Tag Archives: staff

Starmer abuse audio was a deepfake, according to French news agency

Hooray: it wasn’t him, according to someone else.

Concerns about threats posed to democracy by artificial intelligence have been raised after a French news agency said audio purporting to be of Labour leader Keir Starmer shouting abuse at his staff, was fake.

The clip, which This Site posted earlier, along with another, were manipulated by AI, according to French news agency AFP.

This Writer is satisfied that the claim may be legitimate, because AFP may under no circumstances fall under the control, either de facto or de jure, of any ideological, political or economic grouping.

The audio was posted onto X (formerly Twitter) by an anonymous account with only around 3,000 followers, so we can take those details as indicators of fakeness for the future.

Next time, if it hasn’t been verified by technicians at a reputable organisation (like the afore-mentioned, impartial AFP), perhaps we’ll be wiser to ignore it.

Source: Labour faces political attack after deepfake audio is posted of Sir Keir Starmer | Politics News | Sky News

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Is this a recording of Keir Starmer bullying staffers? If so, should he become PM?

Keir Starmer: tongue lashing.

UPDATE: It seems the audio that was the basis for this article was faked. This story will remain up as a reminder of what happened – and of what to look for in other faked media.

An audio file has been released, purportedly of Keir Starmer bullying Labour Party staffers.

A check on whether the file was computer-generated gives a more-than-90-per-cent probability that the voice on the recording is human, although we cannot be entirely sure that it is Starmer’s.

Here’s the recording. Don’t listening if swearing disturbs you:

Make of it what you will.

But if this recording is genuine, do you want a person like that running the UK?

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Not only are supermarkets making obscene profits – they’re cutting staff pay

Here’s another reason for young people to get off Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube Shorts or whatever, get off the sofa and go and vote.

One of the popular choices of job for young people is working for a supermarket chain. I did it for a while in my teens to raise cash for college, and my stepdaughter (technically just Mrs Mike’s daughter but she’ll kill me if I don’t call her that) did checkout work before going on to better things, too.

Would we have done those jobs if they hadn’t paid enough for us to enjoy our young lives and be able to store cash away for the future?

No, of course we wouldn’t.

Now we learn that, while they have been personally raking in nearly £1 million per day from their supermarkets’ profits, the owners of Asda are cutting pay for 7,000 workers and will sack anybody who won’t accept the new arrangement.

According to the GMB union, staff will lose 60p per hour, have their night supplement reduced and be dismissed if they refuse to accept the change.

You should be able to find evidence of the Asda owners’ riches here:

It’s pure greed, as far as This Writer is concerned – and a spiteful stab at the hearts of young people across the UK.

Possibly worst of all, the Issa’s are self-made; they grew up in a terraced house in Blackburn.

It seems that, now they have been able to work their way up to the higher levels of business, they’re pulling up the ladder behind them to make sure that nobody working for them can get to do what they have.

They get to do this because employment law in the UK allows them to.

The only way to change that is to change employment law.

And the only way to do that is to vote in a government that will do that.

Pensioners won’t demand it. They don’t care about kids who are just starting out.

Middle-aged professionals won’t demand it; they’re too busy trying to defend themselves from all the flak coming their way from the current government.

So that leaves young people.

What do you think, you teens and 20-somethings? Is that worth tearing yourself away from your social media influencers for a while?

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Why doesn’t England have a requirement for nurse staffing levels, like Wales?

Watching Royal College of Nursing chief exec Pat Cullen addressing nurses in Brighton, I just found out that the Welsh NHS has a requirement for a full complement of nurses to be on duty at any time, with nurses also required to highlight if this does not happen.

Why isn’t this a necessity in the English NHS?

The answer should be clear: the required levels would not be reached.

Always, Health Secretary Steve Barclay tries to dodge his duties.

You can bet he won’t be following Wales’s shining example any time soon.

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Is Rees-Mogg really planning to deregulate small and medium-sized business?

This is insane.

According to the Maximilien Robespierre YouTube channel, Jacob Rees-Mogg wants to end all business regulation for firms with fewer than 500 staff.

As the blurb for this clip states, “This would mean that they could fire staff without following the law, they could hire anyone to drive a HGV, they could ignore the environment when dumping waste.”

Here’s the clip:

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Tory criticism means Truss’s chief of staff won’t be paid through his firm

Carry On Fullbrook: he’s now being paid directly by the government, rather than via his firm (that might have enabled him to use a tax dodge). So that’s all right then.

We have to take our victories where we can – and this is good, as it seems to prevent Mark Fullbrook from dodging tax.

Here’s The Guardian:

The government made a U-turn after an outcry from the opposition and some Tory MPs, with one saying it did not “smell right” after tax changes in the budget making it easier to pay less tax if paid through a self-employed company.

The government admitted over the weekend that Fullbrook would be paid through his lobbying firm, a move that could have helped him avoid paying tax. He had previously claimed the firm had stopped all commercial activities.

It subsequently emerged that Fullbrook had been promised a lucrative contract to run Truss’s next election campaign as well as being made chief of staff.

On Tuesday, a No 10 spokesperson said: “While there are established arrangements for employees to join government on secondment, to avoid any ongoing speculation Mark Fullbrook will be employed directly by the government on a special adviser contract.

“All government employees, including those joining on secondment, are subject to the necessary checks and vetting, and all special advisers declare their interests in line with Cabinet Office guidance.”

Previously the government had said the arrangement was properly vetted by the propriety and ethics team.

