FlyTheNest

Morning all.

Rotten boroughs...

Councillors spent public money on a hospitality box and hiring a plane as the authority headed towards financial crisis, an investigation has found. Payments were made by a company owned by Northamptonshire County Council whose directors were councillors. NEA Properties, which bought the box at Premiership rugby side Northampton Saints, was dissolved a month before the council banned spending.

More than £4,000 was used on a B17 vintage aircraft and first aiders for a memorial event at Grafton Underwood in May 2015. NEA Properties also spent £2,700 on a heritage dinner with string quartet. The report also revealed the company spent more than £250 on "cheese, biscuits, etc" for a stately home event.

The audit was also told £80,000 spent on Northampton Saints went on the redevelopment of a new stand at the Franklin's Gardens ground, but the club denied this was what was purchased. A club spokesman said it could "confirm the county council had a box as part of a marketing package which they purchased".

You have to wonder whether there is something sitting back in that 1980s anti labour council legislation that would allow the councilors to be personally surcharged..

Morning all.

All going well at HMP Birmingham I see...short thread arguing that it's not the private bit that's the problem here.

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

Sky, last night.

Another species who won't register on the Drake equation.

wikipedia:
The astronomer Carl Sagan speculated that all of the terms, except for the lifetime of a civilization, are relatively high and the determining factor in whether there are large or small numbers of civilizations in the universe is the civilization lifetime, or in other words, the ability of technological civilizations to avoid self-destruction. In Sagan's case, the Drake equation was a strong motivating factor for his interest in environmental issues and his efforts to warn against the dangers of nuclear warfare.

Only Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour can reimagine an EU that works for everyone Hilary Wainwright
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -democracy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
But is Corbyn still sitting on the fence, or did I miss something ?

RogerOThornhill wrote:Morning all.

All going well at HMP Birmingham I see...short thread arguing that it's not the private bit that's the problem here.

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I agree to a degree, but it misses the point that the government uses privatisation to place a buffer between itself and responsibility for the consequences of its decision to underfund. Privatisation is being used a lot by this government in this way to avoid accountability for its actions. But it's certainly true that there's a difference between using the private sector effectively backed up with strong regulation to achieve a public service outcome in the interests of citizens (think of Germany's much praised universal healthcare service, for instance) and what the Tories do, which is privatizing to pass money to the private sector at the expense of tax payers and service users. Few countries have sold off their entire water provision to the private sector and allowed investment vehicles to pay themselves huge profits from money borrowed against those assets, like the UK, though many have involved the private sector. There are many different ways to privatise and they're not all equal and effective regulation and oversight to protect the interests of the public is an important factor that can make the difference between the successful use of the private sector and the serial failure we regularly see here.

So yes, the main issue in this case is funding levels, not the use of the private sector, but because the private sector is being used to mask the funding cuts and dodge responsibility for the consequences of them, privatisation is definitely a big part of the problem. It undermines the basic accountability of government to effectively provide the services we are paying for through our taxes. So we need to hold the government to account for BOTH the level of funding of prisons AND for the failings of their chosen method of providing them.

Not easy to do, of course, with a government that refuses to take responsibility for anything.

frog222 wrote:Only Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour can reimagine an EU that works for everyone Hilary Wainwright
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -democracy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
But is Corbyn still sitting on the fence, or did I miss something ?

Labour's line on Brexit is shifting, slowly. And is largely left to Starmer anyway.

Willow 9.35 -- additional reasons for privatisations :
You also dispose of those pesky over-powerful public sector unions !
Any borrowing for construction/renovation is off the PSBR.
Pension liabilities = someone else's problem !
The quango or Agency supervising it provides juicy sinecures for one's mates.
I'm sure there must be more, but that's a starter

I am shocked, genuinely shocked, that a privately run prison has gone to rats***

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mini ... birmingham" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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



https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk ... 4yR31Mumjg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good-afternoon, everyone

Oh #### forgot the feeding of the fish,you would think they would have text me or something.

HindleA wrote:Oh #### forgot the feeding of the fish,you would think they would have text me or something.

Don't they do that by blowing bubbles?

My knowledge of fish is limited.They are next door,a bit of grumbling about not getting the staff these days but o.k as far as I can tell

On the basis of still moving.

