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Reply | Johnson’s mates
at 18:55 3 Jan 2026
My wife nearly paid Tesco's own special tax at the city centre "Marina" branch recently. She saw the big "2 Hours" at the top of the carpark signs, but did not read the small print beneath, which says that you need to validate a parking slip issued at the till in the machines outside if you stay over 1 hour. My wife was there for about 80 minutes and a £70 fine demand letter arrived. The wife had spent around £100 in the store so I went down to plead with the manager to cancel the ticket (they can check the club card record with points and date). The duty manager I saw was affable enough and said it would be cancelled, but then a reminder demand letter arrived. I repeated this with a different duty manager who said the same, but a week later the fine was still showing on the Horizon (parking company) website. Despite the managers' assurances that the fine would be cancelled, it transpired that Horizon can ignore emails from the branch. Fortunately, I managed to download the club card record and paste it into the Horizon online appeals webpage. The fine was then cancelled. So the morale of the story is: make sure your wife reads carpark signs carefully. My wife's excuse was most Tesco car parks just have the big hours figure at the top and no small print below that reduces the time allowed. One hour is unusually short - so beware. |
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Reply | Johnson’s mates
at 19:58 2 Jan 2026
Some of the benefits fraud Gwyn mentioned earlier in the thread? [Post edited 2 Jan 19:59]
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Thread | Have human rights for murderers gone too far?
at 09:10 2 Jan 2026
The High Court has ordered compensation for an Islamist double-killer who was kept apart from the general prison population for his own safety but claims this damaged his mental health. His case depended on ECHR article 8. The prisoner was awarded £7.5K but the taxpayer also paid legal costs of £234K. Looks crazy to me.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/crim
Edit. Re-phased so clear that legal costs were additional to the £7.5K. [Post edited 2 Jan 11:09]
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Reply | Fulton
at 18:15 1 Jan 2026
Did well today. Still has a role to play. |
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Reply | West Brom New Years Day
at 18:09 1 Jan 2026
Well done, Jay Fulton - got us 2 extra points I couldn't see coming. May still have a role to play next season if a sensibly priced deal can be arranged. |
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Reply | West Brom New Years Day
at 15:58 1 Jan 2026
Very good press, but in truth not much else going forward. A couple of our midfielders are making determined runs forward, but with a touch of the headless chicken syndrome and no translation of this into chances. Quality through balls have been notable by their absence. This looks like a 0-1 or 0-0 to me unless we make early substitutions. |
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Reply | More Miliband madness?
at 12:29 1 Jan 2026
That is a lot. So how much top up would the average person receiving a grant need to add? |
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Reply | More Miliband madness?
at 18:16 31 Dec 2025
Some of the reports say the cost of installing a heat pump is about £7K even with government grants taken into account. |
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Reply | Johnson’s mates
at 18:14 31 Dec 2025
Actually we would not be so far off replacement birth rate in the short term if we had zero immigration. Our population pyramid (which becomes a problem if wide at the top with a big proportion of older people) still has good width for the working age group towards the middle. In that regard we are better off than many of our European neighbours. If we had zero immigration then the UK population would decrease by 0.4 million from 67.6 million in 2022 to 67.2 million by 2030. Of course, we won't get to zero and the population would stay around the same with about 200,000 to 250,000 net immigrants p.a. Take a look at this calculator, which enables you to vary the main parameters.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplep
It can be seen that an increase in the fertility rate from 1.4 to 2.1 children per woman would enable us to achieve a relatively stable population for longer with zero immigration. Under this scenario the pyramid remains viable with greatest width in the middle and bottom. The interesting thing that the calculator shows is that even if we maintain immigration at the present or a higher level we soon get to the position where the pyramid looks problematic because a smaller proportion of working age people need to support the old and young. You need to look at the pyramid to the right on the screen (labelled the "Population age profile") to see this. |
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Reply | Johnson’s mates
at 08:39 31 Dec 2025
Personally I'd say that the idea that small boat immigration costs about a third of benefits fraud is an underestimate when various externalities are considered. A quick AI search suggests that the cost of benefits fraud rose from £6.5 billion in 2022-23 to £9.5 billion in 2024-25 (though the difference between overpayments and fraud may be an issue). In 2022-23 the cost of small boat crossings is estimated at £3.5 billion (Migration Watch), and for 2024-25 I would anticipate quite a big rise in small boat arrivals expenditure based on hotel costs etc. However what concerns me more is the cumulative and continuing cost of many successive years of small boat crossings. This includes costs for continuing accommodation and living expenses (often falling on local authorities), costs of appeals and other legal support, costs of family reunifications and subsequent support of dependents, costs of crime and surveillance of high-risk individuals. Moreover some of these persons are themselves likely to be involved in benefits fraud once they have refugee status. The Centre for Policy Studies has estimated that the lifetime cost of cross-channel immigration so far to UK taxpayers will be around £234 billion, which translates to approximately £8,200 per UK household over several decades. [Post edited 31 Dec 2025 8:55]
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Thread | More Miliband madness?
