I hate the itty bitty nature of our tax system. Just needless.
They are mad if they think 10-20 small increases that people will feel target them specifically is going to be more popular than a simple rise in income tax. And they are unlikely to raise as much that way either.
Yup, just put up income tax by 2pc and you raise serious money.
But if they’re spending the money on ending the two-child cap and above-inflation public sector pay rises, everyone is going to hate them anyway.
It's good to see the Guardian with their mojo back. They've been so insipid for the last few years. A complete loss of nerve. Most obviously since they got rid of Steve Bell.
Worth remembering ISAs are almost completely cost free for government in the 3 years of the fiscal forecast. So any changes being made are entirely for capital markets reasons. Unlike pensions, the foregone revenue from ISAs comes many years in the future when people cash out of them. So we’re suffering the revenue hit now from investments made years or decades ago.
"If you step back and look at the full strategic picture, the balance of advantage is shifting in favour of Ukraine, and not Russia as some would have it. We should not lose sight of this as we grapple with the chaos of Donald Trump’s latest and most shameless intervention. To walk away now is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory"
"The only safe peace deal is one that leaves Ukraine armed to the teeth as a steel porcupine, and Russia nursing its economic wounds for a generation."
To me it seems like both look exhausted so a deal within the next year feels plausible for the first time.
A clear risk for Ukraine is if anything happens to Trump in the next 3 years they will be completely and utterly shafted by President or acting President Vance. Long live the Don!
Worth remembering ISAs are almost completely cost free for government in the 3 years of the fiscal forecast. So any changes being made are entirely for capital markets reasons. Unlike pensions, the foregone revenue from ISAs comes many years in the future when people cash out of them. So we’re suffering the revenue hit now from investments made years or decades ago.
Eh? The income from them is tax free, or taxable now outside the wrapper.
There’s a gambling tax coming, look out for prosecutions of office Grand National sweepstakes next year.
Oh, and a load of betting companies moving themselves offshore out of reach of Rachel from accounts.
Sky Bet recently moved to Malta and it is said HMRC & the Gambling Commission are now pondering the definition of ‘offshore’.
The only way they’re stopping “offshore” betting, is to formally sanction the companies as if they were Russian or Iranian, and start fining banks which allow payments made to them.
At which point millions of people used to gambling start discovering $USDT, the cryptocurrency pegged to the dollar.
Yep. Like soaking the rich, taxing betting firms excessively just means they go overseas.
The VAT shift (I think the threshold falls from £90k to £30k) is going to be bloody awful. I've cunningly avoided it by not making much money, but those committing the sin of success will be shafted for their capitalist ways.
If you're a gardener making, say, £40k a year that's an extra £2,000 in tax. If you're making £90k then 20% on the £60k covered comes to £12,000 more in tax. It's bloody horrendous. [I believe I've got those threshold figures right but am going by memory, so am open to correction].
I'm not sure I agree.
The £90k threshold acted as another cliffedge that was sufficiently high such that many didn't seem to exceed it. Which is negative for growth and the ambitions of small firms.
Better have everyone charging VAT, beyond those making money as more of a hobby, then there's no disincentive to expanding (or merging) businesses to add scale.
There's still a cliff edge. It's just way lower.
And the shift adds a massive tax bill. Imagine if you increased a middle rate of income tax by 20p.
So if it is £12K for a cash ISA will the stocks and shares element still be £20K ?
20 in total, isn't it? So 12 can be cash and the next 8 has to be s+s, I guess.
The only time I've used the entire allowance is when I've had inheritances to deal with. Saving that much tax-free really is a nice bung for the very comfortably off.)
I'm a top 5% income household with a high saving rate and won't come close to £20k. It's ridiculously high.
I have used the maximal ISA allowance on a few occasions, using lump sums, but not often despite being in the top 1% on income.
Interestingly the ISA change floated, at least a week or so back, was lowering the cash ISA limit but not the shares ISA limit. Not sure how this is going to work given that you can now move money between the different types of ISA?
I think it's more a focus on the new money you can put into an ISA. Rather than being retrospective (but of course the change to allow movement between cash and S&S was retrospective anyway).
Yes, but someone who has both types of ISA, and who was wanting to make a big cash ISA contribution next year, could avoid a differential limit by moving money from share to cash ISA before April, and then simply make the contributions up to the new differential limits a week later. That's certainly what we'll do with my mother's accounts if they move to a £12k cash, £20k share upper limit.
You can of course also put stocks and shares ISA investments in a money market fund, which is economically equivalent to cash.
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
So if it is £12K for a cash ISA will the stocks and shares element still be £20K ?
20 in total, isn't it? So 12 can be cash and the next 8 has to be s+s, I guess.
The only time I've used the entire allowance is when I've had inheritances to deal with. Saving that much tax-free really is a nice bung for the very comfortably off.)
I'm a top 5% income household with a high saving rate and won't come close to £20k. It's ridiculously high.
I have used the maximal ISA allowance on a few occasions, using lump sums, but not often despite being in the top 1% on income.
My £5,500 in "automation and robotics" shares isa is doing pretty good, but its risky... I feel like i'm on a tour of the massage parlours of Thailand without using protection.. Just waiting for the inevitable smelly discharge.
So if it is £12K for a cash ISA will the stocks and shares element still be £20K ?
20 in total, isn't it? So 12 can be cash and the next 8 has to be s+s, I guess.
The only time I've used the entire allowance is when I've had inheritances to deal with. Saving that much tax-free really is a nice bung for the very comfortably off.)
I'm a top 5% income household with a high saving rate and won't come close to £20k. It's ridiculously high.
I have used the maximal ISA allowance on a few occasions, using lump sums, but not often despite being in the top 1% on income.
Interestingly the ISA change floated, at least a week or so back, was lowering the cash ISA limit but not the shares ISA limit. Not sure how this is going to work given that you can now move money between the different types of ISA?
I think it's more a focus on the new money you can put into an ISA. Rather than being retrospective (but of course the change to allow movement between cash and S&S was retrospective anyway).
Yes, but someone who has both types of ISA, and who was wanting to make a big cash ISA contribution next year, could avoid a differential limit by moving money from share to cash ISA before April, and then simply make the contributions up to the new differential limits a week later. That's certainly what we'll do with my mother's accounts if they move to a £12k cash, £20k share upper limit.
Mm. We need to see what the restrictions are in moving new share ISA money. As you say, the old share money seems likely to be free to move.
So if it is £12K for a cash ISA will the stocks and shares element still be £20K ?
20 in total, isn't it? So 12 can be cash and the next 8 has to be s+s, I guess.
The only time I've used the entire allowance is when I've had inheritances to deal with. Saving that much tax-free really is a nice bung for the very comfortably off.)
I'm a top 5% income household with a high saving rate and won't come close to £20k. It's ridiculously high.
I have used the maximal ISA allowance on a few occasions, using lump sums, but not often despite being in the top 1% on income.
Interestingly the ISA change floated, at least a week or so back, was lowering the cash ISA limit but not the shares ISA limit. Not sure how this is going to work given that you can now move money between the different types of ISA?
I think it's more a focus on the new money you can put into an ISA. Rather than being retrospective (but of course the change to allow movement between cash and S&S was retrospective anyway).
Yes, but someone who has both types of ISA, and who was wanting to make a big cash ISA contribution next year, could avoid a differential limit by moving money from share to cash ISA before April, and then simply make the contributions up to the new differential limits a week later. That's certainly what we'll do with my mother's accounts if they move to a £12k cash, £20k share upper limit.
