UK - England, Wales, N.Ireland, Scotland

[Sam the Centipede]

when Sunak falls who do the Tories turn to? Truss again, or one of the other near fascists?

That's correct: like the Republicans, they have senior politicians who have ambitions to be leader, but those wannabes don't have a good public profile. And all the contenders have dirty laundry from the past few years, in supporting bad policies and corrupt colleagues.

There was chatter of the awful Nigel Farage (who always triggers a sense of the smell of stale smoke and lashings of cheap aftershave in my nostrils whenever I glimpse his sneering face) moving in to become leader of the Conservatives. I have no idea how serious that notion is. He would appeal to the rump of the lay membership which is notoriously elderly, jingoistic, uncaring and stupid.

[Suranis]

Farage's big problem is that he really has no actual policies. he is against a load of things, but if you ask him what he actually believes in he would start ranting about something else he is against with Empty "BRITAIN" bullshit. The last thing he wants is to actually be PM as you have to do stuff, and thats not in his makeup at all.

So even if they offered it to him he would make up some reason why him turning it down is for the people of Britain.

[Sam the Centipede]

Farage's big problem is that he really has no actual policies. he is against a load of things, but if you ask him what he actually believes in he would start ranting about something else he is against with Empty "BRITAIN" bullshit. The last thing he wants is to actually be PM as you have to do stuff, and thats not in his makeup at all.

So even if they offered it to him he would make up some reason why him turning it down is for the people of Britain.

I recall seeing a clip of the proceedings of the European Parliament when Nigel Farage and his cretinous party had lots of seats probably about 20 years ago. UK fishermen - who bizarrely were apparently supporters of Farage, Brexit etc. - had begged Farage and his party to press their case on quotas (or something fishing-related) in the European Parliament in a debate on the subject.

Farage and his party just clowned around, insulted the chair, turned their backs, and disrupted the proceedings, completely ignoring the subject matter. Absolute fuckwits, who would fit well in the Trumpist Republicans. Zero attempt to be constructive.

So I agree on the first point … but I'm not as sure as you of the second. Boris Johnson didn't actually want to work, didn't have any great vision beyond being "King of the World" (apparently what he wrote as his ambition when he was young) yet wanted to be Prime Minister. Ditto Trump, no vision, just narcissism. The difference between them and Johnson was that Johnson had no wish to destroy, whereas Trump and Farage are wreckers.

I had half expected Trump to hand over day to day work on the Presidency and just bask in the glory of the post, the adulation of his fans, etc. Clearly I misunderstood the extent of his ego and his lack of self-awareness of his own limitations. And his complete lack of patriotism.

[Suranis]

I had half expected Trump to hand over day to day work on the Presidency and just bask in the glory of the post, the adulation of his fans, etc. Clearly I misunderstood the extent of his ego and his lack of self-awareness of his own limitations. And his complete lack of patriotism.

I feel he actually wanted to do that, that's what he told Pence he would do. But his own Narcisism wouldn't let him. Narcisists don't want anyone to see they are incompetent about anything, so he jumped in rather than have anyone take some of the glory or feel he couldn't do something.

Anyway you can look at this and just read what Drump is doing day by day. It's not a big plan, its a reaction to pain. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... sist-fails

Anyway back to UK stuff.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Good article.

[RTH10260]

The lady was overdue

Ex-Prime Minister David Cameron makes shock return to UK government as foreign secretary

BY JILL LAWLESS
Updated 4:52 PM CET, November 13, 2023

LONDON (AP) — Former British Prime Minister David Cameron made an unexpected return to high office on Monday, becoming foreign secretary in a major shakeup of the Conservative government that also saw the firing of divisive Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appointed Cameron, who led the U.K. government between 2010 and 2016 and triggered the country’s exit from the European Union, as part of a Cabinet shuffle in which he also sacked Braverman and named James Cleverly, who had been foreign secretary, to replace her.

Braverman, a law-and-order hardliner, drew anger for accusing police of being too lenient with pro-Palestinian protesters. Sunak made additional changes to the government throughout the day, naming Victoria Atkins as the new health secretary and moving her predecessor, Steve Barclay, to the environment portfolio.

