To declare yourself "posh" is utter infra dig In fact a pragmatic self-refutation
Also, you can't make yourself posh in one generation. It probably takes at least two.
It's a bit like being genuinely Cornish, in that sense.
I think Leon was trying to redefine categories. He described many of his own attributes and then announced that the possession of these attributes means you are (he is) posh.
Happily or sadly it doesn't work like that.
Actually sadly imo because it's a stupid term and if people want to self-identity as posh who are we to say they shouldn't.
And very interestingly not a single word on the BBC news app about the post office enquiry. The story appears nowhere.
Perhaps these quasi-government run institutions realise that they are all rotten to the core and don't want to be poked.
It's on the front page of the UK news on the website. Too much Royal, stabbings, and Holyrood for it to be on the overall front page, I expect. Ongoing story and all that.
Finally and more importantly, if Starmer were a restaurant, what restaurant would he be?
“Pizza Express – bit boring, middle of the road, totally vanilla, inoffensive. You know it’s not going to be really awful”; “Wagamama because it’s trying to rebrand”; “Burger King or McDonald’s because everyone can afford to eat there. Labour’s a bit more budget;” “Pizza Hut. Old school, cheap and cheerful. Well, I don’t think Labour are cheerful. But it’s always been there in the background and people don’t really use it that much”; “Wetherspoons. Youngsters and working-class people. But they don’t really advertise do they? People just have an assumption that they might do this or that.”
And the Tory restaurant?
“A pretentious place that has a tasting menu with foams. All front but no action”; “Nando’s. Quick turnaround, you’re in and out of the door. And spicy – they try and dress it up but at the end of the day it’s just chicken”; “Jamie’s Italian. The empire crumbled – that’s how it’s looking isn’t it? They failed because they tried to run it by image, but the actual food was awful”; “The kitchen at Fawlty Towers. The menu is duck à l’orange and meanwhile in the back room all hell’s breaking loose and the chef is drunk”; and:
Stephen Timms, the chair of an influential parliamentary committee, said he was “very troubled” that scores of carers were being forced into financial distress as a result of the government’s mistakes.
He said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) should be “helping them not harassing them” and added: “It does sound to me as though things are going quite badly wrong at the moment.”
Timms, the chair of the Commons work and pensions committee and the Labour MP for East Ham, told BBC Radio 4’s Money Box programme that the DWP seemed to “completely ignore” the notifications it received when an unpaid carer earned more than the £151-a-week limit.
Instead, he said, the department was allowing people to incur “enormous accidental overpayments”, often over several years. In dozens of cases these bills have totalled more than £20,000.
The Guardian revealed this week that 156,000 unpaid carers are now repaying severe penalties – pushing many into debt or financial distress – for often unwittingly overstepping the small earnings limit while caring for a loved one. Roughly one in five unpaid carers in part-time work breached the earnings limit last year...
These are likely people struggling to cope without such government action. And likely save government huge costs by keeping those they care for out of care homes.
Such incompetence from the DWP, coupled with draconian punishment, is likely to cost the government financially as well as morally.
Dealing with means tested benefits isn't an easy problem, but they're getting this one very wrong.
To be honest, in the scheme of things it's such a small payment, compared to the cost of the state having to care for the person, and the fact that the claimant has to be the equivalent of a full time carer (35 hours a week), I'm surprised it has to be means tested.
Strictly speaking Carers Allowance is a non means tested benefit. You can have a £million in the bank and receive it.
What you can't do is earn from employment in a single week more than the ludicrously low figure of £151.
My blood was boiling when someone on MoneyBox pointed out that the increase in the threshold of the £151 limit (which goes up a bit each year) had not taken into account that the minimum wage had gone up so much this year.
Two parts of government not working at all together.
Just bloody stupid.
Interestingly, as a carer, I received a letter this week reminding me of the £151 limit.
Coincidence?
Or has someone at senior level in DWP said - "get a letter out quick".
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
How are these confused? It could be terrible for those people who are sent *and* ineffective in deterring boat crossings.
If you're using terror to describe the prospect of a handful of people (if it all) being sent to Rwanda for their claims to be processed, whilst meanwhile millions are genuinely terrorised by awful regimes in hellholes around the world, then you're just posturing.
That is whataboutery of the highest order. You are effectively arguing that the UK government should have carte blanche to do anything because there are awful regimes elsewhere in the world.
And very interestingly not a single word on the BBC news app about the post office enquiry. The story appears nowhere.
Perhaps these quasi-government run institutions realise that they are all rotten to the core and don't want to be poked.
It's on the front page of the UK news on the website. Too much Royal, stabbings, and Holyrood for it to be on the overall front page, I expect. Ongoing story and all that.
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
Some of us simply find it an extraordinarily badly planned project with no realistic scope of working beyond a few hundred migrants a year. Horrendously expensive for the results.
It's Groundnut Scheme level thinking.
Once upon a time, Tories supported (a) prudence in public spending (b) the rule of law (UK) (c) the rule of law (international).
And very interestingly not a single word on the BBC news app about the post office enquiry. The story appears nowhere.
Perhaps these quasi-government run institutions realise that they are all rotten to the core and don't want to be poked.
It's on the front page of the UK news on the website. Too much Royal, stabbings, and Holyrood for it to be on the overall front page, I expect. Ongoing story and all that.
So, your theory is that, after weeks of extensive coverage, one day of the story not being on the app (but still being on the website) proves that “these quasi-government run institutions realise that they are all rotten to the core and don't want to be poked”?
To declare yourself "posh" is utter infra dig In fact a pragmatic self-refutation
Also, you can't make yourself posh in one generation. It probably takes at least two.
It's a bit like being genuinely Cornish, in that sense.
I think Leon was trying to redefine categories. He described many of his own attributes and then announced that the possession of these attributes means you are (he is) posh.
Happily or sadly it doesn't work like that.
Actually sadly imo because it's a stupid term and if people want to self-identity as posh who are we to say they shouldn't.
No-one posh would ever use the word posh to describe themselves. Ever.
Add that rule to the one that says nothing in life is inevitable but death and taxes.
"England, Wales and Scotland all now in favour of Irish unification, research shows The 2023 State of the Union survey examines attitudes towards constitutional issues in the UK"
"There are different reasons in different parts of the UK explaining the views taken about Northern Ireland leaving the Union. In England, it’s probably more the ‘bugger off’ variety. In Scotland, it’s probably, ‘Go and live your best life’."
Lol.
Extremely misleading headline from the Irish Times. It was not even a straight poll but sliding scale where English voters put themselves at just +0.9 out of 10 on accepting Irish unity.
