Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I would assume the same as anyone else who works on projects - seek another job somewhere, retire, take time out. The Conservatives built up a substantial and costly backlog and once that's tackled they won't all be needed.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

The staff or the asylum seekers?

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

The asylum seekers, mainly the failed asylum seekers.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Migration looks to be on its way down.
https://www.ft.com/content/985fb7ee-...7-3362f64fbf5e

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Interesting that the solution isn’t to deal with deprivation?

Keep the two child benefit cap
End winter fuel payments
No magic money tree

Saving up problems for the next riot.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I'm sure that the two-child benefit cap will be ended by the time that Starmer has completed his first term. I suspect he's afraid of being portrayed by the media as spend thrift.

I don't think the winter fuel payments are being ended totally - just limited to the poorer in society.

Starmer seems to have bought into the belief of trying to make the whole country richer so everyone is better off and not tying to distribute the wealth more equally. How long this approach will last remains to be seen.

The thing I'm most encouraged about is the appointment of James Timpson as Prisons Minister. If we can get offenders back into work their chances of re-offending are substantially reduced and the state won't need to pay them to not work.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Yes them pensioners can be viscious.

No money tree but there is tax and a lot of obscenely rich people and property. Time to do some proper 'leveling up', we're 'all in this together' after all.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

House them in Chipping Norton, I want to see how posh people riot.

---------- Post added at 11:24 ---------- Previous post was at 11:22 ----------

That’s very much like celebrating when inflation falls from 20% to 19%.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

That's more realistic than leaving the ECHR.

---------- Post added at 12:26 ---------- Previous post was at 12:23 ----------

Net immigration of 350,000 by 2030 will be less than half 2022's figure of 764,000.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

If it’s all the same to you I’ll treat any prediction (based on recent decades) with a King Kong sized pinch of salt.

And, like I say, immigration still goes up year on year. Even if they reach their target that only moving it from 2x population of Coventry arriving each year ( more than that obviously minus leavers) to 1x the population of Coventry. Every year.

Are we going to build 10 new cities, in 6 years to accommodate them.

The ONS defines any urban conurbation with more that 244,000 inhabitants as a city.

We’re importing “cities” on an annual basis.

Forget Net Zero, Net immigration needs to be Zero by 2030.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Immigration does not need to be zero at all. People move here from other countries and get jobs etc. Mostly the jobs that many Brits don't want to do.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

We don’t need the numbers currently coming in, and I didn’t say “ Zero” I said - Net Zero.

In 2023 523,000 people left the U.K. that would mean 523,000……more than enough…….could enter the U.K.

Fine, if there’s a specific skill/ trade we need.

I could be wrong, but somehow I don’t see those young African and Middle Eastern men of fighting age coming over here with the goal of giving your granny a bed bath.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Have you even stepped foot in any care homes in the past 5 years? You would be surprised how many African men and women are working in them, same goes for nursing and maintenance/cleaners in hospitals.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Then imagine how many British jobs there would be if the wages weren’t undercut by immigrants.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Total rubbish. The wages are set by the market i.e. the business owner not the applicant. Those knuckle draggers who were "protesting about immigration" can equally apply for these jobs and yet strangely they prefer to remain on the dole.

Low wages are not the fault of the immigrants. The blame lies with the employers who seek to exploit them.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I never said low wages were the fault of the immigrants.

Wages are indeed set by the market, as you say.

But what if the government have put their thumb on the scale and flooded the market with cheap non-skilled immigrant labour? Which is what they have done for 30 yrs.

Are you seriously going to try and argue that immigration hasn’t depressed wages? Should be fun if you are.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

There is a huge demographic elephant in the room when we discuss migration and that is pensions. Contrary to popular belief, there isn’t a box some where in the treasury with our name on filled with our National Insurance contributions waiting for when we retire. State pensions are paid by the taxes of working people.

In the past, we saw around four taxpayers per pensioner. Now, we are closer to three and dropping all the time. This is due to us living longer (more pensioners) and having fewer children (less tax payers) The skewing to an older population increases costs in pensions (currently 10% of government expenditure) and healthcare (nearly 20% of government expenditure)

There are a few ways to solve this problem which are toxic, including raising tax, raising the pension age, reducing pensions, and Logan’s Run or we need to have more taxpayers. We can either incentivise a higher birth rate or import tax payers. The first will have an 18 year lag, the second is fast.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Tell me you don't understand markets without telling me you don't understand markets.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

There’s Bank of England study from 10yrs ago, that states in the low skill sector a 10% rise in immigrant labour results in a 2% reduction in wages.

