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Why you should be betting on President Marjorie Taylor Greene – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,773
edited 7:20AM in General
Why you should be betting on President Marjorie Taylor Greene – politicalbetting.com

Marjorie Taylor Greene is 66/1 to win the 2028 US Presidential Election.You can also back MTG vs AOC as the Republican & Democratic nominees at 100/1https://t.co/1xKAb9tLmO https://t.co/p38FaWaw8Y

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Comments

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 64,595
    Lol
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 62,247

    Lol

    You say that, but no one has done more to draw attention to Jewish space lasers than MTG.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 63,096
    FPT: reply to Mr. Sandpit:

    I agree, but Labour and their innumerate MPs are way more comfortable 'hitting the rich' and reducing tax income than 'hitting the working class' and increasing tax income. Ideology trumps mathematics for those drunk on left wing nonsense.

    A general 2p increase on income tax would actually indicate Starmer and Reeves want to fix the public finances, and are serious about doing it. I'd not be thrilled about it, but credible alternatives look worse.

    F1: forecast unclear, could see rain throughout or it being dry. Verstappen fans should be doing a rain dance.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 33,643
    JD Vance is odds-on favourite to be GOP nominee for 2008 and there is a fair chance he will already be president by then.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 58,126
    edited 7:41AM
    Well you could probably put a couple of quid on it, but you’d be wasting a couple of quid.

    Most likely Republican nominees are Vance and Rubio, perhaps de Santis as an outsider.

    The Democratic race is much more open, but is unlikely to be AOC, she’s probably eyeing up Chuck Schumer’s Senate seat in NY. Dem Nom race is probably lay-the-favourite (currently Gavin Newsom) until we have a better idea of who are actually the runners. There’s going to be someone relatively unknown, perhaps a governor, who does well in their primaries. Someone like a Gretchen Whitmer perhaps?
  • eekeek Posts: 31,842
    FPT
    Sandpit said:

    scampi25 said:

    Re the tax rises. I reject the whole idea, unless they're accompanied by serious welfare cuts and significant reforms to health and social care. Otherwise they'll be back for more and more tax before the year is out.

    Of course.

    This is Labour.
    When Labour inevitably DO have to come back for more and more, it will be with

    1. a new Chancellor, followed shortly after by

    2. a new PM who will be welcomed with

    3. Labour polling in single figures.
    My gardener, who is one of the calmest and nicest people you could ever imagine - and never talks politics - was spitting teeth about Labour when he came over on Wednesday for the Winter cut-back.

    All the taxes, VAT, business rates have hit him hard, and he's exasperated more is to come.
    The still to come is going to be a clampdown on sole traders, and a reduction in the VAT allowance. Everyone’s going to have to be a company collecting VAT and paying Employer NI.
    Most of Europe have a VAT registration level at someone doing it for a living - we really are the exception with companies able to employ someone before paying VAT being unique to the UK
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 20,499
    Sandpit said:

    Well you could probably put a couple of quid on it, but you’d be wasting a couple of quid.

    Most likely Republican nominees are Vance and Rubio, perhaps de Santis as an outsider.

    The Democratic race is much more open, but is unlikely to be AOC, she’s probably eyeing up Chuck Schumer’s Senate seat in NY. Dem Nom race is probably lay-the-favourite (currently Gavin Newsom) until we have a better idea of who are actually the runners. There’s going to be someone relatively unknown, perhaps a governor, who does well in their primaries. Someone like a Gretchen Whitmer perhaps?

    Depends on how quickly MAGA falls apart.

    There's a possibility (though probably not a big one) that the Republicans need a "Trump? Nothing to do with me" candidate. Someone has to try that lane.

    Alternatively, it's not about the game, it's just that she doesn't like the actions of the Administration. Crazy idea, I know.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 56,374
    What is her constituency supposed to be? Not Dems. Why would Indies plump for her over a far more rational field? MAGA types won't trust her. Never-Trumper Republicans (are they still a thing?) will never trust her.

    She represents that class of Republicans who will be trying to break from Trump but with their prospects still tied to the orange anchor.

  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,799
    @Casino_Royale: Your gardener is struggling because of VAT and business rates? Sounds like it must be a garden maintenance company with premises and employing a number of people, rather than most gardeners who are sole traders charging (down here) £15-£20 per hour.

    I fully accept that he might be spitting blood but I just wonder how exactly he has been impacted by recent government tax policy.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 82,986
    edited 7:49AM

    JD Vance is odds-on favourite to be GOP nominee for 2008 and there is a fair chance he will already be president by then.

    I think it's now more likely than not.
    The GOP saw what happened with Biden in the last year or so of his term. It seems now to be happening quicker with Trump (or, for those who prefer to think of it that way, the Democrats were far better at covering it up). Promoting Vance would also provide then with something of a reset, which is looking more and more necessary from their POV.

    When I first read this, I thought it might be snark, but recalling the Trump on the roof episode, I think it's fairly credible.

    Ex WH staffer here. It’s pretty clear to me they are marking the path from “The Residence” to the Oval Office like they do in memory care facilities.
    https://x.com/TrueFactsStated/status/1986561380929921256
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 16,826
    I think Klobuchar might be the better long odds bet on that list.
  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 4,270
    That item reposted by Ladbrokes in the header. '... wants to run for President, sources say - NOTUS'.

    Is the NOTUS an abbreviation or is it a way of saying Not us ?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 58,126
    Well Russian oil giant Lukoil, facing severe US sanctions, decided to divest its foreign operations to a Swiss-based company called Gunvor, also owned by Putin.

    The US Treasury, responsible for sanctions, has blocked the deal by sanctioning Gunvor.

    https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1986625573251350783
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 16,826

    I think Klobuchar might be the better long odds bet on that list.

    Ruben Gallego might be another good long odds bet. Latino, 45-year old Arizona Senator (D), out-performing Harris in 2024. Served in the Marines in Iraq. Performs well on TV.

    Or the 500/1 on Taylor Swift maybe…
  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 4,270

    This kind of deradicalisation is good to see - it suggests perhaps the tide is turning. If it's a genuine personal change of heart, great. If it's a cynical but skillful politician reading a broader shift in sentiment even better.

    Agree, the header material strikes me as refreshingly normal. A politician wanting to run for President who happens to be female, no big deal. A politician honouring the achievements of another politician the other side of a political divide, yes of course, what else should happen.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 45,762

    What is her constituency supposed to be? Not Dems. Why would Indies plump for her over a far more rational field? MAGA types won't trust her. Never-Trumper Republicans (are they still a thing?) will never trust her.

    She represents that class of Republicans who will be trying to break from Trump but with their prospects still tied to the orange anchor.

    Is orange anchor rhyming slang?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 31,332

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,724
    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....
  • CumberlandGapCumberlandGap Posts: 121

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    Councils are in a terrible state, some of it cuts, but others by a dramatic increase in costs, obliged on them by the courts moving the line for what they are required to provide. Some costs around children services are extraordinary, there's no cap on looked after children in care costs. A local council to me has a single child in care (one child) costing over £25k a week. A week!!

    Like every entitlement, every piece of public spending, they'll be some rationale behind it all. But there needs to be some tough loving going on somewhere.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 56,374

    What is her constituency supposed to be? Not Dems. Why would Indies plump for her over a far more rational field? MAGA types won't trust her. Never-Trumper Republicans (are they still a thing?) will never trust her.

    She represents that class of Republicans who will be trying to break from Trump but with their prospects still tied to the orange anchor.

