Friday 21st April 2017

[PorFavor]

Where's tinyclanger2? There was a brief appearance, earlier today, in the cast list, but nothing more. Slacker.

[AnatolyKasparov]

He can be very good tbf. Something of a rarity - a former member of the SPADocracy who has interesting things to say.

[HindleA]

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ort-review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



An independent report by Baroness Grey-Thompson into the Duty of Care sport has towards its participants.

[HindleA]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... are_btn_tw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


'Hopeless': how senior doctor described NHS maternity unit's testing regime
Emails to GP reveal concerns about ‘fax and forget’ culture at Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust, where baby deaths are under investigation

[HindleA]

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ae-d ... re-funding" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



A&E departments to get more funding

[HindleA]

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultat ... ation-2017" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Open consultation
Low Pay Commission consultation 2017

[HindleA]

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... -ombudsman" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Policy paper
Memorandum of understanding between the Regulator of Social Housing and the Housing Ombudsman

[HindleA]

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ls#history" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Guidance
Free movement rights: direct family members of EEA nationals

(Updated)

[RogerOThornhill]

Hammond criticises tax pledge in Tory manifesto hint

https://www.ft.com/content/27985972-26a ... 8b4cb30025

Philip Hammond has criticised the Conservative’s 2015 election pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance contributions or VAT rates, in a sign that he wants to gain more leeway to reform the tax system and inject funds into Britain’s stretched public services.

Oh dear, that won't go down well in certain circles...

[HindleA]

http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/20 ... _2104.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



SUMMARY
NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE

The appeals consider the proper approach to the question whether employees who sleep-in in order to carry out duties if required engage in “time work” for the full duration of the night shift or whether they are only entitled to the national minimum wage when they are awake and carrying out relevant duties.

A multifactorial evaluation is required. No single factor is determinative and the relevance and weight of particular factors will vary with and depend on the context and circumstances of the particular case."

[TechnicalEphemera]

Well she claims to be a Christian and that is enough for the likes of Fraser (though didn't Mr Tony, who he so admires, do the same?)

Looks like he wouldn't even vote for Blair these days....

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Nice to know what his deal-breakers actually are.

I find there is no argument, no matter how straight forward that Giles Fraser can't pick the wrong side.

A complete and utter cockwomble. Kind of Michael Gove's religious clone.

[TechnicalEphemera]

http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/20 ... _2104.html



SUMMARY
NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE

The appeals consider the proper approach to the question whether employees who sleep-in in order to carry out duties if required engage in “time work” for the full duration of the night shift or whether they are only entitled to the national minimum wage when they are awake and carrying out relevant duties.

A multifactorial evaluation is required. No single factor is determinative and the relevance and weight of particular factors will vary with and depend on the context and circumstances of the particular case."


Massive in terms of social care implications.

That rather made my head hurt. Is my reading that if you are paid as a carer and required to be at hand largely immediately equivalent to saying NMW applies, regardless as to whether you are awake or not?

[citizenJA]

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ls#history
Guidance
Free movement rights: direct family members of EEA nationals
(Updated)

I've looked at it briefly - it's a big change

[citizenJA]

Tory government snap election, not allowing some UK citizens abroad a vote on it, changes to EU nationals freedom of movement...this is bad news

[TechnicalEphemera]

Tory government snap election, not allowing some UK citizens abroad a vote on it, changes to EU nationals freedom of movement...this is bad news

I thought this was just walking away from Cameron's rather dodgy let expats vote forever approach. At the time it was seen as a way of upping the Tory vote count.

[citizenJA]

http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/20 ... _2104.html
SUMMARY
NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE

The appeals consider the proper approach to the question whether employees who sleep-in in order to carry out duties if required engage in “time work” for the full duration of the night shift or whether they are only entitled to the national minimum wage when they are awake and carrying out relevant duties.

A multifactorial evaluation is required. No single factor is determinative and the relevance and weight of particular factors will vary with and depend on the context and circumstances of the particular case."

If the work demands you've got to be there ready to work if/when you're woken up, people need to be paid for that time.

