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Reply | Robert Jenrick
at 19:10 15 Jan 2026
That’s a fair point, but these defections and the Damascus type conversions say a lot about the character of some of these politicians, shallow types whose primary focus is serving their own ambition. |
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Reply | The Truth Comes Out on Maccabi Fans Ban
at 19:48 14 Jan 2026
He retired in 2024 for 1 month before returning to his post, I suspect his pension is sorted so if he goes again it’s not like he’s losing anything.
From where I’m sitting his position is untenable and he has to go, but I think there’s a lot more we need to know to be able to get to the bottom of it. It may be that his underlings kept the AI bit from him, but how on earth did a police service produce a report based on AI which was factually incorrect? The Chief Constable has to carry the can, but there’s a few more people in the West Mids Police who have some pretty serious questions to answer.
One thing I really disagree with is that the Home Office are now looking at reintroducing powers to enable the Home Secretary to dismiss Guildford, whether she has confidence in him or not that should be a matter for the local Police and Crime Commissioner, we can’t have government politicians directly intervening like she proposes to. I don’t agree with PCC’s but it’s his job to oversee the delivery of the policing service in his area and not the Hone Secretary. |
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Reply | UK NET IMMIGRATION
at 22:37 12 Jan 2026
I think today’s figures are a welcome step in the right direction, we’re not where I’d like us to be, but I think these figures are a big improvement on previous year’s numbers. There’s more work to be done to reign the figures in and get high caliber of the people coming, but the numbers are coming down.
British citizen emigration peaked in 2021 at 283,000, it then hovered around todays figure for the last 4 years. The number of returning Brits increased by 83,000 up to 143,000. What is noticeable is that EU citizen emigration is increasing as more lave the country.
There’s more work to be done, but things are much moving forward. The current government have further tightening criteria’s up, increased the length people have to wait for particular status, introduced a ban on DRC citizens obtaining visas (and proposed similar moves against other countries and increased removals. It’s not all rosy in the garden, but it’s better than it’s been for a while with hopefully more to come. |
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Reply | The Truth Comes Out on Maccabi Fans Ban
at 23:32 8 Jan 2026
The financial penalties for not hitting the target were massive, if a force failed to achieve 75% of its uplift target they lost the entire uplift funding, the Met were about 1100 short and lost over £7m.
A couple of guys I know from down here went up to London and joined the Met, but recruiting from outside London stopped in 2014 when the Met was under pressure to be more reflective of its population. The recruiting local policy was suspended in 2018 but reintroduced in 2020 and then suspended again in 2022. In many parts of the U.K. Forces are having big problems recruiting staff and when they do get them through the door they are leaving in unprecedented numbers.
Boris’s policy of increasing the number of cops was well intentioned and intended to reverse the damage caused by the Cameron and May governments, but once again it was a policy that was poorly executed and senior officers made an even bigger mess of it.
The Met should never have allowed people in without vetting them properly. We’ve seen sex offenders get in, who else has infiltrated our services? |
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Reply | Iran is falling to pro democracy protestors
at 22:56 8 Jan 2026
There’s a long way to go before there regime change in Iran but the people are having their say.
The IRGC, police and army are a pretty formidable outfit when they’re up against civilians and I expect they’ll crack down hard, but if the people can get a he’d of steam up and support to fight back against the government who knows what can happen. The Kurds in the north and west eon5 get pushed around too easily and they just might get a bit of backing from over the border. If the regime falls, Putin loses a big ally. |
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Reply | The Truth Comes Out on Maccabi Fans Ban
at 22:04 7 Jan 2026
Following the Winsor Review in 2011 in 2014, the government (Theresa May was Home Secretary) introduced a graduate fast track Constable to Inspector where a recruit would move from cop to Inspector in 2 years and they also introduced a direct entry to Supt programme. Absolutely mental decisions.
As has been said by other posters, how on earth someone can be a cop on the beat for a couple on months before starting to climb the ladder and “lead” others is beyond ridiculous. In my experience the best leaders are those who with substance, knowledge and excellent interpersonal skills with a hefty dollop of common sense. It’s crackers that ministers and senior civil servants ever introduced this. I feel the same about Direct Entry Supts too.
The Conservative governments of the 2010s onwards made some awful decisions regarding criminal justice and introduced a lot of disastrous changes. |
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Reply | Iran is falling to pro democracy protestors
at 18:47 7 Jan 2026
I’ve also met a few, as you say tidy people. In a lot of countries, the every day “normal folk” are tidy people, it’s generally a small minority and the pompous politicians who are unpleasant. |
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Reply | Have human rights for murderers gone too far?
at 00:19 4 Jan 2026
Matrix Chambers and Birnberg Pierce aren’t rivals, the former are barristers and the latter are solicitors. In this particular case, Birnberg Pierce who were representing Awale instructed Matrix Chambers to act for them /Awale.
