Scotland's new hate crime law comes into force Police say they expect a flood of complaints, but the government insists the act provides protection. www.bbc.co.uk The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of "stirring up hatred" relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. The maximum penalty is a prison sentence of seven years. Adam Tomkins, professor of public law at Glasgow University, and a former Conservative MSP, voted against the bill because it could see someone convicted of stirring up hatred f ..read more

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this is breaking on Sky news the Government are said to be drawing up contingency plans for the collapse of Thames water so are they close to going under? Are other water companies have problems or it just Thames water? And this is quite concerning if true Ministers weigh contingency plan for collapse of Thames Water Whitehall officials and Ofwat, the water regulator, have begun assessing the scope for a special administration of the UK’s biggest water company, Sky News learns. news.sky.com ..read more

Why are we paying our water bills? It seems the only people who are benefiting from the privitised water companies are the shareholders. What are we (The public) getting for our money? "Some 3.61 million hours of monitored sewage spills were reported in England in 2023, more than double the 1.75 million hours in 2022 and also well above the 3.10 million hours recorded in 2020." Sewage spills into rivers and seas double in 2023 to reach worst on record Sewage spills into England's rivers and seas doubled in 2023, marking the worst year on record. www.lbc.co.uk ..read more

Personally I hate the current adversarial nature of politics - i believe far more could be done by concentrating on what we have in common, than what divides us, but what do others here think ..read more

I hear on various news sources that Russia has boosted its finances (at least in the short term) by switching to a war economy. There was no mention of Ukraine in Jeremy Hunt's budget, was there? Should there have been? We're already spending a lot of money on Ukraine (rightfully, IMO and we should spend more). Because Putin HAS to be defeated for the security of the whole of Europe. Should the UK adopt a war economy to support Ukraine? And what does that mean anyway ..read more

I thought it might be good to have a thread on the smaller parties and related political information, that people can discuss. Because there's nowhere to share any information if interested ..read more

I have seen that Labour will put forward a motion/law to make fox hunting illegal, but I am not sure ..read more

Scrap plans to scan accounts of benefit claimants or risk new scandal, MPs told Campaigners say ‘fully automated’ approach risks repeat of Post Office Horizon scandal www.theguardian.com This would include pensioners as well as those receiving Child Benefit, not just those on Universal Credit. It would pretty much include a large percentage of the public. Plans for automated surveillance of millions of bank accounts to catch welfare cheats should be scrapped, campaigners have said, warning the approach risks a repeat of the Post Office... Read more ..read more

Copied this post from elsewhere. I think the charts contained in this post, hints as to why the NHS is on it's knees ..read more