Bank of England staff have been told their ‘Wellbeing Centre’ will close if they don’t learn how to use the loos properly. Welcome to silly season…
An email went round to staff today:
“Dear Member,
We have had two incidents this week of faeces found on the floor of the showers and toilets in the Wellbeing Centre Gents changing rooms. This is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
Should this continue, we will be forced to temporarily suspend some services/facilities.
Kind regards
[REDACTED]
Bank of England Wellbeing Centre”
The Bank is also under fire this week after the Telegraph reported that 1,040 employees were allowed to work from abroad and they spent more than 12 days doing so last year. It’s no fun working from the beach – sand gets in your laptop – unless of course they aren’t working at all…
The taxpayer is of course funding this gym, internal occupational health, and fitness facility located in the basement vaults of the Bank of Threadneedle Street. Callum McGoldrick, Investigations Campaign Manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:
“Bank of England staff should be focused on sorting out the economy, not making a complete mess of their own changing rooms. Bosses need to clean up their act… literally.”
When they said the institution was a busted flush…
Thames Valley Tory police and crime commissioner Matthew Barber has produced draft legislation that would stop the early release of PC Andrew Harper’s killers. Those “serving a sentence of imprisonment for manslaughter … against an emergency worker” would be barred from release. So it’s not ‘wrong’ and unlawful and is in fact that easy?
The Sentencing Act 2026 which includes Labour’s structural provisions for early releases will be voted on when Parliament returns next month. If the Tory amendment is selected Labour MPs will have to decide whether to vote to release PC Harper’s killers. What will their constituents make of that?
Andy Burnham has ordered the Ministry of Justice to comb through paper records to exclude any rape gang offenders from walking free from prison early, after The Times reported some were inexplicably not excluded from the early release scheme. The ‘Roll-Royce’ British state in action…
Burnham announced on Tuesday that anyone convicted of rape, serious child sex offences or grooming would be taken off the scheme. The exemption missed anyone whose crimes predate the 2003 anti-grooming laws, with those men were charged with indecent assault instead. That includes five men jailed in Bradford last October for abusing a girl in care from the age of 13.
Downing Street says the review is happening “urgently” and the PM has intervened personally. Presumably from his sun lounger…
HMRC is hiring internally among civil servants only for a “Senior Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Consultant.” Here’s the Public Accounts Committee report on HMRC from last year, concerning performance in the election year:
“Average call waiting times exceeded 23 minutes. HMRC says it has not been adequately resourced to meet telephone demand from customers.”
For up to £72,711 the hire – which is not advertised to non-public sector workers – will “play a key role in shaping an inclusive and respectful workplace that reflects the communities we serve.” They will additionally engage “with HR colleagues, business areas, Staff Diversity Networks and senior stakeholders to influence decision-making, manage complex issues and drive improvement.” Pretty penny for chatting to diversity networks…
Essential criteria include “knowledge of equality, diversity and inclusion, EDI equality legislation and the protected characteristics.”
Non-essential but desirable criteria: “Experience of working within government, HR, people strategy or policy environments… Experience of working with trade unions, staff networks or employee representative groups.” Coddle with the trade union pilgrims…
To be fair to the taxman their call answer rates have improved. From April 2025 to March 2026 HMRC cleared 79.4% of post within 15 working days against an 80% target and 89.0% within 40 working days against a 95% target. 3.2 million items went unanswered beyond three working weeks. On the phones, advisers scraped past their 85% target by a tenth of a point while keeping callers waiting an average of 12 minutes 35 seconds, with almost half of all callers held for over ten minutes, adding up to around 390 years of collective hold time in a single year. Equality under the boredom…
The Ministry of Justice is now dishing out redesigned vapes to prisoners to stop them setting fire to their cells. You’re paying for it…
In response to a written parliamentary question on vape-related fires, justice minister Lord Lemos revealed:
“The level of fire risk associated with prisoner possession of vape devices is continuously monitored through the national fire reporting system. Data gathered through this process has supported the introduction of a redesigned, lower-risk vape device, which has contributed to a 43% reduction in overall fire incidents.”
According to evidence submitted to the Justice Committee the ‘MOJA Safer Vape Pen’ was “developed by HMPPS in partnership with MOJA following concerns about vape-related fires within prisons” and was first introduced to prisoners in January last year. Government doing what it does best, obviously…
The UK market has been flooded with so-called ‘big puff’ vapes exploiting a mess of regulatory loopholes, with some devices claiming up to 100,000 puffs. By using oversized refill containers or multiple tanks, these devices pack in larger batteries, significantly increasing the risk of lithium fires. Instead of designing their own HM Government vapes, ministers could simply use the powers already sitting in the Tobacco and Vapes Act to stop the risky devices being sold in the first place…
Managing Director of FireChief Global Laurie Pollard, said:
“Since disposable vapes were banned, higher-capacity big puff devices have become far more popular, and the fire risk has risen with them. Fires that start with lithium batteries are usually rapid and often explosive. Devices offering more than 1,000 puffs need larger batteries than standard vapes, and those bigger batteries are more likely to cause severe fires that are harder to control.”
Under Burnham, 5,000 more criminals are set to walk free early by the end of the year. They can dance out of prison puffing an ultra-safe fire-proof vape…
The Electoral Commission has published the full accounts of all parties for 2025. Here are the results for membership and donation income, compared with (election year) 2024.
A predictable collapse in donations for Labour, a surge for Reform, and a decline for the Tories. All to play for heading towards the next election – it’s donations season…
Burnham confirms he spoke to Trump last night about drilling in the North Sea:
“I indicated in the phone call that we had a week last Monday that I would take a pragmatic approach when it comes to the North Sea, and that is my intention as we go forward from here. There is a resource there. When people are struggling, we can’t ignore that. Hence, me indicating that to the president…”