    Is orange anchor rhyming slang?
    As Hong Kong Phooey would say:

    "Could be!"
  • CumberlandGapCumberlandGap Posts: 121
    eek said:

    FPT

    Sandpit said:

    scampi25 said:

    Re the tax rises. I reject the whole idea, unless they're accompanied by serious welfare cuts and significant reforms to health and social care. Otherwise they'll be back for more and more tax before the year is out.

    Of course.

    This is Labour.
    When Labour inevitably DO have to come back for more and more, it will be with

    1. a new Chancellor, followed shortly after by

    2. a new PM who will be welcomed with

    3. Labour polling in single figures.
    My gardener, who is one of the calmest and nicest people you could ever imagine - and never talks politics - was spitting teeth about Labour when he came over on Wednesday for the Winter cut-back.

    All the taxes, VAT, business rates have hit him hard, and he's exasperated more is to come.
    The still to come is going to be a clampdown on sole traders, and a reduction in the VAT allowance. Everyone’s going to have to be a company collecting VAT and paying Employer NI.
    Most of Europe have a VAT registration level at someone doing it for a living - we really are the exception with companies able to employ someone before paying VAT being unique to the UK
    It's not the employing of someone, its the trading over the threshold.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 124,655
    AnneJGP said:

    That item reposted by Ladbrokes in the header. '... wants to run for President, sources say - NOTUS'.

    Is the NOTUS an abbreviation or is it a way of saying Not us ?

    The 'News of the United States' website
  • CumberlandGapCumberlandGap Posts: 121

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    Your argument seems to be, "if we just spent a bit more".
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 45,762

    Sandpit said:

    Well you could probably put a couple of quid on it, but you’d be wasting a couple of quid.

    Most likely Republican nominees are Vance and Rubio, perhaps de Santis as an outsider.

    The Democratic race is much more open, but is unlikely to be AOC, she’s probably eyeing up Chuck Schumer’s Senate seat in NY. Dem Nom race is probably lay-the-favourite (currently Gavin Newsom) until we have a better idea of who are actually the runners. There’s going to be someone relatively unknown, perhaps a governor, who does well in their primaries. Someone like a Gretchen Whitmer perhaps?

    Depends on how quickly MAGA falls apart.

    There's a possibility (though probably not a big one) that the Republicans need a "Trump? Nothing to do with me" candidate. Someone has to try that lane.

    Alternatively, it's not about the game, it's just that she doesn't like the actions of the Administration. Crazy idea, I know.
    As many have noted, human nature probably encourages people (particularly politicians) to think they GENUINELY believe something at any given moment. Fwiw MTG seems to have consistently believed that foreign wars and a millionaire trafficking underage girls to the great and good are very bad things, unlike Trump and his lickspittles.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 40,844
    If Trump dies JD Vance get to be President

    If instead he faces MTG in a primary for the nomination, I am not sure he wins that
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 58,126

    Sandpit said:

    Well Russian oil giant Lukoil, facing severe US sanctions, decided to divest its foreign operations to a Swiss-based company called Gunvor, also owned by Putin.

    The US Treasury, responsible for sanctions, has blocked the deal by sanctioning Gunvor.

    https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1986625573251350783

    Don't the f*cking Swiss have some responsibility here too?

    I may be over-reacting this morning but they do seem like a bunch of free-loading arseholes, hiding behind their famed neutrality and banking privacy standards to cream off a fantastic standard of living by protecting the scum of the earth. Just saying.
    Yes there should be pressure on Switzerland, and other offshore jurisdictions, which are still allowing entities linked to the Russian government or sanctioned by UK/US/EU to trade.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 56,374

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    There's a reason this Government is thought to be really, REALLY shit.

    The voters of Caerphilly are not wrong. A 34.9% swing against in 15 months says REALLY shit.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 53,869
    If the Rupublicans want to turn their back on Trumpism and return to sane right wing policy then they need look no further than Pence.

    Executive experience, impeccable Evangelical background and defended the Constitution when it mattered. I dont like his politics, but he has an integrity that is much needed in American politics.

    540/1 at present
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 82,986
    .

    I think Klobuchar might be the better long odds bet on that list.

    Ruben Gallego might be another good long odds bet. Latino, 45-year old Arizona Senator (D), out-performing Harris in 2024. Served in the Marines in Iraq. Performs well on TV.

    Or the 500/1 on Taylor Swift maybe…
    Gallego is probably a decent bet in the VP market.
  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 4,270

    AnneJGP said:

    That item reposted by Ladbrokes in the header. '... wants to run for President, sources say - NOTUS'.

    Is the NOTUS an abbreviation or is it a way of saying Not us ?

    The 'News of the United States' website
    Many thanks.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 11,665

    JD Vance is odds-on favourite to be GOP nominee for 2008 and there is a fair chance he will already be president by then.

    I’d like to lay that bet. What terms will you offer?

    (Read it back before you agree…)
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 20,499

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    Somewhere in the Yes, Minister canon, there is a Sir Humphrey line about "doing things more efficiently costs more".

    It's played for laughs, and is meant as a joke about the madness of the Civil Service. But in certain situations, it's true. The British State right now is largely suffering from the converse of that line- trying to do things cheaply is very inefficient. We have tried to do things cheaply for a generation and now it has caught up with us. It was always going to in the end.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 7,770

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    Surely it’s a simple process? Prisoner arrives from court and is “checked in”. Papers from court confirm release date. Release date is put into prison system on the Prisoner’s page with name, details and photo.

    Prison receives written instructions from MoJ etc to confirm if prisoner is being released early - get prisoner from cell, check they are the same person as the system shows from check-in, release.

    Prisoner arrives at check-out for release, prison system checked and the date doesn’t align with prisoner detail on system, prisoner has to wait until MoJ confirm in writing that its correct and he is being released earlier.

    Prisoner arrives at check-out for release, system checked and date doesn’t align with prisoner detail on system, prisoner has to wait until MoJ confirm, MoJ say no, prisoner is not being released early so a mistake, prisoner goes back to cell.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,799
    More joy in heaven over one sinner repenting?

    But how far do we allow past errors to be erased by 'seeing the light'?

    Alternate universe Goebbels 1946: “No, I haven’t changed. I was a victim—just like you were—of media lies and stuff you read on social media street fly posters.”
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,883

    I think Klobuchar might be the better long odds bet on that list.

    Ruben Gallego might be another good long odds bet. Latino, 45-year old Arizona Senator (D), out-performing Harris in 2024. Served in the Marines in Iraq. Performs well on TV.

    Or the 500/1 on Taylor Swift maybe…
    Taylor Swift would be great I reckon. Savvy billionaire businesswoman from a swing state with phenomenal name recognition. According to my mate in the insurance industry she is very professional and hardworking.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 64,595

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    A huge amount is spent on welfare, health, pensions and debt.

    I think the "market" stuff in the NHS and Education is a red herring; it's a classic Statist argument by public sector workers who don't want its users to have choice.

    That comment alone marks you out as a social democrat Lib Dem, not an Orange Book one.
  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 4,270

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    Your argument seems to be, "if we just spent a bit more".
    Sadly it's true, very often investing extra up front could save lots over time.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 11,665
    Sandpit said:

    Well Russian oil giant Lukoil, facing severe US sanctions, decided to divest its foreign operations to a Swiss-based company called Gunvor, also owned by Putin.