[citizenJA]

Tory government snap election, not allowing some UK citizens abroad a vote on it, changes to EU nationals freedom of movement...this is bad news

I thought this was just walking away from Cameron's rather dodgy let expats vote forever approach. At the time it was seen as a way of upping the Tory vote count.

What do you think of it at this time? How do you reckon UK people living abroad, within the EU, for example, are feeling towards Tory government right now? Didn't get to vote on the referendum and now shut out of the GE.

[HindleA]

Equal head hurt.I think it depends on a number of factors.Better half employed staff for sleep overs at an agreed sleep over rate (of which there were two levels ascribed and given budget to cover for,the possibility of hypoglycaemia made it higher rate.I think it was about £45,so over normal sleeping hours less than MW,however,it was part of a 24 hour shift and the pay rate otherwise was well above MW and thus overall that empoymentbeasilly complying,it hadto of course,an advantage she had,given flexibility and my better half could be left for a bit(on presumption everything was o.k)she gave breaks,and adjust hours accordingly.I think sometimes what happens and contention for obvious reasons,"set hours" employment for overnight care is ascribed sleep over rather than in reality what it should be waking nights.


Edited to replace working for waking and a sigh of relief for managing.

[SpinningHugo]

Ooooh. Len got lucky there.

Perhaps the wind has changed.

[seeingclearly]

http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/20 ... _2104.html



SUMMARY
NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE

The appeals consider the proper approach to the question whether employees who sleep-in in order to carry out duties if required engage in “time work” for the full duration of the night shift or whether they are only entitled to the national minimum wage when they are awake and carrying out relevant duties.

A multifactorial evaluation is required. No single factor is determinative and the relevance and weight of particular factors will vary with and depend on the context and circumstances of the particular case."


Massive in terms of social care implications.

That rather made my head hurt. Is my reading that if you are paid as a carer and required to be at hand largely immediately equivalent to saying NMW applies, regardless as to whether you are awake or not?

Me too, TE, surely the criteria of the work itself is not whether you are awake or not, but that you are present and some system is in place to alert you to need. Not just careworkers in homes and communities but also in hospitals, not all care workers either, but doctors, long distance drivers and others whose presence needed, but sleep may be a neccessity due to sensible regulation of amount of hours already worked, sleeping on the job sometimes being the best, not worst thing to do.

And what would induce the careworker away from their own home and bed if not for the fact they are being paid for their presence. Totally bonkers proposition.

[PorFavor]

Never end a sentence with a proposition. . .

[HindleA]

I used to for years,quite normal to do 24 hour shifts but I was salaried.You see the effects on a daily basis.

[TechnicalEphemera]

Ooooh. Len got lucky there.

Perhaps the wind has changed.

Don't know what to make of that, the trot got loads of votes, Len scraped home despite a tiny turnout. Even Unite activists have had enough of him.

I will be interested to see what he does next, I have some suspicions it will be not entirely as expected.

[TechnicalEphemera]

Never end a sentence with a proposition. . .

Oh I don't know, some of my most enjoyable experiences started that way.

[TechnicalEphemera]

Tory government snap election, not allowing some UK citizens abroad a vote on it, changes to EU nationals freedom of movement...this is bad news

I thought this was just walking away from Cameron's rather dodgy let expats vote forever approach. At the time it was seen as a way of upping the Tory vote count.

What do you think of it at this time? How do you reckon UK people living abroad, within the EU, for example, are feeling towards Tory government right now? Didn't get to vote on the referendum and now shut out of the GE.

Well the 15 year expats never had a vote, I think they by their nature are relatively unlikely to be a hot bed of socialism. That said, who knows, maybe they all moved to Cuba.

[citizenJA]

...the Tribunal observed that the fact that the Claimant may have had little or nothing to do during sleep-in shifts and that she was entitled to sleep did not detract from the fact that she was required to be there and to deal with such situations as might require her attention or intervention.

Further, it was not sufficient that the Claimant was on-call to attend if required, she had to be there both for the proper performance of her duties and to enable the Respondent to comply with the legal obligation placed upon it, to provide an appropriate level of care for the service users.

