BBC Is Warned To Drop Smoke And Mirrors Over Pay

The corporation’s annual report revealed that Gary Lineker, Zoe Ball and Huw Edwards are amongst the 10 highest paid BBC stars who took a pay cut in the last year, as Scott Mills and Greg James both got wage increases.

Conservative MP Julian Knight called for the BBC to commit to full transparency on its talent bill and drop the smoke and mirrors approach as he pointed out many continue to get pay packets made through BBC Studios, the broadcasters commercial arm, which is not revealed.

Match of the Day host Gary Lineker is still the BBC’s highest-earning on-air talent taking home between £1,360,000 and £1,364,999.

Zoe Ball comes in second with a £1,130,000 to £1,134,99 between 2020 and 2021.

This is despite both stars taking pay cuts and Gary Lineker cutting his £1.75 million pay packet by £400,000 as part of a five-year deal.

Zoe Ball also took a cut in her pay when agreeing to a new two year deal as Radio 2’s breakfast host because she felt uncomfortable about her £1 million pay increase.

The remaining three stars in the top five, Steve Wright, Huw Edwards and Question Time anchor Fiona Bruce are all making less than they did in 2019 to 2020.

But Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills and his colleague Greg James both topped up their salaries with pay increases of £30,000 and £85,000 each.

Meanwhile, the report also unveiled that former BBC director-general Lord Hall took home £190,000 in the closing five months of his time running the broadcaster.

The BBC announced its highest earners list which shows staff wages dropped to £19.6 million:

Radio stars Scott Mills and Greg James had salary increases.

Garry Lineker, Zoe Ball, Huw Edwards and Steve Wright all had a cut in money.

Match of the Day host Gary Lineker is still the BBC’s highest-earning on-air celebrity, taking home between £1,360,000 and £1,364,999.

Zoe Ball comes in second with a £1,130,000 to £1,134,999 payroll between 2020 and 2021.

Gary Lineker cut his £1.75 million pay packet by £400,000 in 2020.

Zoe Ball also took a cut in her pay when agreeing on a new two year deal as Radio 2’s breakfast host.

Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills has received a wage increase and emerges on the top ten list for the first time with a salary of between £375,000 and £379,999, and his colleague Greg James made £310,000 to £314,999, up from £229,999 one year before.

The corporation paid new director-general Tim Davie, who succeeded Lord Hall in September, £471,000 in the 12 months to the end of March, seven months as director-general and five months in his prior job running BBC Studios.

Gary Lineker has also signed a £1.2 million, three-year contract to continue as the face of Walkers Crisps.

It’s an obscene amount of money, and no wonder people are refusing to pay the TV licence, it’s not as if they need our little bit of money, that’s just chicken feed to them, and then if you don’t pay the TV licence, they try to browbeat people by sending round their bully boys with clipboards, which probably costs them more money than what we owe on our licence, and Gary Lineker certainly brings nothing to our TV sets that’s worth that.

But Gary Lineker has been referred to as the BBC’s highest-earning on-air talent, what talent? And if he is like they say he is, then it doesn’t say much for the rest of them if he’s considered the best.

This guy gets over a million pounds a year for talking about football and eating crisps, and to be fair, I think that says more about our society than him to be honest.

Britain’s Daily COVID Hospital Admissions Hit 400 In The Highest Figure Since March

Britain’s daily COVID hospital admissions have reached a four-month high, increasing by 50 per cent in a week to their highest level since March.

Department of Health figures posted showed hospitalisations reached 406 on June 30, and it’s a sign the explosion in cases over the past month is now starting to put additional pressure on the NHS.

COVID deaths also jumped their highest level since the end of April, increasing 20.3 per cent in a week, and another 37 victims were recorded.

Meanwhile, infections are continuing to spiral across the United Kingdom, jumping to 28,773, up 49 per cent on last Tuesday and the highest daily figure since January 29.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid admitted the toll could reach 100,000 a day by the summer, as No 10 drives forward with Freedom Day on July 19 as part of its initiative for society to exist adjacent to the virus.

