Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

He's in his comfort zone - this is who Corbyn is and it's the stuff he is most interested in politically.

But I also think Gaza is hugely significant on the left. I think it's playing a similar role to the one Europe did for the Tories.

Although I have found a lot of the commentary (both pro and anti) about Britain recognising Palestine absolutely unhinged though.

[Sheilbh]

Saw this story doing the rounds with people wondering why it hadn't been picked up by the national press and what in the absolute fuck

Obviously it doesn't help that it's been reported by local news whose websites are basically unusable now, but also happened in the North so the nationals have about two reporters for everywhere that side of the Watford Gap - I also slightly feel that the victims mainly being older women is less sympathetic. But this sounds like a hospital unit gone absolutely feral - just a culture of violence, sexism and abuse at every level (and I suspect coming from the doctors at the top):

Every staff member jailed at Blackpool's 'hospital of horrors' as police continue to probe allegations of neglect
'This is reflective of the severity of what has taken place'
By Rachel Smith Court reporter
    07:45, 21 SEP 2025

As former consultant Dr Amal Bose begins a prison sentence the tally of staff from Blackpool Victoria Hospital to have been jailed for criminal offences committed at work continues to rise.

Bose is the sixth staff member to have been jailed since police were called in to investigate allegations of neglect on the hospital's stroke unit in 2018. The arrogant surgeon molested younger, female staff members on the cardiothorasic unit after he was promoted to be head of department.

The unit had a toxic culture - with Bose at the heart of it, Preston Crown Court heard. He attempted to pass off his predatory behaviour as 'banter' but his victims were left feeling helpless due to his seniority.

But troubles at the Whinney Road hospital run deeper with ongoing investigations into allegations of neglect, mistreatment, and possible corporate failings.

Last week, Lancashire Police confirmed the stroke unit is at the centre of a major investigation, Operation Bermuda, which is considering offences including corporate manslaughter, corporate ill-treatment, wilful neglect, and breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

The investigation comes after staff nurse Catherine Hudson and healthcare assistant Charlotte Wilmot were jailed for their roles in a neglect scandal. During a 2023 trial, Preston Crown Court heard how difficult patients would be sedated to give the staff an easier shift.

Hudson was jailed for seven years, while Wilmot was locked up for 32 months for their roles in the cruelty meted out on the ward.

Their trial heard that, in 2017 and 2018, there was "a culture of abuse" on the stroke unit, with staff able to help themselves to Zopiclone, a strong sedative, and other drugs for their own use or to drug patients. Some reportedly used the drugs to manage the effects of class A substances, the court heard.

Band 7 staff nurse Marek Grabianowski, 46, was also jailed for 14 months for conspiracy to steal prescription drugs and perverting the course of justice. Two colleagues were also handed non-custodial sentences.

While none of the patients connected to those convictions died, police enquiries have since uncovered additional disturbing concerns. In 2021, it also emerged that police were reviewing the deaths of eight other patients treated on the unit in 2018 as part of allegations of mistreatment and neglect. Those inquests remain outstanding.

Within days of being called in to investigate the unit - after a student nurse reported concerns over what she had seen on her placement - beloved grandmother Valerie Kneale died after being admitted to the stroke unit. As a result of the investigation, detectives discovered Mrs Kneale had been 'forcefully sexually assaulted' and died as a result of her injuries.

Blackpool coroner Alan Wilson ruled Mrs Kneale's stroke did not contribute to her death but despite lengthy investigations and multiple appeals, no-one has been brought to justice for the unlawful killing.

However the continued scrutiny of the hospital has resulted in a number of further convictions.

In February 2024, locum doctor Xowi Mwimbi was jailed for 12 months after he was convicted of punching a dementia patient in the face. Preston Crown Court heard how the doctor had been warned the patient's condition could cause outbursts, but when he used a racist term, the doctor forced his head away and punched him.

The jury concluded that the doctor was not acting in self-defence and found him guilty of ill-treatment by a care worker. He was jailed for 12 months.

In May 2023, Hernando Puno, a healthcare worker on the stroke unit, was jailed for nine months after being convicted of five counts of sexual assault. Puno, of Onslow Road, Blackpool, was first warned about his behaviour in 2014, but his victim felt her complaint was not taken seriously.

