Ruth Barker

@nazirafzal @ShabanaMahmood She is not the first Muslim Home Secretary. Remember Sajid Javid? He was HS in 2018. So where were all the right wing protesters then?

All those people so concerned about “protecting woman & girls” & “oppressed Muslim women” are posting racist sh*t at @ShabanaMahmood - the first Muslim women to become U.K. Home Secretary These attacks aren’t just personal—they’re an attack on progress itself #cabinetreshuffle

@Max060258 @DanNeidle @doingalrighty But she was correct in saying no. She had sold her interest in the Manchester house. But HMRC treats her as still owning it because she put her share in trust for a minor. Had her son been 18 at the time, the lower rate of SDLT she paid would have been correct.

@DanNeidle @doingalrighty It’s obvious that Verrico asked Angela if she owned another property and Angela said no. Why would they feel the need to signpost to a specialist?

Looking increasingly like Ms Rayner didn’t actually obtain tax advice before this week.

@BuckleyWells @DanNeidle @doingalrighty That is my reading of it. Had she waited until her son was 18, the HMRC rules on trusts for minors would not have applied and she would have correctly paid the lower rate of SDLT.

@DanNeidle @doingalrighty Is the issue the age of the trust beneficiary & would the stamp duty paid have been correct for a trust where the beneficiary was an adult? This is not asked in a work capacity but simply to understand whether those opining in other threads about “facts supplied,” lack knowledge.

@SandraDunn1955 Rent is included in UC. Rents are higher than they have ever been. That is part of the problem.

Just a thought 💡 If someone is employed by a BIG company (say Tesco) and still has to claim UC (that the taxpayer has to pay) couldn't/shouldn't the government claim that amount back from the companies profits?

@DoUBelieveThat @Docstockk Logically, if a woman aborts a full term baby the day before it is due to be born and gives birth to a dead baby, that is now legal. If she gives birth to the baby first and then kills it immediately after birth, that is murder. This hasn't been thought through properly.

Longish summary of responses to points offered on my timeline for full decriminalisation of abortion, even up to birth, using at-home abortion pills for non-medical reasons (which has just been voted for, absolutely crazily imo, by UK MPs) a) You may not be able to know or say at what precise point some grains make a heap but you still know unambiguously when you can see a heap. Same goes for cells, and for baby. Late-term abortions kill babies. Viable babies. This position does not require there to have been a baby/human/person there all along. Pushing back on full decriminalisation is not arguing for no abortions ever. (Which obviously could be done, but I'm not doing it). b) Babies at late term have unambiguous interests of their own. They are not just narcissistic extensions of mother. They are not parasites or invaders. They are human beings. They are dependent human beings and is weird to see feminists who talk about value of care and dependence become psychopathically detached about the value of the life of a dependent, viable baby because the mother doesn't want it. It sounds dementedly callous to try to deny the interests of babies in this sort of issue by defining them out of existence, or just ignoring the fact they do exist at all. If you said "yes, babies have been/ will be killed by use of at-home abortion pills for non-medical reasons, but that is less important than that their mothers don't face the stress of prosecution" I would at least respect the honesty. c) The law against late-term abortions acts as a deterrent against mothers killing their babies. If you lift it, you will get more deaths. You say it’s only a few - is that really supposed to be an argument? And; If I am not supposed to care about “only a few” baby deaths, why am I supposed to care about only a few prosecutions? Again, if you are reasoning like this, and especially if you are weighing it up only against the mother's alleged right to non-prosecution, then you have your priorities badly skewed, and have conveniently forgotten that deaths of babies are also involved. And while we are at it: how do you know it will only be a few baby deaths in years to come? Do you know what happens when new social norms get embedded around new technology, and other ones – say, around contraception – shift? The use of at-home abortion pills is relatively new, who knows where it will be in ten years time? d) If you have to excuse the death of a baby by hyperbolically depicting the only sort of women who would ever have a late-term non-medical abortion as "desperate" and otherwise blameless, it's a tell for motivated reasoning. There are many kinds of women in the world, who act for many different kinds of reason. Do you think all infanticides or child murders are only carried out by "desperate" and otherwise blameless women? (If you do, probably stop reading, there is no hope for you.) There are also, of course, men in the world who can get their hands on abortion pills and force women to take them. Your backing of decriminalisation is making that more easy too. e) It is fascinating that some of you think both of these things are true at the same time: a) “women should never be prosecuted for carrying out their own late-term abortions, even for non-medical reasons ’ and b) “people providing assistance for late-term abortions for non-medical abortions should still be prosecuted” (as they will continue to be). So you *do* think there is something wrong with these abortions then, do you? What? Could it be that *a baby dies*? f) The idea that it is really important we repeal this law because of the possibility of false prosecution of women is bizarre (and again, the histrionic depiction focusing on "women who have suffered miscarriages being dragged away from their children in police vans in the middle of the night" etc is a tell, like you have to amp up the drama to make the point. Also, how interesting: suddenly it's ok to care about the interests of young dependent children again, is it? But I digress…) Anyway, let's apply this logic to rape law. We must repeal rape laws because falsely accused men are being dragged away from their children in the night.. um, no? The law has a point, it has a deterrent function, and that point is more important than the inevitable possibility of false prosecution given the existence of any law in the first place. f) Those telling me that academics and NGOs have done all the thinking on this already and I should just outsource my brain to them are really having a laugh. I've looked at their arguments and do you know, it's really weird, but they don't talk about the baby's interests, even in late-term abortion for non-medical reasons. They just act like that issue isn't there. And it is. g) The UK is not the US. With best will in the world, Americans reading their own issues into the UK situation is unhelpful. There is no good case for full decriminalisation as voted for today. And there is no genuine political will for it either, because most people haven’t been slowly boiled in a vat of hyperliberal feminism and progressive technocracy like overheating frogs, until they can't tell which way is up. All this will do is further undermine the legitimacy of feminism generally (by association, even if some feminists are actually against it) and also undermine public trust in lawmakers (How could this have been decided so quickly without any proper consultation or discussion of a wide range of views? Why wasn’t it in the manifesto, if it is so important?).

