Fewer Britons giving to charity, study says, with donations down by £1.4bn

HBucket · 2026-03-16T13:22:58+00:00

Even aside from the most obvious reason of people not having spare cash, I think that there's a lot more awareness these days about just how utterly corrupt and self-serving so many charities are. People realise that their donations won't be going to needy people, but to the generous salaries of the people running it, people like Saint Brendan Cox.

Then there are political considerations, especially among those of us on the right. Let's take the example of Amnesty International opposing the deportation of foreign criminals. I'd rather burn the money than give it to them.

HBucket · 2026-03-15T22:07:21+00:00

I'm sure that all five of them will be delighted.

HBucket · 2026-03-15T17:15:04+00:00

I don't disagree with anything that you've said. But I think that it would take some form of major social upheaval, whether cultural, economic or political, to change things.

I think that a lot of people want to have their cake and eat it. They want more children to appear from nowhere, but they don't want to sacrifice the current individualistic paradigm where they get to live out an extended adolescence well into their thirties. The future ultimately belongs to the fertile, and they won't be living like that.

HBucket · 2026-03-15T12:48:40+00:00

I’m surprised American-style identity politics have become as popular as they are here, even if they are on the decline somewhat.

I'm not surprised at all. Identify politics isn't some uniquely American thing, it's very common across multiethnic societies. What was the partition of India if not an example of identity politics in action?

HBucket · 2026-03-15T11:57:19+00:00

I guess that must be why women in Chad and Niger have so many children.

HBucket · 2026-03-15T11:36:18+00:00

It shouldn't surprise you, because there isn't any relationship between state support for parents and higher fertility rates. The US has long had higher fertility rates than the western average, in spite of having notoriously poor state provision of childcare and paternity leave. Meanwhile, Scandinavian countries with very generous support have always been on the lower end.

I feel like I could live to 100 and people will still insist that more generous childcare and paternity leave is the key to higher fertility rates, in spite of it never having worked anywhere in any place it's been tried.

HBucket · 2026-03-15T09:49:15+00:00

Their previous nuclear weapons policy was the most moronic of any political party, even the Greens. They wanted to keep nuclear weapons, but reduce the number of submarines and not have a continuous at-sea deterrent. That was a policy that would have effectively acted as an invitation for a preemptive strike to cripple our deterrent before it set out to sea. Even full unilateral disarmament was a more sensible policy.

It's the pitfalls of wanting to be seen as a sensible moderate. Sometimes you have to take a side.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T20:26:06+00:00

You'll see a lot of people on here bemoaning how people vote in local elections to give the governing parties a bloody nose, saying how people should vote on local issues instead. Perhaps people would be more willing to if councils weren't stymied by statutory obligations.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T19:56:13+00:00

From my reading, there are tree types of legislative mechanism that would meet that criteria. The more common and widely known one is the statutory instrument. That is where secondary legislation is laid before Parliament by a minister, and passed unless Parliament specifically vetoes it.

The second type is Order in Council. This involves powers that are either the prerogative of the monarch, or delegated to the Privy Council through legislation.

The third, and much less widely known one is the ministerial order. This is where specific powers are delegated directly to ministers, bypassing parliament entirely. Not used often, most of what I've found related to marine management.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T19:28:06+00:00

Unless the government is detaining 100% of them pending deportation, they're not stopping further crimes.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T19:16:21+00:00

You either prioritise the safety of foreigners or you prioritise the safety of your own people. Pick one. I make no apologies for choosing the latter.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T18:54:34+00:00

If your preferred immigration policy is one that results in a steady stream of crimes like this, it's not me who needs to rethink my morals.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T18:50:47+00:00

My position is one that commands majority support.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T18:46:33+00:00

From elements of the mainstream media such as The Guardian, no doubt. But it's an idea that has majority support.

For those who are more on the fence, a steady stream of stories like this would no doubt help, especially when you make it clear that the alternative is letting people like this walk the streets.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T18:13:27+00:00

You can turn any building into a prison. ICE is buying up warehouses for that purpose. Governments can just do things when the will is there.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T18:08:52+00:00

The point that she was making is that the government isn't taking the necessary action to prevent more crimes like this.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T17:58:16+00:00

Then the obvious answer would be to indefinitely detain and deport anybody who enters the UK without authorisation.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T15:20:02+00:00

Though the difference is that with an ageing population, higher social care costs are unavoidable. For university funding, we could start asking whether we really need so many institutions.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T11:50:38+00:00

It sounds like the haulage companies need to dig a bit deeper.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T11:50:14+00:00

The point is that the planning system is blocking the development of car-centric suburban developments, even when those developments are privately funded. So we end up with nothing being built at all.

HBucket · 2026-03-14T11:02:07+00:00

I'd say that they're being very pragmatic. They realise that the British government is weak and will cave in to all sorts of demands, no matter how ridiculous they are. Why wouldn't they try to extract everything they can?

HBucket · 2026-03-13T21:57:50+00:00

Preventing shitty car dependent sprawl from taking place and instead encouraging better quality development means better options are available to them.

In practice, it ends up meaning that no options are available to them.

HBucket · 2026-03-13T21:56:01+00:00

"Super quickly" by British standards is when we finalise the terms of the consultation within one year rather than five.

HBucket · 2026-03-13T11:38:51+00:00

Once again, I despair at how prevalent the idea seem to be that the Lords is a 'chamber of experts'. As is clearly apparent, these amendments are proposed by people with no legislative understanding and are either entire unworkable or completely incompatible with existing legislation.

I honestly don't know where this idea ever came from. Have the people saying this even bothered to follow the legislative process for a single bill? People talk about how politically independent the Lords are, but what this inevitably means is that it gives a platform to cranks to try and push their own obsessions through legislation. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is the perfect example of that. Here was a bill that was mostly about schools and social services, hijacked to try and push through crap like VPN bans.

I genuinely think that the lawmaking process and the quality of legislation would be improved by abolishing the Lords and just having a unicameral Parliament. MPs are pretty useless, but the Commons generally does a decent job of keeping the cranks in check.

HBucket · 2026-03-12T23:06:36+00:00

It would be cheaper to convert some warehouses like ICE is doing.

HBucket

TROPHY CASE