Coming soon to the UK:


We have the example of Brazil (Terry Gilliam 1985) - Plot.

Too few years later, we now have for real:

ALL UK Citizens are now assumed Criminal
wrote:

... "The state has large collections of good quality photographs of a significant proportion of the population - drivers and passport holders being good examples - which were originally required and given as a condition of, say, driving and international travel," he said.

"If the state routinely runs every photograph against every picture of every suspected incident of crime simply because it can...

Note that "AI" facial recognition is 'tuned' to be 'over-optimistic'...

What could possibly go wrong with that?...


Here in the UK today...

Enjoy?
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

This is something we've long known:

Bad management has prompted one in three UK workers to quit, survey finds
wrote:

Study shows widespread concern over quality of managers, with 82% of bosses deemed ‘accidental’, having had no formal training...

... And the same silliness goes for our politicians!

Can we include some training and a competency test for such an influential and important job post?

Or is it to be forever a Boris Johnson jolly "laugh and giggle" fun jolly with bucket loads of tax-payer paid-for champagne?


All in our UK!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

We have for short term political gain:


Rishi Sunak to ‘double down’ on anti-green policies in King’s Speech
wrote:

PM will announce a new system for awarding oil and gas exploration licences, and new pro-car legislation...

... “The Conservatives are selling us a pipe dream when they need to be straight with people about how we’re going to power this country. Rather than coming up with a coherent plan for ensuring we have a secure and, crucially, affordable power supply, they’re trying to score political points.

“An estimated 6 million households in this country now can’t afford to heat their homes in winter, and bills are likely to stay high for the rest of the decade. Does this government care, or is it more concerned with playing political games with energy policy?”

Tory environment select committee chair told to quit over ties to lobby group
wrote:

... Sir Robert Goodwill, who chairs the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) select committee (Efra)...

... However, Goodwill has recently become the chairman of a new rightwing pressure group called Conservative Friends of the Countryside. The group is calling for a range of policies including halting the release of beavers; continuing the burning of peatland; continuing the use of bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides; and stopping a ban on imports of hunting trophies from endangered animals.

Since Boris Johnson stepped down as prime minister, the government has pulled back on a number of nature commitments...

... A new ban on the burning of vegetation on deep peat, one of the UK’s most vital carbon sinks, has been criticised by campaigners for including too many loopholes after landowners and backbenchers lobbied for it to be watered down...

... Nature charities have also criticised the group. Beccy Speight, the chief executive of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: “Decision makers in Westminster cannot afford to ignore the tens of millions of nature lovers in the UK who are calling for urgent action to address this loss, or the scientific evidence of its own advisers making the case for stronger environmental protections. Both will be required to hit the targets set in law by the government to halt declines and set about the vital restoration of our natural world.”...

And the UK and the environment and our world be damned...

... All for the sake of a weekend 'jolly' to go taking a few random pot shots at some desperately flappy birds?

(Our scarce peat lands and heather moorland are burnt by landowners for our old-world aristocrats to play at bird shoots.)


All in a very corrupt game of politics?

Be excellent everyone!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I read a letter from UK's ex-home secretary to the PM after he sacked her.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67416146

I have never read such plain political language. In Germany, in such a case, it is customary to hold a joint press conference, praise each other achievements exaggeratedly, and then declare that one have mutually agreed to go separate ways. Clear political speech became completely unknown to us.

[EDIT to add:]

Britain is at a turning point in our history and faces a threat of radicalisation and extremism in a way not seen for 20 years.

I regret to say that your response has been uncertain, weak, and lacking in the qualities of leadership that this country needs. Rather than fully acknowledge the severity of this threat, your team disagreed with me for weeks that the law needed changing.

As on so many other issues, you sought to put off tough decisions in order to minimise political risk to yourself. In doing so, you have increased the very real risk these marches present to everyone else.

In October of last year you were given an opportunity to lead our country. It is a privilege to serve and one we should not take for granted. Service requires bravery and thinking of the common good.

It is not about occupying the office as an end in itself.

Someone needs to be honest: your plan is not working, we have endured record election defeats, your resets have failed and we are running out of time. You need to change course urgently.

At least in this case the party who created the problem has to wear it, whereas here our new government has to deal with the same problem that was left behind from the previous.

Court rules UK government's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is illegal.

Britain's Supreme Court has ruled that the government's scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful, dealing a crushing blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before an election expected next year.

Under the plan, Britain intended to send tens of thousands of asylum seekers who arrived on its shores without permission to the East African country in a bid to deter migrants crossing the Channel from Europe in small boats.

But the top court on Wednesday unanimously rejected the government's appeal against an earlier ruling that migrants could not be sent to Rwanda because it could not be considered a safe third country.

President Robert Reed said the five judges involved agreed there were "substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would be at real risk of refoulement", meaning being sent back to their country of origin where they could be at risk of ill-treatment.....

Another Boris bombshell surfaces during the inquiry into Britain's COVID response. :-O

At the height of the pandemic, former UK PM Boris Johnson became so enraged ‘military options’ were drawn up to take action against an ally.

The United Kingdom drew up a secret “military” plan to effectively invade a European Union nation and staunch ally at the height of the pandemic.

The wild claim has come as former British prime minister Boris Johnson fronts an inquiry about Britain’s response to Covid-19.

Britain saw 230,000 deaths during the pandemic but also had one of the world’s fastest vaccine rollouts.

The probe has seen Mr Johnson apologise for the how his government handled the pandemic as he has admitted that he was too slow to act.

But the ex-PM may also want to apologise to the Netherlands after claims he drew up plans to conduct a “raid” on a Dutch vaccine plant.....

