Are you a PCS member or retired member affected by the Capita pensions crisis? We're looking for people willing to talk about their situation for PCS communications channels and in the media. If you're interested, email editor@pcs.org.uk

HOW BRITAIN REWARDS PEOPLE WHO TRY TO SAVE TAXPAYER MONEY: FIRE THEM Mike Kiely spent 22 years inside BT (@BTGroup). He knew how the telecoms industry operated. So when the government hired him as a consultant to oversee the £2.5 billion rural broadband rollout, he knew exactly what he was looking at. BT had won all 26 government contracts. All of them. Kiely did the maths. Installing a street cabinet in Northern Ireland cost around £13,000. On the mainland, BT was charging the government between £61,000 and £80,000 per cabinet. Public money covered roughly 77% of every single one. He suspected BT was simply inventing tasks and inflating charges to absorb as much public funding as possible without doing more work. So he shared his analysis with local councils. The people whose job it was to negotiate these contracts and spend public money responsibly. Then his document leaked to a broadband blog. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport trawled his internal emails, found what they needed, and sacked him. The man who tried to protect public money. Margaret Hodge (@margarethodge), chair of the Public Accounts Committee, told the Guardian (@guardian) she was getting increasingly concerned at the way whistleblowers were being bullied. She pointed out that hiding behind commercial confidentiality was denying the public the right to know how their money was being spent. Her committee later confirmed what Kiely had warned all along. Taxpayers had been ripped off. £1.2 billion had gone to BT shareholders. Kiely was eventually vindicated when a community in Oxfordshire paid £28,000 per cabinet. Exactly in line with what his numbers predicted was fair. He lost his job for telling the truth. BT kept every contract. This is what accountability looks like in Britain. The consultant who raises the alarm gets sacked. The company he raised the alarm about gets the cheque. Support whistleblowers. They are the only audit most public spending ever gets. SOURCES @BBCNews @TheRegister @guardian @margarethodge

🚜 🌾 🐄 🐖 🐓 Lincolnshire farmer Nick Allpress the Brexit tragedy. Many farmers were misled to believe Brexit would mean control, prosperity and a better deal for British agriculture. Instead they have watched: 🚜 Farm support slashed & IHT burden 🌱 Seed and inputs delayed by border bureaucracy 🥕 EU exports & imports hit by new barriers 👨‍🌾 European workers replaced with labour from much further afield 📉 Imports undercutting domestic production Nick’s point is devastating: “That boat’s sailed.” The idea that British workers would replace European seasonal labour simply did not happen. Brexit didn’t end dependence on migrant labour, it just changed where the labour came from and made the system more complex and expensive. Meanwhile British food security is washed away by lower standard imported food, impacting public health and weakening national security.

🔊 Jobs of the week! ⭐ Data Analyst: civilservicejobs.service.gov… ⭐ Customer Services Advisor: civilservicejobs.service.gov… ⭐ Insolvency Technical Lead: civilservicejobs.service.gov… #PeoplePurposePotential #CivilServiceJobs #NewJob

People were mostly told but didn't listen - poor education lends itself to populist rhetoric: Brexit, trump, Reform, etc. Prioritise education, respect and pay teachers more, and give the marginalised a voice!

It was never hard to understand. The UK was choosing to (& has) put itself outside the controlled gates of one of the (analogy) three biggest medieval "walled cities", with all the other "walled cities" still out there. Its people chose to end their (easier trading & moving across borders) EU club membership benefits. They chose to make entry to the EU much harder for their businesses & themselves, without (not in the UK's gift to) making it any *equally* compensating easier to enter anywhere else. Being poorer with fewer opportunities & less choice for more cost, was always Brexit guaranteed

Cutting VAT on hospitality is the stupidest tax cut of all bit.ly/43t34uO says @DanNeidle it would fail to meet any of its objectives except to make big business more profitable and would not undo the tax rises pubs and restaurants are suffering from

So, it turns out that the violent protestors, who Farage & Reform would have us believe were regular members of the public showing justifiable rage, had numerous previous criminal convictions bbc.com/news/articles/c70y84…

Yaxley Lennon, Farage, Lowe and others, hang your heads in shame. An immigrant nurse talking about fleeing her home after saved her uniform so she could still work. Do you feel proud?

36-year-old Darren Medhurst, who was filmed by Young Bob setting a bin on fire and rolling it towards police officers, has been jailed for three years and three months. Darren has 51 previous convictions for 96 offences, including burglary and shoplifting.

The hospitality industry wants their VAT cut to 10%. It will cost £12bn Who benefits? ❌ The smallest most vulnerable businesses? Nope. 45% get nothing. ❌ Consumers? Nope - prices won't fall. ✅ Nearly half the cash goes straight to large chains. McDonald's gets £400m. 🧵:

British Gas is cutting the amount it pays customers who have solar panels when they sell surplus electricity back. It did pay 15.1p/unit but is being cut to 12p - a 20% cut - from 6 July. And just 8p for bigger arrays. Has this affected you? DM or reply please. Thanks.

💙 Refugee Week is coming to Exeter (15–21 June), with a range of community events celebrating this year’s theme: Courage. Find out more and see the full programme on the Refugee Support Devon website. refugeesupportdevon.org.uk/n…

Unfortunately, we’ve had to close the paddling pools at Heavitree Pleasure Ground due to a defect that has been identified. This decision has not been taken lightly, but we have no option other than to close the facility while we investigate the issue further.

In April, the Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office gave Capita until 30 June to return the Civil Service Pension Scheme to normal contractual levels. As of today Capita has just 18 days to go and we'll be keeping the pressure on every day during the countdown. pcs.org.uk/news-events/news/…

There are only 8 Reform MPs and they have a combined wealth of over £70,000,000. They have consistently voted against every single improvement to workers rights and plan to scrap legal protections left right and centre. They are funded by the bosses to rip up your rights.

"we need a fookin medic in here" like they're on the frontline in Iraq.

Otherwise usually called by journalists a U-TURN

This hasn’t gone viral the way it should. Jamie Corry, an Irish lad from east Belfast, has lost his home of 13 years after masked rioters set fire to cars outside and it engulfed his house in last night’s violent chaos. He stood right there and begged one of them: “This is my house. This is my house.” They didn’t care. They burned it anyway. “They’ve done it to one of their own.” These racist, uneducated thugs and street urchins destroy everything in their path. They don’t care who gets hurt: locals, families, their own community. Just mindless arsonists ruining innocent lives with no excuse.

John Healey a rare figure of integrity, loyalty and without ego. But there is limited means to raise much money quickly on any public service given mistaken pre-election tax pledges, low growth and costly borrowing. Other services also need investment at least as much as defence