Tag Archives: risk

Truss government accused of creating ‘material risk to financial stability’ – by the Bank of England

When the government is accused of creating a “material risk to UK financial stability” by the Bank of England, you know things have come to a pretty pass indeed.

Watch the clip below to see how bad it really is:

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Boris Johnson accused – again – of being a national security risk

Bunga bunga? Boris Johnson – at a party – with a Russian oligarch (this one is industrialist Alexander Temerko). At the time, Johnson didn’t think there was any reason to investigate Russian influence in UK politics. Now, he simply won’t answer questions about these associations.

Here’s a welcome humorous interlude before we all try to get to grips with Rishi Sunak’s rubbish spring statement.

After Labour’s Matt Western scored a hit last week, asking what attracted Boris Johnson to billionaire Russian oligarchs, he returned to ask why MI6 considers Johnson such a security risk.

The prime ministers response was… well, see for yourself. It wasn’t an answer!

Raab was wrong: process that made Lebedev a peer can be easily perverted

Dominic Raab: as Foreign Secretary, he refused to return from a foreign holiday when the Taliban took over Afghanistan – and the public reacted appropriately. Should we really expect his comments on Lord Lebedev to be any more reliable than his reaction to that crisis?

We should not be surprised that Dominic Raab has emitted a flurry of falsehoods in defence of Evgeny Lebedev’s elevation to the House of Lords.

His prime minister, Boris Johnson, has been accused of creating a security risk to the UK by letting the son of a former Russian KGB agent have access to Parliamentary documents via the front door.

So Raab appeared on the BBC’s Sunday Morning Programme spouting a lot of nonsense that “There is a very strict and stringent process when anyone is granted a peerage” and that the rules around the honours process were “applied very rigorously in this case. This was done properly and correctly and we have procedures and systems in place to make sure it is.”

It is possible that he was right in all these statements but they are nonsense because the procedures he described do not prevent people who are a huge security risk from being granted a peerage.

We know about this because The Guardian told us, back in October 2020 [boldings mine]:

Two days before Johnson met Lebedev in March [he did this on March 19, right after telling us all to stay in our homes because of Covid-19, so this happened on March 17], the House of Lords appointments commission (Holac), which scrutinises all nominations, wrote to the prime minister. It is understood to have expressed concerns about Lebedev’s proposed peerage and asked Downing Street to reconsider.

The commission, made up of cross-party peers, carries out “propriety checks” on candidates. It does not have the power of veto. But it can suggest that a party come up with an alternative, which is what is understood to have happened in Lebedev’s case.

Peers were apparently alarmed following a confidential briefing from the UK security services. They told the commission Lebedev was viewed as a potential security risk because of his father, Alexander Lebedev, a one-time Moscow spy. During the late cold war period, Lebedev Sr worked undercover at the Soviet embassy in London. His real employer was KGB foreign intelligence.

In reality, the security risk has been defined as low – because peers do not see classified documents.

But in reluctantly accepting Johnson’s insistence on ennobling the Russian-born son of a spy, Holac allegedly called on Johnson to examine Russian influence in the House of Lords, something highlighted by parliament’s intelligence and security committee in its Russia Report.

And the security services said Lebedev’s “family links” meant he was still regarded as a potential concern.

So Keir Starmer’s call for Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee to review all the reports on Lord Lebedev that Holac saw seemed entirely reasonable and proportionate.

Downing Street’s claim that “all peerages are vetted by the House of Lords Appointments Commission” fails to acknowledge that Holac can’t veto an appointment, which always remains within the gift of the prime minister. Neither does Raab’s.

So these government representatives, it seems, are deceiving us about their treatment of a potential Russian security risk at a time of high international tensions between the UK and Russia. Fit to lead?

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If this is true, why are we sending a known security risk to negotiate with the Russian premier?

Boris Johnson: he’s wondering what he did with those pretty pink ‘Top Secret’ documents. He knows he had them out, but then everybody came round to the flat for some drinkies and now… (possibly).

