court litigation even though a lot of lawyers wrongly assume they are and that any litigation lawyer or lawyer can do them.

    They can't. Some lawyers can become good investigators. But you need particular skills to do good investigations. Far fewer lawyers have these skills than they like to think.

    Investigations and Commercial Court litigation are very different. Wanting shortened litigation as in civil courts tells you little about how a fact-finding investigation needs to be done.

    You are also assuming a very narrow remit. You need to establish the following (IMO)

    1. The relevant laws and guidelines at all the applicable times.
    2. All internal instructions that were given, by whom and to whom, both written and verbal.
    3. What proof there was of people having received them.
    4. All the communications relating to social events - when sent, by whom, to who copied etc and all responses, both written and verbal.

    Just getting all those emails and chats and any that were deleted and making sure you have a complete set takes more than a couple of hours.

    5. Any other electronic or other records relating to the events.
    6. Interviews of all those involved

    and so on.

    That is how I'd approach something like this if I wanted to do a complete and accurate fact-finding investigation with a view to determining whether people had broken internal rules and/or lied about what they had done ie as a basis for an internal disciplinary proceeding.

    That takes more than a few hours.

    It is not even clear that Ms Gray has the authority to obtain the necessary material to do any meaningful interviews.

    If you want a quick and dirty take we have that already, as I've said.

    But what we have already would not allow anyone to be disciplined. Or sacked. Not fairly anyway. Nor would it be sufficient to say that a criminal offence had potentially occurred.

    If I wanted to collect evidence for possible use in criminal proceedings (and I've done plenty of these as well) then the requirements become even more onerous.

    Whether it is sufficient to allow MPs or the public to make a political judgment is quite another matter but that is not dependant on a detailed fact-finding investigation.

    A very good set of points which probably less than 1% of the public will be aware of.
    Couple that with the line already being pushed that because Ms Gray is of an independent mind then the enquiry will be independent (which does not follow at all), then you can see how a quick report with less than definitive conclusions might be used to attempt to ‘exonerate’ the PM.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Could you give an example of woke agenda creeping into BBC? Its all news, sports, radio and celebs to me....

    IIRC Labour also had problems with the BBC - wasnt it the dodgy dossier Iraq story that saw all the pain and misery and of course the strange death of Dr Kelly, not to mention the DG Greg Dyke's departure - this idea that BBC news is anti Tory is a nonsense... it just keeps reporting difficult stories.
    The example I gave yesterday was 6 Music presenters continually praising BLM in the summer of 2020. It wouldn't care if it was a commercial station, but to hear it from a supposedly impartial, objective public service broadcaster felt a bit too close to communism.

    There are other examples, but that was the worst one.
    Ah yes, the classic being against racism woke agenda. Give your head a shake.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
  • rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    Echoes many of the other policies of this government, which are normally heard in the Conservative Club bar, prefaced by "They should just..."

    Take the licence fee. It's easy to say that it's a bad thing. In lots of ways, it is. But once you start poking into the details, the suggested alternatives look worse (general taxation gives the government too much power) or fanciful (the rest of the world will be so keen to pay subscriptions for the BBC that we can have it for free).
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    edited January 2022

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Not sure why it matters whether something can be explained to a foreigner anyway. (Not that the concept of a universally funded service being cheaper for the average consumer, and with a relatively secure source of income be in a better position to take “risks” and fund content unsupported by the market should really be to difficult to explain with more than a modicum of effort)

    If “explaining to a foreigner” is a standard test, where does that leave cricket!
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Yup, Japan has something similar in that you're legally required to get a TV license if you have a TV (and arguably also an internet connection or a phone) although there's no enforcement mechanism unless you're foolish enough to sign up, so it relies on people going door-to-door pestering, cajoling and intimidating people into signing up.

    Sadly the Party To Protect The People From NHK lost their representation in the last election. Although I'm not sure they ever really expected to win, I think they just wanted to make NHK screen their anti-NHK broadcast:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9b-H1W37cew
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    I’m surprised they haven’t announced dramatically that they are in favour of broad sunlit uplands.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    ...
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    Echoes many of the other policies of this government, which are normally heard in the Conservative Club bar, prefaced by "They should just..."