In total, five women complained about the way the 'jokey' colleague touched and kissed them while they were at work. None of the convictions related to Valerie Kneale.

In March 2025, Dr Aloaye Foy-Yamah was banned from practicing for 12 months after a General Medical Council tribunal found he had raped a female colleague. The civil hearing heard Dr Foy-Yamah had been accused of raping a female colleague in December 2018. He has consistently denied committing any offence.

In a statement, Lancashire Police said they were unable to proceed with a prosecution due to 'evidencial difficulties' however the GMC hearing found 'on the balance of probability' - a lower standard of proof than is required in criminal cases. The case brought the profession into disrepute and Dr Foy-Yamah was banned from practicing.

Fletchers Solicitors is representing the families of a number of patients to have been treated on the stroke unit. Christian Beadell, Partner of the Medical Negligence team and Head of Group Actions, said: "We have been approached to help people treated within the stroke unit and have had first-hand accounts of the care people received.

"I think the investigation is another step forward to seeking answers. Transparency and openness are incredibly important when healthcare professionals are dealing with patients.

"It strikes me that if people felt they could come forward earlier then some of these incidents may not have occurred. You don't expect to encounter these types of issues when you are critically ill and we hope that the investigation can surface the responsibility for some of these things on an organisational level.

"This is reflective of the severity of what has taken place, and the hope is that lessons from this will be learned across other NHS Trusts to prevent something like this happening again."

The hospital trust has undergone significant leadership changes since 2018 and has stated that it is fully co-operating with the police's Operation Bermuda investigation.

Speaking after Bose was jailed, Maggie Oldham, Chief Executive at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals, said: "Our thoughts remain with all those affected by the actions of Mr Bose, and we thank our staff for the bravery and courage they have shown throughout the police investigation and trial of Mr Bose.

"As a Trust, we have cooperated with the police throughout their investigation into Mr Bose who has not worked at the Trust since December 2022. We have been truly shocked and saddened by the experiences of the victims, and we will now be supporting all colleagues as we move forward together."

As I say I could be wrong but I suspect the consultant leading the department is quite important in setting the tone but a unit like that - especially with warnings to new members of staff - must have had plenty of senior people turning a blind eye.

[Tamas]

Fucking great, now we are going to be talking about swan-eating migrants (or rather, the lack of them) for a month or so.

[HVC]

Man even your make belief immigrant problems are posh. America gets ones that eat cats and dogs and you get Swan eaters.

[crazy canuck]

Shielbh, what is corporate manslaughter?

[Sheilbh]

Fucking great, now we are going to be talking about swan-eating migrants (or rather, the lack of them) for a month or so.

Oh I doubt it'll get much coverage. We're two days out from Labour Party Conference and Andy Burnham's done a 7,000 word interview with the New Statesman on his vision for the country

Plus "senior cabinet ministers" pushing for change in tack by Reeves especially.

With an exciting new chapter of Labour psychodrama and leadership rumours, that's going to suck a lot of oxygen out the room.

Shielbh, what is corporate manslaughter?

Very much not my area - but from the CPS description basically it's a criminal offence following the death of an individual. The CPS need to show that the organisation (companies, NHS Trusts, Police forces etc) owed a duty of care to the individual, that there was a gross breach of that duty by the organisation, that the way in which its activities were managed or organised by the senior management was a "substantial element" in the breach of that duty and that the gross breach caused or contributed to the individual's death.

[crazy canuck]

Thanks

[Tamas]

So, digital IDs then. I'll wait for the details but being digital only seems a cop-out that's going to backfire.

[Tamas]

Also I am reading Starmer might not attend COP30 out of fear of Reform? Like, I don't know how much point there is to these COPs but staying away because Reform would stay away is the wrong reason for staying away.

Labour is going to exactly replicate the mistake of the Tories: they'll just become a Farage-clone of a party, but then people can rightfully ask: why not just vote for the original?

[Josquius]

So, digital IDs then. I'll wait for the details but being digital only seems a cop-out that's going to backfire.

Yes, seems really weird that they're being made digital only.

I expect the government to totally trash the existing digital ID stuff and start totally from scratch and the whole thing to run over budget and time.
Hope I'm wrong.

