Former Real Madrid and Wales star Gareth Bale is part of a US-based consortium's attempt to take over League One club Plymouth Argyle.
Is there any league football club not owned by the Americans, Arabs or Bitcoiners these days? I don't think the Yanks are doing it because they want to sportswash.
Spurs is up for sale at £4-4.5bn according to recent reports and they're likely to achieve that asking price. Investors can see how much money the Glazers have been able to fleece from Man United (£1.25bn paid in dividends to the family) and the value of Liverpool has almost 10x since FSG took over. Buying a smaller club and building it into a Premier League level team is a one way bet. You can bet that the Aston Villa owners will be looking to sell within the next 5-7 years after a £1-2bn value gain is banked.
Football at EPL level is a business and US investors are brilliant at getting maximum value out of British businesses.
Who said life gets dull when you retire. Yesterday a crowd of us went to watch a school friend go up in a Spitfire to celebrate his 70th birthday and today I started my male modelling career. Apparently I was fabulous. 🤮
Cashmere cardies?
I couldn't possibly say. Let's just say I had to get dressed up in some interesting outfits and leave it there.
Apparently I actually get paid as well.
Sounds fab. I will look out for you. I take an interest in those sorts of adverts.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
A lot of people retire below state pension age and use the lump sum to take them through to state pension age. It's hard to argue they "don't need it" and changing the rules in retrospect would be odious.
You should also, presumably, refund their NI contributions
Early retirement is a choice.
It is for most people (although some people have do so so through ill health) but you do your financial planning based on what you entitled to. I front-end loaded what I took from my occupational pension based on the idea I am going to get another £900 a month in 6-7 years time. You can't just suddenly take that away from people
The whole point is that we need to start stopping the "entitlement" culture. You've literally said it there. People feel entitled to retire early because the state doesn't penalise them properly for doing so. It should.
...and the relatively small (by international standards) State Pension...
Be a little wary of the international comparisons. In many countries government workers such as teachers get an enlarged state pension rather than a second, separate pension. Makes the stats hard to compile.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
Have you sat through a PIP assessment or capacity for work interview?
So far I have read the foreword, the executive summary and her personal note. Punchy, especially the last of these.
Just reading it, too.
This surprised me. Of course it could well be as a result of a higher percentage of reporting of incidences in the category, which seems at least plausible. ..In 2023, 39% of suspects were aged 10-15, while 18% were aged 18-29. This younger age profile is likely to be a result of the increase in online offending, child- on-child offending, and increased reporting of offences through schools. ..
This is one recommendation which could be acted upon without delay. Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to 15 year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator. This is due to a ‘grey area’ in the law where, although any sexual activity with 13-15 year-olds is unlawful, the decision on whether to charge, and which offence to charge with, is left more open to interpretation. The purpose is largely aimed at avoiding criminalising someone who reasonably believed a child was older than they were or criminalising relationships between teenagers. But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex. The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-year olds received mandatory charges of rape, mirroring the approach taken in countries like France.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
A lot of people retire below state pension age and use the lump sum to take them through to state pension age. It's hard to argue they "don't need it" and changing the rules in retrospect would be odious.
You should also, presumably, refund their NI contributions
Early retirement is a choice.
It is for most people (although some people have do so so through ill health) but you do your financial planning based on what you entitled to. I front-end loaded what I took from my occupational pension based on the idea I am going to get another £900 a month in 6-7 years time. You can't just suddenly take that away from people
The whole point is that we need to start stopping the "entitlement" culture. You've literally said it there. People feel entitled to retire early because the state doesn't penalise them properly for doing so. It should.
Without wishing to trigger you further, if you ever find yourself in need of state support one of the best places to check is a site called 'EntitledTo'. The reason it is called that is there are various statutory entitlements available which have been agreed by MP's of all hues, over any number of Parliaments going back to Winston Churchill (who was pro-state entitlements) and earlier.
So there is a serious risk to your health continuing to worry about something you will never change as these have been in place since before WW1.
For some time, I have been wondering whether most of Jeffrey Epstein's victims did not have fathers in their lives. That seems likely to me, but I have seen no direct evidence on that possibility.
This excellent header reminds me that I have the same question about the victims in this scandal. Is there any publicly available data on the victims that would answer that question?
(When I was growing up, there was story often told -- and it probably did happen in the US occasionally -- about a first date: The boy comes in and has a talk with the girl's father, while waiting for the girl. Not coincidentally, the father was cleaning his hand gun, while waiting for the boy.)
In one case the step-father (I believe) received a visit from the police.
And was told that if he didn’t stop reporting {thing we can’t talk about} repeatedly, then the police would accuse him (the step-father) of being racist.
The council would then use the anti-social neighbour laws to throw him and the rest of his family out of their council house. With no obligation to house them elsewhere.
So far I have read the foreword, the executive summary and her personal note. Punchy, especially the last of these.
Just reading it, too.
This surprised me. Of course it could well be as a result of a higher percentage of reporting of incidences in the category, which seems at least plausible. ..In 2023, 39% of suspects were aged 10-15, while 18% were aged 18-29. This younger age profile is likely to be a result of the increase in online offending, child- on-child offending, and increased reporting of offences through schools. ..
This is one recommendation which could be acted upon without delay. Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to 15 year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator. This is due to a ‘grey area’ in the law where, although any sexual activity with 13-15 year-olds is unlawful, the decision on whether to charge, and which offence to charge with, is left more open to interpretation. The purpose is largely aimed at avoiding criminalising someone who reasonably believed a child was older than they were or criminalising relationships between teenagers. But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex. The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-year olds received mandatory charges of rape, mirroring the approach taken in countries like France.
The other recommendations will, necessarily, be rather more difficult to effectively implement with any speed. • Implement a more vigorous approach to right the wrongs of the past, bringing more perpetrators to justice, holding agencies to account for past failings and delivering justice for victims. • Improve the information and intelligence we collect and use to inform our approaches to tackling child sexual exploitation. • Ensure we share information more effectively, use information smartly, and apply the best operational approaches across safeguarding agencies.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
Better to treat the cause, not the symptoms.
My experience is that you get two sorts of overpriced consultants in the public sector. Some are doing the core job, expensively, covering a lack of core recruitment. In general, that's fixable, but the main answer (improving core Ts and C's) is anathema to many.
Others are doing things that probably aren't necessary, except to make the pseudo-markets work. Whoever tells heads how to optimise their adverts, or tell Ofsted a good story. Annoying as hell, and obviously candidates for the B Ark. There are savings to be had, but worthwhile not huge.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
Have you sat through a PIP assessment or capacity for work interview?
I have. Several ESA, a DLA and two PIPs.
And I can safely say that "by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes" is utter bollocks in my experience.
I’d just like to congratulate me on my incredible restraint
Indeed. Though as you say, there's no need to you (or me) to talk about the subject now as it finally has the whole country's attention and as I said the only thing I will say about the subject is I hope that all of the victims get justice.
I was clearly referring to my inhuman ability to resist a visit to the Faroes National Museum of Medieval Pew Ends, which is literally only a 40 minute walk away in the rain from where I’m having a coffee
Saw some lovely medieval pew ends in Beverley (the church, not the minster) earlier this year.
But, imagine, Faroese ones! Carvings of trolls, warlocks? You really might be missing something. Get on down.
In all seriousness I tried. I love me a medieval pew end. Who doesn’t? But the Faroese decided to put their national museum on the outskirts of town in a weirdly disguised bunker next to a Lidl depot and it’s not findable on Google maps. And it’s only open about 3 hours a day (so about 2.5 hours longer than the national liquor store)
So I’ve missed it and I fly home tomorrow early
But I don’t care. I’ve seen all the rest of Faroes. I’ve had an absolute blast. It’s a fucking miserable place with terrible weather and surprisingly great food and insanely brooding landscapes and kind, friendly, mildly autistic people
On Saturdays women gather on the main steps of the centre of the capital city - Thorshavn - and they… knit. Literally. That’s the big thing in the capital on weekends. Public knitting
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
The statistics on, for example, employment for people with Schizophrenia are a joke - around 10% of whom are employed, but this 0.5% of the population comes out at around 20% of the prison population, and 500 times more likely to be sleeping rough. I can tell you that the bulk of them, in the current PIP assessment, will be failing to get the necessary 4 points in one descriptor to get any kind of award under the new rules.
Last weekend I was involved in interviewing potential volunteers for an organisation I work with. One potential volunteer was open about their mental health and the interviewers reported back that they asked them how they could possibly volunteer and be receiving NHS mental health services.
The same people were patting themselves on the back for getting the pronouns for another potential volunteer correct. These are the idiots we need to deal with - the people who think the Equality Act 2010 is for their pet projects but not for the mentally ill. Granted they are messier, and more annoying, and more chaotic, but in return are excluded from the workforce, excluded from society, excluded from the economy, excluded from housing, and excluded from any kind of opportunity, with many denied their freedom.
