General Election 2024

Djpekingman

space A bit. A very small bit. In fact I'd venture not remotely like coal mining in the 80s. Fishing is currently around 0.04% of GDP - that is a fall of .08% since 2016. Still a tiny amount compared to the amount of hysteria they generate.

space

Djpekingman A bit. A very small bit. In fact I'd venture not remotely like coal mining in the 80s. Fishing is currently around 0.04% of GDP - that is a fall of .08% since 2016. Still a tiny amount compared to the amount of hysteria they generate.

If it's so unimportant then the EU won't mind us keeping it.

Reggie_Perrin

Djpekingman and the benefits Starmer has negotiated for the food export & manufacturing industries far far outweigh these supposed negatives.

Djpekingman

space Course they do. They know it winds brits up no end. The silly fuckers had a cod war back in the 70s ffs.

Foxy_Dread

What happens to all the stuff the fishermen catch that Brits won't eat. It used to go to the EU. Where now?

Reggie_Perrin

Foxy_Dread goes to the EU again as he's negotiated better access for sellers.

space

Djpekingman That was Iceland. Although they were known as Bejam back then.

Flaneur

These Eastern European 'male models', one of whom was an 'escort', burning several properties belonging to our PM - is he being blackmailed?

hendersonjones

Flaneur
Fun Boy Three

Reggie_Perrin

I get the feeling Starmer might go in a year or so. Darren Jones and Yvette Cooper to take over.

Harvest

😡😡😡https://bsky.app/profile/carolinelucas.bsky.social/post/3lpuayd5drs23

doggybag

Starmer is completely mad if he allows this sort of dictatorial crap.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8nzx1475ro

Djpekingman

doggybag Heads must roll. But they won't. He'll bottle it.

Reggie_Perrin

doggybag not defending this but isn't it just factually correct? Civil Servants' jobs are to implement government policy regardless of who is voted in.

Foxy_Dread

Are we Israel's bitch?

Travis_Bickle

Reggie_Perrin precisely. The civil service code sets out the responsibilities of those employed within it.
Letters like this, however well intentioned, are no more than performative gestures. If people feel their belief or conscience are offended by government policy, then the only course is for them to resign. It would be the same irrespective of the party in power and the issue in question.

doggybag

Reggie_Perrin
Anyone who signs an employment contract should undertstand that they will support the goals of the employer. Always assuming the employer has taken the trouble to actually document those goals and the responsibility of the employee in their achievement.
The employer too has responsibilities. In this case it could be argued that the employer is imposing an expectation that the employee will suppress his/her moral code to support his/her employer in tacit backing of a cited criminal. In such a case it is the employer who presumes.

Djpekingman

Travis_Bickle Surely folks join the civil service to effect change? Not to sit there and do their masters bidding however absurd it may be? If the Thick of It or Yes Minister are anything to go by it was civil servants formulating policy, not the hapless ministers. That may not be what was meant to happen, but would you trust some of the hapless losers elected as ministers or MPs with the keys to the door? Surely its better to have some career civil servants there to take the edge off some of the more insane policies that government ministers come up with? See Truss and her gang for what can go wrong when they are released!

Travis_Bickle

Djpekingman no, that's precisely what they're not there to do. They are there to implement the will of the elected government. That has to be the underlying principle, however it might work in practice. An advisor can do just that. Advise. If someone feels that a government policy offends the law they can advise to that effect. What they can't do is pick and choose. What they really shouldn't do is sign letters like this one.
The issue doesn't matter. The principle does.

Reggie_Perrin

Djpekingman OBR was there for that, she ignored them.

Reggie_Perrin

doggybag I think you are a few streets away from this issue with this analysis. It's pretty well documented what the role of the civil service is, if it conflicts with their morals now but never has before then I agree with TB, it's performative bollocks. There's very few Humphreys, not many more Bernards and the rest are there to carry out policy and nothing more. Oh, and I categorically do not support what Israel is doing, in any way.

Travis_Bickle

doggybag imposing an expectation that the employee will suppress his/her moral code to support his/her employer in tacit backing of a cited criminal

That's precisely what they do. They don't place their own politics above that of the government. They are independent in that regard. There is a procedure for those who are unable to do that. Resignation. I struggle to believe that almost every single signatory doesn't know that. And it's the confected nature of gestures like this that annoy me.

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