UK - England, Wales, N.Ireland, Scotland

[MsDaisy]

‘I owe it to the kids’: coin found by detectorist dad sold for £648,000
Devon family makes a fortune from 13th-century gold coin discovered thanks to return to an old hobby

1257 Penny.jpg (34.56 KiB) Viewed 1948 times

A metal detectorist who gave up his hobby when he started a family, only to return to it when his children were old enough to nag him into taking them out detecting with him, has been rewarded with one of the most extraordinary finds – a lovely example of England’s oldest gold coin, which has sold for a record-breaking £648,000 at auction.

Michael Leigh-Mallory, 52, found the Henry III gold penny buried 10cm deep on farmland in the Devon village of Hemyock shortly after taking up his old hobby again. Not realising what it was, he posted a picture of the coin on social media, where it was spotted by the auctioneers Spink in London.

He will split the proceeds of the find with the landowner and plans to use his windfall to help fund the future education of his children, history-loving 13-year-old Emily, who has ambitions of studying archaeology at university, and Harry, 10.

On Monday Leigh-Mallory made a pilgrimage to Henry III’s tomb in Westminster Abbey to pay his respects and offer thanks for his good fortune.

“It is quite surreal really,” he said. “I’m just a normal guy who lives in Devon with his family, so this really is a life-changing sum of money which will go towards their futures.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... -coin-sold

Very cool! Devon is a beautiful place, MrD went to school there.

[Uninformed]

“Police to investigate Downing Street lockdown parties”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60123850

Oh my, what a shock! When the report by Sue Gray is due to be published the Met Commissioner, Cressida Dick announces they are investigating…

Ever since the shooting of the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian, by the Met police in 2005 it has been obvious that Dick was destined for great things - truly “a safe pair of hands”.

[RTH10260]

"Discovery" continues

Boris Johnson: PM broke coronavirus rules and had birthday party during first national lockdown, report claims
The latest revelations come at the beginning of the week in which senior civil servant Sue Gray is expected to publish her report into allegations of parties in Downing Street during the pandemic.

Sophie Morris Political reporter
Tuesday 25 January 2022 06:54, UK

Downing Street has disputed a report suggesting Boris Johnson held a birthday party inside Number 10 attended by up to 30 people during the first lockdown.

ITV News understands the prime minister's wife, Carrie Johnson, helped to arrange the event which was held just after 2pm on the afternoon of 19 June 2020 - Mr Johnson's birthday.

Up to 30 people are thought to have attended the event which the broadcaster says was held in the Cabinet Room after the PM returned from a school visit in Hertfordshire that morning.




https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnso ... t-12524575

[RTH10260]

Boris will claim he never knew he had a birthday

[roadscholar]

If nothing else, Boris has a very convenient memory. He may be running on borrowed time, but I have never yet figured out UK politics.

That's OK. They haven't either.

[Uninformed]

Well, it’s definitely true about me.

[Cyrus Breckenridge]

Boris will claim he never knew he had a birthday

And if he did, he didn’t break any rules of course.

[Volkonski]

Boris will claim he never knew he had a birthday

So you are claiming that Boris Johnson was born?

[RTH10260]

Thousands of new lorrie drivers in the queue, tens of thousands of farm workers to sow and pick produce in the queue, finally someone to cull the turkeys for next Christmas...

Universal credit claimants face tough sanctions in UK job crackdown
Jobseekers will have just four weeks to find employment in their preferred sector under the government’s Way to Work campaign

Patrick Butler Social policy editor
Thu 27 Jan 2022 00.01 GMT

Unemployed workers will be forced to take up a job in any sector or face swift financial sanctions under a crackdown designed to fill hundreds of thousands of vacancies in sectors from social care to construction, ministers have announced.

Claimants will be given just four weeks – down from three months – to find a job within their preferred sector. After that point, if they fail to make “reasonable efforts” to secure a job or turn down any offer, they will have part of their universal credit payment withdrawn under a tightening of existing Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) policy.

The move, which is part of an initiative to get 500,000 people into work by June and fill 1.2m job vacancies nationally, comes as Boris Johnson seeks to reassert control over the political agenda amid the “partygate” crisis.

The Way to Work campaign was flagged up by an embattled Johnson at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday as evidence that the government was focused on the Covid recovery – leading to opposition claims that it was an attempt to distract from his political woes.



https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... -crackdown

note - "Universal Credit is a payment to help with your living costs. "

[Uninformed]

It’s not that they are corrupt, it’s that it is so obvious.

“Downing Street parties: Gray report thrown into doubt after Met statement”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60166997

“The Met Police have told Sue Gray to keep key details out of her report into lockdown parties in No 10, throwing the process into confusion.
The Met says it does not want Ms Gray's report - which had been due to be published this week - to "prejudice" their investigation.
Many in the Cabinet Office, where Ms Gray's team is based, were taken by surprise by the Met's statement.
There are now doubts about whether her report can be published as planned.”

