Stop voting for fucking Tories

[sockwithaticket]

Yet again, this Tory government knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

£250m across several years (report seems to indicate at least 5) is spit in the ocean as regards the social care budget and I would guarantee that allowing these overpayments would deliver far more value to the public purse than these carers working enough to not be eligible and having to shunt some of their care responsibilities onto the state or areas paid by the state.

[fishfoodie]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-69031180

Unpaid carers must repay more than £250 million after many were unknowingly overpaid their allowance, new figures show.
The government is seeking to recover money from more than 134,000 carers.

So instead of scrapping to just over the £151 a week threshold by taking a part time job at a supermarket they should have cosied up with a Tory MP and snaffled the a cheeky £250m with a dodgy PPE company.

It's a lot easier to pursue thousands of relatively poor people for a small amount of money each, than it is to go toe to toe with a handful of wealthy people who've grifted billions !

These carers won't have the where with all to defend themselves in Court, while the grifters will all fight to the last penny of their ill gotten gains.

[dpedin]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-69031180

Unpaid carers must repay more than £250 million after many were unknowingly overpaid their allowance, new figures show.
The government is seeking to recover money from more than 134,000 carers.

So instead of scrapping to just over the £151 a week threshold by taking a part time job at a supermarket they should have cosied up with a Tory MP and snaffled the a cheeky £250m with a dodgy PPE company.

It's a lot easier to pursue thousands of relatively poor people for a small amount of money each, than it is to go toe to toe with a handful of wealthy people who've grifted billions !

These carers won't have the where with all to defend themselves in Court, while the grifters will all fight to the last penny of their ill gotten gains.

Boris's mate Mr 'JCB' Bamford and family is reportedly due the HMRC £500m but which would pay for the £250 twice over, probably more, cost a lot less to recover and wouldn't bring harm and misery to a very vulnerable group of people but he is Boris's mate and a big Tory donor!

[SaintK]

This is working out as well as expected according to the NAO.

The government expects to have spent at least £4.7bn on introducing post-Brexit border controls, which have been repeatedly hit by delays, the public spending watchdog has warned.
Plans to bring in border checks on goods coming from the EU faced “significant issues” including critical shortages of inspectors before their introduction last month, the National Audit Office said in a report.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/a ... atchdog

[Tichtheid]

I don't know if it was common practice, but elsewhere the Torygraph was referred to as The Ukipper, or just "The 'kipper" during the run up to and during the Brexit calamity.

Now the 'kipper has begun running articles advising rich people on how to gain EU passports by investing in Europe, in this case Portugal. https://archive.ph/4ZkX2

At the bottom of the article there is a link with the title, "Quitting High Tax Britain? Here's where to move to get most for your money"
That's the high taxes put in place by the party they have supported in government for 14 years, whilst public services have been decimated.

This might be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

I never though it would be worse than Thatcher, how naive I was

[Biffer]

I don't know if it was common practice, but elsewhere the Torygraph was referred to as The Ukipper, or just "The 'kipper" during the run up to and during the Brexit calamity.

Now the 'kipper has begun running articles advising rich people on how to gain EU passports by investing in Europe, in this case Portugal. https://archive.ph/4ZkX2

At the bottom of the article there is a link with the title, "Quitting High Tax Britain? Here's where to move to get most for your money"
That's the high taxes put in place by the party they have supported in government for 14 years, whilst public services have been decimated.

This might be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

I never though it would be worse than Thatcher, how naive I was

That's Portugal, with higher tax rates than the UK. These people are fucking idiots.

[C69]

£10bn reportedly earmarked for he blood scandal victims.
The victims and relatives really want accountability and named individuals to face prosecution.
Ken Clarke in the firing line ATM and rightly so for his ridiculous fallacious comments.

[Biffer]

£10bn reportedly earmarked for he blood scandal victims.
The victims and relatives really want accountability and named individuals to face prosecution.
Ken Clarke in the firing line ATM and rightly so for his ridiculous fallacious comments.

Difficult to think what they might be charged with at this distance in time.

[C69]

£10bn reportedly earmarked for he blood scandal victims.
The victims and relatives really want accountability and named individuals to face prosecution.
Ken Clarke in the firing line ATM and rightly so for his ridiculous fallacious comments.

Difficult to think what they might be charged with at this distance in time.

I expect nothing to be done, whilst I applaud Andy Burnham for his comments on justice need to be done as seen to be done.
It is a bit rich given his antipathy and obfuscation regarding the Mid Staffs scandal.

