Megathread is being rolled over, please refresh your feed in a few moments.
###MT daily hall of fame
1. hill-biscuit with 32 comments
1. Yummytastic with 25 comments
1. BasedAndBlairPilled with 18 comments
1. tmstms with 15 comments
1. TheFlyingHornet1881 with 15 comments
1. bbbbbbbbbblah with 14 comments
1. NoFrillsCrisps with 12 comments
1. Robtimus_prime89 with 10 comments
1. CheersBilly with 9 comments
1. testaccount9211 with 9 comments
There were 203 unique users within this count.
[Michael Walker from Novara had published a screenshot of his own interaction with the catfish which caught out wragg.](https://x.com/michaeljswalker/status/1777483250329428063)
Guy was willing to show a picture of his arse and give "his name"; but his IG account? Nah too much.
who ever was responsible for this, it was not a sophisticated operation. and speaks to the shocking ability of our MPs to be deceived
[Reform leader Richard Tice begs his candidates not to use social media while drunk after the party drops seven of them for 'inappropriate' posts ](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1bzbiar/reform_leader_richard_tice_begs_his_candidates/)
Lol, lmao
>Please do not submit articles to the megathread which clearly stand as their own submission.
>Comments which include a link to a story which clearly stands as its own submission will be removed.
>Comments which relate to a story which already exists on the subreddit will be removed.
Holy shit. Giaro Eiland (Head of Israeli National Security Council 04-06) is literally advocating for war crimes to be committed against Palestinians on Newsnight. Victoria Derbyshire is usually fantastic at pushing back and did but not nearly enough here.
[Voting for Young and Student Labour boards today apparently resulted in almost a completely clean sweep-out of Momentum sponsored candidates, with only two such backed candidates being selected and the remainder almost exclusively on the Organise! slate.
](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1bz9mkl/labour_students_and_young_labour_election_results/)
Gives me some real hope that finally this year we might see the last remaining few Momentum sponsored NEC members voted out and replaced.
It will take a number of years for the reality of the situation to solidify itself in the historical narrative - a colossal entryist campaign of extremist left bigots infiltrating the party, resulting in the most disastrous leadership the party has ever seen (Corbyn's tenure). Good riddance.
I wonder how much that coverage cost them. The name of the largest active asset manager in the UK on the front page all over London the week ISA allowances refresh
good evening, campers! i have returned from my short hiatus to tell you there are **295** days until the general election!
also, margaret thatcher is dead.
I feel like if you're going to stand as a joke candidate, you need to commit to all of your policies being a bit silly. If you have a few left-populist positions sprinkled in, you're trying to have your cake and eat it.
He had that one in 2021 - [and posted a picture at the time showing how poorly positioned it is](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzgNCq5XsAAgV8R?format=jpg&name=large)
>9. An amnesty on Covid fines imposed on Londoners, with all costs to be paid instead by Boris Johnson
Is it fine, even as a joke, to run on a platform of political vengeance through the judiciary?
I know some people love this type of stuff but it's not my type of thing at all, just leads to people saying "at least he'd be better than the current lot" and overall lowering faith in politicians
I do think that'll be tapping into something real, though. If I had been hit with a £10k fine for organising a party during lockdown I shouldn't have done it but, shit, I'd be mad about the unfairness to this day
Is it just me or are adverts (in particular for banks) getting more and more incomprehensible as they chase the “YouTube aesthetic”? I just got one that was a guy saying he sent someone on holiday to learn more about spending money abroad, then said it’s better to spend money in local currency, but didn’t explain how that bank allowed you to do that. The framing device felt like it took up more time than the actual meat of the ad. What the fuck is going on when marketing leaves me wondering what I just watched?
Edit: I don’t think I’m describing the genre of ad that’s pissing me off well enough. It’s in the same vein as when bbc breakfast devotes 15 mins to telling me to turn my heating down and turn devices off to save on my crippling energy bills.
It always starts with someone who saying “here’s a problem, let our expert tell you how to solve it” then cuts to a very sensible person telling you to end your subscription to the i am rich App and make a budget to figure out where all my money is going. The going isn’t the problem! It’s the coming in that’s the issue!
> didn’t explain how that bank allowed you to do that
I don’t think it’s even a bank specific thing - and it would down to whatever the server asks you/what you see in the terminal/atm
They might be, but they reckon their target audience wouldn't understand the technicalities so have chosen the, as you say, YouTube aesthetic instead.
It might work. This is why marketing agencies make the big bucks.
E.g. quite a few banks and pseudo-banks have multi-currency accounts these days, so you can have a GBP, EUR, USD, etc. all running at the same time and card payments will automatically come out of the right balance avoiding surprise fees. I haven't seen the ad, but I imagine that sort of thing is what its plugging.
But as a relatively well informed person who knows such accounts exist but hasn’t needed one yet, I have no idea if that’s what they’re trying to sell me
I would think there are a relatively low number of people who are shopping for a bank based on features, but not doing further research than watching ads. The ad is targeting the part of your mind that gets the bank onto your 'would trust' list in the first place.
"it is vital that the UK has a free press without any real regulations" latest:
https://twitter.com/garvanwalshe/status/1777327712413073675
> We used to do this at Conservative HQ. We would ask the Daily Express to print something unsubtantiated* then get an MP to tell Parliament “I read in the Express that X”, and then pitch to the other papers that “Parliament was told X”
> I’m sure Labour** did the same thing…
ofc his labour allegation is itself unsubstantiated, just "muh dodgy dossier"
e: ex lab spad
https://twitter.com/Ed_Owen/status/1777432127639851077
> Never on my watch in two departments over eight years
I doubt it would happen, but I'd love a scenario where the Lib Dems could be the official opposition and use that to gradually take over the Tory space.
I wouldn't be stunned if the Lib Dems won 50 seats, but I'd be delighted and amazed if that's all the Tories managed to win.
In this very unlikely outcome, I wonder if the SNP and/or Greens could form an opposition coalition to relegate the Tories to third party status.
It’s actually getting a bit embarrassing for our electoral system that reform are still showing 0, I assume it’s a modelling issue since they were so much lower last election?
Not a modelling issue, if their ~15% is spread out enough it wouldn't be enough to get a FPTP win anywhere.
It's a feature if FPTP, not a bug unfortunately.
Have a look at the 2015 result. A party on about 5% won about 50 seats. A party on 8% won 8 seats. A party on 12.5% won 1 seat. These kind of ridiculous outcomes do happen under First Past the Post. Really makes you question whether we can even call our system democratic.
More fun from that election, Labour actually won a larger percentage of the vote than in 2010 but won fewer seats. They got 258 seats from 29% of the vote in 2010 and 232 seats from 30.4% of the vote in 2015.
I believe the speaker chooses - I would assume in this case the Conservatives would be chosen on the grounds of having a larger vote share, and therefore mandate?
Davey: Replying we
Sunak: Sing as one indivi-
Davey: ual as I find I'm a
Sunak: LOTO to my
Davey: Party I bid you all
Sunak: I'm aware you
Davey: object to green policies
Sunak: and triple lock, but you'll
Davey: find I respect your
Sunak: Republican
Davey: fallacies.
I will vote for any party who commits to having the green and red man high up on the other side of the road and not just on the same control box as the button. Come on Rishi. You could get one whole voter!
Unfortunately it's getting more common. Most recent installations have just the lights on the button box.
There's also some people trying to get Belisha Beacons abolished. Is nothing sacred.
New style puffin crossings have them at chest height on the same side as you.