Hospitalisations and mortality are expected to increase as cases rise but vaccines have broken the once impenetrable link between vulnerable people getting contaminated and becoming critically sick, leaving ministers confident that the third wave this summer won’t be as severe as previous waves.

Britain’s vaccine rollout is continuing to crawl forward, even though everyone over the age of 18 has been able to get a jab for a fortnight, and approximately 80,000 first doses and 150,000 top-ups were dished out on Monday, which means 86.2 per cent of adults (45.4 million) have had a jab.

It comes as Sajid Javid faced fury as he revealed the requirement for the double jabbed to self-isolate won’t be dropped until August 16, dooming millions more healthy people to put their lives on hold.

He said the protective wall thrown up by the vaccine drive meant that ministers could look again at the rules when people are pinged for contact with an infected person.

From the middle of next month people who’ve got two doses, with the second given at least two weeks before, can take PCR tests rather than self-isolating. Under 18s will also not be subjected to constraints from the same date.

But the timetable means scary numbers will be caught in the system after Freedom Day on July 19, with furious businesses warning that they’re on the verge of disaster with huge staff absences and customers bailing out of bookings.

Others also raved that the government was failing to give any clarity on the rules for getting staff back into offices.

Enough is enough, we have to learn to live with this, because it doesn’t seem that it’s ever going to go away, and people will die, that’s a fact of life, sadly, and maybe they should be reporting daily deaths from cancer and heart disease et cetera so that they can put those statistics into perspective.

But they dare not report that because about 166,000 poor souls die of cancer every year, that’s more than 450 people every day in the United Kingdom, including other illnesses and old age, and I don’t doubt that we can expect that those figures will increase dramatically too.

And let’s face it, lockdowns do nothing but extend the time for the virus to work its way through the population, and yes, we do need to protect the vulnerable but we also need to get on with business, otherwise, there will be an economic disaster that will ultimately destroy the NHS, far more swiftly than what COVID ever could, and project fear is now projected here!

Shoppers Could Pay The Price

Critics fear that Morrisons customers, workers and suppliers could miss out after the supermarket’s board supported a new takeover proposal from a group of questionable investors.

The chain announced at the weekend that it had received a second take over bid, worth £6.3 billion, from a consortium led by US private equity firm Fortress, and would recommend the proposal to its shareholders.

The bidders have agreed to be good stewards of the popular British grocery store, promising to keep the headquarters in Bradford and not to make any material sales of its property, but critics have questioned their intentions.

Lord Sikka, a Labour rival and professor at Essex Business School, said that he was concerned whether this was a good deal for customers, workers and businesses in the supply chain, and he said that private equity had a way of only paying minimum wage and not offering any security to the supply chain.

He said that many firms had made promises in the past to protect British jobs, but that they need practical measures, and for that, they need to involve employees in the sale process.

Morrisons bosses are set for bumper payouts under the Fortress proposal, and that Chief executive David Potts would receive £19 million for the 3 million shares he owns outright and 4.6 million that he could receive under various company reward schemes.

Operating chief Trevor Strain could make £11 million and finance boss Michael Gleeson more than £3 million.

The new Fortress led offer will also include Canadian pensions titans CPPIB and KREI, a division of Koch Industries, owned by billionaire Donald Trump ally Charles Koch. Fortress was established in 1998 by partners including Wesley Edens, a majority shareholder in Aston Villa football club.

Morrisons shareholders will now vote on the deal, and it must be passed by more than 50 per cent of those who vote and together they must hold 75 per cent of the company, but top ten shareholders, fund manager J O Hambro, said that bidders should be offering 270p per share for Morrisons, well above Fortresse’s bid of 254p.

Private equity firms acquire companies and look to sell them about five years later for a profit, but they’re usually criticised for their unmerciful tactics and short term outlook.

Critics drew attention to the track record of Morrison’s new bidders. Charles Koch and his late brother David sparked outrage in 2010 after pumping more than £700,000 into a campaign to repeal California’s climate change laws.

The family’s foundation, which invests in property, has also funded to evict tenants from their homes during the pandemic.