Labour solution - to give more jobs to sane people who will then pretend, for payment, that they believe that the mentally ill are employable whilst simultaneously turning them down for work and opportunities, can only be designed to appeal to people who can't see beyond the end of their own noses. I'm not sure who else Labour could be appealing to these days on any issue.
As long as these idiots are unwilling to include them in the society, they'll just have to pay. People need money to live. Or, you can institutionalise, but apart from the moral qualms that a sentient being might have about denying people their freedom, the non-sentient amongst you still need to realise that this objectively costs significantly more. If you want to roll back on the cost of the NHS, that's not really going to be the way to do it.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
Have you sat through a PIP assessment or capacity for work interview?
I have. Several ESA, a DLA and two PIPs.
And I can safely say that "by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes" is utter bollocks in my experience.
It is absolutely nonsense I've also plenty of experience of them
So far I have read the foreword, the executive summary and her personal note. Punchy, especially the last of these.
This is one recommendation which could be acted upon without delay. Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to 15 year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator. This is due to a ‘grey area’ in the law where, although any sexual activity with 13-15 year-olds is unlawful, the decision on whether to charge, and which offence to charge with, is left more open to interpretation. The purpose is largely aimed at avoiding criminalising someone who reasonably believed a child was older than they were or criminalising relationships between teenagers. But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex. The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-year olds received mandatory charges of rape, mirroring the approach taken in countries like France.
It sounds as though the government will be going ahead with this - and also the mandatory collection of ethnicity data, which was foreshadowed back in January, and recommended by this review.
9) Someone put forward a bill to parliament that would have made reporting the truth a criminal offence. It was defeated.
First I've heard of this, please expand upon this point.
I'll need to dig - it was a bill which would have made reporting/tweeting/etc something likely to cause/increase racial tensions a criminal offence.
Then someone noticed that the defence of it being true wasn't included.
So reporting the literal facts of {Thing That Can't Be Named} would have been criminalised.
There was this too from earlier on this year
Lord spiritual argues for religious exemption to child abuse law
Bishop of Manchester, who sits by right in the Lords, suggests abuse revealed during confession should be exempt from reporting law
A Church of England bishop has used his reserved seat in the House of Lords to argue for religious exemptions to mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse.
Speaking in a debate on Tuesday, the bishop of Manchester David Walker (pictured) said there was an "arguable case" for exempting child sexual abuse revealed during confession.
The bishop's claim contradicts the recommendation of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) that mandatory reporting should "not be subject" to religious exemptions, including abuse revealed during "sacramental confession".
Walker said the tradition of "the seal of the confessional" had been "honoured for many centuries "and was "established in canon law in this land".
"I know my Catholic colleagues will particularly be concerned around that", he added.
I can entirely see the bishop's point. His position is at least internally consistent. But what this suggests to me is the case for removing the clergy from the political decision-making process.
If anything he was arguing on behalf of his Roman Catholic colleagues given there are no RC bishops in the Lords. 'Walker said the tradition of "the seal of the confessional" had been "honoured for many centuries "and was "established in canon law in this land".
"I know my Catholic colleagues will particularly be concerned around that", he added.'
Roman Catholic priests and bishops are required to keep what is said in the confessional box secret regardless of what it is, adultery, rape, murder, sexual abuse, robbery, theft, drink driving, fraud etc or who it is, President or King, Mafia Don, billionaire, nurse, lawyer or toilet cleaner etc. That does not apply to the C of E however as C of E bishops and priests generally don't hold confessions unless very high church, certainly not the evangelical or middle of the road ones. C of E safeguarding rules now also require them to report any suspicions of sexual abuse having taken place
For some time, I have been wondering whether most of Jeffrey Epstein's victims did not have fathers in their lives. That seems likely to me, but I have seen no direct evidence on that possibility.
This excellent header reminds me that I have the same question about the victims in this scandal. Is there any publicly available data on the victims that would answer that question?
(When I was growing up, there was story often told -- and it probably did happen in the US occasionally -- about a first date: The boy comes in and has a talk with the girl's father, while waiting for the girl. Not coincidentally, the father was cleaning his hand gun, while waiting for the boy.)
In one case the step-father (I believe) received a visit from the police.
And was told that if he didn’t stop reporting {thing we can’t talk about} repeatedly, then the police would accuse him (the step-father) of being racist.
The council would then use the anti-social neighbour laws to throw him and the rest of his family out of their council house. With no obligation to house them elsewhere.
I want to see anyone who behaved like this held to account.
So far I have read the foreword, the executive summary and her personal note. Punchy, especially the last of these.
This is one recommendation which could be acted upon without delay. Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to 15 year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator. This is due to a ‘grey area’ in the law where, although any sexual activity with 13-15 year-olds is unlawful, the decision on whether to charge, and which offence to charge with, is left more open to interpretation. The purpose is largely aimed at avoiding criminalising someone who reasonably believed a child was older than they were or criminalising relationships between teenagers. But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex. The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-year olds received mandatory charges of rape, mirroring the approach taken in countries like France.
It sounds as though the government will be going ahead with this - and also the mandatory collection of ethnicity data, which was foreshadowed back in January, and recommended by this review.
So that's actually two things.
Two things to applaud.
And despair that it wasn't done decades back. How much trauma could it have spared?
Would have stopped a raft of social workers branding 13 - 15 year olds as prostitutes too.
I’d just like to congratulate me on my incredible restraint
Indeed. Though as you say, there's no need to you (or me) to talk about the subject now as it finally has the whole country's attention and as I said the only thing I will say about the subject is I hope that all of the victims get justice.
I was clearly referring to my inhuman ability to resist a visit to the Faroes National Museum of Medieval Pew Ends, which is literally only a 40 minute walk away in the rain from where I’m having a coffee
Saw some lovely medieval pew ends in Beverley (the church, not the minster) earlier this year.
But, imagine, Faroese ones! Carvings of trolls, warlocks? You really might be missing something. Get on down.
In all seriousness I tried. I love me a medieval pew end. Who doesn’t? But the Faroese decided to put their national museum on the outskirts of town in a weirdly disguised bunker next to a Lidl depot and it’s not findable on Google maps. And it’s only open about 3 hours a day (so about 2.5 hours longer than the national liquor store)
So I’ve missed it and I fly home tomorrow early
But I don’t care. I’ve seen all the rest of Faroes. I’ve had an absolute blast. It’s a fucking miserable place with terrible weather and surprisingly great food and insanely brooding landscapes and kind, friendly, mildly autistic people
On Saturdays women gather on the main steps of the centre of the capital city - Thorshavn - and they… knit. Literally. That’s the big thing in the capital on weekends. Public knitting
I’d just like to congratulate me on my incredible restraint
Indeed. Though as you say, there's no need to you (or me) to talk about the subject now as it finally has the whole country's attention and as I said the only thing I will say about the subject is I hope that all of the victims get justice.
I was clearly referring to my inhuman ability to resist a visit to the Faroes National Museum of Medieval Pew Ends, which is literally only a 40 minute walk away in the rain from where I’m having a coffee
Saw some lovely medieval pew ends in Beverley (the church, not the minster) earlier this year.
But, imagine, Faroese ones! Carvings of trolls, warlocks? You really might be missing something. Get on down.
In all seriousness I tried. I love me a medieval pew end. Who doesn’t? But the Faroese decided to put their national museum on the outskirts of town in a weirdly disguised bunker next to a Lidl depot and it’s not findable on Google maps. And it’s only open about 3 hours a day (so about 2.5 hours longer than the national liquor store)
So I’ve missed it and I fly home tomorrow early
But I don’t care. I’ve seen all the rest of Faroes. I’ve had an absolute blast. It’s a fucking miserable place with terrible weather and surprisingly great food and insanely brooding landscapes and kind, friendly, mildly autistic people
On Saturdays women gather on the main steps of the centre of the capital city - Thorshavn - and they… knit. Literally. That’s the big thing in the capital on weekends. Public knitting
Then I love the Faroese even more, for honouring such a ridiculous idea
Bless them. They have zero crime as well. In the whole country there is one prison with 12 cells, and it is still half empty
What poor buggers get put in the 6 cells they are using then if there isn't any crime. Wardens taking a kip?
Probably bad drunken driving and getting a bit lairy on the lash Is my guess
There is virtually no crime. Houses are left unlocked. Likewise cars. No one would dream of stealing a phone. Etc
However the government restricts booze sales for a reason. The temptation to get hammered - due to the weather - is quite strong, as it is across the far north and also Wick
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
A lot of people retire below state pension age and use the lump sum to take them through to state pension age. It's hard to argue they "don't need it" and changing the rules in retrospect would be odious.
You should also, presumably, refund their NI contributions
Early retirement is a choice.
It is and pension payments are reduced for those who do this. You really come across as a nasty piece of work with regard to old people. I suspect in time your views will change...
