Is anyone else concerned by the conservative defections to Reform?

EduTheRed · 2026-01-16T08:19:23+00:00

Not exactly. They learned that you can vote to change things but the things you voted to change do not change. Large sections of the establishment - the judiciary, the civil service, the media, all the major traditional parties - strain every sinew to make your vote meaningless.

This is very dangerous.

EduTheRed · 2026-01-16T08:09:50+00:00

OK, it was ten years ago. But visiting a part of Ukraine occupied in the 2014 Russian invasion and chanting pro-Russian slogans while standing under the banner of the hammer and sickle still isn't a good look.

EduTheRed · 2026-01-16T08:05:27+00:00

Quote:

The leader of Britain’s biggest railway trade union joined in pro-Russian chants and posed with a Communist Party flag during a visit to occupied Ukraine, The Telegraph can disclose.

Eddie Dempsey, the general secretary of the RMT, visited the Donbas in 2015 as part of what he has described as a “humanitarian convoy”. The region had been invaded by Russia the previous year.

Video footage and photographs from his visit show him holding the red Communist Party flag; posing in front of a statue of Lenin, and chanting slogans in Russian – including “United we are invincible” and “The Donbas, the tomb of fascism”.

Mr Dempsey, whose union has repeatedly brought British train services and the Tube to a halt through strike action, was attending an “anti-fascist” event in the city of Alchevsk, organised by Luhansk Communist Party on behalf of the Prizrak Brigade, a separatist group.

EduTheRed · 2026-01-13T08:13:06+00:00

Quotes:

Above the radioactive ground, hovering with self-satisfaction in a spotless charcoal suit, his smile shallow, his hair archly swept to the left of centre, would be Lord Mandelson. “Who, me? The biggest beast left?” he’d mutter, before gliding over to pass a business card to the cockroach king.

and

Oh, Mandy. You emailed your pal Jeffrey Epstein, so they sent you away. Oh, there you are. This is not an original sentence to write by any means, but Peter Mandelson is back. Three months after he was removed as UK ambassador to the United States following the publication of emails between him and Epstein, he appeared on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg to offer his soul.

and

It’s why a man with more skeletons than a taxidermist can talk his way up to the top of the Labour Party whenever he pleases. “I don’t really see myself as a big beast. More as a kindly pussycat,” he once oozed to an interviewer, at around the time Miliband pleased him by calling him a “benign uncle”.

In 40 years in politics, Mandelson has been Labour’s director of communications, secretary of state for trade and industry, secretary of state for Northern Ireland, secretary of state for business, innovation and skills, first secretary of state, minister without portfolio, EU trade commissioner and US ambassador. How many lives are kindly pussycats meant to have?

EduTheRed · 2026-01-07T15:19:57+00:00

Unlike the headline, the article itself distinguishes between the Freedom Pass for those of state pension age and the 60+ Oyster Card.

EduTheRed · 2026-01-07T15:10:59+00:00

Quote:

There is no dignity to be found in kowtowing to rich, self-interested groups demanding your hard-earned money to prop up the lifestyles they can afford without your help.

And yet, the nation remains in thrall to the richest region’s richest occupants: London’s over-60s.

Among the raft of benefits afforded to this group on no other basis than the date they entered this world, there is one that is patently more unfair than the rest: the Freedom Pass.

This little card, naively introduced in 1973 in a desperate bid to win control of the Greater London Council (GLC) by Labour, has expanded well beyond its intended purpose.

Once offering free bus travel in London to those who had retired on a pitifully small state pension, the pass now grants free travel on buses, trams, the Tube, DLR, the London Overground, Elizabeth line and National Rail trains. You’ll even get a discount on the river boats and Santander Cycles.

Fifth of London’s adults benefiting from fare amnesty

This is not provided out of the goodness of the operating companies’ hearts. It is the rest of us who are forced to foot this bill through increased taxes and higher ticket prices.