    Take the licence fee. It's easy to say that it's a bad thing. In lots of ways, it is. But once you start poking into the details, the suggested alternatives look worse (general taxation gives the government too much power) or fanciful (the rest of the world will be so keen to pay subscriptions for the BBC that we can have it for free).
    I don't really see how general taxation gives the government any more power than a license to levy the tax yourself at a level set by the government.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Sweden abolished it in 2018. Popular all round.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Sweden abolished it in 2018. Popular all round.
    And that’s fair enough, but its another country very familiar with the concept.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Scott_xP said:

    ...

    The Oaf has been a gift to cartoonists.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Sweden abolished it in 2018. Popular all round.
    And that’s fair enough, but its another country very familiar with the concept.
    Your point being?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Good morning fellow pb-ers. And the lurkers .... you know who you are.

    I find the idea of using the Navy to turn back or otherwise 'obstruct' migrants very troubling. I'm quite sure it will be 'popular' in the bars of Conservative Clubs, but the idea of saving lives at sea is, as I understand it, widely held among those who actually are at sea, and should an overloaded dinghy turned around, sink and lives be lost, then whether the Government could cope with the natural revulsion in the Admiralty has to be 'doubtful'.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    edited January 2022

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    Echoes many of the other policies of this government, which are normally heard in the Conservative Club bar, prefaced by "They should just..."

    Take the licence fee. It's easy to say that it's a bad thing. In lots of ways, it is. But once you start poking into the details, the suggested alternatives look worse (general taxation gives the government too much power) or fanciful (the rest of the world will be so keen to pay subscriptions for the BBC that we can have it for free).
    I don't really see how general taxation gives the government any more power than a license to levy the tax yourself at a level set by the government.
    The licence fee is at least negotiated for a period of several years giving relative funding security/certainty over that period. And the process in theory insulates from the annual spending rounds and constant competition with other Govt spending priorities. Similar argument Tories sometimes use for things they are in favour of (like various privatised semi monopolies).

    Although the Tories have obviously severely undermined this in the last decade through the trick of imposing cost on the BBC which should be funded by Govt (the World Service, free licences for client groups etc). Similar to how they made “savings” in Local govt whilst audaciously claiming to be giving them more “spending powerl.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
    Isn't there some arrangement for Halls of Residence and the like, where there's a 'block' fee?
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701
    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    Labour has long since ceased to support the working class struggle.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Sweden abolished it in 2018. Popular all round.
    Most of Europe don’t have license fees and those that do, with a few exceptions, have them far smaller than ours.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Sweden abolished it in 2018. Popular all round.
    And that’s fair enough, but its another country very familiar with the concept.
    Your point being?
    I thought that was obvious. @Sandpit has been repeating bollocks about having to pay a tax for tv/media being alien to foreigners and it clearly isn’t.

    That’s nothing to do with the merits of it mind.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
    Isn't there some arrangement for Halls of Residence and the like, where there's a 'block' fee?
    That definitely wasn’t the case when I was a student. The BBC’s view was that a lock on the door makes a room a separate household.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Sweden abolished it in 2018. Popular all round.
    And that’s fair enough, but its another country very familiar with the concept.
    Your point being?
    That it shouldn’t be too difficult to explain to foreigners.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
    Well yes, I agree.

    I don’t really support the tv license but I do support the BBC.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,701

    Good morning fellow pb-ers. And the lurkers .... you know who you are.

    I find the idea of using the Navy to turn back or otherwise 'obstruct' migrants very troubling. I'm quite sure it will be 'popular' in the bars of Conservative Clubs, but the idea of saving lives at sea is, as I understand it, widely held among those who actually are at sea, and should an overloaded dinghy turned around, sink and lives be lost, then whether the Government could cope with the natural revulsion in the Admiralty has to be 'doubtful'.

    Once boats are on the water, whatever people think of these migrants, they are human beings and you cannot jeopardise,their lives. Turning them around mid sea seems very risky to me.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
    Isn't there some arrangement for Halls of Residence and the like, where there's a 'block' fee?
    That definitely wasn’t the case when I was a student. The BBC’s view was that a lock on the door makes a room a separate household.
    I was a student in the glory days of not needing a tv license on a “portable device” and therefore an unplugged laptop was covered under your parents’ tv license.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    Taz said:

    Good morning fellow pb-ers. And the lurkers .... you know who you are.