In any case it is up to Northern Irish voters ultimately and most polls show they still want to stay in the UK
As a product of Tennessee and Powys I can sympathise…
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
Some of us simply find it an extraordinarily badly planned project with no realistic scope of working beyond a few hundred migrants a year. Horrendously expensive for the results.
It's Groundnut Scheme level thinking.
Once upon a time, Tories supported (a) prudence in public spending (b) the rule of law (UK) (c) the rule of law (international).
Nah, it's Guardianista virtue-signalling circle-jerk masturbation for social and professional acceptance reasons.
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
How are these confused? It could be terrible for those people who are sent *and* ineffective in deterring boat crossings.
Bluntly, it's a numbers game.
Visibly set up accommodation for ten thousand in Kigali, show that a high-throughput immigration court system is in place, have two jumbo jets a day on standby, have an open-ended contract... then you have a deterrent that won't be overwhelmed on Day One.
The government has done none of those things. In part because it doesn't want to spend the money
People who bang on about the Brilliant Australian System haven't noticed that the UK's version is a cargo cult version, a Potemkin village. There's not enough reality behind it to make it work on its own terms.
And if all we do is send a token number of doubly unfortunates to Africa, what is the point?
To declare yourself "posh" is utter infra dig In fact a pragmatic self-refutation
Also, you can't make yourself posh in one generation. It probably takes at least two.
It's a bit like being genuinely Cornish, in that sense.
Interesting.
When people accuse me of being a toff/posh I argue that I am the grandson of immigrants, how an earth can I be a toff/posh?
Could depend on the nature of the immigration.
On the grand poshness debate I just tend to think someone must engage in what are generally perceived as elitist activities (itself a thorny debate), and additionally exude a strong sense of personal entitlement and expectation of being accommodated by others.
I've been called posh but I maintain i just have a stilted, overly formal manner of speech. I'm headed to breakfast in a Wetherspoons, I can't be posh.
And very interestingly not a single word on the BBC news app about the post office enquiry. The story appears nowhere.
Perhaps these quasi-government run institutions realise that they are all rotten to the core and don't want to be poked.
It's on the front page of the UK news on the website. Too much Royal, stabbings, and Holyrood for it to be on the overall front page, I expect. Ongoing story and all that.
So, your theory is that, after weeks of extensive coverage, one day of the story not being on the app (but still being on the website) proves that “these quasi-government run institutions realise that they are all rotten to the core and don't want to be poked”?
Yep. There was the Panorama prog nearly ten years ago, but they have always been "rogue". It's mainly been Computer Weekly and Nick Wallis with the odd input from the private media (Mail, Telegraph, etc).
Like all such institutions the BBC is only too well aware of how rotten practices can flourish or be "overlooked". They tried some diversionary tactics by making a prog about Savile but the culture remains.
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
How are these confused? It could be terrible for those people who are sent *and* ineffective in deterring boat crossings.
If you're using terror to describe the prospect of a handful of people (if it all) being sent to Rwanda for their claims to be processed, whilst meanwhile millions are genuinely terrorised by awful regimes in hellholes around the world, then you're just posturing.
That is whataboutery of the highest order. You are effectively arguing that the UK government should have carte blanche to do anything because there are awful regimes elsewhere in the world.
No. Firstly I don't think there's anything unethical about it at all and the objection is, essentially, that it strikes at their beloved principle of open borders, which they'd like everyone to work closer towards worldwide. And they're fishing around for the best lines to undermine it. And struggling.
They are far more comfortable attacking Western governments because that doesn't complicate their identity-politics skewed theory of cultural relativism, plus they don't hit back and it reaps more social and professional rewards, so it's a triple whammy.
I have so little respect for posturing narcissists who at heart are basically sheeple, not capable of their own independent thought, and essentially cowardly. It's unreal.
What is Jeremy Hunt's game in the Bank of England reportedly 'selling at a loss'? Is he making the country take a hit artificially to make it seem that national debt is being reduced responsibly?
The former chancellor said quantitative easing, under which the Bank of England created £895bn of money to buy bonds, “was a necessary policy to get us out of the financial crash, and contributed to the fastest recovery of any G7 economy”.
He added that it was “not my responsibility” to oversee the present status of the scheme, which is costing the Exchequer tens of billions of pounds because of an agreement with the Bank that losses should be borne by the taxpayer.
The policy began in the financial crisis, holding down borrowing costs for the government, injecting liquidity into financial markets and, initially, making a profit for the Bank.
In 2012 Osborne transferred profits from the scheme to the Treasury, lowering the Exchequer’s borrowing requirements – but agreeing, as part of this deal, to also bear the weight of any losses in future.
However, higher interest rates and lower bond values mean the Bank is now losing money on the scheme.
As a result, in the past year the Treasury has transferred £44bn to the Bank to cover the losses. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expects an overall net cost to the public purse of more than £100bn. https://archive.ph/K1yKN
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
Some of us simply find it an extraordinarily badly planned project with no realistic scope of working beyond a few hundred migrants a year. Horrendously expensive for the results.
It's Groundnut Scheme level thinking.
Once upon a time, Tories supported (a) prudence in public spending (b) the rule of law (UK) (c) the rule of law (international).
Nah, it's Guardianista virtue-signalling circle-jerk masturbation for social and professional acceptance reasons.
We all know this. So do you.
Wokehunting Guardian-baiting, as an afterthought, excuses a shambles of massive legal, financial, organizational and political incompetence, just like that?
The lack of awareness by some politicians is jaw dropping . So the dog and goat killer from South Dakota thought it would show how strong she was . Instead it shows levels of cruelty that might be too much even for Trump to pick her as his VP nominee .
Given what Trump gets away with, whining and moaning like a literal toddler all the time and yet seen as tough and effective by his base, I can understand people getting confused. But he is pretty unique, others going big and weird just look pathetic.
To declare yourself "posh" is utter infra dig In fact a pragmatic self-refutation
Also, you can't make yourself posh in one generation. It probably takes at least two.
It's a bit like being genuinely Cornish, in that sense.
Interesting.
When people accuse me of being a toff/posh I argue that I am the grandson of immigrants, how an earth can I be a toff/posh?
Could depend on the nature of the immigration.
On the grand poshness debate I just tend to think someone must engage in what are generally perceived as elitist activities (itself a thorny debate), and additionally exude a strong sense of personal entitlement and expectation of being accommodated by others.
I've been called posh but I maintain i just have a stilted, overly formal manner of speech. I'm headed to breakfast in a Wetherspoons, I can't be posh.