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
A lot of people retire below state pension age and use the lump sum to take them through to state pension age. It's hard to argue they "don't need it" and changing the rules in retrospect would be odious.
You should also, presumably, refund their NI contributions
Early retirement is a choice.
It is and pension payments are reduced for those who do this. You really come across as a nasty piece of work with regard to old people. I suspect in time your views will change...
I'd expect them to become more severe once Britain goes over the financial cliff as a result of inaction.
So far I have read the foreword, the executive summary and her personal note. Punchy, especially the last of these.
This is one recommendation which could be acted upon without delay. Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to 15 year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator. This is due to a ‘grey area’ in the law where, although any sexual activity with 13-15 year-olds is unlawful, the decision on whether to charge, and which offence to charge with, is left more open to interpretation. The purpose is largely aimed at avoiding criminalising someone who reasonably believed a child was older than they were or criminalising relationships between teenagers. But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex. The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-year olds received mandatory charges of rape, mirroring the approach taken in countries like France.
It sounds as though the government will be going ahead with this - and also the mandatory collection of ethnicity data, which was foreshadowed back in January, and recommended by this review.
So that's actually two things.
If the victim is in love with or consented to sex with the perpetrator, who will be testifying that sex took place? This will mainly work with historic offences, where the victim is now an adult complaining about what took place years before, but how does it help families looking to rescue daughters from unwise and illegal relationships?
Data sharing also sounds attractive but it is surely only hours since we were concerned about officials having unbounded access to data.
Maybe more solid proposals will emerge from the inquiry.
So far I have read the foreword, the executive summary and her personal note. Punchy, especially the last of these.
This is one recommendation which could be acted upon without delay. Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to 15 year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator. This is due to a ‘grey area’ in the law where, although any sexual activity with 13-15 year-olds is unlawful, the decision on whether to charge, and which offence to charge with, is left more open to interpretation. The purpose is largely aimed at avoiding criminalising someone who reasonably believed a child was older than they were or criminalising relationships between teenagers. But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex. The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-year olds received mandatory charges of rape, mirroring the approach taken in countries like France.
It sounds as though the government will be going ahead with this - and also the mandatory collection of ethnicity data, which was foreshadowed back in January, and recommended by this review.
So that's actually two things.
Two things to applaud.
And despair that it wasn't done decades back. How much trauma could it have spared?
Would have stopped a raft of social workers branding 13 - 15 year olds as prostitutes too.
One other statistic I'd be very interested in is the percentage of group exploitation cases involving taxi drivers. It raises the question of how much of an extent this crime is a result of opportunity, as opposed simply to motive.
It's talked about in some detail in the report, and there is another recommendation which could be acted on (this refers to local authorities granting licenses to applicants from outside the area). ..Given the extent of the reporting on the role taxis can play in child sexual exploitation, it is unacceptable that local areas are unable to oversee and account for the taxis on their streets. A lack of stringency means that drivers who are unscrupulous can apply to a lax neighbouring borough. The Department for Transport should close these loopholes urgently..
Manoeuvres? Will Kemi's reign be measured in trusses with the dark hand of Sunak in the background?
Looks pretty unlikely she’ll be fighting the election doesn’t it. Other than it’s such a tough gig right now, it’s not clear anyone quite has the cajones to take it on.
Manoeuvres? Will Kemi's reign be measured in trusses with the dark hand of Sunak in the background?
Davies is Labour. He was leader of Telford council at the time and sighed a letter to Rudd saying no inquiry was needed and now is lying about it. Frankly he may not retain the whip, he should certainly be booted off home affairs who will be holding the govt to account on this
So far I have read the foreword, the executive summary and her personal note. Punchy, especially the last of these.
This is one recommendation which could be acted upon without delay. Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to 15 year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator. This is due to a ‘grey area’ in the law where, although any sexual activity with 13-15 year-olds is unlawful, the decision on whether to charge, and which offence to charge with, is left more open to interpretation. The purpose is largely aimed at avoiding criminalising someone who reasonably believed a child was older than they were or criminalising relationships between teenagers. But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex. The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-year olds received mandatory charges of rape, mirroring the approach taken in countries like France.
It sounds as though the government will be going ahead with this - and also the mandatory collection of ethnicity data, which was foreshadowed back in January, and recommended by this review.
So that's actually two things.
If the victim is in love with or consented to sex with the perpetrator, who will be testifying that sex took place? This will mainly work with historic offences, where the victim is now an adult complaining about what took place years before, but how does it help families looking to rescue daughters from unwise and illegal relationships?
Data sharing also sounds attractive but it is surely only hours since we were concerned about officials having unbounded access to data.
Maybe more solid proposals will emerge from the inquiry.
I suggest you read the report. The ambiguity in the law isn't just about reporting - it is one of the things which enabled police and social workers to dismiss clear reports of underage sex, and fail to take action, in a number of the group exploitation cases.
The suggested change in the law isn't a panacea, but it would very likely bring a significant improvement.
Secondly, simply making it mandatory for data to be collected in criminal cases doesn't give "officials unbounded access to data'. Indeed it doesn't require officials in general to have access to any personal data at all; anonymised data for all reported crimes (which doesn't exist at the moment) could be very helpful in pointing the way forward.
I am still surprised nobody in the media picked up on Big Dom claims over this. Last year anything he said they reported breathlessly.
There's a few people put there who have been burned by Big Dom's claims which turned out to be utter mince.
For example the Covid-19 inquiry stuff.
I know, but its normally absolute catnip, they just can't help themselves. Perhaps because it wasn't about Boris....
The media love stories about 'divisions'.
"PM's own ex-advisor criticises PM" is a Big Story (TM).
"Former Conservative PM's ex-advisor criticises Labour PM" is not.
He wasn't just criticising Labour in fact he actually doesn't criticise Labour that much, his general targets in recent times are the structure / incentives of government and the civil service. But in the latest interview he claimed cover-ups at departments while he was in government.
So far I have read the foreword, the executive summary and her personal note. Punchy, especially the last of these.
This is one recommendation which could be acted upon without delay. Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to 15 year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator. This is due to a ‘grey area’ in the law where, although any sexual activity with 13-15 year-olds is unlawful, the decision on whether to charge, and which offence to charge with, is left more open to interpretation. The purpose is largely aimed at avoiding criminalising someone who reasonably believed a child was older than they were or criminalising relationships between teenagers. But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex. The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-year olds received mandatory charges of rape, mirroring the approach taken in countries like France.
It sounds as though the government will be going ahead with this - and also the mandatory collection of ethnicity data, which was foreshadowed back in January, and recommended by this review.
So that's actually two things.
Two things to applaud.
And despair that it wasn't done decades back. How much trauma could it have spared?
Would have stopped a raft of social workers branding 13 - 15 year olds as prostitutes too.
One other statistic I'd be very interested in is the percentage of group exploitation cases involving taxi drivers. It raises the question of how much of an extent this crime is a result of opportunity, as opposed simply to motive.
It's talked about in some detail in the report, and there is another recommendation which could be acted on (this refers to local authorities granting licenses to applicants from outside the area). ..Given the extent of the reporting on the role taxis can play in child sexual exploitation, it is unacceptable that local areas are unable to oversee and account for the taxis on their streets. A lack of stringency means that drivers who are unscrupulous can apply to a lax neighbouring borough. The Department for Transport should close these loopholes urgently..
The taxi loophole is not much of a loophole. What the taxi connection might have allowed is Eliot Ness-type policing by breaking up networks.
So far I have read the foreword, the executive summary and her personal note. Punchy, especially the last of these.
This is one recommendation which could be acted upon without delay. Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to 15 year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator. This is due to a ‘grey area’ in the law where, although any sexual activity with 13-15 year-olds is unlawful, the decision on whether to charge, and which offence to charge with, is left more open to interpretation. The purpose is largely aimed at avoiding criminalising someone who reasonably believed a child was older than they were or criminalising relationships between teenagers. But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex. The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-year olds received mandatory charges of rape, mirroring the approach taken in countries like France.
It sounds as though the government will be going ahead with this - and also the mandatory collection of ethnicity data, which was foreshadowed back in January, and recommended by this review.
So that's actually two things.
If the victim is in love with or consented to sex with the perpetrator, who will be testifying that sex took place? This will mainly work with historic offences, where the victim is now an adult complaining about what took place years before, but how does it help families looking to rescue daughters from unwise and illegal relationships?
Data sharing also sounds attractive but it is surely only hours since we were concerned about officials having unbounded access to data.
Maybe more solid proposals will emerge from the inquiry.
I suggest you read the report. The ambiguity in the law isn't just about reporting - it is one of the things which enabled police and social workers to dismiss clear reports of underage sex, and fail to take action, in a number of the group exploitation cases.
The suggested change in the law isn't a panacea, but it would very likely bring a significant improvement.
Secondly, simply making it mandatory for data to be collected in criminal cases doesn't give "officials unbounded access to data'. Indeed it doesn't require officials in general to have access to any personal data at all; anonymised data for all reported crimes (which doesn't exist at the moment) could be very helpful in pointing the way forward.