In the meantime, CPPIB declined to back an agreement between shopping centre business Intu and its lenders to give it breathing room on its debt last year.

The fears for Morrisons came amid a tide of takeover attempts for British businesses by private equity firms.

The bidders have agreed to be good stewards of the popular British grocery business, promising to keep the headquarters in Bradford and not to make any material sales of its property, but, if the bidder is successful, they will leave no stone unturned in its attempts to wring every last skerrick of juice out of its investment.

They will invest nothing, they will borrow the money and dump enormous debts on Morrison’s, and the property owned by Morrison’s will be asset-stripped to their own property company and leased back at huge rental costs, and each store will start losing thousands by the day.

However, the equity company will rake in a fortune with management fees, and suppliers will be savagely bullied to cut costs and employees will be reduced, and within five years Morrison’s will be gone like BHS, Debenhams et cetera, and all assets stripped, and it’s time our government stepped in to protect British companies.

Remember Cadbury, it was taken over by American food giant Kraft, which promised to keep the Keynsham site open, but days after the takeover was completed the firm controversially announced that it would shut the factory and shift production to Poland.

The NHS Gets The George Cross

The Queen has given the George Cross to the NHS for seven decades of public service including battling coronavirus as she praised the courage, compassion and commitment shown by staff and said the organisation had the enduring gratitude of a grateful nation.

In a personal handwritten message on Windsor Castle headed paper, Her Majesty highlighted the bravery exhibited by frontline workers during the pandemic and said Britain’s highest civilian gallantry medal would recognise all NHS staff, past and present on the NHS’ 73rd birthday.

She wrote that it was with great delight, on behalf of a grateful nation, that she awarded the George Cross to the National Health Service of the United Kingdom, and that the award acknowledged all NHS workers, past and present, across all disciplines and all four nations.

She wrote that over more than seven decades, and particularly in recent times, the NHS had supported the people of the country with bravery, empathy and commitment, demonstrating the highest standards of public service, and they had their enduring gratitude and sincere appreciation.

The honour of the George Cross by The Queen is made on the recommendation of the George Cross Committee and the Prime Minister, and details of the presentation of the award will be established at a later date.

It’s not yet clear if all NHS workers will be given a copy of Her Majesty’s rare handwritten letter, but they will not get to use GC after their names, because the award was to the NHS as an organisation and not individuals.

As the Queen acknowledged the NHS and its heroes, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge took the lead and commemorated the 73rd anniversary of the NHS, in which the couple attended a service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral before hosting an afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace.

The George Cross was established by King George VI on September 24, 1940, during the height of the Blitz, and is given in recognition of acts of the greatest heroism or of the most courage in situations of extreme danger.

NHS workers, with many on the frontline, have endangered their lives to treat COVID patients, with hundreds having died from the virus and countless more experiencing long term effects, and NHS workers have also helped to administer 79 million jabs and have treated 405,000 seriously ill COVID hospital patients in England alone, often in swelteringly hot PPE.

But what about all the other frontline workers, delivery drivers, supermarket workers, post office workers, teachers et cetera, and although it’s a truly wonderful award, it’s a ludicrous award because not one of the amazing front line doctors and nurses including those that lost their lives will be able to wear the award or have GC after their name.

It also awards the NHS administrators who botched up so badly over supplies of PPE, and local GP’s and dentists who’ve not seen a patient in more than a year, and departments that sat idle while cancer and other severely ill patients died, and finally, it seems to stick two fingers up at all the other dedicated workers who kept this nation going, providing food, transportation and protecting lives, and this appears to be another lot of Government politics that’s been imposed on the Queen.

Of course, delivery drivers and supermarket workers aren’t at the same level as doctors and nurses but try going without food during the pandemic, they endangered their lives when no one knew how dangerous it would be, and they were there for people when they needed their supplies, food and other goods.

Maternity Scandals Spark Safety Review

Experts will evaluate the safety of maternity services across the NHS to reduce harm to babies.

They hope to establish the best ways of recognising warning signs of babies in distress so doctors can intervene sooner.

It follows a string of high profile scandals in which mothers and babies have died or been left with severe disabilities.