    I find the idea of using the Navy to turn back or otherwise 'obstruct' migrants very troubling. I'm quite sure it will be 'popular' in the bars of Conservative Clubs, but the idea of saving lives at sea is, as I understand it, widely held among those who actually are at sea, and should an overloaded dinghy turned around, sink and lives be lost, then whether the Government could cope with the natural revulsion in the Admiralty has to be 'doubtful'.

    Once boats are on the water, whatever people think of these migrants, they are human beings and you cannot jeopardise,their lives. Turning them around mid sea seems very risky to me.
    Why would they turn around anyway?

    They’ll learn pretty quickly the Navy isn’t going to ram their boats or shoot them.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    There is nothing the military can do that Border Force and Coastguard can’t: the problem is law not logistics
    https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1482643933188526084
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
    Isn't there some arrangement for Halls of Residence and the like, where there's a 'block' fee?
    That definitely wasn’t the case when I was a student. The BBC’s view was that a lock on the door makes a room a separate household.
    I was a student in the glory days of not needing a tv license on a “portable device” and therefore an unplugged laptop was covered under your parents’ tv license.
    Surely you coughed up anyway to support the BBC?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
    Isn't there some arrangement for Halls of Residence and the like, where there's a 'block' fee?
    That definitely wasn’t the case when I was a student. The BBC’s view was that a lock on the door makes a room a separate household.
    I was a student in the glory days of not needing a tv license on a “portable device” and therefore an unplugged laptop was covered under your parents’ tv license.
    Surely you coughed up anyway to support the BBC?
    Don’t be ridiculous
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122

    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
    Well yes, I agree.

    I don’t really support the tv license but I do support the BBC.
    Clearly if it is so well supported as you claim there should be no need for compulsion to pay for the few who take a different view....
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    Funnily enough, my tv license is due at the end of January. I say “my” tv license, I’m with my parents and my dad is now 75. Hmmm....
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 4,784

    Good morning fellow pb-ers. And the lurkers .... you know who you are.

    I find the idea of using the Navy to turn back or otherwise 'obstruct' migrants very troubling. I'm quite sure it will be 'popular' in the bars of Conservative Clubs, but the idea of saving lives at sea is, as I understand it, widely held among those who actually are at sea, and should an overloaded dinghy turned around, sink and lives be lost, then whether the Government could cope with the natural revulsion in the Admiralty has to be 'doubtful'.

    Asides from the substantive point, with which I agree, the association between Conservative Clubs (or Liberal clubs, (which, after all, have had decades to add Democrat to their name) and the Conservative Party is massively tenuous these days. (aiui they are more or less independent drinking / WM clubs but can be asked to pay some kind of levy).

    If you went into there on a Thursday night to raise a crowd for some kind of urgent cause, aiui, you'd be more likely to come across YMCA karaoke'ers than a posse of Union Flag hoisters. Or is it still different in the shires?
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Anyway, the main thing is that whatever you think about the BBC/licence fee the important thing is that the Cabinet Minister responsible has a firm grasp of her brief and will do a good job of steering things into a new world.

    https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/nadine-dorries-channel-4-public-service-broadcaster-302429/

  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
    Isn't there some arrangement for Halls of Residence and the like, where there's a 'block' fee?
    That definitely wasn’t the case when I was a student. The BBC’s view was that a lock on the door makes a room a separate household.
    I was a student in the glory days of not needing a tv license on a “portable device” and therefore an unplugged laptop was covered under your parents’ tv license.
    I'll ask my student grandson, in Hall, if he pays, but whether I'll get a response much before about noon is doubtful!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,051
    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.

    the simplest/closest way I can think of `turbocharging growth' would be to rejoin the EU's Single Market
    How is Greece doing these days
    Forecast to grow 4.7% this year after 6.5% last year.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    felix said:

    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
    Well yes, I agree.

    I don’t really support the tv license but I do support the BBC.
    Clearly if it is so well supported as you claim there should be no need for compulsion to pay for the few who take a different view....
    I haven’t really made any claims about how well supported it is. Merely that I myself support it.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
    Well yes, I agree.

