“Civil service union tries to BLOCK Rwanda crackdown” – Daily Mail
“Civil Service union tries to stop Rwanda flights with judicial review” – The Telegraph
Uh! Typical. Flippin’ civil servants. Uncivil servants more like. The Blob. *angry sounds off*
If you feel upset at this, I understand. But there’s one thing that should cheer you up. That’s not what’s happening.
The headlines tell you the story that civil servants are doing this to thwart (you only really get that word in these kind of stories or superhero films) the will of the elected members of our parliament.
The civil servants haven’t teamed up to sue the Government. The First Division Association (FDA), which is a union that represents senior civil servants in the UK, has initiated a judicial review. Their worry is that, under the current situation, civil servants could be forced to break the law or the Civil Service Code in carrying out the actions the politicians are requesting.
The UK government introduced the “Safety of Rwanda” legislation, which overrides a Supreme Court decision from last November. The court had ruled that Rwanda was not a safe place to send genuine refugees because they could face torture and abuse upon return to their home countries.
I suppose they were saying Rwanda isn’t a safe place to deport to because the home countries of the refugees aren’t safe, which is probably a reason a genuine refugee left there in there first place. It wasn’t saying Rwanda wasn’t safe in and of itself, but that’s a tangent for a different post.
The Government’s bill fixed this problem. They passed a bill which allows ministers to ignore the European Court of Human Rights and directly instruct officials to organize flights to Rwanda. Sorted.
Meanwhile, if you’re a civil servant you signed up to the Civil Service Code. The first rule of the Civil Service Code is, “You do not talk about the Civil Service Code!” The same goes for the second, but further down the document is where it gets good.
The Civil Service Code says that you cannot break international law. So, the Safety of Rwanda Bill declares Rwanda safe but the international law still remains. The Government can legally ignore our Supreme Court but the civil servants are left is a tricky situation.
They have to do what the ministers tell them to AND they have to stay within international law. If they are told to put on a flight to Rwanda you’ve just created a paradox. This is like going back in time to kill your own grandfather. An action I hope is also frowned upon in the Civil Service Code.
The union wants the High Court to rule on whether this aspect of the legislation would put civil servants in conflict with their legal obligations or not.
If the union is successful it could likely see the Government ordered to remove the conflict by holding another parliamentary vote to either specify in law that the UK will ignore the injunctions or to amend the Civil Service Code.
It’s important to note that those outcomes won’t stop the Rwanda plan, they’ll simply stop civil servants having to pick which sackable offence to commit; breaking their own code or not performing their job.
That explains headlines like this:
“Sunak ‘confident’ civil service will enact Rwanda bill despite legal concerns” – The Guardian
Of course he’s confident. He knows this case won’t stop it.
The kind of people who are filling X with comments like, “Typical Civil Servant activists. Oh, they’ll come into the office to thwart some will of the people, won’t they?” are the people who would love one of the outcomes of this case. The UK could be legally ignoring the ECHR. They’d love a bit of that.
Look, I understand that the actual details of the legal action being brought in no way disproves the claims that the Civil Service has been captured by lefty activists, but this story isn’t proof that it has.
You may think the union's claim is a sly way to scupper the flights. Then say that. Knowing the real story doesn't mean you have to start loving the Civil Service. With this story we have a choice. We can understand the details of the real story or we can stay angry at the false one and we can see which option a lot of the newspapers think you prefer.
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Incest monster Josef Fritzl's lawyer insists her client 'is going to be released' from high security prison after 'repeatedly showing remorse' for his crimes as court considers moving him to normal jail
It’s worth noting that “normal jail” part because that’s not the same as saying he’s being released but it still leaves many questions. Is prison even a punishment for someone who liked being a bunker so much?
The Regional Court of Krems met to decide whether a recent court ruling trying to block his bid for freedom should be reversed. What do you have to do to be actually locked up for life?
His lawyer said: 'My client has co-operated with the experts, submitted himself to countless medical assessments, including brain scans, undergone therapy and experts have already long concluded he no longer poses a threat to society.'
I mean, I suppose he isn’t going to do it again at 89. He’d struggle on the stairs.