The Department of Health will give £2 million to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) to begin the first stage of the study.

It will examine the best methods for monitoring and reacting to a baby’s well-being during labour and develop national guidelines on when a caesarean is needed.

The review, which is expected to be completed before the close of the year, will seek the views of healthcare workers and parents on how care could be improved.

A further £449,000 will go towards developing a workforce planning tool that will help maternity services to determine safe staffing levels.

The Avoiding Brain injuries in Childbirth (ABC) Collaboration will include the Royal College of Midwives and the University of Cambridge.

Maternity safety minister Nadine Dorries said that she was determined to make sure as many mums as possible could go home with healthy and happy babies in their arms.

She said that this new programme aims to detect warning signs beforehand and save lives, preventing families and their babies from suffering the horrific ordeal of a life-changing brain injury, and would help them deliver on their ambition to halve brain injuries during birth by 2025.

She said that having the best maternity staff in the right place at the right time meant that they could learn from one another, give the best care for mums and babies and build a safe and positive environment for both staff and pregnant women in maternity units across the country.

Maternity negligence claims account for more than half of all damages paid by the NHS. A single case of brain damage can cost millions in compensation.

The Government’s maternity safety objective is to halve the 2010 rates of stillbirth, neonatal, maternal death and brain injuries that happen during or shortly after birth by 2025.

Dr Edward Morris, president of RCOG, said that they realise that the impact of avoidable newborn brain injury is profound and they want to do everything they can to ensure no family has to experience it.

Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, chief midwifery officer for England, said that giving safe and efficient care to babies and their mothers is a fundamental priority for the NHS.

But who would trust the NHS after all the distortions that have been told around COVID, and the absence of informed consent and the administration against the old and most vulnerable, not to mention the silencing or sacking of some health professionals who dared to challenge the narrative.

So, it doesn’t seem like their care is paramount, except if there’s a great fat contract in it for them, and the NHS has shown what it’s all about in the last 18 months and it’s not good.

Although labour midwives are pretty marvellous most of the time, and they usually monitor constantly, and they’re the ones that pick up the many concerns surrounding the birth, during and after, and it’s usually the consultants and registrars who they report everything to, but some consultants appear to mismanage the birth and delay intervention, which means that numerous babies suffer massive brain trauma because of lack of too much oxygen, and it only takes one God complex.

Up To A Million Companies Are Hit By The Biggest Global Ransomware Attack

The biggest ransomware attack on record has hit the IT systems of up to 1 million companies on practically every continent as Russian linked hackers demand $70 million in cryptocurrency to fix it.

Swedish grocery stores, schools in New Zealand, and two major Dutch IT firms were amongst the victims of hacking group REvil which began its attack on Friday after breaching the systems of US-based software firm Kaseya.

Kaseya says only several dozen of its customers were directly affected by the attack, but that knock-on effects had taken down firms in 17 countries, with one expert saying the attack was unprecedented in its scale and sophistication.

REvil, which was behind the recent hack of meat processor JBS which saw an $11 million ransom paid, has been negotiating ransoms of up to $5 million with specific firms, but now says for $70 million it will unlock all affected networks.

Joe Biden, who last month urged President Putin to take action against hacking groups targeting the US from Russia, said the FBI is investigating the latest hack and he will take action if Moscow was believed to be responsible.

Analysts said it’s no fluke that the attack coincided with the July 4 holiday weekend, when companies would be understaffed and less able to respond.

Ciaran Martin, the founder of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, told Radio 4 that the scale and sophistication of this global crime was unusual, if not unprecedented and that it was a very serious, global operation.

Swedish grocery chain Coop was forced to close all 800 of its stores on Sunday and said they would remain shut on Monday after its tills were affected.

The country’s national rail operator and public broadcaster SVT were also affected.

In Germany, an unnamed IT services company told authorities several thousand of its customers were compromised.

Also amongst reported victims were two big Dutch IT services companies, VelzArt and Hoppenbrouwer Techniek, but most victims are thought to be small to medium-sized firms that are unlikely to openly declare they’ve been infected, car dealerships, hair salons and accounting firms, amongst others.