And was in 2015. Immigration levels are at least twice that level now.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Some more nuanced results here than "oh yes it does" or "oh no it doesnt't!"

The attraction for any government is that a larger overall economy due to immigration means public sector net debt will be lower as a share of GDP than otherwise, enabling tax cuts, investment in public services or lower borrowing.

https://www.ft.com/content/5a00c171-...6-63ca292522e2

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

And if the market has tens of thousands of applicants appear out nowhere then the market is skewed and the wages drop just like it did when I was a kipper all those years ago because all the jobs that paid a couple of quid an hour over the barest minimum that could be paid legally disappeared in favour of the minimum, where the indigenous workforce were under cut by people living six to a house and happy doing 300 hours a month, we've learnt nothing and brexit and the riots are the result. Oh and for the purposes of a properly functioning, healthy economy we have zero unemployment.

---------- Post added at 16:17 ---------- Previous post was at 16:16 ----------

Extremists, a pox on all their houses and never of help to the general population that don't follow their agendas

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Do you have a link?

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I appreciate that’s the theory (and has been put into practice for some time) but with artificially finite housing supply it pushes up the biggest element of outgoings for most people - housing.

It also drives up demand for public services, school places, wider state funded babysitting, public transport costs, health services. It’s far from clean cut and only delays that it has to be addressed properly sooner or later.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I dont think having a cap is a bad idea, but IMO its set a little low.
I dont see a problem with 3 children, perhaps even 4, but I dont see why it should be unlimited.
Having 5+ children is just excessive, if you cant afford that many, then dont have them.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I would imagine that the number of families with more than 4 children means it makes a negligible difference at that point. Might as well keep things simple.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Getting back to the subject, some heafty sentences have been given out today for encouraging disorder on social media.


---------- Post added at 18:53 ---------- Previous post was at 18:48 ----------

Any limit is simple.
No limit just encourages people to keep having children they cant afford.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

They're really being quick with these. Dozens are getting sentenced every day.

Some of the disorder from 'the other side' is also getting big prison terms whatever people say on Twitter: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cpdl...2f505a5e3#post

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

There have been persistent rumours of trouble planned to kick off at an asylum seeker hotel in my part of Scotland this week. Missus has cancelled a reservation at a local restaurant and headed in the other direction with her pals. And there’s a van full of polis in the nearby supermarket car park.

I suspect the weather (it’s showering heavily) and the rapid sentencing of idiots down south will conspire to stop anything actually happening, which obviously is a good thing, although annoyingly it will be grist to the mill of the exceptionalists whose complaint isn’t so much that these things haven’t happened in Scotland so much as that such things could never happen here, perish the thought.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I doubt anything similar could happen in Scotland on the same scale simply because enough of the population see through the dog whistling. We’ve consistently rejected the Tories at the ballot box. Farage has never gained much ground in any guise. The political narrative in Scotland is quite often not anti-refugee.

There’s plenty of racists sufficiently divided by other factors, political and social, it’d be impossible to collaborate on any scale.

Thatcher decimated Scotland. There’s no amount of refugees will convince the majority of the population otherwise.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I tend to agree … the Unwashed are less apt to coalesce around one cause in sufficient numbers. Also, it never stops raining here so they’re more likely to consume their white lightning and Buckfast in the comfort of their own living rooms.

Polis Scotland would appear to have a similar view, as they’re only paying overtime for one van of very bored looking coppers.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

The rough equation for riots seems to be trigger + warm weather + asylum seekers housed nearby + deprivation + far-right agitators encouraging action + ability for those with a criminal record to get to the location = riot.

Remove one of these and the likelihood of a riot diminishes or goes away entirely.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/me...om-britain.pdf

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

my prediction is from tomorrow -football +lager = here we go again

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

For a kebab?

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Vindaloo surely? :)

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

That’s why I said taxpayers. People of working age tend to be net contributors to the government. It’s the very young and old that cost more than they contribute. I know a couple of people who are staying in the UK on visas and it is surprisingly limited and expensive to do. Both have to pay an NHS surcharge for access to healthcare and both have ‘no recourse to public funds’ which means that they have no social security safety net.

Pretty much the only direct benefit they get is school for their kids and that’s because education is both a legal requirement and a human right

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Nah nah nah….