    The US Treasury, responsible for sanctions, has blocked the deal by sanctioning Gunvor.

    https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1986625573251350783

    I’m stunned that Gunvor hasn’t been sanctioned for years! I remember discussing it with some of my American friends over 10 years ago.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 8,358

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    No solution to our national woes is going to come without fundamental reform of healthcare, pensions and other welfare provision.

    It would be a statement of intent if, getting the unpopular stuff out of the way, Reeves axes the triple lock. I think it highly unlikely but if she’s raising taxes on us all she should show us where savings are coming from too.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 58,126

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    The prison service appears to be totally broken. They literally have one job to do, and that’s to keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us.

    How can they possibly lose half a dozen people every week?
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 39,893

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    Add, procurement, contract management, property management, and property development, where private businesses leech off the public sector, charging over the odds, for providing sub-standard services.

    As far back as 1993, I can remember Camden Council were selling off freeholds to commercial tenants on Hampstead High Street and Haverstock Hill, for half the open market value.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 28,457
    Its also possible that MTG wants to run for either governor or senator of Georgia in 2026.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 11,665

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    I’ve been asking this for years but people on here used to say “but what would you cut”.

    It’s much more basic - where is the money going?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,724
    edited 8:15AM
    Pro_Rata said:
    "digital consultancy firm 411, who Sky News worked closely with to conduct this analysis."

    411, named after the number of seats Labour won at the GE, are a Labour pressure group staffed by people with close ties to the party. Why are Sky News using such an organisation, rather than doing the work themselves?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,799
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Well Russian oil giant Lukoil, facing severe US sanctions, decided to divest its foreign operations to a Swiss-based company called Gunvor, also owned by Putin.

    The US Treasury, responsible for sanctions, has blocked the deal by sanctioning Gunvor.

    https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1986625573251350783

    Don't the f*cking Swiss have some responsibility here too?

    I may be over-reacting this morning but they do seem like a bunch of free-loading arseholes, hiding behind their famed neutrality and banking privacy standards to cream off a fantastic standard of living by protecting the scum of the earth. Just saying.
    Yes there should be pressure on Switzerland, and other offshore jurisdictions, which are still allowing entities linked to the Russian government or sanctioned by UK/US/EU to trade.
    I'm sure any pressure will elicit a gnomic response... and nothing will change.
  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 4,270
    boulay said:

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    Surely it’s a simple process? Prisoner arrives from court and is “checked in”. Papers from court confirm release date. Release date is put into prison system on the Prisoner’s page with name, details and photo.

    Prison receives written instructions from MoJ etc to confirm if prisoner is being released early - get prisoner from cell, check they are the same person as the system shows from check-in, release.

    Prisoner arrives at check-out for release, prison system checked and the date doesn’t align with prisoner detail on system, prisoner has to wait until MoJ confirm in writing that its correct and he is being released earlier.

    Prisoner arrives at check-out for release, system checked and date doesn’t align with prisoner detail on system, prisoner has to wait until MoJ confirm, MoJ say no, prisoner is not being released early so a mistake, prisoner goes back to cell.
    A former prison officer tells me that all too often whilst that process is going on, the high-up arrives and demands that the officers deal with his urgent request instead. So mistakes are much more likely.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 53,869
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 16,826
    https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/10718

    Weaponizing Wedge Issues: Strategies of Populism and Illiberalism in European Election Campaigning on Facebook

    Basically, populist parties use controversial issues and a them versus us message.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 124,655

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Well Russian oil giant Lukoil, facing severe US sanctions, decided to divest its foreign operations to a Swiss-based company called Gunvor, also owned by Putin.

    The US Treasury, responsible for sanctions, has blocked the deal by sanctioning Gunvor.

    https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1986625573251350783

    Don't the f*cking Swiss have some responsibility here too?

    I may be over-reacting this morning but they do seem like a bunch of free-loading arseholes, hiding behind their famed neutrality and banking privacy standards to cream off a fantastic standard of living by protecting the scum of the earth. Just saying.
    Yes there should be pressure on Switzerland, and other offshore jurisdictions, which are still allowing entities linked to the Russian government or sanctioned by UK/US/EU to trade.
    I'm sure any pressure will elicit a gnomic response... and nothing will change.
    When I'm in Davos in January I shall raise this.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 56,760
    So, 700 cops 6 arrests. Public sector productivity hits a new low.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 45,762
    Foxy said:

    If the Rupublicans want to turn their back on Trumpism and return to sane right wing policy then they need look no further than Pence.

    Executive experience, impeccable Evangelical background and defended the Constitution when it mattered. I dont like his politics, but he has an integrity that is much needed in American politics.

    540/1 at present

    I wonder even if the GOP turn their backs on MAGAism due to it failing electorally, that they may have become addicted to show business in politics? To Britify it, Pence is Songs of Praise, MTG is Traitors.

  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 46,321
    edited 8:16AM

    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Well Russian oil giant Lukoil, facing severe US sanctions, decided to divest its foreign operations to a Swiss-based company called Gunvor, also owned by Putin.

    The US Treasury, responsible for sanctions, has blocked the deal by sanctioning Gunvor.

    https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1986625573251350783

    Don't the f*cking Swiss have some responsibility here too?

    I may be over-reacting this morning but they do seem like a bunch of free-loading arseholes, hiding behind their famed neutrality and banking privacy standards to cream off a fantastic standard of living by protecting the scum of the earth. Just saying.
    Yes there should be pressure on Switzerland, and other offshore jurisdictions, which are still allowing entities linked to the Russian government or sanctioned by UK/US/EU to trade.
    I'm sure any pressure will elicit a gnomic response... and nothing will change.
    ...
  • FossFoss Posts: 2,009
    edited 8:17AM

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    Councils are in a terrible state, some of it cuts, but others by a dramatic increase in costs, obliged on them by the courts moving the line for what they are required to provide. Some costs around children services are extraordinary, there's no cap on looked after children in care costs. A local council to me has a single child in care (one child) costing over £25k a week. A week!!

    Like every entitlement, every piece of public spending, they'll be some rationale behind it all. But there needs to be some tough loving going on somewhere.
    Hard caps to save the welfare state. Blair could have sold that. And he did with NICE.
  • CumberlandGapCumberlandGap Posts: 121
    AnneJGP said:

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    Your argument seems to be, "if we just spent a bit more".
    Sadly it's true, very often investing extra up front could save lots over time.
    That muddle headed thinking was there at the birth of the NHS and the welfare state. If we spend more now, it will reduce in future. It is not true, if you spend more now, you just end up spending even more in the future.

    I have handled many a local authority budget, its remarkable how little you get for what you spend, without hard headed budget controls you end up with bloated costs and poor service.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 63,096
    Never played it, but every time I see MTG I think of Magic The Gathering...
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 58,126
    The big news in the US this weekend is going to be the cancellation of thousands of flights, caused by staffing shortages in various areas related to the government shutdown. There’s problems with air traffic control, immigration, and airport security, all of which are run by the federal government and whose staff are currently not being paid.

    Airlines are all urging Senators to pass the budget resolution and reopen the government. The House has already passed it but the Senate needs 60 of 100 votes.

    It’s three weeks until Thanksgiving, the busiest travel week of the year.

    https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/2025/11/06/what-airports-affected-see-full-list-of-faa-flight-cuts-cancellations-delays-which-will-reduce/87121125007/
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 124,655
    I note with interest that Alan Carr is as subtle and transparent as me.

    Sometimes it is an advantage for people to think you aren't subtle.
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 11,665

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    Councils are in a terrible state, some of it cuts, but others by a dramatic increase in costs, obliged on them by the courts moving the line for what they are required to provide. Some costs around children services are extraordinary, there's no cap on looked after children in care costs. A local council to me has a single child in care (one child) costing over £25k a week. A week!!

