Theresa "MAY" not build a better Britain.

[Section_31]

I thought the 'legsgate' thing was fascinating. I think it had been done by the Mail to test the boundaries with her because she sees their readers as her base, and she didn't disappoint. She's utterly spineless. 

[cloggypop]

[AngryOfTuebrook]

 

Record numbers of EU nurses leave the NHS

Freedom of Information responses compiled by the Lib Dems from 80 of the 136 NHS acute trusts in England show that the number of EU nationals registering as nurses in England has fallen by 92 per cent since the Brexit referendum, while 2,700 EU nurses left the health service in 2016, compared to 1,600 in 2014 - a 68 per cent increase.

Observer p22

 

The NHS is the greatest achievement in the history of this country.

 

While we're scratching our heads at the bewildering array of attacks, or scratching our arses in sheer apathetic indolence, our NHS is being systematically destroyed, piece by piece.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39519855

Overcrowded hospitals in England were forced to close their doors nearly 500 times to ambulances this winter.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39522137

Record numbers of GP practices closed last year, forcing around 265,000 patients to move, data suggests.

[Anubis]

I think Gnasher is counting on a Russell Crowe/Robin Hood 'lambs become lions' moment, during which the apathetic burghers of Britain's towns and cities take up arms against their oppressors.

 

Personally, viewing the public at large, I wouldn't hold my breath.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

I think Gnasher is counting on a Russell Crowe/Robin Hood 'lambs become lions' moment, during which the apathetic burghers of Britain's towns and cities take up arms against their oppressors.

 

Personally, viewing the public at large, I wouldn't hold my breath.

The trouble is, he'll be telling them the oppressor is the EU - and contrive to hand even more power to the Tories.

[cloggypop]

Abolished the Department for Energy and Climate Change. One of Theresa May's very first acts as prime minister was to scrap the government department responsible for managing one of the greatest threats humanity has ever faced. The move was condemned by climate campaigners, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, who warned that green issues were being downgraded within Whitehall. Ed Miliband, who once headed up the department, described the decision as "plain stupid".

 

Fought a legal battle against reforms to Personal Independence Payments which would extend disability benefit to 160,000 people with conditions such as dementia.

 

Reduced the benefits cap. Charities warned the reduced cap would affect more than 116,000 of the poorest families in the UK and put domestic abuse refuges at risk of closure.

 

Appointed Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, a man who has offended almost every nation on Earth, as foreign secretary, prompting incredulous reactions from governments around the world.

 

Continued selling arms to Saudi Arabia, despite evidence that the Arab state has committed war crimes in Yemen.

 

Slashed funding for pharmacies by more than £200 million over 18 months, putting up to 1,000 pharmacies at risk of closure.

 

Spent £1.9 million building the "Great Wall of Calais" in an attempt to stop migrants entering the UK. Yes, the British government literally "built a wall". Impressively, the project managed to anger both human rights organisations and right-wing politicians in France. Aid organisation Doctors of the World said the decision to build a wall was "as outrageous as it is ludicrous", while Natacha Bouchart, the Calais mayor who recently banned volunteers giving food to refugees, filed an injunction in an unsuccessful attempt to stop construction of the 13ft-high barrier.

 

Backed a pilot scheme forcing pregnant women to show their passports when arriving at hospital in an attempt to clamp down on "health tourism".

 

Declined to mention a Trident missile malfunction just weeks before a Commons vote on whether to replace four nuclear submarines at a cost of £40 billion.

 

Backtracked on plans to allow unaccompanied child refugees into the UK. The government claimed there was no more room, then refused to consult with councils on capacity.

 

Announced plans to bring back grammar schools, which select pupils based on ability. Critics say grammars increase inequality and have a negative impact on comprehensive schools.

 

Ploughed ahead with plans to reform business rates. Experts have warned a rise in property taxes will kill off thousands of independent businesses.

 

Proposed jail sentences of up to 14 years for whistleblowers, and the prosecution of journalists who receive leaked documents. Critics of a planned overhaul of the Official Secrets Act have warned that the changes would make it a criminal offence to receive or handle leaked documents. Jim Killock, chief executive of free speech organisation Open Rights Group, said the plans were a "full fronted attack on journalism", while leading human rights barrister John Cooper QC said they "would potentially undermine some of the most important principles of an open democracy".

 

Overseen an ongoing crisis in prisons which has seen officers walk out over concerns about safety and incidents of suicide and self-harm hit record highs.

 

Scrapped housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds. Charities have warned the policy will lead to thousands of young people becoming homeless.

 

Announced a local government spending freeze, prompting a warning from councils that they will need to cut back a range of essential services.

 

Offered a state visit to Donald Drumpf just a week into his presidency, an honour that was only extended to Barack Obama after more than two years.