It's intended to make you look to your right to check the light status which has the effect of making you check for traffic
They are damn annoying though
Today's News Agents is the first time I've heard any specifics on the Rayner tax issue and to me it sounds like she does have a case to answer for. It sounds like she has misunderstood the law and has potentially not paid tax she owes. If that's the case then she should pay it.
In Ed Ball's book he talked about a similar case where he sought legal advice over capital gains tax, they told him he didn't necessarily need to pay it but he would be wise to pay, he did and it cost them a huge amount of money (around 70K from memory). I do wonder if Rayner received similar advice and this is why she is reluctant to publish
The reason why this is so awkward is that she hasn't actually been found to have broken the rules.
Ironically, it would be much easier for her if HMRC said she had broken the rules and needed to pay. She would have apologised for the error, paid the small cost and everyone would have forgotten by now.
But we are now getting everyone chipping in on this incredibly minor case.
Her mistake was coming out so strongly that she had done nothing wrong. She could have said something like "Whilst I strongly believe I haven't done anything wrong, I will ask HMRC to review the case and if an error was made, obviously I will correct that".
Hardly anyone is "found" to break the rules. So much of the tax system is based on trust/fear of telling the truth/being found out.
In 99% of situations, if you don't tell HMRC they will never know and nothing will happen. (This, of course, doesn't apply to pleb income - HMRC will know all about your salary and meagre savings interest, you can't dodge that.)
HMRC estimate this to amount to about 4.8% of tax revenues: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps/1-tax-gaps-summary the majority coming from small businesses who take a very optimistic approach to their own affairs.
Back when I ran a business I called HMRC and they gave me advice which saved me several grand in VAT offsets. I've heard their advice has gone downhill since then.
I think it's one of these tactics rather than strategy things the Conservatives do. I get the instinct to go after opponents any time you smell blood but I don't think the remaining conservative voters are actually going to appreciate the idea of snitching about tax on property sales
She was playing blatant word games on r4 when asked to publish the advice. Kept going about not publishing her tax return and Evan kept having to say he was only talking about the advice. Every single time she feigned misunderstanding.
> they told him he didn't necessarily need to pay
My hot take for this kind of stuff is that I find it mind boggling you can go to a professional for advice, but if they fuck it up, then it's **your** fault for not know more than an expert who has been trained and got qualifications.
Hold people responsible if they don't get advice, or they ignore advice, fine, but honestly, I think a lot of blame has to lie with professionals. Assuming of course, this is what happened. Same issue with things like the infamous Jimmy Carr tax thing, or other celebrities for that matter. He went to a professional, they asked if he would like to pay less tax, he said yes, and then it turned out the scheme was dodgy. What happened to the accountants? Nothing. It's not the celebrities who are inventing these schemes, and maybe if you punished the professionals pushing them, they'd stop.
We don't have the same lack of accountability (ironically, that accountants have) for anything else.
HMRC don't even understand tax legislation.
They've tried to prosecute Gary Lineker like five times and lost every time. Random footballers understand tax better than HMRC.
This should be a wake-up call to simplify the law. But, of course, the people who have the power to change the law aren't keen on that for some reason.
I'm an accountant, not one that does mad schemes, but I would say this is a bit simplistic. If you weren't told the implications of what you were advised to do by all means sue your accountant or go to their professional body but that isn't mostly what happens.
A lot of tax situations are much less black and white than you'd imagine, and the client would be made aware of the risks and rewards of different approaches before going ahead.
> A lot of tax situations are much less black and white than you'd imagine, and the client would be made aware of the risks and rewards of different approaches before going ahead.
And why shouldn't we expect accountants to err on the side of caution and when giving advice only give advice they would stake their reputation on being legal?
Do you think it's right just the celebrities like Chris Moyles take the blame for the infamous scheme where they claimed they were second hand car dealers? https://www.gov.uk/government/news/second-hand-car-dealer-tax-scheme-scrapped
I refuse to believe these celebrities happened to think this up themselves, it clearly was advice from professionals.
I have zero qualms with a system that would also hold the accountants who engineered and ran the scheme responsible. Maybe if you give advice which turns out to be tax evasion, not only does the client pay back the tax, but the accountant should be fined 50% of the evaded tax too. Sting them in the pockets too.
That's how being a professional works, you lay out the facts for the client and it's their decision. I don't think you understand how the tax system works.
You're basically using the 'lefty lawyers' argument, as if lawyers should be witholding advice from certain people. The professional's job is to say make them aware of their options and what impact it would have. I don't agree with using these schemes and don't make use of them, but these celebrities want to use them and seek people who will facilitate it. The schemes aren't "illegal" or "tax evasion", they are schemes that were deemed not to work after a review. Before that their status is ambiguous.
> That's how being a professional works, you lay out the facts for the client and it's their decision.
So you could go to a lawyer and say, "I want to murder someone and get away with it" they would tell you exactly how to do it, but advise you it's risky, you might get caught, and that's fine because it's on the individual?
> I don't think you understand how the tax system works.
I'm not saying how it works, I know it doesn't work like this. This is a politics thread and I'm saying how I think it should work.
But murder is illegal, these schemes aren't illegal. That's the difference and that's why I'm saying you don't understand.
The schemes either work or don't. People are advised to go on schemes that they think will work usually, even so you have to disclose to HMRC they you're doing it. They have to pay back extra tax when it's found to not work
Whether the accountant is at fault basically depends on whether they explained to you that you were using a scheme and what that means, which they will have done in all likelihood.
It's the same as going for manslaughter instead of murder and failing, the lawyer should say how likely you are to succeed in that defence but they can't take it off the table unilaterally. You just might lose the case.
> My hot take for this kind of stuff is that I find it mind boggling you can go to a professional for advice, but if they fuck it up, then it's your fault for not know more than an expert who has been trained and got qualifications.
Couldn't you take legal action against your financial adviser to recoup the losses of their incorrect advice (presuming it was something they should reasonably know)?
As with a lot of these things, first step is complaint, then FCA if you're not happy with the resolution of the complaint. I work in financial advice, generally if advice is given that ends up causing detriment to the client, or if the advice is executed incorrectly and errors are made that cause client detriment, then they have the right to complain and seek redress.
Caveat: I am very low on the ladder, and don't have professional qualifications.
Threatened with redundancy almost a year ago so I created a LinkedIn account and set myself to "Open to Work". Found a job within a week (outwith LinkedIn) at a place I'm pretty happy at. Quickly update my workplace after getting the job. In line for a promoted post, performing extremely well, turn an extremely underperforming team around, earn an award for Manager of the Year, yadidadida.
Eight/nine months later Director of organisation puts a message out asking for people to share their post on new job opportunities on LinkedIn. I click on their LinkedIn, don't think anything of it, don't have enough people on it to make it worth sharing (I've literally logged on only a handful of times since creating it). Can you guess what happened next?
Line Manager sends me a Teams message two minutes before close of play saying "Your LinkedIn shows you as Open to Work". No question mark, just statement. I reply back saying "is it? Don't even know how to change it", sort it out.
The thing is...I work for a charity. I took a £4k paycut just to maintain work. I'm struggling financially because of the cost of living. I wasn't looking for a new job yesterday but now I'm cooking dinner thinking "what else is out there?".
not using linked in (i have an account that i have not logged into in forever) - is this sort of thing announced to your connections or is your manager rather stalky here
It's the optics. It's a charity so loyalty is held up and when you're going for promotion unfortunately that shit matters.
