UK Politics - BoJo Kool-Aid vs Project Fear Cocktail of Terror

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 hours ago, Maltaran said:

Someone set a couple off here an hour ago. Seriously, who sets off fireworks in the daytime?

Kids/teenagersnaers most likely. I haven't bought touched firecrackers or any such thing in well over 20 years, I think. But I recall being quite fond of the exploding stuff when I was younger, so much younger than today.

[The Anti-Targ]

8 hours ago, Ser Drewy said:

This seems relevant: 

 

Rich people need something exclusive to spend their money on, otherwise just having a lot of money stops feeling special after a while. At least when they buy a Rolex the money they paid for their overpriced watch goes to charity and other social causes.

[Heartofice]

12 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Rich people need something exclusive to spend their money on, otherwise just having a lot of money stops feeling special after a while. At least when they buy a Rolex the money they paid for their overpriced watch goes to charity and other social causes.

What’s the point of having money ( or pretending you have it) if you can’t take a load of photos to put on the internet to show off how much money you have ( or don’t have)

[Which Tyler]

 

[Spockydog]

He is a national embarrassment.

 

[Mosi Mynn]

3 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

 

Jeez - is that what it will take for his devotees to finally turn - killing Sir David?  

[The Anti-Targ]

It'll be Sir David's fault for being old or something.

[Varysblackfyre321]

 

Apparently an admitted rapist was interviewed by the BBC on how dangerous trans women are to cis women in an article about trans people being predatory.

The admitted rapist has since gone on a rant on how they want to kill all trans women.

Is their a chance the BBC will at retract the part of the article featuring the murderous rapist?

Also question why does the legal definition of rape preclude women/girls from being offenders?

[Maltaran]

10 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

 

Also question why does the legal definition of rape preclude women/girls from being offenders?

Because it requires penetration with a penis

[mormont]

The BBC response has made clear they stand by the original article, and this news won't change that. That's not surprising: the article is based on a 'poll' which was basically a member of the LGB Alliance asking their Twitter followers if they agreed that lesbians were being pressured to have sex with trans women. The BBC article then went on to interview several anti-trans activists who, unsurprisingly, agreed that this was definitely a thing. The writer couldn't get anyone else to talk to her so she searched Twitter and cherry-picked a few tweets to support her thesis that this was happening. And BBC News have defended this on the grounds that it's so important to 'have the debate' and that strict editorial standards and standards of impartiality were applied (despite the fact that they clearly weren't).

So the Beeb are deep in denial about this article, which is not uncommon when they screw up (and not uncommon on their coverage of trans issues, where they have a giant blind spot about their own biases and prurience).

As for the legal definition of rape, what Malt says. It's weird but there we are. There is a separate offence of assault by penetration covering this kind of thing though.

[BigFatCoward]

41 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

 

Also question why does the legal definition of rape preclude women/girls from being offenders?

the maximum sentence is the same (life) for assault by penetration, so it doesn't really make that much difference. 

 

[Heartofice]

21 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

 

https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/PRI_207923475.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&zoom=1&resize=540%2C360

David Attenborough seen sitting next to Boris Johnson whilst not wearing a mask. Attenborough is a national embarassment, it's probably Boris' fault for being old, I mean is this what it takes for Attenborough's devotees to turn against him? Killing someone?!

[Derfel Cadarn]

1 hour ago, Maltaran said:

Because it requires penetration with a penis

In Scotland, the Sexual Offences Act replaced common law rape (except for historical crimes preceding the act) the which I think now includes penetration with any object.

[Spockydog]

Capita pays compensation to family of woman who died after benefits cut

Quote

A government contractor has paid out “substantial” compensation following the death of a young mother who took an overdose after her disability benefits were removed.

Philippa Day, 27, a single mother from Nottingham who had longstanding mental health issues, died in hospital in October 2019, two months after taking an overdose. She had endured months of stress and anxiety after a long struggle with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Capita to reinstate her benefits.

An inquest into her death identified 28 instances where “systemic errors” by both the DWP and its contractor had led to failures in the handling of Day’s claim. These failures were a “stressor” in her decision to take the overdose, the coroner ruled, although he was unable to conclude she had intended to take her own life.

In May, Day’s family issued a compensation claim for negligence to both the DWP and Capita. The latter subsequently agreed to settle out of court. The sum was not disclosed but is understood to be in line with what the family was asking for. The family said the money would be used to provide for Day’s son’s future.

Imogen Day, Philippa’s sister, said: “Our family has always maintained that my sister’s treatment by Capita, on behalf of the DWP, directly impacted her mental state and in the end is the reason for her death. Capita’s wall of bureaucracy, with no consideration for Philippa’s mental state, exacerbated her despair at her debt and poverty. She was met with cold, uncaring call operators who would not listen to her cries for help.”

Yup, this tallies with my own experience.

Since 2008, when my brother's condition forced him into medical retirement, we have had two battles with the DWP. We won them both.

The first was in 2013. Out of the blue, Chops received a letter from the DWP saying that because he was in receipt of an occupational pension that had never been declared, he was in breach of his benefit terms and had to pay it all back. They also said that he was no longer eligible for ESA (about £400 per month), that they had been paying him despite this ineligibility, and because of this, he had to pay it all back. The demand was just shy of £8000. 

