Don't forget the Whelk War effect; the Jersey "government" deliberately stirs up trouble by imposing limits on catches (in direct contravention of the the terms of the fisheries protocol of the EU-UK Brexit of 24DEC2020). Suddenly there's pushback, BoJo get's his frog bashing opportunity (with a couple of boats that never left harbour or even attempted to interfere with the fishing boats) and the dumber, pro-Brexit, Brits lap it up.

It's the entire UKGov in miniature; ideologically driven and just as doomed to cause Britain more problems.

Britons will have to show photo ID to vote in future general elections, ministers are poised to confirm this week, as a means of tackling fraud which critics claim could deter poorer and ethnic minority voters from taking part in democracy.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ns-social-care

Last election only 1 out of 47 million voters convicted of voting fraud.

3.5 million British voters don't have any form of photo ID, most young or in poverty and a disproportionate number are ethnic minorities.

This will suppress the non-Tory vote.

More than 40,000 people from the Philippines have been recruited to front British companies as part of schemes costing the UK "hundreds of millions of pounds" in lost taxes.

BBC Radio 4's File on 4 discovered more than 48,000 of these companies have been created in the past five years.

Some staff at NHS Covid test centres run by G4S have been employed by subcontractors in this kind of scheme.

G4S said that, when this came to its attention, HMRC was notified.

The company said it was taking steps to ensure that all agency workers were employed directly and not via a subcontractor.

The companies are originally incorporated with a British director recruited via private groups on Facebook. They resign as directors after a short period of time and a Filipino director is appointed in their place.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57021128

I suppose that would buy depend on if the Italians concerned were making a big deal about foreign influences...

The pandemic really has given the Tories another bite at the apple, NHS England was on its knees, waiting times going up and up, targets never being reached, staffing shortages and so on. And this was a simple equation - you cut money in real terms and you can’t provide the same level of healthcare.

Now it will all be the fault of the pandemic so we need to man-up and accept our lowered quality of life and life expectancy - like they did in the war!

Once again, they're learning from the GOP TOP. :mad:

In 27 years in the police, I dealt with a teenager who for a joke put his vote up for sale on ebay (he was warned) and whilst at Polling Stations I had a complaint from someone who was told he could not vote, which was due to his failure to register and a bizarre incident, where a lady, fed up at how long her husband was taking to vote, grabbed his ballot, marked it and voted for him (she was warned as well)!

I presume the voter ID will not alter postal votes.

That certainly has the sound of traditional British cuisine.

:p

It's fairly widely accepted that that dish was ethnic South-Asian British in origin. (Although maybe you knew that)

Scotland already has different election laws to England (we let 16 year old vote in our elections) so I am hoping we can tell them to sod off when trying this lunacy with voter ID, a solution looking for a problem.

Au contraire, the restrictions on exercise of the franchise are intended to stop a problem; poor people voting for Labour.

One wonders if all those Tory MPs who were screaming about our freedoms being trampled by restrictions due to the pandemic will be up in arms about this….

Well I am certain Brexit will have put paid to that sort of thing!

As does Wales - but it is still over 18 in a general election.

Dunno about trampling freedoms, but I don't see why exactly the same anti-discrimination objections being trotted out against vaccine ID, couldn't be used against this.

Hopefully I will be proved wrong but I suspect it will be

“Because….”

Chipping Norton fell to Labour. David Cameron’s old seat a safe Tory area turned off by Johnson’s nationalism switching to Labour.
Also Labour have gained two divisions in Witney. In fact in Oxfordshire as a whole the Tories are losing seats all over the place.

Why is no one talking about this?

Also look at Kent
Bastion of blue Tunbridge Wells now NOC (had a 55% remain vote), LibDems took Sevenoaks Town (55% leave) and nearby Tonbridge the Greens took both county council seats both Tory since the 70s. Of the 3 wards up for grabs in true-blue Tory Faversham, Kent, all three went Lib Dem

Perhaps partly because Cameron's reputation is shredded comprehensively. Perhaps also because councils aren't always the same as parliament constituencies. Noteworthy however

What's Gaelic for "When In The Course Of Human Events"......

Lemme see now...Might it be because those things don't fit with the "Tee, hee, Starmer's a joke, Labour are in freefall" narrative espoused by Johnson's meejah fan club?

I mean, Northumberland was being crowed over as a Tory gain, when the reality is that they only gained ONE seat and that was actually a dead heat with the Lib Dems decided on a coin toss/lot draw.