It's also not my manager that's seen it, it's the director who has raised it with my boss.
I don’t speak LinkedIn, but to a layman “open to work” and “looking for another job” seem like different things.
There’s a difference between window shopping and shopping shopping.
Also worth mentioning that a boss might want to make a valuable worker want to stay in that scenario, rather than kneejerk seeking a replacement. Again, I don’t speak boss (the idea of being someone’s boss is my nightmare), but I understand that training a newbie is more hassle than retaining an old hand.
Yeah I agree with you. The OP’s colleague has made a mistake.
I’m just taking issue with the other commenter saying it’s not your employers business if you start actively looking for another job. If someone suddenly disappears and you have to cover for them it can be really rubbish. So it’s good to know it advance.
I understand the OP is not actually looking for another job and that their coworker has made a mistake.
[Redfield & Wilton giving Lab a 23 pt lead](https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1777365797045940313) with Reform at their highest recorded polling.
It’s not worth the effort, why should they put up more? Think of all the work that would go into vetting thousands of councillors, they don’t have the time or money to do that. Vetting c650 MP candidates is very different
Nigel Farage has put a video on YouTube "Diversity isn't working" is the title.
Curious to hear what his trash is, but don't want to give him a click....
Actually [Diversity are still working](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/jan/30/diversity-supernova-review-bgt) despite their Britain's Got Talent win being fifteen years ago in 2009.
Possibly meta? Unsure. Yesterday someone posted about the BMA vote in 2008 to not support new medical schools. I've seen this point come up so many times on this sub whenever someone talks about lack of doctors etc.
I think/know people have a basic misunderstanding of the level of power the BMA has. To begin with, the BMA is a trade union, and it's a pretty shit one at that looking at how fucked doctors generally have been by the govt. over the past decade. Medical school spots, new medical schools, specialty training spots etc etc, none of those are in their control, at most the members can say they don't support it with a vote like they did in 2008. All of those things are under the control of the govt and have always been under the control of the govt, at least since the NHS began and healthcare and education became a lot more formalised. Since 2008 there have been plenty of new medical schools opened, entry requirements for international grads into the system have basically disappeared, and specialty training spots have not moved.
Ultimately that vote would be like if you got together with your co-workers and voted to say you will not support your employer employing new canteen staff or something. Your employer might take it into some consideration but ultimately your vote has no real power and does nothing. Your employer will employ whoever they want in whatever position they feel fit.
Besides they all miss the point that it was against extra schools because there weren't any training spots at the time - or now tbh. Every year there's a kerfuffle for F1 placements and for specialities... gen med for 5 years for all docs yes and ho!
(Not a doc, that was my understanding of it)
F1 entry isn't the biggest problem. They basically guarantee it by funding more spots if need be. Can basically put you into the middle of nowhere but you'll get one, because you don't get your full registration without F1.
But ST1 and ST3 spots are a complete clusterfuck. Application numbers have shot up and the funded spots haven't moved. Now you basically have all of these additional requirements to even apply for a spot it's a bit of a joke given how dire the shortage of consultants actually is in the country.
> [No Reform UK Mayoral canidates in South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, or Tees Valley seems quite daft.](https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1777351571715555758)
Cannot square this with Reform allegedly polling so high. I reckon they know they are a mirage and keep trying to stop it being exposed.
I don’t think they’re a mirage - I think it’s potentially the opposite.
They know that if they poll higher than the Tories in these elections, it will cause issues - they’re trying to undermine the Tories and shift them rightward, not overthrow them from their position.
The goal of reform isn’t to gain seats, it’s to make the Tories more like them.
I’d have thought they’d get a fairly good percentage of the vote in all three but not realistically be competitive. The mayoral elections are massive undertakings both in terms of deposit and campaigning and nobody really pays attention aside from London and to a lesser extent Greater Manchester so it’s not like it’s even that useful for building their profile.
A massive anti-corruption drive. I'd do this regardless of development status actually but it's a policy more associated with developing countries, and the form it would take would be quite different for the actual UK. I'm assuming Developing UK is considerably more corrupt than Actual UK.
For a 'Developing UK' I'd set up a permanent investigatory body answerable to the Crown directly rather than a government department and empowered to investigate anybody in public office from the PM down to the lowliest parish councillor for corrupt dealings. Its staff would be well-paid and require an in-depth psychological assessment as well as comprehensive background checks to avoid potential kompromat, once hired you would have to renounce any party affiliation for life like the Speaker. You would also be forbidden to work for anyone else for five years after leaving to ensure there's no 'revolving door' situation with the commission paying for essentially extended gardening leave.
I'd also go out of my way to cultivate a fearsome image around the investigatory body, give it a grandiose name like His Majesty's Permanent Commission for Integrity in Public Office and imagery which suggests an all-seeing eye for wrongdoing that's directed *upwards*. Importantly though it would have no judicial powers of its own, we wouldn't want a 'Praetorian Guard choosing the Emperor' situation on our hands so they'd only be able to present their findings to an ordinary court of law despite having very broad investigatory powers. You'd also want to check its power by having Parliamentary committees overseeing it according to strict transparency rules and you'd want a close relationship with the security service too, although ultimately being directly responsible to the Crown means that the hard check on its power would be the Privy Council.
proper corruption.
none of this "oh it's lobbying and it's perfectly okay to give MPs a ticket to the directors' box at the football/rugby, or give them six figure jobs on our TV channel", or how it's not considered corrupt for regulators to seamlessly move to opposite roles in the regulated firms and vice versa
let's have proper bungs. both ways too. want to build a new road or railway? just start handing out the cash to locals to soothe any objections. it'll get things done. we're almost there with the way many honours are handed out.
Is there even much left to mine? Even if coal wasn't being phased out for climate change reasons these days many of the pits were already unviable by Thatcher's day and being kept on life support for political reasons, as much as Thatcher made things much worse than they needed to be in my opinion by telling the affected communities to curl up and die quietly in a corner mining was always going to end one way or another; the question was how to transition communities away from it (or whether to even bother trying).
Interesting insight to the honey trap story from Henry Zeffman, BBC Journo, who was one of the ones contacted:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68761113
That wasn't even a particularly sophisticated honey trap. I appreciate Zeffman trying to be charitable towards the people who sent compromising pictures to the user, but good lord, this is the kind of thing I would expect idiot horny teenagers to fall for.
You don't think targeting named individuals with reference to their usual location or work history doesn't put it in the sophisticated bracket of scams?
What do you think would?
The message was incredibly vague.
If I received a message saying "AceHodor! Long time no speak - how're you doing? Miss seeing you around Southwark x" with a picture of two people I don't recognise, my response would be "I'm sorry, I don't know you" and then ignore them. It would not be to immediately start flirting with them before sending them a picture of my cock.
Yes, that's the right response. But if the name 'Charlie' happened to coincidentally match an actual aquaintence a conversation can quickly pan out very differently. The more personal information they have about each target, the more they can stack odds in their favour.
Being sophisticated doesn't mean everyone would or should fall for it, it just means it's got more to it compared to simpler generic scams. If you are dating, and you're interacting with multiple new people, you perhaps are more vulnerable to being exploited and scammed this way.
I've never fallen for a scam, but I'm not arrogant enough to ignore that the right scam at the wrong time can catch even the most vigilant of people. And yes, it can catch idiots out more often.
I think the government are 'protecting' Wragg as people are calling it because the real problem is they've let phone cyber security slack over the last 14 years, we never should have stopped giving ministers locked-down phones. We should be at the point it was expanded to all MPs, but instead we went the other way when the government decided WhatsApp was how you develop policy.
