UK - England, Wales, N.Ireland, Scotland

[pipistrelle]

I’d like to register my appreciation that the public servants did their jobs as expected regardless.

Yes.

[RTH10260]

Boris Johnson referred to police over allegedly hosting friends at Chequers in lockdown
Records of visits were reportedly found in official diary by lawyers as they were preparing for Covid public inquiry

Pippa Crerar and Aubrey Allegretti
Tue 23 May 2023 18.45 BST

Boris Johnson has been referred to police by the Cabinet Office over claims that he broke lockdown rules by hosting family and friends at Chequers during Covid.

The visits to the former prime minister’s grace-and-favour residence were found in his official diary by his government-funded lawyers as they prepared his defence for the public inquiry into the pandemic.

They raised the issue with senior officials in the Cabinet Office, who then referred the matter to police as they were obliged to do under the civil service code, and also to the privileges committee, which is investigating whether Johnson lied to the Commons over Partygate.

The former prime minister, who quit last July in large part due to the revelations of a string of lockdown-breaking gatherings at Downing Street that became known as the Partygate scandal, has written to the Cabinet Office denying breaking strict lockdown rules.

His team called the referral a “clearly politically motivated attempt to manufacture something out of nothing”. However, the development, revealed by the Times, puts further pressure on Johnson, who remains an MP and is fighting for his political career.

The Metropolitan and Thames Valley police forces have confirmed they are considering the evidence of potential lockdown breaches between June 2020 and May 2021 at Chequers in Buckinghamshire, and allegations about Johnson’s behaviour in Downing Street over the same period.



https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... n-lockdown

[RTH10260]

Braverman announces new limits on overseas students bringing family to UK
Only students on courses designated as research programmes will be able to bring dependants under home secretary’s policy

Rajeev Syal Home affairs editor
Tue 23 May 2023 22.37 BST

Suella Braverman has rushed out stringent curbs on international students who come to study in the UK amid growing pressure on the home secretary over her conduct in office.

Under proposals released in parliament on Tuesday, overseas students will no longer be able to bring family with them except under specific circumstances as the government seeks to reduce immigration numbers.

Only overseas students on courses designated as research programmes, such as PhD students or research-led masters courses, will be able to bring dependants with them under new rules to curb net migration.

Reacting to the proposals, a lecturers’ union said they were “deeply shameful” and anti-migrant, while universities said they would disproportionately affect women and people from certain countries.

Nigeria had the highest number of dependants of student visa holders in 2022, with 60,923. Indian nationals had the second highest number of dependants, with an increase from 3,135 in 2019 to 38,990 in 2022, followed by students from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.



https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... nts-family

[RTH10260]

This by the Brexiteers that proclaimed to bring the UK to new scientific heights on a global scale.

[Suranis]

So this really only came to my attention in the last couple of days (largely as the Irish Media cant say anything bad about THE GAY GUY as that would be discrimination) but a scandal blew up during the Coronation involving out great leader.

Basically everyone was told there were no phones during the Coronation. Our Prime minister Leo Veradkar, and his partner Matt Barrett, sat down among the dignitaries at the Coronation, no problem there. And what did Mr Barrett do? During the ceremony he whipped out his phone and started making Jokes about it to his Instagram followers in real time. Nyuk Nyuk.

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

Varadkar's partner likens King Charles' coronation to Harry Potter in 'highly insulting social media posts'

Matt Barret was accused of 'embarrassing' his country in the Instagram posts

By Katherine Lawton

Published: 01:05, 15 May 2023 | Updated: 01:11, 15 May 2023

The boyfriend of Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has caused outrage after likening Charles's coronation to Harry Potter in 'highly insulting' social media posts.

Matt Barrett was accused of 'embarrassing' his country in the posts made on his private Instagram account during the historic service.

In one post, Mr Barrett put up a photo of a newly crowned Charles wearing the St Edward's Crown and compared it to the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter.

'Was genuinely half expecting it to shout ''GRYFFINDOR'' ', he wrote.

A week after the event, Irish designer Paul Costelloe, who has links to the royal family, condemned the social media posts as 'very embarrassing' and 'highly insulting' for the Irish, according to The Telegraph.

In one post, Mr Barrett put up a photo of a newly crowned Charles wearing the St Edward's Crown and compared it to the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter. 'Was genuinely half expecting it to shout ''GRYFFINDOR'' ', he wrote

The posts included a photo taken from inside the Taoiseach's car while in the VIP motorcade to the Coronation ceremony, alongside which he wrote: 'Holy s---, I think I'm accidentally crowned King of England.'

