Meanwhile In England

[Spider]

13 minutes ago, Sweep said:

He's not got a criminal conviction, but he was found liable for sexual abuse by a civil jury. 

He does have a criminal conviction for falsifying business records though (30+ of them

Apparently it’s ok to dismiss historical misdemeanours now. Just move on.

Shemima Begun will be delighted to hear it from people she least expected to.

[kent_white]

13 hours ago, bolty58 said:

Europe. Obviously. Only a drama queen would think differently.

The defence spending is only a reaction to The Dons prompting. The fucking EU would have freeloaded for as long as the US were daft enough to provide.

The EU trajectory towards statehood needs resistance.

I know. Just imagine it. A federated republic made up of individual states that have joined together under a federated system. There's simply no precedent for it and the US are absolutely right to point that out! 😁

[gonzo]

Not a good week for Afghan public relations

[burnden]

 

[athywhite1958]

1 hour ago, Bertie said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65531098.amp

 

'The standard of proof in civil cases is lower than in criminal cases, meaning that jurors were only required to find that it was more likely than not that Mr Trump assaulted Ms Carroll.'

Balance of probability which I suppose will happen here in the future with no jury trials

[kent_white]

15 hours ago, Marc505 said:

This recent National Security Strategy theyve farted out that goes on about Europe facing "Civilisational Erasure"(?!) and that Russia has conveniently thrown their support behind, doesnt make for happy reading either.

Epstein files must have been filed away with that immiment lawsuit against the BBC

It's frightening mate. But too complicated to easily cover on the news I suppose. 

I'll keep saying it. Donald Trump is an authoritarian leader - I wouldn't quite call him a fascist - but some of his rhetoric isn't a million miles away. 

And he is systematically stripping away the institutions, checks and balances that have made the US the most successful country in the world. And pivoting it towards who knows what. 

The UK is in a real mess. And we need to rethink who we throw our lot in with. We're largely a service economy -  give it 10 years when AI can do most of the service economy jobs (better and at a fraction of the price) and we REALLY WILL be in trouble. 

Sadly we have a populace that are happy to throw our economic future under the bus if it means that they can labour under the misapprehension than fewer brown people will arrive on small boats, even though we told them at the time that the opposite would happen, and even though the countries birth rate is too low to survive without immigration. 

Still - fewer weird looking people in town so it's not all bad eh? We can all enjoy our poorly paid, manual labour surrounded by our colleagues with pure ayrian skull shapes so, every cloud! 

[Cheese]

3 minutes ago, athywhite1958 said:

'The standard of proof in civil cases is lower than in criminal cases, meaning that jurors were only required to find that it was more likely than not that Mr Trump assaulted Ms Carroll.'

Balance of probability which I suppose will happen here in the future with no jury trials

No Jury trials for crimes with sentences of less than 3 years...

Edited December 9, 2025 by Cheese

[athywhite1958]

1 minute ago, Cheese said:

No Jury trials for crimes with sentences of less than 3 years...

On that note, there are some awful crimes committed by folk who receive a fairly low sentence, judges have to follow sentencing guidelines but it is how they interpret them, personally I think it's a poor move by Lammy

[gonzo]

If you've ever been involved in a trial either with jury duty or whatever else you soon realise how much of an utter faff the whole thing is and how much wasted time there is.

 

[Cheese]

13 minutes ago, athywhite1958 said:

On that note, there are some awful crimes committed by folk who receive a fairly low sentence, judges have to follow sentencing guidelines but it is how they interpret them, personally I think it's a poor move by Lammy

Seems fairly innocuous to me. Hardly scratches the surface of the shitshow Legal System the Tories left behind. We need far more radical policies if we're serious about fixing it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn5lxg2l0lqo

Edited December 9, 2025 by Cheese

[jmjhb]

Middle Hulton. Where's that exactly

[Marc505]

8 minutes ago, gonzo said:

If you've ever been involved in a trial either with jury duty or whatever else you soon realise how much of an utter faff the whole thing is and how much wasted time there is.

