Will the role be filled by Nigel Farage or Peter Hitchins ? :rolleyes:

Laurence Fox....?

(not an endorsement btw).

Scottish “independence” pretty much guaranteed.

“…. Mr Gove, who is Scottish, is widely expected to take a role leading on the Union …”

Just need to set the date.

Boris Johnson has been making the civil service actually draw up plans for a roundabout under the Isle of Man with 4 tunnels connecting Stranraer, Belfast, Liverpool and Heysham under the sea.

It is understood Boris insisted on research for this plan after officials informed him that his previous idea - a direct tunnel from Stranraer to Larne - would be impossible due to the almost 2million tonnes of army munitions dumped in Beauforts Dyke over the last 80 years.

One of the tunnels would need to be 3 times longer than the longest tunnel ever constructed.

Graphic of the proposed tunnels in link from Times feature

https://twitter.com/nicktolhurst/sta...587206/photo/1

What do you have against unfeasible schemes to siphon money to his mates?

He’s been coming up with them for years: Failed London Garden Bridge project cost £53m http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47228698

It's Trumpian misdirection. Funny it should come out when Hancock loses his case about not publishing procurement information on time. Or is there something else Boris wants to hide?

And the Thames Estuary island replacement for Heathrow.

To be fair it's actually no-more than a million-and-a-half tonnes at most.

And what's the worst that could happen? It's not like the last time the area was disturbed thousands of phosphorous bombs were washed ashore or anything.

Oh, wait.... :rolleyes:

People are arguing that the Isle of man would never let the govt build a tunnel etc because they are the property of the Crown and the Queen is 'Lord of man' and they have their own parliament.

Where that falls down is Westminster is 'supreme' and the British Govt is not shy about ignoring or breaking inconvenient treaties and laws.
If IOM wasn't a convenient local tax haven Tynwald would have gone years ago.

Isn't that like arguing that a move is illegal under the rules of Quiddich? I mean it might be technically correct, but the fact that flying broomsticks don't exist is a greater practical problem.

Ferrys work, keep things as they are with regards to the sea crossing.

And under the “Oh what a surprise” column this month we have:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...health-insurer

…. Merger with Centene Corp covers 500,000 patients fuelling calls for inquiry into ‘NHS privatisation by stealth……



“… One of the UK’s biggest GP practice operators has quietly passed into the hands of the US health insurance group Centene Corporation, prompting calls for an official investigation into what campaigners claim is “privatisation of the NHS by stealth”.
…”

This is exactly what the Tories wanted.

A privately owned GP practice has had a change of owners. This has nothing to to do with "privatisation".

Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it!

People would blow Universal Basic Income on 'lots of drugs', top Tory claims

Shaun Bailey, the Tory candidate for London mayor, was accused of 'contempt' for families with his remarks on a flat payment for all citizens
mirror.co.uk

I can only imagine Shaun Bailey was the answer to the question "How do we make Zac Goldsmith look good?"

Shaun Bailey should stop judging other people by himself.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-philip-rutnam

“6 figure” settlement for one of the victims of the Home Secretary, I am sure she still has the full confidence of the PM. I mean so your person who is in charge of the police and you know enforcement of the laws of the land has cost the tax payer hundreds of thousands of pounds because she is a bully and can’t manage her staff in an effective manner, why on earth should she be sacked?

Can Priti Patel personally afford that or are taxpayers picking up the bill??

If she isn't guilty of bullying, why are my taxes being forked out?

^ And why the **** should I, or any other tax payer, be footing the bill for Patel's poor and illegal behaviour anyway?

Vicarious liability seems to be applied very selectively in the UK...

Because, as Airfix maintains, you elected her.