You can of course also put stocks and shares ISA investments in a money market fund, which is economically equivalent to cash.
Riskier though. That's very important to a lot of people who don't have any spare capital to lose, or even see drop a bit in value. Also more complex/unfamiliar. Which is why I think it unfair to restrict cash ISA deposits [edit] but not S&S.
"If you step back and look at the full strategic picture, the balance of advantage is shifting in favour of Ukraine, and not Russia as some would have it. We should not lose sight of this as we grapple with the chaos of Donald Trump’s latest and most shameless intervention. To walk away now is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory"
"The only safe peace deal is one that leaves Ukraine armed to the teeth as a steel porcupine, and Russia nursing its economic wounds for a generation."
To me it seems like both look exhausted so a deal within the next year feels plausible for the first time.
A clear risk for Ukraine is if anything happens to Trump in the next 3 years they will be completely and utterly shafted by President or acting President Vance. Long live the Don!
Noisy flows the Don. One 'Don' that did win a Nobel.
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
Also tbf the same people who got very, very excited about the Colston Four trial.
This not simply a policy change. It is a very major constitutional change for which it has no mandate at all. Sneaked out via the press on the eve of the Budget.
It reeks of Labour's utter contempt for us and our liberties.
Getting rid of jury trials is a completely rogue decision and it should be resisted by MPs and the Lords at every turn. This wasn't in the Labour manifesto and they have no remit to remove such a vital protection of our freedom and liberty. What's to stop the government from manipulating judicial selection to fill the benches with judges who will target their opponents? We're literally seeing this happen in real time across the pond and Labour want to walk down an even worse path without jury trials?
This government proves itself to be utterly unfit for purpose at every opportunity. I curse the million Tory voters who sat on their hands by getting caught up in a media witch hunt against the party. Complete numpties and they've made us all regret it.
Whether it's right or wrong on its merits, it's terrible optics and undermines the case they will want to make at the time of the next election against Reform being a threat to civil liberties.
Axing the right to trial by jury would probably be enough for me to hold my nose and vote for REF/Farage, if they were the only party pledging to bring it back.
They wouldn’t be the only party pledging to bring it back.
Who else would? LDs perhaps.
The Conservatives, LDs and Greens have all now come out against the proposal. I've not seen any comment by Reform UK or Plaid Cymru yet. (The proposals would not apply in Scotland or NI.)
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
Trouble is that, since at least Lawson, we have mostly had rather more than we've been willing to pay for, including during the Austerity Years. Different Chancellors have had different ruses, but the effect has been the same.
That was never going to last forever, and the music has stopped on the game of pass the parcel.
So if it is £12K for a cash ISA will the stocks and shares element still be £20K ?
20 in total, isn't it? So 12 can be cash and the next 8 has to be s+s, I guess.
The only time I've used the entire allowance is when I've had inheritances to deal with. Saving that much tax-free really is a nice bung for the very comfortably off.)
I'm a top 5% income household with a high saving rate and won't come close to £20k. It's ridiculously high.
I have used the maximal ISA allowance on a few occasions, using lump sums, but not often despite being in the top 1% on income.
Interestingly the ISA change floated, at least a week or so back, was lowering the cash ISA limit but not the shares ISA limit. Not sure how this is going to work given that you can now move money between the different types of ISA?
I think it's more a focus on the new money you can put into an ISA. Rather than being retrospective (but of course the change to allow movement between cash and S&S was retrospective anyway).
Yes, but someone who has both types of ISA, and who was wanting to make a big cash ISA contribution next year, could avoid a differential limit by moving money from share to cash ISA before April, and then simply make the contributions up to the new differential limits a week later. That's certainly what we'll do with my mother's accounts if they move to a £12k cash, £20k share upper limit.
You can of course also put stocks and shares ISA investments in a money market fund, which is economically equivalent to cash.
Riskier though. That's very important to a lot of people who don't have any spare capital to lose, or even see drop a bit in value. Also more complex/unfamiliar. Which is why I think it unfair to restrict cash ISA deposits [edit] but not S&S.
You can also buy treasury bonds with a share ISA, but of course the Chancellor will be relying on most people not having the necessary knowledge or confidence.
The most sensible solution - both in terms of equity, effectivess, and to recover the original PEP/ISA objective of encouraging ordinary people to save, rather than shelter the wealth of the rich - would be to cap the total amount anyone can have in ISAs (for example say £100,000) - but of course they won't do that due politics
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
I thought the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials came from the people who were most horrified by the Colston statue decision.
So if it is £12K for a cash ISA will the stocks and shares element still be £20K ?
20 in total, isn't it? So 12 can be cash and the next 8 has to be s+s, I guess.
The only time I've used the entire allowance is when I've had inheritances to deal with. Saving that much tax-free really is a nice bung for the very comfortably off.)
I'm a top 5% income household with a high saving rate and won't come close to £20k. It's ridiculously high.
I have used the maximal ISA allowance on a few occasions, using lump sums, but not often despite being in the top 1% on income.
Interestingly the ISA change floated, at least a week or so back, was lowering the cash ISA limit but not the shares ISA limit. Not sure how this is going to work given that you can now move money between the different types of ISA?
I think it's more a focus on the new money you can put into an ISA. Rather than being retrospective (but of course the change to allow movement between cash and S&S was retrospective anyway).
Yes, but someone who has both types of ISA, and who was wanting to make a big cash ISA contribution next year, could avoid a differential limit by moving money from share to cash ISA before April, and then simply make the contributions up to the new differential limits a week later. That's certainly what we'll do with my mother's accounts if they move to a £12k cash, £20k share upper limit.
You can of course also put stocks and shares ISA investments in a money market fund, which is economically equivalent to cash.
Maybe if reducing the cash ISA limit, they should stick up the Premium Bonds cap a little. I don’t think it’s implausible that a lot of people holding the maximum would top it up, and it would give the treasury a little bit of immediate revenue
This not simply a policy change. It is a very major constitutional change for which it has no mandate at all. Sneaked out via the press on the eve of the Budget.
It reeks of Labour's utter contempt for us and our liberties.
Getting rid of jury trials is a completely rogue decision and it should be resisted by MPs and the Lords at every turn. This wasn't in the Labour manifesto and they have no remit to remove such a vital protection of our freedom and liberty. What's to stop the government from manipulating judicial selection to fill the benches with judges who will target their opponents? We're literally seeing this happen in real time across the pond and Labour want to walk down an even worse path without jury trials?
This government proves itself to be utterly unfit for purpose at every opportunity. I curse the million Tory voters who sat on their hands by getting caught up in a media witch hunt against the party. Complete numpties and they've made us all regret it.
Whether it's right or wrong on its merits, it's terrible optics and undermines the case they will want to make at the time of the next election against Reform being a threat to civil liberties.
Axing the right to trial by jury would probably be enough for me to hold my nose and vote for REF/Farage, if they were the only party pledging to bring it back.
They wouldn’t be the only party pledging to bring it back.
Who else would? LDs perhaps.
The Conservatives, LDs and Greens have all now come out against the proposal. I've not seen any comment by Reform UK or Plaid Cymru yet. (The proposals would not apply in Scotland or NI.)
SG was proposing juryless trials - but for rape trials, the inverse of the English proposals as I understand it. Got binned. Ditto jury reduction from 15 to 12 (you'd think 11 would make more sense in case of split, but perhaps a majority is clearer with 12).