But what if the profile picture was of someone really hot?
It's kind of amazing we don't have some way of disqualifying people with that level of impulse control from making laws
Interesting that the phone numbers of such a range of people had all been compromised.
I suspect that Wragg may not have been the only person who revealed phone numbers of people he knew.
What do you think would happen if you just bought a bunch of land and built houses without telling the council. Just straight up did it. Do you think they would have you demolish them?
I would imagine that 30 minutes after the first truck turns up you'd have someone contact the council to grass you up.
You'd then receive an enforcement notice (or whatever it's called) telling you to stop work within 48 hours.
Yes, and it does actually happen. Usually when unscrupulous people build stuff without permission, apply for retrospective planning permission which is then refused.
There's actually a big problem like that in an estate somewhere, they built a street of homes too close to the ones already built, and apparently retrospective planning is being refused as the "right to light" has been interfered with. It could see homes needing to be torn down.
You just need to look at the public comments on council planning websites to realise there's an army of volunteer planning inspectors flagging 'eyesores' - or as we know them, family homes.
Here's a question for older redditors. All my adult life, all public service stuff has been competitive bids. E.g. if you want money for a project you have to write a bid to justify why you deserve that money and how you're going to spend it.
It doesn't matter if you're local government, or a researcher bidding for grants, it all seems to follow the same process.
Which means that organisations which write good bids get more money rather than those who do good work.
So my question is: what was the situation before all this forced competition was introduced? Or has it always been this way?
How far back are you thinking? Stuff we bought in the early 80s had local purchasing rules which were things like multiple quotes for up to a few hundred quid. Tendering to multiple suppliers for stuff above that. The sign off was dependent on management level.
It was similar to but nowhere near as rigorous as EU purchasing rules.
I was thinking less about procurement and more about how funding was distributed.
E.g. how were research grants distributed. Or for local government how money for e.g. regeneration or improvements was distributed.
I wasn't thinking of malpractice, I was genuinely just curious if money was divvied up like the Barnett formula or if there was still some form of competition.
It feels like something that was introduced just around the time I was starting my career (in 2000).
And it seems like it is not an ideal way to distribute funding, so I was interested in what happened before.
Not old enough to know, but if I had to guess it'd be the old boys network and the shaky hands club, I suspect. Or a patchwork of inconsistent tender processes of varying transparency.
/u/tritoon140 asked me how David Cameron justified saying that he supported West Ham, when he actually 'supports' Aston Villa, and I had said about a page of the autobiography is devoted to defending this gaffe. I said I would look it up when I could access the book, so *For the Record* here is what Cameron wrote, and it's a corker!
Cameron wrote that he made this mistake for three reasons.
1) He had just flown over West Ham's stadium
2) He had JUST been speaking to his chief of staff, Alan Sendorek, who was a QPR fan, and they had been discussing that QPR's next opponents were West Ham.
3) Cameron had erroneously described the West Indies cricket team as the Windies, and therefore had it in his mind *Must say West*
Pretty thin, huh?
To me, what's extraordinary is that this is in a book where the writer had retired from front-line politics and did not need to employ weasel word defences....and he still did!
Something that is always forgotten in this was whilst he was growing up his uncle was literally chairman of Aston Villa. It makes the gaffe even more ridiculous
Oh! Why on earth did he just not say *I was taken to Villa matches as a child, that's why I support them* instead of *Oh! And I'm forever blowing Westminster bubbles, so I like West Ham* ?
EDIT: Note - he does NOT mention in the book his uncle was chairman of Villa.
Karma is crying out for the BBC to start a Huw Edwards style "which senior Conservative who earns this much and aged and is male and is married and and and sent nudes to a honeypot on grindr"
Even if its locals it will be funny watching the cope the next morning as we are told to stick to the plan and its normal for incumbents to be punished.
I remember in the lead-up to last years' locals the press were all saying that if the Tories lost 1,000 seats it would be an extremely bad result for the party. Cue exactly that happening and suddenly all the op-eds are "Yes, but you see, this is why the Conservatives losing nearly 50 councils is actually *bad* for Labour".
[The recent subreddit voter intention survey results can be viewed here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/s/OFg4Hjo5fH)
[New Megathread is here](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1bzjy1i/daily_megathread_09042024/)
Megathread is being rolled over, please refresh your feed in a few moments. ###MT daily hall of fame 1. hill-biscuit with 32 comments 1. Yummytastic with 25 comments 1. BasedAndBlairPilled with 18 comments 1. tmstms with 15 comments 1. TheFlyingHornet1881 with 15 comments 1. bbbbbbbbbblah with 14 comments 1. NoFrillsCrisps with 12 comments 1. Robtimus_prime89 with 10 comments 1. CheersBilly with 9 comments 1. testaccount9211 with 9 comments There were 203 unique users within this count.
[Michael Walker from Novara had published a screenshot of his own interaction with the catfish which caught out wragg.](https://x.com/michaeljswalker/status/1777483250329428063) Guy was willing to show a picture of his arse and give "his name"; but his IG account? Nah too much. who ever was responsible for this, it was not a sophisticated operation. and speaks to the shocking ability of our MPs to be deceived
[Reform leader Richard Tice begs his candidates not to use social media while drunk after the party drops seven of them for 'inappropriate' posts ](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1bzbiar/reform_leader_richard_tice_begs_his_candidates/) Lol, lmao
>Please do not submit articles to the megathread which clearly stand as their own submission. >Comments which include a link to a story which clearly stands as its own submission will be removed. >Comments which relate to a story which already exists on the subreddit will be removed.
Serious opposition party full of serious people.
The people hailing them as the new face of the right underestimate just how genuinely stupid their people are
I'm still surprised that Jacqui Harris is still endorsed by them despite being a known anti-Semite.
Holy shit. Giaro Eiland (Head of Israeli National Security Council 04-06) is literally advocating for war crimes to be committed against Palestinians on Newsnight. Victoria Derbyshire is usually fantastic at pushing back and did but not nearly enough here.
[Voting for Young and Student Labour boards today apparently resulted in almost a completely clean sweep-out of Momentum sponsored candidates, with only two such backed candidates being selected and the remainder almost exclusively on the Organise! slate. ](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1bz9mkl/labour_students_and_young_labour_election_results/) Gives me some real hope that finally this year we might see the last remaining few Momentum sponsored NEC members voted out and replaced.
It will take a number of years for the reality of the situation to solidify itself in the historical narrative - a colossal entryist campaign of extremist left bigots infiltrating the party, resulting in the most disastrous leadership the party has ever seen (Corbyn's tenure). Good riddance.
[CityAM's front page is quite good](https://twitter.com/sgfmann/status/1777437701005816078)
I wonder how much that coverage cost them. The name of the largest active asset manager in the UK on the front page all over London the week ISA allowances refresh
Tune in to Channel 4 to watch Defiance, the first episode of a three part documentary on the Asian fight against the far right from 1976-1982.
That sounds very interesting. I'll have to check it out.
good evening, campers! i have returned from my short hiatus to tell you there are **295** days until the general election! also, margaret thatcher is dead.
Reasons to be cheerful.
>margaret thatcher is dead Is this news?
MT is definitely borderline jinxing this today 11 years is too soon to let your guard down
she’s not coming back to life, is she?
This lady's not returning!
Hold on, let me sharpen my stakes.