It’s not about the threat we fear. He isn’t likely to come for us now. At his age you could probably outrun him. But he was never going to come for us anyway. He was a criminal who focused on his own family.
The issue is about the message a prison terms sends telling people not to do something for fear of how strict the punishment would be.
This is a thing where the criminal system should be used to put people off. It’s not like some activities where harsh punishments will just make it go underground. That’s already the problem here.
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This 40-year-old has drink-drive charge thrown out after it emerged he suffers with ‘auto-brewery syndrome’. Well, they say “suffers” but I bet he has a great night in.
This condition is where the body brews alcohol within it. Some call it auto-brewery syndrome. Some call it the next step in human evolution. They may be the ones who survive the cost of living crisis now that a pint has hit £7.
Here’s the worrying bit… the man in question works in a brewery. Talk about taking your work home with you.
He makes alcohol for a living and in his body, so if the factory has a problem would he wee in bottles? And now I will never drink anything from Belgium again.
Currently, only around 20 people globally have been officially diagnosed with the condition but it could be more common and some people are just low-level piss-heads and we don't notice. Scientists are not sure what causes it, but believe it is linked to specific strains of bacteria and yeast found in the gut.
What has he been doing at work that he has brewing yeast up his bum?
In case you are worried about ABS here are some of the official symptoms:
Vomiting
Belching
Dizziness
Loss of coordination
Telling friends you love them
Sleeping with a solid 4
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Oh no, don’t do this. Some groups get offended by anything and instead of judging that, every other groups tries to copy. It’s a race to the most offended.
Now it’s old people pretending that saying they’re old is like dropping an age-related N-word. (Which would would be “codger”. But with an A.)
Nursing assistant Margaret Couperthwaite - who is in her 60s - sued for age harassment, alleging a younger colleague suggested an operation had been free on the NHS 'back in your day'.
Firstly, I bet that op was free back then. The NHS was great.
Secondly, it’s worth considering that Margaret was actually given a warning for taking 4 days off with a cut finger (understandable if it’s the finger you use to turn the front door key – how was she supposed to get to work?). She was later late go from her role but only after being fired did she complain about this ageism attack.
And she forget when someone said it to her. I know the memory goes with age but that doesn’t help your case.
So, she lost the tribunal, but in a “let’s have a look what you could’ve won” moment the tribunal said, “If that phrase had been used it would have been 'unwanted conduct'.”
Don’t do this. If you can’t say “back in your day” we won’t be able to say, “Kids these days…” and that’s half the conversations old people have.
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The reason behind the longer hours isn’t anything to do with childcare for tired parents, but that’s why I’m not complaining about it. It’s a bid to tackle pupils’ addiction to smartphones.
The idea is that while the children are in school they can’t be on their phones so to keep them off their phones for longer they will simply stop the children going home. This is like 1% putting them in care.
Pupils at All Saints Catholic College in Notting Hill will be expected to arrive at 7am and stay until 7pm. That’s longer than an average workday. I know that school is suppose to prepare you for the world of employment but you don’t need to be ready to pull 12-hour shifts. Let’s be honest, with AI, you don’t need to be ready for a 2-hour work week.
The school plans for the children to do dodgeball, basketball, art and drama. So don’t worry, these extra hours in school won’t lead to anyone getting cleverer.
I didn’t know a school could just keep you kids if they chose to. There will be some children who don’t even have a phone and they’re being kept away from their family because a headteacher has decided.
Is it the job of a school to teach children to get of their phones? The people loving this are the same people who lose their minds about the nanny state when we see plans for schools to teach children how to brush their teeth.
“It should be the parents doing that,” they will say. “It’s not that expensive to buy a toothbrush and get to work. Tut.”
Well, how about this? “It should be the parents to teach their kids to use their phones a proper amount.” “It’s not that expensive to not buy a phone.”
Or just go in to the school physics lab and get them to build you a massive Faraday cage to go around the school. Problem solved.