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
Also tbf the same people who got very, very excited about the Colston Four trial.
They should stop being a slave to out of date Thatcherite methodology.
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
Also tbf the same people who got very, very excited about the Colston Four trial.
They should stop being a slave to out of date Thatcherite methodology.
We shouldn't be in bondage to how things were done in previous centuries.
So if it is £12K for a cash ISA will the stocks and shares element still be £20K ?
20 in total, isn't it? So 12 can be cash and the next 8 has to be s+s, I guess.
The only time I've used the entire allowance is when I've had inheritances to deal with. Saving that much tax-free really is a nice bung for the very comfortably off.)
I'm a top 5% income household with a high saving rate and won't come close to £20k. It's ridiculously high.
I have used the maximal ISA allowance on a few occasions, using lump sums, but not often despite being in the top 1% on income.
Interestingly the ISA change floated, at least a week or so back, was lowering the cash ISA limit but not the shares ISA limit. Not sure how this is going to work given that you can now move money between the different types of ISA?
I think it's more a focus on the new money you can put into an ISA. Rather than being retrospective (but of course the change to allow movement between cash and S&S was retrospective anyway).
Yes, but someone who has both types of ISA, and who was wanting to make a big cash ISA contribution next year, could avoid a differential limit by moving money from share to cash ISA before April, and then simply make the contributions up to the new differential limits a week later. That's certainly what we'll do with my mother's accounts if they move to a £12k cash, £20k share upper limit.
You can of course also put stocks and shares ISA investments in a money market fund, which is economically equivalent to cash.
Well, waiting for this budget has been like waiting for godot with less sense spoken.
Glad it will all be over in five hours or so.
It did seem at times as if the DT would soon be accusing her of taxing frogs in the garden pond and bringing back the hair-powder levy, having scraped the barrel on the other possibilities.
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
I have no idea if this is true, but it is rational for opinions to come in related sets, and opinions which don't arise in related ways lack an underlying coherence. Rather than turning the point into a meaningless (and maybe unverified) piece of ad hominem, it would be more useful to examine the relation of the set of opinions, and consider its worth.
What is irrational about wanting to have a much smaller state while keeping the jury system? We had juries when we had a much smaller state. (I am not proposing either, personally, but there is nothing counter intuitive about it.)
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
Gove is another misfit who got plenty of personal flak. It's the game.
I don't really get the chess thing, she was clearly very good, probably top 1% of all players, but not elite. To get to that level demonstrates a decent level of logic, planning and reasoning skills. To get to elite, does the same, but also requires a level of obsession that is probably unhealthy for a national leader.
So if it is £12K for a cash ISA will the stocks and shares element still be £20K ?
20 in total, isn't it? So 12 can be cash and the next 8 has to be s+s, I guess.
The only time I've used the entire allowance is when I've had inheritances to deal with. Saving that much tax-free really is a nice bung for the very comfortably off.)
I'm a top 5% income household with a high saving rate and won't come close to £20k. It's ridiculously high.
I have used the maximal ISA allowance on a few occasions, using lump sums, but not often despite being in the top 1% on income.
Interestingly the ISA change floated, at least a week or so back, was lowering the cash ISA limit but not the shares ISA limit. Not sure how this is going to work given that you can now move money between the different types of ISA?
I think it's more a focus on the new money you can put into an ISA. Rather than being retrospective (but of course the change to allow movement between cash and S&S was retrospective anyway).
Yes, but someone who has both types of ISA, and who was wanting to make a big cash ISA contribution next year, could avoid a differential limit by moving money from share to cash ISA before April, and then simply make the contributions up to the new differential limits a week later. That's certainly what we'll do with my mother's accounts if they move to a £12k cash, £20k share upper limit.
You can of course also put stocks and shares ISA investments in a money market fund, which is economically equivalent to cash.
Riskier though. That's very important to a lot of people who don't have any spare capital to lose, or even see drop a bit in value. Also more complex/unfamiliar. Which is why I think it unfair to restrict cash ISA deposits [edit] but not S&S.
I'd argue AAA money market funds are much less risky than holding cash in a bank. They don't up and down in value in practice.* I could name you several that have only ever gone up in value each day for over 15 years.
It's also very simple. You buy shares and the value goes up at prevailing short-term interest rates. The BoE base rate plus or minus a bit. No need to change bank when they drop interest rates.
People who are able to save more than £12k per year could do with a bit of financial education, I'd say.
* Some might have during the GFC, but then some banks went bust.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Maybe if reducing the cash ISA limit, they should stick up the Premium Bonds cap a little. I don’t think it’s implausible that a lot of people holding the maximum would top it up, and it would give the treasury a little bit of immediate revenue
(I do not expect Reeves to do this)
£50,000 in PBs is already quite a meaty limit - although it hasn't risen for ten years, and now I think nearly 1.5 million people hold the maximum. But the average return is only 3.6% and the median return - effectively excluding the 'lottery element' of the tiny chance of winning the £million - for most people is nearer 3%. At basic rate that's equivalent to under 4% of taxable income, whereas there are fairly safe taxable investments around that pay more than that. I suspect the surprisingly high number of people at the max are mostly wealthy pensioners, holding through mix of habit/inertia and for the faint possibility of winning the jackpot.
Hands up who think 'charismatic' Alan Dershowitz and Dana Loesch reflect the vast majority of USonians? I'd sue if I were them.
Drop Site @DropSiteNews Bari Weiss says she wants to use her new perch at CBS News to “redraw the lines of what falls in the 40 yards of acceptable debate” in American political and cultural life. She says the aim is to sideline voices like Hasan Piker, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, and elevate “charismatic” figures such as Alan Dershowitz and Dana Loesch who reflect “where the vast majority of Americans actually are.”
So if it is £12K for a cash ISA will the stocks and shares element still be £20K ?
20 in total, isn't it? So 12 can be cash and the next 8 has to be s+s, I guess.
The only time I've used the entire allowance is when I've had inheritances to deal with. Saving that much tax-free really is a nice bung for the very comfortably off.)
I'm a top 5% income household with a high saving rate and won't come close to £20k. It's ridiculously high.
I have used the maximal ISA allowance on a few occasions, using lump sums, but not often despite being in the top 1% on income.
Interestingly the ISA change floated, at least a week or so back, was lowering the cash ISA limit but not the shares ISA limit. Not sure how this is going to work given that you can now move money between the different types of ISA?
I think it's more a focus on the new money you can put into an ISA. Rather than being retrospective (but of course the change to allow movement between cash and S&S was retrospective anyway).
Yes, but someone who has both types of ISA, and who was wanting to make a big cash ISA contribution next year, could avoid a differential limit by moving money from share to cash ISA before April, and then simply make the contributions up to the new differential limits a week later. That's certainly what we'll do with my mother's accounts if they move to a £12k cash, £20k share upper limit.
You can of course also put stocks and shares ISA investments in a money market fund, which is economically equivalent to cash.
Riskier though. That's very important to a lot of people who don't have any spare capital to lose, or even see drop a bit in value. Also more complex/unfamiliar. Which is why I think it unfair to restrict cash ISA deposits [edit] but not S&S.
I'd argue AAA money market funds are much less risky than holding cash in a bank. They don't up and down in value in practice.* I could name you several that have only ever gone up in value each day for over 15 years.
