Current Affairs 2025

[Ray B]

A flogging at the v ery least.

Now we hear he could have put David in an unfortunate position (mind boggles ) A flogging plus being reduced to the ranks AGAIN

[Ray B]

Nice to know the released sex offender has now been found and hopefully banged up again.

[Portsmouth]

Hearing about another 4 more released in error....wouldn't it be simple to take their fingerprints before getting released against the national fingerprint data base ?

[david63]

wouldn't it be simple to take their fingerprints before getting released against the national fingerprint data base ?

Yes, but some do gooder somewhere would claim that it is breach of their human rights - something that they lost when entering prison.

[oldbluefox]

A ball and chain would make them more conspicuous.

[Onelife]

We won’t get on top of the prison situation until we sort out the crime on our streets. We need to have a purge on black market trades which are doing this country out of £millions but more concerning are the pathway into crime for the most susceptible in society.

[towny44]

We won’t get on top of the prison situation until we sort out the crime on our streets. We need to have a purge on black market trades which are doing this country out of £millions but more concerning are the pathway into crime for the most susceptible in society.

Just occasionally Onelife you do post something quite sensible.

[Onelife]

We won’t get on top of the prison situation until we sort out the crime on our streets. We need to have a purge on black market trades which are doing this country out of £millions but more concerning are the pathway into crime for the most susceptible in society.

Just occasionally Onelife you do post something quite sensible.

Thank you, as there are times when I think you lack the capability or indeed the foresight to see the truth in what I post

[oldbluefox]

He's not alone, in fact I think sometimes OL struggles as well.

[Onelife]

He's not alone, in fact I think sometimes OL struggles as well.

Only when it pleases me Foxy

[david63]

Does Rachel from Accounts have the first clue as to what she is doing? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mx3nv7zy8o

Tax up, no - tax not going up - like a yo-yo.

Nothing at all to do with the backlash if tax was to go up, or the fact that Labour are not popular at the moment

=============================================

On a slightly different note - did anyone watch Question Time last night. I was starting to get a bit worried because Ken Clarke was on (don't know who got him ready but he looked somewhat scruffy) and was actually talking common sense, not just slagging other parties but criticising all parties for not having direction. He actually said that it will be years before the Conservatives are back in government.

[Mervyn and Trish]

I think Ken Clarke has always looked scruffy. But talking sense - that's a new one.

[Ray B]

She more or less said income tax will go up. It's only the massive backlash against that she changed her mind.
Just a reminder that any promise to get a vote is not worth the paper it's written on

[Onelife]

In a political system where the left turn to the right and the right turn to the left for fear of the whims of the electorate… short-term popularity rather than long-term strategy will continue to keep us going round in circles.

I’m going off Racheal.

Yes’, Kenneth Clark did look a bit rough but like you David I did think he had a good grasp of where politics is today.

[oldbluefox]

The problem with the Labour Party is they have a huge number of MPs but only achieved on narrow majorities and they know if the government do anything unpopular with the electorate they are out. The government are literally between a rock and a hard place knowing what needs to be done but knowing they lead MPs who are running scared of the electorate.

[towny44]

I think Ken Clarke has always looked scruffy. But talking sense - that's a new one.

I always thought Ken Clarke talked sense, he certainly left the exchequor in far better shape than every other losing Chancellor, and made life very easy for Gordon Brown.

[oldbluefox]

Ken Clarke, if I remember correctly was a disaster in health, policing and education and was quickly moved on, a Liz Truss of his day until he found his niche in the treasury.

[Stephen]

I hear there’s been a couple of snow flurries causing schools to close. What a bunch of wussy’s.

Try wrapping up and walking to school, and if you fall over pick yourself up and get on with it like I did when I was a nipper.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvgv22gl3dpt

[towny44]

I hear there’s been a couple of snow flurries causing schools to close. What a bunch of wussy’s.

Try wrapping up and walking to school, and if you fall over pick yourself up and get on with it like I did when I was a nipper.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvgv22gl3dpt

Buy you, like us, were probably more used to the bad weather. No central heating and poorly insulated homes, so we could shrug off the cold more easily than today's schoolchildren. I used to have to break the ice on the outside toilet before I could use it.

[Stephen]

You had an outside toilet. Posh

[towny44]

Just came across a Morning Star article about the probability of many more pensioners having to pay tax. One of their solutions is to change the triple lock so that presumably increases in pension are reduced.
So this is the way the Daily Worker wants to avoid the backlash that pensioners paying tax would create.
Clearly the author must be from the the Diane Abbot school of mathematics.

[david63]

I never thought I would be saying this but I am tending to agree with Dominic Cummings that he was right with some of his comments about the Covid report yesterday when he said that it was "rewriting history" - although some of his other comments show that he still has an axe to grind.

I cannot believe (well I can) that there has been something in the region of £200 million spent on this so far and all it has basically done is say what everyone already knew - yes there should be a co-ordinated approach from all of the devolved governments, but that was obvious at the time.

And the media don't help by "cherry picking" the sensational parts of the 800 page report, such as "23,000 deaths could have been avoided if lockdown came a week earlier" and then failing to add the caveat "but that it was unlikely to have affected the overall death toll", and I have only seen one mention in the media that praised the government over the rollout of the vaccine. And I thought that the disclosure of the "parties" was mostly after the event so how could that have had a significant impact on people's behaviour?

From what I have heard/read this second report appears to be totally biased against Boris and the government of the time.

[towny44]

After any event it will always be easy to highlight things that went wrong and could have been done better. But like all the reports before it, putting systems in place to prevent any future happenings, is not easy and very expensive, and rarely gets done.
As regards implementing lock down a week earlier, making that THE damning indictment is meaningless, not closing the airports earlier created far more problems,. But in hindsight it is very easy to make these pontifications, a bit like draining the swamp and ending up being chased by alligators.

[CaroleF]

I just wonder what the results of the Covid outbreak would have been and how the Government would have dealt with it had Labour been in power. I think it was something that no Government has had to deal with in the past, certainly not in modern times, that it is not surprising that with hindsight things could have been done differently. I'm sure if it had been Labour in power an enquiry after it was all over would have done the same and blamed the Labour Government. Rather than seeking to apportion blame it would be better to concentrate on what could be done in the future if another such pandemic occurs so the country is prepared.

[Ray B]

I can not remember any party crying for the government to shut down the country or screaming for some action to the pandemic fast approaching.
We could all see the Pandemic coming our way, well at least I could.We were off on a 4 week cruise three weeks before lock down, and weeks before we left when out shopping , we bought extra groceries to stock in the garage for when we returned, not know if there would be food in the shops.
So easy to find fault after the event, I don't think any party would have got it correct, but the decisions made at the beginning would not have been made lightly, shut the whole country down does not just roll off the tongue. I do feel sure in those early days, things were done with every intention for the best.
I have this uneasy feeling that some people who lost loved ones may be looking at a way to sue the government. Maybe I'm being a bit cynical.