Source: Plan to pay Liz Truss’s chief of staff through firm is dropped after criticism

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Tories look abroad for care home staff as shortage leaves residents’ basic needs unmet

Help! One can imagine the person inside the care home saying that to their relatives.

Tory Health Secretary Steve Barclay is looking abroad for employees to plug the gaps in care home staffing. Didn’t we quit the EU to stop people from foreign countries coming to the UK and taking our jobs?

Details indicating the scale of the problem are here.

Workers have been walking out to take less stressful, better-paid jobs in supermarkets, hospitality, hairdressing and factory work, according to care home managers.

Common reasons for quitting are low pay worsened by high inflation, and burnout.

Social care reforms focusing on capping costs for service users have been criticised for failing to address the staffing shortage or increasing pay.

So Barclay is going to foreign countries, asking people there to come to the UK to work incredibly hard ministering to people’s needs – for very little pay.

What’s in it for them?

Source: Staffing crisis leaves many English care home residents’ basic needs unmet

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More #Partygate corruption: visitor logs withheld as Downing Street brands request ‘vexatious’

Why so tight-lipped, Downing Street? Is it because we might find out the identities of the people whose faces have been blanked out – or who have been cropped out – of images like this?

A request for information on visitors to 10 Downing Street on the dates of the Covid-19 rule-breaking parties has been refused by officials there.

Downing Street staff – all of whom are likely to have been on those logs – said the request from Lib Dem Chief Whip Wendy Chamberlain was “vexatious”.

No10 said it would be “burdensome” to provide the information – and accused Ms Chamberlain of using a “scattergun approach designed for the purpose of “fishing” for information.”

They added: “While we acknowledge that there may be a wider public interest and objective value in some of this information, disclosure would be of limited value given that there are already independent investigations taking place considering these matters.”

This Writer has some experience of the word “vexatious” being used as a way to hide from reasonable scrutiny.

In this particular instance it would mean that the request was made without any purpose other than to cause annoyance to Downing Street staff.

But those very staff admit this is nonsense in their response: “We acknowledge that there may be a wider public interest and objective value in some of this information”.

The excuse that “there are already independent investigations taking place considering these matters” would only be valid if that information has been passed to those investigations and they are passing it to the public.

If not, then there is no excuse for refusing to pass it to the public and we will have to form our own conclusions about the reasons Downing Street staff won’t pass on this information about illegal parties in their place of work, in which they personally may have participated.

Source: Partygate visitor logs witheld as Boris Johnson’s No10 brands request ‘vexatious’ – Mirror Online

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Government set to #uturn over mandatory #NHSvaccinations

Hospital ward: how many NHS staff would Sajid Javid have lost if he continued with his plan for mandatory vaccinations?

Boris Johnson’s Tory government is rubbish at brinkmanship, isn’t it?

It’s good at bullying: where they have all the power, Johnson’s mob run roughshod over the plebs every time.

But look at this climbdown. Only a few weeks ago, Sajid Javid was rattling the sabre hard, saying NHS staff must get the Covid-19 vaccinations or lose their jobs.

Now he’s climbing down fast because the number of staff members refusing to have the injections forced on them (which is, let’s remember, a human rights violation) would cause a staffing crisis in the NHS.

This is not about people being anti-vaxxers, mind: there may be many good reasons for staff to refuse the injection and it would be wrong to infer a reason that may trigger unfair prejudice against doctors, nurses and support staff.

Javid is saying he’s relenting because the Omicron variant, now the dominant form of Covid-19 in the UK, is both milder than Delta and receding, but we all know that’s just an excuse.

The evidence shows that the bullies had to back down because they had painted themselves into a corner.

Downing Street appears likely to drop its policy of dismissing frontline NHS and care staff in England who refuse Covid vaccinations, a minister has strongly indicated, after nursing and care organisations called for this to happen.

Source: No 10 set for U-turn over mandatory Covid jabs for NHS staff in England | Vaccines and immunisation | The Guardian

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#OperationSaveBigDog? No, Tories. Take him to the vet & have him put down, for his sake and ours

Treacherous cur: Boris Johnson is pictured next to Martin Reynolds at the Downing Street garden party on May 15, 2020, a bottle of booze on the table next to them. Now, it seems Johnson wants Reynolds to take the rap for the parties, to save the prime minister’s pointless career.

It’s exactly as we all thought. Rather than accept responsibility for creating a culture of corruption at Downing Street in which employees were encouraged to have parties while the rest of the UK lived in isolation, Boris Johnson is going to scapegoat the staff.

It seems he has drawn up a list of colleagues he intends to throw under the bus in order to save his own worthless career.

They include Martin Reynolds, the private secretary who invited 100 people to a party in the Downing Street garden on May 20, 2020 and with whom Johnson is pictured at a party in the Downing Street garden on May 15, 2020.

Apparently he’s calling it “Operation save Big Dog”. Here are the details.

One has to question why Johnson thinks pretending other people are responsible for the attitude of contempt for the rules that he created will help him – for a very obvious reason.

The latest story has it that Downing Street staff were having drinks parties every week during lockdown – as suggested by Johnson. The Mirror called it “Boris Johnson’s wine time Fridays“.

The staff scapegoating plan hasn’t gone down well among the political community:

… Or indeed among the public:

If I was one of the staff members being pressurised to quit so Boris Johnson can save a career that isn’t worth saving, I’d be handing my phone full of lockdown-busting party invitations to the investigators – after using it to call the Mirror, the Torygraph and all the other members of the press pack who are baying for prime ministerial blood.

This is one “Big Dog” who needs to be put out of our misery.

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