Also I am reading Starmer might not attend COP30 out of fear of Reform? Like, I don't know how much point there is to these COPs but staying away because Reform would stay away is the wrong reason for staying away.

Labour is going to exactly replicate the mistake of the Tories: they'll just become a Farage-clone of a party, but then people can rightfully ask: why not just vote for the original?

Yes. On environmental stuff in particular there's a huge gaping weakness to hit Reform with. The far right are dogmatically anti-green despite, even completely ignoring climate change, it just making sense to adopt green energy.
There was a stupid one locally where Reform cancelled a council project to have solar power on their buildings (their typical bait and switch at work there. Before the complaint for solar panels in fields was put them in buildings instead....). They announced they'd pass on the savings to social care for the elderly instead..... net savings? It was going to cost them £70k.

There's a huge opportunity for Labour to step in here and present themselves as the pragmatic ones. Position themselves between the net zero by next week lot and dogmatic idiots who oppose anything green on principle.

[Tamas]

So, sounds like this is not a national ID card in any shape or form, or at least it won't be used as such at first. Instead it'll just confirm you have a right to work in the UK. Ok...

[garbon]

So, sounds like this is not a national ID card in any shape or form, or at least it won't be used as such at first. Instead it'll just confirm you have a right to work in the UK. Ok...

Let's see how they roll it out. I already have one experience with UK digital ID and it was terrible. That was the eVisa that launched at the start of the year.

Launch was so bad they first had to let everyone continue to use their biometric ID cards even though they were now all expired because of problems with the ID / people having ported over.

Then, to acess the ID, you always had to log-in to to a home office website, which each time I wanted to see my digital ID, I had to google. Then there was some sort of 2FA verification procedure and if you had clicked on wrong link, you might not be logged in to see the right info you needed.  My one colleague also got to go rounds as they only had her expired student visa in it.

Never was clear either if you did need to speak with customs agent, if you were expected to be able to show your ID (assuming you had service) or if they would just look it up in their database. I know annecdotally there was also some chaotic moments if airline employee wanted to check that you had right to stay in your final destination (and thus no other travel ticket) but was unfamiliar with the new eVisa.

I'm very happy I only had the last 9 months that I had to suffer through it.

[Sheilbh]

Got some thoughts on all this which I'll come back to. But I feel like JLR is the most under-reported story in the country right now - and possibly a little relevant to any digital ID conversation.

From what I've read and reporting is sketchy, for reasons I well understand professionally, basically somewhere between 1/5 and 1/3 of UK car manufacturing has been shut down by a cyber attack. From everything I've read there's no indication this was some state backed group, it's criminals. According to industry gossip JLR were in the middle of renewing their cyber insurance - but their previous policy had expired

There's huge direct costs to them. The daily losses look enormous. The unions have called for a lot of government support (like a furlough scheme) to stop people being laid off or furloughed by JLR as they've had to shut down production. If you go wider there are significant and growing concerns from all the companies (often smaller) along the supply chain because production has basically shut down. There's thousands of impacted firms and hundreds of thousands of workers around them. Again calls for government support - and I kind of wonder if that would always be needed as I don't think even a very fulsome cyber insurance policy would cover that.

It seems like a bit industrial story that has not been properly picked up as the crisis it kind of is. But also it follows on from Marks and Spencer earlier this year who are one of the UK's biggest and most iconic retailers. They suffered a cyber attack (again industry gossip was a ransomware attack - and they didn't pay) earlier this year - there's since been arrests over it which is unusual for this type of crime. It knocked their online retail platform for about three months in total and there are still parts of their back end that are apparently not functioning and needing to be totally rebuilt. In that case there was also some personal data exfiltrated (largely email addresses so relatively low risk). I don't think it's a factor that it all seems to be Tata so Indian outsourcing - I think getting access to a privileged account can happen anywhere and they're just a big player. But it's a thing. M&S I think said their estimate of the impact was that it would reduce profits over the year by £300 million - I suspect it will be higher. Purely from the loss of having to shut down production JLR are losing £5 million a day, the costs of securing, recovering and rebuilding their systems will be significantly higher.