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I'm not sure that any of my statement doesn't apply to imported "taxpayers".

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I take your point on the young but they at least have potential, but let’s say I’ve worked every day since I was 19 and I’m not planning to retire until 65, maybe later.

That’s 46 years paying tax, around half of that in the higher tax bracket.

When I retire I’ll pay tax on my pension, I’ll still buy stuff, I’ll still drive. So still being taxed in retirement when I’m old.

I haven’t…as yet thankfully…..been a burden on the NHS, and if I lose my marble’s they’ll take my house away.

I know the exception doesn’t prove the rule, but I reckon I’ll die, even if I make it into my 80’s a net contributor to the state.

Let’s also not forget all those evil millionaires and Billionaires that will almost certainly die net contributors to the state.


I would have thought that normal for non-citizens of any nation, if you’re in a country on a work visa, and you lose your job you shouldn’t get social security………you get another job or you go home.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Thank you.

I know this might sound very metropolitan elite, but I would expect that any impact on the lowest paid would now be removed by the big increases in the minimum wage.

But this can't be looked at in isolation. From the supply of staff to the NHS to the increase in house prices and rent.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

The minimum wage, since rebranded living wage, is only 15% higher than it was in 2018 in real terms. It's estimated around 5% of workers are on it.

Despite this "in work poverty" continues to trend upwards as it has done for 20 years.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

In work poverty was the brain child of Gordon Brown, that rather than make employers pay a living wage, subsidised them with in work tax credits that enabled employers to pay less keep more and the tax payer pick up the shortfall.

The Tories failed to reverse it and doubled down on “in work” benefits. A pox on them all.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

A couple (at least) of slightly worrying sentences being dished out.

In Belfast a judge said in sentencing remarks that simply being in attendance at a riot was enough, stating that defendants claims just to have been there protesting and to observe didn’t matter - attendance was enough.

Someone else got 12 weeks for expressing clear anti-immigrant sentiment - “coming to a town near you” alongside pictures of groups of foreign men looking like a gang.

The era of fascism will be ushered in by centrists impotent to change the minds of people who merely disagree with them at this rate.

Take any of the above principles in law - apply it to a protest you might attend, or a government failure you might condemn, during a period where you don’t like the colour of tie the PM wears. Frightening.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Link, please?

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/nat...-refused-bail/

Apologies the Belfast case was remanding someone into custody, not sentencing remarks, but the principle stands around the potential a Government you don’t like politicising the judiciary to quash dissent subject to a number of people in attendance going on to commit crimes.

https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/2...acebook-posts/

This is the other one. I don’t dispute at all whether it’s grossly offensive (it is). A 12 week jail sentence does seem disproportionate. Nobody was prosecuted for the 80 million Turkish people coming to the UK billboard.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Totalitarianism will be cheered on by the liberal middle classes……then when it’s used against them they’ll wonder “how did this happen?”

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

The Turkish poster in question dates back to 2016. Since then, we've had last October's Online Safety Act. It will be interesting to see how extensively this is used as it was criticised at the time for inhibiting freedom of speech. Presumably this case was prosecuted under it?

Recent prosecutions under it include a 25-year-old man jailed for falsely claiming online he was being chased by far-right rioters, and for rapper Omar Abdirizak, aka “Twista Cheese”. He is alleged to have posted a video online claiming that Tommy Robinson had called on people to attack mosques. Robinson shared the video saying he was being threatened by the rapper, and “had never called for anyone, ever, to attack any mosque”.

The case that is making headlines under it is that of Bernadette Spofforth, of Chester, alleged to be the first person to spread false information on X that wrongly identified the suspect in the deadly Southport attacks as being a Muslim immigrant. She has been arrested but not charged.

---------- Post added at 09:51 ---------- Previous post was at 09:48 ----------

The Online Safety Act 2023 was criticised for its restrictions on free speech at the time.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

The always excellent Secret Barrister has written a good blog on the application of justice after the riots which is worth a read and dispels a number of myths around the charging and sentencing of those involved - https://thesecretbarrister.com/2024/...-online-myths/

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

People shouldn't be getting a knock on the door from the police for posts that aren't incitement, otherwise advocating for violence or criminality. Some of the people arrested for social media posts deserve it because they said people should be violent but just being offensive isn't enough to be criminally charged for me.

