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This is why Reform should avoid former elected Tories – politicalbetting.com
This is why Reform should avoid former elected Tories – politicalbetting.com
I was pleased to meet with Ahmadullah and his family in Nottinghamshire, an Afghan interpreter who worked alongside British forces in Helmand.Over a third of local councils have already agreed to support, house and integrate families like his.#operationwarmwelcome pic.twitter.com/pcFVyOyIec
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I’m not 100% on the dates though, so could be wrong
It feels like compassionate lefties are throwing that man under the bus by trying to score a point about Jenrick using that Tweet. It's not a good look for PB in my opinion.
It's curious that the government didn't originally apply for a superinjunction in the Afghan case, just a straightforward injunction.
The original decision to convert it to a superinjunction was the initiative of the judge on the case.
Grant Shapps then changed MoD policy on the matter.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/jul/16/grant-shapps-pushed-for-mod-afghan-superinjunction-to-remain-in-place
More detail on the costs involved also emerges, which unsurprisingly shows that Leon's certainty about the £7bn was misplaced.
More detail on the story here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rvyqd7wq2o
The role of the UK Special Forces (one of whom was responsible for the data leak) is somewhat murky.
Also extraordinary is that John Healey was briefed on this while in opposition, as shadow DefSec, and didn't tell Starmer, as he believed the injunction prevented his doing so.
No one knows the true numbers because the Government has been lying to us for two years, and is still - officially - lying. Injunctions remain in place
At the same time you can find reliable sources claiming everything from £200m to £10bn+
I don’t know the true figure; neither do you
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
https://deadline.com/2025/07/jack-lowden-berlin-noir-playtone-apple-1236459917/
A classic headline of the Telegraph genre this morning:
Labour won’t be in government long enough to witness the mess their NHS plan is creating
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/16/labour-wont-be-in-government-long-nhs-10-year-plan
Seems to arguing the case that the ten year plan won't work because it relies on GPs and they are crap.
My apologies for being the lame brain that I am but I don't see an answer to the Why of the title in the thread header.
If Nigel Farage and Reform are going to win the next election then they need to not look like a party made up of failed Tory politicians like Sir Jake Berry, Suella Braverman, Liz Truss, and so on and so forth.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Given we're only a year into this Parliament, there's fortunately plenty of time for the record to be set straight.
The more important point is the number of politicians who apparently felt obliged by the existence of a superinjuntion to turn off whatever brains they possess.
The original application was for a four month media blackout. There doesn't seem to be any good reason at all why that was extended to a couple of years, which spanned a general election. And there are very good reasons why it shouldn't have been.
Which would be a remarkable feature, if true.
Isn’t the point of the Privy Council, that it is the full I-need-to-know zone, with very few exceptions?
Too late for Labour now.
Instead Reeves signed off on more funding for them while simultaneously trying to stop WFA and PIP for millions of British people.
So that is two areas where super injunctions are overriding how the UK constitution supposedly works. And I say supposedly because it's not written down so its possible to change things but I don't see how any court should override Parliament and Government.
The review of the injunction seems to have concluded that there was no good reason at all for having it in place for so long. That ought to have been self evident back in the last Parliament.
It seems quite clear that on various areas the structures of government prefer silence and not collecting statistics. Because they believe the truth is bad.
Because now we have rising inflation and increased unemployment (alongside which job vacancies numbers are low) which screams to me Stagflation (albeit not much at the moment but it's an issue).
Does anyone know if this also applies to carbon capture projects?
Starmer lying about when he found out would be very on trend. He could suspend the whip on a few more people to deflect
There needs to be a defined group (supposed to be the Privy Council) who have access to everything.
Compartmentation is all very well. But at the top of government, the whole group - which includes opposition and non-politicians - has to know.
Otherwise this is a piece of democracy (as you say) being removed.
When you add in the ability for a government to pick which judge it takes a case to….
The key questions for Reform in GE 2029 are deeper. Do they go in hard on truth telling and realism - something whose time may have come; do they go hard on the fact that Clacton voters are all for a nationalist state which spends bigly on the post 1945 social democrat deal; or do they go for protest and unicorns and contradictions?
Will they tell us approximately what % of GDP will be devoted to state expenditure in the fifth year of their government?
Or will they be 'the same as all the others'.
The whole thing reeks, horrendously, and it isn’t going away
It seems highly unusual for a Speaker to decide they should not be told anything.
- merged NI and Income tax, simplified the rates and sneaked in some raises.
- protected poor pensioners with a combined rate that was equal to the old IT rate
- Converted old age benefits into a common taxable/means tested form
- Quadruple lock. Pension = Personal allowance
- Announced that “the savings”* would be used to fund the NHS and education.
.., this would have raised money. The Labour Party would be broadly happy with that. The markets would have been favourable. I would think that the government would be higher in the polls, as well.
*actually money from tax rises.
It is, after all, more than the average cost of *buying* a house in the UK
The Two-Child limit appears to be one of ideology and the past Conservative governments were long on ideology and short on solutions. Here's some background.
So we have failed ideologues wanting to join another party which is again long on ideology and short on solutions. This governing stuff is difficult enough without the incompetent getting involved. And the cost of poverty is higher than the purported savings.
https://social-policy.org.uk/50-for-50/two-child-policy/
So, the secrecy really related specifically to the leaking of the data of those who had applied and an additional scheme ARAP that was put in place to help those thought to be at risk from that leak. It seemed to me yesterday that that part of the story was getting completely mixed up with the other schemes covering broadly the same people which were already in force (@Foxy in fairness was making this point).
The reality is that this is a somewhat smaller story than it first appeared even if the super injunction aspect of it needs more attention.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5405370-james-comey-daughter-maurene-comey-fired-reports/
"No specific reason given."
