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September is scheduled to be a busy month.
We will find out on 5th September who our next Prime Minister will be. I predicted back in November that Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss would be the final 2 from a full field and that Liz Truss would romp home and be confirmed as Boris’s successor. I also predict that over the next few months we will see a seismic change in Liz Truss in the same way as Magaret Thatcher metamorphosed into The Iron Lady.
There is significant work to be done and major issues to be addressed immediately not least the cost of living crisis with many being forced to chose between heating or eating.
5th September will also see the Criminal Barristers go on indefitinte strike over Legal Aid pay. As I pointed out, whilst 1% of Barristers earn over £1m 12% earn less than £30,000 and many in their first 3 years earn under £12,500 after expenses. Crime does not pay. Several are leaving the profession as they will earn more as a barista in a coffee shop than a Barrister in Court
September will see several new laws being progressed
Data Protection and Digital Information Bill
There will be new data laws to boost British business, protect consumers and seize the benefits of Brexit.
The Bill is intended to update and simplify the UK’s data protection framework. The governance structure and powers of the Information Commissioner’s Office (the regulator) would be reformed and transferred to a new body, the Information Commission.
The Bill would also:
- establish a framework for the provision of digital verification services to enable digital identities to be used with the same confidence as paper documents.
- increase fines for nuisance calls and texts under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).
- update the PECR rules to cut down on ‘user consent’ pop-ups and banners.
- allow for the sharing of customer data, through smart data schemes, to provide services such as personalised market comparisons and account management.
- reform the way births and deaths are registered in England and Wales, enabling the move from a paper-based system to registration in an electronic register.
- facilitate the flow and use of personal data for law enforcement and national security purposes.
- create a clearer legal basis for political parties and elected representatives to process personal data
HELP AT HAND
In the year to February 2022:
- the number of people receiving the State Pension rose by 1.1% to 12.5 million
- Employment and Support Allowance fell by 6.6% to 1.7 million claimants
- Income Support fell to 190,000 claimants
- Jobseeker’s Allowance fell by 59% to 110,000 claimants
In the year to May 2022:
- Housing Benefit fell to 2.6 million claimants
Universal Credit has been replacing some older-style Working Age benefits. The latest Universal Credit Official statistics show:
- there were 5.6 million Universal Credit claimants at June 2022
People can claim more than one DWP benefit at a time. Experimental Benefit Combination statistics show:
- 22 million people claimed some combination of DWP benefits in February 2022 (of the benefits included in these statistics), of whom 30% claimed more than one benefit.
Those figures are set to change dramatically.
With more and more people plunged into poverty it is essential that steps are taken to assist – especially the most vulnerable.
I have mentioned previously regarding some additional measures including laws to make school uniforms cheaper.
Other steps are also being taken including with new legislation.
BEREAVEMENT SUPPORT
To date the Bereavement Support Payment programme has only been available to the married. From September this is being extended to allow unmarried, cohabiting couples with children to make a claim for financial support.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said in November 2021:
“This legislative change is in progress to enable more families to access support during the most difficult of times and will face full parliamentary scrutiny. Once approved by Parliament, payments could be backdated to 30 August 2018.”
Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill
The Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill seeks to enable people in the final year of their life to get fast-tracked access to Disability Living Allowance (DLA), Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Attendance Allowance (AA). It will also amend the definition of end of life in existing legislation, which is based on the claimant having six months or less to live, by replacing it with a new twelve-month definition.
Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill
This Bill has now been sent to a Public Bill Committee which is expected to report to the House by Tuesday 20 September 2022.
This Bill makes provision for the setting of levelling-up missions and reporting on progress in delivering them; about local democracy; about town and country planning; about Community Infrastructure Levy; about the imposition of Infrastructure Levy; about environmental outcome reports for certain consents and plans; about regeneration; about the compulsory purchase of land; about information and records relating to land, the environment or heritage; for the provision for pavement licences to be permanent; about governance of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors; about vagrancy and begging; and for connected purposes.
National Secrurity Bill
This Bill has now been sent to a Public Bill Committee which is expected to report to the House by Tuesday 13 September 2022.
The BIll makes provision about threats to national security from espionage, sabotage and persons acting for foreign powers; about the extra-territorial application of Part 2 of the Serious Crime Act 2007; about the award of damages in proceedings relating to national security and the payment of damages at risk of being used for the purposes of terrorism; about the availability of legal aid to persons connected with terrorism; and for connected purposes.
Mariah Carey – All I want For Christmas Is To Be Queen
The fight for the Queen of Christmas’ throne rages on.