While in Westminster Abbey, Dr Barrett also made posts that referenced the official Order of Service and mocked the wording.

One entry explained what happened between the Queen's crowning and her enthronement, during which she would be presented with regalia.

Mr Barrett quoted the liturgy, before adding the comment: 'Sounds like the script to a good night, tbh.'

Mr Costelloe, who worked as a personal designer for Princess Diana from 1983 until her death in 1997, told the Sunday Independent that Dr Barrett needs to publicly apologize.

'They should have turned their phones off before they went in and Leo should have told him to put his phone away,' he said.

Talking with the Sunday Independent, he said: 'For people living over here, it puts you in a very embarrassing situation.

'I think it's terribly hard to make excuses for that sort of behavior. You can say it's amusing and all, but you can't do that type of thing.'

Ya aside from anything else Varadkar should have told the guy to knock it off. Quite apart from the Diplomatic insults from his position, it was fucking rude.

[raison de arizona]

I’d like to register my appreciation that the public servants did their jobs as expected regardless.

[RTH10260]

sunny boy in trouble

Undisclosed Covid-era Johnson events occurred at both Chequers and Downing Street
As Johnson allies allege politically motivated stitch up, government sources say approximately 12 potentially illegal events were reported to police

Aubrey Allegretti
Wed 24 May 2023 20.37 BST

About a dozen previously undisclosed gatherings at both Chequers and Downing Street allegedly held during Covid have been referred to the police by civil servants, the Guardian has been told.

Further details of the new Partygate accusations emerged as Boris Johnson’s allies launched a furious fightback, forcing Downing Street to deny he was the victim of a politically motivated stitch up.

Government sources said approximately 12 potentially illegal events formed the basis of a dossier handed over to two police forces last week. While it was initially thought they were all held at the prime minister’s Buckinghamshire grace-and-favour mansion Chequers, insiders said they also took place in No 10.

They were said to include events which did not form part of the Met police’s investigation last year, nor the Whitehall inquiry led by then-senior civil servant Sue Gray.



https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ing-street

[Foggy]

Off Topic

... forcing Downing Street to deny he was the victim of a politically motivated stitch up.

We don't have any stitch ups here in the US.

Maybe if'n you rip your pants, your mom could stitch them up.

My mom wasn't Italian. She never said, "You rip a'dese, I ain't gonna fix 'em."

Ancient Greek jokes, you know you're on Fogbow now.


Apparently, it means to frame an innocent person with some nefarious wrongdoing.

In the UK, which isn't in the top five of English speaking countries.

[pipistrelle]

Off Topic

... forcing Downing Street to deny he was the victim of a politically motivated stitch up.

We don't have any stitch ups here in the US.

Maybe if'n you rip your pants, your mom could stitch them up.

My mom wasn't Italian. She never said, "You rip a'dese, I ain't gonna fix 'em."

Ancient Greek jokes, you know you're on Fogbow now.


Apparently, it means to frame an innocent person with some nefarious wrongdoing.

In the UK, which isn't in the top five of English speaking countries.

Off Topic

At least it wasn't a cock up.

[Dave from down under]

A grand old Bollocking

[RTH10260]

Braverman bill could lead to 3,000 asylum seekers being deported a month
Exclusive: leaked documents on illegal migration bill also say legal aid fees will need to rise in order to ensure legal cover

Rajeev Syal Home affairs editor
Thu 25 May 2023 20.10 BST

More than 3,000 asylum seekers could be detained and deported from the UK every month to enforce Suella Braverman’s flagship asylum bill, leaked documents show.

As Rishi Sunak faced a backlash from Conservative MPs over record levels of net migration, briefing papers have revealed the government has drawn up plans to remove 3,163 asylum seekers every month from January.

The documents, which focus on the implementation of the illegal migration bill, also make clear ministers could face crippling legal action without a substantial increase in legal aid fees for lawyers who advise refugees.

It is the first detailed glimpse of the scale of the task facing Whitehall if it is to implement Braverman’s bill, which is currently before the Lords. The Home Office has until now refused to release the impact assessment of the bill.

The disclosure came as net migration and the backlog of asylum claims reached record highs. The prime minister was forced to concede that numbers should come down after figures from the Office for National Statistics showed overall migration into the UK for 2022 was 606,000, which represents a 24% increase on the previous high of 488,000 in 2021.

More than 100,000 people seeking asylum have waited longer than six months for an initial decision on their case, the latest figures showed, while more than three-quarters of all small-boat asylum applications since 2018 are still awaiting a decision.

The leaked documents, marked “urgent”, were prepared this week for Alex Chalk, the lord chancellor, the junior justice minister Lord Bellamy and the Ministry of Justice permanent secretary, Antonia Romeo.