A certain kind of posh loves Spoons, because you can get utterly bladdered for a tenner. The key bit about posh being to not give a stuff.
If you worry about what class you are, you're almost certainly middle.
Stephen Timms, the chair of an influential parliamentary committee, said he was “very troubled” that scores of carers were being forced into financial distress as a result of the government’s mistakes.
He said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) should be “helping them not harassing them” and added: “It does sound to me as though things are going quite badly wrong at the moment.”
Timms, the chair of the Commons work and pensions committee and the Labour MP for East Ham, told BBC Radio 4’s Money Box programme that the DWP seemed to “completely ignore” the notifications it received when an unpaid carer earned more than the £151-a-week limit.
Instead, he said, the department was allowing people to incur “enormous accidental overpayments”, often over several years. In dozens of cases these bills have totalled more than £20,000.
The Guardian revealed this week that 156,000 unpaid carers are now repaying severe penalties – pushing many into debt or financial distress – for often unwittingly overstepping the small earnings limit while caring for a loved one. Roughly one in five unpaid carers in part-time work breached the earnings limit last year...
These are likely people struggling to cope without such government action. And likely save government huge costs by keeping those they care for out of care homes.
Such incompetence from the DWP, coupled with draconian punishment, is likely to cost the government financially as well as morally.
Dealing with means tested benefits isn't an easy problem, but they're getting this one very wrong.
To be honest, in the scheme of things it's such a small payment, compared to the cost of the state having to care for the person, and the fact that the claimant has to be the equivalent of a full time carer (35 hours a week), I'm surprised it has to be means tested.
Strictly speaking Carers Allowance is a non means tested benefit. You can have a £million in the bank and receive it.
What you can't do is earn from employment in a single week more than the ludicrously low figure of £151.
My blood was boiling when someone on MoneyBox pointed out that the increase in the threshold of the £151 limit (which goes up a bit each year) had not taken into account that the minimum wage had gone up so much this year.
Two parts of government not working at all together.
Just bloody stupid.
Interestingly, as a carer, I received a letter this week reminding me of the £151 limit.
Coincidence?
Or has someone at senior level in DWP said - "get a letter out quick".
If carers couldn't possibly work 35 hours a week and earn more than £151, surely that should also apply to MPs and their second jobs?
"England, Wales and Scotland all now in favour of Irish unification, research shows The 2023 State of the Union survey examines attitudes towards constitutional issues in the UK"
"There are different reasons in different parts of the UK explaining the views taken about Northern Ireland leaving the Union. In England, it’s probably more the ‘bugger off’ variety. In Scotland, it’s probably, ‘Go and live your best life’."
Lol.
Extremely misleading headline from the Irish Times. It was not even a straight poll but sliding scale where English voters put themselves at just +0.9 out of 10 on accepting Irish unity.
In any case it is up to Northern Irish voters ultimately and most polls show they still want to stay in the UK
@Casino - "In Scotland, it’s probably, ‘Go and live your best life’." See the horrible song "The Famine's Over" by the Thornlie Boys.
@HYUFD - It isn't only up to NI voters, because for Irish reunification there would have to be favourable results in referendums on both sides of the border.
It's hard to imagine an actual route to reunification that would result in Irish people from the 6C and the 26C having exactly the same set of rights.
After Brexit, people from NI and GB don't have the same set of rights either, but there's not a huge amount of awareness of that fact in GB. This wouldn't apply if it were the 6C and 26C and one of the rights was British citizenship (and therefore treatment on the NHS in GB).
What is Jeremy Hunt's game in the Bank of England reportedly 'selling at a loss'? Is he making the country take a hit artificially to make it seem that national debt is being reduced responsibly?
The former chancellor said quantitative easing, under which the Bank of England created £895bn of money to buy bonds, “was a necessary policy to get us out of the financial crash, and contributed to the fastest recovery of any G7 economy”.
He added that it was “not my responsibility” to oversee the present status of the scheme, which is costing the Exchequer tens of billions of pounds because of an agreement with the Bank that losses should be borne by the taxpayer.
The policy began in the financial crisis, holding down borrowing costs for the government, injecting liquidity into financial markets and, initially, making a profit for the Bank.
In 2012 Osborne transferred profits from the scheme to the Treasury, lowering the Exchequer’s borrowing requirements – but agreeing, as part of this deal, to also bear the weight of any losses in future.
However, higher interest rates and lower bond values mean the Bank is now losing money on the scheme.
As a result, in the past year the Treasury has transferred £44bn to the Bank to cover the losses. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expects an overall net cost to the public purse of more than £100bn.
Was just another wealth transfer from working taxpayers to rich asset owners, typically middle aged and elderly (once) Tory voters.
Stephen Timms, the chair of an influential parliamentary committee, said he was “very troubled” that scores of carers were being forced into financial distress as a result of the government’s mistakes.
He said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) should be “helping them not harassing them” and added: “It does sound to me as though things are going quite badly wrong at the moment.”
Timms, the chair of the Commons work and pensions committee and the Labour MP for East Ham, told BBC Radio 4’s Money Box programme that the DWP seemed to “completely ignore” the notifications it received when an unpaid carer earned more than the £151-a-week limit.
Instead, he said, the department was allowing people to incur “enormous accidental overpayments”, often over several years. In dozens of cases these bills have totalled more than £20,000.
The Guardian revealed this week that 156,000 unpaid carers are now repaying severe penalties – pushing many into debt or financial distress – for often unwittingly overstepping the small earnings limit while caring for a loved one. Roughly one in five unpaid carers in part-time work breached the earnings limit last year...
These are likely people struggling to cope without such government action. And likely save government huge costs by keeping those they care for out of care homes.
Such incompetence from the DWP, coupled with draconian punishment, is likely to cost the government financially as well as morally.
Dealing with means tested benefits isn't an easy problem, but they're getting this one very wrong.
To be honest, in the scheme of things it's such a small payment, compared to the cost of the state having to care for the person, and the fact that the claimant has to be the equivalent of a full time carer (35 hours a week), I'm surprised it has to be means tested.
Strictly speaking Carers Allowance is a non means tested benefit. You can have a £million in the bank and receive it.
What you can't do is earn from employment in a single week more than the ludicrously low figure of £151.
My blood was boiling when someone on MoneyBox pointed out that the increase in the threshold of the £151 limit (which goes up a bit each year) had not taken into account that the minimum wage had gone up so much this year.
Two parts of government not working at all together.
Just bloody stupid.
Interestingly, as a carer, I received a letter this week reminding me of the £151 limit.
Coincidence?
Or has someone at senior level in DWP said - "get a letter out quick".