    Like every entitlement, every piece of public spending, they'll be some rationale behind it all. But there needs to be some tough loving going on somewhere.
    Let’s say that they require 3 staff members per shift (rare but happens, especially with mentally ill teenagers with violent tendencies). That’s 9 core staff members to provide 24/7 cover. Add in another staff member to account for holiday cover and you will easily be a £400,000 p.a. in staff costs. You’ll also need say 25% of a team coordinator which is around £20k additional.

    You will need at least a 3 bedroom property to support them - let’s assume that’s £350,000 of capital cost post adaption which they will rent at a 8% annual rate so probably another £30k per year at least.

    So we are at £450k per year before you even start thinking about social charges on staff (probably another £40k per year), any medical interventions or support, education and life enhancement programmes. You could very easily get to £1m per year. You then add a 20% margin on top for the company that is doing all of this work and you easily get to £1.2m - £25k per week.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 63,096

    I note with interest that Alan Carr is as subtle and transparent as me.

    Sometimes it is an advantage for people to think you aren't subtle.

    Like Claudius? Or Basil I?
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 45,762
    edited 8:22AM

    More joy in heaven over one sinner repenting?

    But how far do we allow past errors to be erased by 'seeing the light'?

    Alternate universe Goebbels 1946: “No, I haven’t changed. I was a victim—just like you were—of media lies and stuff you read on social media street fly posters.”

    Well a version of that worked for father of the US space programme and Elon’s hero, von Braun.
    Not that the CIA gave a feck.
  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 4,270
    DavidL said:

    So, 700 cops 6 arrests. Public sector productivity hits a new low.

    Puts arresting people for tweets into perspective, aiming at improved productivity.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 28,457
    edited 8:23AM
    Was the construction PMI mentioned yesterday ?

    The AI overview is:

    The UK construction PMI has shown a historic contraction, with the latest reading in October 2025 at 44.1, marking the tenth consecutive month below the 50-point expansion/contraction threshold. This marks the longest period of continuous decline since the global financial crisis. The sector has been negatively impacted by sluggish demand, a lack of new tender opportunities, and falling employment, with civil engineering activity falling particularly sharply.

    Recent performance and key trends

    Continuous contraction: The S&P Global UK Construction PMI has been below 50 for ten straight months as of October 2025, indicating a sustained downturn.

    Sharpest decline in over five years: The rate of contraction in October 2025 was the sharpest since May 2020.

    Weakening demand and new work: Construction firms report poor market conditions and fewer new projects, with civil engineering activity falling at the fastest pace since May 2020 due to a lack of new work to replace completed projects.

    Job losses: Employment in the sector has dropped significantly, with the pace of job shedding accelerating to its fastest since November 2020 in some recent months.

    Sector-specific performance: While commercial and residential building both declined, civil engineering activity has been the weakest-performing segment.

    Cost pressures: Despite weak demand, some periods have seen rising cost pressures from materials and wages.

    Looking ahead

    Business expectations: Business confidence has fluctuated, sometimes remaining positive due to hopes for future projects despite short-term challenges.

    Contributing factors: Reasons cited for the downturn include economic uncertainty, higher borrowing costs, and a shortage of new projects.

    Policy impact: The figures have been influenced by fiscal worries and potential tax changes, such as those rumoured for the November 2025 Budget.


    When do we get the apologies from Reeves and Rayner ?

  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 53,869
    edited 8:25AM
    Sandpit said:

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    The prison service appears to be totally broken. They literally have one job to do, and that’s to keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us.

    How can they possibly lose half a dozen people every week?
    Because prisons are overcrowded, guards are undertrained with few entry requirements snd administrative systems archaic. We have neglected our prisons as much as anywhere else in the public estate so shouldn't be surprised that they work badly. The Probation service is pretty hopeless too. At £60 000 per prisoner per year it is very much as Douglas Hurd described 30 years ago "an expensive way of making bad people worse".

    On a recent inspection at Leicester Prison* the governor didn't know how many prisoners he had that day. A pretty core figure I would have thought.

    *Leicester Prison is opposite my hospital and particularly chaotic, as it is short term with lots of remand prisoners and newly sentenced who are awaiting moves to longer term prisons.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,724
    edited 8:26AM
    DavidL said:

    So, 700 cops 6 arrests. Public sector productivity hits a new low.

    This is at the core of when all the political talking heads are going I have looked at the data the trend of this or that crime stat is down, why the public go WTF....everybody understands crimes happen, what they don't expect is that a) the police just go nought we can do and b) when they do actually investigate they never catch anybody for certain types of crimes.

    For things like your car been nicked its now here is your crime number for the insurance and jog on. For what could be a crime of stealing £50-100k item. Its not nicking a mar bars from the corner shop.

    And we had reports that alleged train stabby stabby not only allegedly went stabby stabby the previous day but allegedl slashed somebody in the face the previous week and the plod closed the case within hours. Slashed in the face and the police shrug....
  • CumberlandGapCumberlandGap Posts: 121

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    Councils are in a terrible state, some of it cuts, but others by a dramatic increase in costs, obliged on them by the courts moving the line for what they are required to provide. Some costs around children services are extraordinary, there's no cap on looked after children in care costs. A local council to me has a single child in care (one child) costing over £25k a week. A week!!

    Like every entitlement, every piece of public spending, they'll be some rationale behind it all. But there needs to be some tough loving going on somewhere.
    Let’s say that they require 3 staff members per shift (rare but happens, especially with mentally ill teenagers with violent tendencies). That’s 9 core staff members to provide 24/7 cover. Add in another staff member to account for holiday cover and you will easily be a £400,000 p.a. in staff costs. You’ll also need say 25% of a team coordinator which is around £20k additional.

    You will need at least a 3 bedroom property to support them - let’s assume that’s £350,000 of capital cost post adaption which they will rent at a 8% annual rate so probably another £30k per year at least.

    So we are at £450k per year before you even start thinking about social charges on staff (probably another £40k per year), any medical interventions or support, education and life enhancement programmes. You could very easily get to £1m per year. You then add a 20% margin on top for the company that is doing all of this work and you easily get to £1.2m - £25k per week.
    It's just not sustainable. What would have happened to children in this situation twenty five years ago?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 31,332

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    Your argument seems to be, "if we just spent a bit more".
    It seems to be that if you are being obtuse or dumb.

    I want to slash spending. Cut out reams of bureaucracy and thus spend less overall with more cash than now actually delivered to front line services.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 53,869

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    Councils are in a terrible state, some of it cuts, but others by a dramatic increase in costs, obliged on them by the courts moving the line for what they are required to provide. Some costs around children services are extraordinary, there's no cap on looked after children in care costs. A local council to me has a single child in care (one child) costing over £25k a week. A week!!

    Like every entitlement, every piece of public spending, they'll be some rationale behind it all. But there needs to be some tough loving going on somewhere.
    Let’s say that they require 3 staff members per shift (rare but happens, especially with mentally ill teenagers with violent tendencies). That’s 9 core staff members to provide 24/7 cover. Add in another staff member to account for holiday cover and you will easily be a £400,000 p.a. in staff costs. You’ll also need say 25% of a team coordinator which is around £20k additional.

    You will need at least a 3 bedroom property to support them - let’s assume that’s £350,000 of capital cost post adaption which they will rent at a 8% annual rate so probably another £30k per year at least.

