UK News and Discussions

[Time_Traveller]

‘The Right to Protest is Dead. We Need a New Movement to Win it Back’

9 May 2023

This weekend we were faced with a blunt reality. The right to protest in the UK is dying faster than you can say ‘stone of destiny’.

We’ve all seen the pictures now: of peaceful republican protesters arrested and hundreds of placards seized, as the world witnessed the coronation of King Charles III.

First, the Met Police doubled down on their actions. Now, bowing to pressure, they have apologised. Republic’s Chief Executive Graham Smith is right to not accept it as not good enough.

The appointment of a new Met Police commissioner, it seems, has done little to change the culture of the discrimination-riddled, protest-busting institution. Six Republican protesters were arrested barely after Saturday’s demonstration had started. That’s despite the group pledging to be peaceful and civil – as indeed they were. The Met police strategy appears to be “arrest protesters, answer awkward questions later.”

The Met Police first claimed it had acted “proportionately” based on the scale of the event. After all, the eyes of the world were watching.

https://bylinetimes.com/2023/05/09/repu ... n-it-back/

[wjfox]

Poland will be wealthier than Britain by 2030 – it’s time we took notice

7 May 2023 • 6:00am

On a visit to Wrocław a fortnight ago, the zloty dropped: Poland is rapidly becoming the new central European superpower.

When I visited Poland as the Telegraph’s Eastern Europe correspondent in 1989, its cities were drab, decayed and ringed by hideous communist-era buildings. Shops were barren, expectations were low and life was hard.

Yet nowhere else in the Soviet empire did people's power prevail so triumphantly as in Poland. The land of lost causes became the vanguard of liberty — and prosperity.

On its current path, Poland is on track to become wealthier than Britain by 2030 thanks to a post-communist economic miracle. The country has become a hotbed for future-facing industries such as battery manufacturing and tech.

Warsaw is using this economic strength to transform the country into a formidable fighting force to guard against the Russian wolf at the door. Its willingness to stand against Moscow has also won it allies among many neighbouring countries.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/20 ... -community

[Time_Traveller]

School-leavers could join NHS via apprenticeships in plan to fix staff shortages

Wed 10 May 2023 00.01 BST

School-leavers could receive on-the-job training as part of an attempt to help address NHS workforce shortages, under plans to allow tens of thousands of doctors and nurses to join the health service via apprenticeships.

Up to one in 10 doctors and a third of nurses could be trained through this vocational path in the coming years under the NHS workforce plan, the PA news agency reported. The NHS’s doctor apprenticeship scheme is due to start in September, where medics in training will be able to earn money while they study.

The concept was first introduced as an alternative route into medicine circumventing the standard undergraduate or graduate university programmes.

Dr Latifa Patel, workforce lead for the British Medical Association, said innovative approaches to education and training are welcome but there were huge question marks over how far medical apprenticeships can solve the recruitment crisis.

Patel said: “We don’t know if medical schools and employing organisations are going to be able to produce medical degree programmes to meet individual apprenticeship needs while also meeting the same high standards of training experienced by traditional medical students.

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

[Time_Traveller]

Lord Frost ‘placed on Conservative candidate list for next election’

18 hours ago

Former Brexit negotiator Lord Frost has reportedly been placed on the Conservative Party’s candidate list for the next general election, effectively kicking off a bid to become an MP.

According to the Telegraph, the Conservative peer is in contention for a safe Tory seat and could possibly replace outgoing MP Pauline Latham as the candidate in Mid Derbyshire.

Lord Frost, a Brexit minister under Boris Johnson, has floated the idea in the past that he could run to become an MP despite his peerage.

If he gained a seat in the Commons, the peer would have to give up his seat in the Lords.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/c ... 38384.html

[Xyls]

Keir Starmer says it ‘feels wrong’ EU citizens living in UK can’t vote

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -cant-vote

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I'm not sure if Starmer is trying to cause a backlash against himself but I feel this will not go down well.

[wjfox]

[Time_Traveller]

Oh no, did it backfire Smuggy.

[wjfox]

Another triumph of privatisation (not).

Thank you, Mrs. Thatcher!

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Britons face rising water bills for 100 years to fix sewage spills

By Miriam Burrell
6 hours ago

Britons will be paying higher water bills for up to a century to cover the cost of a record £10 billion investment in sewage networks to stop spills.

Water UK chair Ruth Kelly on Thursday said water companies are “sorry” for polluting UK coastlines and waterways and admitted “more should have been done to address the issue of spillages sooner”, as the company unveiled plans for the largest ever investment in sewage networks.

However, it is the British public who will foot the bill through an increase in water rates “over the full lifetime of the asset”, Ms Kelly confirmed.

“Over time, the way the system works is that there will be modest upward pressure on customer bills over the full lifetime of the asset, so over 50 years or perhaps even longer, maybe up to 100 years, customers do contribute,” she told BBC Breakfast on Thursday.

[...]

The Government’s Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan, published in August 2022, aims to eliminate sewage dumping by 2050 while cutting discharges close to “high priority” areas by 75 per cent by 2035 and 100 per cent by 2045.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/sewa ... 81932.html

[Time_Traveller]

Lawmakers warn leaky, crumbling UK Parliament at risk of 'catastrophic' event

Wed, May 17, 2023 at 12:19 AM GMT+1

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Parliament building is an architectural masterpiece, a UNESCO World Heritage Site visited by 1 million people a year. It’s also a crumbling, leaky, asbestos-riddled building at “real and rising" risk of destruction, lawmakers said Wednesday.

