The National Investigation Service (Natis) received £38.5m from taxpayers to investigate widespread abuse of the bounce-back loan scheme and had previously claimed that it recovered £23m. An investigation by state auditors, however, was only able to verify £7.2m of recoveries.

Violence and abuse by patients against staff in GP clinics is widespread globally and usually triggered by long waiting times and the refusal to prescribe requested drugs, research shows.

Useful reminder from Peter Kellner on the problems we refuse to acknowledge are getting better, and the politics of hopelessness that this breeds open.substack.com/pub/kellnerp...

Imagine how much we could bring down crime if we put the same resources into policing. I mean, the National Guard standing around brought about a 35% reduction in violent gun crime. We could do much more with legal and constitutional policing. www.nationalreview.com/2025/09/a-be...

In the last year alone, councils have introduced bans on shouting in the middle of the countryside, urination in designated sea areas, and the possession of any object that could pose a fire risk. Open water swimming has been criminalised in Salford and parts of Somerset.

The Covid Contracts: Follow the Money 10.15pm, ITV1 Sunday 21st September 2025. Thanks to the taxpayer-funded largesse of the government, lots of people did very well out of Covid. Many of them were connected to the Conservative party. This enraging documentary is a story of greed.

‘The psychology award went to a team who investigated what happened when you told narcissists that they were intelligent. Spoiler: they become more narcissistic’

The protest was organised by a right-wing activist, demanding stricter migration policies and a clampdown on asylum seekers. Violence erupted when large groups of protesters, many waving Dutch flags and flags associated with far-right groups, confronted security forces.

President Trump, "The name of the King at the time was William the Conqueror" "I said that's the coolest name I ever heard. And he built this massive castle. He was known for winning wars" "In fact I asked King Charles: why don't we call you Charles the Conqueror?" "He said: no, I don't think so"

In my PhD database of mental health police contact deaths, this is RCRP MH-PCD no 18 and RCRP PFD no 16. Emerging theme — - Non-response to obvious risk - Deflecting to the ambulance service an incident where the patient’s location is not known. - IRTL threshold misunderstood.

David Rose, the police officer and Afghanistan veteran with a wife and 2 small children, was murdered by a white, right wing extremist man a month ago over antivaccine conspiracies pushed by RFK Jr. and this administration. He did not get recognition from political leaders or even much news coverage

Civil Service Numbers continue to creep upwards. There were 517,000 (full time equivalent) civil servants at the end of June, 4,000 up on a year earlier - and 133,000 more than in the summer of 2016 when there was a referendum ...

New by me: A look into UK orgs outsourcing critical business and cyber functions to low cost providers and the fall out. I'll probably get in trouble for writing this one. doublepulsar.com/the-elephant...

Birmingham is an extreme example of this, but there are so many others. Edinburgh University, MoD, UK Gov’s Matrix, West Sussex, and many more. ERP systems are a black hole of money, and effort. A huge drag on productivity and time.

ERP system replacements are some of the most difficult and complex projects we see organisations undertake. We’ve seen example after example go wrong. Late delivery. Blown budgets. Toxic environments. People left in misery afterwards.

‘increasingly sophisticated analysis of genetic material made possible by technological advances shows that virtually everyone came from somewhere else, and everyone’s genetic background shows a mix from different waves of migration that washed over the globe’

“To those men and women in Russia who have truths to share and the courage to share them, I invite you to contact MI6” … through the service’s new dark web portal.

The Future Fund spent £1.14bn backing 1,190 companies, such as the sex party organiser Killing Kittens and the now defunct festival tickets business Pollen. The fund also invested nearly £2m in companies linked to Sunak’s wife.

“You join the urban guerrillas and then you find yourself spending a month fixing up an apartment, and there’s always shopping to be done. That’s 99% of what goes on” @jsargentr.bsky.social

Hier ist das neugezeichnete Bild:

‘The transfer of tens of billions of pounds to the owners of the privatised water, rail, bus, energy and mail services comes as families face soaring bills, polluted rivers and seas, and expensive and unreliable trains and buses’

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has said a record number of Americans have applied for British citizenship following the election of Donald Trump, which he attributed to the city’s “liberal values”.

