FlyTheNest

Morning all.

The sky's leaking here, I miss that heat wave !

From ADAM last night --

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).
----------------------------------------------------

That reads like a report from another world, but it's barely twenty years !
ALSO, he was lucky, some prisons were far far worse well before being privately managed --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_Prison_Birmingham" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good-morning, everyone

Shhhh One good one I heard from Sarah Wollaston (reported on R4)
“Hard Brexit is like going in for an op not knowing if it’s for a toe or the whole leg.”
So many people enthusiastic for the Unknowable !

Pence always looks the same in the photos, a two-dimensional cardboard cutout lapdog adoring his master —

“” “All the things evangelicals had said for generations that made a candidate anathema were suddenly just fine … Being a goddamned degenerate pussy-grabber with a lifetime of adultery, venality, and dishonesty is not, to my knowledge, one of the core tenets of the Christian faith … Trump has opened entirely new theological avenues … There is literally not one aspect of Trump’s behavior as a citizen, a husband, and as a man that shows the slightest scintilla of repentance for anything, ever.” “”

A couple of LOL’s in the article, from a longterm GOP tribalist .

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... epublicans" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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frog222 wrote:Shhhh One good one I heard from Sarah Wollaston (reported on R4)
“Hard Brexit is like going in for an op not knowing if it’s for a toe or the whole leg.”
So many people enthusiastic for the Unknowable !

(cJA emphasis)
like in war rally footage
before lots of people get dead

frog222 wrote:---
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... epublicans" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(cJA edit)

Under this president, the GOP has abandoned “any pretense” that it cares about the national debt. The Democrats could “move votes and donations” by advertising what they have really been for several decades already: the “real party of fiscal sanity, probity and responsibility”.

After all, Bill Clinton was the only modern president to end his second term with an actual federal budget surplus – something destroyed by George W Bush’s tax cuts and then made permanently unimaginable by Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and Donald Trump.

Not the first time I've noticed similarities between US and UK politics

Hmm, not sure about that "advice" personally.

AK 10.03-- remember , he's a classic conservative !

Basically posted it for the rant on the craziness and cowardice of the GOP .

Labour MP says second Brexit referendum may lead to social unrest
Barry Gardiner says politicians must honour the promise they made to voters in 2016

"" Labour is not calling for a second referendum and Jeremy Corbyn, who is less hostile towards Brexit than most of his MPs, has always strongly played down the prospect of the party backing one.

But the party has not formally ruled out voting for a second referendum, and at the Labour conference in the autumn many activists will be pushing for the idea to be embraced, buoyed by polling evidence showing that further vote is popular with Labour supporters.""
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ial-unrest" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

An excellent and so very painful Polly —

“” I was allowed to film a whole Panorama programme in the most disturbed and violent part of Holloway prison, known as the “muppet wing”, in the Tory 1980s, when authorities were still open about prison problems. No longer.

What are MPs doing, prattling away about ‘sovereignty’ when injustice is done daily by a legal system in meltdown?

In 2010 the shutters came down and it’s virtually impossible for journalists to visit prisons, except for a rare manicured walk-about with a minister. Why not? Because what the media would see would be too disgusting. Because desperate staff might say too much. Because the worst are too out of control. But where scrutiny by the press is denied, as it is now in benefit offices and anywhere else the effects of austerity are on display, this government bars access to public services as never before in my professional lifetime. “”

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

"The Office for National Statistics said public sector net borrowing, excluding the state-owned banks, went into surplus for July by £2bn, meaning the government received more in tax income than was spent on public services."

Richard Partington Guardian report on the public sector finances

this isn't 'good news'
not for anyone depending upon civilisation
we often rely upon work and investment without thinking about it

Well, a press that is worth something might try to do something about such scrutiny being "denied". I suppose that would be too much like actual work, though.

Arctic’s strongest sea ice breaks up for first time on record

Keld Qvistgaard, the ice service coordinator in Denmark, said this was not the first time a gap had appeared between the shore and the main ice pack but the one formed from 1 to 5 August was different in its extent. “This event is a pretty big one going all the way to west of Kap Morris Jesup. This is unusual,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... -on-record" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

People with power capable of action in the best interests of life and resources are doing what, please?

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Well, a press that is worth something might try to do something about such scrutiny being "denied". I suppose that would be too much like actual work, though.

Well , a good question AK, and I think that it has also applied to MP's ?
editPS -- But also quite widely known by the aware part of the general public too?

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Well, a press that is worth something might try to do something about such scrutiny being "denied". I suppose that would be too much like actual work, though.

Maybe some members of the press have been threatened; someone scary kidnapped their dog. I don't know. This affects everyone though, sooner or later, everyone feels the effects of bad leadership.