    So we are at £450k per year before you even start thinking about social charges on staff (probably another £40k per year), any medical interventions or support, education and life enhancement programmes. You could very easily get to £1m per year. You then add a 20% margin on top for the company that is doing all of this work and you easily get to £1.2m - £25k per week.
    It's just not sustainable. What would have happened to children in this situation twenty five years ago?
    Years ago they would be in a secure psychiatric unit.

    That system had its own problems with institutionalisation and institutional abuse of course.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 82,986
    Sandpit said:

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    The prison service appears to be totally broken. They literally have one job to do, and that’s to keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us.

    How can they possibly lose half a dozen people every week?
    A prison system running over capacity (and ditto the courts system), with a demoralised and poorly trained workforce, and no investment in modern IT, so systems are often still paper based... yes, a puzzle to me, too.

    That it has been going on for a number of years, and this is the first time we've really heard about it, completes the explanation.
  • CumberlandGapCumberlandGap Posts: 121
    edited 8:33AM

    DavidL said:

    So, 700 cops 6 arrests. Public sector productivity hits a new low.

    This is at the core of when all the political talking heads are going I have looked at the data the trend of this or that crime stat is down, why the public go WTF....everybody understands crimes happen, what they don't expect is that a) the police just go nought we can do and b) when they do actually investigate they never catch anybody for certain types of crimes.

    For things like your car been nicked its now here is your crime number for the insurance and jog on. For what could be a crime of stealing £50-100k item. Its not nicking a mar bars from the corner shop.

    And we had reports that alleged train stabby stabby not only allegedly went stabby stabby the previous day but allegedl slashed somebody in the face the previous week and the plod closed the case within hours. Slashed in the face and the police shrug....
    It feels like whataboutery but the case of Allison Pearson's tweet she deleted:

    1 A social media post by Allison Pearson in 2023 was initially reported to the Metropolitan Police as a potential breach of the Malicious Communications Act in November 2024.

    2 The case was then passed to Sussex Police, who marked it as a possible non-crime hate incident (NCHI) and potential malicious communication.

    3 Sussex Police passed the complaint further to Essex Police, where Allison Pearson resides.

    4 Essex Police made two assessments and then opened an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 related to material "likely or intended to cause racial hatred."

    5 Essex Police sent officers to visit Pearson's home on Remembrance Sunday 2024 to discuss the alleged incident, describing it during the visit as a "non-crime hate incident," although the force later contested that characterization.

    6 Several police forces including the Metropolitan Police and Sussex Police were involved at different stages before Essex Police took primary responsibility.

    7 Essex Police set up a "gold group," usually reserved for major crimes, to handle the investigation of Pearson’s social media post, which escalated the seriousness of the inquiry.

    8 Essex Police made an Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) complaint against The Telegraph’s reporting of the incident.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,724
    Has the Invisible Man that is Prison Minister ever spoken at all about these issues with prison released?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 58,126
    Foxy said:

    Sandpit said:

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    The prison service appears to be totally broken. They literally have one job to do, and that’s to keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us.

    How can they possibly lose half a dozen people every week?
    Because prisons are overcrowded, guards are undertrained with few entry requirements snd administrative systems archaic. We have neglected our prisons as much as anywhere else in the public estate so shouldn't be surprised that they work badly. The Probation service is pretty hopeless too. At £60 000 per prisoner per year it is very much as Douglas Hurd described 30 years ago "an expensive way of making bad people worse".

    On a recent inspection at Leicester Prison* the governor didn't know how many prisoners he had that day. A pretty core figure I would have thought.

    *Leicester Prison is opposite my hospital and particularly chaotic, as it is short term with lots of remand prisoners and newly sentenced who are awaiting moves to longer term prisons.
    I’ve not worked in a prison but I have worked in an hotel - how many customers are in beds tonight is kinda a key metric. Much easier with a prison too, guests can’t just bring a friend in with them and there’s supposed to be paperwork of comings and goings.

    As others have said, it does appear that a lot of money is being spent with poor value achieved, yet prison officers are not particularly well paid, and every month or two there’s a scandal involving a young woman working in a men’s prison with predictable results.

    The building themselves are often in poor condition too, they should probably look at selling off a lot of the estate that’s in urban areas (the old prison in Oxford city centre is now a funky hotel) and build new facilities on military land.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 53,869
    DavidL said:

    So, 700 cops 6 arrests. Public sector productivity hits a new low.

    I know that you are being tongue in cheek, but that looks like excellent policing to me. Protest and counter protest took place, the football match took place. Lots of shouting but little real violence.

    Jobs a good 'un.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 31,332

    DavidL said:

    So, 700 cops 6 arrests. Public sector productivity hits a new low.

    This is at the core of when all the political talking heads are going I have looked at the data the trend of this or that crime stat is down, why the public go WTF....everybody understands crimes happen, what they don't expect is that a) the police just go nought we can do and b) when they do actually investigate they never catch anybody for certain types of crimes.

    For things like your car been nicked its now here is your crime number for the insurance and jog on. For what could be a crime of stealing £50-100k item. Its not nicking a mar bars from the corner shop.

    And we had reports that alleged train stabby stabby not only allegedly went stabby stabby the previous day but allegedl slashed somebody in the face the previous week and the plod closed the case within hours. Slashed in the face and the police shrug....
    Had a debate with a Tory YouTuber on CessXpit. He was complaining about the stabby stabby and what are the police under labour doing about it.

    I pointed out that as the criminal justice system had been cut by his lot so hard that the Justice Secretary had a "pray date", the whole system has stopped.

    Scrote does crime. Cops are overwhelmed by crime as so many things were made illegal by the Tories. Cops don't have the bodies to do the basics. Lets assume they actually nick scrote. CPS has to prosecute - lacks time and resources. Knows that many cases don't go to court for ages and ages when witnesses etc have dropped out. Knows that if convicted they're out quickly because prisons are at crush capacity.

    So why nick scrote? Police are desperately short of time and resources. Why waste time on stuff the system just drops?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 58,201

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    Somewhere in the Yes, Minister canon, there is a Sir Humphrey line about "doing things more efficiently costs more".

    It's played for laughs, and is meant as a joke about the madness of the Civil Service. But in certain situations, it's true. The British State right now is largely suffering from the converse of that line- trying to do things cheaply is very inefficient. We have tried to do things cheaply for a generation and now it has caught up with us. It was always going to in the end.
    The British State doesn’t do cheap

    Its Feast or Famine - either we have £100m bat tunnels or we cancel HS2

    See the comments here, when I suggested a way that the British Museum could do a cheap solution to catalogue what’s in the basement.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 20,499
    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    The prison service appears to be totally broken. They literally have one job to do, and that’s to keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us.

    How can they possibly lose half a dozen people every week?
    A prison system running over capacity (and ditto the courts system), with a demoralised and poorly trained workforce, and no investment in modern IT, so systems are often still paper based... yes, a puzzle to me, too.

    That it has been going on for a number of years, and this is the first time we've really heard about it, completes the explanation.
    Another data point in the "politics= structured reality TV" theory.

    In both cases, our perception of what's happening is at the mercy of what the editors choose to emphasise.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 58,126
    edited 8:38AM

    Has the Invisible Man that is Prison Minister ever spoken at all about these issues with prison released?

    He’s having much more fun hobnobbing in Brazil with Ed Miliband, flying 7,000 miles to talk about saving the planet. Or is that the other PM?

