Inflation up and unemployment up. Well done, Rachel. Quite the achievement.
Growth down too. Stagflation here we are
We have wages still growing at 5%, we have higher than expected inflation, we had strong growth in Q1 which may have since died. Performance indicators still indicate likely future growth. And the Bank want to cut interest rates. Its bordering on irrational. Or Bailey like as other people call it.
The Jenrick story is a bit of my confusion on this. The government had an announced public policy of helping Afghans who had worked with our forces and made it clear that they would be granted asylum. None of this was secret, quite the contrary and it had broad public support.
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.
It's potentially something more than that. ...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.
The SAS and SBS may have had very good reasons for seeking to veto some of the Afghan SF troops, namely that they had seen themselves that these people were psychopaths and dangerous to the UK population, particularly the female population. If we had then decided we had to take them anyway, despite that perceived risk, because of the leak that would indeed raise other questions. But we are still talking about dozens rather than thousands in that category and millions rather than billions. The billions relate, for the most part, to the Parliamentary approved schemes that were in place and publicly known about.
Hmm.
'SAS had golden pass to get away with murder, inquiry told'
I initially read David's comment to mean that the Afghan SF troops have seen themselves that the UK SF were psychopaths and there was therefore a risk they might mention this on arrival!
'Your fine British elite forces were the model for everything we did'
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose to 4.7%, its highest in four years, though the ONS has said the figure needs to be treated with caution due to problems with how the data is collected.
Scores on the doors for this month:
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%
What made you choose 2010 as the earliest value?
TBH, the charts are probably more informative.
Because in 2010, as in 2024, we had a change of government.
And many have forgotten what state the economy was in at that time.
Unemployment 2010 7.9% 2011 8.1%
2024 4.4% 2025 4.7%
Inflation 2010 3.2% 2011 5.3%
2024 2.0% 2025 3.6%
Pay rises 2010 1.3% 2011 1.6%
2024 5.8% 2025 5.0%
And the 1001 factors behind each figure, don't really make for quite as clear a picture. Should we throw in all the other elections, or perhaps the huge fluctuations we've seen in between, and the varying reasons for those, and why such context-free snapshots are a little pointless?
I see that Reform has told renewables companies that they would scrap their subsidy deals if they form a government.
Does anyone know if this also applies to carbon capture projects?
So Reform wants us to pay £114 per MWh for gas generation rather than around £44 including those "subsidies" for offshore wind? These guys are so illiterate.
The ex Tory Reform councillor may be embarrassed by having to back Farage's new send the Afghans back to the Taliban policy having previously welcomed them.
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
I picture you rigidly saluting a Union Jack in the garden of your semi in Epping as you write this, even as your new Afghan neighbours laughingly hurl decomposing samosas at you
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose to 4.7%, its highest in four years, though the ONS has said the figure needs to be treated with caution due to problems with how the data is collected.
Scores on the doors for this month:
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%
What made you choose 2010 as the earliest value?
TBH, the charts are probably more informative.
Because in 2010, as in 2024, we had a change of government.
And many have forgotten what state the economy was in at that time.
Unemployment 2010 7.9% 2011 8.1%
2024 4.4% 2025 4.7%
Inflation 2010 3.2% 2011 5.3%
2024 2.0% 2025 3.6%
Pay rises 2010 1.3% 2011 1.6%
2024 5.8% 2025 5.0%
And the 1001 factors behind each figure, don't really make for quite as clear a picture. Should we throw in all the other elections, or perhaps the huge fluctuations we've seen in between, and the varying reasons for those, and why such context-free snapshots are a little pointless?
Time will tell if this is a case of things getting worse before they get better.
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
John Healey at the dispatch box stated it had cost at least £800 million
I assume he has the figures to quote it in the HOC
Did it not occur to you that “he’s from the government”? Those people that have been deliberately carefully and officiously lying to us, on this exact subject, for the last two years - and jailing anyone that even mentioned the reality?
Now for some reason you trust him? Pray tell, why?
I see that Reform has told renewables companies that they would scrap their subsidy deals if they form a government.
Does anyone know if this also applies to carbon capture projects?
So Reform wants us to pay £114 per MWh for gas generation rather than around £44 including those "subsidies" for offshore wind? These guys are so illiterate.
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
The Afghan Surcharge of 2p on rate of income tax and all blamed on Tories?
To be blunt I don't care what they call it - it should have been done last October rather than screwing with Employer NI.
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).
If a Labour Chancellor had….
- 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.
Merging NI and IT would have been a disaster and increased welfare dependency. NI should be ringfenced for the state pension and JSA and some social care
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
It's a useful reminder of how innumerate some people are.
Yes, it's like that MP who couldn't see why taxes would have to rise to cover 'a few billion pounds' - most people, most MPs included, have no instinctive grasp of how big a billion is. The human brain thinks in a log scale*, and perceives 'billion' as twice a million rather than a thousand times a million.
*this is true. Psychological experiments on those who have never studied maths show that they perceive nine as roughly double three, and sixteen as roughly double four. Can't remember more details than that though.
Harold Wilson, Michael Foot, Quintin Hogg (later Lord Hailsham).
TL/DR; a postcard showing Wilson with his secretary Marcia Williams was used as a publicity stunt. Wilson sued, and was represented by Quintin Hogg QC.
By coincidence, the person who had first spread rumours about Wilson and Williams was the Conservative MP Quintin Hogg QC.
The band lost and royalties from Flowers in the Rain, now estimated in the millions of pounds, went to charity.
Of course, what Wilson really needed was a super-injunction.
The ex Tory Reform councillor may be embarrassed by having to back Farage's new send the Afghans back to the Taliban policy having previously welcomed them.
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
Jenrick was until yesterday trying to make hay over immigrant foreigners, any immigrant foreigners. The fact that he has personally been dragged into the controversy because of what he said three years ago when he was still a Cameroonian, demonstrated a contradiction to his now "I am far tougher on immigrant foreigners than Reform" schtick.
I thought it useful to refresh my memory of events in Kabul nearly four years ago and the evacuation of tens of thousands of foreign nationals and Afghan citizens and their families following the collapse of the Ghani administration.
Not quite Saigon in 1975 but some echoes and the diaspora of those who believed they had no future in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was tragic just as a previous generation of “boat people” had endured.
The central point is the balance between the scrutiny required in a parliamentary democracy and the secrecy or confidentiality under which all organisations, whether public or private, operate at times.
I struggle with the fact it took 18 months for the initial breach to be reported - data breaches need to be reported as soon as they happen and every organisation for which I worked had information governance protocols to deal with every reported or suspected breach. We know breaches happen - leaving a laptop in the back of a car or a filing cabinet of paperwork on a landfill site are two examples.
The other issue is the right to know versus the need to know. You cannot have complete transparency in Government any more than in any other institution. There’s a place for scrutiny but let’s not be naive - every Government has and will always have its secrets.
The ex Tory Reform councillor may be embarrassed by having to back Farage's new send the Afghans back to the Taliban policy having previously welcomed them.
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
Has Farage actually said he would send them back to Afghanistan?
The ex Tory Reform councillor may be embarrassed by having to back Farage's new send the Afghans back to the Taliban policy having previously welcomed them.
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
Not just Conservative turncoats changing their tune. Here's Tice from not so long ago:
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
These Afghans weren't refugees though.
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'.
Of course they are refugees. I wonder what this affluent area is where you imagine refugees are being put up for £400k/year, given that you can rent a penthouse flat in Mayfair for around a third of that?
Bizarrely the number of employed people grew in May by 134,000 well above expectations. Yet the unemployment rate went up .