In a hair-raising report, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said the seat of British democracy is “leaking, dropping masonry and at constant risk of fire,” as well as riddled with asbestos.

“There is a real and rising risk that a catastrophic event will destroy” the building before long-delayed restoration work is done, the committee said.

In the most urgent in a series of warnings stretching back years, the committee said renewal work had been painfully slow and mostly amounted to “patching up” the 19th-century building, at a cost of about 2 million pounds ($2.5 million) a week.

The committee slammed “years of procrastination” over the building’s future. In 2018, after years of dithering, lawmakers voted to move out by the mid-2020s to allow several years of major repairs. The decision has been questioned ever since by lawmakers who don’t want to leave; last year, the body set up to oversee the Parliament project was scrapped.

https://news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-warn-l ... 11977.html

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

UK airports face nationwide border system issue, causing major delays
Source: Reuters

LONDON, May 27 (Reuters) - Passengers flying into Britain faced major delays after landing at airports on Saturday due to a nationwide issue affecting the automated border control gates that scan passports upon arrival.

Images posted on social media showed long queues with hundreds of people at London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports with frustrated passengers complaining of having to wait several hours in line. "We are aware of a nationwide border system issue affecting arrivals into the UK," said a spokesperson for the British government's interior ministry, which has oversight of border control.

"We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and are liaising with port operators and airlines to minimise disruption for travellers," they told Reuters. Heathrow, Britain's busiest airport, said it had deployed extra staff to manage the queues and was working with Border Force to help resolve the problem.

While many foreign visitors to the UK need to see a border control officer upon landing, others, including British, EU and U.S. citizens, can use the automated gates known as e-gates to scan their passports and enter the country. The disruption, which comes during a busy period for travel in Britain with a spring bank holiday on Monday and a half-term break for schools next week, means all passengers have to be processed at manual checkpoints.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-air ... 023-05-27/

[lechwall]

Want a simple measure of how a country is doing?
Then look at its roads by the increasingly pothole laden roads you can see the UK is a country in serious decline where stuff just doesn't work anymore.

[Time_Traveller]

[wjfox]

Exactly as I predicted.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... eeves-says

Expect more of this dithering and incrementalism under Labour, as more and more of their policies are watered down or quietly dropped altogether.

We seem to be heading for a U.S.-style political system, in which there isn't much meaningful difference between the two main parties. I recently made the decision that I won't be voting Labour in '24.

[Time_Traveller]

Exactly as I predicted.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... eeves-says

Expect more of this dithering and incrementalism under Labour, as more and more of their policies are watered down or quietly dropped altogether.

We seem to be heading for a U.S.-style political system, in which there isn't much meaningful difference between the two main parties. I recently made the decision that I won't be voting Labour in '24.

Green for me in 24' but over the years i've only seen 5 parties come to my door to talk or post leaflets which are the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems, Greens and UKIP. I never know what the Greens stand for because i never see there candidate in my area.

[erowind]

.

[Time_Traveller]

Nadine Dorries quits as Tory MP and triggers by-election

2023-06-09 16:55

Rishi Sunak is facing a by-election after Nadine Dorries announced she is standing down as an MP “with immediate effect”.

The move comes after months-long speculation that the former culture secretary was to be handed a peerage in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list, although recent reporting suggested the Government cut her from the list at the 11th hour to swerve an early election battle in her seat.

The former prime minister’s long-awaited list, which is said to include around 50 names, is expected to be released imminently.

Ms Dorries tweeted on Friday afternoon: “I have today informed the chief whip that I am standing down as the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, with immediate effect.

“It has been an honour to serve as the MP for such a wonderful constituency but it is now time for another to take the reins.”

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/ ... on-350422/

[Time_Traveller]

Boris Johnson: I've been forced out over Partygate report

42 minutes ago

Boris Johnson is to step down as an MP with immediate effect after receiving the Partygate report.

That report by the MP-led Privileges Committee looked into whether he misled Parliament over lockdown-breaking parties at Downing Street.

Mr Johnson accused the Commons inquiry of attempting to "drive me out".

In a statement he said: "They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons."

Earlier on Friday, he received a copy of the yet-to-be-published report, which he claimed was "riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of prejudice".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65863267

Another by-election incoming.

[Time_Traveller]

Telegraph owner on verge of administration as talks break down

2023-06-07 08:35

The owners of the Daily Telegraph faces administration after a breakdown in talks over loans the business has racked up over the years.

Lloyds Banking Group has come to blows with Press Acquisitions, the company controlled by the Barclay family that owns the newspapers’ parent company, Telegraph Media Group (TMG), over around £65 million in loans.

According to Times reports, the bank is prepared to call in a restructuring advisory group and appoint insolvency practitioners “within days” as the situation unravels.

Commenting on the matter, Michael Lynch, partner at city law firm DMH Stallard and insolvency expert, said: “At some point, whatever the size of the loan and whomever the name of the borrower, lenders will review their enforcement options, possibly taking action, if that borrower either fails to service its debt and/or does not engage with that lender.

“There comes a time when continued forbearance provided by a lender is no longer a viable option.”

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/ ... czN31y0ygo

[wjfox]