    I’ll take these climate conferences seriously when one gets sponsored by Webex and happens remotely.
  • CumberlandGapCumberlandGap Posts: 121

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    Your argument seems to be, "if we just spent a bit more".
    It seems to be that if you are being obtuse or dumb.

    I want to slash spending. Cut out reams of bureaucracy and thus spend less overall with more cash than now actually delivered to front line services.
    Every politician everywhere has said the same thing, surely?

    Isn't it a bit like "What we really need to do is think inside the box"? Which politician has ever gone in to a reform and said "what we really need to do is remove people from front line services and spend more on bureaucracy"?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 35,481
    edited 8:40AM

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.

    Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.

    I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-53221983
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 88,724
    edited 8:41AM
    Sandpit said:

    Has the Invisible Man that is Prison Minister ever spoken at all about these issues with prison released?

    He’s having much more fun hobnobbing in Brazil with Ed Miliband, flying 7,000 miles to talk about saving the planet.

    I’ll take these climate conferences seriously when one gets sponsored by Webex and happens remotely.
    Are you saying James Timpson has gone to COP? Surely you must be mistaken.

    The thing is with Timpson he was announced with a lot of fanfare, he has a genuine interest and background in this (Timpsons record of hiring ex-cons is highly commenable) but they let him do what seems like one interview where he was we shouldn't lock up anywhere as many people and that seems to be the last heard from him. With these recent scandals, which are specifically prison related, its always Lammy running defence.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 82,986

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    Somewhere in the Yes, Minister canon, there is a Sir Humphrey line about "doing things more efficiently costs more".

    It's played for laughs, and is meant as a joke about the madness of the Civil Service. But in certain situations, it's true. The British State right now is largely suffering from the converse of that line- trying to do things cheaply is very inefficient. We have tried to do things cheaply for a generation and now it has caught up with us. It was always going to in the end.
    The obvious corollary of that, though, is that if we're going to do things better, we have to do fewer things.
    (A very obvious, and probably easiest to fix* example of this is the MoD.)
    There simply isn't the money to spend enough in everything.

    *Most other stuff involves telling large bits of the electorate "no", which is hard.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 15,756

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    I’ve been asking this for years but people on here used to say “but what would you cut”.

    It’s much more basic - where is the money going?
    Everyone can point to the costs of incompetence, including me. But the conclusion drawn is wrong. Running a complex state very badly is demoralising and very expensive. Running everything competently is a much better idea - and should be the core aim of all governments in every aspect at all times - but it is inescapable that it is also just as expensive.

    The stuff about cuts is tempting but no use. UK tax take and state managed expenditure in mid range for our sort of country.

    But in general the slogan should be 'Throw competence at the issue' not 'Throw funding at the issue'.

  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 8,358
    Sandpit said:

    Foxy said:

    Sandpit said:

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    The prison service appears to be totally broken. They literally have one job to do, and that’s to keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us.

    How can they possibly lose half a dozen people every week?
    Because prisons are overcrowded, guards are undertrained with few entry requirements snd administrative systems archaic. We have neglected our prisons as much as anywhere else in the public estate so shouldn't be surprised that they work badly. The Probation service is pretty hopeless too. At £60 000 per prisoner per year it is very much as Douglas Hurd described 30 years ago "an expensive way of making bad people worse".

    On a recent inspection at Leicester Prison* the governor didn't know how many prisoners he had that day. A pretty core figure I would have thought.

    *Leicester Prison is opposite my hospital and particularly chaotic, as it is short term with lots of remand prisoners and newly sentenced who are awaiting moves to longer term prisons.
    I’ve not worked in a prison but I have worked in an hotel - how many customers are in beds tonight is kinda a key metric. Much easier with a prison too, guests can’t just bring a friend in with them and there’s supposed to be paperwork of comings and goings.

    As others have said, it does appear that a lot of money is being spent with poor value achieved, yet prison officers are not particularly well paid, and every month or two there’s a scandal involving a young woman working in a men’s prison with predictable results.

    The building themselves are often in poor condition too, they should probably look at selling off a lot of the estate that’s in urban areas (the old prison in Oxford city centre is now a funky hotel) and build new facilities on military land.
    Public sector pay is one of those magic bullets I very much wish we could use. In a perfect world I would very much like that our public servants were paid much better than they are and payscales significantly reformed so that progression is encouraged. We should as part of that be reforming public sector pensions.

    Of course the unions would hate absolutely everything I’ve just typed so it’s pie in the sky, but I can dream. I think there’s a lot of great people in the public sector but they are trapped by overbearing bureaucracy and static pay and progression structures.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 58,126

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    Somewhere in the Yes, Minister canon, there is a Sir Humphrey line about "doing things more efficiently costs more".

    It's played for laughs, and is meant as a joke about the madness of the Civil Service. But in certain situations, it's true. The British State right now is largely suffering from the converse of that line- trying to do things cheaply is very inefficient. We have tried to do things cheaply for a generation and now it has caught up with us. It was always going to in the end.
    The British State doesn’t do cheap

    Its Feast or Famine - either we have £100m bat tunnels or we cancel HS2

    See the comments here, when I suggested a way that the British Museum could do a cheap solution to catalogue what’s in the basement.
    Which reminds me that the British Library still haven’t got their computers back up and running properly, two years after they got hacked.

    Systems for libraries and museums are really simple databases, you or I could probably scope one in an afternoon. It’s a big form for each item, perhaps links to related items, and a transactional system for ins and outs and moves. All well-indexed and searchable from a web page.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 7,493

    DavidL said:

    So, 700 cops 6 arrests. Public sector productivity hits a new low.

    This is at the core of when all the political talking heads are going I have looked at the data the trend of this or that crime stat is down, why the public go WTF....everybody understands crimes happen, what they don't expect is that a) the police just go nought we can do and b) when they do actually investigate they never catch anybody for certain types of crimes.

    For things like your car been nicked its now here is your crime number for the insurance and jog on. For what could be a crime of stealing £50-100k item. Its not nicking a mar bars from the corner shop.

    And we had reports that alleged train stabby stabby not only allegedly went stabby stabby the previous day but allegedl slashed somebody in the face the previous week and the plod closed the case within hours. Slashed in the face and the police shrug....
    It feels like whataboutery but the case of Allison Pearson's tweet she deleted:

    1 A social media post by Allison Pearson in 2023 was initially reported to the Metropolitan Police as a potential breach of the Malicious Communications Act in November 2024.

    2 The case was then passed to Sussex Police, who marked it as a possible non-crime hate incident (NCHI) and potential malicious communication.

    3 Sussex Police passed the complaint further to Essex Police, where Allison Pearson resides.

    4 Essex Police made two assessments and then opened an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 related to material "likely or intended to cause racial hatred."

    5 Essex Police sent officers to visit Pearson's home on Remembrance Sunday 2024 to discuss the alleged incident, describing it during the visit as a "non-crime hate incident," although the force later contested that characterization.

    6 Several police forces including the Metropolitan Police and Sussex Police were involved at different stages before Essex Police took primary responsibility.

    7 Essex Police set up a "gold group," usually reserved for major crimes, to handle the investigation of Pearson’s social media post, which escalated the seriousness of the inquiry.

    8 Essex Police made an Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) complaint against The Telegraph’s reporting of the incident.
    Surely as soon as it was assessed as "non-crime" the involvement of police should stop.

    Or at most, passed straight to Essex Police (where she lives) and a couple of cops gone round to offer "words of advice" ie what a traffic cop does if he thinks you are driving like a dick but haven't reached a prosecutable threshold.
  • CumberlandGapCumberlandGap Posts: 121
    edited 8:43AM
    Sandpit said:

    Foxy said:

    Sandpit said:

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    The prison service appears to be totally broken. They literally have one job to do, and that’s to keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us.