Employment / Unemployment figures are a very inexact science since the dawning of rubbish like zero hours. I suppose the only reasonably accurate metric ( and that is only of itself) are those claiming job seekers allowance.
‘Barings Law have signed up more than 1000 of the Afghans who were brought to the UK and are looking for more. If their claims are successful they could get up to £250,000 each and Barings would get 25% of every claim. The cost of this likely to be £1 billion of tax payers money.’
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
John Healey at the dispatch box stated it had cost at least £800 million
I assume he has the figures to quote it in the HOC
Did it not occur to you that “he’s from the government”? Those people that have been deliberately carefully and officiously lying to us, on this exact subject, for the last two years - and jailing anyone that even mentioned the reality?
Now for some reason you trust him? Pray tell, why?
He made a statement to the HOC which included the figure
If Healey is misleading the house then it is a resignation matter
And to add, I listened to Healey yesterday and would take his word every time over your attempts to make this a story that fits your narrative
‘Barings Law have signed up more than 1000 of the Afghans who were brought to the UK and are looking for more. If their claims are successful they could get up to £250,000 each and Barings would get 25% of every claim. The cost of this likely to be £1 billion of tax payers money.’
The ex Tory Reform councillor may be embarrassed by having to back Farage's new send the Afghans back to the Taliban policy having previously welcomed them.
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
Jenrick was until yesterday trying to make hay over immigrant foreigners, any immigrant foreigners. The fact that he has personally been dragged into the controversy because of what he said three years ago when he was still a Cameroonian, demonstrated a contradiction to his now "I am far tougher on immigrant foreigners than Reform" schtick.
A shameless rather than seamless transition by Jenrick. I suspect this is why Conservative MPs do not like or trust him.
The Jenrick story is a bit of my confusion on this. The government had an announced public policy of helping Afghans who had worked with our forces and made it clear that they would be granted asylum. None of this was secret, quite the contrary and it had broad public support.
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.
Two questions about super injunctions for the panel:
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?
It’s the modern version of the Official Secrets Act.
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.
Defy the super injunction and be damned. Challenge the judge if necessary. Ludicrous that Healy felt he couldn't tell Starmer because of the super injunction. He should have just told him. I believe that rules are for guidance not blind obedience. But if you break them, you take the consequences. Generally the consequences are zero.
The ex Tory Reform councillor may be embarrassed by having to back Farage's new send the Afghans back to the Taliban policy having previously welcomed them.
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
Not just Conservative turncoats changing their tune. Here's Tice from not so long ago:
Will the BBC highlight the vomit inducing hypocrisy from Reform ? They seem intent on getting Reform elected , the same Reform that wants to end the organisation.
It just gets worse for Skyr Toolmakersson. Worse and worse
Its bad Keir, very bad.
Remove the whip from Labour MPs then
Errm from who Keir?
All of them
But....
ALL OF THEM!
Given that Brian Leishman’s seems to have lost the whip for complaining that the Government hasn’t done what they promised to do at Grangemouth (in his constituency) there’s a very low bar for losing the whip
Bizarrely the number of employed people grew in May by 134,000 well above expectations. Yet the unemployment rate went up .
Because there were fewer economically inactive people. This is very good news as the UK, uniquely among major economies, saw a large and persistent rise in inactivity post-Covid. In the last year that has fallen significantly (perhaps related to the clearing of NHS backlogs) and so we are back at 2018 levels.
It just gets worse for Skyr Toolmakersson. Worse and worse
Its bad Keir, very bad.
Remove the whip from Labour MPs then
Errm from who Keir?
All of them
But....
ALL OF THEM!
Given that Brian Leishman’s seems to have lost the whip for complaining that the Government hasn’t done what they promised to do at Grangemouth (in his constituency) there’s a very low bar for losing the whip
The Jenrick story is a bit of my confusion on this. The government had an announced public policy of helping Afghans who had worked with our forces and made it clear that they would be granted asylum. None of this was secret, quite the contrary and it had broad public support.
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.
Two questions about super injunctions for the panel:
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?
It’s the modern version of the Official Secrets Act.
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.
Defy the super injunction and be damned. Challenge the judge if necessary. Ludicrous that Healy felt he couldn't tell Starmer because of the super injunction. He should have just told him. I believe that rules are for guidance not blind obedience. But if you break them, you take the consequences. Generally the consequences are zero.
I would have thought even a judge as stupid as David Eady would have thought twice before saying a superinjunction meant a Minister of HM Government could not notify the Prime Minister of something.
‘Barings Law have signed up more than 1000 of the Afghans who were brought to the UK and are looking for more. If their claims are successful they could get up to £250,000 each and Barings would get 25% of every claim. The cost of this likely to be £1 billion of tax payers money.’
It just gets worse for Skyr Toolmakersson. Worse and worse
Its bad Keir, very bad.
Remove the whip from Labour MPs then
Errm from who Keir?
All of them
But....
ALL OF THEM!
Given that Brian Leishman’s seems to have lost the whip for complaining that the Government hasn’t done what they promised to do at Grangemouth (in his constituency) there’s a very low bar for losing the whip
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
John Healey at the dispatch box stated it had cost at least £800 million
I assume he has the figures to quote it in the HOC
Did it not occur to you that “he’s from the government”? Those people that have been deliberately carefully and officiously lying to us, on this exact subject, for the last two years - and jailing anyone that even mentioned the reality?
Now for some reason you trust him? Pray tell, why?
He made a statement to the HOC which included the figure
If Healey is misleading the house then it is a resignation matter
And to add, I listened to Healey yesterday and would take his word every time over your attempts to make this a story that fits your narrative
Leon is asking us to trust him rather than the minister making a statement on the record. No thanks.
He'd also like us to condemn the judgment of the judge who initially came up with the super injunction, and take as gospel the wholly hypothetical £7bn a second judge used as an illustration in his comments on the case.
Inflation up and unemployment up. Well done, Rachel. Quite the achievement.
Growth down too. Stagflation here we are
I don’t believe we’d be doing any better even if, by some miracle, Sunak had remained Prime Minister.
Plenty of factors, internal and external, have caused growth to slow and not just here. The Covid slump and recovery were statistical anomalies and we’ve had long periods of slow growth since the 1980s. If you want 5% annual growth (apart from post-COVID, you’ve got to go back a way).
Technological innovation might help - it has before - but the 20th century model of capitalism is breaking if not broken and the demographic imbalances are creating new challenges.
Our previous periods of growth have relied on one or more of cheap food, cheap fuel/resources, cheap money and cheap labour. If you have all of those at the same time, growth is more or less guaranteed - if you have none of them, it isn’t.
While I would love to see the public finances improve and the burden of debt interest reduced, I wonder if that really is the be-all and end-all of the debate which seems to be led by those advocating unrealistic and damaging cuts across the piece.
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
These Afghans weren't refugees though.
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'.
Of course they are refugees. I wonder what this affluent area is where you imagine refugees are being put up for £400k/year, given that you can rent a penthouse flat in Mayfair for around a third of that?
Perhaps you should ask the Times.
But you seem to be in desperate denial that the government were desperately keeping things secret.
The ex Tory Reform councillor may be embarrassed by having to back Farage's new send the Afghans back to the Taliban policy having previously welcomed them.
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
Jenrick was until yesterday trying to make hay over immigrant foreigners, any immigrant foreigners. The fact that he has personally been dragged into the controversy because of what he said three years ago when he was still a Cameroonian, demonstrated a contradiction to his now "I am far tougher on immigrant foreigners than Reform" schtick.
Yes, any evidence of him acting like a decent human being is potentially embarrassing because it undermines his new brand.