HindleA wrote:My knowledge of fish is limited.They are next door,a bit of grumbling about not getting the staff these days but o.k as far as I can tell

I'd bet you're good at pointing at them though. You too could pretend to be PM...

HindleA wrote:Oh #### forgot the feeding of the fish,you would think they would have text me or something.

Memory of a goldfish. Still, I expect they take comfort from having been forgotten by a kindred spirit.

James Thornton, CEO of environmental law group ClientEarth, which commissioned the research, said: “Government policy is plainly at odds with public sentiment – and its own ambition to tackle climate change – as far as our energy sources are concerned.

“People want to know more and take ownership of how they get their energy – that’s clearly demonstrated by the broad support in the poll for household solar and community energy schemes.”

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/ ... poll-finds" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

yeah but fracking
think how hard it'll be for the few though
Keeping energy processing and distributing centralised creating worlds of subservient serfs is what a few really want

@HindleA
Have I met Clarence?

Not here,my now retired pharmacist lion is called Leroy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... CMP=twt_gu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Dawn Foster is generally good, and another female journalist who has to take a lot of flak on Twitter.

Watford named most expensive place in UK to have a funeral (Guardian)

Hence the oft-heard, "I wouldn't be seen dead in Watford."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... funeral-uk

1) Working at the jobcentre has to be a tense job – knowing that if you get fired, you still have to come in the next day. Adam Rowe

2) I had a job drilling holes for water – it was well boring. Leo Kearse

3) I took out a loan to pay for an exorcism. If I don’t pay it back, I’m going to get repossessed. Olaf Falafel

4) In my last relationship I hated being treated like a piece of meat. She was a vegan and refused to touch me. Daniel Audritt

5) What do colour-blind people do when they are told to eat their greens? Flo & Joan

6) I’ve got a new job collecting all the jumpers left in the park at the weekends, but it’s not easy. They keep moving the goalposts. Darren Walsh

7) Trump said he’d build a wall but he hasn’t even picked up a brick. He’s just another middle-aged man failing on a DIY project. Justin Moorhouse

8=) I lost a friend after we had an argument about the Tardis. I thought it was a little thing, but it seemed much bigger once we got into it. Adele Cliff

8=) Why are they calling it Brexit and not The Great British Break Off? Alex Edelman

10) I think love is like central heating. You turn it on before guests arrive and pretend it’s like this all the time. Laura Lexx
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/ ... rgh-fringe" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Brexit: EU migrants ‘to receive right to remain’ in UK in event of no deal
The idea of the Tories “taking the moral high ground” is laughable,
and also ... they couldn’t implement it anyway .
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 98746.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

@frog222

Thanks.

My favourite is the exorcism one. Closely followed by the central heating one.

AnatolyKasparov wrote:

frog222 wrote:Only Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour can reimagine an EU that works for everyone Hilary Wainwright
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -democracy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
But is Corbyn still sitting on the fence, or did I miss something ?

Labour's line on Brexit is shifting, slowly. And is largely left to Starmer anyway.

But Starmer is not the party leader ! On the most important business in the last seventy or so years.
Everyone knows that the LP is sitting on the fence, hoping that "events" happen to get them off it, which of course they just MIGHT do
For fun -- Labour 'finished' if it backs Brexit in a snap election, says Adonis
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ays-adonis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

PS I'm suspecting that my brother in law (at least) voted brexit, as my sister has never discussed it with me , and she used to be so chatty on skype ...
PPS Nearly 55% of voters in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight backed Brexit. The highest majority was 64% in Gosport, closely followed by Havant and the Isle of Wight on 62%.

PorFavor wrote:@frog222 Thanks.
My favourite is the exorcism one. Closely followed by the central heating one.

Mine too! I'd also rearrange many of the others , but nice to have some laughs tho

Pointing at fish. How hard can it be?

Psychiatrists have warned that many pro-EU supporters are acting in the same way as if they were suffering from chronic anxiety, and are becoming prone to anger and despair.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/news/health/brexit- ... -disorder/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Labour 'finished' if it backs Brexit in a snap election, says Adonis
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ays-adonis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

thoughts?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... cks-brexit" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
... there is a growing feeling at Westminster that the deep divisions over whether, and how, Britain should break from the EU, cannot be contained within the existing party system.

agree - alongside the need to introduce PR

tinyclanger2 wrote:

Labour 'finished' if it backs Brexit in a snap election, says Adonis
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ays-adonis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

thoughts?