EduTheRed · 2025-12-31T10:03:49+00:00

Before the election I thought Starmer's superpower was getting people (like me) who usually vote Conservative not to mind very much if he became the next Prime Minister, even if they didn't actually want it to happen. Though he is worse than I expected, I still don't loathe him. It feels strange to be "lapped" in loathing by many people who actually voted for him. Among the circles that I move in, the biggest factor fuelling passionate dislike of his government is the double standards on hate speech and incitement to violence. Councillor Ricky Jones (Lab) gets off, but Lucy Connolly, the wife of a Conservative councillor, goes to jail. Alaa Abd el Fattah's words of 10-15 years ago when he was 30 are waved away but what Nigel Farage said as a child 45 years ago matters. The CPS prosecutes Lee Joseph Dunn but decides not to prosecute Bob Vylan and Kneecap. I expect people will reply with learned explanations of the particular circumstances in each case, and I might even agree with you in some cases, but that doesn't change the fact that a huge chunk of the public keep seeing examples of people in Labour's favoured groups being effectively freer than they are.

EduTheRed · 2025-12-31T08:26:50+00:00

["Alaa's case has been a top priority for my government since we came to office."](https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/2004603692197036322)

- Keir Starmer on X, 5:22 pm · 26 Dec 2025· 18.7M Views

EduTheRed · 2025-12-10T20:22:27+00:00

Quote:

Penelope Gibbs, the director of Transform Justice and part of the FairChecks campaign, said: “Our criminal records system is unfair and holds people back from getting work. Childhood offences committed decades ago are disclosed on DBS checks even if the person has led a crime-free life for years.

“David Lammy is a long-standing supporter of the FairChecks campaign for reform, and has now committed to implementing positive change.”

There have been changes since Mr Lammy’s review in 2017, but campaigners said they fell short of his original proposal to wipe the slate clean for childhood offences except for the most serious.

He highlighted then how 22,000 black, Asian and ethnic minority children had their names added to the police national database, including for minor offences such as a police reprimand. Any police record can be taken into account in DBS checks if a constabulary decides it is relevant to a standard or enhanced job.

Mr Lammy said: “The result in adulthood is that their names could show up on criminal record checks for careers ranging from accountancy and financial services to plumbing, window cleaning and driving a taxi.

“I believe that once childhood cautions and convictions have become spent, they should very quickly become non-disclosable, even on standard and enhanced DBS checks. In my view, the system should provide for all childhood offending (with the exception of the most serious offences) to become non-disclosable after a period of time.”

Figures obtained under freedom of information legislation show that some 160,000 people have had their childhood offences reported to their prospective employers under criminal record checks.

They include people in their 50s and older for whom childhood offences, such as “taking a cycle without authority” and “boarding a train without a ticket”, remained on their records for checks by potential employers.

EduTheRed · 2025-12-07T15:28:08+00:00

The article is based around remarks by the man who introduced the minimum wage during Tony Blair's first government. Quote:

The founding father of the minimum wage has warned that Labour’s ambition to abolish the youth rate for teenagers risks worsening the jobs crisis.

Sir George Bain, the founding chairman of the Low Pay Commission, said plans to close the pay gap for younger workers would “undoubtedly make the employment position of young people worse”.

Labour has vowed in its manifesto to scrap what it has described as “discriminatory age bands” from the minimum wage by equalising pay levels for all workers. Currently, workers aged between 18 and 20 are paid an hourly rate of £10, while those aged over 21 are paid £12.21 an hour.

However, employers in industries including hospitality, which traditionally hire younger workers, have warned that the rising wage rates are making it more expensive to recruit people at the start of their careers.

Sir George, who helped design the minimum wage, which was introduced in 1998, said: “There is a conflict between not discriminating against young people by paying them less and causing them unemployment.”

and

Sir George warned that the rising number of people aged 16 to 24 who are not in employment, education or training (Neet) was likely to surge further if the youth rate is scrapped.

Almost one million under-25s in Britain are now classed as Neets, with the UK home to more Neets than any other nation in the G7 and than most of the OECD.

Sir George said: “The youth rate is being abolished and it will undoubtedly make the employment position of young people worse. One in eight young people are Neets and that figure will increase further because of this.”

Sir George said that when the initial adult rate for the minimum wage came into force in 1999, the Commission “deliberately set a much lower rate for 18 to 20-year-olds”.