    I don’t really support the tv license but I do support the BBC.
    You really do a hopeless job of making an argument sometimes. You can hardly deride the Conservatives for making populist pitches to “abolish the licence fee” (as a stealth long term attack on the BBC) whilst basically advertising yourself as a ready recipient of that populist pitch.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited January 2022

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
    Isn't there some arrangement for Halls of Residence and the like, where there's a 'block' fee?
    That definitely wasn’t the case when I was a student. The BBC’s view was that a lock on the door makes a room a separate household.
    I was a student in the glory days of not needing a tv license on a “portable device” and therefore an unplugged laptop was covered under your parents’ tv license.
    One rational way would perhaps be to collect it with (a reformed) Council Tax, or a universal property tax. Also per household.

    Collecting the license fee costs £136m per year.

    https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-financial-information-AB19
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    Good morning fellow pb-ers. And the lurkers .... you know who you are.

    I find the idea of using the Navy to turn back or otherwise 'obstruct' migrants very troubling. I'm quite sure it will be 'popular' in the bars of Conservative Clubs, but the idea of saving lives at sea is, as I understand it, widely held among those who actually are at sea, and should an overloaded dinghy turned around, sink and lives be lost, then whether the Government could cope with the natural revulsion in the Admiralty has to be 'doubtful'.

    The Greek and Australian navies did it when ordered to. The RN would be no different. A possible difference is that they'll probably be doing it live on Sky News given the relative proximity of operations in the channel.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080

    tlg86 said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Just reading about Germany, it sounds like households pay irrespective of whether they have a tv or not.

    Personally I’d like to scrap the license fee as I have to pay through the nose for the stuff I actually watch (live sport) and I don’t see why I have to pay for eastbenders.

    However, what I find particularly odd about the license fee is that it’s a household poll tax. A student (okay, I bet none bother these days) have to pay the same fee as the Queen in Windsor castle. Surely it would be better to tag it on to council tax so that the higher bands pay more.
    Well yes, I agree.

    I don’t really support the tv license but I do support the BBC.
    France collects it with the universal property tax, with exemptions.
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435
    Foxy said:

    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.

    the simplest/closest way I can think of `turbocharging growth' would be to rejoin the EU's Single Market
    How is Greece doing these days
    Forecast to grow 4.7% this year after 6.5% last year.
    and if you compare it to its most significant non-EU neighbour (Turkey)... its even more impressive.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited January 2022

    Taz said:

    Good morning fellow pb-ers. And the lurkers .... you know who you are.

    I find the idea of using the Navy to turn back or otherwise 'obstruct' migrants very troubling. I'm quite sure it will be 'popular' in the bars of Conservative Clubs, but the idea of saving lives at sea is, as I understand it, widely held among those who actually are at sea, and should an overloaded dinghy turned around, sink and lives be lost, then whether the Government could cope with the natural revulsion in the Admiralty has to be 'doubtful'.

    Once boats are on the water, whatever people think of these migrants, they are human beings and you cannot jeopardise,their lives. Turning them around mid sea seems very risky to me.
    Why would they turn around anyway?

    They’ll learn pretty quickly the Navy isn’t going to ram their boats or shoot them.
    I question whether the Navy has the resources. They are on the way back from the bad old days of New Labour, but there's still a few more years to go.

    This is just Johnson flailing around.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Dura_Ace said:

    Good morning fellow pb-ers. And the lurkers .... you know who you are.

    I find the idea of using the Navy to turn back or otherwise 'obstruct' migrants very troubling. I'm quite sure it will be 'popular' in the bars of Conservative Clubs, but the idea of saving lives at sea is, as I understand it, widely held among those who actually are at sea, and should an overloaded dinghy turned around, sink and lives be lost, then whether the Government could cope with the natural revulsion in the Admiralty has to be 'doubtful'.

    The Greek and Australian navies did it when ordered to. The RN would be no different. A possible difference is that they'll probably be doing it live on Sky News given the relative proximity of operations in the channel.
    Noted. I seem to recall revulsion though, at what happened in the Aegean Sea.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    Sky’s ⁦@KayBurley⁩ says she has spoken to one of the former officials who warned Boris Johnson not to go ahead with the May 2020 party.