That's just plain weird. I realise it's an "allowance" not a substitute wage, but its very low for someone who is devoting at least 35 hours a week to caring, 35 hours when they are unable to undertake paid work. Obviously during the minimun 35 hours someone is doing their "caring" they won't be working, but we all know those that need care don't just need it say, between 9 and 5 so why on earth can't the carer be able to work and earn more than £151 a week? And anyway, if someone was working as for example a therapist, they could earn that much in an an hour or two a week and still be devoting the rest of their week to caring. And many (most?) carers will be caring for much more than 35 hours a week, I would imagine often through the night.
Like most of these payments/allowances/benefits, so much doesn't make sense.
Stephen Timms, the chair of an influential parliamentary committee, said he was “very troubled” that scores of carers were being forced into financial distress as a result of the government’s mistakes.
He said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) should be “helping them not harassing them” and added: “It does sound to me as though things are going quite badly wrong at the moment.”
Timms, the chair of the Commons work and pensions committee and the Labour MP for East Ham, told BBC Radio 4’s Money Box programme that the DWP seemed to “completely ignore” the notifications it received when an unpaid carer earned more than the £151-a-week limit.
Instead, he said, the department was allowing people to incur “enormous accidental overpayments”, often over several years. In dozens of cases these bills have totalled more than £20,000.
The Guardian revealed this week that 156,000 unpaid carers are now repaying severe penalties – pushing many into debt or financial distress – for often unwittingly overstepping the small earnings limit while caring for a loved one. Roughly one in five unpaid carers in part-time work breached the earnings limit last year...
These are likely people struggling to cope without such government action. And likely save government huge costs by keeping those they care for out of care homes.
Such incompetence from the DWP, coupled with draconian punishment, is likely to cost the government financially as well as morally.
Dealing with means tested benefits isn't an easy problem, but they're getting this one very wrong.
To be honest, in the scheme of things it's such a small payment, compared to the cost of the state having to care for the person, and the fact that the claimant has to be the equivalent of a full time carer (35 hours a week), I'm surprised it has to be means tested.
Strictly speaking Carers Allowance is a non means tested benefit. You can have a £million in the bank and receive it.
What you can't do is earn from employment in a single week more than the ludicrously low figure of £151.
My blood was boiling when someone on MoneyBox pointed out that the increase in the threshold of the £151 limit (which goes up a bit each year) had not taken into account that the minimum wage had gone up so much this year.
Two parts of government not working at all together.
Just bloody stupid.
Interestingly, as a carer, I received a letter this week reminding me of the £151 limit.
Coincidence?
Or has someone at senior level in DWP said - "get a letter out quick".
If carers couldn't possibly work 35 hours a week and earn more than £151, surely that should also apply to MPs and their second jobs?
I doubt the first part of it would be an issue. Non-executive director gigs abound for 8 hours a month or whatever, for the well connected person. A bit better remunerated though.
First Minister Humza Yousaf has left the Greens – and indeed the more progressive wing of the independence movement – feeling shocked and betrayed, and it is easy to see why. That said, it’s important to take stock of what this means for the great moral and human question of the current time – that is, the genocide in Gaza.
Stephen Timms, the chair of an influential parliamentary committee, said he was “very troubled” that scores of carers were being forced into financial distress as a result of the government’s mistakes.
He said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) should be “helping them not harassing them” and added: “It does sound to me as though things are going quite badly wrong at the moment.”
Timms, the chair of the Commons work and pensions committee and the Labour MP for East Ham, told BBC Radio 4’s Money Box programme that the DWP seemed to “completely ignore” the notifications it received when an unpaid carer earned more than the £151-a-week limit.
Instead, he said, the department was allowing people to incur “enormous accidental overpayments”, often over several years. In dozens of cases these bills have totalled more than £20,000.
The Guardian revealed this week that 156,000 unpaid carers are now repaying severe penalties – pushing many into debt or financial distress – for often unwittingly overstepping the small earnings limit while caring for a loved one. Roughly one in five unpaid carers in part-time work breached the earnings limit last year...
These are likely people struggling to cope without such government action. And likely save government huge costs by keeping those they care for out of care homes.
Such incompetence from the DWP, coupled with draconian punishment, is likely to cost the government financially as well as morally.
Dealing with means tested benefits isn't an easy problem, but they're getting this one very wrong.
To be honest, in the scheme of things it's such a small payment, compared to the cost of the state having to care for the person, and the fact that the claimant has to be the equivalent of a full time carer (35 hours a week), I'm surprised it has to be means tested.
Strictly speaking Carers Allowance is a non means tested benefit. You can have a £million in the bank and receive it.
What you can't do is earn from employment in a single week more than the ludicrously low figure of £151.
My blood was boiling when someone on MoneyBox pointed out that the increase in the threshold of the £151 limit (which goes up a bit each year) had not taken into account that the minimum wage had gone up so much this year.
Two parts of government not working at all together.
Just bloody stupid.
Interestingly, as a carer, I received a letter this week reminding me of the £151 limit.
Coincidence?
Or has someone at senior level in DWP said - "get a letter out quick".
That's just plain weird. I realise it's an "allowance" not a substitute wage, but its very low for someone who is devoting at least 35 hours a week to caring, 35 hours when they are unable to undertake paid work. Obviously during the minimun 35 hours someone is doing their "caring" they won't be working, but we all know those that need care don't just need it say, between 9 and 5 so why on earth can't the carer be able to work and earn more than £151 a week? And anyway, if someone was working as for example a therapist, they could earn that much in an an hour or two a week and still be devoting the rest of their week to caring. And many (most?) carers will be caring for much more than 35 hours a week, I would imagine often through the night.
Like most of these payments/allowances/benefits, so much doesn't make sense.
How very odd. I checked out of curiosity, and £151 on currenbt minimum wage (adult) is (now?) 13.2 hours' work. Not even a round two days' work either. Still less sense ...
To declare yourself "posh" is utter infra dig In fact a pragmatic self-refutation
Also, you can't make yourself posh in one generation. It probably takes at least two.
It's a bit like being genuinely Cornish, in that sense.
Interesting.
When people accuse me of being a toff/posh I argue that I am the grandson of immigrants, how an earth can I be a toff/posh?
Could depend on the nature of the immigration.
On the grand poshness debate I just tend to think someone must engage in what are generally perceived as elitist activities (itself a thorny debate), and additionally exude a strong sense of personal entitlement and expectation of being accommodated by others.
I've been called posh but I maintain i just have a stilted, overly formal manner of speech. I'm headed to breakfast in a Wetherspoons, I can't be posh.