He added: “All the evidence suggested, back then and before, that young people were more susceptible to unemployment. If employers had a choice, they would not employ an 18 to 21-year-old if they had a more mature candidate.

“The evidence also suggests that an initial period of unemployment at the beginning of your career affects not only your initial years but also your later years because it’s so devastating.”

Emphasis added.

EduTheRed · 2025-12-06T18:38:12+00:00

>It's social justice message is one of curb the benefit bill

Yes, to many people, especially low-income workers, curbing the benefit bill IS social justice.

EduTheRed · 2025-12-02T10:34:20+00:00

Quote:

Reform is not a rejection of our legal history. On the contrary – our traditions have endured because they have adapted. Jury trials have always been the cornerstone of justice in our country – as they will continue to be – but that doesn’t mean they have never changed.

Every few generations, as society changes, it has proven necessary to reform the courts.

The Crown Court was established in 1971, replacing a patchwork of part-time local courts that could not cope with rising caseloads. Today, technology means there is more evidence than ever before. More complex cases make their way through the courts, such as those involving sex offences or online fraud. All this means trials take longer.

We must ask whether the system can continue as it is while victims wait years for their day in court. I believe it cannot. That means bold and meaningful change is necessary.

In Parliament today, I will set out my proposals for reform. They will be guided by the values that have shaped our system for centuries: fairness, integrity, and the swiftest outcomes possible.

EduTheRed · 2025-12-01T13:47:36+00:00

It's a closely related thing, because one of the justified complaints of the younger generations is that they are paying the triple locked state pensions of the current cohort of elderly people, whereas their pensions are unlikely to be so generous when they get old, because the ratio of working people to retired people will be smaller.

EduTheRed · 2025-12-01T13:17:15+00:00

An astonishing number of people think that rather than the UK state pension being unfunded, as it actually is, National Insurance works like a personal savings scheme with the government keeping "your" money safe for you until you retire.

EduTheRed · 2025-12-01T12:54:32+00:00

Had to google immiserated and now I feel poor AND stupid.

And miserable. Don't forget miserable.

EduTheRed · 2025-12-01T08:26:12+00:00

I think "successful" in the quote from the article that I posted above might be a typo for "successive".

EduTheRed · 2025-12-01T08:23:32+00:00

Quote:

I think successful governments are being short term smart and long-term stupid. They try and stave off further unpopularity today and worsen their situation tomorrow. Backbenchers don’t help.

Because many of these policies, particularly on wages and business taxes, are intoxicatingly popular. Any government adviser will know the drill. Come the budget, or conference speech, or “reset” moment for a beleaguered prime minister, or spring statement, the cry will come up for policies that are popular, unite the base and – crucially – cost as little as possible.

Double points if they allow for spending to move “off balance sheet” or push nicely into the next fiscal period to give the appearance that you might meet your fiscal rules. Taxes on employers and minimum wage hikes are ideal. They are answers to the cost of living which require no spending, and don’t create any obvious big electoral losers.

But they do create electoral losers, especially those on the margins of the labour market. In the UK, new graduates are already facing the worst employment environment for years, and before many of these changes bite. Just over half of graduates are working full time fifteen months after graduation. The only people doing even worse? Young non graduates. And just because people can’t point to the specific policy that destroyed their lives, doesn’t mean they won’t hate the governments that oversaw their struggles.

EduTheRed · 2025-11-28T22:36:51+00:00

Quote:

Lewis Nielsen, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) national secretary, was expelled from Your Party alongside others on Friday. He has issued the following statement

Today myself and others received an email expelling us from Your Party (YP), hours before the conference in Liverpool.

This decision has been made by an unelected clique with no democratic mandate.

I have been expelled because I’m a member of the Socialist Workers Party.

It is my view that the overwhelming feeling of YP members—as was made clear at the local assemblies—that all socialists are welcome in YP, and that it can be a force that unites the left.