Sackman’s husband Dan Squires who represented Awale is a highly regarded band 1 barrister and a KC, he’s also a Deputy High Court Judge. Matrix Chambers are 1 of the 3 very highly regarded HR public law Chambers in London, so if you’re looking to take a case like this to Court and want to win Matrix and Squires are the types you’d be looking for in your corner.
Fees vary, but a top Kings Council Barrister will typically earn between £500 and £1500 + VAT per hour and the real top end will earn more again for private work. Awale is unlikely to have been able to pay for this himself unless he’s being bankrolled by a third party or “do gooders.” Assuming that’s not the case and that this case is funded by Legal Aid, then the fees for Legal Aid work are pre set by the government and are substantially lower than private rates. To get a KC te act on your behalf in legal aid cases, the KC must have special permission from the Legal Aid Agency to be instructed in a legally aided case. This is usually only granted in cases of exceptional complexity or public importance, in criminal law cases (which are no longer that well paid in comparison to other types of work) KC’s are usually used in your murder and other very serious cases. Legal Aid rates are capped and much lower coming in between £225 and £275 an hour. (Plus the obligatory VAT)
Given that this case had been heard in the High Court a year before Labour came to power, it stands to reason that the approval would have been given for Squires to act in this case would be nothing to do with Sackman, she wasn’t even an MP when her husband took this case on. What is of real concern is the size of the settlement, we’ve no idea on how that brakes down in terms of solicitors, barristers, fees, case workers etc but it’s a huge sum.
It’s worth pointing out that Sackman is also a qualified barrister and that she has practiced out of Matrix Chambers. There’s no evidence or information to suggest Sarah Sackman has acted in appropriately.
For many years, Westminster has been totally over represented by members of the legal profession. In 2019 over 30% of the MP’s came from a legal background, but they only make up 0.37% of society ! We need to pull that back and make it a much smaller proportion, we need to have more candidates drawn from different walks of life. |
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Reply | Crass Stupidity - A Case Study
at 11:36 3 Jan 2026
Business rates need to be slashed to encourage enterprise.
Drop the rates for occupied premises, introduce punitive charges for empty properties as it may encourage landlords to set more sensible rents for commercial properties, get energy prices down and let’s see where we go from there. |
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Reply | More Miliband madness?
at 07:26 3 Jan 2026
I just can’t understand how some of these names come up.
Rayner may be popular with party members, but to a lot of the general public she will simply be unelectable - she’s had 2 “run ins” over her taxes and the public wont buy it. Miliband, been there and I can’t see us going back. I’d prefer Starmer to Miliband tbh. Not sure about Streeting.
Cupboard is pretty bare in the all the parties. |
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Reply | Have human rights for murderers gone too far?
at 19:26 2 Jan 2026
That depends on what you mean by it’s down to Lammy.
Lammy signed the cheque but I suspect that’s because he’s picked up a “hospital pass”and has had no choice other than to pay up. There’s a lot more to this story than what’s been said in the newspaper articles.
The act subject to the Court hearing took place between 13.4.22 and the date the case was heard in the High Court which was on the 12th and 13th of July 2023, however some of the evidence and testimony goes back as far as 2020. The judgement from the High Court Judge was issued in September 2024, some 14 months after the case was heard and it was reported on at the time. Lammy was only appointed to his current role as Secretary of State for Justice in September 2025 some 12 months after the judgement was issued, so what has happened in that time? I suspect Lammy has found himself in the unenviable position of having to deal with someone else’s mess. Some of the politicians who were in power when all this was happening back in 2023 are now pointing the finger, when in fact it happened on their watch.
Looking at things in a chronological order, the acts took place under the previous government. The litigation also took place under the previous government, however the verdict was delivered under the current government and Lammy who is know representing the current government has settled the case.
What could Lammy have done differently other than settle the case? Could he have appealed, possibly but I’d have thought that had been looked at and a decision was made to pay up based on the chance (or lack of ) of winning a possible appeal. The honest answer is I’m not sure he had any choice other than to settle as failure to have resolved the case could either have seen a further judgement against the government, bigger fines, more costs etc and even Contempt of Court proceedings which ultimately could lead to imprisonment. It would appear the payout is inline with previous policies and precedents.