    It comes after Dominic Lawson wrote this in the Sunday Times yesterday:
    https://twitter.com/kitty_donaldson/status/1482978104444432385/photo/1
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    alex_ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    Echoes many of the other policies of this government, which are normally heard in the Conservative Club bar, prefaced by "They should just..."

    Take the licence fee. It's easy to say that it's a bad thing. In lots of ways, it is. But once you start poking into the details, the suggested alternatives look worse (general taxation gives the government too much power) or fanciful (the rest of the world will be so keen to pay subscriptions for the BBC that we can have it for free).
    I don't really see how general taxation gives the government any more power than a license to levy the tax yourself at a level set by the government.
    The licence fee is at least negotiated for a period of several years giving relative funding security/certainty over that period. And the process in theory insulates from the annual spending rounds and constant competition with other Govt spending priorities. Similar argument Tories sometimes use for things they are in favour of (like various privatised semi monopolies).

    Although the Tories have obviously severely undermined this in the last decade through the trick of imposing cost on the BBC which should be funded by Govt (the World Service, free licences for client groups etc). Similar to how they made “savings” in Local govt whilst audaciously claiming to be giving them more “spending powerl.
    Well this is the thing, it's a structure that the government can change, and the government can always exert pressure by threatening to change it. If you wanted to make a structure under general taxation that was equally hard for the government to change and gave them less control rather than more then you could.

    Given the way Johnson works I'm sure he'll come up with a structure that decreases the ability of people to oppose him rather than increases it, and it would be legitimate to oppose whatever he comes up with on the basis that it does that, but that's a different problem to whether to replace the license fee with general taxation.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Good morning, everyone.

    If they want to replace the licence fee an alternative that's well-considered must be ready to go.

    Cackhanded short-termist tinkering tomfoolery is what gave us devolved bodies everywhere except England. Lack of planning also meant leaving the EU was handled very poorly indeed.

    Just not liking the licence fee is not sufficient because there has to be something.

    Mr. W, be fair. "Navy ordered to shoot illegal immigrants" will probably take at least one day's headlines away from "PM remains incompetent, lying fool".
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,051
    MattW said:

    Taz said:

    Good morning fellow pb-ers. And the lurkers .... you know who you are.

    I find the idea of using the Navy to turn back or otherwise 'obstruct' migrants very troubling. I'm quite sure it will be 'popular' in the bars of Conservative Clubs, but the idea of saving lives at sea is, as I understand it, widely held among those who actually are at sea, and should an overloaded dinghy turned around, sink and lives be lost, then whether the Government could cope with the natural revulsion in the Admiralty has to be 'doubtful'.

    Once boats are on the water, whatever people think of these migrants, they are human beings and you cannot jeopardise,their lives. Turning them around mid sea seems very risky to me.
    Why would they turn around anyway?

    They’ll learn pretty quickly the Navy isn’t going to ram their boats or shoot them.
    I question whether the Navy has the resources. They are on the way back from the bad old days of New Labour, but there's still a few more years to go.

    This is just Johnson flailing around.
    Yes, just about anything to distract from his own boozy incompetence.

    Scrapping the licence fee may be popular, scrapping the BBC very much not. The thing I missed most when living in America, Australia and New Zealand was intelligent public broadcasting.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    Boris Johnson’s plans to clear out Downing Street in response to disclosures of parties in No 10 will make little difference, a senior Tory MP has said https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tories-dismiss-johnsons-plan-for-a-downing-street-clearout-6x8vmfjtb
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,051

    Foxy said:

    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.

    the simplest/closest way I can think of `turbocharging growth' would be to rejoin the EU's Single Market
    How is Greece doing these days
    Forecast to grow 4.7% this year after 6.5% last year.
    and if you compare it to its most significant non-EU neighbour (Turkey)... its even more impressive.
    Though speaking to my Greek colleagues, the state of their public sector hospitals is pretty appalling.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    MattW said:


    I question whether the Navy has the resources. They are on the way back from the bad old days of New Labour, but there's still a few more years to go.