at 07:42 31 Dec 2025
Reports say that as part of the Warm Homes Scheme about to be introduced there will be an extra £30 on gas bills to encourage a move to electric heat pumps. Is that fair? |
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Reply | Johnson’s mates
at 11:14 29 Dec 2025
Well, the triple lock is a candidate but the broader welfare bill - and the revolt and U-turn that left Rach in tears - is what comes to my mind first. |
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Reply | U Turn on Farm Inheritance Tax
at 17:06 26 Dec 2025
Some would say it is the number of U-turns that will have the biggest impact on public opinion, rather than a particular case. |
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Reply | Coventry City v Swansea City : Match day thread
at 16:57 26 Dec 2025
The Swans fell away after a good first half. We did have a couple of good chances, which a sharper striker might have take, but I thought the biggest disappointment was the way our creativity dipped after the interval . We ended up playing too many hopeful long balls. I am a big Galbraith fan but this was one of his poorer performances. Too many times he was in a reasonable position and preferred to pass the ball back rather than try a more ambitious through ball. |
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Reply | How many like this are already here?
at 17:14 25 Dec 2025
Here is a recent report on the nature of the likely threat.
https://assets.poolre.co.uk/si
JMB rightly says we do not know exactly how many dangerous persons may be in the UK, but we can get some idea from the numbers under surveillance by the security services. The Govt is a bit vague about numbers but five years ago it was reported that 90% of 43,000 extremists on MI5’s watchlist were Islamists.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne
And just today the Archbishop of York said, “We have become, I can think of no other way of putting it, fearful of each other, and especially of strangers,” he said. “We cannot see ourselves in them. And we, therefore, spurn a common humanity.” Personally I think it is perfectly reasonable to be fearful given the present state of our borders and certain sections of our minority communities. [Post edited 25 Dec 2025 17:16]
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Reply | Who can this mystery person possibly be?
at 16:20 23 Dec 2025
The police have revoked A's firearm certificate. Could it be they think the pressure is building to the extent that things might go pop? |
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Reply | Labour imploding
at 09:27 23 Dec 2025
The government seems to be trying to keep the unions on side as things go downhill. One consequence of the employment rights legislation now being enacted is that public bodies will no longer have to publish the cost of giving time off to union reps for union business (“facility time”). Time must be given to union reps in both the public and private sectors and now the unions themselves will be able to determine how many hours for union business is appropriate. The cost to public bodies had risen to £98.2 million in 2023-24 before reaching £106.7 million last year. The right to facility time will now also extend to equalities officers, and the cost will no longer be transparent.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/po
(Behind paywall)
Taxpayers will be kept in the dark about how much public money is being spent so that union officials can have paid time off work, under the government’s workers’ rights reforms.
Despite new figures showing that last year almost £107 million was spent on so-called facility time, Labour has scrapped powers to cap it and removed the requirement for public bodies such as the NHS and schools to declare it in the future.
At the same time, the right to be paid to carry out union duties has been extended to equality representatives in workplaces to allow them to focus on equality duties. |
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