The aim was to ensure there were enough lawyers on hand to provide advice at immigration detention centres if the bill passes into law.




https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... ed-a-month

[RTH10260]

That would be 1 plane load every day of the month. But where to fly them too? I don't think Ruanda was expecting that number when they signed an agreement with the UK to take over undesirables. Apart that pilots may stop flying when their passengers get unruly.

[Suranis]

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautifu ... ts_differ/

[OC] How does trust in UK media outlets differ between Conservative and Labour voters?

Press.jpg (124 KiB) Viewed 1150 times

[RTH10260]

someone has dirt on their hands - could it be politicians?

30 water treatment works released 11bn litres of raw sewage in a year, study suggests
Exclusive: Researchers analysed works run by nine water and sewerage companies in England and Wales

Sandra Laville Environment correspondent
Sat 27 May 2023 06.00 BST

Eleven billion litres of raw sewage were discharged from a sample of 30 water company treatment works in one year, new research suggests.

The study aimed to reveal the volume of discharged effluent released from storm overflows by water firms. Companies are not forced to reveal the volume of raw sewage released during discharges. They are only required by regulators to provide data on the number of discharges and the length of time they lasted.

Recommendations by MPs on the environmental audit committee that volume monitors be installed by water companies have so far been rejected by ministers.

In a study of 30 treatment works in 2020 run by nine of the 10 water and sewerage companies in England and Wales, the volume of raw sewage discharged was estimated at 11bn litres – or the equivalent volume to 4,352 Olympic pools.

Prof Peter Hammond, a mathematician who analyses data on sewage discharges, carried out the research. He has previously given evidence to MPs to reveal that the scale of illegal discharges of raw sewage by water companies is 10 times higher than official data suggests.

Hammond said it was vital to establish the volume of sewage discharges by water companies. He said his research suggested the government’s target to reduce raw sewage releases to 20 per year by 2025 was not robust because there was no requirement to reveal the volume of raw sewage discharged for each release.

“There is still no data readily available showing the volume of untreated sewage discharges,” he said. “Water companies have some idea, but the regulators [Ofwat and the environment agencies in England and Wales] and the government [the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] probably have no idea. Sewage detritus in rivers, on beaches and in seas offers clues but may not reflect the volume of discharges.

“So what is the potential discharge volume for 20 spills per overflow per year?”



https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... age-a-year

[RTH10260]

Media shuns Tory party conference over demands for attendance fee
UK Conservatives are only party to charge press delegates for accreditation at annual gathering

Vanessa Thorpe Arts and media correspondent
Sun 28 May 2023 07.00 BST

It looks as if there will be empty seats in the rows usually reserved for members of the press at the annual Conservative party conference in Manchester this autumn, with media organisations across the political spectrum refusing to pay recently imposed fees.

No other British political party charges for press accreditation, but last year a fee was introduced by the Conservative party. This summer the charge of £137 for each journalist’s application is being challenged by a broad coalition of newsrooms, on the basis that paying for media access sets a bad and undemocratic precedent.



https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ndance-fee

[RTH10260]

The backlash: how slavery research came under fire
More and more institutions are commissioning investigations into their historical links to slavery – but the fallout at one Cambridge college suggests these projects are meeting growing resistance

by Samira Shackle
Thu 1 Jun 2023 06.00 BST

When the historian Nicolas Bell-Romero started a job researching Cambridge University’s past links to transatlantic slavery three years ago, he did not expect to be pilloried in the national press by anonymous dons as “a ‘woke activist’ with an agenda”. Before his work was even published, it would spark a bitter conflict at the university – with accusations of bullying and censorship that were quickly picked up by rightwing papers as a warning about “fanatical” scholars tarnishing Britain’s history.

Bell-Romero, originally from Australia, had recently finished a PhD at Cambridge. He was at the start of his academic career and eager to prove himself. This was the ideal post-doctoral position: a chance to dig into the university’s archives to explore faculty and alumni links to slavery, and whether these links had translated into profit for Cambridge. It was the kind of work that, Bell-Romero said, “seems boring to the layperson” – spending days immersed in dusty archives and logbooks, exploring 18th- and 19th-century financial records. But as a historian, it was thrilling. It offered a chance to make a genuinely fresh contribution to burgeoning research about Britain’s relationship to slavery.

In the spring of 2020, Bell-Romero and another post-doctoral researcher, Sabine Cadeau, began work on the legacies of enslavement inquiry. Cadeau and Bell-Romero had a wide-ranging brief: to examine how the university gained from slavery, through specific financial bequests and gifts, but also to investigate how its scholarship might have reinforced, validated or challenged race-based thinking.