The problem with "love" and de facto (if illegal) consent is that when you go to the police to report the taxi boss is shagging your daughter, she will deny it and you have no forensic evidence. Sure, some years later she will come to her senses and make an historic complaint.
9) Someone put forward a bill to parliament that would have made reporting the truth a criminal offence. It was defeated.
First I've heard of this, please expand upon this point.
I'll need to dig - it was a bill which would have made reporting/tweeting/etc something likely to cause/increase racial tensions a criminal offence.
Then someone noticed that the defence of it being true wasn't included.
So reporting the literal facts of {Thing That Can't Be Named} would have been criminalised.
There was this too from earlier on this year
Lord spiritual argues for religious exemption to child abuse law
Bishop of Manchester, who sits by right in the Lords, suggests abuse revealed during confession should be exempt from reporting law
A Church of England bishop has used his reserved seat in the House of Lords to argue for religious exemptions to mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse.
Speaking in a debate on Tuesday, the bishop of Manchester David Walker (pictured) said there was an "arguable case" for exempting child sexual abuse revealed during confession.
The bishop's claim contradicts the recommendation of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) that mandatory reporting should "not be subject" to religious exemptions, including abuse revealed during "sacramental confession".
Walker said the tradition of "the seal of the confessional" had been "honoured for many centuries "and was "established in canon law in this land".
"I know my Catholic colleagues will particularly be concerned around that", he added.
I can entirely see the bishop's point. His position is at least internally consistent. But what this suggests to me is the case for removing the clergy from the political decision-making process.
That quote is rather misrepresenting Bishop David Walker's point, and is not what he was arguing for. He was an expert witness to the Enquiry. His point here is about appropriate nuance around mandatory disclosure when a statement is made by a victim, and what he said in the Lords is not well reported in the NSS quote, which in their press release explicitly sets in the context of disclosure by a perpetrator.
From the Lords' record:
There is an arguable case that the seal allows somebody—and it is more likely to be a victim or witness who comes to the confessional—to make a kind of protected disclosure, which then often would lead to them being helped to make a more public disclosure and allow a perpetrator to be taken to justice. I hope there will be careful discussions with religious bodies as to exactly where the seal of the confessional will fit in with this; I know my Catholic colleagues will particularly be concerned around that.
His point is that a blanket requirement for reporting could prevent some victims coming forward. Such exemptions as David Walker is discussing are discussed, and recommended, in the IICSA report sections ~85-110.
They suggest exemptions for victim reporting, and afaics mandatory disclosure for perp disclosures.
For some time, I have been wondering whether most of Jeffrey Epstein's victims did not have fathers in their lives. That seems likely to me, but I have seen no direct evidence on that possibility.
This excellent header reminds me that I have the same question about the victims in this scandal. Is there any publicly available data on the victims that would answer that question?
(When I was growing up, there was story often told -- and it probably did happen in the US occasionally -- about a first date: The boy comes in and has a talk with the girl's father, while waiting for the girl. Not coincidentally, the father was cleaning his hand gun, while waiting for the boy.)
In one case the step-father (I believe) received a visit from the police.
And was told that if he didn’t stop reporting {thing we can’t talk about} repeatedly, then the police would accuse him (the step-father) of being racist.
The council would then use the anti-social neighbour laws to throw him and the rest of his family out of their council house. With no obligation to house them elsewhere.
I want to see anyone who behaved like this held to account.
IIRC the policeman in question died in a traffic accident.
There were multiple other incidents, in the various reports, of people being aggressively told to stop harassing the authorities with complaints.
On the topic above - why no vigilantism? - I was asked by my Peruvian relatives, when this hit the international news, why the local people didn’t form a Rondas Campesinas and open a dialogue* with the offenders.
*In the trials that resulted from the activities of the Rondas during the Moaist rebellion, a term, something like “opening a dialogue” was used as a euphemism to discuss actions where Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres** sent Peruvian army units to backup the Rondas.
**raised by far left loony parents, he read The Little Red Book on Revolution by Mao. And as intelligence chief of the very anti-communist government, he applied it to counter revolution.
Trump with Mark Carney: "The G7 used to be the G8. Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn't want to have Russia in, and I would say that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn't have a war right now if you had Russia in."
Trump with Mark Carney: "The G7 used to be the G8. Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn't want to have Russia in, and I would say that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn't have a war right now if you had Russia in."
Trump with Mark Carney: "The G7 used to be the G8. Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn't want to have Russia in, and I would say that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn't have a war right now if you had Russia in."
He might actually be the dumbest person on Earth.
Not while Liz Truss breathes air he ain't.
You know what I'm going to stick up for Liz Truss, she was unsuited to be PM, but she's still a better and smarter person than Trump. Trump's ignorance, arrogance, and dishonesty are unparalleled.
Trump with Mark Carney: "The G7 used to be the G8. Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn't want to have Russia in, and I would say that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn't have a war right now if you had Russia in."
He might actually be the dumbest person on Earth.
Not while Liz Truss breathes air he ain't.
You know what I'm going to stick up for Liz Truss, she was unsuited to be PM, but she's still a better and smarter person than Trump. Trump's ignorance, arrogance, and dishonesty are unparalleled.
Agree, Liz Truss never sold out the Ukrainians in the way Trump has.
Sammy Woodhouse, a victim of Rotherham Grooming, who spent her 15th birthday with her rapist who was committing an armed robbery, had a child by him and Rotherham social services forced her to give access to the child to the rapist, and has campaigned on grooming gangs and for girls catches Richard Tice of Reform here.
He does not come off well. He could have stopped and spoke to her.
It’s one thing to use an issue, as a party, for political advantage. It’s another to engage with victims.
I am still surprised nobody in the media picked up on Big Dom claims over this. Last year anything he said they reported breathlessly.
There's a few people put there who have been burned by Big Dom's claims which turned out to be utter mince.
For example the Covid-19 inquiry stuff.
I know, but its normally absolute catnip, they just can't help themselves. Perhaps because it wasn't about Boris....
The media love stories about 'divisions'.
"PM's own ex-advisor criticises PM" is a Big Story (TM).
"Former Conservative PM's ex-advisor criticises Labour PM" is not.
He wasn't just criticising Labour in fact he actually doesn't criticise Labour that much, his general targets in recent times are the structure / incentives of government and the civil service. But in the latest interview he claimed cover-ups at departments while he was in government.
It might go further because I've seen Dom's claim clipped up but what does it amount to? Is he saying there was a cover-up or merely that some officials were reluctant? Cummings was Gove's top SpAd at Education and then Chief of Staff in Number 10. It is not as if he had no power.
Sammy Woodhouse, a victim of Rotherham Grooming, who spent her 15th birthday with her rapist who was committing an armed robbery, had a child by him and Rotherham social services forced her to give access to the child to the rapist, and has campaigned on grooming gangs and for girls catches Richard Tice of Reform here.
He does not come off well. He could have stopped and spoke to her.
It’s one thing to use an issue, as a party, for political advantage. It’s another to engage with victims.
The look on Carney's face here as Trump whines about how his Petrograd bestie was thrown out of the club for no reason other than a bit of genocidal war:
Nothing to see here, just the President of the United States sticking up and shilling for Putin while trashing the former PM of an allied country to their current PM.
The look on Carney's face here as Trump whines about how his Petrograd bestie was thrown out of the club for no reason other than a bit of genocidal war:
Nothing to see here, just the President of the United States sticking up and shilling for Putin while trashing the former PM of an allied country to their current PM.
I am still surprised nobody in the media picked up on Big Dom claims over this. Last year anything he said they reported breathlessly.
There's a few people put there who have been burned by Big Dom's claims which turned out to be utter mince.
For example the Covid-19 inquiry stuff.
I know, but its normally absolute catnip, they just can't help themselves. Perhaps because it wasn't about Boris....
The media love stories about 'divisions'.
"PM's own ex-advisor criticises PM" is a Big Story (TM).
"Former Conservative PM's ex-advisor criticises Labour PM" is not.
He wasn't just criticising Labour in fact he actually doesn't criticise Labour that much, his general targets in recent times are the structure / incentives of government and the civil service. But in the latest interview he claimed cover-ups at departments while he was in government.
It might go further because I've seen Dom's claim clipped up but what does it amount to? Is he saying there was a cover-up or merely that some officials were reluctant? Cummings was Gove's top SpAd at Education and then Chief of Staff in Number 10. It is not as if he had no power.
He explicitly claims a cover up across Whitehall when Brown was PM and that continued after the GE 2010. And that he witnessed this specifically among Department of Education officials. He is also claiming that the Andrew Norfolk piece only came out because he / Gove took action that shot down the local council appeals to the DoE for legal protection.
Now the last bit is classic Big Dom, I wouldn't be surprised if that isn't something where other recollection vary.