[Uninformed]

“Wine drinkers face higher prices and less choice, firm warns”:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60195871

“Speaking to the BBC's Today programme, the treasurer of Direct Wines, Tim Curtis, said that under the present system there were three rates of duty on wine: one for still wine, a slightly higher one for sparkling wine and a higher one for fortified wine.
"So it's just three numbers and the majority of still wines sold in the UK, it's £2.23 a bottle, it couldn't really be much simpler," he said.
"But the Treasury have had a go and they've created 13 wine bands for the same £2.23, so for every half a percent of alcohol increase it goes up about 10p per bottle and above the 15% threshold there's another 14 bands so really they're replacing three with 27."”

A perfect example of the UK showing Brussels how to cut red-tape for a more competitive Britain.

[RTH10260]

Bureaucrats no longer inhibited by EU rules need to prove Sovereignity

In contrast to spirits the alcohol content in wine is not regulated by tweaking with water to the point. Wine is a natural product and the same kind of grape will create variations in the alcohol content from vineyar to vineyard and from year to year depending weather. For high quality a winemaker will make different grades of wine from his vineyards depending the market requests. Rather than using a single label he will have to have a multitude of labels extra for the UK market with those narrow limits and taxman if demand is still there. Cheap wine will of course be imported by the tank load and mixed locally to taste, using sourly wines mixed with sweet (N.African origins) to make a drinkable juice, and tax will be based on what happens to be in the tank at the time.

[keith]

Wine is a natural product and the same kind of grape will create variations in the alcohol content from vineyar to vineyard and from year to year depending weather.

And how ripe the grapes were when picked.

And on what yeast is used.

And the handling in the winery.

And the blending choices of the winemaker.

[Volkonski]

Reuters
@Reuters
·
13m
Queen Elizabeth quietly marks 70 years on the British throne http://reut.rs/3B0r9dl

[much ado]

Reuters
@Reuters
·
13m
Queen Elizabeth quietly marks 70 years on the British throne http://reut.rs/3B0r9dl

Wikipedia maintains a list of longest-reigning monarchs (of course).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... g_monarchs

In about 4 months, she will become number 2 on the list and will become number one on May 27, 2024.

[tek]

A company is trying to sell 10,800 pieces of crockery commemorating "the Platinum Jubbly."


https://www.businessinsider.com/queen-p ... ery-2022-2

d1.jpg (51.91 KiB) Viewed 1543 times

[Suranis]

[RTH10260]

[RTH10260]

podcast

Clause 9 and the erosion of citizenship rights

The UK government has long held the right to deprive British people of their citizenship. But in the past 20 years, its use of those powers has dramatically accelerated

Presented by Nosheen Iqbal with Tufyal Choudhury and Fahad Ansari; produced by Sami Kent, Alex Atack, and Axel Kacoutié; executive producers Mythili Rao and Phil Maynard

As the borders and nationality bill makes its way through parliament, one feature – Clause 9, which would enable the government to strip someone of their citizenship without providing them with notice – has been the source of particular outcry. A petition to remove the clause has attracted hundreds of thousands of signatures.

Tufyal Choudhury, associate professor at Durham Law School, tells Nosheen Iqbal that the ability of the state to revoke citizenship in fact dates back to the first world war. The British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act of 1914 allowed the government to strip the citizenship of British Germans it suspected of spying for Germany. But the use of that power slowed dramatically after world war two; between 1973 and 2001, not a single British person was deprived of their citizenship.

That changed after 9/11, through a series of increasingly expansive measures introduced through the course of the “war on terror”, and in the past 15 years at least 464 people have had their British citizenship removed. Immigration lawyer Fahad Ansari specialises in cases of citizenship deprivation. One of his clients, known as E3, is a 40-year-old British-born man who was stranded in Bangladesh in 2017 after the Home Office deprived him of his citizenship; E3 has never been charged with a crime or informed of any allegations against him. E3 recently won his appeal, but Ansari says E3’s case demonstrates that not all British citizens have equal rights.



https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/ ... hip-rights

[RTH10260]

Boris forgot to cancel this EU regulation....

UK online shoppers face more identity checks as new anti-fraud rules kick in
Under changes coming in on 14 March, retailers will have to verify customer is who they claim to be

Miles Brignall
Sat 12 Feb 2022 07.00 GMT

Online shoppers in the UK can expect more identity checks – and probably more card-declined messages – over the coming weeks, as retailers get ready for new anti-fraud rules that come into force on 14 March.