Cybersecurity teams worked feverishly on Sunday to stem the impact of the single biggest global ransomware attack on record, with some details surfacing about how the Russia linked gang responsible breached the company whose software was the conduit.

Cybersecurity researchers said that an affiliate of the notorious REvil gang, best known for extorting $11 million from the meat processor JBS after a Memorial Day attack, infected thousands of victims in at least 17 countries on Friday, mostly through firms that remotely manage IT infrastructure for multiple customers.

The thing is, hackers, look for businesses with antiquated, bargain basement, security software for these attacks. This is why you never see them hacking into Banking systems because the Banks recognise the importance of having top quality software security, and if we blame the hackers, it will only make them proud.

And it’s not only about antiquated software that creates the problem. It takes time to run backups and large companies can lose many times the ransom demand in the time it takes to get back up and running, not to mention the loss of customer confidence.

But I guess the days of people using their brains, a biro and a calculator are gone, to serve customers, and all empires rise and fall, sadly, America is falling very quickly.

On January 27, 1838, Abraham Lincoln spoke before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, about the continuation of their political institutions.

During that address, he said: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction is our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Prince William’s Staff Planted Stories About His Brother’s Mental Health

It’s been claimed that the bitter war of words between William and Harry was sparked by the Duke of Cambridge’s office planting stories about Prince Harry’s state of mind.

In a new documentary about the brothers’ feud, Prince Harry’s biographer Omid Scobie claims it was no fluke that William’s aides at Kensington Palace began a briefing campaign against him the day after he appeared to sensationally confirm longstanding rumours of a disagreement.

It was in 2019, at the end of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s tour of South Africa, that Harry told ITV’s Tom Bradby that he and his brother were on divergent pathways.

In the same programme, Meghan revealed to Tom Bradby that she was surviving, not thriving and suggested the Royal Family had been remiss, adding that not many people had asked her if she was okay.

But in the aftermath of the interview, which made headlines throughout the world, Mr Scobie claims that rumours saying William was concerned about Harry’s mental health were intentionally planted by his staff, and sowed the seeds for further division between the pair.

Mr Scobie didn’t present proof to substantiate his allegations that palace aides or anyone connected to William was accountable for the alleged briefings.

Mr Scobie, the co-author of Finding Freedom, told the documentary that he would say that it was no fluke that it was soon after it aired, even the next day, there were source quotes that came from a senior aide at Kensington Palace saying that William was concerned about his brother’s mental health.

He said that they fed off such an ugly thing for Harry and it didn’t go unnoticed, but whether William directed that or not, no one will ever know, but it came from his household that he’s the boss of.

In the ITV documentary, Harry & William: What Went Wrong?, Scobie, who’s been an outspoken supporter of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, added that Meghan came in motivated and set to work and that quickly dishevelled feathers, and that she was a woman well into her 30s, and that he believed she’d proven to herself and the people she worked with up until that point that she knew what she was doing.

She was unquestionably not someone who was going to transform herself just to satisfy the people around her but he felt that they also had to be reminded that they weren’t the stars of the show and that there was a hierarchy and they didn’t come very high on it.

But all of this doesn’t surprise me. Prince Charles’ staff did the same thing with Princess Diana, calling her a loose cannon, amongst other things, and it should never be forgotten how they turned on her, but then this is the establishment at work, but Royal family courtiers have for a long time briefed against other members of the family in support of their own member, and Prince Charle’s team is the best at undercutting other members of the family, particularly if they appear more popular than he is.

And let’s face it, we probably will never know the full story because everyone appears to have their own truth and their own spin on the truth, and so it begins, just like it did with Diana.

People might not believe that William would do such a thing to his brother Harry, but who would have believed that the Queen would have denied her sister Margaret to marry the man that she loved when the Queen herself was allowed to marry the man that she loved.

Sajid Javid Goes Full Speed Ahead Towards Lifting All Lockdown Restrictions

Sajid Javid said the best way to protect the nation’s well-being was to lift the remaining coronavirus restrictions and writing exclusively for a newspaper outlet, the new Health Secretary said that the economic arguments for opening up were well known, but for him, the health arguments were equally compelling.