Cambridge was never a centre of industry like Manchester, Liverpool or Bristol, cities in which historic links to slavery are deep and obviously apparent – but as one of the oldest and wealthiest institutions in the country, the university makes an interesting case study for how intimately profits from slavery were entwined with British life. Given how many wealthy people in Britain in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries were slaveholders, or invested in the slave economy, it was a reasonable expectation that both faculty and alumni may have benefited financially, and that this may have translated into donations to the university.



https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/j ... university

[RTH10260]

British universities can no longer financially depend on foreign students. They must reform to survive
With spiralling deficits and little prospect of government support, higher education’s only long-term hope lies in radical change

Simon Jenkins
Fri 2 Jun 2023 11.58 BST

Universities are becoming primary victims of the chaos enveloping Britain’s public sector. News reported in the Guardian has vice-chancellors pleading for a “new model” of government funding. This follows reports that one-third of England’s universities are trading at a deficit. Since almost one-fifth of UK students in higher education now come from abroad – 125,000 of them from China – there is near panic at the Home Office’s determination to slash student immigration.

Some universities, including Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, UCL and Imperial, rely on Chinese students alone for between a quarter and a third of their income. This means that any Beijing sanction on Britain – such as for mentioning the Uyghurs too often – could turn off this tap at source. Chinese numbers are already falling, by 4% last year, and are compensated only by soaring numbers for Indians, Nigerians, south-east Asians and 135,000 dependents. This last figure the Home Office is eager to cut.

This situation is highly unstable. The number of EU students has plummeted by more than half since Brexit. International students pay between £10,000 and £38,000 a year – the highest fees in the world – and are in effect super-taxing their own, often poor, countries to cross-subsidise UK students. Despite this, the University of Kent already has a £65m deficit and Leicester’s de Montfort a £10m one. Vice-chancellors now have lecturers on strike, crumbling buildings and forced redundancies. In February the vice-chancellor of East Anglia, David Richardson, faced a £30m hole in his budget and resigned. Last month his replacement was flanked by a security guard at a staff meeting.

There are other straws in the wind. There has been a dramatic fall in attendance at university lectures and a rise in online learning since Covid. British students already graduate with the highest rate of student debt, in the order of £40,000 to £50,000, and an increasing number wonder if it is worth it. For almost the first time ever, fresher numbers fell last year. There is a fast rising number of applicants for degree apprenticeships – that is students paid for by employers – and ever fewer employers caring about degree grades. That is why, rather than raise fees, some vice-chancellors are calling for more government cash to go direct to them to cover teaching costs. But the government is already spending huge figures covering the half of student loans that are not repaid. It is a near certainty that no further help will come from that source.



https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -education

[RTH10260]

‘The billionaires have won’: English pubs forced to close after owners demand full rent for lockdown
Publicans face bankruptcy and homelessness after losing their fight with Tory donors against Covid rent back-payments

James Tapper
Sat 3 Jun 2023 13.58 BST

A pub landlord company owned by billionaire Tory donors has been accused of pushing pubs into bankruptcy after demanding tenants pay full rent owed from the months during the Covid lockdowns.

The Wellington Pub Company, owned by David and Simon Reuben, offered its estimated 850 tenants a Covid discount on condition that they extended their leases for five years.

To take on Wellington, about 250 tenants formed a pressure group led by Nick Holden and Kate Ahrens of the Geese and Fountain pub in Croxton Kerrial near Grantham in Lincolnshire. These tenants refused the company’s deal, and arbitrators have now ruled that many of them will have to pay rent in full.

As a result, the Geese and Fountain would close permanently on Monday Holden said, describing it as one of the “many victims of a combination of the UK’s exceptional economic collapse and a failure to support businesses trying to recover from the Covid pandemic”.

“To say we are devastated is an understatement,” he said in a statement. “The Geese and Fountain has been our home, our business, our whole lives for the past eight years. We have poured thousands of pounds of our own money, and that of our families, into this place, because we loved it, and we wanted it to succeed.

“But another fight with Wellington, coming on top of three of the most difficult years in the pub trade and with rising energy costs and inflation running rampant, is one we cannot hope to win. We have to accept defeat. The billionaires have won.”

