ONS pay figures: Chancellors have fanned the flames of this cost of living crisis Billions in taxes lost as HMRC moves staff to Brexit and Covid fraud ONS pay figures: Chancellors have fanned the flames of this cost of living crisis Responding to this morning's latest ONS earnings and unemployment figures, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney said: Successive Conservative Chancellors have fanned the flames of this cost of living crisis. Their deeply shameful tax hikes and failure to grow the economy has lead to Britain's pay being squeezed despite unbearably high bills. It has been an economic clown show ...
These days you will find Snailbeach White Stars in the Shrewsbury & District Sunday League, but they used to play at a higher level. Remarkably, in the sixteen seasons between 1966/7 and 1981/2 the club won the Shropshire County Premier League six times, the last three titles coming in consecutive seasons. Where did this tiny village, best known for its abandoned lead mine and (in those days) gleaming white spoil heaps, draw its players from? In those days, it seems, Snailbeach White Stars also played in Welsh cup competitions. I remember talking to someone who had grown up in Aberystwyth ...
In a recent The Rest is Politics podcast, Alastair Campbell talked about the way many countries see sport as responsibility of the health ministry. In Britain, however, it's lumped in with culture as one of those things that are nice to have but where government spending when can be cut when times are hard. John Harris has an article in the Guardian today looking at the results of this mistaken policy: Clearly, this is a country that needs to get better at looking after itself. But while glaring facts about the intersection of poverty and ill health are serially ignored, ...
Women and Equalities spokesperson Christine Jardine challenged Scottish Secretary Alister Jack to come up with a single clause in Scotland's Gender Recognition Reform Bill which undermined the provisions of the Equality Act. Spoiler, he couldn't. She accused him of playing fast and loose by the Union by attempting to block the Bill. Watch her comments here. The Secretary of State couldn't tell me how the Gender Recognition Reform Bill affects the rights I and every Scottish woman have under the Equality Act. pic.twitter.com/nTBUnmM3ok — Christine Jardine [IMG: 🔶] (@cajardineMP) January 17, 2023 Later he issued a flimsy Statement of Reasons ...
When asked today (17 January) by Hilary Benn MP in a parliamentary debate what would be the difference in impact between a GRC issued under the proposed Scottish Gender Recognition Reform Bill and a GRC issued under the current system, Scottish Secretary Alister Jack MP replied "I say to the Honourable Gentleman what we're trying [...]
Christine Jardine, the Lib Dem equalities spokesperson, responds to news of Rishi Sunak's plans to block the Gender Recognition Reform Bill: The Scottish Parliament passed a bill to make the gender recognition process easier, with support from MSPs of all parties. How dare Conservative Ministers play fast and loose with the union and people's lives by blocking it like this. #GRRBill #ScottishLiberalDemocrats — Christine Jardine [IMG: 🔶] (@cajardineMP) January 16, 2023
Why does Ed Davey never talk about Europe? To be clear, I am not advocating launching a campaign to rejoin the EU. Although party policy supports this as a longer-term objective, there is no chance that the EU would treat an application from the UK seriously until a new government has taken steps to rebuild the EU-UK relationship -the kind of measures we set out in the policy paper Rebuilding Trade and Cooperation with Europe, endorsed by conference last year. This set out a detailed strategy for moving progressively towards a closer relationship with the EU, including ultimately joining the ...
Mon, 18:47: October 2019 books https://t.co/PvHSYGRnhb Mon, 22:26: Practice Duotrigordle Guesses: 36/37 2️⃣9️⃣ 0️⃣7️⃣ 3️⃣0️⃣ 3️⃣1️⃣ 3️⃣2️⃣ 3️⃣3️⃣ 0️⃣9️⃣ 3️⃣4️⃣ 3️⃣5️⃣ 1️⃣0️⃣ 1️⃣1️⃣ 1️⃣2️⃣ 1️⃣3️⃣ 1️⃣4️⃣ 1️⃣5️⃣ 0️⃣3️⃣ 1️⃣6️⃣ 1️⃣7️⃣ 1️⃣8️⃣ 1️⃣9️⃣ 2️⃣1️⃣ 0️⃣4️⃣ 3️⃣6️⃣ 0️⃣5️⃣ 2️⃣2️⃣ 2️⃣3️⃣ 2️⃣4️⃣ 2️⃣5️⃣ 0️⃣6️⃣ 2️⃣6️⃣ 2️⃣7️⃣ 2️⃣8️⃣ https://t.co/hh9bUoa7aM Tue, 10:45: RIP, actor and sculptor. https://t.co/WcJmScGL0j
The guilty plea by serving Metropolitan police officer, David Carrick yesterday, in which he admitted 49 charges relating to 71 sexual offences including 24 rapes against 12 women, made him one of the worst serial rapists in the UK. And yet despite the alarm being raised several times, no action was taken by the police to deal with his crimes. The Independent reports that all the crimes, which included patterns of sadistic and degrading abuse, were committed while he was a serving officer in Britain's largest police force. And, as if to underline the institutional failures within the Met, it ...
The Guardian reports: Rishi Sunak's government has blocked legislation passed by the Scottish parliament that would make Scotland the first part of the UK to introduce a self-identification system for people who want to change gender. The Scottish secretary, Alister Jack, announced that he would use section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 for the first time to halt the gender recognition bill after a review by UK government lawyers. Westminster's decision to use the "nuclear option" of blocking the bill from going for royal assent represents a significant escalation of tensions around the issue, and will enrage supporters of ...
As reported in the Courier and Evening Telegraph over last weekend, we have welcomed a positive response from NHS Tayside to a suggestion to improve the parking situation for Ninewells Hospital out-patients. We regularly receive complaints from constituents about the difficulty getting parked at Ninewells Hospital in our West End Ward and this is a particular concern for people with an out-patient appointment with a specific time. Residents report circling round and round the hospital's car parks in their vehicle trying to find an available space. Although the challenging parking situation has always been an issue at the hospital, people ...
"The welfare state is not a safety net that catches us when we fall on difficult times; it's a thin, measly sheet of the cheapest single-ply tissue which you plunge straight through before hitting the ground with a nasty thump." Amy Taylor on what happens in Britain today if you are suddenly unable to work. Pam Jarvis reads Spare: "I didn't predict that I would be left with such an aching sadness for Harry, his brother and his mother and to some extent his father; normal, flawed human beings trapped and tormented within a crumbling, cruelly dysfunctional gilded cage." Robert ...