And, of course, it doesn't help when Kuenssberg, the Beeb's political editor, comes out with nonsense like this - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56624437.amp

"I know, let's re-define lying so that it is clear that senior Tories are not lying!"

And today the totally pro-civil liberties Tories introduce the idea of photo ID for voting. Of course, no senior Tory has ever, ever publicly opposed ID cards of any sort in any sort of hyperbolic terms, have they? Oh, except for when Johnson did in the Telegraph (paywalled, so I'm not linking, but you can have Marina Hyde from the Guardian instead - https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...d-fraud-tories ).

And I won't mention the report of the inquest into the Ballymena massacre of August 1971 coming out when the same scrupulously honest set of politicians want to try to stop historical prosecutions of military personnel - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...in-ballymurphy .

And this is benign?

I can easily believe that the highlighted is true. It does imply that he lies with strategic intent though. Which isn't better than lying on an adhoc basis.

^ Yup, on reading that piece (found it referred to by Edzard Ernst recently) I wondered how anyone could doubt that Kuenssberg has some class of bias towards the Tories.

I mean the main reason I might cry "Liar!" when I listen to or read Johnson is that the ****** tells such huge lies, all the time.

Why would you not tell lies when not only does being a liar not do you any harm but it actually HELPS you?

The English electorate seems beyond help at this moment in time.

I cannot in anyway disagree and have felt for a very long time that this is the case.

When you lot get independence I really do hope the berks in That There London **** up the geography and use Hadrian's Wall, despite my previous semi-cynical comment aboput being ignored from Holyrood (reflected a couple of conversations I had in Sutherland and Wester Ross as well as English experience).

Jacob Rees Mogg admits there isn't a problem when asked about Government Voter ID plan.
"you have to introduce things that keep the electoral system proper before the problem arises"

Matt Hancock says 6 cases of voter fraud is ‘6 too many’.

Conservative Education minister Gillian Keegan tells the BBC that people are already required to show photo ID to collect a parcel at the Post Office.
There is no such requirement.

I could just about get my head around the requirement if the government issued everyone over the age of 18 free of charge a Voter ID card, but people cannot be expected to pay for the right to vote.

I started a thread on it.

Today a lady wearing a diamond hat announced bills that introduce

Voter suppression
Reduction in judicial review of government actions
Oppressive policing

The last people to be fined for committing election fraud were Vote Leave.

Not to mention opening up the countryside to aggressive property development. The CPRE are raging about it.

Roll on Welsh independence! (as long as they let the furriners stay)

Nothing to stop 'The North' becoming an independent country either. Just need to foster that movement for a while. It's a pity that a lot of the people in that region seem to be drinking the posh boy KoolAid though.

And the Government lied to the Queen to illegally prorogue Parliament to pass a law that they couldn't get passed.

Hadn't seen that, but it's worth mentioning more than once.

Tell me about it: it's scary listening to folk grovel before some RP twat.

I feel it is highly unlikely we'll even get another bite at the devolution cherry after Blair and Prescott screwed us over on the previous devo vote. Still haven't forgiven the pair for that.

Its difficult for me to comprehend but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any unifying identity for 'The North' to rally around. The man in Northumberland sees himself as every bit as much English as British as the woman in Surrey.

I don't get my head around it. I don't consider myself as of the same stock as Jacob Rees-Mogg. But apparently the Cumbrians, Scousers and Mancs do.

That being the case you may all well be tied into that British narrative of knowing your place and doffing your flat cap to your betters in a bowler.

It's not something I can get my head around. Never felt in the least bit British ... the 'Britishness' that I see celebrated seems entirely foreign to me. Not even in a neutral way but in a 'stands for everything I hate' way.

Britain is an awful country. One of the worst I have ever been in. Short of leaving or violent revolution I don't think that will change in my lifetime.

And lest we forget the plan to outlaw conversion therapy is to be put out for 'consultation':

Conversion therapy ban: Campaigners dismayed over delay

So basically you are going to wind up with a piece of legislation with religious exemptions that will render it all but meaningless.

"If I am ever asked to produce an ID Card... I will take that card out of my wallet and physically eat it" - Boris Johnson, 2014.

"He's a liar, but it's okay because he's a self serving liar" is an unusual defense to be sure.

I notice the new animal welfare bill exempts wild animals from the bit about recognising 'animal sentience'. Can't interfere with the toffs shooting the wildlife.
Food from animals reared abroad will not have to have been produced to high animal-welfare standards.

Last year, ministers controversially voted against a House of Lords amendment which would have blocked imports that didn't meet welfare and food safety standards in the UK. I