UK - England, Wales, N.Ireland, Scotland

[Suranis]

Not me. From a Discord Server

Rishi Sunak trying to delay the removal of diesel and petrol cars by five years...
[10:07 AM]
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-66863110
BBC News
Net zero: Pushing back car ban a bad idea, Ford tells Sunak - BBC News
It's believed the PM could delay a ban on new sales from 2030 to 2035, which manufacturers say would "confuse" consumers.


Jerry_At_Rick — Yesterday at 11:57 AM
Wouldn’t that align with the EU

step83 — Yesterday at 12:43 PM
Yes, they agreed back in February to ban new petrol and diesel sales in 2035.
Well currently at least

Tako — Yesterday at 1:03 PM
Rishi is allegedly backing down on a lot of green changes.

Serafine — Yesterday at 1:15 PM
Inaction Man Sunak has basically given up on Net Zero.
He fucked up the decarbonizing of the steel industry already, he fucked up the Britishvolt electric battery plant by refusing to invest government money (this will cripple the UK's electric car industry future), he scrapped the housebuilding targets (which were a Tory manifesto promisse) because he couldn't deal with a minor rebellion from his anti-environment lunatic faction, he's NOT investing new money in schools many of which can literally collapse at any moment (in fact he HALVED schoolbuilding funds while he was chancelor), he's not doing anything about the world's only non-chinese rare metals company basically moving to the EU (this will cripple electric battery production in the UK) and he's not doing anything about his anti-environment lunatics fighting 20mph zones (which is a policy conservative voters WANT because if a child gets hit by a car at 20mph it has an 80% chance to get away with some injuries, if it gets hit with 30mph there's 80% chance it's dead).

He's not even doing anything about Liz Truss gearing up to challenge his premiership once his protection runs out in autumn (there's a rumour of 40 letters of non-confidence already being in).
Yes, Liz Truss is gearing up for a 'crash the ecomomy and bankrupt the pension industry 2.0' libertarian dystopia spectacle, and Sunak can't even deal with her.
He is so weak of a PM, he can't even deal with the woman who was so awful at managing the country, she got outlasted by a lettuce. (edited)

Serafine — Yesterday at 1:34 PM
He's also really screwed now that the Lords have blocked his to encourage housebuilding by allowing EVEN MORE river pollution. Even the housebuilders themselves had said the current regulations are fine, but Sunak wanted to trash them anyway because polluting the rivers by pumping raw shit into them turning them into ecological deadzones clearly wasn't destructive enough.

[Suranis]

I know what you are saying "Ok there's no way Lix Truss could be making a comeback. BEGONE! THOU ART LYING ONCE AGAIN LIAR!!!"

But... its true.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... t-possible

Liz Truss’s comeback defies all belief – until you understand the rotten forces making it possible
Zoe Williams

A weak PM, a dying government, a radicalised rightwing press: these are the foundations of Truss’s unlikely relaunch
Thu 21 Sep 2023 01.00 CEST
Last modified on Thu 21 Sep 2023 01.26 CEST

It’s quite unusual, the sight of a former prime minister for whom everything went wrong, explaining in public why she was right all along. In her defence, Liz Truss could have no precedent, as no one has ever flamed out as badly as she did.

“I knew I was right” isn’t exactly what she said at the Institute for Government event this week. She went much further, pacing with a witchfinder’s authority, giving shape to the lefty sleeper agents who have been poisoning the economic well since the beginning of the Thatcherite project. It’s compelling to wonder what her motivation is. If, as she plainly believes, the reds have seeped into every institution – including her own party – and will subvert every plan for growth, what’s the point of addressing us all? Surely something more decisive is called for, like a ducking stool?

Truss’s free-market fundamentalism is no longer a theoretical risk. She’s already crashed the stock market, the foreign exchange market and the bond market. She tested her proposition in exam conditions and discovered that the only way to make it work is to instantly reverse it. When she speaks, experts line up to ridicule her. Is she auditioning as leader of the opposition in a defenestrated, re-radicalised Conservative party? Where’s her self-awareness, her sense of shame? But, much more pressingly, when will we ever learn?

It’s been so intoxicating, leader after leader, to marvel at, analyse, and psychoanalyse their extraordinary behaviour, when the most any of that will tell us is what we already know: let’s not choose them again. The far more useful questions are what’s failing within government, in its surrounding institutions, and what other actors are at play. What end-of-days dishevelment has occurred to put Truss in any frame at all?