It's also very simple. You buy shares and the value goes up at prevailing short-term interest rates. The BoE base rate plus or minus a bit. No need to change bank when they drop interest rates.
People who are able to save more than £12k per year could do with a bit of financial education, I'd say.
* Some might have during the GFC, but then some banks went bust.
Sure, but I was thinking more of people who might have much less to spare per year - or indeed a one-off lump sum such as the lady discussed earlier who had to move out of her house into care.
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
I have no idea if this is true, but it is rational for opinions to come in related sets, and opinions which don't arise in related ways lack an underlying coherence. Rather than turning the point into a meaningless (and maybe unverified) piece of ad hominem, it would be more useful to examine the relation of the set of opinions, and consider its worth.
What is irrational about wanting to have a much smaller state while keeping the jury system? We had juries when we had a much smaller state. (I am not proposing either, personally, but there is nothing counter intuitive about it.)
The frustration is the party led by this group of people have been in power most of my lifetime, and to be fair match the views of the electorate in not wanting to increase taxes.
So we have court rooms out of use because of leaks, because we don't want to spend money. We have a lack of lawyers and judges, because we don't want to spend money. Our prisons can't cope, because we don't want to spend money. Prisoners come out early, without any thought of rehabilitation and commit more crime.
Whilst I would prefer jury trials and functioning prisons myself, it does grate to hear the attacks on the status quo from the supporters of the establishment party with zero consideration of how we get here, or any serious thought on how we can change course and what resources that requires.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
More fundamentally, chess champion/enthusiast or not, why would she have a chess set placed so prominently in front of her at her desk at work, if not for the photo op and to get people like us talking about her chess prowess? She's a Beyonce fan but I doubt she has it playing at work.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Wasn't her "under 14 chess champion" a bit of an embellishment? I'm sure there is something on the web about it.
People on middle and low incomes expect to be hit most in today's Budget but people on high incomes expect those on middle incomes to be hit more than them. They could be in for a shock. I am expecting a class war budget targeting those with expensive homes, large private pensions and lots of shares in particular for tax rises as Reeves throws some red meat to Labour backbenchers and Labour members with Starmer approval to fund increased public spending and to try and win back some voters lost to the Greens. Anyway we will see in due course
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
More fundamentally, chess champion/enthusiast or not, why would she have a chess set placed so prominently in front of her at her desk at work, if not for the photo op and to get people like us talking about her chess prowess?
It's obviously a prop for a photo op... but then it was a photo op, so what did you expect if not a prop?
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
I have no idea if this is true, but it is rational for opinions to come in related sets, and opinions which don't arise in related ways lack an underlying coherence. Rather than turning the point into a meaningless (and maybe unverified) piece of ad hominem, it would be more useful to examine the relation of the set of opinions, and consider its worth.
What is irrational about wanting to have a much smaller state while keeping the jury system? We had juries when we had a much smaller state. (I am not proposing either, personally, but there is nothing counter intuitive about it.)
It has been apparent for some years that some sort of temporary measure would be needed to clear the backlog - and indeed a smaller but pernament set of measures to do something about the gradual seizing up clearly apparent even before 2020: something was going to crash before long whatever happened.
But then the previous government should have started something* instead of sitting with their collective thumb jammed up their ..., the reason presumably being the hatred of public spending.
*They did. Let the buggers out early. But that's the other end of the juridical sausage machine.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
More fundamentally, chess champion/enthusiast or not, why would she have a chess set placed so prominently in front of her at her desk at work, if not for the photo op and to get people like us talking about her chess prowess?
Whenever I see a chess board strategically placed in a promotional photo I always check to see if it is correctly set up. You would be amazed how often the board is the wrong way round. Non-players might be surprised to know there is a right and wrong way. Regular players spot the mistake instantly.
I guess the job of placing the board is delegated to an oik and the chances of that person knowing about this is less than fifty-fifty.
I hate the itty bitty nature of our tax system. Just needless.
Stupidly expensive to collect as well.
Merge NI & IT would save serious money.
Next piece of joined up government would be making all benefits taxable in value. Then you could get rid of a shit ton of means testing.
This would have the advantage of getting rid of the fear-of-loosing-benefits “cliff” that affects many people.
Um outside of self employment NI and income tax are paid at the exact same time using the same computer file and a single large payment.
Isn't that one of our national problems? Self-employed and microbusinesses that stay that way because of tax cliff edges.
Or, may I suggest, a lot of people who live in a land where you need a license for very little, and it is ridiculously easy just to set yourself up and work. It's brilliant, even if you want to incorporate and enjoy ltd liability, its easy to do, with very little paperwork.
By taking the threshold down you are hitting people who werent going to be getting £90k from their business, but people who are quite happy with a small income. We are not a nation of shop keepers, but a nation of one man bands, of micro entrepreneurs.
Feels to me like Reform are losing some stream. Labour and Tories are getting very close to parity. Not implausible we could see a crossover in the new year…
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
Gove is another misfit who got plenty of personal flak. It's the game.
I don't really get the chess thing, she was clearly very good, probably top 1% of all players, but not elite. To get to that level demonstrates a decent level of logic, planning and reasoning skills. To get to elite, does the same, but also requires a level of obsession that is probably unhealthy for a national leader.
A bit of internet digging suggests that she did little chess other than schoolgirl competitions. She doesn’t have a public ELO (chess ranking).
Now if she could say she was 2,000 ELO, close to a Master ranking, then she might be taken seriously in the chess world.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Wasn't her "under 14 chess champion" a bit of an embellishment? I'm sure there is something on the web about it.
I think the point was that she was the top under-14 in a under-16(?) tournament. Which was a separate prize.
Mostly you-know-who shit-stirring online, and hoping people wouldn't notice that leaves you covered in shit yourself.
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Wasn't her "under 14 chess champion" a bit of an embellishment? I'm sure there is something on the web about it.
She came 19th in the British Under 12s Championship, 29th in the Under 13s the next year, and then 26th in the Under 14s the year after. So, the press have referred to her as "a champion", rather than "the champion".
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Wasn't her "under 14 chess champion" a bit of an embellishment? I'm sure there is something on the web about it.
Cast iron citation
“I’m sure there is something on the web about it.”.
Can’t find more solid evidence than that.
Oh. Sorry…you were “just asking the question”. My bad
Feels to me like Reform are losing some stream. Labour and Tories are getting very close to parity. Not implausible we could see a crossover in the new year…
Plateau, not peak, if you look at the various graphs.
Maybe if reducing the cash ISA limit, they should stick up the Premium Bonds cap a little. I don’t think it’s implausible that a lot of people holding the maximum would top it up, and it would give the treasury a little bit of immediate revenue
(I do not expect Reeves to do this)
My elderly parents recently downsized their house and put the maximum in Premium Bonds.
They enjoy the emails saying they ‘won’ something, rather than a bland bank statement saying that interest was paid on their deposit.
Remember when Boris Johnson was surprised by a stray press photographer just hanging around to catch him singing his resignation letter? In front of a flag? Good times. None of this chess board fakery. Genuine reportage.
Entropy rising, barometer's getting low According to all sources The street's the place to go 'Cause tonight for the first time Just about half-past ten For the first time in history It's gonna start raining polls
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Wasn't her "under 14 chess champion" a bit of an embellishment? I'm sure there is something on the web about it.
She came 19th in the British Under 12s Championship, 29th in the Under 13s the next year, and then 26th in the Under 14s the year after. So, the press have referred to her as "a champion", rather than "the champion".