His comments mark a sharp shift in tone from that of his forerunner Matt Hancock, who was forced to resign last weekend after his relationship with an aide was exposed.

They came as Boris Johnson plans to announce a catamaran of measures to come into force from July 19 which will make Britain the most open country in Europe, and a newspaper outlet can reveal that under Freedom Day plans expected to be signed off by the Cabinet tomorrow, that the Prime Minister is determined that fully vaccinated Britons will be able to travel to amber list countries including Spain and Greece without having to self isolate when they return.

That wearing face masks will become optional everywhere, including public transport, except hospitals and other healthcare settings.

Those who have received two shots of a vaccine won’t be asked to self isolate or take COVID 19 tests if they’re alerted that they’ve come into contact with someone with the virus, but tests will still be available for all those who need them.

The school bubble system that has seen hundreds of thousands of pupils being made to self isolate themselves at home will be axed and replaced with daily testing.

Restaurants, pubs and shops will no longer have to demand that customers give their personal data or sign in with a QR code, and a No 10 source told a newspaper outlet that this was a huge injection of freedom that will make us the most open country in Europe.

Boris Johnson is expected to set out the findings of a social distancing review, before confirming details of the greatly relaxed rules on July 12.

The developments came as Britain’s world-beating vaccination programme continued apace. The latest numbers revealed 85.7 per cent of adults have now had their first jab, with 63.4 per cent getting both doses of the vaccine.

Sajid Javid said that the United Kingdom was on course to escape virtually every trace of lockdown on July 19, adding that they will have a country that isn’t just freer, but healthier as well, and Boris Johnson must be backing this because he didn’t appear to be supporting Matt Hancock.

This, of course, is great news, if it happens, but it’s all words right now, and this all seems to have developed because we have a new Health Secretary, so why on earth do we need a Prime Minister? And if Boris Johnson didn’t want lives and livelihoods ruined, death and mental health ruined, jobs ruined, then he should have overruled despicable Matt Hancock, or was he keeping him as the fall guy, the one to blame because he allowed Matt Hancock to lie to us, and intimidate us, which makes Boris Johnson just as blameworthy.

And this is great news if it’s just more than words, but what use is it having a Prime Minister if the policy is determined by the Health Secretary? But this has been classic gaslighting all the way along, and abusers do that, they play nicely-nice and let the public repose for a moment or two, then they put the squeeze on again, and this is just intermittent reinforcement, as they’ve done all along.

Nearly £10 Billion Paid Out In Student Loans In 2020 Will Be Written Off

More than half of the £19.1 billion paid out in student loans last year will be written off, with the taxpayer picking up the tab.

Official Department for Education figures estimate only 47 per cent of the money lent to university students in 2020-21 to meet their yearly £9.250 tuition fees and living costs will be repaid, leaving a shortfall of approximately £10 billion.

Graduates need to make at least £27,295 a year before they’re eligible to start repaying their debt, with some never reaching it.

Any outstanding loans are written off after 30 years and only a quarter of students who started full-time degrees last year are expected to repay their loans in full.

The huge taxpayer subsidy has raised questions about the number of youngsters heading to university, the value of courses where graduates end up in low paid ‘McJobs’ and the shortage of skilled workers in key sectors of the economy, such as IT and engineering.

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said that student loans have become a fiscal black hole, absorbing more and more of taxpayers’ money and offering too many young people no more than underemployment, disappointment and a mountain of debt in return.

The level of student debt write off is driving a Government rethink, and options include decreasing tuition expenses to £7,500 or the salary threshold so more graduates can begin paying back sooner and increasing the repayment period from 30 to 35 years would also save an extra £1 billion.

Graduate Sorcha Ingram, who has a degree in publishing with English from Kingston University, said she’d applied for more than 25 publishing and media jobs or internships within the past three months but in most cases hadn’t even got a rejection letter.

She said that tuition fees were brutally steep, particularly given how difficult it was to get a job right now.