A certain kind of posh loves Spoons, because you can get utterly bladdered for a tenner. The key bit about posh being to not give a stuff.
If you worry about what class you are, you're almost certainly middle.
I think you have to take account of the phenomenon that within a group you'll get a subset who strongly hold the opposite to general position.
So we might regard the posh as generally very comfortable with systemic matters (since they never have to worry about them), but of course some of the poshest people around are the most radically and performatively anti system, because they are so comfortable they don't need to worry.
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
How are these confused? It could be terrible for those people who are sent *and* ineffective in deterring boat crossings.
Bluntly, it's a numbers game.
Visibly set up accommodation for ten thousand in Kigali, show that a high-throughput immigration court system is in place, have two jumbo jets a day on standby, have an open-ended contract... then you have a deterrent that won't be overwhelmed on Day One.
The government has done none of those things. In part because it doesn't want to spend the money
People who bang on about the Brilliant Australian System haven't noticed that the UK's version is a cargo cult version, a Potemkin village. There's not enough reality behind it to make it work on its own terms.
And if all we do is send a token number of doubly unfortunates to Africa, what is the point?
Bluntly it's not even that. It's a money game. The Rwandans are in this to extort every penny out of a desperate UK government. So far they have been very successful in raking in hundreds of millions of pounds for doing essentially nothing at all with a realistic expectation of the money taps being kept on for the foreseeable future.
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
Some of us simply find it an extraordinarily badly planned project with no realistic scope of working beyond a few hundred migrants a year. Horrendously expensive for the results.
It's Groundnut Scheme level thinking.
Once upon a time, Tories supported (a) prudence in public spending (b) the rule of law (UK) (c) the rule of law (international).
Nah, it's Guardianista virtue-signalling circle-jerk masturbation for social and professional acceptance reasons.
We all know this. So do you.
Wokehunting Guardian-baiting, as an afterthought, excuses a shambles of massive legal, financial, organizational and political incompetence, just like that?
If it worked, and was competently executed, then the criticism would then shift overnight to how it was morally and ethically bankrupt.
I think video shows quite a few of the serious problems with the US road system - for example vehicles parked hard against almost all of the crosswalks preventing a clear view of and for pedestrians.
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
Some of us simply find it an extraordinarily badly planned project with no realistic scope of working beyond a few hundred migrants a year. Horrendously expensive for the results.
It's Groundnut Scheme level thinking.
Once upon a time, Tories supported (a) prudence in public spending (b) the rule of law (UK) (c) the rule of law (international).
Nah, it's Guardianista virtue-signalling circle-jerk masturbation for social and professional acceptance reasons.
We all know this. So do you.
Wokehunting Guardian-baiting, as an afterthought, excuses a shambles of massive legal, financial, organizational and political incompetence, just like that?
If it worked, and was competently executed, then the criticism would then shift overnight to how it was morally and ethically bankrupt.
No, I'm not having that. You'ree complaining right now about the latter complaining happening now. You can't pick and choose.
According to Nancy Mitford the key distinction is 'U' and 'Non-U'. She was posh so she would know. Anyone who has ever been to the 'toilet', looked in a 'mirror' or said 'pardon' is not, and never could be, U. For avoidance of doubt I am neither U nor Posh, though in my council house childhood we did consider ourselves superior to the neighbours who stocked their garden with rusty car parts.
@AndyJS recently raised the intriguing prospect of TRUSS returning as Prime Minister, a bold yet tantalising prospect.
My consideration was whether she could become Thin Controllix of Great British Railways, as a midway station to her premiership, putting her back on track to Number 10.
"England, Wales and Scotland all now in favour of Irish unification, research shows The 2023 State of the Union survey examines attitudes towards constitutional issues in the UK"
"There are different reasons in different parts of the UK explaining the views taken about Northern Ireland leaving the Union. In England, it’s probably more the ‘bugger off’ variety. In Scotland, it’s probably, ‘Go and live your best life’."
Lol.
Extremely misleading headline from the Irish Times. It was not even a straight poll but sliding scale where English voters put themselves at just +0.9 out of 10 on accepting Irish unity.
In any case it is up to Northern Irish voters ultimately and most polls show they still want to stay in the UK
@Casino - "In Scotland, it’s probably, ‘Go and live your best life’." See the horrible song "The Famine's Over" by the Thornlie Boys.
@HYUFD - It isn't only up to NI voters, because for Irish reunification there would have to be favourable results in referendums on both sides of the border.
It's hard to imagine an actual route to reunification that would result in Irish people from the 6C and the 26C having exactly the same set of rights.
After Brexit, people from NI and GB don't have the same set of rights either, but there's not a huge amount of awareness of that fact in GB. This wouldn't apply if it were the 6C and 26C and one of the rights was British citizenship (and therefore treatment on the NHS in GB).
Under British law it is illegal to treat Irish citizens as foreigners. British law recognises them as British for all intents and purposes.
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
How are these confused? It could be terrible for those people who are sent *and* ineffective in deterring boat crossings.
Bluntly, it's a numbers game.
Visibly set up accommodation for ten thousand in Kigali, show that a high-throughput immigration court system is in place, have two jumbo jets a day on standby, have an open-ended contract... then you have a deterrent that won't be overwhelmed on Day One.
The government has done none of those things. In part because it doesn't want to spend the money
People who bang on about the Brilliant Australian System haven't noticed that the UK's version is a cargo cult version, a Potemkin village. There's not enough reality behind it to make it work on its own terms.
And if all we do is send a token number of doubly unfortunates to Africa, what is the point?
Bluntly it's not even that. It's a money game. The Rwandans are in this to extort every penny out of a desperate UK government. So far they have been very successful in raking in hundreds of millions of pounds for doing essentially nothing at all with a realistic expectation of the money taps being kept on for the foreseeable future.
Who are the human traffickers in all this?
My guess is a Labour government will stop sending unfortunates to Rwanda but will have to deal with the ones already there. The Rwandan government will keep ratcheting up the price.
This would follow the same Nauru/Australia playbook.
The Rwanda Bill might work , we don’t know yet , doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. As for the right trying to dupe people that other European countries think it’s a great idea and want to replicate it. The media fail to point out that the marked difference is they envisage a possibility of processing asylum seekers in other countries , if their claim is successful they return to that European country .
The UK has absolved itself of its responsibilities , it now is effectively almost impossible to claim asylum in the UK because even those who come by boats and are genuine go to Rwanda and stay there .
And if the policy doesn’t work you will end up with chaos , with no legal way to process the people. Again the media have been pathetic at pointing this out .
To declare yourself "posh" is utter infra dig In fact a pragmatic self-refutation
Also, you can't make yourself posh in one generation. It probably takes at least two.