Its also possible that included the cost of renovating unused MoD property.
...The UKSF official who inadvertently leaked the data was assisting with the verification of a small number of applications from Afghan special forces when the accidental breach occurred.
The official was in possession of the full dataset because UKSF – the umbrella group containing the SAS and SBS – was given a secret veto over Arap applications from former members of Afghan special forces.
The BBC revealed last year that UKSF had used that veto to block hundreds of Afghan commandos who had fought alongside the SAS and SBS from relocating to the UK.
Documents obtained by Panorama showed special forces had rejected applications despite some containing compelling evidence of service alongside the SAS on dangerous night raid operations.
The personal information of many of those Afghan special forces were included in the massive data breach revealed this week...
I go for cockup rather than conspiracy every time, but this requires further explanation.
I'm actually involved in a refugee resettlement scheme and the allocation for housing is pitifully small, so I'm calling bullshit on these numbers.
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
It is hardly featuring on Sky this morning with the top stories the rise in unemployment and Starmer sacking 4 of his mps
I am not convinced, especially with the summer recession, that it will remain the story
I do agree it should be revealed if Sunak told Starmer in the privy council, and that the judge increased the application from an injuction to a super injunction was entirely his decision
There will be those on the right who hope to stir discord but then that is their modus operandi unfortunately
As far as the pictures in the header, they show just how we should welcome those who helped our forces and were at risk
Cost control, I agree, but there should be some degree of oversight.
According to a number of lawsuits bought by the usual suspects.
Has the Supreme Court visited the issue of their propriety, and what did they say?
How can an injunction be effective as regards anyone who doesn't and can't know it exists?
Whether anyone will believe any government report is also doubtful.
With no “Public Interest” justification for breaching it.
So everyone in the know, will know that if they leak it, they will be in breach and have no defence.
If someone is publishing something, they get told. And either take it down, or directly defy the court.
The critical bit is the no defence thing. So, when they ask a lawyer, the lawyer will always tell them to comply.
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
The level of ignorance on this board is once again extraordinary, especially for a group of people who take excessive pride in their supposed intelligence and rationality!
Unemployment
2010 7.9%
2024 4.4%
2025 4.7%
Inflation
2010 3.2%
2024 2.0%
2025 3.6%
Pay rises
2010 1.3%
2024 5.8%
2025 5.0%
See the rates that have been paid for block booking hotels.
TBH, the charts are probably more informative.
'SAS had golden pass to get away with murder, inquiry told'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c07g40x1v53o
Perhaps I am the same. But all I’ve done is take the number used in court which is near to the source material as we can get
What we need is some serious parliamentary scrutiny. Those who blithely think this story has gone away because “it’s not on most read list at express.co.uk” are fucking delusional
This is not Watergate. This is more like a bank run. Very very dangerous. It may indeed fizzle out with minor reputational damage to one or two corporations. Or it may be a grave systemic risk
They may also have some very bad reasons, in the light of recent reporting.
All quite possibly coincidence and cockup, which is still the more likely explanation.
But this whole thing smells bad enough that I'm no longer happy to take that on trust.
Because there seems to have been endless thousands of them.
What they were 'special' at is also a mystery.
Because it certainly wasn't at fighting the Taliban.
So perhaps they were 'special' at cowardice or corruption or in the traditional Afghan activity of robbing and raping different ethnic or geographical demographics.
My understanding is that the media are given notice of the existence of the order so that they cannot write about the story but they are also not allowed to write about or mention the existence of the order.
Jeremy Clarkson.
And many have forgotten what state the economy was in at that time.
JLR to cut up to 500 posts
https://www.itv.com/news/central/2025-07-17/jaguar-land-rover-to-cut-up-to-500-uk-jobs
Once again - none of us knows much because the whole thing is disgracefully shrouded in appalling deception and secrecy. Did the government inform the treasury? The bond markets? Anyone? That they were intending to spend £7bn? Or have spent it? Or what?
This depressing fiasco gets crazier the closer you look. A lot of people on here really don’t want to look
And as with tax, there may be a whole set of benefits in delaying the news for x months while you get your ducks in a line
It’s a catastrophic explosion of public trust in our democracy. This is why it’s like a bank run
When you can’t trust the bank, you run to get your cash and you never use that bank - or maybe any bank - ever again
"This incendiary saga weaves together every debacle, every infamy of the past 20 years – our failed adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan, the massive increase in immigration and often insufficient integration, the grooming gang monstrosity, the rise of technocratic, anti-democratic governance dressed up as “human rights”, the war against free speech, the lockdown power grab, the welfare dependency culture, the ruinous economic and financial mismanagement – into one meta-indictment of our ghastly ruling class, of the useless Tory-Labour uniparty, of our failed state."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/16/british-public-never-forgive-elites-for-afghanistan-leak
Trump's tariffs are noted. It has also been widely reported that Jaguar is not marketing new vehicles for at least a year. Jaguars are/ were made in Castle Bromwich.
By all means call this Government out, but don't make a story fit your frame for the sake of it.
https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-12-1933-fireside-chat-1-banking-crisis
My cousin who did a couple of tours of Afghanistan said that one of the most difficult things with the Afghan soldiers he fought with was holding them back. Brave to the point of recklessness, with little fire discipline and rather over eager to get stuck in.
I assume he has the figures to quote it in the HOC
It was a special settlement program which the government wanted to keep secret.
There may well have been, in fact almost certainly was, plenty of money changing hands to incentivise people keeping quiet.
Similarly these Afghans might have been placed in non-standard ie affluent/expensive areas to encourage them to keep quiet and also keep them away from the 'refugee industry'.
Jenrick however is and remains a Conservative MP so clearly is still proud of welcoming those Afghans who were given refugee status to protect them from the Taliban after having helped western forces