    The tories inherited an escort fleet of 25 from the 'bad old days'. Through an assiduous program of neglect and mismanagement they'll manage to get it down to 17 next year.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited January 2022
    Scott_xP said:

    Boris Johnson’s plans to clear out Downing Street in response to disclosures of parties in No 10 will make little difference, a senior Tory MP has said https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tories-dismiss-johnsons-plan-for-a-downing-street-clearout-6x8vmfjtb

    ...and immediately produce a new army of the disenchanted ready with fresh and press-ready quotes and leaks.

    'Morning all.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Taz said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Sweden abolished it in 2018. Popular all round.
    Most of Europe don’t have license fees and those that do, with a few exceptions, have them far smaller than ours.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence
    Thanks Taz, but that link is a classic example of the weakness of Wikipedia as a source. The big, prominent, colourful map at the top labels Sweden as being a country with a license fee. However, if you dig way down into the body of the text, Sweden is listed in the section “Countries where the TV licence has been abolished”.

    Now this is obviously only a problem of infrequent updating of the page, but it is worrying that nobody has been arsed to correct that very prominent, misleading map since 2018.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited January 2022

    Foxy said:

    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    Boris to use the Navy to stop border crossings of migrants and ban boozing at No 10 and fire failing advisers as he begins a relaunch. Growth will also be turbocharged across the North and Midlands

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17344129/boris-johnson-royal-navy-migrant-channel-crossings/

    How exactly is he going to turbo charge growth?

    How is the Navy going to stop migrants?

    Please explain
    Everyone wants to turbocharge growth. The problem is that, if there were easy answers, they would have already been done.

    the simplest/closest way I can think of `turbocharging growth' would be to rejoin the EU's Single Market
    How is Greece doing these days
    Forecast to grow 4.7% this year after 6.5% last year.
    and if you compare it to its most significant non-EU neighbour (Turkey)... its even more impressive.
    Or to its most significant EU members - Germany and Italy. Forecast for 3.7% and 4.2% respectively in 2022.
  • Good morning, everyone.

    If they want to replace the licence fee an alternative that's well-considered must be ready to go.

    Cackhanded short-termist tinkering tomfoolery is what gave us devolved bodies everywhere except England. Lack of planning also meant leaving the EU was handled very poorly indeed.

    Just not liking the licence fee is not sufficient because there has to be something.

    Mr. W, be fair. "Navy ordered to shoot illegal immigrants" will probably take at least one day's headlines away from "PM remains incompetent, lying fool".

    A former Gove Spad writes:

    (On the idea that Thatcher's reputation was turned round by the Falklands)

    Also if Johnson did start a war he'd lose it.

    https://twitter.com/Samfr/status/1482744544538120196?t=e4aPLo68S0AqLJpYCgtKzg&s=19
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    Scott_xP said:

    Boris Johnson’s plans to clear out Downing Street in response to disclosures of parties in No 10 will make little difference, a senior Tory MP has said https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tories-dismiss-johnsons-plan-for-a-downing-street-clearout-6x8vmfjtb


    ...and immediately produce a new army of the disenchanted ready with new quotes and leaks.

    'Morning all.
    Yes; the cartoon in the Guardian is quite telling.
  • Morning all! I must say that "Operation Red Meat" is even funnier than "Operation Save Big Dog". So the rationale is that if they offer some shiny shiny to Tory MPs that they will all ignore the Tongan tidal wave of emails they are getting and will roar their support for the Big Dog?

    Doesn't think much for their intelligence does he?

    And what "red meat" is being thrown?
    Abolish the BBC! By 2027! When we'll be out of office!
    Turbo-charge growth in the red wall! Even if there was a turbo button to push - and there isn't - the row between the red wall and the blue wall was a big problem before pissgate broke. Whatever they think they can do in the north and midlands has the opposite effect in HYland
    Stop the forrin invasion! Because its so easy so why hadn't they done so already?

    Seriously, this is hilarious. No10 think Tory MPs are simpletons, think there is a policy magic wand that can make everything better, and that all the past issues - including why they hadn't already waved the policy magic wand - will all go away.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    Johnson looks as if he’s going to go with all the dignity and good grace of his soulmate Trump. https://twitter.com/ThatTimWalker/status/1482856273074958340/photo/1
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    darkage said:

    Sandpit said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Labour need to get all over this. Who is their culture spokesperson?