The Claimant had responsibilities to undertake even though the frequency of actual activity might have been low and even though she was entitled to sleep. This situation was far removed in the Tribunal's view from a situation of a person being on call where that individual could do whatever he or she wished provided that they remained capable of being contacted and capable of responding to contact. The Claimant was required to be present and would have been disciplined if she left the house, putting Mencap in breach of its legal obligations too.

http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/20 ... _2104.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[citizenJA]

Well the 15 year expats never had a vote, I think they by their nature are relatively unlikely to be a hot bed of socialism. That said, who knows, maybe they all moved to Cuba.

Government delivers on pledge to give back British expats the right to vote
The Minister for the Constitution, Chris Skidmore, announced the policy statement which
sets out how the government will remove the current 15-year time limit on British citizens
who live abroad registering as overseas electors.
7 October 2016

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... s-overseas" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/gove ... ht-to-vote" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Apparently, Tory government didn't follow through

[HindleA]

France Elects: New Odoxa poll carried out today
Macron – 24.5%
Le Pen – 23%
Fillon - 19%
Melenchon – 19%

[AnatolyKasparov]

Ooooh. Len got lucky there.

Perhaps the wind has changed.

Don't know what to make of that, the trot got loads of votes, Len scraped home despite a tiny turnout. Even Unite activists have had enough of him.

I will be interested to see what he does next, I have some suspicions it will be not entirely as expected.

Yes, mostly "NOTA" votes in effect. Though an AV voting system would still likely have given LM a fairly comfortable margin.

Coyne was a bad candidate, and that he lost despite public backing (and article space) from the Sun and other papers is pretty damning.

I think, re your last comment, that McCluskey will be ready to tell Corbyn the game's up when the time is right (quite possibly days after June 8)

Though this depends on the right not trying to pull the sort of crude stitch-up that the likes of the Staggers are currently getting excited about.

Which likely means Watson going on the same day as Jez - no funny business.

[HindleA]

Bereft of vote,Unison NEC,locals.Doing a self portrait in "x's"until the next one.

[seeingclearly]

Tory government snap election, not allowing some UK citizens abroad a vote on it, changes to EU nationals freedom of movement...this is bad news

I thought this was just walking away from Cameron's rather dodgy let expats vote forever approach. At the time it was seen as a way of upping the Tory vote count.

What do you think of it at this time? How do you reckon UK people living abroad, within the EU, for example, are feeling towards Tory government right now? Didn't get to vote on the referendum and now shut out of the GE.

Weren't some people from Gibraltar entitled to vote? If so, some of them might be feeling pretty miffed. And those elsewhere whose only option is to repatriate here post Brexit, so they do have a vested interest in current politics here.

I spent fifteen years away from England when a young adult, decision not mine, but have always been british and have well over fifty years of living here. Not that different to people who have retired to europe, or should that greater amount of years be discounted, as if living abroad is some kind of traitorous act, or failure to contribute?

Or if you live and work abroad, but England is home, and where you would be if work hadn't taken you elsewhere. (My fifteen years away still disadvantages decades on.)

A kind of two tier citizenship, the kind we are a bit uncomfortable about when we look at colonial history? And I do understand the argument for not honouring historical britishness for people who never lived here, even though there may be some inherited indebtedness, it is very complex anyway, but this is something we should at least think about, that being absent from home does not neccessarily mean you have left for good. It also plays into one of Mays pet hobby horses, immigration, her narrow interpretation of who should be let in or thrown out, over and above the interpretation of law, see the many cases of intermarriage - the term itself more than a little abhorrent - which are in fact being used to deprive people of the right to family life, for the crime of having lived and married elsewhere. And with it will eventually be a loss of the right to be heard on ones own country in spite of being deprived through ones choice of partner of the right to live here, because the criteria remove that as a reasonable option.

(Quite a few former BE countries now offer good incentives for people to repatriate, and certainly do not punish those who retained citizenship, the ones that emigrated and changed nationality are offered the chance to become re- nationalised. And quite a lot of people are jumping at the chance, this isn't always the congenial place we wish it to be.)