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
John Healey at the dispatch box stated it had cost at least £800 million
I assume he has the figures to quote it in the HOC
Did it not occur to you that “he’s from the government”? Those people that have been deliberately carefully and officiously lying to us, on this exact subject, for the last two years - and jailing anyone that even mentioned the reality?
Now for some reason you trust him? Pray tell, why?
He made a statement to the HOC which included the figure
If Healey is misleading the house then it is a resignation matter
And to add, I listened to Healey yesterday and would take his word every time over your attempts to make this a story that fits your narrative
You’re literally trusting a government that has just told you it’s been lying ON THIS EXACT ISSUE - and lying in the most profound and devastating way. You’re like a wife who trusts a wife beater. “I’ll be better this time, love”
Inflation up and unemployment up. Well done, Rachel. Quite the achievement.
Growth down too. Stagflation here we are
I don’t believe we’d be doing any better even if, by some miracle, Sunak had remained Prime Minister.
Plenty of factors, internal and external, have caused growth to slow and not just here. The Covid slump and recovery were statistical anomalies and we’ve had long periods of slow growth since the 1980s. If you want 5% annual growth (apart from post-COVID, you’ve got to go back a way).
Technological innovation might help - it has before - but the 20th century model of capitalism is breaking if not broken and the demographic imbalances are creating new challenges.
Our previous periods of growth have relied on one or more of cheap food, cheap fuel/resources, cheap money and cheap labour. If you have all of those at the same time, growth is more or less guaranteed - if you have none of them, it isn’t.
While I would love to see the public finances improve and the burden of debt interest reduced, I wonder if that really is the be-all and end-all of the debate which seems to be led by those advocating unrealistic and damaging cuts across the piece.
Totally agree, however we had an incoming govt promising change and sorting the mess out
The Jenrick story is a bit of my confusion on this. The government had an announced public policy of helping Afghans who had worked with our forces and made it clear that they would be granted asylum. None of this was secret, quite the contrary and it had broad public support.
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.
Two questions about super injunctions for the panel:
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?
It’s the modern version of the Official Secrets Act.
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.
Defy the super injunction and be damned. Challenge the judge if necessary. Ludicrous that Healy felt he couldn't tell Starmer because of the super injunction. He should have just told him. I believe that rules are for guidance not blind obedience. But if you break them, you take the consequences. Generally the consequences are zero.
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
I know accountancy isn't your thing and you give @kinabalu a hard time over it, but sometimes it can be useful. It is almost certain that quoted cost figures include the recovery of overheads. Very few of which will be purely variable. When a department costs a project or measures the cost it usually doesn't measure the marginal cost but allocates a proportion of overheads to it. These are sunk costs eg depreciation on an MOD building, upkeep of the head office, the Ministers salary, etc. A proportion of these will be allocated to each project. It is not the actual marginal cost spent to house an asylum seeker. I am a huge fan of marginal costing, but it is far more difficult, plus those fixed or semi variable overheads do need to be split across the projects to get a real feel of the cost even if they are not additional spend on the specific issue.
To give you one example in a number of parallel IT projects I was involved in (many many years ago) the cost of a project was determined by splitting the overall costs across the headcount. The more people you had on a project the greater the cost. 100% of the people across all the projects would cover all the fixed and semi variable costs. Typically the cost per person was 4 times the salary cost of that person.
PS I am not justifying any of this, just explaining some of the costing stuff.
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
John Healey at the dispatch box stated it had cost at least £800 million
I assume he has the figures to quote it in the HOC
Did it not occur to you that “he’s from the government”? Those people that have been deliberately carefully and officiously lying to us, on this exact subject, for the last two years - and jailing anyone that even mentioned the reality?
Now for some reason you trust him? Pray tell, why?
He made a statement to the HOC which included the figure
If Healey is misleading the house then it is a resignation matter
And to add, I listened to Healey yesterday and would take his word every time over your attempts to make this a story that fits your narrative
Leon is asking us to trust him rather than the minister making a statement on the record. No thanks.
He'd also like us to condemn the judgment of the judge who initially came up with the super injunction, and take as gospel the wholly hypothetical £7bn a second judge used as an illustration in his comments on the case.
I think he takes us for fools.
Are you eight years old? Am I the person that took out a fucking super injunction enabling me to lie on this issue - to Parliament, people, everyone - for two whole years?
You are utterly ridiculous. All of you. Bewildered centrist dads wandering around a misty field and face planting into cow pats
The Jenrick story is a bit of my confusion on this. The government had an announced public policy of helping Afghans who had worked with our forces and made it clear that they would be granted asylum. None of this was secret, quite the contrary and it had broad public support.
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.
It's potentially something more than that. ...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.
The SAS and SBS may have had very good reasons for seeking to veto some of the Afghan SF troops, namely that they had seen themselves that these people were psychopaths and dangerous to the UK population, particularly the female population. If we had then decided we had to take them anyway, despite that perceived risk, because of the leak that would indeed raise other questions. But we are still talking about dozens rather than thousands in that category and millions rather than billions. The billions relate, for the most part, to the Parliamentary approved schemes that were in place and publicly known about.
Or the special forces are blocking them as potential witnesses in the cases against the SAS/SBS
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
These Afghans weren't refugees though.
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'.
Of course they are refugees. I wonder what this affluent area is where you imagine refugees are being put up for £400k/year, given that you can rent a penthouse flat in Mayfair for around a third of that?
Perhaps you should ask the Times.
But you seem to be in desperate denial that the government were desperately keeping things secret.
And secrecy costs.
Mudoch press playing fast and loose with the facts? I'm shocked.
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
John Healey at the dispatch box stated it had cost at least £800 million
I assume he has the figures to quote it in the HOC
Did it not occur to you that “he’s from the government”? Those people that have been deliberately carefully and officiously lying to us, on this exact subject, for the last two years - and jailing anyone that even mentioned the reality?
Now for some reason you trust him? Pray tell, why?
He made a statement to the HOC which included the figure
If Healey is misleading the house then it is a resignation matter
And to add, I listened to Healey yesterday and would take his word every time over your attempts to make this a story that fits your narrative
Leon is asking us to trust him rather than the minister making a statement on the record. No thanks.
He'd also like us to condemn the judgment of the judge who initially came up with the super injunction, and take as gospel the wholly hypothetical £7bn a second judge used as an illustration in his comments on the case.
I think he takes us for fools.
Are you eight years old? Am I the person that took out a fucking super injunction enabling me to lie on this issue - to Parliament, people, everyone - for two whole years?
You are utterly ridiculous. All of you. Bewildered centrist dads wandering around a misty field and face planting into cow pats
@Leon is the ULTIMATE Centrist Dad, always bangin' on about wanting to take his daughter to Svalbard or Skegness or wherever
The Jenrick story is a bit of my confusion on this. The government had an announced public policy of helping Afghans who had worked with our forces and made it clear that they would be granted asylum. None of this was secret, quite the contrary and it had broad public support.
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.
Two questions about super injunctions for the panel:
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?
It’s the modern version of the Official Secrets Act.
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.
Defy the super injunction and be damned. Challenge the judge if necessary. Ludicrous that Healy felt he couldn't tell Starmer because of the super injunction. He should have just told him. I believe that rules are for guidance not blind obedience. But if you break them, you take the consequences. Generally the consequences are zero.
Healey couldn't tell Starmer what exactly ?
I'm quoting NigelB above. 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.
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
John Healey at the dispatch box stated it had cost at least £800 million
I assume he has the figures to quote it in the HOC
Did it not occur to you that “he’s from the government”? Those people that have been deliberately carefully and officiously lying to us, on this exact subject, for the last two years - and jailing anyone that even mentioned the reality?
Now for some reason you trust him? Pray tell, why?