Apparently Boris Johnson is hoping to salvage his reputation by trying to be the peacemaker between Russia and Ukraine.

He’s going to call Russian President Vladimir Putin, then visit the disputed region over the next few days, according to the mass media (this is from Sky News).

Some are saying this is an attempt to escape the stigma of Partygate and its allegations of irresponsible behaviour in Downing Street.

But Partygate is casting a very long shadow, it seems. Consider the following thread from Tim Shipman of The Times:

If this is right, then we’re sending, as negotiator, a man who habitually leaves the UK’s most important secrets lying around in full view of his wife’s friends and anybody else who happens to be around at the time.

For this reason (among many others, but this alone should be enough) I think Clare Hepworth is right to address Johnson as follows:

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POLL: is the Supreme Court right to refuse Shamima Begum’s bid to return to the UK for trial?

Shamima Begum: she won’t be allowed to return to the UK and fight for her citizenship.

The Supreme Court has ruled that Shamima Begum should not be allowed to return to the UK to fight for her citizenship to be restored.

Its members unanimously overruled a decision by the Court of Appeal that said she would not be able to make an effective appeal from the camp in northern Syria where she is currently living.

The Home Office had appealed against the decision on the grounds that allowing her to return would create “significant national security risks”.

The Supreme Court agreed:

Lord Reed said: “The Supreme Court unanimously allows all of the home secretary’s appeals and dismisses Ms Begum’s cross-appeal.”

He said the Court of Appeal’s judgment “did not give the home secretary’s assessment the respect which it should have received” given the role’s “responsibility for making such assessments” and accountability to parliament.

Lord Reed added the Court of Appeal had “mistakenly believed that, when an individual’s right to have a fair hearing… came into conflict with the requirements of national security, her right to a fair hearing must prevail.”

He said the right to a fair hearing did “not trump all other considerations, such as the safety of the public”.

Ms Begum has proved extremely divisive among some members of the UK community.

She was enticed abroad to join Islamic State, aged just 15, and married a Dutch IS fighter – with whom she had three children. They have all died.

After IS largely collapsed, she found herself in a refugee camp and appealed for the UK’s government to return her to this country, so she could rely on the National Health Service to care for her and her last child, before that child died.

But then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid instead stripped her of her UK citizenship, citing the by-then-20-year-old’s still-apparent enthusiasm for the bloodthirsty regime she fled the country to join.

Some said she had been groomed and did not know what she was doing; some said she knew exactly what she was about.

The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC), a semi-secret court that hears national security cases, ruled that Mr Javid was right and Ms Begum could appeal for citizenship to Bangladesh, to which she may have a claim to nationality through her mother.

The Court of Appeal overruled that judgement and now the Supreme Court has reversed that decision.

Some are now saying that Ms Begum is now in legal limbo. She isn’t – she can still make her appeal from Syria, using lawyers in the UK.

But is that a reasonable course of action? Let’s have a poll:

[polldaddy poll=10757275]

Source: Shamima Begum cannot return to UK, Supreme Court rules – BBC News

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Bald men face higher risk of severe Covid-19, researchers claim

Anyone who has seen This Writer in person may be aware that I would have reason to be very worried about this – if I took it seriously.

Trouble is, this is just as likely to be a scare story of the kind that the Daily Mail used to run all the time. Is there anything left that that rag hasn’t claimed causes cancer?

Bald men may be at higher risk of suffering from severe Covid-19 symptoms, emerging evidence suggests.

The link is so strong that some researchers are suggesting baldness should be considered a risk factor called the “Gabrin sign”, after the first US physician to die of Covid-19 in the United States, Dr Frank Gabrin, who was bald.

The lead author of the key study behind the association, Professor Carlos Wambier of Brown University, told The Telegraph: “We really think that baldness is a perfect predictor of severity.”

Data since the beginning of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, in January has shown that men are more likely to die after getting coronavirus. In the UK, a report this week from Public Health England found that working-age males were twice as likely as females to die after being diagnosed with Covid-19.