The bold changes are an attempt by Sunak to reset his faltering government. The Conservatives have been in power for 13 years, but opinion polls for months have put them 15 to 20 points behind the opposition Labour Party amid a stagnating economy, persistently high inflation, an overstretched health care system and a wave of public sector strikes.



https://apnews.com/article/uk-suella-br ... 5bc386be79

[Ben-Prime]

Suella de Vil will not be missed, I think.

[RTH10260]

Supreme court rejects Rishi Sunak’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda
Judges uphold appeal court ruling over risk to deported refugees and deals blow to PM’s ‘stop the boats’ strategy

Rajeev Syal and Diane Taylor
Wed 15 Nov 2023 12.34 CET

Rishi Sunak’s key immigration policy has been dealt a blow after the UK’s highest court rejected the government’s plans to deport people seeking asylum to Rwanda.

Five judges at the supreme court unanimously upheld an appeal court ruling that found there was a real risk of deported refugees having their claims in the east African country wrongly assessed or being returned to their country of origin to face persecution.

The ruling undermines one of the prime minister’s key pledges: to “stop the boats”. The government claimed that the £140m Rwanda scheme would be a key deterrent for growing numbers of asylum seekers reaching the UK via small boats travelling across the Channel, a claim that refugee charities have rejected.

Reading out the judgment, Lord Reed, the president of the supreme court, said the judges agreed unanimously with the court of appeal ruling that there was a real risk of claims being wrongly determined in Rwanda, resulting in asylum seekers being wrongly returned to their country of origin.

He pointed to crucial evidence from the United Nations’ refugee agency, the UNHCR, which highlighted the failure of a similar deportation agreement between Israel and Rwanda.



https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... -to-rwanda

[RTH10260]

London

the ULEZ low emmission car restriction zones potests

[RTH10260]

Sellafield: ‘bottomless pit of hell, money and despair’ at Europe’s most toxic nuclear site
Described as a nuclear Narnia, the site is a source of economic support for Cumbria – and a longstanding international safety concern

by Anna Isaac and Alex Lawson
Mon 4 Dec 2023 15.00 CET

Ministers who visit Sellafield for the first time are left with no illusions about the challenge at Europe’s most toxic nuclear site.

One former UK secretary of state described it as a “bottomless pit of hell, money and despair”, which sucked up so much cash that it drowned out many other projects the economy could otherwise benefit from.

For workers, it is a place of fascination and fear.

“Entering Sellafield is like arriving in another world: it’s like nuclear Narnia,” according to one senior employee. “Except you don’t go through a cupboard, you go through checkpoints while police patrol with guns.” Others call it nuclear Disneyland.

Sellafield, a huge nuclear dump on the Cumbrian coast in north-west England, covers more than 6 sq km (2 sq miles). It dates to the cold war arms race, and was the original site for the development of nuclear weapons in the UK in 1947, manufacturing plutonium. It was home to the world’s first full-scale commercial nuclear power station, Calder Hall, which was commissioned in 1956 and ceased generating electricity in 2003.




https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ria-safety

[RTH10260]

Sellafield nuclear site hacked by groups linked to Russia and China
Exclusive: Malware may still be present and potential effects have been covered up by staff, investigation reveals

Anna Isaac and Alex Lawson
Mon 4 Dec 2023 15.00 CET

The UK’s most hazardous nuclear site, Sellafield, has been hacked into by cyber groups closely linked to Russia and China, the Guardian can reveal.

The astonishing disclosure and its potential effects have been consistently covered up by senior staff at the vast nuclear waste and decommissioning site, the investigation has found.

The Guardian has discovered that the authorities do not know exactly when the IT systems were first compromised. But sources said breaches were first detected as far back as 2015, when experts realised sleeper malware – software that can lurk and be used to spy or attack systems – had been embedded in Sellafield’s computer networks.

It is still not known if the malware has been eradicated. It may mean some of Sellafield’s most sensitive activities, such as moving radioactive waste, monitoring for leaks of dangerous material and checking for fires, have been compromised.