He made a statement to the HOC which included the figure
If Healey is misleading the house then it is a resignation matter
And to add, I listened to Healey yesterday and would take his word every time over your attempts to make this a story that fits your narrative
Leon is asking us to trust him rather than the minister making a statement on the record. No thanks.
He'd also like us to condemn the judgment of the judge who initially came up with the super injunction, and take as gospel the wholly hypothetical £7bn a second judge used as an illustration in his comments on the case.
I think he takes us for fools.
Are you eight years old? Am I the person that took out a fucking super injunction enabling me to lie on this issue - to Parliament, people, everyone - for two whole years?
You are utterly ridiculous. All of you. Bewildered centrist dads wandering around a misty field and face planting into cow pats
Not sure how you’re going to survive 4 more years of Labour ! You seem to be blowing a gasket on a daily basis .
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
John Healey at the dispatch box stated it had cost at least £800 million
I assume he has the figures to quote it in the HOC
Did it not occur to you that “he’s from the government”? Those people that have been deliberately carefully and officiously lying to us, on this exact subject, for the last two years - and jailing anyone that even mentioned the reality?
Now for some reason you trust him? Pray tell, why?
He made a statement to the HOC which included the figure
If Healey is misleading the house then it is a resignation matter
And to add, I listened to Healey yesterday and would take his word every time over your attempts to make this a story that fits your narrative
Leon is asking us to trust him rather than the minister making a statement on the record. No thanks.
He'd also like us to condemn the judgment of the judge who initially came up with the super injunction, and take as gospel the wholly hypothetical £7bn a second judge used as an illustration in his comments on the case.
I think he takes us for fools.
Are you eight years old? Am I the person that took out a fucking super injunction enabling me to lie on this issue - to Parliament, people, everyone - for two whole years?
You are utterly ridiculous. All of you. Bewildered centrist dads wandering around a misty field and face planting into cow pats
@Leon is the ULTIMATE Centrist Dad, always bangin' on about wanting to take his daughter to Svalbard or Skegness or wherever
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
John Healey at the dispatch box stated it had cost at least £800 million
I assume he has the figures to quote it in the HOC
Did it not occur to you that “he’s from the government”? Those people that have been deliberately carefully and officiously lying to us, on this exact subject, for the last two years - and jailing anyone that even mentioned the reality?
Now for some reason you trust him? Pray tell, why?
He made a statement to the HOC which included the figure
If Healey is misleading the house then it is a resignation matter
And to add, I listened to Healey yesterday and would take his word every time over your attempts to make this a story that fits your narrative
Leon is asking us to trust him rather than the minister making a statement on the record. No thanks.
He'd also like us to condemn the judgment of the judge who initially came up with the super injunction, and take as gospel the wholly hypothetical £7bn a second judge used as an illustration in his comments on the case.
I think he takes us for fools.
Are you eight years old? Am I the person that took out a fucking super injunction enabling me to lie on this issue - to Parliament, people, everyone - for two whole years?
You are utterly ridiculous. All of you. Bewildered centrist dads wandering around a misty field and face planting into cow pats
@Leon is the ULTIMATE Centrist Dad, always bangin' on about wanting to take his daughter to Svalbard or Skegness or wherever
She’s quite keen on Svalbard
Is there Norway you can get her to Skegness instead?
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
I know accountancy isn't your thing and you give @kinabalu a hard time over it, but sometimes it can be useful. It is almost certain that quoted cost figures include the recovery of overheads. Very few of which will be purely variable. When a department costs a project or measures the cost it usually doesn't measure the marginal cost but allocates a proportion of overheads to it. These are sunk costs eg depreciation on an MOD building, upkeep of the head office, the Ministers salary, etc. A proportion of these will be allocated to each project. It is not the actual marginal cost spent to house an asylum seeker. I am a huge fan of marginal costing, but it is far more difficult, plus those fixed or semi variable overheads do need to be split across the projects to get a real feel of the cost even if they are not additional spend on the specific issue.
To give you one example in a number of parallel IT projects I was involved in (many many years ago) the cost of a project was determined by splitting the overall costs across the headcount. The more people you had on a project the greater the cost. 100% of the people across all the projects would cover all the fixed and semi variable costs. Typically the cost per person was 4 times the salary cost of that person.
Numbers are not for everyone. But it does help to at least have the basics.
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
John Healey at the dispatch box stated it had cost at least £800 million
I assume he has the figures to quote it in the HOC
Did it not occur to you that “he’s from the government”? Those people that have been deliberately carefully and officiously lying to us, on this exact subject, for the last two years - and jailing anyone that even mentioned the reality?
Now for some reason you trust him? Pray tell, why?
He made a statement to the HOC which included the figure
If Healey is misleading the house then it is a resignation matter
And to add, I listened to Healey yesterday and would take his word every time over your attempts to make this a story that fits your narrative
Leon is asking us to trust him rather than the minister making a statement on the record. No thanks.
He'd also like us to condemn the judgment of the judge who initially came up with the super injunction, and take as gospel the wholly hypothetical £7bn a second judge used as an illustration in his comments on the case.
I think he takes us for fools.
Are you eight years old? Am I the person that took out a fucking super injunction enabling me to lie on this issue - to Parliament, people, everyone - for two whole years?
You are utterly ridiculous. All of you. Bewildered centrist dads wandering around a misty field and face planting into cow pats
Not sure how you’re going to survive 4 more years of Labour ! You seem to be blowing a gasket on a daily basis .
The Jenrick story is a bit of my confusion on this. The government had an announced public policy of helping Afghans who had worked with our forces and made it clear that they would be granted asylum. None of this was secret, quite the contrary and it had broad public support.
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.
Two questions about super injunctions for the panel:
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?
It’s the modern version of the Official Secrets Act.
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.
Defy the super injunction and be damned. Challenge the judge if necessary. Ludicrous that Healy felt he couldn't tell Starmer because of the super injunction. He should have just told him. I believe that rules are for guidance not blind obedience. But if you break them, you take the consequences. Generally the consequences are zero.
Healey couldn't tell Starmer what exactly ?
I'm quoting NigelB above. 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.
The Jenrick story is a bit of my confusion on this. The government had an announced public policy of helping Afghans who had worked with our forces and made it clear that they would be granted asylum. None of this was secret, quite the contrary and it had broad public support.
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.
It's potentially something more than that. ...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.
The SAS and SBS may have had very good reasons for seeking to veto some of the Afghan SF troops, namely that they had seen themselves that these people were psychopaths and dangerous to the UK population, particularly the female population. If we had then decided we had to take them anyway, despite that perceived risk, because of the leak that would indeed raise other questions. But we are still talking about dozens rather than thousands in that category and millions rather than billions. The billions relate, for the most part, to the Parliamentary approved schemes that were in place and publicly known about.
Or the special forces are blocking them as potential witnesses in the cases against the SAS/SBS
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
These Afghans weren't refugees though.
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'.
Of course they are refugees. I wonder what this affluent area is where you imagine refugees are being put up for £400k/year, given that you can rent a penthouse flat in Mayfair for around a third of that?
Perhaps you should ask the Times.
But you seem to be in desperate denial that the government were desperately keeping things secret.
And secrecy costs.
Mudoch press playing fast and loose with the facts? I'm shocked.
Is that all you can think of ?
You need to leave your experience zone.
This wasn't asylum seekers who could be packed into an old hotel and given a few quid a week.
This was/is the UK government - an organisation noted for having terrible cost control - trying to keep tens of thousands of mouths shut.
Inflation up and unemployment up. Well done, Rachel. Quite the achievement.
Growth down too. Stagflation here we are
I don’t believe we’d be doing any better even if, by some miracle, Sunak had remained Prime Minister.