A Department for Education spokesperson said that recent changes to the system were at the heart of their plans to build back better, ensuring it was financially sustainable for the taxpayer, while also driving quality and standards so students could be confident that their course would help improve their life outcomes, and that they’re geared to actual jobs and employers’ requirements.

And the interest rate is so high on these loans that mist repayments hardly cover the interest, so the amount owed grows and grows, and no doubt the student loan company is doing very nicely on the interest it gets but the government isn’t getting its capital back.

But it’s a lot worse than that. The government for years has been writing off the capital, which is taxpayers money and selling the debt at a huge loss to recovery companies.

The Student Loan Company has repeatedly been described as a ticking time bomb.

Currently, more than 17 billion is loaned to about 1.3 million students in England each year, and the value of outstanding loans at the end of March 2021 reached 141 billion.

The Government calculates the value of outstanding loans to be about 560 billion (2019-20) by the middle of this century, and if there’s even a 10 per cent failure on the debts it will be massive.

But why should English students have to pay a penny back, when Scottish students don’t pay a thing. Maybe it’s because Scotland values education for all, and England believes that education should only be given to the vested.

University is free in Scotland, but only if you’ve been a student from Scotland or the EU, and started in the 2020-21 academic year or earlier. And if that’s you, then you won’t pay a penny towards tuition fees at Scottish universities – the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) will cover the £1,820 a year for you.

Immigration Judges Tell How They’re Living On A Diet Of Baked Beans And Pot Noodles

Immigration judges are living on a diet of baked beans and pot noodles, and maintain they would manage better if they worked at McDonald’s.

Six judges who spoke to a newspaper outlet claimed they and their co-workers had been pushed into debt, or have had to sell or remortgage their homes as a result of their contracts.

The problem has been made worse by the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in the cancellation of numerous court appointments during lockdown before the service moved online, and the pandemic was blamed for a record-breaking backlog in cases.

One judge said they knew of two others who’d claimed universal credit, while another said the situation had contributed to the breakdown of their marriage.

Another said they were forced to remortgage their home and live on a diet of baked beans and instant noodles to make ends meet.

In a normal year, a judge would expect to sit at least 120 days.

They said that between March and December 2020, they’d had one hearing and had assembled just 11 times.

The judges claim that part-time, fee paid immigration judges are discriminated against in their terms and conditions, and as described in their contracts, part-time judges don’t earn unless they hear cases and get £500 each day that they assemble.

But, they allege that the payment doesn’t cover preparing for cases, which can involve reading long court documents, and said they get less money if a case is adjourned or doesn’t go ahead.

They also miss out on the benefits that their full-time colleagues enjoy including sick and annual leave.

As a result of the pandemic, they also say they’ve had to buy their own equipment to download documents and hear cases virtually, leaving them out of pocket.

In an additional blow, judges who fall into financial problems can find themselves the subject of disciplinary proceedings due to anti-corruption laws, and one told a newspaper outlet that they’re in terrible debt, and that they should all be reporting themselves, and that they’re worried sick about being taken to court for debt by the Ministry of Justice and losing their judicial position, and equally embarrassed to claim welfare benefits, and who would have thought that a judge has to claim welfare benefits?

But should we be feeling sorry for them? Now they know how it feels like for the rest of the common people that have to claim subsistence, and now they know what it’s like to live off beans and noodles, and some people would have to work a month for that sort of money, yet some people wouldn’t get out of bed unless they got that kind of money.

And sometimes these judges inflict more harm by their fluffy judgments, than the immigrants themselves. After all, immigrants wouldn’t come to the United Kingdom unless they knew these weak judges permitted them to stay, and the man from Delmonte, he say yes to everyone who comes to the United Kingdom!

And if these judges are not getting enough working hours, then perhaps they should go and find another job fitting their qualifications. As the Government keep telling us, jobs are abundant out there!

These judges were getting £500 a day, and before the pandemic, they were sitting 11 times, that’s £5,500 a year in the years before the pandemic, and if they were stupid enough not to save, then whose responsibility is that? And it’s not like the pandemic hasn’t hit millions of other people, but they don’t bleat on about it.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started