Westminster Politics 2024-2029

An NHS mental health trust plans to cut a wide range of its services and axe hundreds of jobs to close a £25m hole in its finances.

The move by the East London foundation trust (ELFT) and the scale of potential cuts involved have been called unfathomable given demand for NHS mental health support is rising rapidly.

The plan has sparked fears that under-18s and adults needing psychological treatment will have to wait longer or be forced to go private, leading “to lives being destroyed”.

It will involve the “redesign” of at least 10 key services such as child and adolescent mental health care, talking therapies, addiction support, help for adults undergoing a mental health crisis and community programmes, including for ethnic minorities and poor people.

Fothergill ward, a 20-bed intermediate care ward at the trust’s East Ham care centre, has stopped taking new referrals and is scheduled to close on 21 September.

ELFT’s list of where the cuts will hit and how many jobs will be lost shows it plans to shed 330 of its 6,000-strong workforce, about 5% of the total, through a combination of redundancies and the removal of posts.

It said it was seeking £24.97m of cuts because NHS England obliged all of the country’s 205 trusts to balance their books.

Richard Munn, the national officer for health at the trade union Unite, said: “To see cuts to any mental health service is unfathomable and unacceptable. Cutting mental health services will lead to exponentially greater costs to the public purse and lead to lives being destroyed.

“Such extensive cuts to services and staff will inevitably lead to people with acute mental health problems, who need care urgently, facing longer waiting times. The consequence of this will in some cases be tragic, life-changing and irreversible.”

Unite is preparing to ballot its members at ELFT over potential strike action to protest against the cuts and the fact that its lead official at the trust, Mark Dunne, has lost his job as a result of what Munn called “a sham redundancy” that showed the “cold, uncaring nature of this employer”.

ELFT provides mental health care in the east London boroughs of Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham, and in Luton and Bedford in Bedfordshire.

The Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse, Apsana Begum, has written to ELFT’s chief executive, Lorraine Sunduza, voicing serious concern about the cuts.

Begum asked if the trust had undertaken a risk assessment of its plans, given the likely impact on “public health, public safety and health equalities”.

“I simply cannot envisage that cuts of that scale could be implemented without creating a substantial variation in how services are accessed by patients,” she said. She noted that few of the plans had been announced for consultation, “despite the wide-ranging savings apparently intended” and job losses involved.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...-trust-plans-25m-in-cuts-to-jobs-and-services
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Former neo-Nazi activist selected as Tory candidate for Somerset council election​

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, creator of satirical Crewkerne Gazette, has convictions including for harassing a Jewish MP

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...-tory-candidate-for-somerset-council-election

A former neo-Nazi activist with convictions including for harassing a Jewish MP has been selected as a Conservative candidate for a local election in Somerset.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, the creator of the viral Crewkerne Gazette series of AI clips, is due to stand for election to Somerset council next year in a new Crewkerne South district. He told the Guardian he was an executive member of the Tories’ Yeovil branch, working as an events organiser.

“The branch and indeed party are fully aware of my past. Our chairman has been a vocal advocate and has supported me since I became a member of the party. I am very grateful for the support,” he said.

Bonehill-Paine, who previously described himself as a “nationalist, fascist, theorist and supporter of white rights”, re-emerged in recent years as the creator of the Crewkerne Gazette, a satirical online account that has gained a cult following.

While notably critical of Labour and Reform UK, its skits have cast the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, in a favourable light.

Rebecca Harris, the Conservative chief whip, was criticised earlier this year for reposting one video in which Badenoch and the shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, were depicted as characters in the gangster film Scarface. This was after Bonehill-Paine had been revealed as the person behind the account.

Bonehill-Paine has a conviction for assaulting a police officer and burglary of a police station, and was convicted in 2014 of malicious communications over an anti-Islam hoax that led to death threats against the owners of a pub in Leicester.

He was jailed in 2015 for more than three years after posting “vile” antisemitic material online ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally.

In 2016, he was found guilty of racially aggravated harassment for abuse directed at the then Labour MP Luciana Berger, who is Jewish, which included posting messages to his blog calling Berger a “rodent” and an “evil money-grabber”. He was also the founder and leader of the National British Resistance, a far-right group.