Plenty of factors, internal and external, have caused growth to slow and not just here. The Covid slump and recovery were statistical anomalies and we’ve had long periods of slow growth since the 1980s. If you want 5% annual growth (apart from post-COVID, you’ve got to go back a way).
Technological innovation might help - it has before - but the 20th century model of capitalism is breaking if not broken and the demographic imbalances are creating new challenges.
Our previous periods of growth have relied on one or more of cheap food, cheap fuel/resources, cheap money and cheap labour. If you have all of those at the same time, growth is more or less guaranteed - if you have none of them, it isn’t.
While I would love to see the public finances improve and the burden of debt interest reduced, I wonder if that really is the be-all and end-all of the debate which seems to be led by those advocating unrealistic and damaging cuts across the piece.
Totally agree, however we had an incoming govt promising change and sorting the mess out
It’s been continuity Sunak.
Well, yes, but oppositions need to promise “change” and doing things differently to get elected.
You could argue Blair from 1997-99 was basically Continuity Major but it looked different, felt different and had the energy and unity which the Major Government lost after the events of September 1992.
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
wtf and who cares. There may well be special circumstances for these people. Extra security. Extra medical issues. I don’t frigging know and neither do you
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
John Healey at the dispatch box stated it had cost at least £800 million
I assume he has the figures to quote it in the HOC
Did it not occur to you that “he’s from the government”? Those people that have been deliberately carefully and officiously lying to us, on this exact subject, for the last two years - and jailing anyone that even mentioned the reality?
Now for some reason you trust him? Pray tell, why?
He made a statement to the HOC which included the figure
If Healey is misleading the house then it is a resignation matter
And to add, I listened to Healey yesterday and would take his word every time over your attempts to make this a story that fits your narrative
You’re literally trusting a government that has just told you it’s been lying ON THIS EXACT ISSUE - and lying in the most profound and devastating way. You’re like a wife who trusts a wife beater. “I’ll be better this time, love”
No
I listen to those who know the details not someone who is attempting to sow discourse for political reasons
Yes I believe Healey over your interpretation of this unfortunate affair
Just had quite an exciting postie moment: I delivered my first birthday card from King! Mr Jackson is 100 on Saturday. He looked dead chuffed
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen. IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it? This is, after all, a betting site.
Inflation up and unemployment up. Well done, Rachel. Quite the achievement.
Growth down too. Stagflation here we are
I don’t believe we’d be doing any better even if, by some miracle, Sunak had remained Prime Minister.
Plenty of factors, internal and external, have caused growth to slow and not just here. The Covid slump and recovery were statistical anomalies and we’ve had long periods of slow growth since the 1980s. If you want 5% annual growth (apart from post-COVID, you’ve got to go back a way).
Technological innovation might help - it has before - but the 20th century model of capitalism is breaking if not broken and the demographic imbalances are creating new challenges.
Our previous periods of growth have relied on one or more of cheap food, cheap fuel/resources, cheap money and cheap labour. If you have all of those at the same time, growth is more or less guaranteed - if you have none of them, it isn’t.
While I would love to see the public finances improve and the burden of debt interest reduced, I wonder if that really is the be-all and end-all of the debate which seems to be led by those advocating unrealistic and damaging cuts across the piece.
Totally agree, however we had an incoming govt promising change and sorting the mess out
It’s been continuity Sunak.
Well, yes, but oppositions need to promise “change” and doing things differently to get elected.
You could argue Blair from 1997-99 was basically Continuity Major but it looked different, felt different and had the energy and unity which the Major Government lost after the events of September 1992.
The Major govt was a far better govt than the Sunak one ever was and handed over a country in a reasonable state.
So it needed tweaks rather than change.
This time it’s different.
I also expect Reform to have the same issue in local govt.
Inflation up and unemployment up. Well done, Rachel. Quite the achievement.
Growth down too. Stagflation here we are
I don’t believe we’d be doing any better even if, by some miracle, Sunak had remained Prime Minister.
Plenty of factors, internal and external, have caused growth to slow and not just here. The Covid slump and recovery were statistical anomalies and we’ve had long periods of slow growth since the 1980s. If you want 5% annual growth (apart from post-COVID, you’ve got to go back a way).
Technological innovation might help - it has before - but the 20th century model of capitalism is breaking if not broken and the demographic imbalances are creating new challenges.
Our previous periods of growth have relied on one or more of cheap food, cheap fuel/resources, cheap money and cheap labour. If you have all of those at the same time, growth is more or less guaranteed - if you have none of them, it isn’t.
While I would love to see the public finances improve and the burden of debt interest reduced, I wonder if that really is the be-all and end-all of the debate which seems to be led by those advocating unrealistic and damaging cuts across the piece.
Totally agree, however we had an incoming govt promising change and sorting the mess out
It’s been continuity Sunak.
Well, yes, but oppositions need to promise “change” and doing things differently to get elected.
You could argue Blair from 1997-99 was basically Continuity Major but it looked different, felt different and had the energy and unity which the Major Government lost after the events of September 1992.
The Major govt was a far better govt than the Sunak one ever was and handed over a country in a reasonable state.
So it needed tweaks rather than change.
This time it’s different.
I also expect Reform to have the same issue in local govt.
Yes, the Major Government acted and sounded tired; like Labour in 2010.
Just had quite an exciting postie moment: I delivered my first birthday card from King! Mr Jackson is 100 on Saturday. He looked dead chuffed
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen. IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it? This is, after all, a betting site.
Same last year for my wife and me on our diamond anniversary
The postie was quite excited to deliver it
Ours is 4 years to 65 and the next card so lets both be positive and say yes, we will both excite another postie delivery from Charlie and Carmilla
Just had quite an exciting postie moment: I delivered my first birthday card from King! Mr Jackson is 100 on Saturday. He looked dead chuffed
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen. IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it? This is, after all, a betting site.
I think we need insight on the state of your marriage before committing... Any 63-year itch?
Inflation up and unemployment up. Well done, Rachel. Quite the achievement.
Growth down too. Stagflation here we are
I don’t believe we’d be doing any better even if, by some miracle, Sunak had remained Prime Minister.
Plenty of factors, internal and external, have caused growth to slow and not just here. The Covid slump and recovery were statistical anomalies and we’ve had long periods of slow growth since the 1980s. If you want 5% annual growth (apart from post-COVID, you’ve got to go back a way).
Technological innovation might help - it has before - but the 20th century model of capitalism is breaking if not broken and the demographic imbalances are creating new challenges.
Our previous periods of growth have relied on one or more of cheap food, cheap fuel/resources, cheap money and cheap labour. If you have all of those at the same time, growth is more or less guaranteed - if you have none of them, it isn’t.
While I would love to see the public finances improve and the burden of debt interest reduced, I wonder if that really is the be-all and end-all of the debate which seems to be led by those advocating unrealistic and damaging cuts across the piece.
Totally agree, however we had an incoming govt promising change and sorting the mess out
It’s been continuity Sunak.
In some ways, yes. In other ways...
The government has put some reasonably hefty bets on things that it thinks will help in the medium term. There is a lot happening with green energy, a decent amount with planning and some unclogging of the health system to.make more people available for work.
They should all help. What none of them are is quick in their payoff.
Starmer promised he'd protect the jobs of people at JLR to their faces 2 months ago didnt he? Steel industry probably ought to start looking at future options
Just had quite an exciting postie moment: I delivered my first birthday card from King! Mr Jackson is 100 on Saturday. He looked dead chuffed
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen. IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it? This is, after all, a betting site.
I think we need insight on the state of your marriage before committing... Any 63-year itch?