    How can they possibly lose half a dozen people every week?
    Because prisons are overcrowded, guards are undertrained with few entry requirements snd administrative systems archaic. We have neglected our prisons as much as anywhere else in the public estate so shouldn't be surprised that they work badly. The Probation service is pretty hopeless too. At £60 000 per prisoner per year it is very much as Douglas Hurd described 30 years ago "an expensive way of making bad people worse".

    On a recent inspection at Leicester Prison* the governor didn't know how many prisoners he had that day. A pretty core figure I would have thought.

    *Leicester Prison is opposite my hospital and particularly chaotic, as it is short term with lots of remand prisoners and newly sentenced who are awaiting moves to longer term prisons.
    I’ve not worked in a prison but I have worked in an hotel - how many customers are in beds tonight is kinda a key metric. Much easier with a prison too, guests can’t just bring a friend in with them and there’s supposed to be paperwork of comings and goings.

    As others have said, it does appear that a lot of money is being spent with poor value achieved, yet prison officers are not particularly well paid, and every month or two there’s a scandal involving a young woman working in a men’s prison with predictable results.

    The building themselves are often in poor condition too, they should probably look at selling off a lot of the estate that’s in urban areas (the old prison in Oxford city centre is now a funky hotel) and build new facilities on military land.
    Could we imagine the howls of outrage if this was in itself a private prison? It would be the profit motive under attack, with the whole concept of private management of prisoners in jeopardy. Labour MP after MP would be in force to call for the ending of contracts and reintegration of these into the public sector.

    This isnt to say that private prisons are better, they might be, might not, the point being there's no real accountability for the failure other than a really bad day for the minister, of a prison he is unlikely to have ever visited, would struggle to find on a map and have no operational understanding of how they work, and the minister will be surrounded by advisors and senior civil servants who are equally unlikely to have any day to day understanding, but will be better briefed.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 16,826

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    Councils are in a terrible state, some of it cuts, but others by a dramatic increase in costs, obliged on them by the courts moving the line for what they are required to provide. Some costs around children services are extraordinary, there's no cap on looked after children in care costs. A local council to me has a single child in care (one child) costing over £25k a week. A week!!

    Like every entitlement, every piece of public spending, they'll be some rationale behind it all. But there needs to be some tough loving going on somewhere.
    Let’s say that they require 3 staff members per shift (rare but happens, especially with mentally ill teenagers with violent tendencies). That’s 9 core staff members to provide 24/7 cover. Add in another staff member to account for holiday cover and you will easily be a £400,000 p.a. in staff costs. You’ll also need say 25% of a team coordinator which is around £20k additional.

    You will need at least a 3 bedroom property to support them - let’s assume that’s £350,000 of capital cost post adaption which they will rent at a 8% annual rate so probably another £30k per year at least.

    So we are at £450k per year before you even start thinking about social charges on staff (probably another £40k per year), any medical interventions or support, education and life enhancement programmes. You could very easily get to £1m per year. You then add a 20% margin on top for the company that is doing all of this work and you easily get to £1.2m - £25k per week.
    It's just not sustainable. What would have happened to children in this situation twenty five years ago?
    25 years ago? What, in 2000? Pretty much exactly the same.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 56,374

    Was the construction PMI mentioned yesterday ?

    The AI overview is:

    The UK construction PMI has shown a historic contraction, with the latest reading in October 2025 at 44.1, marking the tenth consecutive month below the 50-point expansion/contraction threshold. This marks the longest period of continuous decline since the global financial crisis. The sector has been negatively impacted by sluggish demand, a lack of new tender opportunities, and falling employment, with civil engineering activity falling particularly sharply.

    Recent performance and key trends

    Continuous contraction: The S&P Global UK Construction PMI has been below 50 for ten straight months as of October 2025, indicating a sustained downturn.

    Sharpest decline in over five years: The rate of contraction in October 2025 was the sharpest since May 2020.

    Weakening demand and new work: Construction firms report poor market conditions and fewer new projects, with civil engineering activity falling at the fastest pace since May 2020 due to a lack of new work to replace completed projects.

    Job losses: Employment in the sector has dropped significantly, with the pace of job shedding accelerating to its fastest since November 2020 in some recent months.

    Sector-specific performance: While commercial and residential building both declined, civil engineering activity has been the weakest-performing segment.

    Cost pressures: Despite weak demand, some periods have seen rising cost pressures from materials and wages.

    Looking ahead

    Business expectations: Business confidence has fluctuated, sometimes remaining positive due to hopes for future projects despite short-term challenges.

    Contributing factors: Reasons cited for the downturn include economic uncertainty, higher borrowing costs, and a shortage of new projects.

    Policy impact: The figures have been influenced by fiscal worries and potential tax changes, such as those rumoured for the November 2025 Budget.


    When do we get the apologies from Reeves and Rayner ?

    Down here in Devon, builders are complaining there is no work. A mass of second homes are up for sale without even being tarted up. No point spending money as they aren't selling regardless of condition.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 26,429
    DavidL said:

    So, 700 cops 6 arrests. Public sector productivity hits a new low.

    Are you suggesting that far more than 6/700 cops should be arrested?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 31,332
    edited 8:47AM

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    Your argument seems to be, "if we just spent a bit more".
    It seems to be that if you are being obtuse or dumb.

    I want to slash spending. Cut out reams of bureaucracy and thus spend less overall with more cash than now actually delivered to front line services.
    Every politician everywhere has said the same thing, surely?

    Isn't it a bit like "What we really need to do is think inside the box"? Which politician has ever gone in to a reform and said "what we really need to do is remove people from front line services and spend more on bureaucracy"?
    Where? Labour and Tory NHS reforms have done literally that. Tory education reforms have done literally that.

    My old school is now at the heart of a 9 school trust. £2.25m a year in operating costs for the trust on top of the cost of running the schools. Staff like a "Strategic Director of IT" who boasts about negotiating deals with Microsoft. Tesco do not think its more efficient to have store managers negotiate the price of beanz with Heinz and yet that is what the Tories have done to education. And its even worse in the NHS.

    Scrap all these structures. Have a local education board run all the schools. Who all need broadly the same stuff which is negotiated centrally at lower cost and a better price.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 58,126

    Sandpit said:

    Has the Invisible Man that is Prison Minister ever spoken at all about these issues with prison released?

    He’s having much more fun hobnobbing in Brazil with Ed Miliband, flying 7,000 miles to talk about saving the planet.

    I’ll take these climate conferences seriously when one gets sponsored by Webex and happens remotely.
    Are you saying James Timpson has gone to COP? Surely you must be mistaken.

    The thing is with Timpson he was announced with a lot of fanfare, he has a genuine interest and background in this (Timpsons record of hiring ex-cons is highly commenable) but they let him do what seems like one interview where he was we shouldn't lock up anywhere as many people and that seems to be the last heard from him. With these recent scandals, which are specifically prison related, its always Lammy running defence.
    Maybe I was confusing one PM with another!

    James Timpson seems like a nice guy in well over his head. As happens with many who move from the private sector into public service, don’t understand how difficult it is to get anything done and the institutional inertia that’s often working actively against the agenda of the minister.
  • AnneJGPAnneJGP Posts: 4,270

    AnneJGP said:

    What irks me the most is I think most of the money will be pissed up the wall.