Again industry gossip in all cases (plus Qantas and Co-op) was that the actual vulnerability was outsourced IT support who had super-admin privileges (as IT support) getting compromised.

I mention it because I think it's important and under-covered. But also this is sort of my sector and there's been years of banging on about this with examples regularly around the world - but it feels like it's really crystallised this year in really significant attacks. And I think it is interesting how we respond to it - if JLR were shut down because of an industrial dispute I think it would be a bigger story, but the impact is the same and I hope government is as focused on it. But also the National Cyber Security Centre has been all over both of these attacks and very helpful in investigating (as I say four arrests for in the M&S case which is unusual) but I slightly wonder if, again, we need to encourage a focus on a possibly more expensive, shorter, thicker, more resilient, less inter-connected IT supply chains too with less outsourcing.

Edit: And, incidentally, I think JLR's current guidance is the shut down is "indefinite". There's not a clear end in sight. I've worked on attacks where they were through old systems able to keep doing the core business but had to get everyone to WFH for 3-6 months while the entire IT infrastructure was rebuilt.

[garbon]

I've seen a lot of coverage from BBC on that (both online and on television). Not a story that I find very interesting though as JLR is irrelevant to me.

[Sheilbh]

On politicians with hinterlands, RIP Menzies Campbell. Possible couple of points in here of interest to the Americans - one is British perceptions of age in politics And the other is a very unexpected cameo in his time in the US

Ming Campbell obituary: Olympic sprinter and Lib Dem leader
Record-breaking runner was part of a prominent generation of Scottish political figures but his career fell foul of brutal political realities
Friday September 26 2025, 10.40am, The Times
Liberal Democrats

Campbell acknowledges a standing ovation at the Lib Dem party conference in 2004, when opposing the Iraq war had revived his political career
CHRIS ISON/PA

On October 6, 2007, Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' leader, was driving through Glasgow when his press secretary called to say that Gordon Brown, who had replaced Tony Blair as prime minister five months earlier, had unexpectedly decided against calling an early general election to win a mandate of his own. Campbell's wife, Elspeth, understood the implications instantly. "Ming," she said, "can you take it for another two years?" The answer, it quickly transpired, was no.

Campbell had been the Lib Dems' leader for just 19 months, but they had been merciless. He was 65, whereas the new Tory leader, David Cameron, was just 40. The party was languishing in the polls. His MPs were unhappy. The media relentlessly portrayed him as too old, too formal and courteous for modern politics, too lacking in energy and dynamism.

On October 15 Campbell flew down to London determined to fight on, but swiftly fell victim to a bloodless but brutal coup. A string of senior party figures urged him to step down. Bowing to the inevitable, he wrote a resignation letter and caught the next flight back to his Edinburgh home, declining even to give a press conference.


Campbell and his wife, Elspeth, after the 2007 party conference in Brighton, the last he would address as party leader
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE

It was a sad way to go, and particularly galling for a man whose life had in no way lacked energy or dynamism.

In his youth Campbell had been an Olympic sprinter, captain of the British athletics team and holder of the British 100m record. He then became a successful Scottish QC before entering parliament, at the fifth attempt, as MP for North East Fife, a seat he held for the next 28 years. As his party's foreign affairs spokesman he led its opposition to the Iraq war while he had cancer.

When Campbell stepped down as the Lib Dem leader politicians from all parties paid tribute to his decency, integrity and mastery of international affairs. As he observed somewhat wryly in his memoirs: "My resignation was followed by canonisation."

Walter Menzies Campbell was always known as Ming (Menzies being phonetically transcribed Ming-iss). He was born in Glasgow on one of the few nights in May 1941 when German bombers left the city in peace. He grew up in a tenement block, though his father was the relatively well-paid deputy general manager, and later general manager, of Glasgow Corporation's Housing and Works Department.

His childhood was blighted by his father's heavy drinking, which caused frequent arguments between his parents and left him with a lifelong aversion to whisky. But his mother, determined he should have a good education, secured him a place at the academically rigorous Hillhead High School. There he excelled at athletics and rugby, earning himself the nickname "Ming the Wing", before proceeding to Glasgow University to read political economics and, later, law.