I don't believe in a complete right to free speech. But each exception to that needs to be justified. The reason we don't allow incitement is because it can directly lead to violence and any reasonable person knows it can. So we make that exception. As with any law if we're limiting an individual's freedom there needs to be a good case as to why.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Great article.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I mean, that’s just an extensive post saying it is two tier but that’s a price worth paying, is it not?

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

The only thing that stands out is the speed of conviction but he or she does highlight the effectiveness of this is quelling the riots and has previously been shown to work back in 2011. It’s the same justice, just applied faster in clear cut cases.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

But it’s not the same justice if the same person who committed the same crime on a different week of the year (stealing items from shops, unpleasant or inflammatory tweets, etc.) is treated differently both in the process (being arrested at all; being remanded in custody) or in outcome (both in the types of, and length of, sentence).

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

It is the same justice though. They all go through the same process under law. Different punishments for the exact crimes committed, stealing a loaf of bread is not exactly the same as looting a shop or multiple shops as an excuse for a 'protest' .

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Your example - stealing a loaf of bread, is no different from the idiot who stole the crocs.

There will be many people who could, and should, be punished for their part in all of this. The two tier justice system will likely inadequately isolate them from the more minor, petty crimes.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

It is if the legislation covering the offences allows for aggravating circumstances to be taken into account - which it does. Stealing a loaf of bread from Arkwright’s on a random Tuesday afternoon is not the same thing as looting one while a riot is taking place. This has been the law here for a very, very long time.

I’d also argue that being housebrick stupid enough to leave your house and join a riot because you think the rules are somehow suspended and it’s ok to go looting should certainly enter into decisions as to bail.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

It's very very different t. Stealing a loaf on a random day really doesn't compare to breaking in to a store and looting it in the middle of a riot and should rightly have a harsher punishment.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

As the Secret Barrister blog post pointed out, there are pretty clear sentencing guidelines that Judges need to adhere and refer to. Take for example, the most common offence people are being charged with, namely violent disorder under the Public Order Act 1986. Here are the guidelines - https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk...nt-disorder-2/

The possible sentences range from community orders to 4 years 6 months in prison. Initially, the guidelines use tests for culpability and harm. Things that stand out are being involved in widespread and/or large acts of violence bumps things up as do things like attacks on police and public servants. After that there are the aggravating factors which include previous convictions, using weapons, throwing missiles and hostility based on presumed or actual protected factors with religion and race. Then finally, there are the mitigating factors such as level of involvement, remorse, caring duties and disability.

The guidelines are complex but they do ensure that sentences are consistent

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I’m certainly not claiming that any of these people are particularly clever, far from it. The legislation does allow whether aggravating factors are taken into account but it’s where this discretion is being applied - the very choice to do so - will be susceptible to the most criticism for cases that at face value seem relatively minor.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

This statement has started appearing on a lot of commentators’ Twitter timelines…

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...9&d=1724141958

As the Secret Barrister put it

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

It reminds me of those statements people would make on Facebook, saying they don't consent to their content being used by Facebook. Pusedo-legal nonsense.

They're either doing it for dramatic effect, sulking, or stupid. Probably all three.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

“Disclaimers” do not absolve you of all liability.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Their way of trying to claim anything they said won't get them in trouble.

'You can't charge me with being racist as I put that thing on my account':rolleyes:

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

Be interesting to know the rationale and who came up with the wording. It’s clearly a result of “legal advice” whether it’d have standing or not.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

"howsoever identified" looks like a nod to the whole him/her/they identity discussions.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I read it more as a "whatever disparaging term is used", but I suppose Dan Wootton may have gone "woke"… ;)

If you fancy a laugh, search Twitter by "howsoever identified"…

This is what ChatGPT thinks of it.

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...0&d=1724173145

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I think you're giving it too much credit. It's just people trying to make it sound law-like. It's the freemen of the land stuff. People just making stuff up.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

I’d not rule out them being gullible enough to pay for it from someone qualified enough to say in the email “BY THE WAY THIS ISN’T LEGAL ADVICE” in terms they can’t understand.

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

The long arm of the law

Major Southport attack riots update as Pakistan journalist charged with cyber terrorism

Authorities in Pakistan have charged a man who is accused of spreading disinformation that fuelled widespread UK riots with cyber terrorism.


https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-...arged-33499433

Re: Uk Riots and Protests (2024)
 

With power comes responsibility.

Interesting investigation into the Channel3Now website here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y38gjp4ygo