[Dinsdale Piranha]

I don't know if it was common practice, but elsewhere the Torygraph was referred to as The Ukipper, or just "The 'kipper" during the run up to and during the Brexit calamity.

Now the 'kipper has begun running articles advising rich people on how to gain EU passports by investing in Europe, in this case Portugal. https://archive.ph/4ZkX2

At the bottom of the article there is a link with the title, "Quitting High Tax Britain? Here's where to move to get most for your money"
That's the high taxes put in place by the party they have supported in government for 14 years, whilst public services have been decimated.

This might be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

I never though it would be worse than Thatcher, how naive I was

That's Portugal, with higher tax rates than the UK. These people are fucking idiots.

From the article it looks like they have some special tax rates for pension and overseas income.

I'd love to get an EU passport but I can't do it on family background reasons. Buying one is the only option. I was in Malta recently and they have a similar scheme to Portugal which has also been revised to exclude property purchases as the investment. If you're dropping half a million on an investment, it would be nice to know there's a return coming at the end.

[Tichtheid]

If only there had been a way to enable everyone in the UK to have the benefits of an EU passport, not just those that can afford to sink half a million quid into an investment.

I'm sure we'll get back there eventually, but what an expensive, destructive fuckup this is.

[fishfoodie]

£10bn reportedly earmarked for he blood scandal victims.
The victims and relatives really want accountability and named individuals to face prosecution.
Ken Clarke in the firing line ATM and rightly so for his ridiculous fallacious comments.

Difficult to think what they might be charged with at this distance in time.

I'm amazed it took this long for it to get this far !

I mean Ireland is hardly the model for doing this kind of thing, but even we completed the inquiry into contaminated blood products in the mid-90s, when at least some of the victims were still alive.

[Lobby]

Its no surprise to see that the High Court has found that Cruella Braverman has been acting illegally again.

"The former home secretary Suella Braverman acted unlawfully in making it easier for the police to criminalise peaceful protests, the high court has ruled.

She was found to have both acted outside her powers and to have failed to consult properly over regulations that would be likely to increase prosecutions of protesters by a third."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/art ... ourt-rules

It worth remembering as well that Parliament rejected these regulations when asked to vote on them, but in one her last acts as Home Secretary Cruella ignored Parliament and used so-called Henry VIII powers to lower the threshold for the police to impose restrictions on protests anyway.

[SaintK]

£10bn reportedly earmarked for he blood scandal victims.
The victims and relatives really want accountability and named individuals to face prosecution.
Ken Clarke in the firing line ATM and rightly so for his ridiculous fallacious comments.

Clarke the only Health Secretary to be named in the enquiry report. For his comtemtible and utterly tin eared, tone deaf performance as a witness 3 years he deserves as much shit as can be possibly thrown his way.
Hasn't even bothered with an apology.

[SaintK]

Angela van den Bogerd up at the Post Office inquiry this morning. Very clearly perjured herself previously

Get the popcorn in.
Paula Vennells up at the Horizon scandal enquiry tomorrow. She's already been proven a liar but she's going to be shown lots more incriminating evidence against her

Paula Vennells: ‘Smoking gun’ email shows she knew of Horizon concerns in 2013
Despite reading evidence of possible wrongful convictions years before, the Post Office boss continued to deny its IT system was faulty until 2019

[Insane_Homer]

IMG_20240521_174557_435.jpg (69.24 KiB) Viewed 1483 times

[yermum]

My uncle died of AIDS in the 90s he was a victim of contaminated blood. He had no dependents and no one will be receiving compensation. I would like to see some convictions even with suspended sentences.

[dpedin]

My uncle died of AIDS in the 90s he was a victim of contaminated blood. He had no dependents and no one will be receiving compensation. I would like to see some convictions even with suspended sentences.

This stopped me in my tracks to be honest! If for nothing else than to honour this poor man's memory there should be criminal convictions!

[Biffer]

My uncle died of AIDS in the 90s he was a victim of contaminated blood. He had no dependents and no one will be receiving compensation. I would like to see some convictions even with suspended sentences.

That's absolutely awful. Can't really get my head round how terrible that must have been.

But again, what would they be prosecuted for? It has to be something that was on the books at the time (you can't introduce a law that makes something in the past illegal after the fact, that's a basic principle of a free society)

[yermum]

Thank you for your response. The whole situation has had a big impact on my mum as much of the trauma of his death is being revisited.

