In the news

So who can explain the motivation behind FinCEN leaks? The leaker thought a US led investigation wasn't being handled correctly?

Boris Johnson flew to Perugia Airport, says the airport press office.

Who now have changed their story and say it was Tony Blair not Boris.

It was previously both

They can’t tell one liar from another

I wouldn't be surprised if the false story was the work of Cummings.

Just remember, whenever any story comes out you've got to think "could this be planted" and "if it was, why? what are they trying to hide/deflect by doing so?"

£500m for satellite tech from a bankrupt company that they were warned couldn't be repurposed for navigation but bought anyway and now we are asking the EU if we can rejoin Galileo, jokes

The end of rail franchising.

What's the betting it will go from one cobblers of a system to another?

(and then they'll put the prices up for a worse service again)

I think we'll have to wait & see what the Williams Report suggests,
and,
then see what the DomCum genii think up just to be different.

Dutch police break into encrypted handsets used by criminals... only to discover that their own officers have been using the devices to share information with said criminals.

Shocked! Shocked, I tell you.

£500m for satellite tech from a bankrupt company that they were warned couldn't be repurposed for navigation but bought anyway and now we are asking the EU if we can rejoin Galileo, jokes

What are they going to do with the 500M invested in the wrong satellite company?

Never mention it again?

Sell it for £50 million to one of Boris’ mates?

Awkward! :D

Perhaps there will be a proper investigation, rather than UK style "investigation" we can but hope...

he's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy / man

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/22/cult-leader-vissarion-reincarnation-jesus-arrested-siberia-russia

Will Massive Attack headline the first gig at the Bristol Beacon?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/23/bristols-colston-hall-renamed-in-wake-of-black-lives-matter-protests

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54280966

Furlough scheme, extended, sort of.

Sort of good news but it is not very generous. I hope it helps.

It's going to help kick off the redundancy and unpaid leave programmes for sure.

For example, companies will now have to pay 55% of the wages of someone only working 1/3 of their hours. The government will pay 22% to make it up to 77% of the original pay packet.

So a company that currently has a load of people on furlough will have to bring them all back in (or lay them off) and if they only have enough work to employ them for 1/3 of their time they have to find the money to pay them 55% each.

For many companies that are running at well below than 50% of normal turnover/capacity, that's going to be impossible without considerable redundancies.

Aw :(

It was supposed to be modelling on the German scheme, which seems to work OK.

Of course, any self employed/contractors are out in the cold, but businesses seemed mostly OK with it.

That is unfortunate, you'd think they have done the work that you just did. Sunak doesn't strike me as completely incompetent.

I guess this is a better than nothing at all solution then. As in, perhaps some of the furloughed workers can get on this scheme.

UBI is the answer, of course, but you couldn't get an idea that was further from the Tory ethos if you tried.

Exactly, why pay someone 55% to work 33% of the time when you can lay them off and pay someone 33% to work 33% of the time

UBI would save money in administration costs, but no, let's implement the dysfunctional mess that is Universal Credit.

I think Ireland did this for a bit during Coronavirus, maybe they still do.

Or, what'll more likely happen:-

Why pay someone 55% to work 33% of the time when you can give them the option of being laid off or working 66% of the time but only 33% of the time on the books and getting paid 55%+22% = 77%.

^ This, where's there's a system, there's an incentive to cheat it.

I imagine many workers will be expected to work 100% of the time (33% on the books) for 77% pay.

It's based on the assumption that businesses have recruitment and training costs embedded in their employees and that those employees are important to them so they will want to retain them.

But then it's also aimed at the service and hospitality industries and having worked briefly in both retail and service, I can tell you that they don't give a fuck about their employees and training is a 30 minute endeavour. So, who knows....?