He told the Guardian on Monday that his criminal convictions had been spent and that he held various Home Office counter-extremism certifications. He said he had spoken alongside MPs where he talked about his past and highlighted antisemitism faced by Britain’s Jewish community.

However, the Conservative party’s opponents on the right were quick to accuse the Tory leader of hypocrisy and being weak on claims to oppose antisemitism.

A Reform UK spokesperson said: “Kemi claims the Tories have changed and they will have a new generation of candidates – it’s now clear what calibre of candidates they will be. Kemi claims to support the fight against antisemitism yet selects a convicted antisemite Nazi as a candidate. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.”

The selection of Bonehill-Paine comes as Badenoch is accused of freezing out centrist Tories. Last month it emerged that all prospective Tory MPs must align with her pledge to scrap the 2050 net zero target and leave the European convention on human rights.

At the weekend, a young Tory activist resigned as chair of the One Nation Conservative Network. Cody Butler claimed in a public letter that he no longer believed there was a home for one nation conservatism in the party.

Badenoch told the BBC last week that she led “a brand new party full of new people” after it emerged that the former cabinet minister Grant Shapps had been rejected as a Tory parliamentary candidate.

The Conservative party has been approached for comment.
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Yikes.
 


Reform, champions of Free Speech, don't like Free Spech used against them. Appartently you aren't allowed to critise a Council Leader for dropping school holiday meal vouchers in one of the poorest areas of the country. A local Cafe owner, Barry, took it upon himself to feed local children for free (what a legend). He called out the Reform Council Leader for making that decision and Barry was subsequently threatened that he would be reported to the Police for inciting violence.

This is the party that is supposedly for the working class. I genuinely have no idea how anyone can say that with a straight face these days.
 
RedSky said:


Reform, champions of Free Speech, don't like Free Spech used against them. Appartently you aren't allowed to critise a Council Leader for dropping school holiday meal vouchers in one of the poorest areas of the country. A local Cafe owner, Barry, took it upon himself to feed local children for free (what a legend). He called out the Reform Council Leader for making that decision and Barry was subsequently threatened that he would be reported to the Police for inciting violence.

This is the party that is supposedly for the working class. I genuinely have no idea how anyone can say that with a straight face these days.
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Also the same party who complained that people were locked up for Tweets that genuinely incited violence (albeit against other people, who they didn't care about).
 
A former neo-Nazi activist who was convicted of harassing a Jewish MP has withdrawn as a Conservative election candidate after Kemi Badenoch offered him a role as an adviser to the party.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine said on Wednesday that he had withdrawn from next year’s local elections, and that the Conservative leader had instead asked him to become an adviser to the party’s culture and integration commission, where he will specifically focus on how young men become radicalised.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...tive-election-candidate-joshua-bonehill-paine

I can only imagine the reaction if Labour did this. Except we know what it would be...
 
Frosty said:
A former neo-Nazi activist who was convicted of harassing a Jewish MP has withdrawn as a Conservative election candidate after Kemi Badenoch offered him a role as an adviser to the party.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine said on Wednesday that he had withdrawn from next year’s local elections, and that the Conservative leader had instead asked him to become an adviser to the party’s culture and integration commission, where he will specifically focus on how young men become radicalised.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...tive-election-candidate-joshua-bonehill-paine

I can only imagine the reaction if Labour did this. Except we know what it would be...
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Sounds like the right sort of bloke to look after culture and integration.
What the feck is wrong with these people?
 


This is going to run and run. Andy Burnham is going to continue to try and hide behind his futile hand wringing over Gaza, while he does his darndest to defend Israel and all it's crimes.

Burnham re-appoints former Israeli Supreme Court clerk as justice minister​

In May 2024, Sackman opposed International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant, saying:
"I trust the Israeli people to hold their leaders to account"
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https://jodymcintyre.substack.com/p/burnham-re-appoints-former-israeli
Eyebrows were raised, however, at the ministerial re-appointment of Sarah Sackman, Keir Starmer’s ex-solicitor general and a key supporter of Lammy’s jury proposals. Sackman has previously worked as a foreign law clerk at the Israeli Supreme Court, and her grandfather once served as an ambassador for the settler state. Last week, Burnham extended her role in government with a re-appointment at the Ministry of Justice.