Prostate cancer (now cured) has put paid to any desire to wander.
Just had quite an exciting postie moment: I delivered my first birthday card from King! Mr Jackson is 100 on Saturday. He looked dead chuffed
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen. IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it? This is, after all, a betting site.
Same last year for my wife and me on our diamond anniversary
The postie was quite excited to deliver it
Ours is 4 years to 65 and the next card so lets both be positive and say yes, we will both excite another postie delivery from Charlie and Carmilla
I'm definitely looking forward to my 65th wedding anniversary. I will be 105.
Just had quite an exciting postie moment: I delivered my first birthday card from King! Mr Jackson is 100 on Saturday. He looked dead chuffed
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen. IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it? This is, after all, a betting site.
Same last year for my wife and me on our diamond anniversary
The postie was quite excited to deliver it
Ours is 4 years to 65 and the next card so lets both be positive and say yes, we will both excite another postie delivery from Charlie and Carmilla
Huge achievements! We've just had our tenth - we'll be doing fairly well age wise if we make 50 (my parents' 50th was, sadly, not quite the occasion it should have been - my mum's Alzheimer's had progressed to the extent that she wasn't aware of the milestone).
Just had quite an exciting postie moment: I delivered my first birthday card from King! Mr Jackson is 100 on Saturday. He looked dead chuffed
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen. IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it? This is, after all, a betting site.
I think we need insight on the state of your marriage before committing... Any 63-year itch?
In our case and 61 year itch the only question is will my pacemaker keep going and will my beloved reach 90 ?
Starmer promised he'd protect the jobs of people at JLR to their faces 2 months ago didnt he? Steel industry probably ought to start looking at future options
Starmer can’t really stop a firm from making a tiny part of their employees (1.5%) redundant.
Heck unless the Government takes control of the firm it can’t actually do much at all - so the promise was that Starmer would do what he could to ensure JLR can sell in the USA
Just had quite an exciting postie moment: I delivered my first birthday card from King! Mr Jackson is 100 on Saturday. He looked dead chuffed
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen. IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it? This is, after all, a betting site.
Same last year for my wife and me on our diamond anniversary
The postie was quite excited to deliver it
Ours is 4 years to 65 and the next card so lets both be positive and say yes, we will both excite another postie delivery from Charlie and Carmilla
Huge achievements! We've just had our tenth - we'll be doing fairly well age wise if we make 50 (my parents' 50th was, sadly, not quite the occasion it should have been - my mum's Alzheimer's had progressed to the extent that she wasn't aware of the milestone).
Similar with my in-laws; f-i-l didn't really know what was happening and m-i-l couldn't really communicate her obvious excitement.
Starmer promised he'd protect the jobs of people at JLR to their faces 2 months ago didnt he? Steel industry probably ought to start looking at future options
Starmer can’t really stop a firm from making a tiny part of their employees (1.5%) redundant.
Heck unless the Government takes control of the firm it can’t actually do much at all - so the promise was that Starmer would do what he could to ensure JLR can sell in the USA
But of course that's not how it will/can be presented. Politics is tough. Its a good job hes a hard man
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
These Afghans weren't refugees though.
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'.
Of course they are refugees. I wonder what this affluent area is where you imagine refugees are being put up for £400k/year, given that you can rent a penthouse flat in Mayfair for around a third of that?
Perhaps you should ask the Times.
But you seem to be in desperate denial that the government were desperately keeping things secret.
And secrecy costs.
Mudoch press playing fast and loose with the facts? I'm shocked.
Is that all you can think of ?
You need to leave your experience zone.
This wasn't asylum seekers who could be packed into an old hotel and given a few quid a week.
This was/is the UK government - an organisation noted for having terrible cost control - trying to keep tens of thousands of mouths shut.
Thinking more about what the Times reported, they were three year costs - so likely to have included projected costs.
Given there's no reason for the government to continue bunging people to keep quiet that might explain why the lawyers have now made an appearance, demanding compensation for being given a new life in this country.
Inflation up and unemployment up. Well done, Rachel. Quite the achievement.
Growth down too. Stagflation here we are
I don’t believe we’d be doing any better even if, by some miracle, Sunak had remained Prime Minister.
Plenty of factors, internal and external, have caused growth to slow and not just here. The Covid slump and recovery were statistical anomalies and we’ve had long periods of slow growth since the 1980s. If you want 5% annual growth (apart from post-COVID, you’ve got to go back a way).
Technological innovation might help - it has before - but the 20th century model of capitalism is breaking if not broken and the demographic imbalances are creating new challenges.
Our previous periods of growth have relied on one or more of cheap food, cheap fuel/resources, cheap money and cheap labour. If you have all of those at the same time, growth is more or less guaranteed - if you have none of them, it isn’t.
While I would love to see the public finances improve and the burden of debt interest reduced, I wonder if that really is the be-all and end-all of the debate which seems to be led by those advocating unrealistic and damaging cuts across the piece.
Totally agree, however we had an incoming govt promising change and sorting the mess out
It’s been continuity Sunak.
Well, yes, but oppositions need to promise “change” and doing things differently to get elected.
You could argue Blair from 1997-99 was basically Continuity Major but it looked different, felt different and had the energy and unity which the Major Government lost after the events of September 1992.
The Major govt was a far better govt than the Sunak one ever was and handed over a country in a reasonable state.
So it needed tweaks rather than change.
This time it’s different.
I also expect Reform to have the same issue in local govt.
They already are - fixations with flags notwithstanding, the Kent DLOGE reportedly found £40 million of savings but Kent spends £2.5 billion every year so drop meet ocean.
Most counties and I’d argue especially but not only those run or formerly run by the Conservatives have been assiduous over many years in squeezing out savings or efficiencies.
Reform droned on about all the fat they were going to cut but the truth is there isn’t any as they are finding out and it will be interesting to see the budget process for 2026/27 as Reform administrations have to decide what is going to be cut or explain why the Council Tax rise is as large as it was under the previous administration.
Watching some of the new Reform council groups flounder is a frightening insight as to how a Reform Government might blunder round if we were ever so foolish or desperate as to give them power.
Just had quite an exciting postie moment: I delivered my first birthday card from King! Mr Jackson is 100 on Saturday. He looked dead chuffed
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen. IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it? This is, after all, a betting site.
I would bet a tenner that you both make it for another two years, except that, if I lose the bet, how would I pay you?
16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in next general election
16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in a general election for the first time, under new plans unveiled today.
The government is proposing to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 in time for the next general election.
The move was a key pledge in Labour's manifesto, and will see 16 and 17-year-olds able to vote in all UK elections.
Currently, 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in devolved elections in England and Wales.
The government says this would be the "biggest change to UK democracy in a generation".
The last time the voting age was lowered (from 21 to 18) was in 1969.
Angela Rayner said: "We are taking action to break down barriers to participation that will ensure more people have the opportunity to engage in UK democracy, supporting our Plan for Change, and delivering on our manifesto commitment to give sixteen-year-olds the right to vote. "
Just had quite an exciting postie moment: I delivered my first birthday card from King! Mr Jackson is 100 on Saturday. He looked dead chuffed
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen. IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it? This is, after all, a betting site.
Same last year for my wife and me on our diamond anniversary
The postie was quite excited to deliver it
Ours is 4 years to 65 and the next card so lets both be positive and say yes, we will both excite another postie delivery from Charlie and Carmilla
I hope there are still postie deliveries in four years time.
16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in next general election
16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in a general election for the first time, under new plans unveiled today.
The government is proposing to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 in time for the next general election.
The move was a key pledge in Labour's manifesto, and will see 16 and 17-year-olds able to vote in all UK elections.
Currently, 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in devolved elections in England and Wales.
