[Bones McCoy]

Apparently Starmer’s first cabinet will have the highest proportion of state comprehensive educated members ever, fair play to him if that’s so.

It's a low bar - and that reflects poorly on our nation.

[Nigredo]

Already appointed his cabinet, scrapped Rwanda, and will look at nationalising railways as soon as it's feasible.

Starmer has done more in 24 hours than Allotment Jesus has done in 5 years of supposedly "winning the argument" (though curiously, never the election).

[safe_timber_man]

I know I'm a bit gooey eyed and it's all nice and new and fresh. Just watched Starmers first press conference, though, and it's just so different. He's answering the actual questions as they come. He's not going off on self indulgent tangents to prove his authority or sticking to a script. He even went back to a question when he realised he hadn't fully answered it. He's talking to them like people. They're talking to him like adults, on the whole. The myth that he's not capable of public speaking or any sort of orator is already falling apart. He's simply better and more natural when it comes to talking to people properly, rather than performing.

He's going to have some very hostile and unpleasant 'journalists' looking for the gotcha moments but I do wonder if they're currently wondering how the fuck they're going to catch out a highly talented barrister during questioning. It's not exactly a fair fight, is it?

[Tubby Isaacs]

I like the idea of appointing this guy, but he needs some media training. I don't know when the interview was done. The answer if he does the interview again needs to be "not putting a figure on it". It's a fairly naive position to say 2/3 of people shouldn't be in prison. I used to work in the Prison Service and read lots of personal files. The background of most of the prisoners was often awful, and at that level I was very sympathetic, but often there were pages of previous convictions and non-custodial sentences. Or alternatively people in for really serious offences who you'd not want released much earlier.

He obviously does have important knowledge though, and I'd like him to succeed. But I wonder if this appointment will last. Seems a bit like Frank Field under Blair- go and think the unthinkable! He did and Brown noted that it cost far too much.

[Youngian]

Did he study at Yale?

[Killer Whale]

That's the key question.

[safe_timber_man]

He's a bit of an expert in his field, which hopefully should be all that matters at this point.

[Youngian]

Blair delivered his traditional post election penny’s worth and makes an interesting point about introducing ID cards to tackle illegal immigration. The practicalities are a debate for another day but the political optics for Labour are tantalising. The issue will split the right with free market libertarian spivs dead against them. Nigel Farage- all talk and soft on illegal immigration.

[Yug]

That would also clear up the dog's breakfast of disparate documents that can be used as voter ID, and nobody can be disenfranchised by not being a driver, international jet-setter, student, disabled or an OAP.

[Killer Whale]

No. Sorry. I'm not giving anyone the excuse to stop brown people in the street and demand to look at their Id. That's a step in the wrong direction, and leads us back to the days of inner city riots.

[Youngian]

Police already have the power to stop people and ask for ID, there would be no need to change any laws by issuing everyone with an ID card.

Whipping out a photo ID is the quickest way to tell over zealous cops to do one.

[Youngian]

That would also clear up the dog's breakfast of disparate documents that can be used as voter ID, and nobody can be disenfranchised by not being a driver, international jet-setter, student, disabled or an OAP.

ID card can give automatic voter registration.

[Andy McDandy]

As said before, they don't care about the effect on the economy, or exploitation by rogue bosses, or anyone's legal status. They care that in their eyes there are too many dark faces around, and what's worse, they're not tugging their forelocks and grovelling before massah.

[Bones McCoy]

Timpson on prisons is an inspired move.
It won't produce instant results, but ought to set us in a sensible direction.

The current set up fails on so many levels.

We seem to lack a sanction between prison and cautions.
Too many are incarcerated, but there's also that failure of justice when proper wrong-uns aren't banged up.

Introducing some intermediate options (particularly Scandinavian style ones), won't be simple, as sentencing is so tied up with the laws.
The public expect "prison" to mean banged up in some draughty victorian horror, breaking rocks and eating porridge.
A range between secure and open, with decent rehabilitation opportunities seems the way to go.
But I bet it isn't cheap.

[Tubby Isaacs]

ID card can give automatic voter registration.

Are they doing that anyway with other forms of ID?

Not that I'm necessarily against ID cards. Seem to work OK in lots of places but maybe they have stronger protections.

[safe_timber_man]

This is nice.

Screenshot 2024-07-07 153945.jpg (25.92 KiB) Viewed 1653 times

https://x.com/GermanyDiplo/status/1809649909643071637




Please can someone remind me how to embed tweets rather than just link them?

[Abernathy]

The ID cards thing is a bit out of the blue (no pun intended). from Tony Blair. I don’t think it was ever even on Starmer’s, or the party’s radar before now, so springing it now seems, well, a bit odd. Not to say it isn’t an idea that isn’t worthy of consideration, but I really can’t see it making its way near to the top of Labour’s list of urgent priorities any time soon, given the sheer number of things that need urgently to be done. That first King’s speech is going to be fucking ram-jam.

Having said that, Blair, as ever, does have some good, rational arguments in favour of digital id, though I can anticipate quite some resistance from the libertarian “freedom or death” merchants.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I'm pretty sure I've got a digital ID. In fact two, having got one for Portugal by mistake...

[Arrowhead]

Please can someone remind me how to embed tweets rather than just link them?

You need to substitute the X in the link with the word Twitter, should work fine then. I think the forum software doesn’t quite yet recognise the recent name change from Twitter to X.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Did someone ask for grown-up government?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ar ... um=twitter

Labour is seeking a sweeping joint declaration with the EU to usher in a wide-ranging security pact covering defence, energy, the climate crisis, pandemics and even illegal migration, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, has said.

Under Labour plans, the pact would see the UK work more closely with the bloc on a slew of areas related to security, ideally without the need for a legally binding deal, which could take years to agree.

Lammy has also accepted an invitation from the EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, to attend the September meeting of the EU foreign affairs council – something that was rejected by the previous Conservative government.

He said: “I’m serious about a reset. I sensed in Poland and Germany they were delighted to have a new [UK] government. We are absolutely clear that we want to look to the future. I think there’s a lot of issues that we have to coordinate on, but it is all a matter of negotiation and discussion. But I’ve set the direction of travel.”