I was at university when he died and I remember going to visit him at the Middlesex hospital. It was such a depressing place as there were so many young people who should have been in the prime of life dying.

Ken was very unlucky because he just missed the introduction of the HAART protocol that has been so effective in helping stop progression from HIV to AIDS.

[Blackmac]

Angela van den Bogerd up at the Post Office inquiry this morning. Very clearly perjured herself previously

Get the popcorn in.
Paula Vennells up at the Horizon scandal enquiry tomorrow. She's already been proven a liar but she's going to be shown lots more incriminating evidence against her

Paula Vennells: ‘Smoking gun’ email shows she knew of Horizon concerns in 2013
Despite reading evidence of possible wrongful convictions years before, the Post Office boss continued to deny its IT system was faulty until 2019

I received a first hand account at the weekend of how the Crown Office in Scotland were made aware in 2014 that the Post Office convictions were seriously flawed and despite protestations from a number of staff, refused to revisit the prosecutions.

[yermum]

My uncle died of AIDS in the 90s he was a victim of contaminated blood. He had no dependents and no one will be receiving compensation. I would like to see some convictions even with suspended sentences.

That's absolutely awful. Can't really get my head round how terrible that must have been.

But again, what would they be prosecuted for? It has to be something that was on the books at the time (you can't introduce a law that makes something in the past illegal after the fact, that's a basic principle of a free society)

Lord Saville has suggested there could be grounds for criminal prosecution so I hope something will be done. Most likely nothing will happen though.

[Tichtheid]

There is talk of possible manslaughter charges and gross negligence among doctors, some of whom were seemingly conducting tests on patients without their knowledge or consent. There also seems to have been cover ups from government ministers and senior civil servants from the Dept of Health and the Treasury.

Whatever happens, yermum, I hope your family and others can gain some kind of conclusion to all of this.

[yermum]

There is talk of possible manslaughter charges and gross negligence among doctors, some of whom were seemingly conducting tests on patients without their knowledge or consent. There also seems to have been cover ups from government ministers and senior civil servants from the Dept of Health and the Treasury.

Whatever happens, yermum, I hope your family and others can gain some kind of conclusion to all of this.

Thank you. The main issue I have is how long the issue of poor quality blood products were known about but was still procured.

David Owen made recommendations that we should have developed a self sustaining supply when he was health minister. We were getting blood from America taken from homeless people on skid row.

All of his health ministry records were destroyed so we can’t know exactly what happened. To me this goes deep into state coverup and like other dark secrets it will be lost in the depths of time.

[SaintK]

There is talk of possible manslaughter charges and gross negligence among doctors, some of whom were seemingly conducting tests on patients without their knowledge or consent. There also seems to have been cover ups from government ministers and senior civil servants from the Dept of Health and the Treasury.

Whatever happens, yermum, I hope your family and others can gain some kind of conclusion to all of this.

Thank you. The main issue I have is how long the issue of poor quality blood products were known about but was still procured.

David Owen made recommendations that we should have developed a self sustaining supply when he was health minister. We were getting blood from America taken from homeless people on skid row.

All of his health ministry records were destroyed so we can’t know exactly what happened. To me this goes deep into state coverup and like other dark secrets it will be lost in the depths of time.

It absolutely stinks of one!
I sincerely hope you get some sort of closure.

[fishfoodie]

There is talk of possible manslaughter charges and gross negligence among doctors, some of whom were seemingly conducting tests on patients without their knowledge or consent. There also seems to have been cover ups from government ministers and senior civil servants from the Dept of Health and the Treasury.

Whatever happens, yermum, I hope your family and others can gain some kind of conclusion to all of this.

Thank you. The main issue I have is how long the issue of poor quality blood products were known about but was still procured.

David Owen made recommendations that we should have developed a self sustaining supply when he was health minister. We were getting blood from America taken from homeless people on skid row.

All of his health ministry records were destroyed so we can’t know exactly what happened. To me this goes deep into state coverup and like other dark secrets it will be lost in the depths of time.

Worse, I'm afraid. One of the regular suppliers of blood was prisoners, as the US pays for blood donations.

I'm sure if the UK Inquiry asked the Irish one for their records, they'd find that all the same suppliers were used, as we just coat-trailed in behind the NHS & assumed that the NHS's due-diligence was good enough, & we didn't need to do our own.

[C69]

Has anyone said how the money will be found for the £10bn?

[tabascoboy]

Has anyone said how the money will be found for the £10bn?

