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Reply | Who can this mystery person possibly be?
at 16:20 23 Dec 2025
The police have revoked A's firearm certificate. Could it be they think the pressure is building to the extent that things might go pop? |
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Reply | Labour imploding
at 09:27 23 Dec 2025
The government seems to be trying to keep the unions on side as things go downhill. One consequence of the employment rights legislation now being enacted is that public bodies will no longer have to publish the cost of giving time off to union reps for union business (“facility time”). Time must be given to union reps in both the public and private sectors and now the unions themselves will be able to determine how many hours for union business is appropriate. The cost to public bodies had risen to £98.2 million in 2023-24 before reaching £106.7 million last year. The right to facility time will now also extend to equalities officers, and the cost will no longer be transparent.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/po
(Behind paywall)
Taxpayers will be kept in the dark about how much public money is being spent so that union officials can have paid time off work, under the government’s workers’ rights reforms.
Despite new figures showing that last year almost £107 million was spent on so-called facility time, Labour has scrapped powers to cap it and removed the requirement for public bodies such as the NHS and schools to declare it in the future.
At the same time, the right to be paid to carry out union duties has been extended to equality representatives in workplaces to allow them to focus on equality duties. |
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Reply | Labour imploding
at 12:50 22 Dec 2025
The latest sign of internal tensions is Wes Streeting's statement in support of a customs union. Apart from being a terrible idea, this would break an explicit manifesto commitment not to follow that path and contradicts what Starmer has said in the last week or two. What worries me is that a large section of the party who were elected on a manifesto designed to allay fears on multiple issues, now seem hell bent of moving towards harder left-wing policies that only a minority would have voted for. Would it be fair to switch to Angela Rayner as PM and Ed Miliband as Chancellor without a new election?
The other bad news is the way the deficit is rising alarmingly even with the tax increases. Public sector net borrowing was 11.7 billion pounds in November. The Labour backbenchers pushing some of the spending believe in the magic money tree. |
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Reply | Hearts v Rangers
at 15:44 21 Dec 2025
Agreed. Things have been much less interesting since the time when the New Firm challenged the Old Firm. Good luck to Hearts. |
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Reply | Come on Chelsea hate watch thread
at 14:52 17 Dec 2025
It was an entertaining game and in fairness Cardiff did well. Obviously the Bluebirds are not my favorite team, but nor am I at all keen on Chelsea, and it wouldn't have been the end of the world for me if another Welsh team - even our No 1 rival - had beaten them. I know few will agree, but I'd prefer to go back to the more tolerant relationship of the early 1950s. As far as I can see, Cardiff becoming the capital city and all the Billy big balls twaddle that followed started the rot, but I'd like to dial down the animosity. |
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Reply | Bondi Beach
at 23:21 15 Dec 2025
Yes, as I said in an earlier post, the rifle was a linear bolt action gun, also known as a straight-pull rifle. These do allow a faster rate of fire than a conventional bolt action. Some might say ban them, or put them in a higher license band, but banning a bolt action weapon would be pretty draconian. Observers have identified the rifle as a Beretta BX1 because of the orange bits on the magazine, which appears to be the normal 5 shot item that clips in flush with the stock. Both semi-automatic and fully automatic rifles are already effectively banned for ordinary persons in Australia. It looks like the other two weapons being used were pump action shotguns, and that the rifle was discarded halfway through the attack, perhaps because ammunition was low. The assailant in light trousers probably moved off the bridge to the tree because he felt he needed to close the range to make the shotgun more effective, and I'd guess that the terrorist who stayed on the bridge did less damage when he was using the shotgun. [Post edited 16 Dec 8:10]
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Reply | Bondi Beach
at 10:23 15 Dec 2025
For those who haven't seen how events unfolded.
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Reply | Bondi Beach
at 09:21 15 Dec 2025
From reports what is being talked about is more frequent reviews of whether license holders should be allowed to continue to own their guns, limiting licenses to citizens, and a limitation on the number of weapons held under a license. The first proposal might be sensible, the second will be controversial, and as far as I can see the third would not have made any difference. The father apparently had six licenced weapons. Not all of these were used in the attack, which seems to have involved at least three long weapons. Rumours on the web say these included a Beretta BRX1 7.62 or .308 rifle (linear bolt action with standard 5 shot magazine) and a Mossberg Maverick 88 shotgun (pump action 6 or 8 shot weapon available in 12 or 20 gauge). In a country like Australia with extensive farming and field sports, a blanket ban on either shotguns or rifles seems infeasible. I'd guess that a rifle was responsible for most of the fatalities, but it is hard to see what kind of tightening of regulations would make a difference. Unless information on other weapons comes to light, large magazines or semi-automatic AR type rifles (already heavily restricted) don't seem to be involved. Handguns aren't involved in this case, but are generally restricted to use in approved clubs or shooting ranges. Here is some info on existing laws.