► Show Spoiler

Rishi Sunak delivers part of the answer, with his plans to row back on net zero pledges. I had to check whether I’d slipped into a coma, or whether it really was only the weekend when he vowed his determination to phase out petrol and diesel cars, in defiance of the climate emergency-sceptic wing of his party who have seemingly, in the intervening three days, managed to change his mind entirely.

The most colourless prime minister, with an even mid-sized base of support from MPs relying on him for no more than their next quarter of employment, should be able to freeze out his predecessor. Yet Sunak’s cocktail of qualities is so rare – simultaneously inert and volatile, technocratic and fantastical – that he’s swinging blind at his own shadow. He doesn’t have time to put down his enemies.

The rightwing press, meanwhile, remains radicalised, and offers the illusion at each of Truss’s pronouncements that her critics are merely part of a pluralistic media ecosystem that contains just as many commentators who think she’s the opposite of a “failed, incompetent clown” (per the economist Danny Blanchflower). On the day of the speech, Sherelle Jacobs in the Daily Telegraph averred, outlandishly, that every past prime minister but Truss had wasted “into tragic figures”. She added: “There’s something slightly different about Truss. Perhaps because she wasn’t in office long enough to go mad.” There was a time when this proposition – that lasting only 49 days as prime minister was good, actually, because it left you sane to fight another day – would have been just too daft to admit into public debate.

Robbing the poor to fund tax cuts for the rich – Britain is a Tory test lab for a new rightwing populism

Truss’s faithful crowd included Nigel Farage, David Frost, Patrick Minford and Matthew Elliott, grunting with loyal disapproval at any hint of criticism, but much more remarkably, showing absolutely no embarrassment on their own behalf. The severance of cause and consequence, the refutation of any responsibility for observable disasters, started not with Truss but with the post-Brexit brass neck of political rhetoric.

All these figures adopted a force mentality about leaving the EU as soon as it had happened: any observable negative effect was merely because we hadn’t left it hard enough. This position allows for no possible refinement, and no new information can modify it. Brexit, being the people’s overwhelming will, became the nation’s destiny. If any of these figures admitted their role as the architects of this plan, they’d have piped down as soon as the building started falling down. But they’ve framed themselves as something more like its priests, and their faith is all the justification they need.

In my naivety, I was surprised that the Institute for Government went along with the plan at all. For a similarly evangelical speech in Taiwan, Truss was paid £80,000 by the Prospect Foundation. The IfG purports to be a much more sober, impartial organisation; its explicit purpose is to “improve government effectiveness through research and analysis”. It’s no overstatement to call Truss the opposite of everything they stand for, and yet, still counting in old money, they must have been blinded to that by the stardust of her nanosecond in office. That is possibly the most pressing lesson of the week: reasonable people need to wake up.

[RTH10260]

[RTH10260]

Met firearms officers step back from armed duties over Chris Kaba murder charge
Met Police armed officers are ‘anxious’ after the officer was charged with the murder of Chris Kaba

Barney Davis
1 day ago

Armed police officers have handed in their weapons over the charging of a colleague with the murder of a Black expectant father.

Chris Kaba, 24, died after he was shot in the head through the windscreen of a car he was driving in Streatham Hill, south east London, in September 2022.

This month, a firearms officer was charged with his murder, and appeared - identified only as NX121 - at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.

Scotland Yard confirmed a number of the officer’s colleagues had stepped back from armed duties in fear over how future police shootings were judged by the Crown Prosecution Service.

At least 100 officers have handed in their firearms passes, according to the BBC.

It comes after Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who has met and spoken to 70 firearms officers since the murder charge, said officers were feeling anxious over how “split-second decisions” might be assessed years after the event.

A Met Police spokesperson said: “Senior officers, including the Commissioner, have been meeting with firearms officers in recent days as they reflect on the CPS decision to charge NX121 with murder.

“Many are worried about how the decision impacts on them, on their colleagues and on their families. They are concerned that it signals a shift in the way the decisions they take in the most challenging circumstances will be judged.

“A number of officers have taken the decision to step back from armed duties while they consider their position. We are in ongoing discussions with those officers to support them and to fully understand the genuinely held concerns that they have.”



https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/c ... 17108.html

[RTH10260]

UK army put on standby as London police hand in weapons

15 hours ago

Around 100 Metropolitan police officers refused firearms duties after a colleague was charged with murder over the fatal shooting of an unarmed Black man.

Britain on Sunday put its army on standby after a number of London police officers handed in their weapons in support of a fellow officer who has been charged with murder over the fatal shooting of a young Black man.