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She has said the Government’s Rwanda bill 'as drafted' would not achieve the goal of stopping the boats. I agree. We may come at this from different sides. I think the flan is fundamentally flawed, she thinks it’s not hard enough, but it’s a thing of beauty when both sides of the political divide can agree.
Meanwhile Rishi Sunak is excited that he might finally get the plan and some planes off the ground. MPs and peers are getting ready for a long night of voting, how the heart bleeds.
Many would agree that it’s not the role of the House of Lords to scupper Government legislation. Even the House of Lords thinks that and after a bit of ping-pong they tend to stop fighting. It’s worth remembering that there are more Conservative members of the upper house than Labour members, so this is a case of the Tories failing to convince their own people about this bill.
What does a win look like? When the bill passes Rishi will try to claim that. He has said , "No ifs, no buts, these flights are going to Rwanda." I’m sure they are. Probably empty, but I’m sure they’ll fly. Best case scenario, a few dozen people might take part in the scheme. That won’t be enough to put people off making the small boat crossing they have planned.
They’ll think, “What are the odds that I’ll end up in Rwanda?” Those odds will be low, and for context, let’s remember that the pill is only 99% effective. And we still get up to a lot of rumpy-pumpy.
Worst case, no one will go. Either way, the UK has given Rwanda £240million so far for pretty much nothing, and last week we heard the news that the scheme could be rolled out to other countries. How? We just give hundreds of millions of pounds to some random countries? Is this what’s replacing Comic Relief now that Lenny has quit?
MPs rejected some of the amendments suggested by the House of Lords including a report on the safety of Rwanda. We know we don’t need that because the Government passed a bill declaring Rwanda safe. That sorts that then. If we could only pass another declaring London safe we will have fixed all that knife crime.
14 people a year a killed by vending machines falling on them. Quick, declare them safe before I get my Twix.
Another amendment said those who had worked with UK forces should never to be deported there. If they’d have phrased the same amendment but using the term “our boys” they Government would have been forced to get behind it.
The prime minister described the plan as an "indispensable deterrent " that removes the incentive for people to make the dangerous Channel crossing.
Under the terms of the deal Rwanda can return to the UK any asylum seeker who commits a crime. So another way to look at this is a great system to make sure that we only keep the criminal element in the UK while deporting the rest to Rwanda. And it only costs us £240. So far.
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It's been a long while since an album has been noticed by so many people. Years ago we'd go to record shops each week to see what was released but the new ways to consume music means its presence is just assumed.
The new Taylor Swift album, called The Tortured Poets Department, has already broken records. It was streamed more than 300 million times in one day. One of those streamers was me.
I thought I should listen to it all so I know what I'm talking about as I do my afternoon radio show on Time 105.7fm, which I'm sure you listen to online. The whole album is over 30 tracks, running at over 2 hours long. I didn't fully understand that when I started my research listening.
Here's what I learned from listening to the biggest album of the year.
Taylor has had a lot of break-ups. Most of the songs seem to be about the end of relationships and from listening to the lyrics, all of the break-ups were the guys' fault. That's quite impressive. It also feels statistically unlikely, but I'll take her word for it.
Her main complaints seem to be that the men she dated told her that they'd settle down and start a family when they first met. Then, as the relationship fizzled out and the couple separated, Taylor seems upset that those early promises weren't kept.
We used to call that changing your mind and it used to be something you were allowed to do. Plus, ever relationship starts full of optimism. No one goes into a new relationship thinking, “Well, this should fill a year or two.”
There's one song where she sings about not wanting to get out of bed in the morning after a break-up. But she's Taylor Swift. It must be great being her. Imagine how hard it is to start the day for the rest of us.
The opening track is about a two week relationship she had. I don't think you can really call that a relationship, it's only just about a fling. It's a long tryst. I've had longer relationships with pimples.
We learn that the end of this fortnight fling was so upsetting for her that she now wants to kill the man and his wife.
Could we possibly stop normalising this? Going crazy at the end of a two week hook-up isn't OK? Feeling upset shouldn't lead to murderous thoughts and it shouldn't be a cool thing to confess.
It was still an excellent album as Taylor Swift is an amazing artist. I hope she brings out another recording breaking album again soon. Let's hope she has lots of break-ups between now and then to make sure it's a good one.