My point being those who are citizens, regardless of voting intentions, who have also lived and worked here, but now don't, should not be disenfranchised. Otherwise they may as well be stateless. Once we are out of the EU.

[HindleA]

X

[TechnicalEphemera]

Ooooh. Len got lucky there.

Perhaps the wind has changed.

Don't know what to make of that, the trot got loads of votes, Len scraped home despite a tiny turnout. Even Unite activists have had enough of him.

I will be interested to see what he does next, I have some suspicions it will be not entirely as expected.

Yes, mostly "NOTA" votes in effect. Though an AV voting system would still likely have given LM a fairly comfortable margin.

Coyne was a bad candidate, and that he lost despite public backing (and article space) from the Sun and other papers is pretty damning.

I think, re your last comment, that McCluskey will be ready to tell Corbyn the game's up when the time is right (quite possibly days after June 8)

Though this depends on the right not trying to pull the sort of crude stitch-up that the likes of the Staggers are currently getting excited about.

Which likely means Watson going on the same day as Jez - no funny business.

Part of me always wondered if Len was so angry about being challenged from the right because he hadn't factored it in. The plan being keep the left sweet, get elected and then see which way the wind was blowing.

I am not sure he is opposed to crude stitch ups, he just likes to be consulted. I suspect Watson would cut a deal.

But hey, all that is weeks away if ever, maybe Len will angle for a peerage and the post of foreign secretary in the oft famed Corbyn government.

[AnatolyKasparov]

France Elects: New Odoxa poll carried out today
Macron – 24.5%
Le Pen – 23%
Fillon - 19%
Melenchon – 19%

The dread prospect of a MLP-Fillon run-off seems to be receding. But no complacency!

[HindleA]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... r-election" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Government tries to shelve pollution action plan until after election
Ministers submit court application to delay tackling illegal levels of toxic fumes, deemed by MPs to be a public health emergency

[adam]

'Hopeless': how senior doctor described NHS maternity unit's testing regime
Emails to GP reveal concerns about ‘fax and forget’ culture at Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust, where baby deaths are under investigation

The trust ran two maternity and children's units across the two sites, one in Shrewsbury (bang in the middle of the catchment) and one in Telford (to the far west of the catchment). After one of those consultation things, during which a string of junior doctors spoke up saying 'if you do this children and babies will die', they moved them all to Telford, leaving just paediatric outpatients and a GP maternity unit at Shrewsbury. They now, about six years later, appear to be planning to move them all back as part of the snafu of probably closing one of the two A&E units.

Edited to add - this is on top of all of the stuff that's been coming out in the last few days - haven't seen it mentioned anywhere as part of that.

[TechnicalEphemera]

France Elects: New Odoxa poll carried out today
Macron – 24.5%
Le Pen – 23%
Fillon - 19%
Melenchon – 19%

The dread prospect of a MLP-Fillon run-off seems to be receding. But no complacency!

MLP Melenchon would be worse. Dumb and Dumber (with a racism element to add spite). I don't rule it out though, I suspect French pollsters are as iffy as ours.

It is a bonkers system, but these are strange times - the age of unreason.

[TechnicalEphemera]

WTF.

You can't make this shit up (unless you are a Telegraph journalist possibly).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04 ... ler-essex/

[HindleA]

April 1st is being rapidly made redundant.

[TechnicalEphemera]

April 1st is being rapidly made redundant.

But we now have a productive use for our hunter/killer subs. Maybe we could crowdfund a mission.

[HindleA]

Fill The Gaps Competition


1.Night,N----
2.G---n----,e-er-o--,
-o-e,
-J-.

[citizenJA]

Goodnight, everyone.
love,
cJA

[RogerOThornhill]

WTF.

You can't make this shit up (unless you are a Telegraph journalist possibly).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04 ... ler-essex/

I seem to recall that when Farage took to the air in 2010 it didn't end well...now what could possibly go wrong when they're at sea?

[RogerOThornhill]

From tomorrow's times.

Brexit is going so well pt XXXVIII

[TechnicalEphemera]

From tomorrow's times.

Brexit is going so well pt XXXVIII

Well there is a shock, 500 million or 50 million hmmmm, choices choices.