https://allaboutlawyer.com/wha [Post edited 15 Dec 10:07]
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Reply | Bondi Beach
at 16:36 14 Dec 2025
There is now an 11 minute video on the web that shows almost all the attack. The two assailants start shooting on a bridge about 50 m from their targets. Later one descends to the area near a tree closer to the targets, where he resumes firing but is then disarmed by the heroic bystander. I don't want to downplay his brave contribution but when the attacker runs away he returns to the bridge picks up a spare long weapon and carries on shooting for a couple of minutes before he is downed by police fire. In those minutes the 2nd attacker hits the heroic bystander twice with shotgun or rifle fire, although fortunately this was not fatal. Sadly, mercy did not pay in this case. It would have been better for our bystander to terminate the first attacker and then try to do the same to his pal on the bridge from the cover of the tree. Easy to be wise after the event of course. |
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Reply | Bondi Beach
at 14:14 14 Dec 2025
The despicable virtue-signallers who march chanting that slogan own this. But they will think of all kinds of excuses to deny their complicity. |
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Reply | Bondi Beach
at 11:55 14 Dec 2025
A name and some biographical details of one of the attackers is now circulating on the web. This is pretty much in line with what one might predict. |
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Reply | Scottish judges and the trans issue
at 11:21 14 Dec 2025
Another way to put this is: was the judge a fool or a knave (meaning ideologically motivated)? The fact that he appears to have tried to replace the dodgy passage in the written judgement with a completely different passage that does not really support the same point, suggests we may be dealing with a knave. |
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Reply | Bondi Beach
at 11:17 14 Dec 2025
Indeed so. I can understand why the heroic bystander would do this, not least risk that police might misidentify and shoot him. However, I couldn't help noticing that the terrorist was hovering nearby and might have potentially tried to retrieve the gun. I would have been tempted to pull the trigger first and then rest the gun against the tree. |
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Reply | Stoke City v Swansea City : Match day thread
at 13:52 13 Dec 2025
Very disappointing to concede a second after a good first half. The goal seemed to come from confusion after Key's arrival and Galbraith's switch to midfield. |
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Reply | The Hunger Strikers
at 08:49 13 Dec 2025
The point about the length of time these persons will spend on remand seems fair. However, it did not seem to me that the alleged 12 months' delay in ministers replying to MPs' questions related to this case. Readers will recall that the primary alleged offences occurred on June 20th 2025. The article merely says that the Speaker had heard of a case that involved such a delay. Mr McDonald had complained that a letter written "last Wednesday" had still not been answered, meaning a delay at that stage of less than a week.
I was interested to read recently that in the US it is very common for time on remand to extend over a year because the defence says more time is needed to assemble their case, calculating that this may be advantageous to a defendant who has a high probability of conviction. Although it does not seem relevant to the Brize Norton case, I believe it is also possible for the defence in a UK case to request a change in the trial date further into the future and so increase the period on remand. |
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Reply | Labour imploding
at 18:18 12 Dec 2025
I guess it is the difference between what saves money in the short-term versus the long-term. In many years there has been pressure to achieve "cost improvements" including through changes in management arrangements, but these take longer and there may be a short term cost e.g. if posts are lost and redundancies are involved. See what is happening in that regard in England just now with the abolition of NHS England (previously known as the NHS Commissioning Board). |
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Reply | The Hunger Strikers
at 18:01 12 Dec 2025
Completely crazy to think that any Western country could allow an organised group to plan and carry out attacks on national defence assets. The offenders have to get serious jail time. |
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Reply | Labour imploding
at 09:31 12 Dec 2025
Poor use of resources but not new. In the days of the NHS internal market it was common for purchasing health boards to press hospitals to cut back surgical activity towards the end of the financial year so that the total amount payable in a cost and volume contract did not become unaffordable when the planned volume of activity was exceeded. |
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Thread | Scottish judges and the trans issue
at 09:22 12 Dec 2025
There has been an extraordinary development in the recent case involving access to nurses' changing rooms. It seems that the tribunal's written judgement had to be revised when it was found that a cited passage used as a precedent was made up.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news |
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