It's a bit like being genuinely Cornish, in that sense.
Interesting.
When people accuse me of being a toff/posh I argue that I am the grandson of immigrants, how an earth can I be a toff/posh?
Could depend on the nature of the immigration.
On the grand poshness debate I just tend to think someone must engage in what are generally perceived as elitist activities (itself a thorny debate), and additionally exude a strong sense of personal entitlement and expectation of being accommodated by others.
I've been called posh but I maintain i just have a stilted, overly formal manner of speech. I'm headed to breakfast in a Wetherspoons, I can't be posh.
A certain kind of posh loves Spoons, because you can get utterly bladdered for a tenner. The key bit about posh being to not give a stuff.
If you worry about what class you are, you're almost certainly middle.
I think you have to take account of the phenomenon that within a group you'll get a subset who strongly hold the opposite to general position.
So we might regard the posh as generally very comfortable with systemic matters (since they never have to worry about them), but of course some of the poshest people around are the most radically and performatively anti system, because they are so comfortable they don't need to worry.
Leaving the middle to be married to the system with their entire being, like little cardboard cutouts of systemness - maybe not surprising given they are the face of it in the daily lives of the majority.
According to Nancy Mitford the key distinction is 'U' and 'Non-U'. She was posh so she would know. Anyone who has ever been to the 'toilet', looked in a 'mirror' or said 'pardon' is not, and never could be, U. For avoidance of doubt I am neither U nor Posh, though in my council house childhood we did consider ourselves superior to the neighbours who stocked their garden with rusty car parts.
Jessica Mitford was the best of the Mitford sisters by far.
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
Some of us simply find it an extraordinarily badly planned project with no realistic scope of working beyond a few hundred migrants a year. Horrendously expensive for the results.
It's Groundnut Scheme level thinking.
Once upon a time, Tories supported (a) prudence in public spending (b) the rule of law (UK) (c) the rule of law (international).
Nah, it's Guardianista virtue-signalling circle-jerk masturbation for social and professional acceptance reasons.
We all know this. So do you.
Wokehunting Guardian-baiting, as an afterthought, excuses a shambles of massive legal, financial, organizational and political incompetence, just like that?
If it worked, and was competently executed, then the criticism would then shift overnight to how it was morally and ethically bankrupt.
No, I'm not having that. You'ree complaining right now about the latter complaining happening now. You can't pick and choose.
Your compatriots right now are trying to pursue both arguments in parallel, as they fish around for the one most likely to be politically effective in landing a blow.
I wouldn't have it either, if I didn't find it so pathetic. A bit like your post.
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
Some of us simply find it an extraordinarily badly planned project with no realistic scope of working beyond a few hundred migrants a year. Horrendously expensive for the results.
It's Groundnut Scheme level thinking.
Once upon a time, Tories supported (a) prudence in public spending (b) the rule of law (UK) (c) the rule of law (international).
Nah, it's Guardianista virtue-signalling circle-jerk masturbation for social and professional acceptance reasons.
We all know this. So do you.
The Conservatives are languishing in the polls and to work out why, I think it’s valuable to examine Casino Royale’s post here.
First, CR argues by assertion, ‘it’s right because I say it’s right’. This echoes the Conservative government passing an act to say Rwanda is safe, irrespective of the facts.
Secondly, CR tries to link the debate to the culture wars by throwing in “virtue-signalling”. The Tories have repeatedly tried the same, but it’s not proven popular with the voters.
Thirdly, there’s no attempt at polite discourse here. It’s just straight to the insults, ‘owning the libs’. This is also failing to be attractive to the electorate.
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
Some of us simply find it an extraordinarily badly planned project with no realistic scope of working beyond a few hundred migrants a year. Horrendously expensive for the results.
It's Groundnut Scheme level thinking.
Once upon a time, Tories supported (a) prudence in public spending (b) the rule of law (UK) (c) the rule of law (international).
Nah, it's Guardianista virtue-signalling circle-jerk masturbation for social and professional acceptance reasons.
We all know this. So do you.
The Conservatives are languishing in the polls and to work out why, I think it’s valuable to examine Casino Royale’s post here.
First, CR argues by assertion, ‘it’s right because I say it’s right’. This echoes the Conservative government passing an act to say Rwanda is safe, irrespective of the facts.
Secondly, CR tries to link the debate to the culture wars by throwing in “virtue-signalling”. The Tories have repeatedly tried the same, but it’s not proven popular with the voters.
Thirdly, there’s no attempt at polite discourse here. It’s just straight to the insults, ‘owning the libs’. This is also failing to be attractive to the electorate.
What a lot of rubbish. I've said that (a) the visceral reaction to it is because the UN, charities and refugees themselves fear it might be effective and that (b) that's because they favour open borders and have a strange sense of cultural relativism.
Their real worry is that they know this offer might prove very popular with the voters, if it worked, and hence all the moves to strangle it at birth.
If you think the same tough choices don't await SKS in a few months time then I've got a bridge to sell you.
First Minister Humza Yousaf has left the Greens – and indeed the more progressive wing of the independence movement – feeling shocked and betrayed, and it is easy to see why. That said, it’s important to take stock of what this means for the great moral and human question of the current time – that is, the genocide in Gaza.
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
Some of us simply find it an extraordinarily badly planned project with no realistic scope of working beyond a few hundred migrants a year. Horrendously expensive for the results.
It's Groundnut Scheme level thinking.
Once upon a time, Tories supported (a) prudence in public spending (b) the rule of law (UK) (c) the rule of law (international).
Nah, it's Guardianista virtue-signalling circle-jerk masturbation for social and professional acceptance reasons.
We all know this. So do you.
The Conservatives are languishing in the polls and to work out why, I think it’s valuable to examine Casino Royale’s post here.
First, CR argues by assertion, ‘it’s right because I say it’s right’. This echoes the Conservative government passing an act to say Rwanda is safe, irrespective of the facts.
Secondly, CR tries to link the debate to the culture wars by throwing in “virtue-signalling”. The Tories have repeatedly tried the same, but it’s not proven popular with the voters.
Thirdly, there’s no attempt at polite discourse here. It’s just straight to the insults, ‘owning the libs’. This is also failing to be attractive to the electorate.
What a lot of rubbish. I've said that (a) the visceral reaction to it is because the UN, charities and refugees themselves fear it might be effective and that (b) that's because they favour open borders and have a strange sense of cultural relativism.
Their real worry is that they know this offer might prove very popular with the voters, if it worked, and hence all the moves to strangle it at birth.
