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Reply | Venezuela
at 19:26 4 Jan 2026
"Which national policies did the EU stop from enacting in the approaching 50 years of membership?"
Fisheries policy is one example, as illustrated by the case of R (Factortame Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport, which highlighted the primacy of EU law over national law. The European Court of Justice ruled that the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 was contrary to Community law, which then allowed Spanish companies to sue the UK government for compensation in relation to fishing quotas and nationality of ownership of vessels. As the Act was found to be incompatible with EU law, new UK legislation (and policy) had to be introduced. |
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Reply | Millwall v Swansea City : Match Day Thread
at 16:04 4 Jan 2026
Under the cosh for most of the half, and offering very little going forward. The long balls to Ronald are not working because he lacks the pace to get past their full back. The commentator said we were weak on the left flank, but I would say Millwall have been cutting through too easily on both wings. They are winning almost all the 50-50s in midfield as well. Is our team exhausted after the holiday fixtures? Or are we just seeing the limitations of squad quality? The exception is Vig who has worked wonders. [Post edited 4 Jan 16:07]
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Reply | Venezuela
at 09:58 4 Jan 2026
This is like a return to 19th and early 20th century "great power" politics. The post-WW2 creation of the various UN institutions and the attempt to create an international rule-based order looks very shaky. |
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Reply | Have human rights for murderers gone too far?
at 09:41 4 Jan 2026
Yes, you are correct about the legal division of labour. I meant to say that both law firms are HR specialists and wrongly used the term "rivals". But we all make small errors from time to time, such as misspelling Peirce. The main point I am making is that the optics are awful when a Minister of Justice is potentially involved in a decision about how to handle the approval of funding for HR litigation and whether an appeal is appropriate, when her husband had represented the complainant. I suppose what I am really moaning about is the interpenetration of this government with the liberal legal HR establishment. [Post edited 4 Jan 9:51]
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Reply | Johnson’s mates
at 20:30 3 Jan 2026
That is what this Tesco branch deserves, but my wife likes the store. The signage is particularly problematic for people whose first language is not English. An Asian women known to my wife said that she also received a recent parking fine because she thought she had two hours and exceeded the one hour.. |
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Reply | Johnson’s mates
at 18:55 3 Jan 2026
My wife nearly paid Tesco's own special tax at the city centre "Marina" branch recently. She saw the big "2 Hours" at the top of the carpark signs, but did not read the small print beneath, which says that you need to validate a parking slip issued at the till in the machines outside if you stay over 1 hour. My wife was there for about 80 minutes and a £70 fine demand letter arrived. The wife had spent around £100 in the store so I went down to plead with the manager to cancel the ticket (they can check the club card record with points and date). The duty manager I saw was affable enough and said it would be cancelled, but then a reminder demand letter arrived. I repeated this with a different duty manager who said the same, but a week later the fine was still showing on the Horizon (parking company) website. Despite the managers' assurances that the fine would be cancelled, it transpired that Horizon can ignore emails from the branch. Fortunately, I managed to download the club card record and paste it into the Horizon online appeals webpage. The fine was then cancelled. So the morale of the story is: make sure your wife reads carpark signs carefully. My wife's excuse was most Tesco car parks just have the big hours figure at the top and no small print below that reduces the time allowed. One hour is unusually short - so beware. |
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Reply | Johnson’s mates
at 19:58 2 Jan 2026
Some of the benefits fraud Gwyn mentioned earlier in the thread? [Post edited 2 Jan 19:59]
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Thread | Have human rights for murderers gone too far?
at 09:10 2 Jan 2026
The High Court has ordered compensation for an Islamist double-killer who was kept apart from the general prison population for his own safety but claims this damaged his mental health. His case depended on ECHR article 8. The prisoner was awarded £7.5K but the taxpayer also paid legal costs of £234K. Looks crazy to me.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/crim
Edit. Re-phased so clear that legal costs were additional to the £7.5K. [Post edited 2 Jan 11:09]
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Reply | Fulton
at 18:15 1 Jan 2026
Did well today. Still has a role to play. |
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Reply | West Brom New Years Day
at 18:09 1 Jan 2026
Well done, Jay Fulton - got us 2 extra points I couldn't see coming. May still have a role to play next season if a sensibly priced deal can be arranged. |
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Reply | West Brom New Years Day
at 15:58 1 Jan 2026
Very good press, but in truth not much else going forward. A couple of our midfielders are making determined runs forward, but with a touch of the headless chicken syndrome and no translation of this into chances. Quality through balls have been notable by their absence. This looks like a 0-1 or 0-0 to me unless we make early substitutions. |
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Reply | More Miliband madness?
at 12:29 1 Jan 2026
That is a lot. So how much top up would the average person receiving a grant need to add? |
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Reply | More Miliband madness?
at 18:16 31 Dec 2025
Some of the reports say the cost of installing a heat pump is about £7K even with government grants taken into account. |
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Reply | Johnson’s mates
at 18:14 31 Dec 2025
Actually we would not be so far off replacement birth rate in the short term if we had zero immigration. Our population pyramid (which becomes a problem if wide at the top with a big proportion of older people) still has good width for the working age group towards the middle. In that regard we are better off than many of our European neighbours. If we had zero immigration then the UK population would decrease by 0.4 million from 67.6 million in 2022 to 67.2 million by 2030. Of course, we won't get to zero and the population would stay around the same with about 200,000 to 250,000 net immigrants p.a. Take a look at this calculator, which enables you to vary the main parameters.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplep
It can be seen that an increase in the fertility rate from 1.4 to 2.1 children per woman would enable us to achieve a relatively stable population for longer with zero immigration. Under this scenario the pyramid remains viable with greatest width in the middle and bottom. The interesting thing that the calculator shows is that even if we maintain immigration at the present or a higher level we soon get to the position where the pyramid looks problematic because a smaller proportion of working age people need to support the old and young. You need to look at the pyramid to the right on the screen (labelled the "Population age profile") to see this. |
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Reply | Johnson’s mates
at 08:39 31 Dec 2025
Personally I'd say that the idea that small boat immigration costs about a third of benefits fraud is an underestimate when various externalities are considered. A quick AI search suggests that the cost of benefits fraud rose from £6.5 billion in 2022-23 to £9.5 billion in 2024-25 (though the difference between overpayments and fraud may be an issue). In 2022-23 the cost of small boat crossings is estimated at £3.5 billion (Migration Watch), and for 2024-25 I would anticipate quite a big rise in small boat arrivals expenditure based on hotel costs etc. However what concerns me more is the cumulative and continuing cost of many successive years of small boat crossings. This includes costs for continuing accommodation and living expenses (often falling on local authorities), costs of appeals and other legal support, costs of family reunifications and subsequent support of dependents, costs of crime and surveillance of high-risk individuals. Moreover some of these persons are themselves likely to be involved in benefits fraud once they have refugee status. The Centre for Policy Studies has estimated that the lifetime cost of cross-channel immigration so far to UK taxpayers will be around £234 billion, which translates to approximately £8,200 per UK household over several decades. [Post edited 31 Dec 2025 8:55]
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Thread | More Miliband madness?
at 07:42 31 Dec 2025
Reports say that as part of the Warm Homes Scheme about to be introduced there will be an extra £30 on gas bills to encourage a move to electric heat pumps. Is that fair? |
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