 

The amount of wasted time in the course of a day at court is mad. Judges often cop for a lot of the blame for that, but its rarely their fault specifically. (Though some did find any excuse for a light morning and clear afternoon on a Friday)

Worked in the system for over a decade. It was falling to pieces when I left, been out of it a few years now but doesn't sound like it has got any better.

A whole mix of reasons for it, but from a staff point of view it was just always a constant situation of being expected to do more with less.

Replacing long standing staff who actually cared about what they did (and cared about the people coming to court) with short contract agency staff hasnt helped either, but the pay, conditions and expectations are shit so they cant attract people to the roles like they used to.

[royal white]

3 hours ago, gonzo said:

Looks like WMP overruled UEFA to ban the Jews from Villa Park.

(I've used the term Jews in an inflammatory manner to instigate debate as I'm killing 20 mins whilst this next bout of rain dissipates )

😂 good to see Stuttgart are allowing folk to watch their footy team and not discriminating because of their nationality/religion. I suppose there’s no history with Jews in Germany to flap about. 👀

[Zico]

16 hours ago, Marc505 said:

This recent National Security Strategy theyve farted out that goes on about Europe facing "Civilisational Erasure"(?!) and that Russia has conveniently thrown their support behind, doesnt make for happy reading either.

Epstein files must have been filed away with that immiment lawsuit against the BBC

just one psychological drama after another

[little whitt]

24 minutes ago, jmjhb said:

Middle Hulton. Where's that exactly

DAUBHILL 

[Alf Hartigan]

1 hour ago, little whitt said:

DAUBHILL 

I’d say it’s another name for Morris Green.

[royal white]

1 hour ago, little whitt said:

DAUBHILL 

The posh part 

[little whitt]

18 minutes ago, Alf Hartigan said:

I’d say it’s another name for Morris Green.

Remember Middle Hulton Police station 

i would say From MGL up to Hulton Lane 

[Alf Hartigan]

31 minutes ago, little whitt said:

Remember Middle Hulton Police station 

i would say From MGL up to Hulton Lane 

Yes that’s about right. It goes Little Hulton, Middle Hulton, Over Hulton 👍

[royal white]

3 hours ago, gonzo said:

Not a good week for Afghan public relations

10 year sentence, prob out in 4 and then what? Fall for the human rights that they apparently have and let them remain? 

[jmjhb]

43 minutes ago, Alf Hartigan said:

Yes that’s about right. It goes Little Hulton, Middle Hulton, Over Hulton 👍

Then how come LH and OH are the other side of the M61?

[mickbrown]

1 hour ago, Alf Hartigan said:

Yes that’s about right. It goes Little Hulton, Middle Hulton, Over Hulton 👍

It goes really shit, shit, bit shit

[bolty58]

14 hours ago, gonzo said:

Think freeloaded is a bit of a stretch tbf.

And if the yanks want to be the world the police they should pay for it.

How much have they spent in the middle east over the years? 

Whether you think so or not, they have all certainly changed their tune on defence spending once The Don told them the US weren't paying for it any more.

Maybe you just prefer a different word/words to 'freeloading'? Riding on the back of the US? More palatable for you?

[bolty58]

10 hours ago, kent_white said:

I know. Just imagine it. A federated republic made up of individual states that have joined together under a federated system. There's simply no precedent for it and the US are absolutely right to point that out! 😁

I don't need to imagine it. I have already seen it. Bloated Brussels bureaucrats heading off to Michelin starred lunches in chauffeur driven limo's then back to their plush offices to scheme about further integration into a single European state which they can then milk further. You can bet von der Liar has a strategy to achieve this.

No thanks. One day the edifice will fall. The equal and opposite move in a rightwards direction will likely be a large contributor to its demise.

Edited December 9, 2025 by bolty58

[bolty58]

9 hours ago, gonzo said:

Not a good week for Afghan public relations

You just don't like brown skin