UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[NewYorkExpress]

The House Public Accounts Committee has put out a report stating that the Parliament Building is "leaking, dropping masonry and at constant risk of fire", as well as pocked with asbestos.

Britain’s Parliament building is an architectural masterpiece, a UNESCO World Heritage Site visited by 1 million people a year. It’s also a crumbling, leaky, asbestos-riddled building at “real and rising” risk of destruction, lawmakers said Wednesday.

In a hair-raising report, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said the seat of British democracy is “leaking, dropping masonry and at constant risk of fire,” as well as pocked with asbestos.

“There is a real and rising risk that a catastrophic event will destroy” the building before long-delayed restoration work is done, the committee said.

In the most urgent in a series of warnings stretching back years, the committee said renewal work had been painfully slow and mostly amounted to “patching up” the 19th-century building, at a cost of about $2.5 million a week.

The committee slammed “years of procrastination” over the future of the parliamentary complex, known as the Palace of Westminster.

In 2018, after years of dithering, lawmakers voted to move out by the mid-2020s to allow several years of major repairs. The decision has been questioned ever since by lawmakers who don’t want to leave; last year, the body set up to oversee the Parliament project was scrapped.

Meanwhile, the building grows more decrepit. The roof leaks, century-old steam pipes burst, and chunks of masonry occasionally come crashing down. Mechanical and electrical systems were last updated in the 1940s.

There is so much asbestos that removing it “could require an estimated 300 people working for two and a half years while the site was not being used,” the House of Commons committee said.

And there is a constant threat of fire. The committee said there have been 44 “fire incidents” in Parliament since 2016, and wardens now patrol around the clock.

[NewYorkExpress]

Former head of the Police Watchdog, Michael Lockwood had been charged with three counts of rape against a sixteen year old in an incident that took place between October 1985 and March 1986.

he former head of the U.K.'s police watchdog, Michael Lockwood, has been charged with three counts of rape against a girl who was under the age of 16, Britain's Crown Prosecution Service said Friday. He has also been charged with six counts of indecent assault.

Lockwood, 64, ran the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which handles serious complaints against police in England and Wales, from 2018 to 2022, the organization said. On its website, the IOPC says it investigates, "the most serious matters, including deaths following police contact," and that it sets "the standards by which the police should handle complaints."

Lockwood stepped down in December last year after it emerged that he was under investigation.  

The events for which Lockwood is facing charges allegedly took place between October 1985 and March 1986, prosecutors said Friday. At that time, Lockwood was in his 30s. He is due to appear in court on June 28.  

[NewYorkExpress]

Home Office Contracters were told about legionella bacteria found the Bibby Stockholm the same day asylum seekers were transferred onto the barge.

Home Office contractors were told about traces of legionella bacteria found on the Bibby Stockholm barge on the same day asylum seekers were transferred on to the vessel, Dorset Council has said.

The discovery eventually led to the removal on Friday of all 39 people who had boarded the floating accommodation docked in Portland on Monday.

The council has now said it informed the “responsible organisations”, barge operators CTM and Landry & Kling, about the preliminary test results on Monday, the same day it received them.


A Home Office official was then told about the discovery on Tuesday, the council said, but it is understood ministers did not know about the presence of the bacteria until Thursday.

According to Bloomberg (an article I'm not posting because of their stricter paywall), Rishi Sunak was also warned about the bacteria.

[NewYorkExpress]

The family of William Gladstone has apologized for Gladstone's links to the slave trade.

The family of former British Prime Minister William Gladstone apologised for their family’s slave-owning past in Guyana on Friday, as descendants of slaves have sought reparations.

William’s father, John, was one of the largest slaveholders in the parts of the Caribbean colonised by Britain. He is also believed to have owned two ships that transported thousands of Asians from India and elsewhere to work as indentured labourers after the abolition of slavery in 1834.

“Slavery was a crime against humanity and its damaging impact continues to be felt across the world today,” Charles Gladstone, William’s great-great grandson, said at a launch for the University of Guyana’s International Centre for the Study of Migration and Diaspora.

“It is with deep shame and regret that we acknowledge our ancestor’s involvement in this crime and with heartfelt sincerity that we apologise to the descendants of the enslaved in Guyana,” he added.

“We also urge other descendants of those who benefited from slavery to open conversations about their ancestors’ crimes and what they might be able to do to build a better future.”

The Gladstones also apologised for their role in indentureship – which bound workers with their employers.

[NewYorkExpress]

Nadine Dorries has officially resigned.

UK member of parliament Nadine Dorries has delivered a scathing attack on her Conservative Party's leader Rishi Sunak in her formal resignation letter, accusing the prime minister of running a "zombie parliament" and lacking any political vision.

Dorries, a close ally of former leader Boris Johnson, had announced in June she would quit and then faced mounting criticism for not actually doing so, preventing the election to replace her from being held alongside three other local votes last month.

Dorries formally quit late on Saturday with a lengthy resignation letter that tore into Sunak. The by-election to replace her will likely take place in the autumn, presenting the Conservatives with another test of their popularity when they are trailing the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls

[NewYorkExpress]

Following an incident where an eleven year old girl was injured by a breed of American Bully Dog, Suella Braverman says she is seeking advice about banning the breed in question.

Britain's home secretary said Monday she is seeking “urgent advice” on banning a type of American Bully dog, highlighting an attack on a 11-year-old girl over the weekend.

Suella Braverman said she has commissioned advice on outlawing XL Bully dogs after police said they were investigating an incident in the central English city of Birmingham on Saturday, when a girl was injured by one of the dogs. Two men who intervened were also injured.

“This is appalling. The American XL Bully is a clear and lethal danger to our communities, particularly to children,” Braverman wrote on social media. ”We can't go on like this."

Police said the incident took place on a busy road after the dog broke free from its owner. The girl sustained serious injuries to her shoulders and forearms, and was recovering after hospital treatment. The animal was seized by officers and officials will consider what to do with the animal, police added.