WTF is happening in the UK?

[Pontius Navigator]

4Ma. Thought you had Gareth.

[Woody]

4Ma. Thought you had Gareth.

Should be “ haven’t “, I’ve got Absent Adam

[4mastacker]

4Ma. Thought you had Gareth.

We have - he makes Nick "The Flouncer" Boles look good!

[Boac]

Apparently there is yet another 'adverse reaction' circulating in the UK - it appears to be called 'Long Boris'.

[Boac]

I see the Telegraph wittering on about 'prices coming down' soon following today's drop in the rate of inflation. They obviously have a different understanding of economics to me?

[barkingmad]

Shortly coming to a bank near you, one which you as a taxpayer bailed out back in 2008 and which may turn against you due to your unacceptable views on current affairs;



There, that’s done it, at last the topic has been broached here, unless it’s hiding elsewhere in O-N...

If so, I anticipate a rapid redeployment of this post to an unknown and obscure destination.

unless it’s hiding elsewhere in O-N...

If so, I anticipate a rapid redeployment of this post to an unknown and obscure destination.

Sorry to quash yet another conspiracy theory, BM, but you'll be ?relieved? to hear that it can stay here where almost all the other posts on the topic are?

[llondel]

I chose not to renew my UK voter registration last time. I'm coming up on ten years out of the country anyway, so it would have expired before the next election unless they hold it this year.

I think the problem that Tory voters have is that they are disillusioned by the antics of their party but can't quite see themselves voting for anyone else because they don't trust the other parties not to screw things up (not that the current government have set the bar particularly high). I can see a very one-sided election, where the Tory voters abstain and everyone else turns up to vote against them. In itself that's bad thing, the swing without an effective opposition will be largely unchecked and is unlikely to improve anything long-term. Not that the UK has had a proper function opposition for quite some time, dating back decades.

[llondel]

Shortly coming to a bank near you, one which you as a taxpayer bailed out back in 2008 and which may turn against you due to your unacceptable views on current affairs;



There, that’s done it, at last the topic has been broached here, unless it’s hiding elsewhere in O-N...

If so, I anticipate a rapid redeployment of this post to an unknown and obscure destination.

Farage is an arse of the highest order, but I think a lot of people who share my view of him are supporting him in this issue.

ETA: Although...

[OneHungLow]

Or does he?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Ellwood

Conservative MPs have launched an attempt to oust their colleague Tobias Ellwood as chair of the Commons defence select committee after he posted a video praising the Taliban for improving safety in Afghanistan.

Ellwood had sought to draw a line under the row, saying he was “sorry for my poor communication” after his actions outraged those in his own party and military veterans.

In a tweet and accompanying video, Ellwood described Afghanistan as a “country transformed” and talked up the group that seized power in August 2021, claiming “security has vastly improved, corruption is down and the opium trade has all but disappeared”.

Days later, four members of the defence select committee tabled a no-confidence motion in an effort to remove him from the important position.

The minutes of a meeting held on Wednesday showed that two Tories – Mark Francois and Richard Drax – and two Labour MPs – Derek Twigg and Kevan Jones – supported the motion.

A vote will not take place imminently, however, as the Commons is breaking up for the summer recess on Thursday afternoon.

After the backlash, Ellwood said: “The last couple of days have probably been the most miserable as a member of parliament,” adding: “I got it wrong.”

He called the row a Twitter “storm” and said he stood by criticisms in the video about Britain’s lack of engagement with Afghanistan’s new leadership since the chaotic exit of western countries’ armed forces from Kabul nearly two years ago.

But Ellwood used a TV interview to repeatedly apologise, and said the video “could have been much better done”.

“It’s important to put your hand up and acknowledge errors, however well intentioned,” the Bournemouth East MP and former army captain told TalkTV.

“I stand up, I speak my mind. I try and find solutions especially on the international stage, and I’m very, very sorry that my reflection of my visit could have been much better worded and have been taken out of context.”

While on a trip to India with the defence select committee, Ellwood deleted the video and issued a statement saying his reflections about Afghanistan under Taliban rule “could have been better worded” and he was sorry for “poor communication”.

Ellwood said the video, which critics said had a “wish you were here” feel and was set over uplifting music, was meant to focus on his push for Britain to reopen its embassy in Afghanistan.