    I think the triple-lock, PIPs for hundreds of thousands of people who've fallen out of the habit of working post Covid, winter fuel allowance, and indulgences, like private cabs, for shuttling around those on adult social care are a terrible use of public funds.

    This. Very much this. What is the point in raising more taxes to throw onto the bonfire?

    We can't afford the faux-market structures inside the NHS and Education. Waste, duplication, inefficiency and a system that despite all that still doesn't have the capacity to offer market choice. Scrap it all.
    We can't afford the cost of cleaning up the mess from cuts. The taxis you mention are what happens when government dumps responsibility on councils but doesn't fund it. Taxis should be an emergency measure but ends up the default because there isn't any money to put alternatives in place.

    And I could go on. We need significant reform of the way we do services - cutting the structure and the spending to improve the provision.

    I have to ask - what the hell is government spending our money on? They stopped funding so many things - universities, councils, adult social care etc - yet we have record taxes and enormous debt.
    Your argument seems to be, "if we just spent a bit more".
    Sadly it's true, very often investing extra up front could save lots over time.
    That muddle headed thinking was there at the birth of the NHS and the welfare state. If we spend more now, it will reduce in future. It is not true, if you spend more now, you just end up spending even more in the future.

    I have handled many a local authority budget, its remarkable how little you get for what you spend, without hard headed budget controls you end up with bloated costs and poor service.
    Interesting. I've never had responsibility for large budgets. My experience is of domestic matters, such as doing a proper roof repair rather than just patching a leak.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 82,986

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    It is an outrage and a sign that the justice system is in chaos and Lammy needs to get a grip.

    Nonetheless the pretence that this is a post July 2024 (although as the emergency release programme has been implemented the frequency has increased twofold) phenomenon by Shadow Ministers and PBers demonstrates a remarkably short memory.

    I don't recall you outrage posting about this trifling error back in 2019/20. Perhaps you would have been perfectly entitled so to do and the government of the day would have got a grip then.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-53221983
    Setting aside the poke at Francis, that is a classic.

    ...Crucial information, recorded on different systems by various authorities, was "lost" in handovers between staff, Mr Russell added...

    ...This is a report that cannot be allowed to gather dust...

    ...A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "These were horrendous crimes and we have apologised to the victims for the unacceptable failings in this case.
    "We have greatly improved information sharing between prisons and probation officers and all probation staff have received new, mandatory training on when offenders should be recalled."
    The second part of the review is due to be published in the autumn...


    Half a decade on, what has changed ?
  • CumberlandGapCumberlandGap Posts: 121

    DavidL said:

    So, 700 cops 6 arrests. Public sector productivity hits a new low.

    This is at the core of when all the political talking heads are going I have looked at the data the trend of this or that crime stat is down, why the public go WTF....everybody understands crimes happen, what they don't expect is that a) the police just go nought we can do and b) when they do actually investigate they never catch anybody for certain types of crimes.

    For things like your car been nicked its now here is your crime number for the insurance and jog on. For what could be a crime of stealing £50-100k item. Its not nicking a mar bars from the corner shop.

    And we had reports that alleged train stabby stabby not only allegedly went stabby stabby the previous day but allegedl slashed somebody in the face the previous week and the plod closed the case within hours. Slashed in the face and the police shrug....
    It feels like whataboutery but the case of Allison Pearson's tweet she deleted:

    1 A social media post by Allison Pearson in 2023 was initially reported to the Metropolitan Police as a potential breach of the Malicious Communications Act in November 2024.

    2 The case was then passed to Sussex Police, who marked it as a possible non-crime hate incident (NCHI) and potential malicious communication.

    3 Sussex Police passed the complaint further to Essex Police, where Allison Pearson resides.

    4 Essex Police made two assessments and then opened an investigation under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 related to material "likely or intended to cause racial hatred."

    5 Essex Police sent officers to visit Pearson's home on Remembrance Sunday 2024 to discuss the alleged incident, describing it during the visit as a "non-crime hate incident," although the force later contested that characterization.

    6 Several police forces including the Metropolitan Police and Sussex Police were involved at different stages before Essex Police took primary responsibility.

    7 Essex Police set up a "gold group," usually reserved for major crimes, to handle the investigation of Pearson’s social media post, which escalated the seriousness of the inquiry.

    8 Essex Police made an Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) complaint against The Telegraph’s reporting of the incident.
    Surely as soon as it was assessed as "non-crime" the involvement of police should stop.

    Or at most, passed straight to Essex Police (where she lives) and a couple of cops gone round to offer "words of advice" ie what a traffic cop does if he thinks you are driving like a dick but haven't reached a prosecutable threshold.
    It's a fine line between "we've come to check your thinking" (Harry Millar), in what they are actually doing is fishing for Mens Rea to see if they can get a juicy hate crime, and "just want to chat about how close what you said was to breaching the law, we are here not because we want to stop you saying or doing what you currently are, but just some advice about when it might go over the line".

    I think both are unacceptable to me personally and would involve a polite FO, but others might find it helpful, if it is a genuine conversation and not an attempt to trip up. Even saying that the discussion is not under caution (is that possible under PACE, to have a conversation not under caution, to prevent future crime?).
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 5,010
    Foxy said:
    Totally agree. The sooner we junk that pile of crap X from UK servers the better.
  • FossFoss Posts: 2,009

    Sandpit said:

    Foxy said:

    Sandpit said:

    Ninety violent or sex offenders have been mistakenly released from prison in the last year,

    Your joking, not another one 90....

    The prison service appears to be totally broken. They literally have one job to do, and that’s to keep the dangerous people away from the rest of us.

    How can they possibly lose half a dozen people every week?
    Because prisons are overcrowded, guards are undertrained with few entry requirements snd administrative systems archaic. We have neglected our prisons as much as anywhere else in the public estate so shouldn't be surprised that they work badly. The Probation service is pretty hopeless too. At £60 000 per prisoner per year it is very much as Douglas Hurd described 30 years ago "an expensive way of making bad people worse".

    On a recent inspection at Leicester Prison* the governor didn't know how many prisoners he had that day. A pretty core figure I would have thought.

    *Leicester Prison is opposite my hospital and particularly chaotic, as it is short term with lots of remand prisoners and newly sentenced who are awaiting moves to longer term prisons.
    I’ve not worked in a prison but I have worked in an hotel - how many customers are in beds tonight is kinda a key metric. Much easier with a prison too, guests can’t just bring a friend in with them and there’s supposed to be paperwork of comings and goings.

    As others have said, it does appear that a lot of money is being spent with poor value achieved, yet prison officers are not particularly well paid, and every month or two there’s a scandal involving a young woman working in a men’s prison with predictable results.

    The building themselves are often in poor condition too, they should probably look at selling off a lot of the estate that’s in urban areas (the old prison in Oxford city centre is now a funky hotel) and build new facilities on military land.

    Public sector pay is one of those magic bullets I very much wish we could use
    . In a perfect world I would very much like that our public servants were paid much better than they are and payscales significantly reformed so that progression is encouraged. We should as part of that be reforming public sector pensions.

    Of course the unions would hate absolutely everything I’ve just typed so it’s pie in the sky, but I can dream. I think there’s a lot of great people in the public sector but they are trapped by overbearing bureaucracy and static pay and progression structures.
    There's one union at a large government department that negotiated that almost the entire pay rise pool went to the junior end of the staff resulting in junior gates getting above inflation and mid and seniors getting less than inflation.

    At some point I expect we'll be sued for age discrimination over that.
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