Sources suggest it is likely foreign hackers have accessed the highest echelons of confidential material at the site, which sprawls across 6 sq km (2 sq miles) on the Cumbrian coast and is one of the most hazardous in the world.




https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ssia-china

[RTH10260]

The UK has paid £140m to Ruanda and still has not sent one refugee

Ministers hiding soaring costs of Rwanda deportation plan, says MP
Committee head says report of £15m being paid on top of £140m already spent shows ‘total disregard’ for parliamentary scrutiny

Rajeev Syal Home affairs editor
Sun 3 Dec 2023 18.59 CET

Ministers are deliberately hiding the mounting costs of the Rwanda deportation scheme from the public, the head of an influential parliamentary watchdog has told the Guardian, as insiders expect a new deal with the African country to be signed off within days.

Dame Diana Johnson, the chair of the home affairs select committee, said the government had “total disregard” for parliament’s rights to scrutinise the key immigration policy after a senior civil servant said that any extra costs on top of the £140m already paid to Rwanda would not be disclosed until the summer.

The home secretary, James Cleverly, is expected to fly to Kigali early this week to sign a treaty with the Rwandan government to get around a supreme court ruling that the scheme was unlawful.




https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... an-says-mp

[RTH10260]

The country that wants to be the number one global economy ...

‘Everything is in jeopardy’: how new UK visa rules will tear families apart
The £38,700 salary requirement is forcing students, workers and couples to rip up their plans in frustration and distress

Jedidajah Otte
Thu 7 Dec 2023 18.30 CET

Rebecca, 28, a full-time PhD student in biosciences from Liverpool, and her partner, an Australian national working in higher education, are among thousands of couples facing separation and financial uncertainty because of the government’s decision to overhaul immigration rules. Among those affected will be skilled workers, international students, health and care workers from overseas and their family members.

“My partner received her family visa in April 2022,” Rebecca says. “The process to get the visa itself was complicated and exhausting – you have to demonstrate you make enough money to not receive benefits, and so on. The change in rules means that although I earn just over £18,600 in my taxpayer-funded PhD and my partner makes £26,000, we won’t be eligible to renew her visa in January 2025.

“This is because stipend income only counts if there are at least 12 months of it remaining [at the time of application], and at that point I’ll only have 10 months left. My partner’s income alone would have been fine [under the old rules], but not now.”

Under the new rules, which are said to come into effect at some point next spring, the amount people must be earning to bring a family member or partner from abroad to the UK will increase to £38,700 from the current £18,700 minimum income requirement.

For families already residing in the UK, the entire household income will be taken into consideration to determine whether the new threshold is met.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... lies-apart

[Uninformed]

Although I have long been of the opinion that what happens in the USA, particularly in the case of “right wing politics” (I.e. Republicans), percolates its way across the Atlantic, it seems that in recent times the process has accelerated. Obviously there are cultural and economic differences - e.g. abortion has yet to become a rallying cause.

The following videos while somewhat vitriolic do not contain any lies and pretty much mirror my own depressing outlook for the UK. Although there is a good chance that some of the more egregious issues can be at least partially addressed it seems to me that we really have f****d up and are on the way to becoming a failed state.



(The following video is out of date as Suella Braverman is no longer Home Secretary - reportedly sacked for an article in the Daily Telegraph where she opined that the police were more lenient towards left wing protesters than those from the right - particularly in relation to Israel / Gaza.)

[Uninformed]

The moderate/centrist Rishi Sunak is attending a, as the media says, far-right (read neo-fascist) gathering in Rome.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -rome-trip

[raison de arizona]

Well that bodes poorly.

[RTH10260]

Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023
Government Bill

Originated in the House of Commons, Session 2022-23
Last updated: 4 December 2023 at 15:18

Long title

A Bill to address the legacy of the Northern Ireland Troubles and promote reconciliation by establishing an Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery, limiting criminal investigations, legal proceedings, inquests and police complaints, extending the prisoner release scheme in the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998, and providing for experiences to be recorded and preserved and for events to be studied and memorialised, and to provide for the validity of interim custody orders.



https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3160

[RTH10260]

Ireland to launch human rights case against UK over Troubles legacy act
Irish government to sue over British attempt to stop prosecutions for Troubles-era crimes

Rory Carroll Ireland correspondent
Wed 20 Dec 2023 15.22 CET

Ireland is to sue the UK over its attempt to halt inquests, civil cases and criminal prosecutions for crimes during Northern Ireland’s Troubles.

Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach of Ireland, said on Wednesday that Dublin would launch an inter-state case against the UK’s so-called legacy legislation under the European convention on human rights.

“It is something that we’re genuinely doing with a sense of regret, and would prefer not to be in this position, but we did make a commitment to survivors in Northern Ireland and to the families of victims that we would stand by them,” the taoiseach said.

The Irish government would seek a judicial review on the basis of legal advice that the legislation breached the convention on human rights, said Varadkar.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... legacy-act

[RTH10260]

Thatcher ‘utterly shattered’ by MI5 revelations in Spycatcher, files reveal
National Archives papers show prime minister tried in vain to avoid inquiry over Peter Wright’s memoirs

Caroline Davies and Kevin Rawlinson
Fri 29 Dec 2023 01.01 CET

Margaret Thatcher was “utterly shattered” by the revelations in Spycatcher, the memoirs of the retired MI5 officer Peter Wright, files released publicly for the first time reveal.

The files also reveal the dilemmas faced by Thatcher’s government in its futile battle to suppress the book, including whether to agree to the Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer mediating an out of court “solution”.

Allegations by Wright, a former assistant director of MI5 who retired to Tasmania, included that the security agency had bugged embassies, that a small group of agents had plotted against the prime minister Harold Wilson, and that Sir Roger Hollis, the director general of MI5 from 1956-65, had been a Soviet mole.

The book, which was banned in England in 1985, was first published in Australia and the US after the government lost its long-running high-profile court case against Wright in Sydney in 1987.

The documents show the government losing control in a legal game of “whack-a-mole” as extracts popped up in newspapers and books appeared in shops and on library shelves around the world.

The government insisted the allegations were not new and had previously been investigated by MI5 and no evidence found, though Thatcher wrote on one document in October 1986: “I am utterly shattered by the revelations in the book. The consequences of publication would be enormous.”

The fear was that Wright, as an “insider”, could give the allegations greater credence, with the government seeking an injunction on the grounds of his “duty of confidentiality”, having signed the Official Secrets Act.



https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... les-reveal

[Suranis]

I read it many years ago. It was pretty good and actually written in a very matter of fact kind of way. Pretty much like a guy who had reduced the romance of the perception of the thing into "this is what I did for a living and it was a job, the daily grind."

He made a very good case that Sir Roger Hollis was a mole. The surprising thing is that he was very open with Hollis about the fact He suspected Hollis. They even discussed it once as described in the book. It wasn't much of a conversation though.

[RTH10260]

Liz Truss resignation honours revealed as Kwarteng & cabinet miss out

Sky News
30 Dec 2023

Kwasi Kwarteng, Therese Coffey and the rest of Liz Truss's cabinet have missed out on getting gongs or places in the House of Lords as part of her resignation honours list.

[Sam the Centipede]

Not only those, but Lettuce Liz chose not to give Boris Johnson's biggest fangurrl Nadine Dorries the peerage (and seat in the House of Lords) that Dorries craved. Dorries went on strike from her job as an MP, still drawing her salary but not working, not debating, not voting (making no real difference!) before resigning and her seat went to an opposition party in the ensuing by-election.

Makers of small violins are reporting a huge increase in orders.

[RTH10260]

Why Home Office visa plans will be ‘nail in the coffin’ for UK hospitality
Rise in salary requirements will further fuel staff shortages in industry that relies on skilled migrant workers

Rob Davies and Jasper Jolly
Thu 11 Jan 2024 17.20 CET

What do you call an Italian restaurant that doesn’t serve pizza?

During the 2022 Edinburgh fringe, Gusto’s restaurant in the city sounded like the punchline to one of the comedy festival’s jokes.

Pizza wasn’t on the menu at the Italian restaurant because it had no maestro to wield the pala, the long-handled tray used to ferry the dough in and out of the kitchen’s searing-hot oven.