Until recently, scientists have been at a loss at why this might be, pointing to factors such as lifestyle, smoking, and immune system differences between the sexes. But increasingly they believe it could be because androgens – male sex hormones like testosterone – may play a part not only in hair loss, but also in boosting the ability of coronavirus to attack cells.

This raises the possibility that treatments suppressing these hormones, such as those used for baldness as well as diseases like prostate cancer, could be used to slow the virus down, giving patients time to fight it off.

Source: Bald men at higher risk of severe case of Covid-19, research finds

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By discriminating against the self-employed, Sunak is risking coronavirus spread

Rishi Sunak: Why is he discriminating against the self-employed?

Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak is under pressure to stop discriminating against people who are self-employed – because he putting them at risk of spreading the coronavirus.

Sunak has announced a generous deal for employees who are ‘furloughed’ – kept in employment but unable to work because of the disease-related lockdown – of 80 per cent of their wages, up to £2,500 per month.

Self-employed people get just £94.25 a week in Universal Credit – if they can navigate the “byzantine” application procedure. And they’ll have the same if they have to claim Employment and Support Allowance after contracting the virus.

Only 16 per cent of workers accept that this amount would meet their basic needs.

It is claimed Sunak is risking public health by discriminating against the self-employed in this way, because he is incentivising self-employed taxi-drivers, couriers, other gig economy workers and zero-hours contractors to keep working while ill.

Solicitors Leigh Day were to send a pre-action letter to the government on March 23, on behalf of the Independent Workers of Great Britain union, ahead of issuing proceedings for a High Court judicial review.

The Tories say it is “operationally very difficult” to put in place a scheme for the self-employed, similar to that for employees.

But the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed (IPSE) says it could be assessed and delivered through the self-assessment tax system that millions of self-employed workers already use.

One thing is certain: the longer this drags on, the more self-employed people will be at risk.

And the more self-employed people come under threat, the more likely it will seem that this is the Tories’ intention.

Source: Rishi Sunak under pressure to bail out self-employed | Politics | The Guardian

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It is Boris Johnson – not Jeremy Corbyn – who is a risk to the UK’s security

If The Sun is to be believed (and it isn’t), the UK general election has now descended to such a farcical level that people are being asked to decide which of the main party leaders poses the lowest risk to national security.

That’s what I get from the front page of today’s Sun, anyway:

But we’ve been here before – less than five months ago – when the papers were saying it was Mr Johnson who was the risk:

Back then, it was fellow Tory Jeremy Hunt who sounded the alarm, claiming Mr Johnson’s tumultuous private life (about which I hope I don’t have to state much here, I hope) made him a prime candidate for blackmail by foreign powers. Indeed, it seems former prime minister Theresa May blocked him from receiving sensitive information on the grounds that it would be unsafe with him – although Mr Johnson himself has denied this.

Since then, we have experienced several scandals which tend to support this theory.

First, Mr Johnson was alleged to be in hock to a cadre of shadowy hedge fund bosses who allegedly funded his campaign to become the leader of the Tory Party – in return for which, it was claimed, he was to deliver a “no deal” Brexit from which they would profit by a staggering £8 billion.

Then it was suggested that a report on Russia’s possible influence over UK politics may include revelations indicating that Mr Johnson is in the pocket of the Kremlin.

How risible, then – how ridiculous – that Mr Johnson’s allegations against Mr Corbyn include a claim that the Labour leader would “bow down” to the Kremlin.

Like the other lies which The Sun presented as if they were true – that Mr Corbyn has a history of siding with the IRA and Palestinian terrorists – there isn’t a scrap of truth to it.

The claims about the IRA are in fact references to the fact that Mr Corbyn kept on good terms with all political sides in the so-called ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland; if he had not done so, the Good Friday Agreement would have been much more difficult to achieve. In contrast, when he was doing this in the 1980s and 90s, Conservative governments led by Margaret Thatcher and John Major were negotiating with the real terrorists – and lying about it to the general public.