The government says this would be the "biggest change to UK democracy in a generation".
The last time the voting age was lowered (from 21 to 18) was in 1969.
Angela Rayner said: "We are taking action to break down barriers to participation that will ensure more people have the opportunity to engage in UK democracy, supporting our Plan for Change, and delivering on our manifesto commitment to give sixteen-year-olds the right to vote. "
They want to give a nice starter bonus to the Dried Fruit party?
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.
It's related to the previous thread.
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.
There is no one factor which will win or lose the next election for Reform. The idea that it is fatal to have members who said one thing at time X and another at time Y is not really a runner. Though famous disasters like Truss may be problematic. No-one has heard of Jake Berry, and most other people.
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'.
Why do you ask questions to which you know the answer? They will go for protest and unicorns and contradictions. Farage idolises Trump.
On topic. I think there should be a parliamentary enquiry into the use of and requirement for super-injunctions. On the face of it, they are generally not in the public interest.
16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in next general election
16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in a general election for the first time, under new plans unveiled today.
The government is proposing to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 in time for the next general election.
The move was a key pledge in Labour's manifesto, and will see 16 and 17-year-olds able to vote in all UK elections.
Currently, 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in devolved elections in England and Wales.
The government says this would be the "biggest change to UK democracy in a generation".
The last time the voting age was lowered (from 21 to 18) was in 1969.
Angela Rayner said: "We are taking action to break down barriers to participation that will ensure more people have the opportunity to engage in UK democracy, supporting our Plan for Change, and delivering on our manifesto commitment to give sixteen-year-olds the right to vote. "
Merlin Strategy have just released a poll of 16 and 17 y.o.
The barcodes have pulled out of the race to sign Hugo Ekitike.
They are going to feel even sicker when Liverpool sign Isak too.
Do you think we could/would sign both of them?
We need a striker but I'd expect it to be one or the other, not both. Even if we have plenty of budget to sign both, signing too many players in the same window can upset the balance of the team.
I notice she also goes with Leon's £7bn confection.
The $7b is all over the Internet. It is very hard to actually come across the real numbers.
It won't be £7bn but it doesn't matter because like the £350m a week that number will stick regardless of the reality.
But the advantage is that it's a Tory blunder so finally the Government may do the sensible thing and increase Income Tax..
If they're spending £400k per year on MOD housing or £200k per year on social housing for a family of four Afghans then the total is going to add up fast and big.
One revelation we can look forward to is where the blackmailer was housed.
Why would they be spending £200k-£400k per year on social housing for a family of four? You can rent a two or three bed flat in Zone 2 London for well under £30k per year. Presumably much less in other parts of the country. Hell, you can *buy* a flat for less than the numbers quoted here. 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.
Ah, so you don’t like THESE numbers. Ergo you dismiss them
It’s like a Maldivian breakfast buffet of data. Just pick what you want
They don’t sound plausible
How do you think that it can cost £400k per year to house a family?
My point is more: people are choosing whatever numbers they like to fit their agenda. Then claiming some superiority in their method
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
I'm not choosing a number to fit my agenda. I am giving you a number that I actually know, because I am actually involved in refugee resettlement.
These Afghans weren't refugees though.
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'.
Of course they are refugees. I wonder what this affluent area is where you imagine refugees are being put up for £400k/year, given that you can rent a penthouse flat in Mayfair for around a third of that?
Perhaps you should ask the Times.
But you seem to be in desperate denial that the government were desperately keeping things secret.
And secrecy costs.
Mudoch press playing fast and loose with the facts? I'm shocked.
Is that all you can think of ?
You need to leave your experience zone.
This wasn't asylum seekers who could be packed into an old hotel and given a few quid a week.
This was/is the UK government - an organisation noted for having terrible cost control - trying to keep tens of thousands of mouths shut.
They didn't need to bribe anyone to keep their mouths shut. They had an injunction preventing anyone from reporting on it.
On topic. I think there should be a parliamentary enquiry into the use of and requirement for super-injunctions. On the face of it, they are generally not in the public interest.
I still cannot process the fact that government were the ones behind the super-injunction.
Just had quite an exciting postie moment: I delivered my first birthday card from King! Mr Jackson is 100 on Saturday. He looked dead chuffed
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen. IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it? This is, after all, a betting site.
Same last year for my wife and me on our diamond anniversary
The postie was quite excited to deliver it
Ours is 4 years to 65 and the next card so lets both be positive and say yes, we will both excite another postie delivery from Charlie and Carmilla
I hope there are still postie deliveries in four years time.
Maybe because they are special deliveries they will continue
The barcodes have pulled out of the race to sign Hugo Ekitike.
They are going to feel even sicker when Liverpool sign Isak too.
Do you think we could/would sign both of them?
We need a striker but I'd expect it to be one or the other, not both. Even if we have plenty of budget to sign both, signing too many players in the same window can upset the balance of the team.
Yes, Nunez is in the process of being sold, ditto Chiesa, coupled with the heartbreaking loss of Jota, Liverpool are going to be light up front, particularly in December/January time with Salah away at the Africa Cup of Nations.
Starmer promised he'd protect the jobs of people at JLR to their faces 2 months ago didnt he? Steel industry probably ought to start looking at future options
Starmer can’t really stop a firm from making a tiny part of their employees (1.5%) redundant.
Heck unless the Government takes control of the firm it can’t actually do much at all - so the promise was that Starmer would do what he could to ensure JLR can sell in the USA
Bit silly of him to put out social media messages saying he’d kept his promise to them that their jobs were safe then. Pride comes before a fall
Just had quite an exciting postie moment: I delivered my first birthday card from King! Mr Jackson is 100 on Saturday. He looked dead chuffed
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen. IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it? This is, after all, a betting site.
I would bet a tenner that you both make it for another two years, except that, if I lose the bet, how would I pay you?
To their estates, of course. Yet as bets aren't enforceable in law as I understand it, the executors would be right to refuse payments into the estate as being illegal.
16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in next general election
16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in a general election for the first time, under new plans unveiled today.
The government is proposing to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 in time for the next general election.
The move was a key pledge in Labour's manifesto, and will see 16 and 17-year-olds able to vote in all UK elections.
Currently, 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in devolved elections in England and Wales.
The government says this would be the "biggest change to UK democracy in a generation".
The last time the voting age was lowered (from 21 to 18) was in 1969.
Angela Rayner said: "We are taking action to break down barriers to participation that will ensure more people have the opportunity to engage in UK democracy, supporting our Plan for Change, and delivering on our manifesto commitment to give sixteen-year-olds the right to vote. "
They want to give a nice starter bonus to the Dried Fruit party?
They'll be a fantastic tantrum when Labour come third to Corbyn and Reform.
Starmer promised he'd protect the jobs of people at JLR to their faces 2 months ago didnt he? Steel industry probably ought to start looking at future options
Starmer can’t really stop a firm from making a tiny part of their employees (1.5%) redundant.
Heck unless the Government takes control of the firm it can’t actually do much at all - so the promise was that Starmer would do what he could to ensure JLR can sell in the USA
Bit silly of him to put out social media messages saying he’d kept his promise to them that their jobs were safe then. Pride comes before a fall
Fake news, Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.
Comments
کسی که جرات کند برنده می شود
2010 7.9%
2011 8.1%
2024 4.4%
2025 4.7%
Inflation
2010 3.2%
2011 5.3%
2024 2.0%
2025 3.6%
Pay rises
2010 1.3%
2011 1.6%
2024 5.8%
2025 5.0%
And the 1001 factors behind each figure, don't really make for quite as clear a picture. Should we throw in all the other elections, or perhaps the huge fluctuations we've seen in between, and the varying reasons for those, and why such context-free snapshots are a little pointless?