We appealed, it was turned down, so we requested a hearing. Chops was too anxious, so I went to the tribunal alone and represented my brother.

There, I was able to prove that not only had Chops originally declared his pension, but that we had also been called down to the local JobCentre twice in the previous two years to clear up the issue, which was flagged to them by the Inland Revenue. We met with same compliance officer, both times. And both times he asked, 'Where is this money coming from?' We showed them his pension payslips and bank statements, the guy took photocopies of them, and that was that. What I didn't know at the time was that unless there is an actual discrepancy, the Jobcentres keep no paper records of these compliance meetings. Fuck knows what happened to those photocopies.

Anyway, all of the above information was presented to the DWP prior to any tribunal. Still they insisted he was was ineligible and had acted fraudulently. A hearing was scheduled.

At the tribunal, I pulled out all my records, including the two letters calling us to those compliance meetings, along with my notes made on the day - the guy's name, what he said, etc.

Also, using the DWPs own internal documents, I was able to demonstrate that their claim that Chops was ineligible for ESA was horseshit.

After nearly two years of stress and anxiety, the tribunal upheld our appeal in less than five minutes.

The second time we had to fight these bastards was when they migrated him from DLA to PIP. When completing the PIP form, I still had the copies of his original DLA application form, so I just transposed the data. Despite this, they initially denied him everything. They said he was fit to work. They said he didn't need a carer. The cunts.

Again, we were forced to appeal. That one took eighteen months, but we won. Enhanced rate for daily living, enhanced rate for mobility.

Chops is lucky. He has me to deal with shit like this on his behalf. If he didn't, he would not have been able to deal with these appeals. The stress would have likely killed him.

There are many people in his situation who have no-one. So when they get treated like this, invariably, the government gets away with it. I'd like to think that this case will make them reassess how they treat people, but I doubt it.

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

the maximum sentence is the same (life) for assault by penetration, so it doesn't really make that much difference. 

 

Eh, I still think it’s abominable. 
like imagine if the UK’s definition  of rape still  precluded married couples.

Even if sexual assault can be prosecuted with regards  the law not seeing a person raping their spouse as rape is still really bad.

[Spockydog]

Marital rape is illegal in this country. Has been since 2003.

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 hours ago, mormont said:

Twitter followers if they agreed that lesbians were being pressured to have sex with trans women. The BBC article then went on to interview several anti-trans activists who, unsurprisingly, agreed that this was definitely a thing

Next up I’m sure they’ll have an article about white women being presssured to sleep with brown and black men to show they’re not racist. They’ll cite a totally not biased poll from stormfront and talk to various white-nationalists for debate.

3 hours ago, mormont said:

LGB Alliance

I truly hate this thing.

Do you think it’ll be eventually stopped being designated as a charity?

A couple weeks ago I read Johnson gave a letter praising this far-right troll group.

15 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Marital rape is illegal in this country. Has been since 2003.

Sure but imagine if instead of designating it fully as rape spouses forcing their spouses to have sex  was classified under a separate category of sexual assault. 
That’d be bad.

[Poobah]

44 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Yup, this tallies with my own experience.

There are many people in his situation who have no-one. So when they get treated like this, invariably, the government gets away with it.

With mine too. All the shit you described is why I don't have half the benefits that I'm entitled to. When they decided to end my DLA I just didn't have the energy to fight it, honestly it feels like a sadistic catch-22, that they could argue that anyone capable of fighting their way through all of the bullshit they throw out is someone who isn't entitled so they can take it away in any case, and they know that almost all of the valid claimants that they deny won't be able to so their decisions will go uncontested.

I tried to get UC set up earlier in the year because I was doing better with my mental health and wanted to push towards having more life and independence and holy fuck do I regret that decision - and after a lot of very stressful form-filling they denied my claim saying I hadn't provided them with requested information (I had) and then began an even more stressful process to tell them I didn't while most of the advice that I was given by their staff after sitting on the phone for hours waiting and repeating the same details over and over again was that I should just give up and restart the claim. Only after I called Citizen's Advice and they helped me do a formal complaint and someone who worked for them started fighting for me did things actually move at all. The whole ordeal took months and exacted a massive toll on my mental health and I'm still not anywhere close to back where I was when I naively thought that perhaps it'd be good for me to push myself a bit and get a little cash to afford basic shit for myself and maybe some therapy by engaging with this shit.

100% if I were alone and didn't have family and friends I'd be another casualty of these bastards. The whole system is designed to kill mentally ill people.

[mormont]

I can't disagree. My daughter had her PIP taken away last year and it was a similar story. Two appeals, lengthy form filling, months of waiting, and then a call from someone who knew what they were talking about telling me (in a very frustrated tone) what I already knew, that the original decision (based on the idea that an autistic person with PTSD and OCD had 'got better') was utter horseshit and actually in breach of policy. My daughter was lucky that I have literally years of professional experience at appealing official decisions and also had the wherewithal to pay her bills in the meantime. Without that, I have a pretty good idea what would have happened and it would not have ended well.

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

 

Sure but imagine if instead of designating it fully as rape spouses forcing their spouses to have sex  was classified under a separate category of sexual assault. 
That’d be bad.

But that's not what this. They have the same maximum sentence so are treated as just as serious as each other, just different.