After his visit there with the Halo trust, which helps clear landmines from former war zones, Ellwood said he had been repeatedly drawn to Afghanistan since losing his brother in the 2002 Bali terrorist bombing.

“During my visit last week, I witnessed something I did not expect to see – an eerie calm and a visible change in security, corruption and opium growth which I felt obliged to report,” he said in the statement.

“But I also saw a very vulnerable economy that will soon collapse without international intervention, turning this country into a failed state, with terrorist camps no doubt returning and triggering mass migration.”

Having been criticised for glossing over the erosion of women’s and girls’ rights under the Taliban, Ellwood said in the statement he had witnessed the “increasing restrictions” they faced.

“This suggests our current strategy, of shouting from afar, after abruptly abandoning the country in 2021, is not working. My simple call to action was to see our embassy reopen again and pursue a more direct strategy to help the 40 million people that we abandoned.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ng-taliban

Some of what he seems to think makes sense IMHO!

[barkingmad]

Aged 14 at my RC boarding skule, all I knew about the thorny topic of Sex-Ed was that a woman’s cycle had a basket on the handlebars.

Now this sort of material is being pushed, like heroin, at primary school pupils;

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ssons.html

Is everyone here, not only comfortable with third-party companies making money from this subject whilst preventing parents from previewing it, thereby likely stopping it, on the specious grounds of commercial confidentiality but with the actual content which seems both age and gender inappropriate?

The thin line between paedophilia and Health & Sex education becomes even more blurred and indistinct.

Christian Standard Bible "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away—it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea”.

[OneHungLow]

Christian Standard Bible "But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to fall away—it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea”.

The brothers taught you well. The brothers that taught me didn't even teach me how to reattach the bicycle chain.

Back in the day, it was left to the parents to teach their children of these matters.

These days, we live in a world swamped by internet pornography and the like and I suspect that childhood innocence, sadly, is a brief luxury, and later what emerges from the ugly world gives a warped view of what human sexuality, responsibility and love is all about. Forcing children to watch such stuff is wrong in my view, but denying that some sort of balanced knowledge is important too is hiding one's head in the sand, and I suspect that the Catholic religion would give an equally warped point of view about sex, only in a different way.

[Boac]

Certainly if Monica Lewinsky had had the sort of 'education' described in the Mail, things might have 'come' as less of a surprise.

Issues with 'sex education' have been rumbling on for at least 3 years and the Children’s Commissioner was supposedly 'investigating' in 2021, I think. I have not seen any report but it is now 'OK' for parents to remove their children from such if they seem it inappropriate https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... on-primary The matter is again 'under review' in government (whatever that means...)

Fortunately for me my (non-RC) education taught me that not all girls had baskets on their bikes.

[Boac]

The board of NatWest surely cannot retain any semblance of credibility after the Rose fiasco. They should go en-masse, unless some dissented.

[Rossian]

I would like to understand the mentality of the official who decided and signed off the decision that IF someone is compensated for wrongful arrest and conviction a portion of that comp will be abated for "board and lodging" for the length of their sentence!
What sort of mind thinks that way? And various courts have decided that that is a correct course of action! What world do they inhabit? Because I'm bloody sure it isn't the one I live in.

The Ancient Mariner

[OneHungLow]

I would like to understand the mentality of the official who decided and signed off the decision that IF someone is compensated for wrongful arrest and conviction a portion of that comp will be abated for "board and lodging" for the length of their sentence!
What sort of mind thinks that way? And various courts have decided that that is a correct course of action! What world do they inhabit? Because I'm bloody sure it isn't the one I live in.

The Ancient Mariner

+1

[FD2]

I would like to understand the mentality of the official who decided and signed off the decision that IF someone is compensated for wrongful arrest and conviction a portion of that comp will be abated for "board and lodging" for the length of their sentence!
What sort of mind thinks that way? And various courts have decided that that is a correct course of action! What world do they inhabit? Because I'm bloody sure it isn't the one I live in.

The Ancient Mariner

+ another! It was the House of Lords that shoved it through in 2007.

If he had 'admitted guilt' and been released when his 7 years was up he would have been a convicted criminal rapist and lucky to get a job sweeping roads. Furthermore I wonder if anyone would have examined that DNA evidence that cleared him. Nah - waste of money eh? He's admitted it.