@bwthornton @theAliceRoberts I don't know how much input you have into production but I have just had to give up watching your programme on Stonehenge due to the continuous over-dramatic background music. I can't focus on what you are saying because of trying to block out the music. Such a shame.

#Archaeology Roman Crime and Ancient DNA Digging for Britain Tue 20:00 BBC Two Prof @theAliceRoberts with gold found at a bishop’s palace, a Roman crime, detectorists unearth a staggering bronze age haul, and ancient DNA solves a medieval mystery. bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00…

@CarlEveCrime We three Kings of Leicester Square Selling ladies' underwear No elastic, how fantastic Only five pounds a pair On a family holiday I taught this version to our nieces and nephews. The next day, touring a National Trust garden, what did they sing to test the echo in a grotto?

Is it wrong of me that every time I hear "We three kings of Orient are" I immediately think "one in a taxi, one in a car, one on a scooter, beeping his hooter, waving a lady's bra"...?

@MargaretOG66351 Online exclusion is an issue, but if he has no friends or family nearby, loneliness may also be a factor. For some elderly people, moving into residential care means company and meals laid on and gives them a better quality of life.

There is a real savagery to online exclusion. An elderly family friend is admitting himself to a care home because he isn't able to cope with online banking, phone services etc. He is an intelligent and capable man, but he lives alone, without family or friends near him

@Baddiel I deal with cases where vulnerable elderly people have been "persuaded" or duped into making wills to benefit a particular member of their family or carer. The risk of those people being "persuaded" to agree to assisted dying is real.

What is odd about the Assisted Dying discussion is the silence around the biggest killer of older people, dementia. Because it is impossible for someone with dementia to give informed consent. But it is also impossible, or very difficult, for them to give consent before their dementia renders them not lucid enough to do so, because the present bill only covers those with no more than six months to live. So at the moment the main issue is not in the conversation.

@Peston Have they learned nothing from the Liz Truss debacle?