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In America they have their separation of church and state. In the UK we haven’t managed the same. While the census tells us we are finally no longer a majority Christian country, it’s not just atheists making up the rest of the figure.
Still, here’s some good news for the godless. A school prayer ban has been upheld by the courts as a pupil loses her High Court challenge. Don’t worry, it won’t affect their pocket money, we paid for this through legal aid.
It’s the Michaela Community School, lead by Katharine Birbalsingh. She’s the self-proclaimed “strictest head in Britain”. It’s easy to self-proclaim anything. You should see how good I look in my self-assessment form, but I digress.
The school has a rule that you can’t have public displays of religion. A Muslim pupil complained and, to cut this long story short, the mum took the school to court and lost.
The meat of the dish is this. The school isn’t a faith school. Parents are told that before they sign their kids up. One mother did that and then the child wanted special rights to pray.
It’s a bit like going into a library that has a “shush” rule, and you know it has that “shush” rule but you go in anyway and when you’re in the someone shushes you and you lose your sh*t about it.
The best about this story is that the mother, who was so appalled with the school she sued it, plans to send her next child there as well. This mother is also working on the next case for suing the school. I think we have found the mega-Karen.
Think about it. To join a school that calls itself the strictest school, when knowing the rules but then when your daughter has to stick the school’s rule, which you know they’ll enforce because they’re strict, you sue! And you don’t even pay for it. They don't teach confidence like that in schools these days.
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New legislation in the UK would punish those who digitally alter and spread sexually explicit images with unlimited fines or prison sentences.
The problem is that technology has really made it possible to invade someone’s privacy without even being about to see them. In the old days you’d have to cut out a picture of someone’s head, Prit Stick it on a rude photo from a magazine you found in a bush. All of this didn’t really embarrass someone as much as it made you look weird.
With AI they can take a picture of your face and somehow seamlessly create an adult video of you and let’s be honest, it looks better than the real thing would. The AI version of me hasn’t eaten all those pizzas.
This new law makes sense. It’s an act that victimises someone. The fact that to break the law you have to spread the images or use them to intimidate the person featured means you can still make them for your own personal use, you wrong ‘un.
The government will table an amendment to a criminal justice bill that is before parliament, but officials would not say when the law would be implemented.
That feels like it’s inviting people to hurry up and make all the deepfakes they need before the cut off.
Reality star Cally Jane Beech is in this article saying the law is a good thing, and her picture credit is from “Splash News”. I didn’t know there was such a specialist site.
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In an interview on LBC he apologised to the Adidas Samba wearing community. 2024, man.
He was mocked for wearing them but in his defence he says he was a 'longtime devotee' of the brand. The trouble is there is no evidence, in all of the many pictures of him taken over the years, that he has ever worn them. We’re getting strong, “My girlfriend is hot but she goes to a different school,” vibes.
He also gets mocked for wearing trousers that are too short. I think this is a defence mechanism. He looks likes the kind of guy who was bullied and that’s why he dresses like he’s already been wedgied. The bullies won’t wedgie you if you’ve already been done. They’re busy people.
Meanwhile footwear historian Elizabeth Semmelhack told The Times it could prove to be 'the death knell' for the retro trainer which has previously been described as 'the defining sneaker of our age'.
Footwear historian is a job? We have reached over-employment. I don’t wish offend the footwear historian community when I say that.
The newspapers have often mocked Rishi for the attire. He’s held to a standard normally reserved for any woman in the public eye. Over the years they have mocked him for wearing hoodies, Timberland boots, and sliders.
It makes me feel sorry for the PM because he gets this scrutiny but Boris Johnson dresses like he slept in that suit before coming into work clinging to the side of a train and no one minded.
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The basic story is this: There’s a factory in China copying stamps, selling them for 4p each, but if Royal Mail finds it it costs the recipient £5.
That’s bad. But is it economic warfare? If that’s what brings the UK down China had a point. Centuries of ruling the world. We gave the world the industrial revolution, the internet, technology and medicine. But if was those stamps that did us in.