The allegations about connections with Palestinian terrorism have all been disproved and dismissed. They seem to revolve around the fact that Mr Corbyn advocates a peaceful solution to hostilities between the Israeli government and the people of Palestine. It seems strange that a politician who calls for peace should be said to be siding with terrorists, but that’s Tory logic for you.

So it seems Mr Johnson has put another choice before the people of the UK:

Do you believe the lies about Jeremy Corbyn – or the facts about Mr Johnson?

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NHS falls deeper into crisis while May – who caused it – babbles about extra funding

GPs’ workloads rose by 16 per cent in the seven years to 2017, according to the chair of the RCGP

I seem to have touched a nerve with my article about the new GP contract – especially as information released subsequently shows the situation is getting worse.

According to the BBC – using numbers from the Nuffield Trust – the number of doctors working in general practice has gone into a “sustained” freefall, for the first time in 50 years:

“The NHS is seeing the first sustained fall in GP numbers in the UK for 50 years, the BBC can reveal.

“An analysis by the Nuffield Trust think tank for the BBC shows the number of GPs per 100,000 people has fallen from nearly 65 in 2014 to 60 last year.

“There have been reports of waits of up to seven weeks for a routine appointment, while those needing urgent appointments have been forced to queue outside practices in the early morning to guarantee to be seen.

“One in three junior doctors who accept places on GP training courses, drops out of the system, according to the Nuffield Trust. Meanwhile, the numbers retiring early have been increasing. Two-thirds of retirements by GPs come early – double the rate seen just five years ago.

“The BMA said doctors were being asked to work longer and harder, without recognition or an increase in pay. Dr Richard Vautrey, of the BMA, said workloads were now “unmanageable” for many.”

Another survey, carried out by Pulse magazine for the BBC’s Panorama, showed that those GPs who are left are being forced to see almost double the number of patients they should, while working 11-hour shifts. This means they are openly making mistakes that could put patients at risk.

The Independent stated: “GPs are working an average 11-hour day, including eight hours of care and three hours of paperwork… On average, each GP dealt with 41 patients per day, despite saying 30 was a safe number. One doctor in 10 dealt with 60 or more patients a day – double the safe limit.”

The article quoted one doctor who said as well as patient demand, there was a “workload dump” from secondary hospital care: “This workload creates patient safety risks. There are risks around having multiple patient notes open because we’re helping a nurse out with hers, or we’re 30 minutes late so we see the next patient while finishing the notes of the last.

“We might forget consultant details, plans and actions, or prescribe for the wrong person, use the wrong labels on blood tests, and so on.

“I have raised safety concerns with governing bodies before. I was basically told to shut up or my practice would be run over with a fine-toothed comb.”

And the piece mentioned a report in March from the King’s Fund, Nuffield Trust and Health Foundation predicted that GP shortages in England will almost triple to 7,000 by 2023-24. It said the government would miss its target to recruit 5,000 more GPs by 2020 and the only way to cope with the growing workload was to put more pharmacists and physiotherapists into GP practices.

This seems to support the new GP contract and the idea of creating “primary care networks” on a US-style model, with less-qualified staff seeing patients, meaning confidentiality is lost and it will be almost impossible to see a genuine doctor.

Primary Care Commissioning, an organisation which seems dedicated to the creation of these networks, is running a series of podcasts about what it does – which will undoubtedly present a rose-tinted view that would shame any skilled diagnostitian. Here’s the first:

Before you start thinking these new PCNs don’t sound so bad, bear in mind that the government has overseen a fall in the number of nurses available to the NHS, as well. Here’s a short Twitter thread about it, prefaced by Dr Jacky Davis, co-editor of NHS:SOS:

Meanwhile, in Prime Minister’s Questions, Theresa May had the front not only to claim that there’s nothing wrong, but also to lie that her government was giving the NHS its largest injection of cash in history: “It is this Government, with their long-term plan, who are ensuring that we give that care to staff. NHS staff work hard, caring for patients, and this Government will care for NHS staff. It is only because we are able to give the NHS its biggest cash boost in its history and to give it that long-term plan that we will deliver for NHS staff.”