“The fringe is our busiest month in Edinburgh but we had to close two days a week and couldn’t sell pizza,” says Gusto’s chief executive, Matt Snell. “Pizza chef is a skilled job and we could not find one. Our sales were a third of what they would normally have been.”

Closures linked to staff shortages cost the business £750,000 that year.

Salvation – the “gamechanger”, according to Snell – arrived when he realised that the 14-strong restaurant chain could tap into the government’s skilled-worker visa scheme. On the proviso that Gusto could show recruiting domestically was impossible, the company could pay the government £3,000 a time for a licence to hire chefs from overseas on a temporary visa.

Bravissimo, staff shortage solved.

“In the last 18 months we have recruited 30 chefs and have spent over £200,000 on this project,” says Snell. “It has been the difference between keeping restaurants open or closed.”

That lifeline – and the pizza – is now under threat from a Conservative government policy that many in hospitality feel prioritises political calculation over economic realism.

Under plans to cut migration by 300,000 a year, the minimum salary requirement for a skilled worker visa will increase from £26,200 to £38,700 from April. The same salary threshold will apply to anyone, including British citizens, who wants to bring family members to the UK, although this has been delayed to 2025 after a government U-turn prompted by widespread dismay.

These policy changes could have a chilling effect on an industry still reeling from Covid, rampant inflation and the resulting cost of living crisis, businesses fear. What’s more, the government made its decision, according to the trade body UK Hospitality, without any consultation with the industry.



https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ospitality

[RTH10260]

Colonialism catching up ...

Chagos islanders stunned as David Cameron rules out return
Statement from British foreign secretary comes just months after his predecessor confirmed resettlement was part of talks with Mauritius

Mark Townsend
Fri 26 Jan 2024 06.00 CET

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, has provoked fury by abruptly ruling out the resettlement of former inhabitants of the Chagos Islands, months after his predecessor revealed that the UK was discussing their potential return.

The former prime minister suggested that a return to the islands was now “not possible” for Chagossians who were forcibly displaced by the British government in the 1960s and 1970s.

His stance stunned islanders who a year ago had celebrated the news that the UK was discussing the return of islanders along with a possible future handover of the Chagos archipelago.

On Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) wrote to Cameron expressing its “extreme concern” over the apparent U-turn after a long-running campaign to repatriate Chagos islanders.

In their first official statements on the development, Chagossian groups criticised Cameron’s intervention.

Marie Sabrina Jean, the chair of the Chagos Refugees UK Group, said: “Cameron does not have any respect for human rights. The problem is that all UK politicians continue the fiction that Chagossians are not native to the islands and have no property or other rights.

“Whether the UK keeps the islands or gives them to Mauritius, the Chagossians’ rights must be restored first.”



https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... out-return

[RTH10260]

The Chagos Archipelago (/ˈtʃɑːɡəs, -ɡoʊs/) or Chagos Islands (formerly the Bassas de Chagas,[2] and later the Oil Islands) is a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean about 500 kilometres (310 mi) south of the Maldives archipelago. This chain of islands is the southernmost archipelago of the Chagos–Laccadive Ridge, a long submarine mountain range in the Indian Ocean.[3] In its north are the Salomon Islands, Nelsons Island and Peros Banhos; towards its south-west are the Three Brothers, Eagle Islands, Egmont Islands and Danger Island; southeast of these is Diego Garcia, by far the largest island. All are low-lying atolls, save for a few extremely small instances, set around lagoons.

The Chagos Islands had been home to the Chagossians from the 1700s brought as workers by the French from Africa and India, a Bourbonnais Creole-speaking people, until the United Kingdom expelled them from the archipelago at the request of the United States between 1967 and 1973 to allow the United States to build Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, a military base on Diego Garcia, on land leased from the UK military in the British Indian Ocean Territories. Since 1971, only the atoll of Diego Garcia has been inhabited, and only by employees of the US military, including American civilian contracted personnel. Since being expelled, Chagossians, like all others not permitted by the UK or US governments, have been prevented from entering the islands.



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