Buyers have already started seeing more requests to verify their ID as payments providers and retailers adopt the new strong customer authentication (SCA) rules.

Under the changes, before a retailer can accept an electronic (online) payment it will have to verify that the customer is who they claim to be. The measures are similar to those already faced by people logging into online banking.

While most low-value retail purchases will go ahead as before, with checks carried out in the background, shoppers buying more expensive items online will have to input a password, a pin or a one-time-passcode they have been sent via a text or landline, or log into their banking app and approve the purchase.

The rules, which have been introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), were supposed to come into force a year ago but were delayed to give retailers more time to adapt. The legislation came out of the European Banking Authority, and was adopted into UK law before Brexit.

It will apply to debit and credit card purchases, and will have the biggest impact on those making what are deemed to be the riskiest purchases. The new rules do not apply if you buy something over the phone.




https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/ ... es-kick-in

[Ben-Prime]

Boris forgot to cancel this EU regulation....

UK online shoppers face more identity checks as new anti-fraud rules kick in
Under changes coming in on 14 March, retailers will have to verify customer is who they claim to be

Miles Brignall
Sat 12 Feb 2022 07.00 GMT

Online shoppers in the UK can expect more identity checks – and probably more card-declined messages – over the coming weeks, as retailers get ready for new anti-fraud rules that come into force on 14 March.

Buyers have already started seeing more requests to verify their ID as payments providers and retailers adopt the new strong customer authentication (SCA) rules.

Under the changes, before a retailer can accept an electronic (online) payment it will have to verify that the customer is who they claim to be. The measures are similar to those already faced by people logging into online banking.

While most low-value retail purchases will go ahead as before, with checks carried out in the background, shoppers buying more expensive items online will have to input a password, a pin or a one-time-passcode they have been sent via a text or landline, or log into their banking app and approve the purchase.

The rules, which have been introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), were supposed to come into force a year ago but were delayed to give retailers more time to adapt. The legislation came out of the European Banking Authority, and was adopted into UK law before Brexit.

It will apply to debit and credit card purchases, and will have the biggest impact on those making what are deemed to be the riskiest purchases. The new rules do not apply if you buy something over the phone.




https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/ ... es-kick-in

This does explain why my debit card on my UK local bank account (the U.S. Embassy prefers we set up a local account when they move Foreign Service staff into their local apartments since our cable, phone, and internet bills are our responsibility and most of the ISPs and cable companies won't accept monthly payment on American bank accounts) has had a weird app feature for 'authenticating' and 'approving' debit card purchases since December but it's never actually kicked in and forced me to approve something yet. I check it every so often when I make a purchase just in case.

[Azastan]

Boris forgot to cancel this EU regulation....

I am doing genealogical research utilizing Find My Past's 1921 UK census. I have had several instances of having my CC company call me to verify that it's really me paying that £3.95 per original image. My CC company KNOWS that I routinely purchase items from the UK and I haven't had this problem before, so this explains why I am having to verify each session now.

[RTH10260]

The consequences of Sovereignity!

Russian threat to Ukraine sparks UK food-security fears
‘If there is an invasion, trade is going to be affected,’ said the UK’s trade champion on Ukraine.

BY EMILIO CASALICCHIO
January 27, 2022 6:46 pm

LONDON — A Russian invasion of Ukraine could spark a food crisis in Britain, business leaders fear.

The Eastern European nation is becoming a significant exporter of cereal products and chicken to the U.K. — while a wider conflict could also hit the fertilizer sector, which is crucial to domestic farming.

“It’s going to be really quite difficult,” said a boss in the fertilizer business. “There were partially empty shelves in the first COVID shutdown, but at least the food factories had inventories to work with.”

The West has been braced for a Russian invasion of the former Soviet nation for weeks. Russian President Vladimir Putin has amassed troops along the Ukrainian border, while Western allies have sent weapons and troops to aid Kyiv.

Putin insists he has no intention of crossing the border and has accused Western nations of “escalating tensions.” Diplomats from both sides have been locked in crisis talks.

Ukraine is the 63rd-largest trading partner to Britain, according to the latest data from the U.K. Department for International Trade. Trade in goods between the two amounted to £1.6 billion in the 12 months up to summer 2021, including £704 million in exports to Ukraine and £851 million in imports.

The main exports from Britain to Ukraine are medical and pharmaceutical products, machines, cars, chemicals and textiles. The main imports to Britain from Ukraine, after iron and steel, are foodstuffs. Cereals, vegetable oils, fats, seeds and some fruits, as well as animal feed, are all high on the list.

[Volkonski]

UK gets something else to worry about besides Brexit.

[Volkonski]

Not the O2 Arena (aka Millennium Dome). I had business at the University of Greenwich while it was being built. I saw the ongoing construction.