I imagine she qualified through winning something else. Unless it’s like the Champions League and you don’t have to be a champion to enter.
I’m the Canterbury and St Augustine’s District School U15s 200m champion 1988 and 1989 BTW.
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
I have no idea if this is true, but it is rational for opinions to come in related sets, and opinions which don't arise in related ways lack an underlying coherence. Rather than turning the point into a meaningless (and maybe unverified) piece of ad hominem, it would be more useful to examine the relation of the set of opinions, and consider its worth.
What is irrational about wanting to have a much smaller state while keeping the jury system? We had juries when we had a much smaller state. (I am not proposing either, personally, but there is nothing counter intuitive about it.)
The frustration is the party led by this group of people have been in power most of my lifetime, and to be fair match the views of the electorate in not wanting to increase taxes.
So we have court rooms out of use because of leaks, because we don't want to spend money. We have a lack of lawyers and judges, because we don't want to spend money. Our prisons can't cope, because we don't want to spend money. Prisoners come out early, without any thought of rehabilitation and commit more crime.
Whilst I would prefer jury trials and functioning prisons myself, it does grate to hear the attacks on the status quo from the supporters of the establishment party with zero consideration of how we get here, or any serious thought on how we can change course and what resources that requires.
Except for a very short time under Mrs T, public expenditure has risen throughout the last decades. The state in various forms manages 44% of total expenditure, over £40,000 per household, just a little short of the highest in Europe and in the middle of the developed pack. Despite that there is not a single area not crying out for much more spending. Something is wrong with the model, but it isn't that taxes are very significantly too low.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Wasn't her "under 14 chess champion" a bit of an embellishment? I'm sure there is something on the web about it.
She came 19th in the British Under 12s Championship, 29th in the Under 13s the next year, and then 26th in the Under 14s the year after. So, the press have referred to her as "a champion", rather than "the champion".
I imagine she qualified through winning something else. Unless it’s like the Champions League and you don’t have to be a champion to enter.
I’m the Canterbury and St Augustine’s District School U15s 200m champion 1988 and 1989 BTW.
I won the Russian language prize at school one year.
Entropy rising, barometer's getting low According to all sources The street's the place to go 'Cause tonight for the first time Just about half-past ten For the first time in history It's gonna start raining polls
I was trying more to echo Yeats - Easter rising . . . centre cannot hold
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Wasn't her "under 14 chess champion" a bit of an embellishment? I'm sure there is something on the web about it.
She came 19th in the British Under 12s Championship, 29th in the Under 13s the next year, and then 26th in the Under 14s the year after. So, the press have referred to her as "a champion", rather than "the champion".
I imagine she qualified through winning something else. Unless it’s like the Champions League and you don’t have to be a champion to enter.
I’m the Canterbury and St Augustine’s District School U15s 200m champion 1988 and 1989 BTW.
I won the Russian language prize at school one year.
My school did the first ever UK exchange with a Soviet school in 1989. I was so bad at Russian I was banned from going.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
Gove is another misfit who got plenty of personal flak. It's the game.
I don't really get the chess thing, she was clearly very good, probably top 1% of all players, but not elite. To get to that level demonstrates a decent level of logic, planning and reasoning skills. To get to elite, does the same, but also requires a level of obsession that is probably unhealthy for a national leader.
A bit of internet digging suggests that she did little chess other than schoolgirl competitions. She doesn’t have a public ELO (chess ranking).
Now if she could say she was 2,000 ELO, close to a Master ranking, then she might be taken seriously in the chess world.
Why is this relevant? The vast majority of people with a 2000+ chess ELO are very bright people, who know almost everything about chess, but are not going to be particularly well rounded because they have spent a high proportion of their time on a board game.
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
I have no idea if this is true, but it is rational for opinions to come in related sets, and opinions which don't arise in related ways lack an underlying coherence. Rather than turning the point into a meaningless (and maybe unverified) piece of ad hominem, it would be more useful to examine the relation of the set of opinions, and consider its worth.
What is irrational about wanting to have a much smaller state while keeping the jury system? We had juries when we had a much smaller state. (I am not proposing either, personally, but there is nothing counter intuitive about it.)
The frustration is the party led by this group of people have been in power most of my lifetime, and to be fair match the views of the electorate in not wanting to increase taxes.
So we have court rooms out of use because of leaks, because we don't want to spend money. We have a lack of lawyers and judges, because we don't want to spend money. Our prisons can't cope, because we don't want to spend money. Prisoners come out early, without any thought of rehabilitation and commit more crime.
Whilst I would prefer jury trials and functioning prisons myself, it does grate to hear the attacks on the status quo from the supporters of the establishment party with zero consideration of how we get here, or any serious thought on how we can change course and what resources that requires.
Except for a very short time under Mrs T, public expenditure has risen throughout the last decades. The state in various forms manages 44% of total expenditure, over £40,000 per household, just a little short of the highest in Europe and in the middle of the developed pack. Despite that there is not a single area not crying out for much more spending. Something is wrong with the model, but it isn't that taxes are very significantly too low.
That is not "just a little short of the highest in Europe". It's 57% in France, with other European countries above 44% including Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Luxembourg, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Slovenia/-akia.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Wasn't her "under 14 chess champion" a bit of an embellishment? I'm sure there is something on the web about it.
She came 19th in the British Under 12s Championship, 29th in the Under 13s the next year, and then 26th in the Under 14s the year after. So, the press have referred to her as "a champion", rather than "the champion".
I imagine she qualified through winning something else. Unless it’s like the Champions League and you don’t have to be a champion to enter.
I’m the Canterbury and St Augustine’s District School U15s 200m champion 1988 and 1989 BTW.
I won the Russian language prize at school one year.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Wasn't her "under 14 chess champion" a bit of an embellishment? I'm sure there is something on the web about it.
She came 19th in the British Under 12s Championship, 29th in the Under 13s the next year, and then 26th in the Under 14s the year after. So, the press have referred to her as "a champion", rather than "the champion".
I imagine she qualified through winning something else. Unless it’s like the Champions League and you don’t have to be a champion to enter.
I’m the Canterbury and St Augustine’s District School U15s 200m champion 1988 and 1989 BTW.
I won the Russian language prize at school one year.
My school did the first ever UK exchange with a Soviet school in 1989. I was so bad at Russian I was banned from going.
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
I thought the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials came from the people who were most horrified by the Colston statue decision.
I was surprised by the wild support for Jury trials. At least a judge knows the law and hopefully has no axes to grind. Whereas a jury by the law of averages will have at least 4 Faragists amongst them. Who could want those bigots sitting in judgement on you?
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
I have no idea if this is true, but it is rational for opinions to come in related sets, and opinions which don't arise in related ways lack an underlying coherence. Rather than turning the point into a meaningless (and maybe unverified) piece of ad hominem, it would be more useful to examine the relation of the set of opinions, and consider its worth.
What is irrational about wanting to have a much smaller state while keeping the jury system? We had juries when we had a much smaller state. (I am not proposing either, personally, but there is nothing counter intuitive about it.)
The frustration is the party led by this group of people have been in power most of my lifetime, and to be fair match the views of the electorate in not wanting to increase taxes.
So we have court rooms out of use because of leaks, because we don't want to spend money. We have a lack of lawyers and judges, because we don't want to spend money. Our prisons can't cope, because we don't want to spend money. Prisoners come out early, without any thought of rehabilitation and commit more crime.