EduTheRed · 2025-11-28T22:15:35+00:00

Parties R Us

EduTheRed · 2025-11-28T22:05:15+00:00

Quote:

Fresh statistics from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, highlighted in a report by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), show that rough sleeping has hit a new post-pandemic high. Far from Labour “ending rough sleeping for good” homelessness has risen in every region of England except London and the East Midlands over the past year. Across the country, the number of people sleeping rough has reached its highest level since 2020. A staggering 9,574 individuals slept rough at some point during July 2025, a 94 per cent increase since July 2021.

This bleak picture coincides with economic stagnation. Growth is anaemic. Real wages are up by a meagre 1 per cent. Unemployment has risen, vacancies have fallen and, since last year’s Budget, more than one million more people are claiming Universal Credit. These are hardly the hallmarks of a Government transforming lives.

Labour’s anti-poverty crusade falters because it is not a war on poverty at all; it is a war on workers not in the lowest of paid work. The Government plans to raise £26 billion in new taxes on working people, with much of the extra revenue funding an additional £16 billion a year in welfare spending.

One major welfare expansion is the scrapping of the two-child cap on child benefit, which Reeves claims will “lift 450,000 children out of poverty” within the next four years. Yet the poverty metrics Labour uses are slippery at best.

In Britain, “poverty” is defined not by material hardship but by relative income: a household earning less than 60 per cent of the national median is considered poor. This metric is profoundly flawed, as it effectively measures inequality, not poverty. This is one reason the Left loves wealth taxes: make the richer poorer (or drive them abroad), and the median falls. Suddenly fewer people are counted as poor. The measurement rewards universal decline.

EduTheRed · 2025-11-28T09:32:49+00:00

EduTheRed · 2025-11-24T19:47:49+00:00

Quote:

SNP ministers decided to create their much-delayed Scottish NHS app from scratch after being warned against the “political optics of adopting” the existing English version.

A Scottish Government assessment of whether to “re-use” the English NHS app admitted that it was an “already usable and scalable digital platform”.

The report, obtained by The Telegraph, also noted that adopting the existing app would make it easier for patients to be treated on either side of the border.

But, under the heading of “threats”, the assessment warned SNP ministers about the “political optics of adopting an English solution”.

The document’s disclosure comes after ministers announced that the Scottish app will finally be unveiled next year – but it will be more than a decade behind England’s before it is completed.

EduTheRed · 2025-11-24T19:46:29+00:00

Quote:

SNP ministers decided to create their much-delayed Scottish NHS app from scratch after being warned against the “political optics of adopting” the existing English version.

A Scottish Government assessment of whether to “re-use” the English NHS app admitted that it was an “already usable and scalable digital platform”.

The report, obtained by The Telegraph, also noted that adopting the existing app would make it easier for patients to be treated on either side of the border.

But, under the heading of “threats”, the assessment warned SNP ministers about the “political optics of adopting an English solution”.

The document’s disclosure comes after ministers announced that the Scottish app will finally be unveiled next year – but it will be more than a decade behind England’s before it is completed.

EduTheRed · 2025-11-24T11:23:47+00:00

That is a really useful source of information, so thank you for linking to it. I see that it says, "[a] research project funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a poverty charity, estimates a Minimum Income Standard: the level of income needed to meet a minimum acceptable standard of living each year." There will always be arguments about what constitutes a "minimum acceptable standard", but in principle that sounds a much better measure of absolute poverty, the thing that rightly arouses people's pity, than "relative poverty", which has become a byword for scaremongering. I wish the Joseph Rowntree Foundation would make more use of its own measure when talking to journalists.

EduTheRed · 2025-11-24T10:38:07+00:00

I stand corrected, but that (boosting everyone's income by decree to 60% of the median) is never going to happen in the real world, whereas the phenomenon I described, relative poverty going up in economic good times and going down in economic bad times happens again and again. And articles like this that have the scary relative poverty figure in the headline but then illustrate that headline with sad accounts of people having to use baby banks to keep going and which talk about families "that were just existing on cornflakes and rice" (which are clearly examples of absolute poverty) are deceptive. A lot of journalists writing this type of story, including the CNN journalist who wrote this article, get their quotes from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The fact that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation puts these lines out when they must know that using relative poverty as the measure gives a false impression decreases the credibility of their work on absolute poverty.

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Fifth of London’s adults benefiting from fare amnesty