    Rachel Wearmouth
    @REWearmouth
    ·
    5h
    'Vote Conservative to end the BBC' doesn't sound like an election-winning slogan, does it?

    It would be surprisingly popular. However, that's not the choice.

    The choice is:

    Vote Conservative and the BBC will continue but you won't have to pay for it by threat of imprisonment and you'll only pay for it if you want it.

    Or:

    Vote Labour and the status quo remains and your granny might end up in prison for owning a telly.

    Ditching the licence fee actually seems like good, progressive politics to me as it's not the rich who end up in trouble for not paying their licence fee at the end of the day and for younger people who would rather watch Netflix or YouTube the whole concept of the licence fee is just bizarre...

    I'm surprised Labour is so wedded to a telly tax.
    Labour should be massively in favour, of ending the single most regressive tax in the country, which takes up so much court time and prison time, giving people criminal records which can be held against them later in life, for the crime of not contributing to Gary Lineker’s seven figure salary.
    To be fair I doubt it is prison time. More like wasting time in the civil courts.
    The main reason why Labour are so keen on the BBC are because it is part of the 'left liberal' establishment which is a large part of its power base.
    Looking at the BBC, the problem is that a lot of its news coverage etc is not impartial or objective anymore, and the intolerant "woke" agenda has seeped in to a large part of its output.
    We have had 5 years of Conservative government trying to tackle this, but they get nowhere. So it is reasonable to conclude that there is no hope.
    On the other hand, its about £10 a month. Not a big deal compared to the coming doubling of energy bills.
    Not the civil courts, the criminal courts. TV licence violations are 10% of all cases heard by magistrates, and are mostly poor people with chaotic lives, either unable to afford the licence or guilty of nothing more than administrative errors. A disproportionate number of women and minorities receive criminal records for licence fee evasion. The penalty is a fine, and those imprisoned are for failing to pay the fine.

    Slightly out of date source, gives 13% as the figure, nearly 200k prosecutions per year https://fullfact.org/news/do-tv-licence-offences-account-one-ten-court-cases/

    In any other circumstance, Labour MPs would be all over this, but they like the BBC more than they care about the 200k poor people receiving criminal records every year.
    I stand corrected. I thought that the license fee was decriminalised, but see that the government have yet to make a decision about that, so they have chickened out of it. The situation is far worse than I thought, based on that data (which dates back to 2013, but I doubt much has changed). At the very least, the enforcement of the licensing fee should be made a civil matter and no one should be going to prison over it. The whole situation is a complete disgrace.
    The problem with a compulsory-but-decriminalised licence fee, is that you end up with bailiffs going to granny’s house with a court order to seize the TV.

    As I said on yesterday’s thread, trying to explain to a foreigner the concept of the licence fee, is even more difficult than trying to explain the NHS.
    You’ve said this before but its total bollocks. Plenty of countries have a form of TV licence.

    Germany, France, Japan, etc.
    Sweden abolished it in 2018. Popular all round.
    And that’s fair enough, but its another country very familiar with the concept.
    Your point being?
    I thought that was obvious. @Sandpit has been repeating bollocks about having to pay a tax for tv/media being alien to foreigners and it clearly isn’t.

    That’s nothing to do with the merits of it mind.
    Aha. Sandpit. Nuff said.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Off-topic:

    I've just missed the anniversary, but last Tuesday was the 40th anniversary of the first episode of the "The Computer Programme" on BBC. A series which got myself, and many others, into computers.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtMWEiCdsfc

    An interesting short section with a prediction at 22 minutes in.
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435
    Dura_Ace said:

    MattW said:


    I question whether the Navy has the resources. They are on the way back from the bad old days of New Labour, but there's still a few more years to go.

    The tories inherited an escort fleet of 25 from the 'bad old days'. Through an assiduous program of neglect and mismanagement they'll manage to get it down to 17 next year.
    and at the same time, have reduced the Army to a tiny amount..... the last time the Army was increased.... was in 1998 by Mr T Blair - this idea that New Labour was `bad old days' for Defence is lazy thinking - military pay has also fallen by 30% in real terms since 2010 - all this talk about helping military families etc - its all crap
This discussion has been closed.