If you think the same tough choices don't await SKS in a few months time then I've got a bridge to sell you.
Here's the thing though.
There's a kind of revolting woke/Corbynite lefty who simply refuses to believe that their enemies have a sincere point at all. Whatever people on the right say, deep down it's because they are bad people- cruel and selfish.
That's overwhelmingly mostly not true. Most Conservatives aren't nasty people, lots of them are quietly doing things to make their community, nation and world better. Even Sunak means well, I think- he is just so ignorant about most of the world that his ideas are bad ones.
For a long time, one of the attractive things about right wing thinking was the trope that the left think the right are evil, the right think the left are mistaken. Always an oversimplification, but with some truth to it. One of the reasons that Butler-Butskellians have left the blue team is the rise of a kind of right wing Corbynism.
Is it really so awful to default to assuming that arguments against the UK government's plan are being made in good faith?
"Also in the campaign period at least 1 flight will take off for Rwanda, perhaps more with one on eve of polling. ....... The Rwanda flights will return Ref voters back to the Conservatives. You can say recent polling on Rwanda doesn’t suggest the Rwanda flights will generate a stampede of Ref back to Con, and I will laugh at you because that hypothetical polling is a poor predictive measure for how humans radically change their views once elections are called and Rwanda flights are happening."
I can see the headline: 50 Flown to Rwanda, 500 more come over the Channel
Which rather suggests that the the government don’t actually want ANY flights to take off. They want to replicate the anger around Brexit with the anger that the Rwanda plan is being thwarted by the blob, and used that as Johnson used Brexit. So arguably if you want the Tories to lose, and you are involved in refugee claims in court, don’t block the flights… As you have outlined, there will be far more coming than going.
Though some people (52%) actually thought that Brexit was a good idea, no one, well almost no one, thinks Rwanda is other than a very expensive gimmick.
There's a real fear it might work. Hence all the attacks on it by the UN, third sector and refugee charities. They are worried it will set a precedent.
This explains their confused attack lines: they seamlessly switch from its terrible to it will make no difference at all and back again.
Some of us simply find it an extraordinarily badly planned project with no realistic scope of working beyond a few hundred migrants a year. Horrendously expensive for the results.
It's Groundnut Scheme level thinking.
Once upon a time, Tories supported (a) prudence in public spending (b) the rule of law (UK) (c) the rule of law (international).
Nah, it's Guardianista virtue-signalling circle-jerk masturbation for social and professional acceptance reasons.
We all know this. So do you.
The Conservatives are languishing in the polls and to work out why, I think it’s valuable to examine Casino Royale’s post here.
First, CR argues by assertion, ‘it’s right because I say it’s right’. This echoes the Conservative government passing an act to say Rwanda is safe, irrespective of the facts.
Secondly, CR tries to link the debate to the culture wars by throwing in “virtue-signalling”. The Tories have repeatedly tried the same, but it’s not proven popular with the voters.
Thirdly, there’s no attempt at polite discourse here. It’s just straight to the insults, ‘owning the libs’. This is also failing to be attractive to the electorate.
What a lot of rubbish. I've said that (a) the visceral reaction to it is because the UN, charities and refugees themselves fear it might be effective and that (b) that's because they favour open borders and have a strange sense of cultural relativism.
Their real worry is that they know this offer might prove very popular with the voters, if it worked, and hence all the moves to strangle it at birth.
If you think the same tough choices don't await SKS in a few months time then I've got a bridge to sell you.
Can we pick this apart a little? "The UN, charities and refugees themselves fear it might be effective". Which bit of the UN, which charities etc? The UN very much wants to STOP mass refugee events and the crises they create. You suggest that they favour "open borders" the context of millions fleeing war and poverty and then ending up stuck in giant refugee camps being tended to by the UN. You think the UN actually want to be on the hook feeding millions of refugees? really?
The key to this is "if it worked" and as all the experts in every related field have pointed out - it can't work because structurally its bonkers.
You have linked the "deport them to Rwanda" policy as being opposed by a globalist cabal - the UN, charities, refugees - who apparently want refugees. So is their fear that every refugees globally might end up sent to Rwanda?
Lets just look at the asylum seekers in the UK. There's c. 100,000 already here, with more arriving every day in sizeable numbers. So call it 120,000 on the basis that "Rwanda works" and people stop arriving.
Rwanda can't take 120,000 We can't process 120,000 through the courts We can't intern 120,000 prior to them going to court We can't process the 120,000's applications due to a lack of money and resources in the Home Office We can't keep track of 120,000 after booking their arrival. We lose them.
So the rather basic problem with you/Leon endlessly championing the policy is that the policy was written in crayon to appeal to morons. You two aren't morons, yet suck it up like you are.
Comments
Happily or sadly it doesn't work like that.
Actually sadly imo because it's a stupid term and if people want to self-identity as posh who are we to say they shouldn't.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk
Off out now, but I do get a slight enjoyment from the nominative determinism of Nadine Dorries anagrams.
- Ordained Siren.
- Darned Noisier.
- Deniers in Road.
- Inane Disorder.
And more.
What you can't do is earn from employment in a single week more than the ludicrously low figure of £151.
My blood was boiling when someone on MoneyBox pointed out that the increase in the threshold of the £151 limit (which goes up a bit each year) had not taken into account that the minimum wage had gone up so much this year.
Two parts of government not working at all together.
Just bloody stupid.
Interestingly, as a carer, I received a letter this week reminding me of the £151 limit.
Coincidence?
Or has someone at senior level in DWP said - "get a letter out quick".
It's Groundnut Scheme level thinking.
Once upon a time, Tories supported (a) prudence in public spending (b) the rule of law (UK) (c) the rule of law (international).
Add that rule to the one that says nothing in life is inevitable but death and taxes.
We all know this. So do you.
Visibly set up accommodation for ten thousand in Kigali, show that a high-throughput immigration court system is in place, have two jumbo jets a day on standby, have an open-ended contract... then you have a deterrent that won't be overwhelmed on Day One.
The government has done none of those things. In part because it doesn't want to spend the money
People who bang on about the Brilliant Australian System haven't noticed that the UK's version is a cargo cult version, a Potemkin village. There's not enough reality behind it to make it work on its own terms.
And if all we do is send a token number of doubly unfortunates to Africa, what is the point?
On the grand poshness debate I just tend to think someone must engage in what are generally perceived as elitist activities (itself a thorny debate), and additionally exude a strong sense of personal entitlement and expectation of being accommodated by others.
I've been called posh but I maintain i just have a stilted, overly formal manner of speech. I'm headed to breakfast in a Wetherspoons, I can't be posh.