Mariah Carey is a record breaking songwriter, actress, record producer
and singer with a five octave vocal range. Mariah Carey’s 1994 album,
Merry Christmas, is one of the best-selling Christmas albums of all
time. The album includes the hit All I Want for Christmas is You,
which reached number 1 in the UK charts for the first time in
2020,having spent a record 69 weeks in the top 40. By 2017 the song
had reportedly earned Mariah Carey more than $60m (£48m) in royalties
and has been streamed over one billion times on Spotify.
Mariah has been dubbed “Songbird Supreme” by Guinness World Records
and has no fewer than 3 world records for All I Want for Christmas Is
You ie highest-charting holiday (Christmas/New Year) song on the U.S.
Hot 100 chart by a solo artist, most-streamed track on Spotify in 24
hours (female) and most weeks in the U.K. singles top 10 chart for a
Christmas song.
Mariah’s quest for a trade mark for the words ‘Queen of Christmas’
has, however, been challenged.
An objection has been filed by 42 year old Elizabeth Chan who
exclusively writes and performs Christmas music. The New York based
artist has released a Christmas album every year since 2011.
The season is her reason for making music!
Elizabeth Chan points out that “Christmas is for everyone. It’s meant
to be shared; it’s not meant to be owned.”
Elizabeth Chan is not the only contender for the throne.
Darlene Love, 81, claims that she was the Queen of Christmas even before Mariah Carey was born.
Darlene Love recorded the song Christmas (Baby
Please Come Home) in 1963, 7 years before Mariah Carey entered the world
in Long Island New York on 27th March 1970. The song was written by
Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry and Phil Spector and featured in the 1963
seasonal compilation album A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector.
Darlene Love claims “David Letterman officially declared me the Queen
of Christmas 29 years ago” a year before Mariah released All I want
For Christmas Is You.
She added: “At 81 years of age I’m not changing anything. I’ve been in
the business for 52 years, have earned it and can still hit those
notes!”
Darlene went on to point out that if Mariah Carey had a problem she
should “call David or my lawyer”.
Where there’s a hit there’s a writ
That is not the end of Mariah’s Intectual Property problems.
Mariah is also being sued for
copyright infringement by songwriter Andy Stone who claims he co-wrote
a song with the same name All I want For Christmas Is You five years
before Mariah and that Mariah exploited his “popularity” and “style”.
Andy Stone who performs as Vince Vance with the band Vince Vance and
the Valiants, is claiming at least $20m (£16m) in damages.
The claim is that Ms Carey, as well as her co-writer Walter Afanasieff
and record label Sony Music Entertainment, “knowingly, wilfully, and
intentionally engaged in a campaign” to infringe copyright and Mariah
has earned “undeserved profits” from the song.
The United States Copyright Office lists 177 entries on its website
under the title All I Want for Christmas is You.
TINDER – RIGHT SWIPING WRONGS! THE LAW OF ATTRACTION
Tinder, the “world’s most popular dating app” will celebrate its 10th
anniversary on 12th September.
Several singles who are ready to mingle have used the app in the hope
of finding love.
Whilst there may be plenty of fish in the sea beware as some of them
are catfish!
A catfish is a predatory fish that scuttles along the bottom of the
ocean feeding on smaller or more vulnerable fish.
The word has been used to describe people who create fake IDs online
and reel in their victims by deceiving and manipulating them. Catfish
fool their victims into thinking they are in a relationship and then
prey on their victims’ vulnerabilities to create emotional dependency
in order to extract something such as money or emotional pain from
them.
A 2021 survey of more than 2,000 UK adults for BetMinded revealed that
20% of respondents had been catfished, with 38% of 25-34 year-olds
admitting they had fallen for a fake profile.
Sweet Bobby, the podcast series, revealed how a London woman in her
30s was conned into a 10 year online relationship with someone
pretending to be her boyfriend and the brilliant Netflix show The
Tinder Swindler documented how various women were scammed out of
hundreds of thousands of dollars via the dating app.
Those real-life catfishing documentaries have sparked fresh debate
about internet safety laws with many calling for online deception to
become a specific criminal offence.
At present catfishing is not an offence in its own right. A
Parliamentary review of social media and the law by the Lords
Communications Committee in 2014 concluded that sufficient laws were
in place to prosecute criminal offences committed over social media.
Those include laws against fraud, harassment and malicious
communication.
Planned changes to the Online Safety Bill will also oblige social
media sites and search engines “to stamp out fraudsters and scammers
on their platforms”, said the government.
Under the proposals search engines and platforms which host
user-generated content, video-sharing or live streaming will have a
duty of care to protect users of their services from fraud committed
by other users this should include ‘catfishing’ romance scams.
As always, let me know what you think….
ANDREW EBORN – RIGHTING WRONGS
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