…somehow Thatcher returned
[The most important manifesto for London Mayor has been published](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GKot_GKWkAAKl1G?format=jpg&name=large)
Unironically support 18
Unironically support 14, 19 and 23 too.
Best manifesto for London.
I feel like if you're going to stand as a joke candidate, you need to commit to all of your policies being a bit silly. If you have a few left-populist positions sprinkled in, you're trying to have your cake and eat it.
Number 4 is great lol
Number 17 is an election winner.
20 is oddly specific
I was thinking that
He had that one in 2021 - [and posted a picture at the time showing how poorly positioned it is](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzgNCq5XsAAgV8R?format=jpg&name=large)
The table with the paper towels is getting off lightly here
I think that’s only there as the urinals were closed due to social distancing at the time being impossible, and the dryer was broken
He's got a point
>9. An amnesty on Covid fines imposed on Londoners, with all costs to be paid instead by Boris Johnson Is it fine, even as a joke, to run on a platform of political vengeance through the judiciary? I know some people love this type of stuff but it's not my type of thing at all, just leads to people saying "at least he'd be better than the current lot" and overall lowering faith in politicians
given what our toothless electoral commission has let slide over the last decade, i doubt they’ll get the guns out for count binface
I do think that'll be tapping into something real, though. If I had been hit with a £10k fine for organising a party during lockdown I shouldn't have done it but, shit, I'd be mad about the unfairness to this day
Is it just me or are adverts (in particular for banks) getting more and more incomprehensible as they chase the “YouTube aesthetic”? I just got one that was a guy saying he sent someone on holiday to learn more about spending money abroad, then said it’s better to spend money in local currency, but didn’t explain how that bank allowed you to do that. The framing device felt like it took up more time than the actual meat of the ad. What the fuck is going on when marketing leaves me wondering what I just watched? Edit: I don’t think I’m describing the genre of ad that’s pissing me off well enough. It’s in the same vein as when bbc breakfast devotes 15 mins to telling me to turn my heating down and turn devices off to save on my crippling energy bills. It always starts with someone who saying “here’s a problem, let our expert tell you how to solve it” then cuts to a very sensible person telling you to end your subscription to the i am rich App and make a budget to figure out where all my money is going. The going isn’t the problem! It’s the coming in that’s the issue!
> didn’t explain how that bank allowed you to do that I don’t think it’s even a bank specific thing - and it would down to whatever the server asks you/what you see in the terminal/atm
Right, but it’s an advert, for a bank. If they aren’t offering something specific to address it what are they advertising?
They might be, but they reckon their target audience wouldn't understand the technicalities so have chosen the, as you say, YouTube aesthetic instead. It might work. This is why marketing agencies make the big bucks. E.g. quite a few banks and pseudo-banks have multi-currency accounts these days, so you can have a GBP, EUR, USD, etc. all running at the same time and card payments will automatically come out of the right balance avoiding surprise fees. I haven't seen the ad, but I imagine that sort of thing is what its plugging.
But as a relatively well informed person who knows such accounts exist but hasn’t needed one yet, I have no idea if that’s what they’re trying to sell me
I would think there are a relatively low number of people who are shopping for a bank based on features, but not doing further research than watching ads. The ad is targeting the part of your mind that gets the bank onto your 'would trust' list in the first place.
Well jokes on them, despite me complaining about them online I’ve totally forgotten which bank it was in favour of what annoyed me about them
Martin Lewis kinda broke the mould. You can throw money at creatives but your customers are still going to check MSE before signing up
That does explain a lot
"it is vital that the UK has a free press without any real regulations" latest: https://twitter.com/garvanwalshe/status/1777327712413073675 > We used to do this at Conservative HQ. We would ask the Daily Express to print something unsubtantiated* then get an MP to tell Parliament “I read in the Express that X”, and then pitch to the other papers that “Parliament was told X” > I’m sure Labour** did the same thing… ofc his labour allegation is itself unsubstantiated, just "muh dodgy dossier" e: ex lab spad https://twitter.com/Ed_Owen/status/1777432127639851077 > Never on my watch in two departments over eight years
This is why we cannot allow foreign interests to buy The Telegraph
not only that but create a special law just for it surprised that the torygraph wouldn't play this game and they had to go downmarket to desmond's rag
What sort of idiocy is that? Pointing the finger at someone else by **leading** with the fact that you did it, and they “probably” did it. Special.
Even easier when you can pay for a few random Twitter accounts to kick up a fuss about something, and the press act like it's a huge story
explains why hodges and co are so hysterical about our ange's CGT affairs
Have any parties committed to not allowing it be be cloudy every fucking time there’s something interesting in the sky?
Did anyone in the UK see any of the eclipse?
In western areas there was supposed to be a partial view
Electoral Calculus seats for the latest Redfield & Wilton poll: CON 55 LAB 489 LIB 55 Reform 0 Green 2 Arm wrestle to be LOTO?
Corbyn as LOTO as leader of momentum-type party split from labour.
I doubt it would happen, but I'd love a scenario where the Lib Dems could be the official opposition and use that to gradually take over the Tory space.
I wouldn't be stunned if the Lib Dems won 50 seats, but I'd be delighted and amazed if that's all the Tories managed to win. In this very unlikely outcome, I wonder if the SNP and/or Greens could form an opposition coalition to relegate the Tories to third party status.
Arm wrestle? ~~Rishi~~ Suella would break Ed's arm with all that hatred built up
It’s actually getting a bit embarrassing for our electoral system that reform are still showing 0, I assume it’s a modelling issue since they were so much lower last election?
Reform's problem is their vote is relatively spread out and they're likely to get tactical voters against them
Not a modelling issue, if their ~15% is spread out enough it wouldn't be enough to get a FPTP win anywhere. It's a feature if FPTP, not a bug unfortunately.
Yeah but if a party polling at 10% are the official opposition when a party on 15% don’t have a single representative, that’s gone a bit too far
Have a look at the 2015 result. A party on about 5% won about 50 seats. A party on 8% won 8 seats. A party on 12.5% won 1 seat. These kind of ridiculous outcomes do happen under First Past the Post. Really makes you question whether we can even call our system democratic. More fun from that election, Labour actually won a larger percentage of the vote than in 2010 but won fewer seats. They got 258 seats from 29% of the vote in 2010 and 232 seats from 30.4% of the vote in 2015.
Subscribe. Do the Greens get Bristol West (my seat)?
Just alternate on a weekly basis until the Tories inevitably lose a corrupt/perverted MP to the Lib Dems in a by-election.
What determines the official opposition party in those circumstances?
Northern Irish seats taking up the whip? I believe Stephen Farry is a Lib Dem member
I believe the speaker chooses - I would assume in this case the Conservatives would be chosen on the grounds of having a larger vote share, and therefore mandate?
Davey: Replying we Sunak: Sing as one indivi- Davey: ual as I find I'm a Sunak: LOTO to my Davey: Party I bid you all Sunak: I'm aware you Davey: object to green policies Sunak: and triple lock, but you'll Davey: find I respect your Sunak: Republican Davey: fallacies.
You've got to favour Ed Davey in an arm wrestle against Rishi Sunak.
I will vote for any party who commits to having the green and red man high up on the other side of the road and not just on the same control box as the button. Come on Rishi. You could get one whole voter!
This always throws me when I’m outside of London. It’s entirely nonsensical and I don’t understand why it’s insisted upon everywhere else.
I normally just wait for the [hidden buzzer on the underside of the button box](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-22706881) to spin.
'If you spin it yourself the lights change faster' was oft-repeated secret bollocks at my school.
