PoliticsSense

Common sense views on politics & EU. #Brexit was inevitable.

[PoliticsSense @PoliticsSense]

Just in case Remainers didn't know what type of Remain they were voting for.

Merkel - November 2012

The EU will transform into a single nation—a superstate—“otherwise it will not work in the long term”.

[Dr Marcus Dromgoole @MarcusDromgoole]

@afneil @PoliticsSense When the wind blows existing turbines produce more energy than the grid can use because of its instability. That extra energy is wasted but its suppliers still get paid. When, as recently, the wind doesn’t blow then the suppliers are paid anyway. More turbines more subsidies!

[PoliticsSense @PoliticsSense]

@MarcusDromgoole @afneil It's pay, pay and pay again

1 Pay when the wind blows
2 Pay for the gas when the wind doesn't blow
3 Pay for gas even when the wind does blow for grid stability

Madness. The subsidies both direct and via the bills should be paying for nuclear and we're paying for that as well!

[The Maggie Oliver Foundation @TMOFCharity]

Today is the day. David vs Goliath. Today we go to the High Court for our landmark judicial review against the Government. We have been shocked at the arguments being advanced by the Home Secretary in defence of its failure to implement key recommendations made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). These arguments include, that The Maggie Oliver Foundation does not have standing to bring this challenge on behalf of children, that the Government is under no obligation to implement child protection measures, and that the public at large cannot rely upon promises made by the Prime Minister and Ministers that are made in Parliament.

The Government's legal defence raises fundamental questions about public trust, accountability and whether promises made to survivors following public inquiries mean anything at all.

At the centre of the judicial review are 20 key recommendations issued by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) proposed to better protect children across the UK from sexual abuse. These include properly collecting data relating to child abusers and victims of abuse and exploitation, ending the use of pain-inducing restraint techniques on children in custody and regulation of staff in children’s homes.

We are concerned that more effort and public money appears to be going into defending a challenge designed to ensure these critical improvements in child protection are made than into implementing them.

The simplest example of this is this – if the Government had implemented the first recommendation of the IICSA, there would have been no need for a further three-year, £65 million public Inquiry (The Statutory Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs).

WHO IS ALLOWED TO ASK THE QUESTION?

The Secretary of State is a challenging whether The Maggie Oliver Foundation and our founder and Chair, @MaggieOliverUK , have standing to bring the case at all.

This raises a deeply troubling question.
If organisations representing survivors and working every day with the consequences of child sexual abuse are not entitled to ask why promised child protection measures have not been implemented, who is?

The Government is trying to exclude from the debate the very people closest to the consequences of these failures.

For years survivors have been told to come forward. Speak up. Tell the truth. Many have done so at enormous personal cost, but now the Government says they, and those who represent them, cannot object to failures to protect children. Their voices must be silenced.

This challenge was never about politics. Governments of all stripes have let down children. It is astonishing that the Government's first argument in this judicial review is that victims can have no voice.

If organisations representing survivors, and survivors themselves, cannot ask why promised child protection measures have not been implemented, who can?

IF GOVERNMENT DOESN'T HAVE TO ACT, WHAT IS THE POINT?

A central plank to the Government's defence is that ministers are under no legal obligation to implement recommendations made by public inquiries.

If that is right, why spend hundreds of millions of pounds on public inquiries if Government is just going to ignore what they find? We genuinely struggle to understand how anyone can think that is acceptable.

Millions are spent, years of hearings are had, victims pour out their hearts, findings and recommendations are made, promises are made by Government and then broke – but when someone has the temerity to ask why those promises haven't been kept, the Government's response is we never had to keep our promises.

If that is right, the Government must be open about it, and explain to the public why they hold expensive public inquiries at all.

IICSA took seven years, heard from more than 7,000 survivors, cost more than £200 million and made twenty recommendations intended to protect children. But the Government now says, we have no obligation to fulfil its promises to implement recommendations to protect children.

CAN POLITICIANS DENY THEIR PROMISES MATTER?

We are also challenging the Government's position regarding promises made by the Prime Minister and ministers following publication of IICSA's recommendations.

Repeated assurances that action would be taken have been made by senior politicians across successive governments.

The Government's defence includes arguments relating to parliamentary privilege. In effect the Government say that The Foundation cannot rely upon ministerial promises made in Parliament, and that such promises cannot give rise to expectations about future action.

If the public cannot rely on promises made in Parliament, what can they rely on?

Survivors and the public hear ministers make promises.

They hear repeated assurances that lessons have been learned and change will follow.

They build their expectations around those promises.

Many survivors have spent years believing ministers when they said action was coming.