I did not see that coming. Cleverly out. Badenoch vs Jenrick. Yesterday I was told Jenrick lent votes to Cleverly to oust Tugendhat. I didn’t believe it. Now that gossip feels credible

@NiSibeal @LucyGoBag And even if parents get social services funding, they have to find and recruit the carers themselves and deal with the admin. In our area there is a shortage of care workers so I have funding I can't use and no actual help.

@LucyGoBag Added to which Social Services aren’t providing the care and support they’re supposed to

There is a very real danger that we will move on from this news and not absorb its true horror. This tragedy is important. It tells us exactly who we are currently failing and something we are about to see a lot more of. theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/s…

@EdanaThe2nd @LucyGoBag That's very true. We didn't qualify for transport at our last school so we did the school run every morning and I was very glad of the contact with the other school run parents.

@soosiepink @ollyp3 @LucyGoBag In theory children with a ECHP could to school during Covid but in practice that was not always possible. Many of our school staff could not work because of their own family so our school only took the most vulnerable and children of key workers. I had my SEN child at home 6 mths

@ollyp3 @LucyGoBag Not strictly true. Children with EHCP’s attended school throughout Covid. I work in a special school and we only closed for the initial 2 weeks

So very sad. I know from personal experience parents were stranded during Covid coping 24/7 with handicapped children and they were among the last schools to open. Many were at breaking point then and still things are not back to previous support levels. Hard to imagine the suffering that led to this 💔

@Itsasecret0555 @ItsJamesPowers @MartinSLewis Which begs the question of how many pensioners could be overpaying tax without knowing it. Someone to check their finances would be helpful.

@Itsasecret0555 @ItsJamesPowers @MartinSLewis Even if that is £540 a month you are paying too much tax. Get someone to check your figures as you may be due a refund.

Part of the problem with winter fuel payments is the chronic underclaiming of Pension Credit, a key benefit that now triggers entitlement. It's thought 880,000 due it won't get it, and they're the poorest pensioners. I doubt the awareness raising campaign can have much impact on that (I and others have been shouting about it until we're blue in the face, for years) It needs proactive one on one contacting of likely candidates, eg those not getting full state pensions. Yet even that is hard because there are so many scams targeting elderly how do you ensure people trust that it is legit? I'd be interested in your ideas on how to reach the hard to reach pensioners who may be eligible.

@DizzySpeIIs @jcrfear @MartinSLewis No they don't. Banks have to keep your financial information private.

@jcrfear @MartinSLewis I had to force my mum to claim. She had worked for 52 years paying tax. She was too proud to make a claim even though she was cold all the time. Pension credit should be automatically applied. They know what meagre savings you have. It’s shameful.

@PColak13 @DianaHarding7 They do get legal advice, but if the video footage clearly shows them lobbing bricks at Police or setting fire to bins, they will be advised to plead guilty.

I don't know enough - though I would hazard a guess that a confused person arrested, detained and threatened with god knows what - especially a first experience would be disorientated and distracted - any confession should be ill advised.....Legal representation should have been available the moment they were taken into custody. I am sure the Police love the current circumstances as their figures will look marvellous for the first time in decades. (Just my opinion)

This is how ludicrous things have become. The judge said: "Of the people I have thus far sentenced, you are the person who provides me with the most difficulty because it cannot be levelled at you that you hit anyone, neither have you thrown anything, neither is it said that you spat at anybody. But it is accepted by you that you were a party to this disorder and I have to sentence you on that basis, and you know that anyone party to it has to receive a custodial sentence.” Man described by judge as the 'least involved' in riot jailed for a year telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/1…

@BrexitJean @DianaHarding7 If the video evidence stands up, they can hardly deny it.

@DianaHarding7 Why are people like this pleading guilty?

@BarristersHorse @WhatNowDoc The Court of Appeal will have given guidance as a result of that appeal which will apply now. Committing crimes in the context of a riot or mass public disorder is an aggravating factor, leading to higher sentences than if the crimes were committed in isolation.

@WhatNowDoc It's an article from the 2011 riots. I posted it to highlight the caution that should be applied now, based on prior errors.

And they're telling you they're working round the clock? There are circa 150 Magistrates Courts in the jurisdiction. Pretending there's a need for urgency will result in miscarriages of justice, appeals & human rights abuses, just like 2011 when the same stunt was used.