Though his parents were Labour voters, Campbell joined the Liberals at the freshers' fair, and rose to become president of the Liberal Club as well as president of the University Union. He forged lifelong friendships with other student activists — John Smith, Donald Dewar, Derry Irvine — who also went on to become prominent politicians, albeit with the Labour party.


Menzies Campbell in July 1964. Later that year he helped the Great Britain 4x100m team to set a new national record in the Tokyo Olympics
ED LACEY/GETTY IMAGES

But Campbell did not devote himself entirely to student politics. He also pursued an athletic career inspired by listening to the 1948 London Olympics on his mother's crackling wireless when he was seven.

He joined a local club, the Garscube Harriers, represented Britain at the World Student Games in Bulgaria in 1961 and Brazil in 1963, and was selected for the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 — the same year that he became president of the university union. He was eliminated in the second round of the 200m competition, but made the final of the 4x100m relay as a member of the British team who came eighth and last but set a UK record.

In 1966 he represented Scotland at the Empire and Commonwealth Games in Jamaica, and captained the British team at the European championships in Budapest, but his best performances came after he graduated from Glasgow and spent a year in the Californian sunshine at Stanford University.

There, in May 1967, he beat OJ Simpson, the future American football star who was later acquitted of killing his wife in a trial that transfixed America. Shortly afterwards he ran the 100m in 10.2 seconds, a British record that stood for seven years.


Campbell takes a breather during an event at Crystal Palace
ALAMY

Thereafter Campbell concentrated on law. He was called to the bar in 1968 and set up practice in Edinburgh, where he met a flamboyant young lawyer named Nicholas Fairbairn, who later became a Conservative MP. Fairbairn engineered a meeting at his Fife castle between Campbell and Lady Elspeth Grant-Suttie, a glamorous, feisty divorcee with a four-year-old son and a war hero father who was played by Sean Connery in the film A Bridge Too Far. One wag at their wedding three months later described them as "Britain's fastest man marrying Britain's fastest woman." They had no children of their own. Elspeth predeceased him at the age of 83 (obituary, June 7, 2023).

Campbell's legal career took off. He specialised in planning and licensing law, and his clients including George Wimpey, the house builder, and Argyll Foods, owner of Safeway. He also began to dabble in politics with the encouragement of his friend, David Steel, the future Liberal leader.

He unsuccessfully sought the nomination to fight an Edinburgh by-election in 1973. His appetite whetted, he fought the safe Labour seat of Greenock in the two general elections of 1974, holding lunchtime rallies outside the dockyard gates. He became chairman of the Scottish Liberals the following year, and fought North East Fife in 1979 and 1983 before finally winning it in 1987 despite a scurrilous tabloid story that his wife was having an affair with Steel. She won substantial damages.


Campbell, second left, with Paddy Ashdown, third left, and party colleagues stretch their legs on Brighton seafront in 1989
PA

With his wife working as his secretary, Campbell began frenetically commuting between Edinburgh, where he continued to practise law, and Westminster, where he became the Liberal spokesman for the arts, broadcasting and sports. His first private member's bill sought to outlaw anabolic steroids.

After the acrimonious merger of the Liberals and Social Democratic Party in 1988 he backed Paddy Ashdown for leader of the new Lib Dems, and was rewarded with the job of defence spokesman when Ashdown won. His finest moment in that role came when he persuaded the party's 1989 conference to retain Britain's independent nuclear deterrent.


As defence spokesman, Campbell persuaded his party to retain the nuclear deterrent at the 1989 conference
PA

Campbell added foreign affairs to his brief in 1994 and helped Ashdown secretly to explore the possibility of an anti-Tory coalition with Blair, the new Labour leader. He turned down an offer to become a Scottish Supreme Court judge in 1996 because he believed there was a real chance of him becoming a cabinet minister if that coalition came to pass after the 1997 general election. It did not.

In 1999 Ashdown resigned as party leader. Campbell thought of standing in the contest to replace him, but decided he could not beat his younger, more charismatic colleague, Charles Kennedy. Restive, he stood for the post of Speaker and lost. He applied unsuccessfully for the judgeship he had previously declined. He sought various diplomatic jobs, but Blair offered him only the governorship of Gibraltar, which he refused.