Like all such institutions the BBC is only too well aware of how rotten practices can flourish or be "overlooked". They tried some diversionary tactics by making a prog about Savile but the culture remains.
His grandmother was an aristo, all four of my grandparents were immigrants.
They are far more comfortable attacking Western governments because that doesn't complicate their identity-politics skewed theory of cultural relativism, plus they don't hit back and it reaps more social and professional rewards, so it's a triple whammy.
I have so little respect for posturing narcissists who at heart are basically sheeple, not capable of their own independent thought, and essentially cowardly. It's unreal.
What is Jeremy Hunt's game in the Bank of England reportedly 'selling at a loss'? Is he making the country take a hit artificially to make it seem that national debt is being reduced responsibly?
The former chancellor said quantitative easing, under which the Bank of England created £895bn of money to buy bonds, “was a necessary policy to get us out of the financial crash, and contributed to the fastest recovery of any G7 economy”.
He added that it was “not my responsibility” to oversee the present status of the scheme, which is costing the Exchequer tens of billions of pounds because of an agreement with the Bank that losses should be borne by the taxpayer.
The policy began in the financial crisis, holding down borrowing costs for the government, injecting liquidity into financial markets and, initially, making a profit for the Bank.
In 2012 Osborne transferred profits from the scheme to the Treasury, lowering the Exchequer’s borrowing requirements – but agreeing, as part of this deal, to also bear the weight of any losses in future.
However, higher interest rates and lower bond values mean the Bank is now losing money on the scheme.
As a result, in the past year the Treasury has transferred £44bn to the Bank to cover the losses. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expects an overall net cost to the public purse of more than £100bn.
https://archive.ph/K1yKN
If you worry about what class you are, you're almost certainly middle.
@HYUFD - It isn't only up to NI voters, because for Irish reunification there would have to be favourable results in referendums on both sides of the border.
It's hard to imagine an actual route to reunification that would result in Irish people from the 6C and the 26C having exactly the same set of rights.
After Brexit, people from NI and GB don't have the same set of rights either, but there's not a huge amount of awareness of that fact in GB. This wouldn't apply if it were the 6C and 26C and one of the rights was British citizenship (and therefore treatment on the NHS in GB).
Was just another wealth transfer from working taxpayers to rich asset owners, typically middle aged and elderly (once) Tory voters.
I realise it's an "allowance" not a substitute wage, but its very low for someone who is devoting at least 35 hours a week to caring, 35 hours when they are unable to undertake paid work.
Obviously during the minimun 35 hours someone is doing their "caring" they won't be working, but we all know those that need care don't just need it say, between 9 and 5 so why on earth can't the carer be able to work and earn more than £151 a week? And anyway, if someone was working as for example a therapist, they could earn that much in an an hour or two a week and still be devoting the rest of their week to caring. And many (most?) carers will be caring for much more than 35 hours a week, I would imagine often through
the night.
Like most of these payments/allowances/benefits, so much doesn't make sense.
First Minister Humza Yousaf has left the Greens – and indeed the more progressive wing of the independence movement – feeling shocked and betrayed, and it is easy to see why. That said, it’s important to take stock of what this means for the great moral and human question of the current time – that is, the genocide in Gaza.
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24282585.owen-jones-wrong-people-cheering-snp-crisis/
So we might regard the posh as generally very comfortable with systemic matters (since they never have to worry about them), but of course some of the poshest people around are the most radically and performatively anti system, because they are so comfortable they don't need to worry.
Who are the human traffickers in all this?
NEW THREAD
@AndyJS recently raised the intriguing prospect of TRUSS returning as Prime Minister, a bold yet tantalising prospect.
My consideration was whether she could become Thin Controllix of Great British Railways, as a midway station to her premiership, putting her back on track to Number 10.
No doubt PBers will have their own views.
This would follow the same Nauru/Australia playbook.
The UK has absolved itself of its responsibilities , it now is effectively almost impossible to claim asylum in the UK because even those who come by boats and are genuine go to Rwanda and stay there .
And if the policy doesn’t work you will end up with chaos , with no legal way to process the people. Again the media have been pathetic at pointing this out .
I wouldn't have it either, if I didn't find it so pathetic. A bit like your post.
First, CR argues by assertion, ‘it’s right because I say it’s right’. This echoes the Conservative government passing an act to say Rwanda is safe, irrespective of the facts.
Secondly, CR tries to link the debate to the culture wars by throwing in “virtue-signalling”. The Tories have repeatedly tried the same, but it’s not proven popular with the voters.
Thirdly, there’s no attempt at polite discourse here. It’s just straight to the insults, ‘owning the libs’. This is also failing to be attractive to the electorate.
Their real worry is that they know this offer might prove very popular with the voters, if it worked, and hence all the moves to strangle it at birth.
If you think the same tough choices don't await SKS in a few months time then I've got a bridge to sell you.
Nothing.
Which in a brilliant piece of coincidence is also the level of relevance of Owen Jones these days.
There's a kind of revolting woke/Corbynite lefty who simply refuses to believe that their enemies have a sincere point at all. Whatever people on the right say, deep down it's because they are bad people- cruel and selfish.
That's overwhelmingly mostly not true. Most Conservatives aren't nasty people, lots of them are quietly doing things to make their community, nation and world better. Even Sunak means well, I think- he is just so ignorant about most of the world that his ideas are bad ones.
For a long time, one of the attractive things about right wing thinking was the trope that the left think the right are evil, the right think the left are mistaken. Always an oversimplification, but with some truth to it. One of the reasons that Butler-Butskellians have left the blue team is the rise of a kind of right wing Corbynism.
Is it really so awful to default to assuming that arguments against the UK government's plan are being made in good faith?
The key to this is "if it worked" and as all the experts in every related field have pointed out - it can't work because structurally its bonkers.
You have linked the "deport them to Rwanda" policy as being opposed by a globalist cabal - the UN, charities, refugees - who apparently want refugees. So is their fear that every refugees globally might end up sent to Rwanda?
Lets just look at the asylum seekers in the UK. There's c. 100,000 already here, with more arriving every day in sizeable numbers. So call it 120,000 on the basis that "Rwanda works" and people stop arriving.
Rwanda can't take 120,000
We can't process 120,000 through the courts
We can't intern 120,000 prior to them going to court
We can't process the 120,000's applications due to a lack of money and resources in the Home Office
We can't keep track of 120,000 after booking their arrival. We lose them.
So the rather basic problem with you/Leon endlessly championing the policy is that the policy was written in crayon to appeal to morons. You two aren't morons, yet suck it up like you are.
Why?