Lol. I think he may have thought they reckoned his fans would be like him:
One note warned that there would be a "substantial amount of older fans", and that because "middle-aged men take up more room", age and size should be considered in crowd control planning.
Another note suggested "medium to high intoxication" should be expected at the concert.
An additional remark said there was some "concern about crowds of Oasis on weekends as they are already rowdy, and the tone of the band".
The look on Carney's face here as Trump whines about how his Petrograd bestie was thrown out of the club for no reason other than a bit of genocidal war:
Nothing to see here, just the President of the United States sticking up and shilling for Putin while trashing the former PM of an allied country to their current PM.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
The particular "coached to pass by assessors" point does not work, as the success rate at Appeal for PIP is something like 70%.
If there is a problem in addition to the results of using sickness benefit as a stash to keep the Unemployment numbers down, it is that the system has been designed (since the early 2010s I think) to be turbo-bureaucratic and assessments done by low skilled staff who are not up to scratch.
That's why an Elon Musk Chainsaw and Bugger the Consequences route will not imo work, and why it did not work in the USA.
If the civil service (national and local) is slashed beyond the bone, it will never work - as RefUK will discover or as we have already discovered in quality of built housing by underesourcing planning and building control.
I get the feeling that I might be the only person of that right age, but for whom Oasis / Blue weren't a big thing for me personally, I didn't really care for either at the time and still happy with my alternative choices of music....
Lol. I think he may have thought they reckoned his fans would be like him:
One note warned that there would be a "substantial amount of older fans", and that because "middle-aged men take up more room", age and size should be considered in crowd control planning.
Another note suggested "medium to high intoxication" should be expected at the concert.
An additional remark said there was some "concern about crowds of Oasis on weekends as they are already rowdy, and the tone of the band".
If Oasis fans aren't rowdy of a weekend then @Leon 's simulation has a definite glitch.
I get the feeling that I might be the only person of that right age, but for whom Oasis / Blue weren't a big thing for me personally, I didn't really care for either at the time and still happy with my choices of music....
I think they marked a period of decline in British pop culture rather than being a high point.
The look on Carney's face here as Trump whines about how his Petrograd bestie was thrown out of the club for no reason other than a bit of genocidal war:
Nothing to see here, just the President of the United States sticking up and shilling for Putin while trashing the former PM of an allied country to their current PM.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
The particular "coached to pass by assessors" point does not work, as the success rate at Appeal for PIP is something like 70%.
If there is a problem in addition to the results of using sickness benefit as a stash to keep the Unemployment numbers down, it is that the system has been designed (since the early 2010s I think) to be turbo-bureaucratic and assessments done by low skilled staff who are not up to scratch.
That's why an Elon Musk Chainsaw and Bugger the Consequences route will not imo work, and why it did not work in the USA.
If the civil service (national and local) is slashed beyond the bone, it will never work - as RefUK will discover or as we have already discovered in quality of built housing by underesourcing planning and building control.
Not sure what point you're trying to make with the 70% figure.
If its possible to be "coached to pass" you'd expect a high appeal success rate as those who are initially declined seek coaching on how to pass on appeal.
So far I have read the foreword, the executive summary and her personal note. Punchy, especially the last of these.
This is one recommendation which could be acted upon without delay. Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to 15 year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator. This is due to a ‘grey area’ in the law where, although any sexual activity with 13-15 year-olds is unlawful, the decision on whether to charge, and which offence to charge with, is left more open to interpretation. The purpose is largely aimed at avoiding criminalising someone who reasonably believed a child was older than they were or criminalising relationships between teenagers. But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex. The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-year olds received mandatory charges of rape, mirroring the approach taken in countries like France.
It sounds as though the government will be going ahead with this - and also the mandatory collection of ethnicity data, which was foreshadowed back in January, and recommended by this review.
So that's actually two things.
If the victim is in love with or consented to sex with the perpetrator, who will be testifying that sex took place? This will mainly work with historic offences, where the victim is now an adult complaining about what took place years before, but how does it help families looking to rescue daughters from unwise and illegal relationships?
Data sharing also sounds attractive but it is surely only hours since we were concerned about officials having unbounded access to data.
Maybe more solid proposals will emerge from the inquiry.
I suggest you read the report. The ambiguity in the law isn't just about reporting - it is one of the things which enabled police and social workers to dismiss clear reports of underage sex, and fail to take action, in a number of the group exploitation cases.
The suggested change in the law isn't a panacea, but it would very likely bring a significant improvement.
Secondly, simply making it mandatory for data to be collected in criminal cases doesn't give "officials unbounded access to data'. Indeed it doesn't require officials in general to have access to any personal data at all; anonymised data for all reported crimes (which doesn't exist at the moment) could be very helpful in pointing the way forward.
The problem with "love" and de facto (if illegal) consent is that when you go to the police to report the taxi boss is shagging your daughter, she will deny it and you have no forensic evidence. Sure, some years later she will come to her senses and make an historic complaint.
That's a problem, not 'the' problem.
As I said, the proposed law change isn't a panacea, but it's a significant improvement.
The look on Carney's face here as Trump whines about how his Petrograd bestie was thrown out of the club for no reason other than a bit of genocidal war:
Nothing to see here, just the President of the United States sticking up and shilling for Putin while trashing the former PM of an allied country to their current PM.
I get the feeling that I might be the only person of that right age, but for whom Oasis / Blue weren't a big thing for me personally, I didn't really care for either at the time and still happy with my choices of music....
I think they marked a period of decline in British pop culture rather than being a high point.
I thought they were fine but didn't think either were that exciting.
I get the feeling that I might be the only person of that right age, but for whom Oasis / Blue weren't a big thing for me personally, I didn't really care for either at the time and still happy with my alternative choices of music....
I liked their music, but at university/that age, they were played a lot at seminal moments in life.
What a load of verbose piffle. Third person omniscient is quite slow and boring, and inserts the author at every opportunity. First person narration is simply more immediate and visceral - more emotionally powerful. And in an age where novels are competing with movies and video games and TV drama, that matters a lot
I am quite open to evidence that literacy is declining. It probably is. But this is not evidence of that
Sammy Woodhouse, a victim of Rotherham Grooming, who spent her 15th birthday with her rapist who was committing an armed robbery, had a child by him and Rotherham social services forced her to give access to the child to the rapist, and has campaigned on grooming gangs and for girls catches Richard Tice of Reform here.
He does not come off well. He could have stopped and spoke to her.
It’s one thing to use an issue, as a party, for political advantage. It’s another to engage with victims.
Richard Tice isn't convincing as a politician. I think he's an OK man and has some good ideas, but I've never seen an interview or any public appearance where he has inspired me with confidence.
I get the feeling that I might be the only person of that right age, but for whom Oasis / Blue weren't a big thing for me personally, I didn't really care for either at the time and still happy with my alternative choices of music....
I liked their music, but at university/that age, they were played a lot at seminal moments in life.
I tell you a song that absolutely grinds me gears that got played loads at the time and still does today for seminal moments....Green Day's Time of Your Life. People don't seem to realise it was written about a failed relationship and basically he is going f##k you, you shit. Probably doesn't help that at the time I went through a failed relationship and wanted to say f##k you, you shit.
Sammy Woodhouse, a victim of Rotherham Grooming, who spent her 15th birthday with her rapist who was committing an armed robbery, had a child by him and Rotherham social services forced her to give access to the child to the rapist, and has campaigned on grooming gangs and for girls catches Richard Tice of Reform here.
He does not come off well. He could have stopped and spoke to her.
It’s one thing to use an issue, as a party, for political advantage. It’s another to engage with victims.
Richard Tice isn't convincing as a politician. I think he's an OK man and has some good ideas, but I've never seen an interview or any public appearance where he has inspired me with confidence.
I was going to write exactly that. He’s notably unimpressive on screen. No presence, no oomph, an empty suit. He’s so bad he could easily be a senior minister in the Labour Cabinet; and I don’t hurl out such insults lightly
So how does Israel-Iran end? What does the end of hostilities look like? Does Israel go on until it has fully denuded Iran's ability to wage war against it but no further? What then?
What stops the cycle of build up and renewed aerial assault happening again? Very little unless you can achieve something more permanent which some think will come from regime change in Tehran?
The destabilisation of that part of Southwest Asia is not without consequences for Russia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan to name but four let alone the west (and China's) own well-documented vulnerability to the transport of oil through Hormuz.
I suppose you could argue an Iranian "surrender" would represent a commitment to end all nuclear weapons research and development and hand over or agree to the supervised removal and/or destruction of all facilities. There would need, I think, to be a concomitant pledge from all sides to respect Iranian independence and sovereignty and not to involve themselves in internal Iranian matters.
Hmmmmmm……
Russia has shown that such ‘guarantees’ are worthless. Whilst you’d hope more of the West, I’m not sure a Trump USA could be trusted and Israel itself certainly not.