It was the invasion of Iraq in 2003 that revived his political career. Campbell and the Lib Dems took the considerable gamble of opposing it from the start. "All it needed was a company of American marines to discover two tanks of anthrax (and) our position would have been wholly undermined," he said later.

Campbell maintained his high-profile opposition to the conflict despite being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, requiring months of debilitating chemotherapy. He confronted George W Bush directly when they met at Buckingham Palace during the US president's state visit to London. The Lib Dems climbed in the polls as the war turned sour, and Campbell was rewarded with a knighthood and the party's deputy leadership, but the job proved a poisoned chalice as Kennedy increasingly succumbed to alcoholism.


Campbell at Knockhill racing circuit in Fife during his leadership campaign. That ended in comfortable victory but his tenure at the top was "not exactly untroubled"
ANDREW MILLIGAN/PA

"I felt I was watching a slowly unfolding tragedy," said Campbell, who was torn between protecting his friend and saving his party. He confronted Kennedy in private, but to no avail. In January 2006 Kennedy was finally forced to resign by his parliamentary colleagues, and Campbell comfortably defeated Chris Huhne and Simon Hughes in the ensuing leadership election. His wife had put £50 on him winning, and came away with £1,000.

Campbell's 18 months as the Lib Dems leader was, in his own words, "not exactly untroubled". From the outset he struggled at the theatrical parliamentary showcase of prime minister's questions and had to undergo special coaching. He was old compared with Blair and Cameron, and sought in vain to argue that with age came the sort of judgment that would have avoided the Iraq war. "I promise not to take advantage of the youth and inexperience of my opponents," he joked.

He suffered sniping from his own MPs, and relentless media criticism of his inability to galvanise his party or to improve its dismal ratings. So intense was the pressure that he cancelled a badly-needed hip replacement operation lest it draw attention to his age, and having the charity Age Concern rush to his defence probably did not help. Gordon Brown then ruled out the election everyone was expecting in 2007, and within days Campbell was gone.


Sir Menzies Campbell holds his medal with Lady Elspeth Campbell after an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
Lord and Lady Campbell at Buckingham Palace in 2013, after he was made a companion of honour
GETTY

After this is became chancellor of St Andrews University. He stood down as an MP in 2015 and was ennobled shortly afterwards. He fiercely opposed Scottish independence in the 2014 referendum, and Brexit in 2016. In his memoirs he wrote, with characteristic modesty: "I see my life as one of experience and not of achievement."

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, politician, was born on May 22, 1941. He died after a period of respite care on September 26, 2025, aged 84

On a purely British note - the absence of Scots at the top of British politics is really striking since 2014 and the SNP largely rising to dominance. But it's really obvious here how central they were and with, I think, a slightly distinctive tone in their politics. Within Scottish Labour you had Alastair Darling, Robin Cook, John Smith, Gordon Brown, but also people like Malcolm Rifkind, Michael Forsyth, Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell. I've heard Kirsty Wark talk about how there used to be weekly gatherings of leading Scots from media and politics in the restaurant/bar carriage of the sleeper train from London every Thursday of Scottish MPs returning to their constituencies and people like her going home for the weekend. I sort of feel that whole world is gone now - partly because in recent years most Scottish MPs have been SNP - but also I think people just stay in London more.

And the internal factional politics of Scottish Labour (Cook v Brown, Brown v Darling etc) really mattered it was, like London Labour, a party with a very distinct, separate identity. Some of those (now posthumous feuds) still run. I recently heard a London journalist talk about Rachel Reeves being close to Gordon Brown and a Scottish journalist strongly disputed it on the grounds that she's said positive things about Alastair Darling and that is (still) enough to be persona non grata in the Brown wing of Scottish Labour.

(Separately I also love that photo of Lib Dem MPs running where you have an Olympic sprinter in Cambell and, in Paddy Ashdown, a former Special Forces soldier but literally none of them look like they've ever heard of running before )

Edit: I always thought there was something of a distinctive Scottish political culture/response with Johnson, incidentally - especially growing up in Scotland - that there's a fundamental lack of seriousness to Johnson that I think English people like, but that does not translate to Scotland. Not to say they don't have their own bounders (Alex Salmond) but it's a different style.