From today's Telegraph:

He continuously maintained his innocence and was finally declared a free man after his conviction was overturned by appeal court judges on Wednesday.

While Mr Malkinson would not have to reimburse the prison service directly if he wins compensation, he could be forced to sacrifice a chunk of any payment he does receive to account for costs he would have incurred on the outside had he not been imprisoned.

Sir Bob Neill, the justice committee chairman, said the Government should review the rules. The controversial guidance was confirmed by the House of Lords in 2007, when it was the UK’s highest court.

While the Government makes the call on whether to grant compensation, it is then up to an independent assessor to determine how much is awarded, including any deductions for living costs.

So does that mean Sir Bob Neill has the discretion to make a fair judgment over the matter of reimbursement?

[barkingmad]

More on the Farage farrago;

“Protect Free Speech For Everyone, Not Just the Metropolitan Elite.

I’ve spent the past couple of weeks trying to whip up support for Nigel Farage in his battle against woke British banks.

Closing people’s accounts for expressing the ‘wrong’ views is a brutally effective type of censorship that originated in Communist China and has no place in a supposedly free country like ours.

My first thought was to create a meme based on the old advert for the National Lottery.

A giant hand holding a pair of rainbow-coloured scissors would emerge from a high street bank.

Then it would cut up the credit card of an unsuspecting member of the public, with the caption: “It could be you!”

But I realised this wouldn’t capture the threat posed by this sinister new form of cancel culture because not everyone is equally at risk.

The people most in danger of losing their accounts are those with unfashionable views, whether it’s the former leader of the Brexit Party or Richard Fothergill, a Church of England vicar who was de-banked by the Yorkshire Building Society after he objected to its promotion of trans ideology.

I think that’s why almost no one on the Left of British politics has taken Nigel’s side in this dispute.

So far, broadcasters Paul Mason and Emily Maitlis, Remoaner propagandist Alastair Campbell, Labour’s Rachel Reeves and comedian Omid Djalili have defended Coutts’s decision to defenestrate the GB News presenter.

A YouGov opinion poll last week revealed 24 percent of Labour voters think banks should be allowed to remove customers who have personal or political beliefs that don’t align with their values.

Labour leader Keir Starmer did eventually mutter something about how no one should be refused banking services because of their views, but it had to be dragged out of him.

Think how different the reaction would have been if it had been Jeremy Corbyn who’d been de-banked and not Nigel Farage, particularly if the lender then leaked confidential details of his finances to the BBC in an effort to pretend the reason he’d lost his account was for purely “commercial reasons”.

The entire Liberal Establishment would have been up in arms, demanding the head of the bank’s CEO.

The same people who’ve been sniggering at Nigel’s misfortune would have been loudly proclaiming that having a bank account is a basic human right, like access to water and electricity.“

That article is by Toby Young, who formed the Free Speech Union following the Establishment’s crapping on him over trivial Twatter posts many years ago.

Is it possible that TPTB might exercise more caution when they decide to pile on an individual, with gusto and enthusiasm, without considering potential blowback from their victims?

Oh to be a fly on the wall of the NatWest/Coutts boardroom when they survey the wreckage left behind resulting in such as this;

https://news.sky.com/story/nigel-farage ... g-12930278

[barkingmad]

At long last, some action on a tricky topic but one wonders how effective the new law will be and whether it has teeth which actually bite and hurt;

https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/ne ... inst+scams

[Boac]

I see Eddie Izard will be standing (as 'Suzie'....) for election for Labour to Brighton Pavillion. There will be so much fun if he is elected and someone asks Keir Starmer if 'Suzie' is a man or a woman

[barkingmad]

More on the collective insanity which is deeply affecting the UK but which sometimes escapes the journalistic rigour of the MSM;

https://www.hartgroup.org/peak-insanity/

What an unbelievably sorry state into which we have declined in a relatively short time?!

Young professionals are intending to desert the sinking ship once they become qualified, to be replaced with unknown quantities of unknowns, mostly young fit men of military age, invading the South coast on rubber boats aided and abetted by the French navy.

And leading us all to these bright sunlit uplands is a party calling itself the ‘conservative’ party, so it has all the makings of a barely credible few episodes of “Yes (Prime) Minister”.

I really must book in with my psycho therapist for a reality check asap!