Whilst I would prefer jury trials and functioning prisons myself, it does grate to hear the attacks on the status quo from the supporters of the establishment party with zero consideration of how we get here, or any serious thought on how we can change course and what resources that requires.
Except for a very short time under Mrs T, public expenditure has risen throughout the last decades. The state in various forms manages 44% of total expenditure, over £40,000 per household, just a little short of the highest in Europe and in the middle of the developed pack. Despite that there is not a single area not crying out for much more spending. Something is wrong with the model, but it isn't that taxes are very significantly too low.
I would say it is down to two things:
Mostly demographics - well outside our short term control (beyond immigration) Lack of investment - not spending money on investment saves cash in the short term but increases costs in the long term. With a 5 year electoral cycle and investment payoffs often 10 year plus, it is unsurprising but self defeating that we don't invest. This is the one we could control if the electorate were willing to learn.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Wasn't her "under 14 chess champion" a bit of an embellishment? I'm sure there is something on the web about it.
She came 19th in the British Under 12s Championship, 29th in the Under 13s the next year, and then 26th in the Under 14s the year after. So, the press have referred to her as "a champion", rather than "the champion".
I imagine she qualified through winning something else. Unless it’s like the Champions League and you don’t have to be a champion to enter.
I’m the Canterbury and St Augustine’s District School U15s 200m champion 1988 and 1989 BTW.
I won the Russian language prize at school one year.
От всей души поздравляю!
I should point out that there were only 2 of us doing Russian that year, and the other guy was abysmal at the language.
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
I thought the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials came from the people who were most horrified by the Colston statue decision.
I was surprised by the wild support for Jury trials. At least a judge knows the law and hopefully has no axes to grind. Whereas a jury by the law of averages will have at least 4 Faragists amonst them. Who could want those bigots sitting in judgement on you?
I missed the PB discussion on this, if there was one, which I regret because it is an important topic and interests me. I had two spells of jury service and sat on four trials. Three were trivial and could have been much better dealt with by a small tribunal, or jury of much less than twelve. The fourth concerned the handling of £51,000 in counterfeit £20 notes and merited a jury trial.
One lesson I learned is that if you want to get off, you want to have a stupid jury. One I was on was exceptionally dim and preoccupied with getting home as quickly as possible. The counterfeit handler had the misfortune to have a number of very smart people on the jury, a couple of whom were able to pick up the barristers on some small errors in documents and evidence. He went down, and rightly so, I am sure.
My overall impression is that the whole system is extremely wasteful and inefficient and a lot of cases simply do not merit the attention they currently receive. The problem is where to draw the line between the serious and the trivial. I'm not sure where it should be drawn, but I think the current system is far too wasteful of resources.
By the way it may surprise my fellow pbers to learn that I appeared in court on a charge about eighteen months ago. My solicitor asked if I wanted a jury or magistrates trial. She reckoned I was almost certain to get off if I had a jury. She also thought I would be ok with magistrates but couldn't guarantee it because they can be a bit quirky. I nevertheless opted for magistrates because I regarded the whole thing as too trivial to warrant a jury and she agreed.
Naturally I got off. It made me think better of magistrates in general and that they could be used more to deal with the horrible backlog in the court system.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
Gove is another misfit who got plenty of personal flak. It's the game.
I don't really get the chess thing, she was clearly very good, probably top 1% of all players, but not elite. To get to that level demonstrates a decent level of logic, planning and reasoning skills. To get to elite, does the same, but also requires a level of obsession that is probably unhealthy for a national leader.
A bit of internet digging suggests that she did little chess other than schoolgirl competitions. She doesn’t have a public ELO (chess ranking).
Now if she could say she was 2,000 ELO, close to a Master ranking, then she might be taken seriously in the chess world.
Huh? Why is this relevant? She’s proud of what she’s done and rightly so. If a politician rugby player had some end of season award he won from the Old Rubberduckians RFC on his desk it wouldn’t even be mentioned. Certainly no one would go carp about “lack of representative honours”
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Wasn't her "under 14 chess champion" a bit of an embellishment? I'm sure there is something on the web about it.
Cast iron citation
“I’m sure there is something on the web about it.”.
Can’t find more solid evidence than that.
Oh. Sorry…you were “just asking the question”. My bad
There is a cast iron law of nature that there is everything on the web about everything. If one delves deep enough - and some of us on PB are well on the way in their bathyscaphe - one can find detailed evidence* that Ms Reeves is a tentacled monster from the Cthulhu abyss, formerly Chancellor of the dead city of R'lyeh.
*Which, for the record, I do *not* believe for a moment.
1) "pull jurors out of a hat" - my experience is being sorted into groups of 16 at the beginning of the week but it could just be done by computer in a matter of seconds once the juror register is complete 2) Judge briefing the Jury on their duties and responsibilities - apart from case specific issues this is boilerplate. Could be online with a little quiz and declaration, e.g. "If I do my own research on the internet" will I a) be better briefed than the legal counsel, b) be helping my fellow jurors to understand the case or c) do 6 months d) all of the above? 3) Check in advance whether witnesses need screens and prepare. In your cases I assume it's a given, so the screens should be there by default.
None of the above has to be on the critical path.
My experience is that if you're assigned to a trial in the morning then it's 11.30am by the time you're sat down, HHJ does his solemn briefing etc, now 12, they have a brief conflab and decide that there isn't time for 2 opening addresses before lunch, "jury will only remember one side", so break. 2pm before you're back in court in the afternoon, if Judge or barristers don't have an afternoon clash.
There are delays around sending Juries out and reassembling them, but they can just be sent to the next room rather than allowed to disperse.
Juries can be taken off the critical path for most of it. Leveson has just blamed them for the inefficiency of the professionals involved.
There is no way 2 would work - most people will just fast forward the video or put it on and do something else
Have all the jury prep etc run by court staff. The day before.
Have jury prep as a courthouse function, run by staff. As a continual operation. Lining up juries, get them sorted, warned, lanyarded.
So 9am, the judge, lawyers, etc all roll in together.
Judge can have the option to say - “I don’t look this jury, do you have a similar one? But in a shade of mauve?”
You're right, of course you're right, but you know the objections.
Spending a bit more to get a lot more is still spending more, and we've conditioned ourselves to not want that.
It's moving spending from frontline staff to backstage. And we've massively conditioned ourselves to not want that.
Yet again on pb the most vociferous criticism of the removal of jury trials comes from the very same people who want to massively cut public spending and reduce public sector pay and benefits dramatically.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
I have no idea if this is true, but it is rational for opinions to come in related sets, and opinions which don't arise in related ways lack an underlying coherence. Rather than turning the point into a meaningless (and maybe unverified) piece of ad hominem, it would be more useful to examine the relation of the set of opinions, and consider its worth.
What is irrational about wanting to have a much smaller state while keeping the jury system? We had juries when we had a much smaller state. (I am not proposing either, personally, but there is nothing counter intuitive about it.)
The frustration is the party led by this group of people have been in power most of my lifetime, and to be fair match the views of the electorate in not wanting to increase taxes.
So we have court rooms out of use because of leaks, because we don't want to spend money. We have a lack of lawyers and judges, because we don't want to spend money. Our prisons can't cope, because we don't want to spend money. Prisoners come out early, without any thought of rehabilitation and commit more crime.
Whilst I would prefer jury trials and functioning prisons myself, it does grate to hear the attacks on the status quo from the supporters of the establishment party with zero consideration of how we get here, or any serious thought on how we can change course and what resources that requires.