Sackman’s funders​

At the end of June, and just eleven days after Burnham’s by-election victory in Makerfield, Sackman registered two new donations, each of £1250, from veteran pro-Israeli bankroller Trevor Chinn.

Sackman has long been a favourite of wealthy lobbyists, receiving tens of thousands of pounds from ex-Labour Friends of Israel chair Jonathan Mendelsohn, former Israeli soldier Jonathan Kestenbaum, and the Grabiner family. Anthony Grabiner, who is not amongst Sackman’s donors, was one of the UK Lawyers for Israel patrons recently subject to a “legal intimidation” complaint.
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Is King Charles a ‘white Briton’? Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe won’t say​

Rupert Lowe, the leader of Restore Britain, refused to say he believes King Charles can be classified as a “white Briton” in an extraordinary interview on the BBC’s Today programme.

Questioning Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth, over his claims that “white Britons will become a minority by 2063”, the presenter, Nick Robinson, noted that the forecast Lowe referred to defined a “white Briton” as someone whose parents were both born in the UK.

With the king’s late father, Prince Philip, having been born on the Greek island of Corfu, Robinson asked Lowe: “Are you aware that, by the definitions used in that particular report, King Charles is not a white Briton? Do you think he is a white Briton?”

Declining to address the question, Lowe responded: “Well, many people have different interpretations of that, Nick. I mean, we can split hairs.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/politic...iton-restore-britain-rupert-lowe-will-not-say

This is normal.
 
Frosty said:
Is King Charles a ‘white Briton’? Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe won’t say
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No, at least not by the definition given by Lowe... yet another crisis for the Windsor Family?

I thought the royal family are descended from German Royalty, the House of Hapsburg.
 


Then tell me this Labour party doesn't look like racist fools and shitbags. How much lower will Burnham's gang go to try and placate the apartheid regime, because no low is low enough for that lot?
 
dumbo said:


Then tell me this Labour party doesn't look like racist fools and shitbags. How much lower will Burnham's gang go to try and placate the apartheid regime, because no low is low enough for that lot?
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Isn't an arrest something the police do and not MPs or the PM.....
Talk about blaming the government for everything.
 
Buster15 said:
Isn't an arrest something the police do and not MPs or the PM.....
Talk about blaming the government for everything.
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Really? You're not this ill informed Buster. Why are the Police arresting people for holding up "Plasticine Action" signs under the terrorism act, and who passed the legislation obliging the Police to try to enforce this nonsense?
 
711 said:
He was de-arrested after five minutes. It's a non-story. The debate on whether Palestine Action should be a prescribed organisation is quite valid, but the plasticine thing is pure bollocks.
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It's only a non story if you think the story is actually about fans of kid's modelling clay being arrested for their support of Plasticine, rather than a massive overreach by the Government resulting in the Police trying to enforce an unworkable legal decision which people are deliberately exposing and ridiculing by holding up signs similar enough to "Palestine Action" that they are incorrectly nicked. No-one thinks plasticine is proscribed but it is a story because it is actually about Palestine Action.
 
Fingeredmouse said:
It's only a non story if you think the story is actually about fans of kid's modelling clay being arrested for their support of Plasticine, rather than a massive overreach by the Government resulting in the Police trying to enforce an unworkable legal decision which people are deliberately exposing and ridiculing by holding up signs similar enough to "Palestine Action" that they are incorrectly nicked. No-one thinks plasticine is proscribed but it is a story because it is actually about Palestine Action.
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Obviously no one thinks it's about plasticine, that was my point. Once again, the debate on proscribing is quite valid, unfortunately 'exposing (really?) and ridiculing' detracts from that rather than enhances it.
 
Fingeredmouse said:
Really? You're not this ill informed Buster. Why are the Police arresting people for holding up "Plasticine Action" signs under the terrorism act, and who passed the legislation obliging the Police to try to enforce this nonsense?
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When did the government pass a law with an obligation to arrest people with a sign saying that
 
Buster15 said:
When did the government pass a law with an obligation to arrest people with a sign saying that
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You are right, they didn't.

