Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

Peak "computer says no" moment: newborn baby is registered with wrong birth sex but it cannot be corrected because of reasons:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/19/baby-girl-registered-wrong-sex-mansfield-registration-office

[Sheilbh]

There's recently been a case in the legal press where a law firm fucked up the paperwork so accidentally got the courts to divorce the wrong couple

[HVC]

Was one of the "accidently" divorced persons a lawyer in the firm?

[Barrister]

Peak "computer says no" moment: newborn baby is registered with wrong birth sex but it cannot be corrected because of reasons:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/19/baby-girl-registered-wrong-sex-mansfield-registration-office

So one of the things I've learned in a career in law is that you can do basically anything as long as all parties agree.

So how the hell can you not correct a birth certificate that everyone agrees is incorrect?


Edit: I'm not authorized to give legal advice in England and Wales, but surely the couple could just seek a writ of mandamus and seek costs against the government?

[HVC]

He was me favourite he-man villain.

[Barrister]

He was me favourite he-man villain.

Certiorari was cooler.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I don't get it given that in the same story:

In a twist to the tale, Sarah Power, who registered her baby daughter at the same register office – with the same registrar – in October last year, had a similar experience.

"The registrar read back all the details correctly – including that our daughter was female – and then asked us to check the spellings of the name," she said. "We checked the spelling but not the gender, because the registrar had already said it to us correctly."

"It was only when we got outside the office door that we looked at the certificate and realised that our daughter had been registered as male."

Power, however, was able to get a new, corrected birth certificate for her daughter after the registrar directed her to a GPO form. The Home Office, however, say this is no longer an option. 'The local registration service was advised earlier this year not to issue [corrected] certificates in this way," they said.

The GRO and Home Office are now saying this is impossible - I can't think of any new laws that changed things since last October. So it doesn't quite add up to me but sounds like some legal advice or "computer says no" situation.

Although the issue seems to be that they can correct the certificate, but it notes that there's been a correction as opposed to being a totally new certificate.

[Josquius]

Yet if unmarried parents have a kid and later get married apparently they legally have to - though it's an unenforced loop hole reregister.
Mad a mistake is insisted upon.

Also in dumb things.
Child benefit is a small payment given to support parents.
If you earn 60k-80k this tails off over time to being fully ineligible at 80k.
So far so sensible....
But the way it works is they give you the full benefit then you have to fill a tax return to pay a bunch of it back in April.
This just seems like a ridiculous and unnecessary shuffling of money.
If someone is eligible for 400 quid then just give them that to befin with. Don't give them 2000 then tax them 1600 extra.

[Sheilbh]

I'm not sure it is so sensible. There's a real case for pretty comprehensive tax reform because I'm not sure the taxes here (which are standard) are particularly rational.

This is child benefit, without student loans:


I'd argue that's not a sensible system

You can see others especially, for example, for someone with kids and student loan repayments:
https://taxpolicy.org.uk/wp-content/assets/october_2024_marginal_rates.html

The Economist had a piece on this and the coming squeeze. For example, from April the threshold for paying back a student loan and a full time minimum wage job will cross (when I graduated it was a £10k+ difference. Add student loans into to tax and grads on £27k+ will be paying a marginal rate of almost 40% and those earning over £50k around 57%.

As I say I think the whole system needs reform (and base broadening) because otherwise I think by the end of this term it may be a Labour government facing nurses on marginal rates of almost 40% and head-teachers losing child benefits.