Sammy Woodhouse, a victim of Rotherham Grooming, who spent her 15th birthday with her rapist who was committing an armed robbery, had a child by him and Rotherham social services forced her to give access to the child to the rapist, and has campaigned on grooming gangs and for girls catches Richard Tice of Reform here.
He does not come off well. He could have stopped and spoke to her.
It’s one thing to use an issue, as a party, for political advantage. It’s another to engage with victims.
Richard Tice isn't convincing as a politician. I think he's an OK man and has some good ideas, but I've never seen an interview or any public appearance where he has inspired me with confidence.
I was going to write exactly that. He’s notably unimpressive on screen. No presence, no oomph, an empty suit. He’s so bad he could easily be a senior minister in the Labour Cabinet; and I don’t hurl out such insults lightly
Steady on....that bad....I mean he does have one thing up on the entire Labour Cabinet, he has actually run a successful business. That is how far the bar has fallen.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
The particular "coached to pass by assessors" point does not work, as the success rate at Appeal for PIP is something like 70%.
If there is a problem in addition to the results of using sickness benefit as a stash to keep the Unemployment numbers down, it is that the system has been designed (since the early 2010s I think) to be turbo-bureaucratic and assessments done by low skilled staff who are not up to scratch.
That's why an Elon Musk Chainsaw and Bugger the Consequences route will not imo work, and why it did not work in the USA.
If the civil service (national and local) is slashed beyond the bone, it will never work - as RefUK will discover or as we have already discovered in quality of built housing by underesourcing planning and building control.
Not sure what point you're trying to make with the 70% figure.
If its possible to be "coached to pass" you'd expect a high appeal success rate as those who are initially declined seek coaching on how to pass on appeal.
It is not possible to 'be coached' to pass an assessment or an appeal. That's not how they work.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
The particular "coached to pass by assessors" point does not work, as the success rate at Appeal for PIP is something like 70%.
If there is a problem in addition to the results of using sickness benefit as a stash to keep the Unemployment numbers down, it is that the system has been designed (since the early 2010s I think) to be turbo-bureaucratic and assessments done by low skilled staff who are not up to scratch.
That's why an Elon Musk Chainsaw and Bugger the Consequences route will not imo work, and why it did not work in the USA.
If the civil service (national and local) is slashed beyond the bone, it will never work - as RefUK will discover or as we have already discovered in quality of built housing by underesourcing planning and building control.
Not sure what point you're trying to make with the 70% figure.
If its possible to be "coached to pass" you'd expect a high appeal success rate as those who are initially declined seek coaching on how to pass on appeal.
I don't think it bears the weight of those assumptions.
Is there evidence of "coached to pass by assessors"?
From people I know who've been through the process, I doubt it.
Not only is it going to be light until ten f*cking pm this weekend, it is also going to be 30 degrees. This is above my comfort zone.
How I yearn for the days when Leon was gloomily drawing his blinds down at 3:30pm.
Come to the Faroes. Today’s temperature peaked at a heady 13C
That’s actually quite warm by Faroese standards. Recent days have averaged a max of 10-11C
It’s amazing how quickly you get used to it. Today the sun came out for about half an hour (hence that high temperature) - and I caught myself thinking: Wow, what a nice day
At the weekend I got a ferry to the far southern island of Suduroy where it reached 15C and I was like Jeez this is baking
Lol. I think he may have thought they reckoned his fans would be like him:
One note warned that there would be a "substantial amount of older fans", and that because "middle-aged men take up more room", age and size should be considered in crowd control planning.
Another note suggested "medium to high intoxication" should be expected at the concert.
An additional remark said there was some "concern about crowds of Oasis on weekends as they are already rowdy, and the tone of the band".
Many years back, I saw Mr Gallagher at Reading Festival. Where he tried to provoke the crowd into rioting. Bottles were flying on stage. Not water filled.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
The particular "coached to pass by assessors" point does not work, as the success rate at Appeal for PIP is something like 70%.
If there is a problem in addition to the results of using sickness benefit as a stash to keep the Unemployment numbers down, it is that the system has been designed (since the early 2010s I think) to be turbo-bureaucratic and assessments done by low skilled staff who are not up to scratch.
That's why an Elon Musk Chainsaw and Bugger the Consequences route will not imo work, and why it did not work in the USA.
If the civil service (national and local) is slashed beyond the bone, it will never work - as RefUK will discover or as we have already discovered in quality of built housing by underesourcing planning and building control.
Not sure what point you're trying to make with the 70% figure.
If its possible to be "coached to pass" you'd expect a high appeal success rate as those who are initially declined seek coaching on how to pass on appeal.
I don't think it bears the weight of those assumptions.
Is there evidence of "coached to pass by assessors"?
From people I know who've been through the process, I doubt it.
Its absolutely ridiculous nonsense Take it from someone who has had multiple assessments
Sammy Woodhouse, a victim of Rotherham Grooming, who spent her 15th birthday with her rapist who was committing an armed robbery, had a child by him and Rotherham social services forced her to give access to the child to the rapist, and has campaigned on grooming gangs and for girls catches Richard Tice of Reform here.
He does not come off well. He could have stopped and spoke to her.
It’s one thing to use an issue, as a party, for political advantage. It’s another to engage with victims.
Richard Tice isn't convincing as a politician. I think he's an OK man and has some good ideas, but I've never seen an interview or any public appearance where he has inspired me with confidence.
Yeah, I’d agree with that. I don’t think he’s a bad person but given how big this issue is the least he could do is stop and talk to her.
It just gives the impression of Reform using this for point scoring rather than wanting to solve it.
Sammy Woodhouse, a victim of Rotherham Grooming, who spent her 15th birthday with her rapist who was committing an armed robbery, had a child by him and Rotherham social services forced her to give access to the child to the rapist, and has campaigned on grooming gangs and for girls catches Richard Tice of Reform here.
He does not come off well. He could have stopped and spoke to her.
It’s one thing to use an issue, as a party, for political advantage. It’s another to engage with victims.
Richard Tice isn't convincing as a politician. I think he's an OK man and has some good ideas, but I've never seen an interview or any public appearance where he has inspired me with confidence.
I was going to write exactly that. He’s notably unimpressive on screen. No presence, no oomph, an empty suit. He’s so bad he could easily be a senior minister in the Labour Cabinet; and I don’t hurl out such insults lightly
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
The particular "coached to pass by assessors" point does not work, as the success rate at Appeal for PIP is something like 70%.
If there is a problem in addition to the results of using sickness benefit as a stash to keep the Unemployment numbers down, it is that the system has been designed (since the early 2010s I think) to be turbo-bureaucratic and assessments done by low skilled staff who are not up to scratch.
That's why an Elon Musk Chainsaw and Bugger the Consequences route will not imo work, and why it did not work in the USA.
If the civil service (national and local) is slashed beyond the bone, it will never work - as RefUK will discover or as we have already discovered in quality of built housing by underesourcing planning and building control.
Not sure what point you're trying to make with the 70% figure.
If its possible to be "coached to pass" you'd expect a high appeal success rate as those who are initially declined seek coaching on how to pass on appeal.
I don't think it bears the weight of those assumptions.
Is there evidence of "coached to pass by assessors"?
From people I know who've been through the process, I doubt it.
The 70% pass on appeal would be evidence it absolutely could be a big problem. You wouldn't expect such a high appeal success rate otherwise.
Sammy Woodhouse, a victim of Rotherham Grooming, who spent her 15th birthday with her rapist who was committing an armed robbery, had a child by him and Rotherham social services forced her to give access to the child to the rapist, and has campaigned on grooming gangs and for girls catches Richard Tice of Reform here.
He does not come off well. He could have stopped and spoke to her.
It’s one thing to use an issue, as a party, for political advantage. It’s another to engage with victims.
Richard Tice isn't convincing as a politician. I think he's an OK man and has some good ideas, but I've never seen an interview or any public appearance where he has inspired me with confidence.
I was going to write exactly that. He’s notably unimpressive on screen. No presence, no oomph, an empty suit. He’s so bad he could easily be a senior minister in the Labour Cabinet; and I don’t hurl out such insults lightly
Steady on....that bad....I mean he does have one thing up on the entire Labour Cabinet, he has actually run a successful business. That is how far the bar has fallen.
It must be the worst Cabinet in history? I cannot think of another so clearly devoid of brains, talent and charisma, from Starmer and Reeves down
Not only is it going to be light until ten f*cking pm this weekend, it is also going to be 30 degrees. This is above my comfort zone.
How I yearn for the days when Leon was gloomily drawing his blinds down at 3:30pm.
Come to the Faroes. Today’s temperature peaked at a heady 13C
That’s actually quite warm by Faroese standards. Recent days have averaged a max of 10-11C
It’s amazing how quickly you get used to it. Today the sun came out for about half an hour (hence that high temperature) - and I caught myself thinking: Wow, what a nice day
At the weekend I got a ferry to the far southern island of Suduroy where it reached 15C and I was like Jeez this is baking
What's their migration policy? I wouldn't want to put extra pressure on any local services like fermented sheep suppliers.