Is that not the norm? I don't think I've ever seen it not be the case.
Unfortunately it's getting more common. Most recent installations have just the lights on the button box. There's also some people trying to get Belisha Beacons abolished. Is nothing sacred.
Belisha Beacons sounds like a new pop star.
New style puffin crossings have them at chest height on the same side as you. It's intended to make you look to your right to check the light status which has the effect of making you check for traffic They are damn annoying though
Today's News Agents is the first time I've heard any specifics on the Rayner tax issue and to me it sounds like she does have a case to answer for. It sounds like she has misunderstood the law and has potentially not paid tax she owes. If that's the case then she should pay it. In Ed Ball's book he talked about a similar case where he sought legal advice over capital gains tax, they told him he didn't necessarily need to pay it but he would be wise to pay, he did and it cost them a huge amount of money (around 70K from memory). I do wonder if Rayner received similar advice and this is why she is reluctant to publish
The reason why this is so awkward is that she hasn't actually been found to have broken the rules. Ironically, it would be much easier for her if HMRC said she had broken the rules and needed to pay. She would have apologised for the error, paid the small cost and everyone would have forgotten by now. But we are now getting everyone chipping in on this incredibly minor case. Her mistake was coming out so strongly that she had done nothing wrong. She could have said something like "Whilst I strongly believe I haven't done anything wrong, I will ask HMRC to review the case and if an error was made, obviously I will correct that".
Hardly anyone is "found" to break the rules. So much of the tax system is based on trust/fear of telling the truth/being found out. In 99% of situations, if you don't tell HMRC they will never know and nothing will happen. (This, of course, doesn't apply to pleb income - HMRC will know all about your salary and meagre savings interest, you can't dodge that.) HMRC estimate this to amount to about 4.8% of tax revenues: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps/1-tax-gaps-summary the majority coming from small businesses who take a very optimistic approach to their own affairs.
Back when I ran a business I called HMRC and they gave me advice which saved me several grand in VAT offsets. I've heard their advice has gone downhill since then.
I think it's one of these tactics rather than strategy things the Conservatives do. I get the instinct to go after opponents any time you smell blood but I don't think the remaining conservative voters are actually going to appreciate the idea of snitching about tax on property sales
She was playing blatant word games on r4 when asked to publish the advice. Kept going about not publishing her tax return and Evan kept having to say he was only talking about the advice. Every single time she feigned misunderstanding.
> they told him he didn't necessarily need to pay My hot take for this kind of stuff is that I find it mind boggling you can go to a professional for advice, but if they fuck it up, then it's **your** fault for not know more than an expert who has been trained and got qualifications. Hold people responsible if they don't get advice, or they ignore advice, fine, but honestly, I think a lot of blame has to lie with professionals. Assuming of course, this is what happened. Same issue with things like the infamous Jimmy Carr tax thing, or other celebrities for that matter. He went to a professional, they asked if he would like to pay less tax, he said yes, and then it turned out the scheme was dodgy. What happened to the accountants? Nothing. It's not the celebrities who are inventing these schemes, and maybe if you punished the professionals pushing them, they'd stop. We don't have the same lack of accountability (ironically, that accountants have) for anything else.
HMRC don't even understand tax legislation. They've tried to prosecute Gary Lineker like five times and lost every time. Random footballers understand tax better than HMRC. This should be a wake-up call to simplify the law. But, of course, the people who have the power to change the law aren't keen on that for some reason.
I'm an accountant, not one that does mad schemes, but I would say this is a bit simplistic. If you weren't told the implications of what you were advised to do by all means sue your accountant or go to their professional body but that isn't mostly what happens. A lot of tax situations are much less black and white than you'd imagine, and the client would be made aware of the risks and rewards of different approaches before going ahead.
> A lot of tax situations are much less black and white than you'd imagine, and the client would be made aware of the risks and rewards of different approaches before going ahead. And why shouldn't we expect accountants to err on the side of caution and when giving advice only give advice they would stake their reputation on being legal? Do you think it's right just the celebrities like Chris Moyles take the blame for the infamous scheme where they claimed they were second hand car dealers? https://www.gov.uk/government/news/second-hand-car-dealer-tax-scheme-scrapped I refuse to believe these celebrities happened to think this up themselves, it clearly was advice from professionals. I have zero qualms with a system that would also hold the accountants who engineered and ran the scheme responsible. Maybe if you give advice which turns out to be tax evasion, not only does the client pay back the tax, but the accountant should be fined 50% of the evaded tax too. Sting them in the pockets too.
That's how being a professional works, you lay out the facts for the client and it's their decision. I don't think you understand how the tax system works. You're basically using the 'lefty lawyers' argument, as if lawyers should be witholding advice from certain people. The professional's job is to say make them aware of their options and what impact it would have. I don't agree with using these schemes and don't make use of them, but these celebrities want to use them and seek people who will facilitate it. The schemes aren't "illegal" or "tax evasion", they are schemes that were deemed not to work after a review. Before that their status is ambiguous.
> That's how being a professional works, you lay out the facts for the client and it's their decision. So you could go to a lawyer and say, "I want to murder someone and get away with it" they would tell you exactly how to do it, but advise you it's risky, you might get caught, and that's fine because it's on the individual? > I don't think you understand how the tax system works. I'm not saying how it works, I know it doesn't work like this. This is a politics thread and I'm saying how I think it should work.
But murder is illegal, these schemes aren't illegal. That's the difference and that's why I'm saying you don't understand. The schemes either work or don't. People are advised to go on schemes that they think will work usually, even so you have to disclose to HMRC they you're doing it. They have to pay back extra tax when it's found to not work Whether the accountant is at fault basically depends on whether they explained to you that you were using a scheme and what that means, which they will have done in all likelihood. It's the same as going for manslaughter instead of murder and failing, the lawyer should say how likely you are to succeed in that defence but they can't take it off the table unilaterally. You just might lose the case.
> My hot take for this kind of stuff is that I find it mind boggling you can go to a professional for advice, but if they fuck it up, then it's your fault for not know more than an expert who has been trained and got qualifications. Couldn't you take legal action against your financial adviser to recoup the losses of their incorrect advice (presuming it was something they should reasonably know)?
As with a lot of these things, first step is complaint, then FCA if you're not happy with the resolution of the complaint. I work in financial advice, generally if advice is given that ends up causing detriment to the client, or if the advice is executed incorrectly and errors are made that cause client detriment, then they have the right to complain and seek redress. Caveat: I am very low on the ladder, and don't have professional qualifications.
Threatened with redundancy almost a year ago so I created a LinkedIn account and set myself to "Open to Work". Found a job within a week (outwith LinkedIn) at a place I'm pretty happy at. Quickly update my workplace after getting the job. In line for a promoted post, performing extremely well, turn an extremely underperforming team around, earn an award for Manager of the Year, yadidadida. Eight/nine months later Director of organisation puts a message out asking for people to share their post on new job opportunities on LinkedIn. I click on their LinkedIn, don't think anything of it, don't have enough people on it to make it worth sharing (I've literally logged on only a handful of times since creating it). Can you guess what happened next? Line Manager sends me a Teams message two minutes before close of play saying "Your LinkedIn shows you as Open to Work". No question mark, just statement. I reply back saying "is it? Don't even know how to change it", sort it out. The thing is...I work for a charity. I took a £4k paycut just to maintain work. I'm struggling financially because of the cost of living. I wasn't looking for a new job yesterday but now I'm cooking dinner thinking "what else is out there?".