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn put her straight: “Under the last Labour Government, NHS investment rose by 6% a year, but under this Government it has barely reached 1.5%. Five thousand nurses and midwives from European Union countries have left the NHS in the past two years, and there are 100,000 staff vacancies across the NHS in England alone.

“Nobody on this side of the House ever talks down the NHS—it is Labour’s greatest achievement. The principle of healthcare free at the point of need as a human right was a Labour achievement, and every Tory MP voted against it.”

But the Conservatives currently have control, and are re-modelling the NHS in England to make it resemble the private, American model into which they want to sell it.

What are you going to do about it?

Help find this woman before sleeping in bins gets her killed

Have you seen the young woman in the picture above?

She was last seen in Deepdene Gardens, just off Brixton Hill in London – sleeping in a wheelie bin. If she had not been spotted, she may have been scooped up by a refuse collection truck and crushed to death.

This is the risk run by rough-sleeping homeless people if they sleep in these bins – although they may not know it.

I refer you to a story on This Site from December 2014 – four years ago:

“‘One of our clients was sanctioned. He had
no money for seventeen weeks. He was
scavenging in a bin, the lorry came, picked
him up and he was crushed to death.’

“The above is a statement by Vince Hessey, a member of the board of trustees at Birkenhead YMCA (listed as YMCA Wirral), given in evidence to the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger in the United Kingdom, printed in the section entitled The vulnerability of people relying on food banks.

“A decision by a UK government employee, following guidelines set down by UK government ministers, led to a man being crushed to death in a refuse collection lorry.

This was one of many incidents that would not have happened if UK government policy had been different.

The UK government clearly couldn’t care less.”

The young woman who was found in the wheelie bin might have suffered the same fate as the man in that previous story (and others – he wasn’t the only person to die in that manner), if she had not been found and recorded by a refuse collector, as the following clip, placed on Twitter by Chris Furlong, shows:

The clip was subsequently retweeted by @UnityNewsUK, whose author stated: “This girl was last seen sleeping in a bin in Deepdene just off Brixton hill in London. Please can we identify her and get her some help before it’s too late. Nobody should have to live like this.”

Predictably, the clip attracted criticism from some quarters – but it is welcome that the critic was satisfied with the response:

The fact that a person was discovered risking her life in this way has drawn horrified responses on the social media, along with vilification of the Conservative government who put her there with its cruel policies and indifference to the hardship they created.

@kandisholland18 tweeted: “THIS IS THE UK. This is what @theresa_may is ignoring this is what IS SEEN AS A NORMAL THING TO DO! Young and old left in the cold with nowhere to turn. They just want us poor to curl up and be lost forever. The uk government are evil and do not care about us

@nickylabour4eva added: “The Tories are destroying everything good and decent about British society. It’s about more than Brexit isn’t it?”

@DebsaDelight commented: “She was so resigned to her fate. What a monstrous time we live in.”

This was from @pincushion: “Heart breaking – thanks to everyone who are trying to help her. I hate this bloody government.”

For Sarah Harten (@LOVELFCTODEATH), this was the main issue: “So sad. And all these overpaid industries out there. People with more money then they know what to do with. Was the human race really put here to sleep in bins streets and doorways?”

And Pamela McIntosh made this appeal: “How can this be happening in our country? This is someone’s daughter. Please help.”

One person who wants to help all homeless people is Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. In the week when Housing Secretary James Brokenshire tried to say homelessness was nothing to do with Conservative government policies, Mr Corbyn released the following clip:

And in response to a BBC appeal for suggested ways to end homelessness, Labour-supporting Twitter account Tory Fibs sent the following:

But these changes can only happen when a Labour government, led by Mr Corbyn, is elected.

For now, people like the young woman in this story are endangering themselves by sleeping in refuse collection bins.

If you have seen this woman – or if you see her after reading this – there are many charitable organisations offering help for homeless people; please ask one to make contact with her. You’ll be helping save a young life.

And that’s more than the Tories will ever do.

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