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

NickPalmer said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Anabobazina 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…

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.

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]

Cookie said:

Anabobazina 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

NickPalmer said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Anabobazina 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…

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.

Dura_Ace said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Gallowgate 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

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...

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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.

Mexicanpete said:

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?

HYUFD said:

Why Johnson has a duty to continue as PM

https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2022/01/why-johnson-has-a-duty-to-continue-as-prime-minister.html

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.

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Andy_JS said:

HYUFD said:

Why Johnson has a duty to continue as PM

https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2022/01/why-johnson-has-a-duty-to-continue-as-prime-minister.html

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

Gallowgate 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.

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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.

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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.

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

darkage said:

Cookie said:

Anabobazina 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.

pigeon said:

darkage said:

Cookie said:

Anabobazina 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.

swing_voter said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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.

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.

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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.

Gallowgate said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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!

rcs1000 said:

Gallowgate 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.

Stuartinromford said:

rcs1000 said:

Gallowgate 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.

StuartDickson said:

Gallowgate said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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.

edmundintokyo said:

Stuartinromford said:

rcs1000 said:

Gallowgate 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.

tlg86 said:

Gallowgate said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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?

StuartDickson said:

Gallowgate said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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

OldKingCole said:

tlg86 said:

Gallowgate said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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.

tlg86 said:

Gallowgate said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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.

tlg86 said:

OldKingCole said:

tlg86 said:

Gallowgate said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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.

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

tlg86 said:

Gallowgate said:

tlg86 said:

OldKingCole said:

tlg86 said:

Gallowgate said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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

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....

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/

Aslan said:

swing_voter said:

rcs1000 said:

Gallowgate 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:

Gallowgate 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:

Gallowgate 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.

Gallowgate said:

tlg86 said:

Gallowgate said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

darkage said:

Sandpit said:

GIN1138 said:

rottenborough 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.

OldKingCole 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.

Foxy said:

Aslan said:

swing_voter said:

rcs1000 said:

Gallowgate 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:

Gallowgate 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:

Gallowgate 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.

Dura_Ace said:

OldKingCole 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.

alex_ said:

edmundintokyo said:

Stuartinromford said:

rcs1000 said:

Gallowgate 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.

MattW said:

Gallowgate said:

Taz said:

OldKingCole 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.

swing_voter said:

Foxy said:

Aslan said:

swing_voter said:

rcs1000 said:

Gallowgate 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:

Gallowgate 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:

Gallowgate 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.

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.

swing_voter said:

Foxy said:

Aslan said:

swing_voter said:

rcs1000 said:

Gallowgate 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:

Gallowgate 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:

Gallowgate 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.

WhisperingOracle said:

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.

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

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.