 

Signed a £100 million deal which will see Britain sell fighter jets to Turkey – despite the country's dire and worsening human rights record.

 

Stood by as the Red Cross declared a "humanitarian crisis" in the NHS. The charity made its declaration in January after two patients died while waiting for treatment on trolleys in corridors at the Worcestershire Royal hospital. Just a few days later, more than 20 hospitals issued "black alerts", meaning they were unable to guarantee emergency care. Dr Mark Holland, president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said: "For a long time we have been saying that the NHS is on the edge. But people dying after long spells in hospital corridors shows that the NHS is now broken".

 

Abolished the Child Poverty Unit. Set up in 1999, the unit was intended to abolish childhood poverty in 20 years. There is now no target and charities predict a 50 percent increase by 2020.

 

Pledged to crack down on international students, reducing the number of annual visas granted from 300,000 to 170,000 a year.

 

Introduced the "Snoopers Charter", requiring internet and phone companies to store browsing histories for 12 months and giving the government access to the data.

 

Ruled out an inquiry into the Battle of Orgreave, despite previous indications that one would be held, to examine claims that South Yorkshire Police attacked and framed striking miners.

 

Overseen a crisis in social care. Care providers have closed down in more than half of council areas due to lack of funding after six years of government cuts. Local authority leaders across the political spectrum have condemned the crisis, while leading social care experts have warned that the elderly and vulnerable have been put at risk. After months of inaction, the government announced in March it would be spending an extra £2 billion on social care in the next three years (or, more accurately, reversing £2 billion of cuts), but charities have warned this is unlikely to be enough.

 

Taken steps to open up the higher education sector to private firms, prompting warnings of a likely fall in standards and damage to the reputation of British education abroad.

 

Declared the UK has "shared values" with Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte – a man who has publicly encouraged people to kill drug addicts.

 

Weighed into a row between the National Trust and the Church of England over bogus claims that the heritage charity had "airbrushed faith from Easter".

 

Introduced changes to benefit payments which have dramatically reduced the financial support on offer to newly widowed parents.

 

Awarded £250,000 of funding raised by the "tampon tax" to a charity which has described abortion after rape as a "death penalty".

 

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/everything-but-brexit-all-the-terrible-stuff-the-government-has-done-since-the-eu-referendum

[Stickman]

And yet it will all be Brexit Brexit Brexit for the next 6-7 weeks....

[Guest Pistonbroke]

And yet it will all be Brexit Brexit Brexit for the next 2 years

 

..

[Denny Crane]

A vulnerable woman who begged two strangers for 50p has been sentenced to six months in prison in a court hearing where she had no lawyer.

 

She could barely read or write but had to represent herself after she was unable to find public funds or a solicitor.

 

The case has sparked outrage from legal experts who called it a “damning indictment of our criminal justice system”.

 

The woman, named in court documents as Marie Baker, was subject to a civil injunction to stop her from begging from anyone in the City of Worcester. But after she asked two people for 50p, she breached the injunction, which meant the case came to Worcester county court.

 

Handing down a six-month sentence, District Judge Mackenzie said he was “disturbed and concerned” that she had no public funding or solicitor. He acknowledged that her appearance without a lawyer “came close” to breaching her human rights.

 

He added: “I am particularly concerned about that because on any view, Ms Baker is a fragile individual; has difficulty reading and writing; difficulty in understanding, though I have no evidence or indication to indicate to me that she lacks capacity to deal with matters. She is, however, a fragile and vulnerable individual and that makes it all the more regrettable that she has not got legal assistance.”

 

Judge Mackenzie recognised that the begging was not aggressive but still insisted on a six-month sentence because Baker had repeatedly breached the civil injunction.

 

He said: “I am conscious that on both these two occasions, Ms Baker has simply asked for 50p. It has not been in an aggressive way. She has been told ‘no’ and she has not persisted. There is no aggravating feature in the way she has done this.”

 

He detailed how Baker’s main defence was that she had an alibi and that CCTV would corroborate her accounts – but said she struggled to provide this evidence. She also claimed mistaken identity and that a police officer had it in for her.

 

Commenting on her defence, the judge said: “All those matters, potentially give rise to a line of defence which would better be explored by a solicitor assisting her. Knowing that, it is with great reservation that I have allowed the case to proceed today on the basis that it would be impossible to keep adjourning this case."

 

Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “This is an utterly depressing case which highlights how all too often our courts are dealing with failings in social welfare and punishing poverty and vulnerability.

 

“It is quite simply a damning indictment of our criminal justice system that a woman recognised by the courts as being 'fragile and vulnerable', with no legal representation, can be imprisoned for 26 weeks for begging for 50p.”