Another SNAFU that they will be all to happy to leave with a prospective Labour government...

[Biffer]

Talk of a general election announcement - Cameron cuts short his trip to Albania to attend a meeting in London, Grant Shapps delays an overseas trip for the same reason and Jeremy Cunt has cancelled a TV interview tonight. Might be looking at 4th or 11th July?

[Hal Jordan]

Has anyone said how the money will be found for the £10bn?

My generation's taxes, paying for Boomer fuck ups as usual.

And no doubt it will be attributed to "investing another £10bn in the NHS!"

[Hal Jordan]

Talk of a general election announcement - Cameron cuts short his trip to Albania to attend a meeting in London, Grant Shapps delays an overseas trip for the same reason and Jeremy Cunt has cancelled a TV interview tonight. Might be looking at 4th or 11th July?

Cabinet reshuffle, probably.

[tabascoboy]

Talk of a general election announcement - Cameron cuts short his trip to Albania to attend a meeting in London, Grant Shapps delays an overseas trip for the same reason and Jeremy Cunt has cancelled a TV interview tonight. Might be looking at 4th or 11th July?

Won't believe anything until we hear it officially, we been down this road a couple of times already thanks to the Twittersphere rumour mill

[tabascoboy]

Talk of a general election announcement - Cameron cuts short his trip to Albania to attend a meeting in London, Grant Shapps delays an overseas trip for the same reason and Jeremy Cunt has cancelled a TV interview tonight. Might be looking at 4th or 11th July?

Cabinet reshuffle, probably.

Last chance to ditch some of the more obviously inept appointments, and try to make it more GE friendly?

[SaintK]

Talk of a general election announcement - Cameron cuts short his trip to Albania to attend a meeting in London, Grant Shapps delays an overseas trip for the same reason and Jeremy Cunt has cancelled a TV interview tonight. Might be looking at 4th or 11th July?

Cabinet reshuffle, probably.

Last chance to ditch some of the more obviously inept appointments, and try to make it more GE friendly?

That would only leave a handful in Cabinet. It would also have to include the Head Prefect

[tabascoboy]

Cabinet reshuffle, probably.

Last chance to ditch some of the more obviously inept appointments, and try to make it more GE friendly?

That would only leave a handful in Cabinet. It would also have to include the Head Prefect

Was thinking of it from their perspective rather than ours

[Biffer]

Talk of a general election announcement - Cameron cuts short his trip to Albania to attend a meeting in London, Grant Shapps delays an overseas trip for the same reason and Jeremy Cunt has cancelled a TV interview tonight. Might be looking at 4th or 11th July?

Cabinet reshuffle, probably.

Last chance to ditch some of the more obviously inept appointments, and try to make it more GE friendly?

That would suggest there are ept appointments waiting in the wings.

The only line would be to go utter loon and bring back fuckwits like Patel.

[Biffer]

From Chris Mason, BBC Political editor

I am told senior civil servants who spend their days in regular conversation with Downing Street and the heart of government are encountering a wall of silence from those they normally deal with.

A senior Conservative figure who is standing down at the election just hugged one of my colleagues goodbye.

In other words, all of the building blocks of choreography and behaviour you would expect on the day a general election is called are taking shape.

It is worth saying that each and every one of them has an individually plausible alternative explanation.

But the sum total of all of them becomes very difficult to explain away if an election isn’t either imminent or the prime minister is about to say something about when it will happen.

The thing with Westminster is to check out a rumour you have to spread it, so a rumour becomes endemic in the tilt of a ear, the blink of an eye.

But they can be squashed in an instant.

And they are not being.

and of course, the Scottish Tories are a fucking irrelevance as ever - from David Wallace Lockhart, BBC Scotland Politics correspondent

Senior Scottish Conservatives seem in the dark about a potential election, but are stressing they’re ready to go the minute it’s called.

I’ve been told they’d been working on the assumption that a May general election date was a possibility, so preparations have already been in place.

The Conservatives only have a handful of Scottish MPs, but some polls have looked a bit more encouraging for them holding their seats compared to colleagues elsewhere in the UK.

[Hal Jordan]

Cabinet Ministers who leave office and don't take up a new Cabinet post within 3 weeks are entitled to severance pay of one quarter of the annual ministerial pay.

Gravy train all the way.

[Waudbee]

Looks like Sunak will call the election later today for 4 July.

[David in Gwent]

I see that a General Election could be called tonight.