What about the previous government’s role in all this? I don’t blame the last government for fighting this in Court (and thereby incurring huge expenditure) because this guy Awale is a piece of scum and must be detained in a manner which keeps the public and prison staff safe - if that means being confined to his cell so be it. The case had to be contested, but at what point do you draw the line if you’ve got no chance of winning? Some Human Rights should be not negotiable, but others should be proportionate and be dependent on one’s behaviour. If you can’t behave then you don’t have a Right to a Private Life it’s as simple as that.
Robert Jenrick has been quite vocal on this and about the EHCR in general and some of the points he makes are valid, but why didn’t he and his party take steps to change the laws to stop this happening when this case was kicking off in 2022 and 2023? By then they’d been power 12 years and this wasn’t the first time we’d had issues with the ECHR. It’s easy to throw mud now, but he and his party had plenty of time to make changes and they didn’t. Enough said.
It galls me that we’ve paid out £7.5k to this monster and £240k to his barristers and solicitors, it’s obscene. Awale used Birnberg Pierce a company of highly reputable solicitors, it’s alumni includes non other than Gareth Pierce who was one of the most highly regarded solicitors and of her generation. Legal aid needs looking at too.
In answer to the original question posed by AJ, I think the answer is yes. It goes without saying changes need to be made to the ECHR and hopefully those changes will start to happen and soon.
I’m no fan of Lammy and I’d rather see him moved on from government, but I don’t think the blame for this can be laid fairly and squarely on his shoulders, there are others who should also be held to account.
[Post edited 2 Jan 23:22]
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Reply | How many like this are already here?
at 20:23 25 Dec 2025
And then we have this!
An innocent law abiding citizen from a minority group murdered by 2 scumbags in a racist hate crime down in the Vale Of Glamorgan. There’s two should never see the light of day again.
There’s good and bad in all walks of life, hope the judge bangs them up for a long long time.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/ [Post edited 25 Dec 2025 20:24]
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Reply | Labour imploding
at 22:56 24 Dec 2025
Tosh.
May left after her 3rd attempt to push through her Brexit plan crashed and burned and her party bombed in the May 19 elections, the knives were being sharpened and she jumped before she was pushed because the writing was on the wall.
Boris only left when his ministers started bailing out on him after he’d been shown / caught out having told pork pies about one of the whips.
Starmer may be very unpopular, but he hasn’t has yet had a massive annihilation at the polls (that may come next May) nor has he found himself in a Boris type position where he’s been caught out and his ministers are bailing out on him. [Post edited 25 Dec 2025 1:14]
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Reply | Labour imploding
at 23:43 22 Dec 2025
“The agreement has received cross-party support in Gibraltar, with Chief Minister Fabian Picardo hailing it as an "excellent deal".”
So who exactly has precedence and makes the calls? The people who live on “The Rock” who are directly impacted by the current rules on a day to day basis or people living in the UK some 1500 miles away most of whom don’t give 2 @@@@@ about Gibraltar. |
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Reply | Labour imploding
at 17:04 21 Dec 2025
The elections can only be postponed if the relevant council asks for them to be delayed, if the councils don’t ask the elections can’t be delayed. |
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Reply | Labour imploding
at 17:02 21 Dec 2025
There appears to be some miss information about what exactly could take place, some outlets and parties are saying abc and others xyz.
Starmer isn’t allowed to dictate when the elections take place.
There’s a significant reorganisation of local government taking place in England, they are getting rid of some district and county councils and creating new authorities which will deliver services etc. Some councils are concerned about running the elections when there’s such a huge amount of reorganisation taking place and capacity pressures on organisations and that the elections could undermine the reorganisation work.
It would appear “multiple” councils have approached the about having the elections delayed. As a result, the government have asked English councils undergoing reorganisation whether they need to delay the elections and the government have given the councils a deadline to submit requests to postpone their local elections next May.
Legislation will be needed to delay elections, in line with usual Parliamentary process so it makes sense to ask and be able to plan ahead. Some local elections were delayed in 2019 and it happened again in 2022 obviously under the last 2 Conservative governments, so there is a precedence.
The government have said their starting point is that all elections will go ahead, but that all views will be considered before taking the final decision early next year.
Labour have control of 18 of the councils affected, the Conservatives 9, and the Liberals 7. The conservatives are defending the largest number of seats.
The Liberals and Reform have criticised the plan calling it a Labour and Conservative carve up. The Conservatives have also criticised the plan on the one hand, but Kemi Badenoch has indicated she would not stand in the way of Conservative councils requesting postponements. |
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