The UK's Ministry of Defence confirmed it will now assist the police with specific tasks — a reference to support for counter-terrorism duties for which London's Metropolitan Police has specialist firearms officers.

Police in Britain are not routinely armed and the small proportion (1 in 10 in London) who are authorized to carry guns are highly trained.

According to one media report, around 100 Met police officers have stepped back from firearms duties.




https://www.dw.com/en/uk-army-put-on-st ... a-66911726

[raison de arizona]

“You mean to say I can’t shoot unarmed Black men? Well, I don’t see the point in carrying a firearm then.”

[RTH10260]

a Wikipedia article on the incident a year ago:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Chris_Kaba

[Gregg]

It's almost surreal to read this and try to imagine the same story in New York or even more Los Angeles.

First, it might well never get much notice, and in LA the officer might get suspended for a week, with pay, but get promotion when he returns.

That's not really fair, though. While in the US, virtually every Police Officer is as well armed as our Special Forces, on LA they pride themselves on beating young men if color at least as often as they shoot them.

Really, it's surreal and I've lived in the UK so I should have kind of adapted to it.

[Ben-Prime]

That's not really fair, though. While in the US, virtually every Police Officer is as well armed as our Special Forces, on LA they pride themselves on beating young men if color at least as often as they shoot them.

The diplomatic services branch of the Met police guarding the U.S. Embassy were very heavily armed but also had zero attitude and lots of chill. I remember once I had to go in on a weekend for an emergency which took all of 10 minutes to resolve, and on my way out, I mentioned to the one cop, after he commented "Short work-day, Sir," with a grin, "Yeah, 45 minutes in by bus, 10 minutes of work, 45 minutes home." And he outright gut-laughed. And it turned into a far ranging conversation while he's not taking his eyes off the surroundings about on-call duties, carrying multiple cell phones and looking like a street dealer, and our cafeteria staff (the Embassy cafeteria and gym are available perks to members of our local police protection detail in some countries) ruining him for coffee most other places. Mind you, the entire time, he's in watchdog mode, and had to pause occasionally to focus on something or what-have-you, but he never once used it as an excuse for rudeness.

Even the heavily armed UK cops are nicer than most US cops I've ever met, is what I'm getting at. I will except our own present company like Sugar Magnolia, of course, but I think that's because most of the cops or adjacent types who frequent this board are less hidebound and more intellectually giving.

[johnpcapitalist]

Even the heavily armed UK cops are nicer than most US cops I've ever met, is what I'm getting at.

Not long after 9/11, I was on holiday in Windsor, staying in one of the hotels right across the street from the Castle. We walked by a couple of cop cars parked there, and I noticed that the Thames Valley police had their motto on the side of the car: "Reducing crime, disorder and fear." It's harder to get much more British than that.

So, I said to the cute and perky little blonde Bobby standing there that "as an American tourist, I'm delighting in the differences between American police and British police. You've got your motto there, and in New York City where I'm from, the motto of the NYPD seems to be [and this was at a time when NYPD Blue was on the small screen, including in the UK], 'Yo, we're gonna crack the skulls of all the perps and skels out there and we're not gonna take any of their bullshit'."

Of course, the contrast was actually starker than that. The NYPD had taken to doing these random patrols where a dozen or more cars full of heavily armed cops with automatic weapons and full body armor would roll up to some busy location and stand there exuding their best Robocop attitude, not talking to the citizenry, until it was time to jump back in their cars and do the same thing somewhere else.

One Sunday morning, they were out in front of the local synagogue. My dog took a massive dump on the sidewalk right in front of a line of those guys. I was never more nervous as I slooooowwwly reached into my back pocket to pull out the bag and clean it up. They were not amused at my attempts at humor and I was not successful in my attempt to pierce the steely, stoic Robocop act.

[northland10]

I believe, Gregg, there's also something about the necessary forms being in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'.

It keeps them safe.. well, until the the Earth is destroyed to make room for a hyperspace bypass.

Oh, stop whining about it. The plans have been on display for decades.

How 'bout some poetry.

[Frater I*I]

Not long after 9/11, I was on holiday in Windsor, staying in one of the hotels right across the street from the Castle. We walked by a couple of cop cars parked there, and I noticed that the Thames Valley police had their motto on the side of the car: "Reducing crime, disorder and fear." It's harder to get much more British than that.

Unlike the LAPD whos motto is "To Serve and Protect......and treat you like a King"







I'll show myself out...