Except for a very short time under Mrs T, public expenditure has risen throughout the last decades. The state in various forms manages 44% of total expenditure, over £40,000 per household, just a little short of the highest in Europe and in the middle of the developed pack. Despite that there is not a single area not crying out for much more spending. Something is wrong with the model, but it isn't that taxes are very significantly too low.
That is not "just a little short of the highest in Europe". It's 57% in France, with other European countries above 44% including Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Luxembourg, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Slovenia/-akia.
Noted. It's still a lot of money and a big % of GDP. I'll look a bit more when I have time.
I missed the PB discussion on this, if there was one, which I regret because it is an important topic and interests me. I had two spells of jury service and sat on four trials. Three were trivial and could have been much better dealt with by a small tribunal, or jury of much less than twelve. The fourth concerned the handling of £51,000 in counterfeit £20 notes and merited a jury trial.
One lesson I learned is that if you want to get off, you want to have a stupid jury. One I was on was exceptionally dim and preoccupied with getting home as quickly as possible. The counterfeit handler had the misfortune to have a number of very smart people on the jury, a couple of whom were able to pick up the barristers on some small errors in documents and evidence. He went down, and rightly so, I am sure.
My overall impression is that the whole system is extremely wasteful and inefficient and a lot of cases simply do not merit the attention they currently receive. The problem is where to draw the line between the serious and the trivial. I'm not sure where it should be drawn, but I think the current system is far too wasteful of resources.
By the way it may surprise my fellow pbers to learn that I appeared in court on a charge about eighteen months ago. My solicitor asked if I wanted a jury or magistrates trial. She reckoned I was almost certain to get off if I had a jury. She also thought I would be ok with magistrates but couldn't guarantee it because they can be a bit quirky. I nevertheless opted for magistrates because I regarded the whole thing as too trivial to warrant a jury and she agreed.
Naturally I got off. It made me think better of magistrates in general and that they could be used more to deal with the horrible backlog in the court system.
And if a magistrate or judge has a bias, there's no check on it at all without ordinary members of the public. Removal of juries could be a first step towards having magistrates or judges appointed/elected and being overtly political. Juries are not perfect but they are important.
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
Wasn't her "under 14 chess champion" a bit of an embellishment? I'm sure there is something on the web about it.
Cast iron citation
“I’m sure there is something on the web about it.”.
Can’t find more solid evidence than that.
Oh. Sorry…you were “just asking the question”. My bad
There is a cast iron law of nature that there is everything on the web about everything. If one delves deep enough - and some of us on PB are well on the way in their bathyscaphe - one can find detailed evidence* that Ms Reeves is a tentacled monster from the Cthulhu abyss, formerly Chancellor of the dead city of R'lyeh.
*Which, for the record, I do *not* believe for a moment.
No. That’s Starmer you’re thinking of. He was responsible for the Black Death too
As someone once should have said "go back to your constituencies and prepare for a disappointment".
It's hard to see anything radical coming out of this timid Chancellor and Government. As an example, the horseracing industry has apparently won its battle to prevent tax rises on General Betting Duty and now thinks they might also have stopped any changes to Remote Gaming Duty. Now, whatever you may think of the bookmaking industry, the fact they spend £2 billion per annum on advertising suggests they aren't on their last legs and to see the likes of John Gosden pleading poverty (come on) has apparently convinced the poor old Government horse and dog racing face extinction if tax is put up by any amount.
The one thing trying not to be unpopular gets you is unpopularity in the long term as by definition you can't please all of the people all of the time.
Talking of Russian, whatever happened to Dura Ace?
Would be mind blowing if he was one of Leon's creations. Though the immutable Banned Leon's Law means that his other creations get noisier when he is reduced to silence. Not looking at anyone..
Hands up who think 'charismatic' Alan Dershowitz and Dana Loesch reflect the vast majority of USonians? I'd sue if I were them.
Drop Site @DropSiteNews Bari Weiss says she wants to use her new perch at CBS News to “redraw the lines of what falls in the 40 yards of acceptable debate” in American political and cultural life. She says the aim is to sideline voices like Hasan Piker, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, and elevate “charismatic” figures such as Alan Dershowitz and Dana Loesch who reflect “where the vast majority of Americans actually are.”
Flicking through the last thread I noticed a few of the Reform Lite posters criticising Rachel for being photographed with a chess board on her desk and one of them suggested she was trying to make herself look clever. She was infact underr 14 chess champion.
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
As always, two things can be true at once.
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
More fundamentally, chess champion/enthusiast or not, why would she have a chess set placed so prominently in front of her at her desk at work, if not for the photo op and to get people like us talking about her chess prowess?
Whenever I see a chess board strategically placed in a promotional photo I always check to see if it is correctly set up. You would be amazed how often the board is the wrong way round. Non-players might be surprised to know there is a right and wrong way. Regular players spot the mistake instantly.
I guess the job of placing the board is delegated to an oik and the chances of that person knowing about this is less than fifty-fifty.
Fascinating, I had no idea. chess.com has "8 simple steps" to follow to set up a board correctly. Eight!
I am going out to lunch at a pub overlooking the estuary, while I still have the money to afford it.
The existence of jury trials is NOT the reason for court delays. The reasons are:
1. Reducing court sitting days even though the Lady Chief Justice has said judges can sit for more days so there is no lack of availability. 2. Closure and selling of courts. 3. A lack of sufficient funding for the justice system at every level.
1 and 2 are easily remediable. You do not abolish an 800 year old fundamental principle because of a lack of short-term funding. Unless you're an illiberal cretin, that is.
This is a power grab by the state of one of the few areas in British life which really is democratic, generally - though not invariably - works well and, crucially, is not controlled by the state and cannot be pressured by it. And can tell the state to get stuffed when it overreaches eg Ponting, the Colston Four. That is why authoritarians hate it and want to get rid of it. It must be resisted by all possible means.
This proposal shows how much contempt Labour has for us and our liberties.
Talking of Russian, whatever happened to Dura Ace?
Would be mind blowing if he was one of Leon's creations. Though the immutable Banned Leon's Law means that his other creations get noisier when he is reduced to silence. Not looking at anyone..
Comments
But if they’re spending the money on ending the two-child cap and above-inflation public sector pay rises, everyone is going to hate them anyway.
A clear risk for Ukraine is if anything happens to Trump in the next 3 years they will be completely and utterly shafted by President or acting President Vance. Long live the Don!
And the shift adds a massive tax bill. Imagine if you increased a middle rate of income tax by 20p.
Merge NI & IT would save serious money.
Next piece of joined up government would be making all benefits taxable in value. Then you could get rid of a shit ton of means testing.
This would have the advantage of getting rid of the fear-of-loosing-benefits “cliff” that affects many people.
The concept of we only get what we are willing to pay for seems to have completely passed them by.
One 'Don' that did win a Nobel.
That was never going to last forever, and the music has stopped on the game of pass the parcel.
The most sensible solution - both in terms of equity, effectivess, and to recover the original PEP/ISA objective of encouraging ordinary people to save, rather than shelter the wealth of the rich - would be to cap the total amount anyone can have in ISAs (for example say £100,000) - but of course they won't do that due politics
https://monevator.com/money-market-funds/
(I do not expect Reeves to do this)
https://www.lawscot.org.uk/news-and-events/law-society-news/law-society-welcomes-scrapping-of-juryless-trials-proposal/
I think there's a lot of misogyny when it comes to Rachel. Would people be so patronising if it was Gove for example?