A woman arrested at the recent Defend Our Juries protest against the ban on Palestine Action gets in touch: "No one that was arrested on Saturday has yet been charged because there were so many arrests they just sent people home. Shocking really, sending all those terrorists home..."

My Sunday Times piece: Mainstream political parties are under pressure but they are the ones who have had to deal in office with economic reality, rather than the fantasies peddled by the populists: Don’t fall for political parties selling economic snake oil www.thetimes.com/article/63d1...

Colleagues have backed up the point with data and infographics. The answer is no: political violence in the US is if anything declining, not rising. The far right commits more than the far left, but both are rare, and fewer than 10% of Americans endorse violence for political goals.

FT mag piece from me: Spent a long time looking into the Britannia hotel chain, beneficiaries of a vast amount of taxpayer money via the asylum system on.ft.com/47HEE46

Darren Grimes is baffled how a boy from a gun-toting Republican family could be radicalised. I have some thoughts.

Cotton’s suicide is one of several deaths that have raised troubling questions about RCRP, which was implemented for police forces by the Tory government in late 2023. The scheme passes the responsibility for attending people experiencing a mental health crisis back to health services

I’m sure it’s more complicated than this, but… those numbers do not add up to 46%. (From the FT’s lead story about the CEO of Barclays calling for no new bank taxes and public sector wage restraint) on.ft.com/4nkUnKI

The cost of a single place in a residential children’s care home in England has nearly doubled in five years to an average £318,000 a year, with private firms racking up huge profits as a result of market failure, according to the public spending watchdog.

This shows the difference that can be made when you look at being effective around the problem rather than just complying with policies that are clearly ineffective

HMICFRS is to review the role of chief constable after concerns about the paucity of candidates to fill vacancies, the role of PCCs in the appointment process and the number of chiefs who have been suspended following accusations of misconduct.

Polaris is owned by CapVest, a private equity company. It is set up as an LLP. Last year its five members shared £40 million (£59 million the year before).

Polaris, one of the UK's biggest providers of children's homes and foster care, doubled profits to £18 million last year. Councils paid Polaris £247 million for care and education.

One of those "it's hard to be shocked in 2025, but...." stories. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Police should no longer record or investigate non-crime hate incidents, the chief inspector of constabulary has said. Sir Andy Cooke said handling the incidents took up a minuscule amount of time but drew vehement criticism.

Public Duty Cost Allowance paid to former UK PMs in 2023/24. John Major £115000 Tony Blair £115000 Gordon Brown 114788 David Cameron £68546 Theresa May £113475 Liz Truss £101332 Boris Johnson £182083 Their staff pension costs £26,121 No means testing. Some use it to push their business interests.

Brussels Mayor Philippe Close rejected a proposal for soldiers to be deployed in the city’s neighborhoods to help police fight drug-related crime.

A Canadian beekeeper has described fending off thousands of “robber bees” as they raided her shop in a brazen attempt to steal honey. Christine McDonald, who owns Rushing River Apiaries in British Columbia, said she entered her shop to find it overrun by the swarm.

So the political journalist who appeared to be Boris Johnson’s stenographer through Covid was *actually* his co-conspirator who broke lockdown rules with him & then failed to report on the lies he told to cover it up. I’m shocked I tell you, shocked.

Leaked material from Johnson’s private office raises serious questions relating to his time in No 10 and since he resigned

The Maritime Analysis Operations Centre (MAOC), which polices the transatlantic drug trade, says 100 ships suspected of trafficking drugs to Europe were not stopped last year because the authorities didn't have enough vessels to intercept them.

The latest round of shrinkflation means anyone prising the lid off the Quality Street box may be underwhelmed by the number of sweets

She's using it wrong

A standing ovation for someone found guilty of tweeting about burning migrants alive. She was sentenced to 31 months for inciting racial hatred. The judge said “You intended to incite serious violence. What you did encouraged activity which threatened or endangered life.” Who’s calling this out?

"Health and care leadership has become enthralled by performance management: dashboards, inspections and league tables... When they dominate, care is hollowed out. People learn to perform adequacy rather than offer real care."

This gets progressively funnier with every use of the term "floppy".

NEW Meme cases and the failure of public legal information The discussions around cases such as Lucy Connolly and the Epping asylum hotel show ready access to accurate and reliable material is not enough By me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...