[Volkonski]

OMFSM! I am a fan of the Inspector Morse crime novels and somehow I got the idea that the Thames Valley Police was not a real organization but one made up for the Inspector Morse stories.

Even the heavily armed UK cops are nicer than most US cops I've ever met, is what I'm getting at.

Not long after 9/11, I was on holiday in Windsor, staying in one of the hotels right across the street from the Castle. We walked by a couple of cop cars parked there, and I noticed that the Thames Valley police had their motto on the side of the car: "Reducing crime, disorder and fear." It's harder to get much more British than that.

So, I said to the cute and perky little blonde Bobby standing there that "as an American tourist, I'm delighting in the differences between American police and British police. You've got your motto there, and in New York City where I'm from, the motto of the NYPD seems to be [and this was at a time when NYPD Blue was on the small screen, including in the UK], 'Yo, we're gonna crack the skulls of all the perps and skels out there and we're not gonna take any of their bullshit'."

Of course, the contrast was actually starker than that. The NYPD had taken to doing these random patrols where a dozen or more cars full of heavily armed cops with automatic weapons and full body armor would roll up to some busy location and stand there exuding their best Robocop attitude, not talking to the citizenry, until it was time to jump back in their cars and do the same thing somewhere else.

One Sunday morning, they were out in front of the local synagogue. My dog took a massive dump on the sidewalk right in front of a line of those guys. I was never more nervous as I slooooowwwly reached into my back pocket to pull out the bag and clean it up. They were not amused at my attempts at humor and I was not successful in my attempt to pierce the steely, stoic Robocop act.

[Gregg]

Not long after 9/11, I was on holiday in Windsor, staying in one of the hotels right across the street from the Castle. We walked by a couple of cop cars parked there, and I noticed that the Thames Valley police had their motto on the side of the car: "Reducing crime, disorder and fear." It's harder to get much more British than that.

Unlike the LAPD whos motto is "To Serve and Protect......and treat you like a King"







I'll show myself out...

No, dude, that was funny. True and funny.

[Gregg]

To give some context on my singling out the LA Police, after the Rodeny King Incident they formed a special task force to suss out if the LAPD had a racist problem, an unprovoked violence problem (Rodeny King, to be fair did lead them on a high speed chase) or any other systemic problems in community policing. They did this as part of a consent decree with the DoJ.

This Task Force had cops of all levels from the Chief down to beat cops. Someone looked 10 years later and something like 80% of the cops on the task force had faced disciplinary suspensions for some form or another of beating the bejesus out of perps for no good reason. It turned out to be one of the best thin blue line that looks the other way task forces of all time. That's why I call it the Rodney King Special Treatment Division of the LAPD.

[Suranis]

https://news.err.ee/1609121837/uk-inves ... an-prisons

UK investigating possibility of moving inmates to Estonian prisons
News
ERR, ERR News
yesterday at 15.22


Estonian jails are under consideration as a potential destination for inmates from the United Kingdom, as part of an effort to deal with overcrowding in that country's prison system, The Times reports.

The British government has been in discussion with various European countries on the possibility of renting out surplus prison cell spaces, Secretary of State for Justice Alex Chalk, who visited Estonia in the summer, told the Conservative Party conference taking place in Manchester this week.

This would entail a legislative change in England and Wales, to enable prisoners to serve terms outside of the U.K.

Rait Kuuse, the Ministry of Justice undersecretary for prisons told ERR's Russian-language news that the rental option in other countries such as Estonia would run in parallel to new prison construction in Britain.

Kuuse noted that the number of inmates in Estonia is falling, while cell occupancy rates are already among the lowest in the EU.

Kuuse stressed that the talks, which his ministry had been involved in with U.K. officials, were very much at a preliminary stage, and again, the legislature in Estonia would need to be involved, should things ever get that far.

ERR's Russian-language news reported that across Estonia's three prisons, in Tallinn, Tartu and Jõhvi (Viru Prison), there are a little under two thousand inmates incarcerated, with around 16 percent of these on remand and the remainder serving sentences.

Tallinn Prison on its own has a capacity for nearly 1,200 inmates, Tartu and Viru a little under a thousand each.

Former Minister of Justice Lea Danislon-Järg (Isamaa) told ERR News in February that there was plenty of spare capacity in Estonia's jails and that accommodating inmates from other countries was thus a potential option.

[RTH10260]

BUT... But.... but... Sovereignity! How can they post Brexit think of such deals? Maybe Estonia ought to request some visa allowances to the UK in reprocication for the new to be UK immigrants

[raison de arizona]

They aren't sending their best, that's for sure!