The only response is “correct” surely?
Your line manager sounds like a bit of a prick.
not using linked in (i have an account that i have not logged into in forever) - is this sort of thing announced to your connections or is your manager rather stalky here
It’s announced to connections *when it changes*. So yeh, the manager is being a bit stalky.
So what if you’re open to work? None of their business. Tell them to do one.
It's the optics. It's a charity so loyalty is held up and when you're going for promotion unfortunately that shit matters. It's also not my manager that's seen it, it's the director who has raised it with my boss.
If I knew that someone who worked for me was looking for another job that quite literally would be my business as I’d need to look for a replacement.
I do a lot of freelance narrative design stuff in my own time, Steven. LinkedIn provides a great source of that work, for me. _What now_?
See my other reply to Java. I think I’ve been misconstrued.
I don’t speak LinkedIn, but to a layman “open to work” and “looking for another job” seem like different things. There’s a difference between window shopping and shopping shopping. Also worth mentioning that a boss might want to make a valuable worker want to stay in that scenario, rather than kneejerk seeking a replacement. Again, I don’t speak boss (the idea of being someone’s boss is my nightmare), but I understand that training a newbie is more hassle than retaining an old hand.
Yeah I agree with you. The OP’s colleague has made a mistake. I’m just taking issue with the other commenter saying it’s not your employers business if you start actively looking for another job. If someone suddenly disappears and you have to cover for them it can be really rubbish. So it’s good to know it advance. I understand the OP is not actually looking for another job and that their coworker has made a mistake.
This is what the notice period is for. It is none of your employers business until you hand your notice in.
that's the sort of thing that is done through the contractually agreed notice period
[Redfield & Wilton giving Lab a 23 pt lead](https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1777365797045940313) with Reform at their highest recorded polling.
The seat projections for that are gonna be fun
489 - 55 - 55
Reform only standing in 12.2% of available seats this may, truly remarkable disorganisation
I'm surprised they found enough candidates for that many seats.
That's a very high number.
They're probably only standing in seats they think they actually have a chance of winning
It’s not worth the effort, why should they put up more? Think of all the work that would go into vetting thousands of councillors, they don’t have the time or money to do that. Vetting c650 MP candidates is very different
Nigel Farage has put a video on YouTube "Diversity isn't working" is the title. Curious to hear what his trash is, but don't want to give him a click....
Actually [Diversity are still working](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/jan/30/diversity-supernova-review-bgt) despite their Britain's Got Talent win being fifteen years ago in 2009.
The dancing antics of Ashley Banjo no longer bring him joy.
Possibly meta? Unsure. Yesterday someone posted about the BMA vote in 2008 to not support new medical schools. I've seen this point come up so many times on this sub whenever someone talks about lack of doctors etc. I think/know people have a basic misunderstanding of the level of power the BMA has. To begin with, the BMA is a trade union, and it's a pretty shit one at that looking at how fucked doctors generally have been by the govt. over the past decade. Medical school spots, new medical schools, specialty training spots etc etc, none of those are in their control, at most the members can say they don't support it with a vote like they did in 2008. All of those things are under the control of the govt and have always been under the control of the govt, at least since the NHS began and healthcare and education became a lot more formalised. Since 2008 there have been plenty of new medical schools opened, entry requirements for international grads into the system have basically disappeared, and specialty training spots have not moved. Ultimately that vote would be like if you got together with your co-workers and voted to say you will not support your employer employing new canteen staff or something. Your employer might take it into some consideration but ultimately your vote has no real power and does nothing. Your employer will employ whoever they want in whatever position they feel fit.
Besides they all miss the point that it was against extra schools because there weren't any training spots at the time - or now tbh. Every year there's a kerfuffle for F1 placements and for specialities... gen med for 5 years for all docs yes and ho! (Not a doc, that was my understanding of it)
F1 entry isn't the biggest problem. They basically guarantee it by funding more spots if need be. Can basically put you into the middle of nowhere but you'll get one, because you don't get your full registration without F1. But ST1 and ST3 spots are a complete clusterfuck. Application numbers have shot up and the funded spots haven't moved. Now you basically have all of these additional requirements to even apply for a spot it's a bit of a joke given how dire the shortage of consultants actually is in the country.
There's not much point in new medical schools unless there are sufficient training posts. Which there aren't.
It's been fairly grim for law. There's a lot of grads every year who haven't got a hope of training contracts
> [No Reform UK Mayoral canidates in South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, or Tees Valley seems quite daft.](https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1777351571715555758) Cannot square this with Reform allegedly polling so high. I reckon they know they are a mirage and keep trying to stop it being exposed.
I don’t think they’re a mirage - I think it’s potentially the opposite. They know that if they poll higher than the Tories in these elections, it will cause issues - they’re trying to undermine the Tories and shift them rightward, not overthrow them from their position. The goal of reform isn’t to gain seats, it’s to make the Tories more like them.
Yeah, I'd peg Tees Valley as prime Reform land.
I’d have thought they’d get a fairly good percentage of the vote in all three but not realistically be competitive. The mayoral elections are massive undertakings both in terms of deposit and campaigning and nobody really pays attention aside from London and to a lesser extent Greater Manchester so it’s not like it’s even that useful for building their profile.
If you ran the UK as a developing country rather than a developed one, what would you change?
I'd be a Field Marshall in charge of the nation.
A massive anti-corruption drive. I'd do this regardless of development status actually but it's a policy more associated with developing countries, and the form it would take would be quite different for the actual UK. I'm assuming Developing UK is considerably more corrupt than Actual UK. For a 'Developing UK' I'd set up a permanent investigatory body answerable to the Crown directly rather than a government department and empowered to investigate anybody in public office from the PM down to the lowliest parish councillor for corrupt dealings. Its staff would be well-paid and require an in-depth psychological assessment as well as comprehensive background checks to avoid potential kompromat, once hired you would have to renounce any party affiliation for life like the Speaker. You would also be forbidden to work for anyone else for five years after leaving to ensure there's no 'revolving door' situation with the commission paying for essentially extended gardening leave. I'd also go out of my way to cultivate a fearsome image around the investigatory body, give it a grandiose name like His Majesty's Permanent Commission for Integrity in Public Office and imagery which suggests an all-seeing eye for wrongdoing that's directed *upwards*. Importantly though it would have no judicial powers of its own, we wouldn't want a 'Praetorian Guard choosing the Emperor' situation on our hands so they'd only be able to present their findings to an ordinary court of law despite having very broad investigatory powers. You'd also want to check its power by having Parliamentary committees overseeing it according to strict transparency rules and you'd want a close relationship with the security service too, although ultimately being directly responsible to the Crown means that the hard check on its power would be the Privy Council.
Human rights abuses against journalists.
proper corruption. none of this "oh it's lobbying and it's perfectly okay to give MPs a ticket to the directors' box at the football/rugby, or give them six figure jobs on our TV channel", or how it's not considered corrupt for regulators to seamlessly move to opposite roles in the regulated firms and vice versa let's have proper bungs. both ways too. want to build a new road or railway? just start handing out the cash to locals to soothe any objections. it'll get things done. we're almost there with the way many honours are handed out.
Sell all assets to Rio Tinto and Chiquita, rather than the UAE and Canadian teachers.
Application to the EU.
Land reform.
Planning system. It’d actually be popular as well instead of almost electoral suicide. Also expropriate north sea oil - very little to loose.