To now be told that those promises cannot be relied upon is not just a legal argument, it is a fundamental betrayal of the trust survivors (and children across the UK) were asked to place in the process.
Trust works both ways.

Survivors are asked to trust public inquiries with the most painful experiences of their lives.

Governments should not then be able to argue that survivors cannot rely on the promises they receive in return.

WHILE GOVERNMENT ARGUES, CHILDREN ARE STILL BEING ABUSED

Government figures show that approximately 2 million children have been sexually abused since IICSA published its recommendations in October 2022.

That astonishing number must not be lost amidst legal arguments and the Government’s technical defences. This case is about the protection of all British children.

What shocks us most is how much ingenuity and effort has gone into finding reasons not to act.

Imagine if half of the same energy had been invested in implementing child protection measures.

Imagine if the resources currently being spent defending this case had instead been spent protecting children.

How many children might already be safer?

While well paid Government lawyers argue, children are still being sexually abused.

That is the reality we cannot lose sight of.

This case was never about clever legal arguments.

It is about whether promises made to children and survivors mean anything at all.

The Maggie Oliver Foundation will not be silent on that question.

[Maggie Oliver @MaggieOliverUK]

Day 2 of our groundbreaking Judicial Review today.

Still consumed in legal arguments as the govt says they don’t HAVE to do anything. Public enquiries have no legal obligation to implement any recommendations! And by NOT bringing in the recommendations of IICSA they argue there in “NO DETRIMENT” to anyone!!!! Just unbelievable, disgusting, offensive and totally contemptuous….

They don’t have to act on recommendations, that’s of course true. But what arrogance! How insensitive and dismissive of all survivors and victims who believed the promises made to them - that retraumatising themselves to bring change were just empty words! Empty promises!!

And of course it begs the question, why are we going into yet ANOTHER public enquiry …. That’s the real question here …. And why spend billions of public money on public enquiries….. it seems as though it’s just another way to avoid action and accountability and kick the ball down the road!!! 😡😡😡

But we @TMOFCharity are fighting this to the death and doing our best to expose the hypocrisy and lies of successive governments!

We and our incredible legal team Howe and Co can but try….

[Gully Foyle @TerraOrBust]

I've seen these questions raised elsewhere, but they are worth asking.

The terms of the EU Reset are clearly ridiculous and unacceptable to the British public. So why is it that:

A) The EU allowed them to "leak" ahead of the summit?
B) Andy Burnham is willing to sign it?

[Gully Foyle @TerraOrBust]

So the UK Fresh Produce Consortium says that a full half of imported fresh produce, comes from outside of the EU - and the EU reset will make it more expensive.

So the EU reset is going to make food more expensive, not less expensive.

Why are we doing this again?

[Dr Marcus Dromgoole @MarcusDromgoole]

When too much electricity is being produced by wind farms we’re paying £b’s to turn it off because it’s not stable enough to run the grid on its own. That’s when gas steps up. Then when it doesn’t blow we’re still paying £b’s while they stand idle & gas steps up again. 🤦🏻‍♂️

[Roger Teague FSU @TeagueRoger]

Folks we all know if you repeat a lie for long enough people start to think it’s true. Here is a perfect example.

[David Haigh @haighdavid]

Greater Manchester won't release the papers behind its £55.7m of 2017 loans to Manchester Life, the council's venture with City's Abu Dhabi owner. It calls the request "vexatious" yet accepts the public interest, per the refusal Ben Rose posted. The loans were repaid. Publish. https://t.co/a2ok6owLj5

[Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson]

The media is obsessed with slimeball celebrity predators- latest allegations are against David Walliams - while Maggie Oliver has to sue the government to get action for tens of thousands of victims of Pakistani rape gangs.

I know which story I think is more important.
@MaggieOliverUK

[John Redwood @johnredwood]

I asked why the Chancellor wrote to the Bank to authorise the Treasury buying bonds off them. He agreed to them not selling £120 bn of long bonds.I was told the Bank is independent! Why no explanation of this big policy change by the Chancellor?

[Roger Teague FSU @TeagueRoger]

The EU Reset delivers >£300m in RoW Import Costs.

By applying EU-aligned checks and certifications to non-EU imports (eg. citrus, mangoes, and sweet potatoes) will add more than £300m in extra operational costs for UK importers and domestic wholesalers. https://t.co/v62F9wNrYI

[Bernie @Artemisfornow]

Er … whilst the MSM keeps you distracted with celebrity sex scandals … this is happening. (You know, the thing they want to hide.)

Today the European Central Bank told the European Parliament it wants the legislation for the Digital Euro agreed by the end of this year.

From January 2027, the ECB will begin experiments involving:

▪️Conditional payments - transactions automatically triggered when predefined conditions are met, by Ai.