[RTH10260]

They need a refit of the Hadrians Wall Infrastructure Week

[RTH10260]

Storm Babet his the whole UK

one report of many

[Suranis]

https://vxtwitter.com/shashj/status/1716538880415961256

Shashank Joshi (@shashj)
“The Royal Navy is ending its century-old tradition of having Chinese servants on warships amid fears that they could be forced to spy for Beijing. Hundreds of Chinese laundrymen have worked on Britain’s warships since the 1930” https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/navy ... -s6z2xdz7v

[Uninformed]

Boris Johnson’s hyenas having sufficiently destabilised Sunak and the Conservative Party he now awaits the right moment to re-enter the fray (is it possible that such an ego would select a mini-me?). How he glosses over his obvious flaws and incompetence is beyond me but so are the whims of the electorate. The utterly depressing thought that tfg could be re-elected as President begs the question of why shouldn’t he be PM again?

[Sam the Centipede]

The utterly depressing thought that tfg could be re-elected as President begs the question of why shouldn’t [Boris Johnson] be PM again?

Short answer: Johnson doesn't have the cult-like following of Trump.

The people who voted for Johnson liked his bonhomie and cakeist* approach, they didn't think he was sent by a god to save their country. They were people who never connected that they would reject a dentist, pilot, builder, banker who was a serially dishonest, adulterous, liar, with a history impossible and broken promises and failure, whose schtick is to dress like a scarecrow and quote irrelevant Latin. Rather they would prefer competence and a good track record in someone they trusted their home, health or wealth to, so perhaps they should apply the same diligence to selecting who should run their country. Many of those are now dead, killed by age and by Johnson's deliberately incompetent handling of the early pandemic, and others have finally had a few neurons fire in their cerebral cortexes to understand that he is a uncaring attention-seeking sociopath.

And younger folk (new voters) in the UK, and elsewhere in Europe, are generally not favoring the populist rabble-rousers. And across Europe (and the US), the tendency for voters to drift rightwards as they age has significantly abated.

But who knows? Shit happens.
_______________
* Cakeist is a reference to the proverb that "you cannot have [keep] your cake and eat it." Johnson sold the idea that inconsistent objectives were simultaneously achievable, such as being outside a free trade area while having freer trade with those countries.

[Suranis]

Laugh Neagh in Northern Ireland has become polluted with Blue Green Algae due to a combination of Agricultural runnoff, sewage, the greater warmth of the water due to climate change, and general idiocy. Its gotten to the point that the fishing industry has collapsed and even companies doing simple boating on the Laugh have shut down, and whatever tourist industry on the banks of the Laugh is in serious trouble. No-one wants to come to a place where the coast is caked in Blue gunk.

Its the largest Freshwater lake in the British Isles and supplies 40% of the water to NI, so its pretty serious. Naturally, no-one wants to take responsibility or do anything about it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66896942

An image has been provided by the European Space Agency of Lough Neagh to help scientists and environmentalists trying to resolve the problems.

Blue-green algae can be harmful to humans and highly toxic to animals.

Daera has confirmed that in June the water temperature at Lough Neagh reached a record 17.4C.

A spokesperson said: "The underpinning drivers of the increase in blue-green algae blooms include the excess nutrients from agricultural and waste water systems within the Lough Neagh catchment, combined with climate change and the associated weather patterns, with the very warm June, followed by the wet July and August."

Lough Neagh is the largest freshwater lake in the UK and supplies half of Belfast's drinking water and 40% of Northern Ireland's overall. In spite of recent events, the authorities insist the drinking water is still safe.

Although it is known as blue-green algae, it is technically a type of bacteria called cyanobacteria. It naturally inhabits freshwater, coastal and marine waters and, like plants, requires sunlight, nutrients and carbon dioxide to grow and reproduce.

Daera says recent tests have shown the water in Lough Neagh is now three times clearer than in 2019.

The spread of the invasive zebra mussel species is believed to have played a role in making the water clearer, allowing more sunlight to penetrate, stimulating more algal photosynthesis.

[Uninformed]

Short answer: Johnson doesn't have the cult-like following of Trump.
…
But who knows? Shit happens.

Absolutely true about the extent of any cult following in the electorate, but when Sunak falls who do the Tories turn to? Truss again, or one of the other near fascists? It is extremely likely that they will not form the next government. Can he/they/the media rehabilitate his reputation during this period? Seems highly improbable at this time, but is the UK electorate any more sensible than the American? I hope so.