What happened on 27th June 2023 - with your comments in the Web

On Tuesday, the Evening Standard reported that strikes by nurses to end as ballot on more action fails to meet legal threshold. 

The threat of more strikes by nurses has ended after a ballot on further industrial action failed to meet the legal threshold. The Royal College of Nursing said 84% of its members who voted backed more strikes. But only 43% took part in the ballot, so it failed to reach the legal threshold of 50% required by the 2016 Trade Union Act.

RCN general secretary Pat Cullen said in an email to members: “To every one of you who took part, whether by voting or encouraging others to, thank you. We have so much to be proud of. “While the vast majority of members who returned their ballot papers voted in favour of strike action, we did not meet the 50% turnout threshold necessary for us to be able to take further strike action.

This news made readers skeptic about strikes movement in the UK.

"Worn down it seems, a shrewed leader would offer a little more now and end this"

On the same day, Brits learned that Boris Johnson’s Daily Mail job was ‘clear breach’ of government rules.

Ex PM committed a "clear and unambiguous breach" of the rules by taking a new job as a Daily Mail columnist, a government watchdog has said. The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) on Tuesday wrote to the government and said there was urgent need for reform of the “good chaps” approach to ministerial jobs.

Acoba chairman Lord Pickles said Mr Johnson’s decision to refer his new job to the watchdog just 30 minutes before it was publicly announced was a breach of the ministerial code. 

"Tories and corruption are good companions."

"Eton and Oxbridge-Rules aren't meant for the likes of them."

"Of course it is a one day headline that will be overtaken tomorrow by the next scandal involving this government. "

"Yet more evidence, as if we needed it, of Bunter thinking that rules don't apply to him. "

"So it is beyond any possibility of ambiguous now, Johnson is a charlatan, a liar and and possibly the most odious person in the country. Oh how I laugh as this must be shattering the hearts and hopes of Boris supporters who frequent here."

On Tuesday either, the Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA) said that the next general election could encounter significant problems due to a mass of changes to the voting system, including mandatory ID, piled on to an already “creaking” system, the trade body for electoral staff has warned in a report.

While the AEA said voter ID was just one among a series of issues, it warned that the relatively smooth rollout of the new system at May’s local elections could be “very different” at a general election.

Electoral workers having to check IDs and fill out a mass of new documents was contributing to a staffing crisis at polling stations, the AEA added, with one area reporting it only had two-thirds of the necessary people in May.

“Recruitment and retention of sufficient and competent temporary elections staff is increasingly challenging,” the report said. “We have growing concerns for future elections.”

 

 Yet, nobody was surprised.

"Massive new changes and responsibilities added but no extra resourcing to actually integrate and run them properly at the scale needed?

That's the Tory Way^TM."

^"Let's not forget trying to stop people being able to vote. It's their new election strategy"

Another news of Tuesday was that secondary school uniform costs parents £422 a year and £287 on primary uniforms, with branded items costing more.

One mum told the BBC parents on her school WhatsApp group were forgoing holidays because of the expense.The government said it was working to ensure "uniform costs are reasonable".

Meanwhile, the Schoolwear Association, which represents retailers, said not all items of uniform were replaced every year and shops offered families "good value"..

 

"The price of their uniform is very expensive. The school should not require parents to buy branded items because not all parents can afford buying branded uniforms."

"The school I went to stopped allowing plain shirts for girls and instead made the girls wear these striped shirts that was more than 5x more expensive."

"Having travelled extensively for my work I've noticed that children in some of the world's best performing economies don't wear school uniforms. What is the purpose of a uniform in today's society... Control perhaps."

"The best thing about uniform is that it stops the poorer children being bullied every day for not having the most fashionable or branded clothes." - "The trouble with this is that it doesn't work in practice. The same thing happens, just with uniform.

As the article points out, uniform is really expensive now. The school I worked at had a "uniform donation day" where you could bring in your old uniform so that kids who's parents were struggling could get second hand uniform for free.

Do you really not think the kids with the second hand, hand me down uniforms aren't going to get bullied by the kids who's parents can afford it?

Its the same dynamic."