 

Judge Mackenzie said in his judgment that Baker’s inability to get legal representation was typical in civil cases since cuts to legal aid came in.

 

In the judgment, published online today, after a hearing in February, Mackenzie said: “The President of the Family Division made it clear that legal aid in these sort of cases, though it is for a civil contempt, is criminal legal aid. That has caused some difficulty, because of the way legal aid works with solicitors getting fragmented franchises for dealing with specific types of work.

 

“This court has experienced, on more than one occasion, great difficulties in getting a solicitor who is prepared to deal with criminal legal aid for a committal in breach of Housing Act injunctions. It has proved somewhat difficult.”

 

Commenting on the judgment, Penelope Gibbs, director of Transform Justice, told BuzzFeed News: "No one should be imprisoned if they are entitled to legal advice but cannot get it. When antisocial behaviour cases were transferred from the criminal to the civil courts in 2015 it was bound to leave vulnerable people unrepresented. This is the result."

 

Baker was originally given a civil injunction because she was begging from vulnerable and older people. But the injunction banned her from all begging.

 

Explaining the prison sentence, Judge Mackenzie said: "The breaches themselves, if not trivial, are at a very low end of the scale and something which the court would be very loathed to send Ms Baker to prison for, if anything else could possibly work but this court cannot simply give repeat injunctions and allow people to go continuing begging, continuing to persist in a nuisance to the population, without some real teeth being given to the injunction."

 

He added: "I am afraid whilst I am very reluctant to send Ms Baker to prison for a lengthy period of time, I have got to mark the blatant repeat breaches of this injunction with something meaningful."

 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/a-woman-who-begged-for-50p-was-sentenced-to-six-months-in?utm_term=.fankQen62#.fwrjrkY2L

[Creator Supreme]

A vulnerable woman who begged two strangers for 50p has been sentenced to six months in prison in a court hearing where she had no lawyer.

She could barely read or write but had to represent herself after she was unable to find public funds or a solicitor.

The case has sparked outrage from legal experts who called it a “damning indictment of our criminal justice system”.

The woman, named in court documents as Marie Baker, was subject to a civil injunction to stop her from begging from anyone in the City of Worcester. But after she asked two people for 50p, she breached the injunction, which meant the case came to Worcester county court.

Handing down a six-month sentence, District Judge Mackenzie said he was “disturbed and concerned” that she had no public funding or solicitor. He acknowledged that her appearance without a lawyer “came close” to breaching her human rights.

He added: “I am particularly concerned about that because on any view, Ms Baker is a fragile individual; has difficulty reading and writing; difficulty in understanding, though I have no evidence or indication to indicate to me that she lacks capacity to deal with matters. She is, however, a fragile and vulnerable individual and that makes it all the more regrettable that she has not got legal assistance.”

Judge Mackenzie recognised that the begging was not aggressive but still insisted on a six-month sentence because Baker had repeatedly breached the civil injunction.

He said: “I am conscious that on both these two occasions, Ms Baker has simply asked for 50p. It has not been in an aggressive way. She has been told ‘no’ and she has not persisted. There is no aggravating feature in the way she has done this.”

He detailed how Baker’s main defence was that she had an alibi and that CCTV would corroborate her accounts – but said she struggled to provide this evidence. She also claimed mistaken identity and that a police officer had it in for her.

Commenting on her defence, the judge said: “All those matters, potentially give rise to a line of defence which would better be explored by a solicitor assisting her. Knowing that, it is with great reservation that I have allowed the case to proceed today on the basis that it would be impossible to keep adjourning this case."

Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “This is an utterly depressing case which highlights how all too often our courts are dealing with failings in social welfare and punishing poverty and vulnerability.

“It is quite simply a damning indictment of our criminal justice system that a woman recognised by the courts as being 'fragile and vulnerable', with no legal representation, can be imprisoned for 26 weeks for begging for 50p.”

Judge Mackenzie said in his judgment that Baker’s inability to get legal representation was typical in civil cases since cuts to legal aid came in.

In the judgment, published online today, after a hearing in February, Mackenzie said: “The President of the Family Division made it clear that legal aid in these sort of cases, though it is for a civil contempt, is criminal legal aid. That has caused some difficulty, because of the way legal aid works with solicitors getting fragmented franchises for dealing with specific types of work.

“This court has experienced, on more than one occasion, great difficulties in getting a solicitor who is prepared to deal with criminal legal aid for a committal in breach of Housing Act injunctions. It has proved somewhat difficult.”

Commenting on the judgment, Penelope Gibbs, director of Transform Justice, told BuzzFeed News: "No one should be imprisoned if they are entitled to legal advice but cannot get it. When antisocial behaviour cases were transferred from the criminal to the civil courts in 2015 it was bound to leave vulnerable people unrepresented. This is the result."