From James O'Brien on twitter

Unfortunately the UK now has a hard right government who sees Civil Servants and Judges as obstacles to their aims. It's no secret it wants to dismantle the power of the courts and the top civil servants. Whilst these are a stabilising force in British society insofar their official positions remain unchanged long after the incumbent government has gone. Johnson is hungry for centralised control in that he baulked at the Chancellor of the Exchequer traditionally having independent aides from the Prime Minister, notwithstanding their constant opposing aims actually help to provide for moderation and neutrality. As an example, today Johnson is saying, '**** the EU agreement on Northern Ireland we are going to breach it for the next six months'. There was a time when your word was you bond. Not with this government! The findings of Select Committees and independent panels investigating breaches of ministerial codes can be binned by Mr. Johnson as a darned inconvenience for what does he care about protocols, conventions, manners, ethics or even democracy. '**** You!' is Johnson's leit motif.

The legal costs and payout are likely to be funded by Indemnity insurance, not the tax-payers. The sum is only six-figures because it represents Rutnam's lost earnings up to retirement, and then a final salary pension for life, calculated by actuarials as his expected life span. Then interest is added on. So, a six-figure sum is not that eye-brow raising.

I'd say Coldstream; they're thoroughly taken with it, to the point of frothing at the mouth fervour, if they get as far as Rolfe's abode.

Did not!

******* Tory voters can cough up for her, especially those eejits in Witham.

And don't try pinning Anne-Marie Sodding Trevelyan on me.

Meanwhile, it seems that NHS staff are being promised a bounteous 1% pay rise in 2022. I hope they're grateful!

ffs.

Woo-hoo! They can now afford one of Matthew Hancock's 'Care' badges.

As long as he can make cuts of about $17 billion from the spending plans he had prior to the first lockdown.

We are going to look back on austerity as a time when money fell from the heavens.

Higher than the current inflation, plus spinal pay rate increase of perhaps 2-3%.

You think they'd be reasonable and just settle for another round of applause...

And?

Projected inflation:
2022 1.5%
2023 1.8%
2024 1.9%

You will, of course, be aware of the numbers of NHS trusts which have completely manipultated the Agenda for Change agreement to make automatic progression up a scale pretty much a thing of the past? Annual increments in many places are no longer automatic, as per agreements, but have become dependent on things solely under the control of management.

Source of information: a payroll officer in one of the largest NHS payroll departments, paying numerous trusts across the country.

Boris Johnson’s makeover of Number 10 will reportedly cost up to £200,000.
Priti Patel’s legal settlement is being reported at £340,000.

Nurses are getting a pay rise of £3.50 a week.

Almost all NHS staff will have a pay increase of 2-3% above inflation (and will do most years) and a final salary pension scheme.

Those in the private sector are much more likely to be furloughed or lose their jobs.

^ You clearly know how much the NHS pension scheme has been ****** over in the last decade? And that for all the years I could find figures for (published accounts are great) more money was contributed to the scheme than was drawn in pensions: what happened to that? Presumably it went off to the Treasury's coffers, making our superann contributions essentially a stealth tax.

And your 2-3% figure has to assume automatic progression up a scale (the so-called annual increment), which has not existed in practice for a whole heap of people (figures hard to come by as it is the sort of thing trusts are not required to collate and publish, nor even submit to the DoH).

And comparisons with the privates sector fall into false equivalence and the like, as there is not a private sector equivalent (thinks: why did Philly Windsor have to be shifted from that lovely private hospital to Bart's?).

Strange then that the Chancellor didn’t mention that…. Perhaps you should let him know he got his sums wrong?

:confused:

That would make the pay increase 3-4% for a ~1% current rate of inflation, when the increase is clearly 1%. Please explain.

https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-c...-in-real-terms

Aber is working on the old, long gone, idea that all NHS staff have an automatic move up their pay band, the old annual increment. This has not been a given for all staff some time and the systems in place around this are routinely manipulated by management or made the subject of "local deals", which were never intended to be part of national NHS pay arrangements, but have been allowed to sneak in by the DoH, especially since 2010, and frequently are put in place without full discussion with staff (this certainly happened in 2 major acute trusts round here - source: one of the peoole who paid the staff of those trusts while working for one of them, who just happens to be through in the next room).