Absolute and total voodoo push-polling, that's what

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/britains-popu ... 47790.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Britain overrun by yuppies

Willow904 wrote:

RogerOThornhill wrote:snippity snip lots of things about the prison service look up there ^

Another thing from back in Labour's early days in office, is allowing grade responsibilities to slip. I worked for the prison service in 1998/99, in a 300+ prisoner Cat B Local. There was a governer, two deputy governers and four junior governers and then a couple of Principle Offiers - so there was a clear upper hierarchy of senior people with specific responsibilities. Day to day, though, there were senior officers, officers and operational support.

Each section of the jail was run by a senior officer (reporting up to a PO, to a junior Gov, and so on) with a team of supporting officers and in some cases a further team of operational support.

So the Gate was run by a senior officer, with an officer always also in attendance, and the rest of the work there (opening the gate and checking people in and out, operating the radio) by operational support. Security had a PO, SO and a team of officers. There was an SO Residence always on duty in the main wing and then an SO for each floor of each wing with a team of officers in support...

Soon after I left, all of this shifted down. There was still one SO in charge of the cellblocks, but now each floor of each wing would have one officer in charge supported by Operational Support - and similar in all other departments.

Firstly this saved a lot of money - Operation Support was paid about £10-15k a year, about half junior officer's pay. More than that, OS were virtually hauled in off the street (I was an OS) - even the most junior officers went through a fairly lengthy recruitment, probation and training process.

So prisoners have been left in the charge of fewer, more junior and less trained people. And that's the 'official' civil service prison service, not the private sector.

(I would add that it was a good job and even as a very junior casual employee there was aspects of how you were treated that were exemplory - everyone spent their first week doing half a day in each department, learning what they did , how and why and how it fit in with everything else. I couldn't tell you what half of our Assistant Heads in school do now, but I still know what goes on in a decent jail in Reception and Allocation, how it's done, how it feeds into Residence, Education and Security and why things are done the way they are).

AnatolyKasparov wrote:

tinyclanger2 wrote:

Labour 'finished' if it backs Brexit in a snap election, says Adonis
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ays-adonis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

thoughts?

Absolute and total voodoo push-polling, that's what

Thought you might say something along those lines.

tinyclanger2 wrote:

AnatolyKasparov wrote:adonis adonis snippity snip

Behr's latest piece - appearing to claim Hunt as one of the moderates, is causing an interesting discussion of whether 'moderate' means anything other than 'somebody who agrees with me about whatever we're talking about at the moment'.

tinyclanger2 wrote:Psychiatrists have warned that many pro-EU supporters are acting in the same way as if they were suffering from chronic anxiety, and are becoming prone to anger and despair.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/news/health/brexit- ... -disorder/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Anyone not experiencing chronic anxiety is either wealthy, deluded or too young or too ill to understand

tinyclanger2 wrote:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... cks-brexit" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
... there is a growing feeling at Westminster that the deep divisions over whether, and how, Britain should break from the EU, cannot be contained within the existing party system.

agree - alongside the need to introduce PR

Hear, hear!

tinyclanger2 wrote:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... cks-brexit" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
... there is a growing feeling at Westminster that the deep divisions over whether, and how, Britain should break from the EU, cannot be contained within the existing party system.

agree - alongside the need to introduce PR

That is a pretty awful piece though, and unintentionally hilarious in some places. "Franks wants to be Macron"

tinyclanger2 wrote:

Labour 'finished' if it backs Brexit in a snap election, says Adonis
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ays-adonis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

thoughts?

'Project Fear'

Goodnight, everyone
love,
cJA

gilsey wrote:

tinyclanger2 wrote:

Labour 'finished' if it backs Brexit in a snap election, says Adonis
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ays-adonis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

thoughts?

'Project Fear'

All very hypothetical ! But who on earth could go canvassing on Starmer's SixPoints; which are widely regarded as unattainable ?

tinyclanger2 wrote:Pointing at fish. How hard can it be?

Have just pointed repeatedly in various poses,just give us the f''ing food fish faces response at every one.