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-04-22/23004
Now for some reason you trust him? Pray tell, why?
*this is true. Psychological experiments on those who have never studied maths show that they perceive nine as roughly double three, and sixteen as roughly double four. Can't remember more details than that though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYXqzK5uNSg
Harold Wilson, Michael Foot, Quintin Hogg (later Lord Hailsham).
TL/DR; a postcard showing Wilson with his secretary Marcia Williams was used as a publicity stunt. Wilson sued, and was represented by Quintin Hogg QC.
By coincidence, the person who had first spread rumours about Wilson and Williams was the Conservative MP Quintin Hogg QC.
The band lost and royalties from Flowers in the Rain, now estimated in the millions of pounds, went to charity.
Of course, what Wilson really needed was a super-injunction.
I thought it useful to refresh my memory of events in Kabul nearly four years ago and the evacuation of tens of thousands of foreign nationals and Afghan citizens and their families following the collapse of the Ghani administration.
Not quite Saigon in 1975 but some echoes and the diaspora of those who believed they had no future in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was tragic just as a previous generation of “boat people” had endured.
The central point is the balance between the scrutiny required in a parliamentary democracy and the secrecy or confidentiality under which all organisations, whether public or private, operate at times.
I struggle with the fact it took 18 months for the initial breach to be reported - data breaches need to be reported as soon as they happen and every organisation for which I worked had information governance protocols to deal with every reported or suspected breach. We know breaches happen - leaving a laptop in the back of a car or a filing cabinet of paperwork on a landfill site are two examples.
The other issue is the right to know versus the need to know. You cannot have complete transparency in Government any more than in any other institution. There’s a place for scrutiny but let’s not be naive - every Government has and will always have its secrets.
Remove the whip from Labour MPs then
Errm from who Keir?
All of them
But....
ALL OF THEM!
https://bsky.app/profile/alexofbrown.bsky.social/post/3lu3ka34lgc25
I wonder what this affluent area is where you imagine refugees are being put up for £400k/year, given that you can rent a penthouse flat in Mayfair for around a third of that?
Lawyers at their finest. Paging @Leon
‘Barings Law have signed up more than 1000 of the Afghans who were brought to the UK and are looking for more. If their claims are successful they could get up to £250,000 each and Barings would get 25% of every claim. The cost of this likely to be £1 billion of tax payers money.’
https://x.com/elizabe13014545/status/1945752354709557687?s=61
If Healey is misleading the house then it is a resignation matter
And to add, I listened to Healey yesterday and would take his word every time over your attempts to make this a story that fits your narrative
Ludicrous that Healy felt he couldn't tell Starmer because of the super injunction. He should have just told him.
I believe that rules are for guidance not blind obedience.
But if you break them, you take the consequences. Generally the consequences are zero.
No thanks.
He'd also like us to condemn the judgment of the judge who initially came up with the super injunction, and take as gospel the wholly hypothetical £7bn a second judge used as an illustration in his comments on the case.
I think he takes us for fools.
Plenty of factors, internal and external, have caused growth to slow and not just here. The Covid slump and recovery were statistical anomalies and we’ve had long periods of slow growth since the 1980s. If you want 5% annual growth (apart from post-COVID, you’ve got to go back a way).
Technological innovation might help - it has before - but the 20th century model of capitalism is breaking if not broken and the demographic imbalances are creating new challenges.
Our previous periods of growth have relied on one or more of cheap food, cheap fuel/resources, cheap money and cheap labour. If you have all of those at the same time, growth is more or less guaranteed - if you have none of them, it isn’t.
While I would love to see the public finances improve and the burden of debt interest reduced, I wonder if that really is the be-all and end-all of the debate which seems to be led by those advocating unrealistic and damaging cuts across the piece.
But you seem to be in desperate denial that the government were desperately keeping things secret.
And secrecy costs.
It’s been continuity Sunak.
Of course, removing the whip on her might just be the catalyst for some sort of open challenge
To give you one example in a number of parallel IT projects I was involved in (many many years ago) the cost of a project was determined by splitting the overall costs across the headcount. The more people you had on a project the greater the cost. 100% of the people across all the projects would cover all the fixed and semi variable costs. Typically the cost per person was 4 times the salary cost of that person.
PS I am not justifying any of this, just explaining some of the costing stuff.
You are utterly ridiculous. All of you. Bewildered centrist dads wandering around a misty field and face planting into cow pats
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.
FWIW.
You need to leave your experience zone.
This wasn't asylum seekers who could be packed into an old hotel and given a few quid a week.
This was/is the UK government - an organisation noted for having terrible cost control - trying to keep tens of thousands of mouths shut.
You could argue Blair from 1997-99 was basically Continuity Major but it looked different, felt different and had the energy and unity which the Major Government lost after the events of September 1992.
I listen to those who know the details not someone who is attempting to sow discourse for political reasons
Yes I believe Healey over your interpretation of this unfortunate affair
Our former postie ( a very nice chap, now retired, who I sometimes drink with in the pub) was quite excited when he delivered our Diamond Wedding card from the late Queen.
IIRC the next one is due after 65 years; two years to go. Will we do it?
This is, after all, a betting site.
So it needed tweaks rather than change.
This time it’s different.
I also expect Reform to have the same issue in local govt.
The postie was quite excited to deliver it
Ours is 4 years to 65 and the next card so lets both be positive and say yes, we will both excite another postie delivery from Charlie and Carmilla
The government has put some reasonably hefty bets on things that it thinks will help in the medium term. There is a lot happening with green energy, a decent amount with planning and some unclogging of the health system to.make more people available for work.
They should all help. What none of them are is quick in their payoff.
Steel industry probably ought to start looking at future options
Heck unless the Government takes control of the firm it can’t actually do much at all - so the promise was that Starmer would do what he could to ensure JLR can sell in the USA
Politics is tough. Its a good job hes a hard man
Given there's no reason for the government to continue bunging people to keep quiet that might explain why the lawyers have now made an appearance, demanding compensation for being given a new life in this country.
Most counties and I’d argue especially but not only those run or formerly run by the Conservatives have been assiduous over many years in squeezing out savings or efficiencies.
Reform droned on about all the fat they were going to cut but the truth is there isn’t any as they are finding out and it will be interesting to see the budget process for 2026/27 as Reform administrations have to decide what is going to be cut or explain why the Council Tax rise is as large as it was under the previous administration.
Watching some of the new Reform council groups flounder is a frightening insight as to how a Reform Government might blunder round if we were ever so foolish or desperate as to give them power.
16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in next general election
16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in a general election for the first time, under new plans unveiled today.
The government is proposing to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 in time for the next general election.
The move was a key pledge in Labour's manifesto, and will see 16 and 17-year-olds able to vote in all UK elections.
Currently, 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in devolved elections in England and Wales.
The government says this would be the "biggest change to UK democracy in a generation".
The last time the voting age was lowered (from 21 to 18) was in 1969.
Angela Rayner said: "We are taking action to break down barriers to participation that will ensure more people have the opportunity to engage in UK democracy, supporting our Plan for Change, and delivering on our manifesto commitment to give sixteen-year-olds the right to vote. "
The barcodes have pulled out of the race to sign Hugo Ekitike.
They are going to feel even sicker when Liverpool sign Isak too.
Labour 33
Reform 20
Green 18
LD 12
Con 10
Details on ITV's news website
We need a striker but I'd expect it to be one or the other, not both. Even if we have plenty of budget to sign both, signing too many players in the same window can upset the balance of the team.
What’s the point of D Notices?
http://www.lordlieutenantwestglamorgan.org.uk/2436