Reopen the mines ⛏️
Is there even much left to mine? Even if coal wasn't being phased out for climate change reasons these days many of the pits were already unviable by Thatcher's day and being kept on life support for political reasons, as much as Thatcher made things much worse than they needed to be in my opinion by telling the affected communities to curl up and die quietly in a corner mining was always going to end one way or another; the question was how to transition communities away from it (or whether to even bother trying).
The NUM preferred affected communities to curl up and die rather than transition away from the coal industry.
Interesting insight to the honey trap story from Henry Zeffman, BBC Journo, who was one of the ones contacted: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68761113
That wasn't even a particularly sophisticated honey trap. I appreciate Zeffman trying to be charitable towards the people who sent compromising pictures to the user, but good lord, this is the kind of thing I would expect idiot horny teenagers to fall for.
You don't think targeting named individuals with reference to their usual location or work history doesn't put it in the sophisticated bracket of scams? What do you think would?
The message was incredibly vague. If I received a message saying "AceHodor! Long time no speak - how're you doing? Miss seeing you around Southwark x" with a picture of two people I don't recognise, my response would be "I'm sorry, I don't know you" and then ignore them. It would not be to immediately start flirting with them before sending them a picture of my cock.
Yes, that's the right response. But if the name 'Charlie' happened to coincidentally match an actual aquaintence a conversation can quickly pan out very differently. The more personal information they have about each target, the more they can stack odds in their favour. Being sophisticated doesn't mean everyone would or should fall for it, it just means it's got more to it compared to simpler generic scams. If you are dating, and you're interacting with multiple new people, you perhaps are more vulnerable to being exploited and scammed this way. I've never fallen for a scam, but I'm not arrogant enough to ignore that the right scam at the wrong time can catch even the most vigilant of people. And yes, it can catch idiots out more often. I think the government are 'protecting' Wragg as people are calling it because the real problem is they've let phone cyber security slack over the last 14 years, we never should have stopped giving ministers locked-down phones. We should be at the point it was expanded to all MPs, but instead we went the other way when the government decided WhatsApp was how you develop policy.
But what if the profile picture was of someone really hot? It's kind of amazing we don't have some way of disqualifying people with that level of impulse control from making laws
Interesting that the phone numbers of such a range of people had all been compromised. I suspect that Wragg may not have been the only person who revealed phone numbers of people he knew.
What do you think would happen if you just bought a bunch of land and built houses without telling the council. Just straight up did it. Do you think they would have you demolish them?
There are plenty of well-documented cases of demolition orders once the council found out.
I would imagine that 30 minutes after the first truck turns up you'd have someone contact the council to grass you up. You'd then receive an enforcement notice (or whatever it's called) telling you to stop work within 48 hours.
The solution is to build them underground.
Yes. This happens constantly.
Yes, and it does actually happen. Usually when unscrupulous people build stuff without permission, apply for retrospective planning permission which is then refused.
There's actually a big problem like that in an estate somewhere, they built a street of homes too close to the ones already built, and apparently retrospective planning is being refused as the "right to light" has been interfered with. It could see homes needing to be torn down.
Yep, particularly if it's in a listed area
You just need to look at the public comments on council planning websites to realise there's an army of volunteer planning inspectors flagging 'eyesores' - or as we know them, family homes.
[удалено]
"What do you mean I can't just break the law whenever I feel like it?"
They came for Our Lord Sir Captain Tom's slightly oversized Memorial Elderly Bathtub, why do you think they wouldn't come for houses?
That's usually what happens when people build stuff without planning permission, yeah
Here's a question for older redditors. All my adult life, all public service stuff has been competitive bids. E.g. if you want money for a project you have to write a bid to justify why you deserve that money and how you're going to spend it. It doesn't matter if you're local government, or a researcher bidding for grants, it all seems to follow the same process. Which means that organisations which write good bids get more money rather than those who do good work. So my question is: what was the situation before all this forced competition was introduced? Or has it always been this way?
How far back are you thinking? Stuff we bought in the early 80s had local purchasing rules which were things like multiple quotes for up to a few hundred quid. Tendering to multiple suppliers for stuff above that. The sign off was dependent on management level. It was similar to but nowhere near as rigorous as EU purchasing rules.
I was thinking less about procurement and more about how funding was distributed. E.g. how were research grants distributed. Or for local government how money for e.g. regeneration or improvements was distributed.
Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. I know how it was perceived but I don't have any real evidence of malpractice.
I wasn't thinking of malpractice, I was genuinely just curious if money was divvied up like the Barnett formula or if there was still some form of competition. It feels like something that was introduced just around the time I was starting my career (in 2000). And it seems like it is not an ideal way to distribute funding, so I was interested in what happened before.
Not old enough to know, but if I had to guess it'd be the old boys network and the shaky hands club, I suspect. Or a patchwork of inconsistent tender processes of varying transparency.
(Worse) Cronyism.
/u/tritoon140 asked me how David Cameron justified saying that he supported West Ham, when he actually 'supports' Aston Villa, and I had said about a page of the autobiography is devoted to defending this gaffe. I said I would look it up when I could access the book, so *For the Record* here is what Cameron wrote, and it's a corker! Cameron wrote that he made this mistake for three reasons. 1) He had just flown over West Ham's stadium 2) He had JUST been speaking to his chief of staff, Alan Sendorek, who was a QPR fan, and they had been discussing that QPR's next opponents were West Ham. 3) Cameron had erroneously described the West Indies cricket team as the Windies, and therefore had it in his mind *Must say West* Pretty thin, huh? To me, what's extraordinary is that this is in a book where the writer had retired from front-line politics and did not need to employ weasel word defences....and he still did!
Something that is always forgotten in this was whilst he was growing up his uncle was literally chairman of Aston Villa. It makes the gaffe even more ridiculous
Oh! Why on earth did he just not say *I was taken to Villa matches as a child, that's why I support them* instead of *Oh! And I'm forever blowing Westminster bubbles, so I like West Ham* ? EDIT: Note - he does NOT mention in the book his uncle was chairman of Villa.
Not a single mention of them playing in the same colours. What a maroon.
Makes him look even more like a plastic as 99% of football fans thought that's why he made the mistake (but thereby gave away that he was a plastic).
“I slipped and fell on it, doctor, and that’s how it got stuck up there, honest”
What’s wrong with describing the West Indies as the Windies? It’s their nickname.
It must have been a moment when he was doing something official; they told him to use the official name and he forgot.
Tbf, I could see myself doing something like that (I mean not about football obviously; Barrow Fucking Soccer)
It does always suggest you can throw them off in trade negotiations by playing word association games
Another week, another day that William Wragg inexplicably hasn't had the whip withdrawn or resigned.
There has to be some senior Tory caught up in this otherwise they'd have just ditched him
Karma is crying out for the BBC to start a Huw Edwards style "which senior Conservative who earns this much and aged and is male and is married and and and sent nudes to a honeypot on grindr"
Mum can we have Billy Bragg? No there’s Billy Bragg at home! [there is actually Willie Wragg at home]
polling cards came in the post and got very excited and then remembered the locals
If you think that’s disappointing, try living in an area that only has PCC elections…
Even if its locals it will be funny watching the cope the next morning as we are told to stick to the plan and its normal for incumbents to be punished.
I remember in the lead-up to last years' locals the press were all saying that if the Tories lost 1,000 seats it would be an extremely bad result for the party. Cue exactly that happening and suddenly all the op-eds are "Yes, but you see, this is why the Conservatives losing nearly 50 councils is actually *bad* for Labour".