I wouldn't normally turn to British Vogue for a strident defence of Diane Abbott, but...
''none of this parliamentary rhetoric about extremism & MP safety has been mobilised to protect Diane Abbott after the Conservative’s biggest donor said he wanted to shoot her. Quite the opposite; the system has moved to shield Frank Hester, a poor man who made a little mistake & needs to be given grace and compassion'!
Much of Diane Abbott's career can and should be seen as a British success story. She was able to go to #CambridgeUniversity from a background that was by any standards seriously underprivileged, accepted by the #civilservice and served as a member of parliament for more than thirty years including a stint on the #labour front bench. It is a matter of shame for #britain that she has experienced not just overt racism and sexism but #kafkaesque treatment as well!
Come work with me! We have a primarily modern PHP 8.2 stack using Mezzio but as an org are diversifying into Go. We also have a fair bit of Python lying around. We run CI/CD and manage our AWS environment using Terraform (though our embedded OPs team member will typically manage that).
Hmmm.... FT reporting this morning that the #LabourParty has quadrupled the amount it is receiving in donated staff time from management consultants in the last year.
So two Q.s:
what are the 'Big Four' getting out of these donations?
Access to & influence over the prospective incoming Govt.
What does this tell us about the dynamic(s) of #Starmer 's party?
That it risks undermining its call to lessen use of consultant by the #civilservice & is 'at ease' with consultants 'mind set'!
Of course, he's not going to wait for that to actually happen, oh no; he's going to reduce the taxes now, because if the 'efficiency gains' don't appear (they likely won't to the extent he predicts), it'll be someone else's fiscal problem
Well, well, well, after ranting at #universities for supposedly 'no platforming' people whose views were deemed 'unacceptable' t transpires that across the #civilservice, the #Tories have issued guidelines to staff to ensure exactly that when it comes to events they are hosting/convening.
So, as so often with those championing #freespecch, its free speech for us & our supporters but for you (critics), not so much.
Hmmm... the BBC is reporting (the Times reporting) that Lord Maude's review of the #civilservice may recommend the breaking up of the #Treasury in the interests of Govt. efficiency
This may all be tittle-tattle, but it would be an interesting turf war if that was to be proposed by Maude & in a new Labour Govt. #RachelReeves to the view that the Treasury's influence on policy was malign.... but then again, given her declared 'fiscal probity' she might well take the side of the Treasury...
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced a proposed rule to reinforce long-standing protections for federal civil servants.
The rule is part of the Biden administration’s response to an executive order issued by President Trump late in his term, titled Creating a Schedule F in the Excepted Service.
That order laid the groundwork for the Trump administration to fire tens or hundreds of thousands of civil servants across the federal government and replace them with partisan loyalists.
But time ran out on Schedule F: President Biden took office before the order could be implemented and then rescinded it in January 2021.
OPM’s proposed rule is the Biden administration’s follow-on effort to protect the civil service from politicized attacks, whether in the form of another Schedule F order or a similar effort to purge the federal workforce like many 2024 Republican presidential candidates have promised.
If OPM’s proposed rule becomes final, it will slow the process of implementing a future Schedule F, and make it harder for a future administration to justify departing from historical practice, by codifying long-standing interpretations of key rights and definitions in civil service law.
Through the rule, then, OPM proposes to strengthen a critical part of our democracy — a nonpartisan, expert federal workforce. And it would help protect the basic employment rights of federal civil servants who swear an oath not to the person of the president, but to the Constitution and laws of the United States. #schedulef#civilservice https://protectdemocracy.org/work/biden-admin-response-schedule-f/
If Donald #Trump wins a second term, he & his allies want to revive a plan to allow a #president to #fire#CivilService workers who are supposed to be hired on #merit. The Biden administration is trying to thwart it.
Now, w/Trump poised to win the #GOP nomination again, the Biden admin is instead trying to effectively Trump-proof the civil service w/a new #regulation.