72% say economy "rigged for rich & powerful" 68% "traditional parties don't care about me" 68% "country in decline" 68% "mainstream media want money not truth" 67% "experts don't understand me" 65% "society is broken
Hard to disagree that seems to be the widespread sentiment. The country just doesn’t work for enough people.
Something will give, sooner or later.
Our democracy will probably be what gives.
The entitled classes now outnumber the productive classes so I assume they will keep voting themselves payrises and benefit increases until the nation becomes Argentina. The UK is on a very bumpy road and we still have a chance to divert to a better one but it means big cuts to entitlements and the state to balance the budget and stop living beyond our means.
Look at the hysteria over WFA and slowing the rate of growth, not even cutting, some benefits.
I’m afraid we will end up learning a very hard lesson as there is no will politically to tackle it and by the time the problem needs to be tackled all the guilty parties will be living a well paid retirement.
Eventually the money will run out for those well paid retirements and public sector pensions will get a 50% haircut over a certain amount.
Our medium term outlook to me definitely screams Argentina. It's taken them 80 years to get to the point of people being fed up enough to vote a radical reformer into power who has finally tackled the entitlement issue and cut the size of the state as well as subsidies and benefits. Inflation now down to 1.5% last month, forwards annual rate predicted to be under 20% for the coming year and there's talk about a local currency bond sale next year if inflation continues to fall.
All very dramatic and you might enjoy it but we all know it won't happen like that.
We could raise basic rate now to 25p and h,igher rate to 50p (unfreezing thresholds at the same time). Public sector pensions (which seem a particular bugbear) are taxed whereas state pensions are not. There is a suggestion we should means test entitlement to a basic State pension - not a bad idea though the reaction to that would make the response to removing the Winter Fuel Allowance seem nothing.
Do those who have already benefitted from generous public and indeed private sector pensions really need the state pension as well? It's a thought.
It's quite clear there's not going to be a pot of gold at the end of the DOGE rainbow.
And what does putting up tax to 25% and 50%(!) do for the working age population other than drive them to the exit door? I've been looking at what I might do now that my year off is rapidly coming to an end and we've got a third kid on the way, the 50% mark has always been the psychological red line for me. Why should I go to work only for the state to take half of my productivity and piss it up the wall of the public sector.
No we need to cut benefit entitlements, public sector pensions above a certain size and as I've told you many times at least 1m public sector roles need to go. We're into the negative productivity per worker/pound side of the equation for the state and more money and more workers isn't going to result in better services provision, it will likely get worse. The answer is higher output per worker.
I'm not sure what you mean by "piss it up the wall" of the public sector? You may not be one of those who thinks "the public sector" (and I don't know what you mean by that - central Government, local Government, the NHS, the Police, Fire, Ambulance, the Armed Forces?) is value for money but many rely on it on a daily basis.
You've not explained what "above a certain size" means either - if you mean the pensions paid to CEOs of Councils or Permanent Secretaries you may have a point but if you want to get after those much further down the food chain, then no.
Local Government has lost one million jobs since 2012 - there aren't that many civil servants in the conventional sense. Do you mean going after the NHS, the newly nationalised railways or what?
Isn't that the problem though, we have far too many people relying on it on a daily basis, whether that's for their salary or benefits. It's becoming a self perpetuating mess of a system where a small proportion of very active users take up the resource making it poor value for money. Instead of giving these lazy benefit cheats a kick up the arse the state just enables them by handing them freebie houses and cars because they're "mentally ill" and have "anxiety".
Cut the entitlements, cut the waste, cut a million public sector jobs and push through a 50% haircut for defined benefit pensions above £30k per year (so a £50k DB pension becomes a £40k one, a £70k one becomes a £50k one etc...)
I also don't care where the job losses come from but the NHS seems like a good place to start and I'd also ban agency staffing and severely limit consultant usage, give each department and trust a limited number of consultant days per year (maybe 20) and push them into SAAS usage which has a very fast time to value rather than on-prem custom build solutions that need swathes of consultants and contractors to build something no one will ever know how to maintain once they're all gone.
Thank you for the as always measured response.
There are people especially at the lower end of the food chain (care workers for example) who do an incredible job for not much money. As for the comment about "users", well, yes, it's been proven for every 100 people registered with a GP, 10 come in regularly mainly with chronic conditions, another 10 visit on an energency irregular basis ans 80 don't visit at all.
We've also established there are those who are playing the system and I agree there are and always have been but I would love to see much more done to bring carers (particularly those in the 30-50 age group caring for older parents) as well as those with physical and mental disabilities into the workforce or back into the workforce and companies need to be more flexible and think more flexibly abouy how they can bring these groups into work.
I presume your pension "haircut" would mean what - that an employee would receive more money rather than have it taken as pension contribution and an employer wouldn't have to make their contribution at all but would have to pay the salary? Schemes like LPGS survive because higher paid employees and their employers pay more in to ensure those further down the chain receive their full benefits.
As for consultants, you'll get no argument from me. I found the overwhelming majority of them expensive and utterly useless - they were gouging Councils £1200 per day (if not more) but were they worth it? No. I wouldn't ban them but I would set an upper limit to what they can charge central and local Government - possibly £10 per day (he jested).
It's a popular maxim - those who can, do - those who can afford to become consultants.
I think you are seriously underestimating how much benefits abuse there is. You talk about how we should do more to bring the disabled and such into the workforce, yes that's fair. The issue as I see it is that these people aren't disabled, they don't have any mental conditions but have gamed their way into a system by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes than ensuring that these people actually have the issues they claim.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
The particular "coached to pass by assessors" point does not work, as the success rate at Appeal for PIP is something like 70%.
If there is a problem in addition to the results of using sickness benefit as a stash to keep the Unemployment numbers down, it is that the system has been designed (since the early 2010s I think) to be turbo-bureaucratic and assessments done by low skilled staff who are not up to scratch.
That's why an Elon Musk Chainsaw and Bugger the Consequences route will not imo work, and why it did not work in the USA.
If the civil service (national and local) is slashed beyond the bone, it will never work - as RefUK will discover or as we have already discovered in quality of built housing by underesourcing planning and building control.
Not sure what point you're trying to make with the 70% figure.
If its possible to be "coached to pass" you'd expect a high appeal success rate as those who are initially declined seek coaching on how to pass on appeal.
I don't think it bears the weight of those assumptions.
Is there evidence of "coached to pass by assessors"?
From people I know who've been through the process, I doubt it.
The 70% pass on appeal would be evidence it absolutely could be a big problem. You wouldn't expect such a high appeal success rate otherwise.
Its evidence the initial assessment is often hopelessly poorly conducted
Comments
Football at EPL level is a business and US investors are brilliant at getting maximum value out of British businesses.
Too many of our benefits are a type of UBI for people who are able to meet a minimum threshold of "sick" by government definition. Either we change the definition of what "sick" means back to what it was before Theresa May expanded it (which is a no brainer) or we have much tougher assessments and assessors are targeted on number of applications they are able to reject as the Blair government did in 2002-2007. I think we'll end up needing both to force the lazy back into work.
This surprised me.
Of course it could well be as a result of a higher percentage of reporting of incidences in the category, which seems at least plausible.
..In 2023, 39% of suspects were aged 10-15, while 18% were aged 18-29. This younger age profile is likely to be a result of the increase in online offending, child- on-child offending, and increased reporting of offences through schools. ..
This is one recommendation which could be acted upon without delay.
Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to 15 year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator.
This is due to a ‘grey area’ in the law where, although any sexual activity with 13-15 year-olds is unlawful, the decision on whether to charge, and which offence to charge with, is left more open to interpretation.
The purpose is largely aimed at avoiding criminalising someone who reasonably believed a child was older than they were or criminalising relationships between teenagers. But in practice, this nuance in law is being used to the benefit of much older men who had groomed underage children for sex.
The law should be changed so adult men who groom and have sex with 13–15-year olds received mandatory charges of rape, mirroring the approach taken in countries like France.
So there is a serious risk to your health continuing to worry about something you will never change as these have been in place since before WW1.
Chill
And was told that if he didn’t stop reporting {thing we can’t talk about} repeatedly, then the police would accuse him (the step-father) of being racist.
The council would then use the anti-social neighbour laws to throw him and the rest of his family out of their council house. With no obligation to house them elsewhere.
• Implement a more vigorous approach to right the wrongs of the past, bringing
more perpetrators to justice, holding agencies to account for past failings and
delivering justice for victims.
• Improve the information and intelligence we collect and use to inform our
approaches to tackling child sexual exploitation.
• Ensure we share information more effectively, use information smartly, and
apply the best operational approaches across safeguarding agencies.
My experience is that you get two sorts of overpriced consultants in the public sector. Some are doing the core job, expensively, covering a lack of core recruitment. In general, that's fixable, but the main answer (improving core Ts and C's) is anathema to many.