Holding up such a sign was no doubt an attempt at taking the 'wee wee'; one (or more) Police Officers probably keen to impress, arrested the kid with something of a 'knee-jerk' reaction and five minutes later a senior officer de-arrested the kid... as you were; as @711 pointed out, a non-story.
 
711 said:
Obviously no one thinks it's about plasticine, that was my point. Once again, the debate on proscribing is quite valid, unfortunately 'exposing (really?) and ridiculing' detracts from that rather than enhances it.
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The Police have been placed in an incredibly difficult position due to this authoritarian over-reach and, personally, I consider ridiculing power in such situations perfectly valid protest. That's because it does highlight the ridiculousness of the Governments decision, as well as giving some level of media, yes, exposure to a very serious issue that isn't attracting nearly enough attention currently.
 
Sweet Square said:
Nice reminder

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I am always sceptical of figures that quite comparisons from seemingly random years.

What was the welfare spend in 1998, 2004 and 2012, and 2024?

Always useful to pick particular years to enhance an argument, and make figures look better. My eyes can’t see those numbers in the graph - and I have refused to use twitter for a very long time.
 
Fingeredmouse said:
The Police have been placed in an incredibly difficult position due to this authoritarian over-reach and, personally, I consider ridiculing power in such situations perfectly valid protest. That's because it does highlight the ridiculousness of the Governments decision, as well as giving some level of media, yes, exposure to a very serious issue that isn't attracting nearly enough attention currently.
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What do you think deserves less attention to focus on this?

I would far rather we focus on domestic issues, we have more than enough challenges that need focus.
 
Fingeredmouse said:
The Police have been placed in an incredibly difficult position due to this authoritarian over-reach and, personally, I consider ridiculing power in such situations perfectly valid protest. That's because it does highlight the ridiculousness of the Governments decision, as well as giving some level of media, yes, exposure to a very serious issue that isn't attracting nearly enough attention currently.
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Agree completely with your first sentence. I don't think the average protestor is necessarily supporting direct criminal action in the first place, they're objecting to British policy on the issue, and they're right to do so in my personal opinion, not that that's actually relevant.

I do think it's right for the police to deal with actual criminal action, and the people that organise it if they exist, whether I agree with their cause or not. It is not right to target peaceful protestors.

If you think the tweet was particularly clever or amusing then fair enough, we just disagree on that one.
 
Fingeredmouse said:
You're just being obtuse now.
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Not so. The point I was making is that, it was a decision by the police to arrest that person and not something the government did.
Nowadays people tend to blame the government for everything that happens instead of those who were actually involved.
Is that just me being obtuse.... well maybe.
 
711 said:
Agree completely with your first sentence. I don't think the average protestor is necessarily supporting direct criminal action in the first place, they're objecting to British policy on the issue, and they're right to do so in my personal opinion, not that that's actually relevant.

I do think it's right for the police to deal with actual criminal action, and the people that organise it if they exist, whether I agree with their cause or not. It is not right to target peaceful protestors.

If you think the tweet was particularly clever or amusing then fair enough, we just disagree on that one.
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Oh, the tweet was neither clever nor amusing. We're on the same page I think, but I do think that it is a story, albeit sixth form level satire, due to it's highlighting of the impossible Police position and the wider issue of protests being restricted.
 
Buster15 said:
Not so. The point I was making is that, it was a decision by the police to arrest that person and not something the government did.
Nowadays people tend to blame the government for everything that happens instead of those who were actually involved.
Is that just me being obtuse.... well maybe.
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I absolutely blame the Government for putting the Police in this position, yes, for reasons described above. You absolutely have a general point around the Government , and official bodies, being unreasonably blamed at times but I don't believe that this is one of those cases. My accusation of obtuseness, which may be harsh, is that it feels your're deliberately missing the wider point around "Plasticine Action", which is a very unsubtle piece of rudimentary satire that I'm sure you get.
 