▪️Digital payments integrated with public services, transport, utilities and SMART CITIES.

▪️The first digital euros could be issued in 2029.

The ECB insists this will NOT be programmable money that restricts what people can buy. (You know it will be)

The infrastructure will connect digital money, automated conditions, AI and public services. And nothing prevents future governments from expanding its use.

These are the foundations of a completely new monetary infrastructure being built.

Shhhh … watch the news.

[The Nowhere Photographer @thenowherephoto]

FIVE MINUTES CHASING A PEOPLE SMUGGLER.

This is the longer footage showing what really happens on the beaches of northern France.

Once the illegal migrants have boarded, the smugglers, normally two to four of them, change clothes, remove their masks and jump off the boats.

They blend into the crowds, then slip away into the dunes, ready to do it all again the following day.

Watch the bizarre half-hearted attempt by the French gendarmes to stop this one.

I could have tackled him myself if I’d been given permission.

This is why I recognise the same smugglers, day after day, crossing after crossing.

They aren’t being stopped. They’re being allowed to return.

MEDIA NOTICE: All media outlets must obtain prior paid permission before using this footage. Email [email protected].

Credit doesn’t pay for these trips.

[Gully Foyle @TerraOrBust]

The CEO of the Fresh Produce Consortium, Nigel Jenney, had some strong words yesterday for the EU Reset:

❌ £300m a year in extra costs
❌ Increase food price inflation
❌ Adding further delay and waste
❌ No gain for biosecurity

"Half of the fresh produce the UK imports comes from outside the EU – citrus, mangoes, blueberries, sweet potatoes, peppers. Under dynamic alignment, up to 120,000 of those consignments a year, destined solely for British consumers, would face EU-style controls they do not need today. That moves the burden somewhere else; it does not simplify anything.

“We are a large, diverse nation that has always depended on food imports as a key part of our food security. For generations we have imported far more than we export. So why put extra costs on the 80 billion portions of fresh produce behind our five-a-day habit?

“We estimate more than £300 million a year in added cost. That is roughly £2,500 for every affected consignment, and it will fall on importers, hauliers and wholesalers and, in the end, on shoppers at the checkout.

“The Government has said this deal will help bring down food price inflation for families. On fresh produce, as drafted, it will do the opposite. Hard-pressed UK consumers are still feeling the cost of their weekly shop, and fruit and vegetables are exactly where we should be making healthy choices easier and cheaper, not dearer. A policy meant to ease food inflation cannot add £300 million to the cost of the fruit and veg aisle and still claim to be on the shopper’s side.

“And for what? The UK’s science-based, risk-led regime already achieves 99.5% compliance across those consignments. The science has not changed; the politics have. Adding cost, delay and waste to a system that works brings no measurable gain for biosecurity.

https://t.co/AwNNQi9LM8

[Robert Jenrick @RobertJenrick]

132 days ago, trying to get elected, Andy Burnham said he’d deport this vile rape gang leader.

And yet he’s still here.

Burnham must think we’re fools.

[Darren Grimes @darrengrimes]

Burnham's government is spending your money in court to stop you finding out what foreign criminals have done in this country.

The data watchdog said publish. Twice.

Labour said no.

Half of Britain thinks it's a cover-up. Hard to argue with them, isn't it?

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

This is government gaslighting to a high degree.
1. It’s not a new announcement. The Norfolk East and West offshore wind projects were announced earlier this year as part of the AR7 round of contracts.
2. No way does it bring down prices. Those behind it, energy giant RWE + global investors KKR, were guaranteed an above-market strike price of £91.20/MWh based on 2024 prices — indexed linked for 20 years. That guarantee is already worth £97/MWh in 2026. This is v expensive energy.
3. What is new is that the costs of developing offshore wind have soared. So the government has now had to chip in £1 billion of the £12 billion investment needed from the National Wealth [Destruction] Fund. So more state subsidy on top of the massive subsidies for two foreign companies implicit in the price guarantees embedded in AR7.
4. Far from cheaper electricity this embeds high-cost electricity in the system for 20 years.
5. So much for the Chancellor’s Budget pledge to ‘only build new projects when they lower prices’. This does the opposite — and at enormous expense to the taxpayer and electricity user.
Gaslighting indeed.

[PoliticsSense @PoliticsSense]

@PeterStefanovi2 @Nigel_Farage "by almost every economic & financial measure Brexit has been disastrous for the UK"

Except for the main ones like

Exports
GDP growth

Why lie Peter, why lie?

That's what lost you the referendum in 2016. You never learn

[Julian Jessop @julianHjessop]

Exactly this... 👇

Rejoiners place far too much weight on the UK's trade in goods with the EU, which is in long-term decline...