@frog222
With power comes responsibility, those with the greatest resources and time can do more, good or bad
I'll never let those in positions of power forget what they've done or didn't do

Wow, it's stopped raining, OUT !

frog222 wrote:Wow, it's stopped raining, OUT !

A contemporary reference to the England cricket team?

AnatolyKasparov wrote:

frog222 wrote:Wow, it's stopped raining, OUT !

A contemporary reference to the England cricket team?

Pas moi ! I only know the krikit is on when they steal the longwave from Radio4.

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

never feel safe': meet the people at the very sharpest end of the housing crisis - disabled millennials

Good evening, all.

Interesting thoughts on current polling by Phil Edwards ("Flandyke" twitter account) today.

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Good evening, all.

Interesting thoughts on current polling by Phil Edwards ("Flandyke" twitter account) today.

I liked this

Addendum: I think we on the left have got a bad habit of overestimating the strength and, especially, the coherence of the Right.

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good-night, everyone
love,
cJA

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Dr Phil Hammond
@drphilhammond
Honoured to announce that
@NHAparty
have endorsed me as their prospective Parliamentary candidate for North East Somerset (sitting MP
@Jacob_Rees_Mogg) As a believer in progressive alliances, I will stand aside if a stronger candidate declares #votedrphil
9:58 am · 21 Aug 2018 from Salford, England

Dr Phil Hammond standing against Rees-Mogg. He works at our local hospital. Really nice guy.

#Live from the vomit inducing 400m bin pushing competition!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... eportation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Court says seriously ill woman can work while fighting UK deportation

citizenJA wrote:

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Good evening, all.
Interesting thoughts on current polling by Phil Edwards ("Flandyke" twitter account) today.

I liked this

Addendum: I think we on the left have got a bad habit of overestimating the strength and, especially, the coherence of the Right.
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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

I would say that the ""status quo"" vote is the Remainers , surely ?
But then I realised that it means the Party in Office,but not necessarily in Power

‘Unt well-nailed !

The raw courage and X-ray vision of Jeremy Hunt allows us to see Donald Trump in a whole new light
"Hunt has been telling people for months that he believes he is ‘back in the game’ – and in this crazy, crazy political vista of ours, perhaps he is. Haven’t we needed someone to boldly speak unfashionable truths?"
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/je ... 01331.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

“” Still, the two were introduced in July during Trump’s visit to l’il ol’ us, as Hunt reminded Today’s Mishal Husain, and it made quite an impression. “My interpretation of President Trump having met him briefly …” he recalled, “is that this is someone who fundamentally does believe there should be a rules-based order internationally”. Trump, he added, is by no means the isolationist many expected.
I cannot put into words how reassuring this is. “”

Nor can I

In a highly competitive field I think the "not a cult" mockers (Blairite Division) are winning the acting the most like a cult Twitter competition.

Cohen's (Trump's lawyer) plea bargain...

On count seven, the illegal corporate contribution, he said that, in the summer of 2016 – in coordination with and “at the request of” a candidate for federal office, in order “to keep an individual with information that would be harmful to the candidate and the campaign from publicly disclosing this information,” he arranged a payment through a media company of which he was the chief executive.

“She received compensation of $150,000.” This was done “for the principle purpose of influencing the election”.

On count eight – the illegal excessive campaign contribution – he said that, in coordination with the candidate, he “arranged to make a payment to a second individual with information that would be harmful to the candidate and the campaign”. He said he used a company under his control and paid $130,000. These funds “were later repaid to me by the candidate”.

This was done “for the principle purpose of influencing the election”.

Asked if he knew these actions were illegal and wrong when he took them, Cohen said: “Yes your Honor.”

The only way is down.

A more full riposte to Cohen's article (language/disability)

https://makingrightsmakesense.wordpress ... ssion=true" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Britain’s post-War welfare state may have abandoned eugenics and embraced the idea that disabled people (especially disabled veterans) could play a productive role, while it may have closed down many institutions, adopted anti-discrimination law and directed resources at supporting people to live in the community, disability continues to be construed overwhelmingly as a ‘deficit’ and it is the extent of this deficit that determines eligibility for State support. Hence governments since 2010 have been able to make deep cuts while arguing that they were protecting ‘the most vulnerable’ – those deemed to have no productive potential – and disability advocates are forced into a game of having to plead their vulnerability and lack of productive potential (attributes which in history have underscored prejudice and discrimination and which as noted above been exploited to sterilise, institutionalise and to kill) in order to safeguard what meagre income and life and limb services remain available to them."

"Any participation may be used against you '