Fingeredmouse said:
The Police have been placed in an incredibly difficult position due to this authoritarian over-reach and, personally, I consider ridiculing power in such situations perfectly valid protest. That's because it does highlight the ridiculousness of the Governments decision, as well as giving some level of media, yes, exposure to a very serious issue that isn't attracting nearly enough attention currently.
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The role of the police is to uphold the law. Arresting someone who is in effect taking the piss is not upholding that particular law and therefore it was going beyond the law. Because there was no law against what that individual did.
 
Fingeredmouse said:
I absolutely blame the Government for putting the Police in this position, yes, for reasons described above. You absolutely have a general point around the Government , and official bodies, being unreasonably blamed at times but I don't believe that this is one of those cases. My accusation of obtuseness, which may be harsh, is that it feels your're deliberately missing the wider point around "Plasticine Action", which is a very unsubtle piece of rudimentary satire that I'm sure you get.
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Yes I do get it.
I have a family member who is a policeman. And I asked them what they thought about it.
Their response was that the police have a big enough problem getting those who have been arrested to the courts. And if they had done such a thing, they would be rightly bollocked for being such a dick...d.
 
Buster15 said:
The role of the police is to uphold the law. Arresting someone who is in effect taking the piss is not upholding that particular law and therefore it was going beyond the law. Because there was no law against what that individual did.
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Absolutely correct, the Palestinian Action Group, is a government defined terrorist supporting group and had that interpretation been displayed as such, the kid would have correctly been arrested.

Because he used the word 'Plasticine' he was in fact poking fun, and in effect attempting to ridicule that definition of the government; and which presumably 'ridicule' in this context is not an offence. Also he would not be the first in proclaiming the 'Law is an Ass'.

Perhaps the use of humour, rather than damaging aircraft, would avoid the classification of 'terrorist supporting' and gain more acceptance with the wider public and who knows, a willingness to listen to the real arguments.
 
Maticmaker said:
Absolutely correct, the Palestinian Action Group, is a government defined terrorist supporting group and had that interpretation been displayed as such, the kid would have correctly been arrested.

Because he used the word 'Plasticine' he was in fact poking fun, and in effect attempting to ridicule that definition of the government; and which presumably 'ridicule' in this context is not an offence. Also he would not be the first in proclaiming the 'Law is an Ass'.

Perhaps the use of humour, rather than damaging aircraft, would avoid the classification of 'terrorist supporting' and gain more acceptance with the wider public and who knows, a willingness to listen to the real arguments.
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Never gonna stop dining out on that aircraft.
 
Herman Toothrot said:
Never gonna stop dining out on that aircraft.
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Indeed, in this present economic situation most people would prefer their government not to have to bear the cost of repairing illegal and 'self inflected' damage on its property and to try to prevent further actions of this nature.

This kid was trying to make a point via humour and will no doubt be a hero with his mates; and precisely because there is no self inflicted damage and costs, his actions will have created more positive, rather than negative vibes going forward, in something he obviously believes in and he no doubt will enjoy his dining out occasions as well.
 
Buster15 said:
Yes I do get it.
I have a family member who is a policeman. And I asked them what they thought about it.
Their response was that the police have a big enough problem getting those who have been arrested to the courts. And if they had done such a thing, they would be rightly bollocked for being such a dick...d.
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Right. So, the Government's decision to proscribe Palestine Action causes problems for the Police, which is why I'd blame the Government. There wouldn't be Plasticine Action nonsense if it wasn't fir that call, and blaming an overstretched Police force for mistakes made trying to manage this unnecessary mess, rather than the Government who caused it, seems to me to be missing the legitimate target.
 
Maticmaker said:
Indeed, in this present economic situation most people would prefer their government not to have to bear the cost of repairing illegal and 'self inflected' damage on its property and to try to prevent further actions of this nature.

This kid was trying to make a point via humour and will no doubt be a hero with his mates; and precisely because there is no self inflicted damage and costs, his actions will have created more positive, rather than negative vibes going forward, in something he obviously believes in and he no doubt will enjoy his dining out occasions as well.
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You'd have the Suffragettes locked up for decades.
 
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