Baker was originally given a civil injunction because she was begging from vulnerable and older people. But the injunction banned her from all begging.

Explaining the prison sentence, Judge Mackenzie said: "The breaches themselves, if not trivial, are at a very low end of the scale and something which the court would be very loathed to send Ms Baker to prison for, if anything else could possibly work but this court cannot simply give repeat injunctions and allow people to go continuing begging, continuing to persist in a nuisance to the population, without some real teeth being given to the injunction."

He added: "I am afraid whilst I am very reluctant to send Ms Baker to prison for a lengthy period of time, I have got to mark the blatant repeat breaches of this injunction with something meaningful."

https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/a-woman-who-begged-for-50p-was-sentenced-to-six-months-in?utm_term=.fankQen62#.fwrjrkY2L

Are we human? Or are we bastards?

 

Pathetic that she was sent down!

[Tj hooker]

Welcome to Tory Britain 2017.

[Jairzinho]

Welcome to Victorian Britain 1867.

[Kidder Bukowski]

Are we human? Or are we bastards?

 

Pathetic that she was sent down!

We're all in it together of course. These cunts are constantly caught with their hands in the public purse, robbing hundreds of thousands, millions, yet are slapped on the back by the establishment with a 'go easy old boy' and will complain even about that.

 

The working class however will be pursued to the courts for fifty fucking pence and jailed for six months. Fucking bankers who brought the country to it's knees walked away laughing at the plebs and demanding we bail them out. I would hang every one of the cunts from lamp posts with razor wire. Let's give this election a fucking good go!

[polymerpunkah]

 

 

continuing to persist in a nuisance to the population

 

"Are there no prisons?"

"Plenty of prisons..."

"And the Union workhouses." demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

"Both very busy, sir..."

"Those who are badly off must go there."

[ZonkoVille77]

How can a person wake up every day and think voting for the Tories is a good idea? Honestly. You really have to be a mankind loathing bastard who cares for nowt but short term self worth. You'd be enabling the worst minds on these islands to perpetuate hurt and hardship upon the most vulnetable in society. WTF is wrong with people who vote for these cunts?

[King Emlyn]

Beats me.

[thegreatelephant]

you underestimate how shite this new team of losers are. they're garbage. this will become much more evident in the coming years. also, there were plenty of perceived absolutes that have been proven wrong recently.

 

i think they are walking a tightrope now and their small majority can be eaten away at.

[cloggypop]

She's fucking shite

[Section_31]

Amazing how many of the Tory top brass are lightweights, I grew up under the cunts but whatever you felt about them they at least seemed reasonably intellectually sharp, just look at the absolute human detritas that's passed through those cabinet ranks in the last seven years, absolutely incredible.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

Amazing how many of the Tory top brass are lightweights, I grew up under the cunts but whatever you felt about them they at least seemed reasonably intellectually sharp, just look at the absolute human detritas that's passed through those cabinet ranks in the last seven years, absolutely incredible.

 

It's shocking. 

[G Richards]

Amazing how many of the Tory top brass are lightweights, I grew up under the cunts but whatever you felt about them they at least seemed reasonably intellectually sharp, just look at the absolute human detritas that's passed through those cabinet ranks in the last seven years, absolutely incredible.

This is spot on. Politicians ain't what they used to be. There are some people who command respect because of the depth of their knowledge, allied with their decency. Even if you disagree you can appreciate they are a substative person.

 

I don't see much of that today. Mind you, on reflection that could make me sound a bit like the old lady, who remarked, "Aren't all the police men young?"

[VladimirIlyich]

This is spot on. Politicians ain't what they used to be. There are some people who command respect because of the depth of their knowledge, allied with their decency. Even if you disagree you can appreciate they are a substative person.

 

I don't see much of that today. Mind you, on reflection that could make me sound a bit like the old lady, who remarked, "Aren't all the police men young?"

Its pretty difficult to defend inhuman and cruel policies set by your donors and shady background fugures. They are paid well enough by their puppet masters for the privilege though.

[Bobby Hundreds]

Still think Cameron has done far more damage to this country than almost anybody else the fucking shiny faced thin lipped pig face fucking ponce.

[Razoray]

Amazing how many of the Tory top brass are lightweights, I grew up under the cunts but whatever you felt about them they at least seemed reasonably intellectually sharp, just look at the absolute human detritas that's passed through those cabinet ranks in the last seven years, absolutely incredible.

Whatever you say about Thatcher's cabinet and we have all said a lot, they wouldnt be described as lightweight. Cunts yes, empty shirts nope.

[VladimirIlyich]

Whatever you say about Thatcher's cabinet and we have all said a lot, they wouldnt be described as lightweight. Cunts yes, empty shirts nope.

Wets?