Off Topic Politics Thread

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What are the implications of it collapsing? Would it be a normal administration where the creditors get pennies in the pound? And is that the point where nationalising it becomes an option? Because it’s politically unviable for the government to take on their debts
This is where a brave government nationalises. The French did this with power and it has been a big success.
 
The former sounds like utter nonsense because the private school thing is removing charitable status from something that isn’t really a charity anyway. Nothing to do with human rights

And I’m not clear how limiting the amount of money someone can receive has anything to do with human rights either.

If both of these things are related to human rights laws then:

- why would the Tories be so keen to scrap the ECHR membership?
- wouldn’t it be a massive slippery slope as to what could apply to this legislation to

unless point 2 is the design - try and make even Labour want to scrap human rights laws

But interesting that during the many discussions and phone ins on this topic pre election (the school fees part) that this never came up as far as I remember. Nor did it come up in the right wing media. And it was the right wing media who were having the biggest tantrums about it because a disproportionate number of their journalist sent their kids to private schools. YouTube algorithm put lots of Times Radio my way pre election. It was funny listening to the excuses they kept trying to make for the 14 years of Tories. It became increasingly desperate. But they wouldn’t shut up about school fees. Probably why it’s appearing again in the torygraph
 
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Dude… this is just conjecture from some lawyer talking to the Telegraph! Get real! <laugh><laugh><laugh><laugh>
Sure. What could a lawyer possibly know about the law?

The former sounds like utter nonsense because the private school thing is removing charitable status from something that isn’t really a charity anyway. Nothing to do with human rights

And I’m not clear how limiting the amount of money someone can receive has anything to do with human rights either.

If both of these things are related to human rights laws then:

- why would the Tories be so keen to scrap the ECHR membership?
- wouldn’t it be a massive slippery slope as to what could apply to this legislation to

unless point 2 is the design - try and make even Labour want to scrap human rights laws

But interesting that during the many discussions and phone ins on this topic pre election (the school fees part) that this never came up as far as I remember. Nor did it come up in the right wing media. And it was the right wing media who were having the biggest tantrums about it because a disproportionate number of their journalist sent their kids to private schools. YouTube algorithm put lots of Times Radio my way pre election. It was funny listening to the excuses they kept trying to make for the 14 years of Tories. It became increasingly desperate. But they wouldn’t shut up about school fees. Probably why it’s appearing again in the torygraph

In the Telegraph article on school fees (which is dated before the election) Lord Pannick says "It would be strongly arguable that for a new government to impose VAT on independent schools would breach the right to education. That is because all other educational services will remain exempt from VAT and the charging of VAT on independent schools alone is designed to impede private education, and will have that effect." Supposedly Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock were both given similar legal advice in the 1980s and dropped similar policies as a result (although Kinnock says he doesn't recall that).

In the article about housing/compulsory purchase, Tom Barton argues "The ECHR protects the right to peaceful enjoyment of one’s possessions and respect for your right to a home, and capping compensation at ‘existing use value’ could be considered an infringement on this right. Landowners would almost certainly argue that removing or reducing ‘hope value’ in compulsory purchase compensations deprives them of fair market value for their property and infringes their human rights."

The school fees argument seems stronger to me than the housing one and the lawyers making the statements seem to be more eminent but who knows? In either case, even if the government ultimately wins legal challenges could delay things by years, which echoes something I saw Dominic Cummings say about people not understanding how complicated and time-consuming it is for governments to actually do things.

As for the slippery slope point, we're already way down that slippery slope. The ECHR has previously prevented British governments from deporting African rapists because of their right to a family life. I think that's far more significant than stopping either of these policies from being implemented.
 
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Sure. What could a lawyer possibly know about the law?

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In the Telegraph article on school fees (which is dated before the election) Lord Pannick says "It would be strongly arguable that for a new government to impose VAT on independent schools would breach the right to education. That is because all other educational services will remain exempt from VAT and the charging of VAT on independent schools alone is designed to impede private education, and will have that effect." Supposedly Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock were both given similar legal advice in the 1980s and dropped similar policies as a result (although Kinnock says he doesn't recall that).

In the article about housing/compulsory purchase, Tom Barton argues "The ECHR protects the right to peaceful enjoyment of one’s possessions and respect for your right to a home, and capping compensation at ‘existing use value’ could be considered an infringement on this right. Landowners would almost certainly argue that removing or reducing ‘hope value’ in compulsory purchase compensations deprives them of fair market value for their property and infringes their human rights."

The school fees argument seems stronger to me than the housing one and the lawyers making the statements seem to be more eminent but who knows? In either case, even if the government ultimately wins legal challenges could delay things by years, which echoes something I saw Dominic Cummings say about people not understanding how complicated and time-consuming it is for governments to actually do things.

As for the slippery slope point, we're already way down that slippery slope. The ECHR has previously prevented British governments from deporting African rapists because of their right to a family life. I think that's far more significant than stopping either of these policies from being implemented.
 
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I cannot like this enough. Here is the most utter destruction of Puck’s point, lucidly put by someone who knows what he is talking about and illustrated with countless examples. What a hero!
 
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That's a very interesting take. Of course, even if that's correct a challenge could still cause very serious political problems for Starmer. Given his previous statements and written publications where he's stressed the importance of international law it would be enormously hypocritical for him ignore a ruling on one of these issues. I can already hear Nigel Farage asking something along the lines of "Why is it you're prepared to ignore the ECHR when you want to tax people but aren't prepared to ignore it to deport illegal immigrants?"
 
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It doesn't "destroy" my point at all. And it isn't my point anyway. I'm quoting senior lawyers.
Dear Robin Goodfellow,

You may remove your tongue from Lord Oberon’s rear end. As the chain clearly states, Lord Pannick knows full well this cannot and will not be, and the article he contributed to was lobbyist propaganda.

Yours,

Bottom
 
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Dear Robin Goodfellow,

You may remove your tongue from Lord Oberon’s rear end. As the chain clearly states, Lord Pannick knows full well this cannot and will not be, and the article he contributed to was lobbyist propaganda.

Yours,

Bottom
Dull. If I were you I'd stick to making up statistics about housing. :emoticon-0148-yes:
 
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Videos on social media showing a police officer “losing control”.
Reports of three officers being assaulted and one having a broken nose, so I can understand the anger, but this guy went over the top.

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Diary of a CEO episode going to cause some controversy. Hopefully now people are open to see the pandemic through the lense of the rampant opportunism from some horrifically hostile industries.
 
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Videos on social media showing a police officer “losing control”.
Reports of three officers being assaulted and one having a broken nose, so I can understand the anger, but this guy went over the top.

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And this is why there needs to be an update to law and codes of practice to allow BWV and airport CCTV to be released straight away. GMP are allowing bad faith actors full permission to shape the narrative on this. Unsurprisingly labour MPs are making the most of it
 
And this is why there needs to be an update to law and codes of practice to allow BWV and airport CCTV to be released straight away. GMP are allowing bad faith actors full permission to shape the narrative on this. Unsurprisingly labour MPs are making the most of it
There are several angles of this filmed on phones. Everybody who has seen it can see that the guy getting kicked is a very dangerous and aggressive idiot. However, he is on the ground with his arms by his sides, unarmed, and the policeman kicks him in the head then stamps on his head. Neither of those things can possibly be acceptable, surely?
 
The officer will no doubt lose his job but I've got absolutely no sympathy for the bloke on the floor.

If you're gonna assault armed police then you can't complain if you get your head caved in.

They should have waited til they got him to the station though and beat him up then. Amateur mistake.