It is becoming increasingly clear that the PM Sunak is standing in the way of problem solving. Immigration minister Jenrick resigns and accuses the government of tardiness. His resignation letter:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67643770

It is with great sadness that I write to tender my resignation as Minister for Immigration. I cannot continue in my position when I have such strong disagreements with the direction of the government's policy on immigration.

As you know, I have been pushing for the strongest possible piece of emergency legislation to ensure that under the Rwanda policy we remove as many small boat arrivals, as swiftly as possible, to generate the greatest deterrent effect.

This stems from my firmly held position that the small boats crisis is a national emergency that is doing untold damage to our country, and the only way we will be able to stop the boats completely is by urgently introducing a major new deterrent.

[...]

In our discussions on the proposed emergency legislation you have moved towards my position, for which I am grateful.
Nevertheless, I am unable to take the currently proposed legislation through the Commons as I do not believe it provides us with the best possible chance of success.

[...]

However, I refuse to be yet another politician who makes promises on immigration to the British public but does not keep them.

The UK does not need a "new" deterrent as there is a very valid one on the books already.
All it will take is for the 950 benefit scroungers in Westminster to stand up & force the EU in enforcing the "Dublin Protocol"

Meanwhile, the BP's are at it again.
Heads stuck up their rectums.
The other side of the coin

But the Home Office said it needed more evidence that she had lived in the UK continuously for five years.

"She's receiving a state pension, so she's paid into the system," he said. "She's paid her taxes. She's paying council tax. There's lots of proof."

To receive the full state pension, 1 must have 35 years of continuous contributions.
Sheesh!

Sadly, all too true:


After a year of failed politics, we know we can’t rely on leaders. Luckily, we have ourselves


Revolution next?

There are Consequences: All in our crazy game of politics...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Trouble ahead for the Tories, especially if the interest rate is at least 5% or more come September.
After all, Rsiky Sunshine will be a calling an election then instead of May.
Allowances frozen until 2028, so...

Now he's pulling the same stunt with pensioners. Another 650,000 retirees will be at the sharp end of this in April. I wonder who they'll be voting for at the upcoming election. Nine million tax-paying pensioners spells double trouble for the Tories.

Trouble ahead for the Tories, especially if the interest rate is at least 5% or more come September.
After all, Rsiky Sunshine will be a calling an election then instead of May.
Allowances frozen until 2028, so...

Now he's pulling the same stunt with pensioners. Another 650,000 retirees will be at the sharp end of this in April. I wonder who they'll be voting for at the upcoming election. Nine million tax-paying pensioners spells double trouble for the Tories.

I'm one of those already in that bracket paying tax on the state pension, even if at the moment it is pennies.
But what gets me most is that my private pension is taxed AGAIN as it was funded by money I had already paid tax on.

But what gets me most is that my private pension is taxed AGAIN as it was funded by money I had already paid tax on.

Now you know why 1776

But what gets me most is that my private pension is taxed AGAIN as it was funded by money I had already paid tax on.

Now you know why 1776

And probably wouldn't have happened today, as instant communications would have shown how well the colonies were treated.
The tax in New England was about 1 shilling per annum, in the UK it was 26 shillings.

But what gets me most is that my private pension is taxed AGAIN as it was funded by money I had already paid tax on.

Now you know why 1776

And probably wouldn't have happened today, as instant communications would have shown how well the colonies were treated.
The tax in New England was about 1 shilling per annum, in the UK it was 26 shillings.

Inflation adjusted?

The joy of privatisation
In other words, a new member of the "infamous" company club - Grabit & run.

The joy of privatisation
In other words, a new member of the "infamous" company club - Grabit & run.

Wow, mail 6 days a week?

We get 5 ATM, but it'll soon be every other day of the working week (whether that be Mon, Wed, Fri or Tues, Thur I guess will depend on "snail mail" traffic to a delivery area) as more resources get thrown at its parcel delivery services while the "snail mail" service gets replaced by electronic services instead.

Soon enough our current letterboxes/slots will become a memento to a bygone era that in the end we can't escape.

Another muppet living in cloud cuckoo land.
Can't live on £30k a year

What a good idea:

Train government ministers properly and leave them in post, says ex-cabinet secretary
wrote:

Former civil service boss Mark Sedwill blames constant rotation of personnel and lack of proper teaching for poorer strategic thinking

Prime ministers should send their cabinet members to a school of government...

... effective government needed “longevity of personnel”, rather than a stream of new ministers without expertise...

... many top ministers not having any expertise in their area when they start the job...

... “Political skills are critically important for a minister but they aren’t the only skills a really effective minister needs. They also need governance skills. But those things don’t arise naturally. You have to teach them. “We don’t really train ministers at all, but to be frank, if you really want them to be strategic, you need to give them time to be strategic.”...

After all, we REQUIRE people to learn to drive and to prove they can drive by taking tests BEFORE they are let loose with the dangers of controlling merely a motor vehicle...


All in our deadly dangerous political world?
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Ah, the deep state MIC.

This is how our politicians treat their own staff:

MPs’ staff suffer rising levels of psychological distress...
wrote:

Nearly half of workers experienced clinical stress, findings suggest...

... Nearly half of the 3,700 workers employed by MPs experienced clinical stress similar to emergency service workers last year, the findings suggest.

One in five said they feared for their own and colleagues’ safety...

... The survey found that 46% of staff met the medical threshold for psychological distress – more than twice the level in the general population...

... Nearly half said they frequently or always hid the nature of their work from others because they expected a negative reaction...

... The survey also highlighted anxiety over the looming general election, with more than half saying they felt it would negatively impact their job, and 48% feeling unprepared to seek a new role.

Employees outside Whitehall said they were treated like “slack-jawed yokels” and “second-class citizens” by the parliamentary establishment, often working in unpleasant offices...

... So, how do they treat the rest of our great country?...

All in their ivory towers of the political elite...


And all in our only one deadly political world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)