And who is still using stamps that much? Using stamps to attack the UK is like attacking us with fake Blockbuster video membership cards.
While it might be state sanction economic warfare it could also be the Government not caring. Try this as a thought experiment. “There’s a company in Reading making fake Argentinian stamps.” See how you didn’t really care? That.
The real scandal is that if someone sends you a letter with a dodgy stamp they charge you £5 now. It’s gone up. No, Post Office, we already don’t like you because of what you did to Toby Jones.
They’re also overestimating the importance of what they deliver to you these days. They’re saying, “Someone sent you something but if you want to know what it is it’ll cost you.”
They may have motivated us a few decades ago but now, if you give me the chance to not have something delivered, I’ll go for that. It’s saving me the effort of walking from the front door straight to the recycling bin.
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Honeytrap makes it sound more romantic than it really is. He chatted with someone on Grindr and they exchanged pictures of their tallywhackers. The other guy sent his first but William wasn’t dragged up, he knows that etiquette dictates that one reciprocates with a DP. Manners cost nothing, apart from your position as the vice-chair of the 1922 committee.
They were then meant to meet up, which you could probably spell meet with an a for that. But they never did and the guy started to extort him, to really ring out Willy Wragg and wanted the phone numbers of other MPs. William gave them. He was a regular 118 118 guy, just without the shorts.
Some of those MPs replied to the todger pics they were sent with their own. See, manners. The scammer apparently messaged the MPs saying, "Hi, I met you in the parliamentary bar, have a look at this." And they didn't think this was suspicious.
Unless it’s one-upmanship. Like the peen version of that scene from Crocodile Dundee. “That’s not a knife. (*unzip*) This is a knife.”
William had already said he wasn’t standing at the next election but resigned his current positions and apologised. The worry was that someone managed to get compromising pictures of these politicians that easily. The only solution is for us to not to be shocked by it. The scammer would have no power if we all just presumed that these MPs are spending their time having a look at each other's ding-a-lings. Most of them went to public schools anyway.
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Gen Z, currently aged between 11 and 26, come under much scrutiny. The best thing about Gen Z is that they have made the papers stop hating Millennials. It’s a good thing too, because newspapers used the term Millennials to mean “young people” but they’re now 27 to 43. At 43 you don’t want to be picked on for being an annoying young person just as you’re heading into your mid-life crisis.
The latest trouble with Gen Z is that apparently they’re ditching traditional table manners because they're ''irrelevant'. I wonder how much of this is because Gen Z know they’re growing up into a world where they probably won’t be able to afford to buy a table.
Research has found that there are still some rules they want to stick to. Chewing with your mouth closed is still seen as a good rule.
This is unsurprising as, from my limited time on TikTok, it seems like all young people claim to have misophonia, the medical condition where they can’t stand hearing other people chewing. To those people I say, “Hey, it’s not all about you! Some of us have to eat. I’m not going to starve to death because you’re being all fussy.”
The same research has found that Gen Z think it’s OK to put your elbows on the table. Before we all pile into chants of, “Tut, young people these days,” I want to be honest. I never understood that rule.
Closing your mouth when you eat is practical. It’s messy and, from the point of view of the eater, you don’t want to drop any.
What was the problem with elbows? If you don’t have a sturdy table and a little pressure on one side would make it tip, then I’m onboard. We either don’t do elbows or we all do elbows.
Thankfully society has moved on from making a table out of a disused dartboard rested on a stack of books, so most tables can handle it.
That makes the elbow rule one that isn’t needed but is adhered to out of convention. It’s like the act of shaking hands. Originally it was to show that you weren’t carrying a sword in that hand. These days we still do it despite no one carrying swords, making it unnecessary and knife crime still going up, making it unsuccessful.
In the research, 77% said they 'do not care about cutlery politics'. 60% say they don’t care which way round people hold their knife and fork.
But if we don’t have rules about how you use your cutlery, which knife does what, which way you should leave your knife and fork on your plate if you haven’t finished your meal and how you get soup into your mouth using a spoon how will we know which people are working class so we can judge them accordingly?
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