Others are doing things that probably aren't necessary, except to make the pseudo-markets work. Whoever tells heads how to optimise their adverts, or tell Ofsted a good story. Annoying as hell, and obviously candidates for the B Ark. There are savings to be had, but worthwhile not huge.
And I can safely say that "by being coached to pass assessments by assessors who are more interested in ticking the right boxes" is utter bollocks in my experience.
Bless them. They have zero crime as well. In the whole country there is one prison with 12 cells, and it is still half empty
Last weekend I was involved in interviewing potential volunteers for an organisation I work with. One potential volunteer was open about their mental health and the interviewers reported back that they asked them how they could possibly volunteer and be receiving NHS mental health services.
The same people were patting themselves on the back for getting the pronouns for another potential volunteer correct. These are the idiots we need to deal with - the people who think the Equality Act 2010 is for their pet projects but not for the mentally ill. Granted they are messier, and more annoying, and more chaotic, but in return are excluded from the workforce, excluded from society, excluded from the economy, excluded from housing, and excluded from any kind of opportunity, with many denied their freedom.
Labour solution - to give more jobs to sane people who will then pretend, for payment, that they believe that the mentally ill are employable whilst simultaneously turning them down for work and opportunities, can only be designed to appeal to people who can't see beyond the end of their own noses. I'm not sure who else Labour could be appealing to these days on any issue.
As long as these idiots are unwilling to include them in the society, they'll just have to pay. People need money to live. Or, you can institutionalise, but apart from the moral qualms that a sentient being might have about denying people their freedom, the non-sentient amongst you still need to realise that this objectively costs significantly more. If you want to roll back on the cost of the NHS, that's not really going to be the way to do it.
I've also plenty of experience of them
So that's actually two things.
"I know my Catholic colleagues will particularly be concerned around that", he added.'
Roman Catholic priests and bishops are required to keep what is said in the confessional box secret regardless of what it is, adultery, rape, murder, sexual abuse, robbery, theft, drink driving, fraud etc or who it is, President or King, Mafia Don, billionaire, nurse, lawyer or toilet cleaner etc. That does not apply to the C of E however as C of E bishops and priests generally don't hold confessions unless very high church, certainly not the evangelical or middle of the road ones. C of E safeguarding rules now also require them to report any suspicions of sexual abuse having taken place
And despair that it wasn't done decades back. How much trauma could it have spared?
Would have stopped a raft of social workers branding 13 - 15 year olds as prostitutes too.
There is virtually no crime. Houses are left unlocked. Likewise cars. No one would dream of stealing a phone. Etc
However the government restricts booze sales for a reason. The temptation to get hammered - due to the weather - is quite strong, as it is across the far north and also Wick
Saturday night in Torshavn was quite noisy
Data sharing also sounds attractive but it is surely only hours since we were concerned about officials having unbounded access to data.
Maybe more solid proposals will emerge from the inquiry.
Shaun Davies time left on his committee can be measured in demi trusses
It raises the question of how much of an extent this crime is a result of opportunity, as opposed simply to motive.
It's talked about in some detail in the report, and there is another recommendation which could be acted on (this refers to local authorities granting licenses to applicants from outside the area).
..Given the extent of the reporting on the role taxis can play in child sexual
exploitation, it is unacceptable that local areas are unable to oversee and account for
the taxis on their streets. A lack of stringency means that drivers who are
unscrupulous can apply to a lax neighbouring borough. The Department for
Transport should close these loopholes urgently..
The ambiguity in the law isn't just about reporting - it is one of the things which enabled police and social workers to dismiss clear reports of underage sex, and fail to take action, in a number of the group exploitation cases.
The suggested change in the law isn't a panacea, but it would very likely bring a significant improvement.
Secondly, simply making it mandatory for data to be collected in criminal cases doesn't give "officials unbounded access to data'. Indeed it doesn't require officials in general to have access to any personal data at all; anonymised data for all reported crimes (which doesn't exist at the moment) could be very helpful in pointing the way forward.
For example the Covid-19 inquiry stuff.
"PM's own ex-advisor criticises PM" is a Big Story (TM).
"Former Conservative PM's ex-advisor criticises Labour PM" is not.
From the Lords' record:
There is an arguable case that the seal allows somebody—and it is more likely to be a victim or witness who comes to the confessional—to make a kind of protected disclosure, which then often would lead to them being helped to make a more public disclosure and allow a perpetrator to be taken to justice. I hope there will be careful discussions with religious bodies as to exactly where the seal of the confessional will fit in with this; I know my Catholic colleagues will particularly be concerned around that.
His point is that a blanket requirement for reporting could prevent some victims coming forward. Such exemptions as David Walker is discussing are discussed, and recommended, in the IICSA report sections ~85-110.
They suggest exemptions for victim reporting, and afaics mandatory disclosure for perp disclosures.
National Secular Society Press Release:
https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2025/04/lord-spiritual-argues-for-religious-exemption-to-child-abuse-law
Bp Walker in the Lords Debate:
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2025-04-22a.616.1#g628.0
IICSA Report:
https://www.iicsa.org.uk/document/report-independent-inquiry-child-sexual-abuse-october-2022-0.html
https://salemlola.substack.com/p/after-the-narrator
There were multiple other incidents, in the various reports, of people being aggressively told to stop harassing the authorities with complaints.
On the topic above - why no vigilantism? - I was asked by my Peruvian relatives, when this hit the international news, why the local people didn’t form a Rondas Campesinas and open a dialogue* with the offenders.
*In the trials that resulted from the activities of the Rondas during the Moaist rebellion, a term, something like “opening a dialogue” was used as a euphemism to discuss actions where Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres** sent Peruvian army units to backup the Rondas.
**raised by far left loony parents, he read The Little Red Book on Revolution by Mao. And as intelligence chief of the very anti-communist government, he applied it to counter revolution.
It implies there are some claims made by Dumb Cummings which have *not* been utter mince.
Do we have any examples?
Oh, you mean other individuals?
Admittedly, he did this long after masterminding his elevation to PM, but he did say it.
The singer says the local authority's attitude "stinks" - as a councillor says it is usual practice to "prepare extensively" for major events."
https://news.sky.com/story/liam-gallagher-hits-out-at-edinburgh-council-after-oasis-fans-branded-rowdy-13384054
He does not come off well. He could have stopped and spoke to her.
It’s one thing to use an issue, as a party, for political advantage. It’s another to engage with victims.
https://x.com/officialsammyuk/status/1934206889820365046?s=61
The singer angrily demands their fans be branded rowdy.
Even the new Chairman seems to have quite a history.
CALL TO ACTIVISM
@CalltoActivism
Nothing to see here, just the President of the United States sticking up and shilling for Putin while trashing the former PM of an allied country to their current PM.
https://x.com/CalltoActivism/status/1934662683313213529
Now the last bit is classic Big Dom, I wouldn't be surprised if that isn't something where other recollection vary.
One note warned that there would be a "substantial amount of older fans", and that because "middle-aged men take up more room", age and size should be considered in crowd control planning.
Another note suggested "medium to high intoxication" should be expected at the concert.
An additional remark said there was some "concern about crowds of Oasis on weekends as they are already rowdy, and the tone of the band".
Whatever brings back so many memories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHfx9LXzxpw
If there is a problem in addition to the results of using sickness benefit as a stash to keep the Unemployment numbers down, it is that the system has been designed (since the early 2010s I think) to be turbo-bureaucratic and assessments done by low skilled staff who are not up to scratch.
That's why an Elon Musk Chainsaw and Bugger the Consequences route will not imo work, and why it did not work in the USA.
If the civil service (national and local) is slashed beyond the bone, it will never work - as RefUK will discover or as we have already discovered in quality of built housing by underesourcing planning and building control.
If its possible to be "coached to pass" you'd expect a high appeal success rate as those who are initially declined seek coaching on how to pass on appeal.
As I said, the proposed law change isn't a panacea, but it's a significant improvement.
I am quite open to evidence that literacy is declining. It probably is. But this is not evidence of that
How I yearn for the days when Leon was gloomily drawing his blinds down at 3:30pm.
Russia has shown that such ‘guarantees’ are worthless. Whilst you’d hope more of the West, I’m not sure a Trump USA could be trusted and Israel itself certainly not.
Is there evidence of "coached to pass by assessors"?
From people I know who've been through the process, I doubt it.
That’s actually quite warm by Faroese standards. Recent days have averaged a max of 10-11C
It’s amazing how quickly you get used to it. Today the sun came out for about half an hour (hence that high temperature) - and I caught myself thinking: Wow, what a nice day
At the weekend I got a ferry to the far southern island of Suduroy where it reached 15C and I was like Jeez this is baking
Take it from someone who has had multiple assessments
It just gives the impression of Reform using this for point scoring rather than wanting to solve it.
Quite depressing
BTW I just DM’d you