Paul Michelmore, a sole trader and licensee of the Harrison in King’s Cross, London, was told he must pay £99,086.12 in rent. He said the arbitrator had made factual errors and had confused profits with turnover, saying in the decision that he could afford to pay an extra £5,000 a month to pay back the pandemic rent. “We make about £30,000 profit a year,” he said. “And with inflation, our costs have skyrocketed.”




https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... r-lockdown

[RTH10260]

Hard-pressed UK shoppers feel food ‘shrinkflation’
Consumers increasingly claim that manufacturers are reducing the size of products, Barclays research finds

Larry Elliott Economics editor
Tue 6 Jun 2023 00.01 BST

Hard-pressed consumers feel they are becoming the victims of food industry “shrinkflation” amid signs the UK’s persistent cost of living crisis is making households more alert to the need to get value for money.

With food prices up by almost 20% in the past year, the latest snapshot of consumer activity from Barclays found households were concentrating spending on essentials and increasingly concerned that manufacturers were reducing the size of products such as chocolate bars and packets of crisps.

Two-thirds of shoppers had noticed products shrinking in size while the price had remained the same or even increased. In response, 20% of consumers said they were switching from products that had been downsized by manufacturers to instead buy in bulk.



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

[RTH10260]

Woking council declares bankruptcy with £1.2bn deficit
Previous Tory leadership embarked on risky investment spree involving hotels and skyscrapers

Richard Partington Economics correspondent
Wed 7 Jun 2023 19.01 BST

Woking council has declared it is in effect bankrupt after admitting a risky investment spree involving hotels and skyscrapers overseen by its former Conservative administration had left it facing a deficit of £1.2bn.

In what is thought to be the biggest financial failure in local government history, the Surrey council said it had issued a section 114 notice on Wednesday in response to “unprecedented financial challenges” facing the town.

A section 114 notice is effectively an admission that a local authority does not have the resources to meet current expenditure, with Woking joining Thurrock, Croydon and Slough as the latest English council to run into trouble after ploughing cash into risky commercial investments.

Woking said that against its available core funding of £16m in the 2023-24 financial year, the council faced a deficit of £1.2bn.

Laying bare its financial position, the tiny home counties authority in the affluent London commuter belt warned it had failed for the past 15 years to set aside enough money to keep up with payments on a vast debt pile amassed under its former Tory leadership.

Racked up to finance the building and acquisition of a vast empire of commercial assets, its investments included a complex of sky-high towers – standing as the tallest buildings outside a big city in England – including a four-star Hilton hotel, public plazas, parking facilities and shops.

Woking warned its debts were forecast to hit £2.6bn, while it had taken the uncomfortable step of writing down the value of its investment portfolio by more than £600m in a reflection that its property holdings were worth far less than previously anticipated.




https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... bn-deficit

[RTH10260]

"Media Moves"

Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph newspapers to be put up for sale
Barclay family have lost control of crown jewel media assets in bitter row with newspaper group’s lender

Mark Sweney and Alex Lawson
Wed 7 Jun 2023 19.10 BST
The Daily and Sunday Telegraph are to be put up for sale in a deal that promises to reshape the media landscape after the Barclay family lost control of their crown jewel media assets in a bitter row over nearly £1bn of unpaid debts.

The Bank of Scotland has appointed the firm AlixPartners as official receiver, to seize the shares owned by the Barclay family in the holding company that ultimately controls the national newspapers and the Spectator magazine.

A spokesperson for the bank said it had been left with no other choice but to put the publisher’s holding company into receivership, saying debts were default with “no sign they would be repaid”. It said discussions with the owners had been held “over a long period”, but that “no agreement could be reached”.

The bank, which has taken the action after becoming frustrated at the lack of repayment of loans worth close to £1bn, is seeking to remove Barclay family-appointed board members, replace them with independent directors, and move to auction off the Telegraph titles and the Spectator.

Among those being removed from the holding company, B.UK Limited, is Aidan Barclay, the chair of the newspaper group, who along with his brother, Howard, controls the family’s UK assets.

“Due to debts being in default and with no sign they would be repaid, Bank of Scotland was regrettably left with no other choice but to appoint receivers over B.UK. Limited,” the bank said in its statement.

“The decision to appoint receivers is an act of last resort and follows numerous discussions with B.UK’s parent company … The aim of these discussions, which were held over a long period and undertaken in good faith, had been to find a consensual solution … Unfortunately, no agreement could be reached, which prompted the appointment of receivers. While the receivers are now in place, the Bank remains willing to continue discussions to find a suitable solution.”




https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/ ... p-for-sale

[Foggy]

Is Woking woke, or is Woking broke?

[RTH10260]

It's a

[Volkonski]

https://apnews.com/article/boris-johnso ... e28ca6686c

Boris Johnson is resigning from Parliament .

[RTH10260]

https://apnews.com/article/boris-johnso ... e28ca6686c

Boris Johnson is resigning from Parliament .

Late case of political long covid - do not invite guests to your government manions during lock down