Glad it will all be over in five hours or so.
What is irrational about wanting to have a much smaller state while keeping the jury system? We had juries when we had a much smaller state. (I am not proposing either, personally, but there is nothing counter intuitive about it.)
I don't really get the chess thing, she was clearly very good, probably top 1% of all players, but not elite. To get to that level demonstrates a decent level of logic, planning and reasoning skills. To get to elite, does the same, but also requires a level of obsession that is probably unhealthy for a national leader.
It's also very simple. You buy shares and the value goes up at prevailing short-term interest rates. The BoE base rate plus or minus a bit. No need to change bank when they drop interest rates.
People who are able to save more than £12k per year could do with a bit of financial education, I'd say.
* Some might have during the GFC, but then some banks went bust.
Yes, at the company PAYE level it is integrated
Is some criticism of Reeves misogynistic? Yes, because misogyny exists and I don’t think it’s particularly controversial to say that woman are often held to different standards. If you accept that then it does of course naturally follow that some of the criticism she attracts comes from that place.
But let’s not conflate criticism of her as being a poor steward of the economy as being down to her gender. She’s a poor steward of the economy. Her decisions have been highly questionable. Her political tactics have all backfired. She has contributed to a significant amount of economic uncertainty and loss of confidence in the UK. Criticism does not always equal prejudice.
We could tax taxis while we're at it.
Drop Site
@DropSiteNews
Bari Weiss says she wants to use her new perch at CBS News to “redraw the lines of what falls in the 40 yards of acceptable debate” in American political and cultural life. She says the aim is to sideline voices like Hasan Piker, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, and elevate “charismatic” figures such as Alan Dershowitz and Dana Loesch who reflect “where the vast majority of Americans actually are.”
https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1993154653941362892?s=20
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/nov/25/moj-considering-extreme-proposal-to-scrap-jury-trials-for-all-but-most-serious-cases
So we have court rooms out of use because of leaks, because we don't want to spend money.
We have a lack of lawyers and judges, because we don't want to spend money.
Our prisons can't cope, because we don't want to spend money.
Prisoners come out early, without any thought of rehabilitation and commit more crime.
Whilst I would prefer jury trials and functioning prisons myself, it does grate to hear the attacks on the status quo from the supporters of the establishment party with zero consideration of how we get here, or any serious thought on how we can change course and what resources that requires.
RFM: 28% (-2)
LAB: 20% (-1)
CON: 20% (+1)
LDM: 13% (=)
GRN: 10% (+1)
SNP: 3% (=)
Via @focaldataHQ, 18-21 Nov.
Changes w/ 8-17 Oct.
https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1993599152085741800?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Damn, beaten to it...
But then the previous government should have started something* instead of sitting with their collective thumb jammed up their ..., the reason presumably being the hatred of public spending.
*They did. Let the buggers out early. But that's the other end of the juridical sausage machine.
I guess the job of placing the board is delegated to an oik and the chances of that person knowing about this is less than fifty-fifty.
By taking the threshold down you are hitting people who werent going to be getting £90k from their business, but people who are quite happy with a small income. We are not a nation of shop keepers, but a nation of one man bands, of micro entrepreneurs.
Now if she could say she was 2,000 ELO, close to a Master ranking, then she might be taken seriously in the chess world.
Mostly you-know-who shit-stirring online, and hoping people wouldn't notice that leaves you covered in shit yourself.
“I’m sure there is something on the web about it.”.
Can’t find more solid evidence than that.
Oh. Sorry…you were “just asking the question”. My bad
They enjoy the emails saying they ‘won’ something, rather than a bland bank statement saying that interest was paid on their deposit.
This is still, weirdly, the Tories’ best card (not that the hand is good at all), and one of Farage’s weakest.
According to all sources
The street's the place to go
'Cause tonight for the first time
Just about half-past ten
For the first time in history
It's gonna start raining polls
I’m the Canterbury and St Augustine’s District School U15s 200m champion 1988 and 1989 BTW.
Mostly demographics - well outside our short term control (beyond immigration)
Lack of investment - not spending money on investment saves cash in the short term but increases costs in the long term. With a 5 year electoral cycle and investment payoffs often 10 year plus, it is unsurprising but self defeating that we don't invest. This is the one we could control if the electorate were willing to learn.
I missed the PB discussion on this, if there was one, which I regret because it is an important topic and interests me. I had two spells of jury service and sat on four trials. Three were trivial and could have been much better dealt with by a small tribunal, or jury of much less than twelve. The fourth concerned the handling of £51,000 in counterfeit £20 notes and merited a jury trial.
One lesson I learned is that if you want to get off, you want to have a stupid jury. One I was on was exceptionally dim and preoccupied with getting home as quickly as possible. The counterfeit handler had the misfortune to have a number of very smart people on the jury, a couple of whom were able to pick up the barristers on some small errors in documents and evidence. He went down, and rightly so, I am sure.
My overall impression is that the whole system is extremely wasteful and inefficient and a lot of cases simply do not merit the attention they currently receive. The problem is where to draw the line between the serious and the trivial. I'm not sure where it should be drawn, but I think the current system is far too wasteful of resources.
By the way it may surprise my fellow pbers to learn that I appeared in court on a charge about eighteen months ago. My solicitor asked if I wanted a jury or magistrates trial. She reckoned I was almost certain to get off if I had a jury. She also thought I would be ok with magistrates but couldn't guarantee it because they can be a bit quirky. I nevertheless opted for magistrates because I regarded the whole thing as too trivial to warrant a jury and she agreed.
Naturally I got off. It made me think better of magistrates in general and that they could be used more to deal with the horrible backlog in the court system.
*Which, for the record, I do *not* believe for a moment.
What do I expect from today's Budget?
As someone once should have said "go back to your constituencies and prepare for a disappointment".
It's hard to see anything radical coming out of this timid Chancellor and Government. As an example, the horseracing industry has apparently won its battle to prevent tax rises on General Betting Duty and now thinks they might also have stopped any changes to Remote Gaming Duty. Now, whatever you may think of the bookmaking industry, the fact they spend £2 billion per annum on advertising suggests they aren't on their last legs and to see the likes of John Gosden pleading poverty (come on) has apparently convinced the poor old Government horse and dog racing face extinction if tax is put up by any amount.
The one thing trying not to be unpopular gets you is unpopularity in the long term as by definition you can't please all of the people all of the time.
Though the immutable Banned Leon's Law means that his other creations get noisier when he is reduced to silence.
Not looking at anyone..
The existence of jury trials is NOT the reason for court delays. The reasons are:
1. Reducing court sitting days even though the Lady Chief Justice has said judges can sit for more days so there is no lack of availability.
2. Closure and selling of courts.
3. A lack of sufficient funding for the justice system at every level.
1 and 2 are easily remediable. You do not abolish an 800 year old fundamental principle because of a lack of short-term funding. Unless you're an illiberal cretin, that is.
This is a power grab by the state of one of the few areas in British life which really is democratic, generally - though not invariably - works well and, crucially, is not controlled by the state and cannot be pressured by it. And can tell the state to get stuffed when it overreaches eg Ponting, the Colston Four. That is why authoritarians hate it and want to get rid of it. It must be resisted by all possible means.
This proposal shows how much contempt Labour has for us and our liberties.