ordinary jo
@joord.myatproto.social
665 followers 2.8K following 1.6K posts
Bored of these interesting times. Punch fascists. Join a union. If you don't know, keep it neutral (she/they).
Bored of these interesting times. Punch fascists. Join a union. If you don't know, keep it neutral (she/they).
![Screenshot of most of the Wiki page, which reads as follows:
History
HMRC introduced Connect in the summer of 2010; it was not fully functioning. Around 350 HMRC employees are involved with Connect, who work with an analytical compliance environment.[1] Connect was developed by BAE Systems Applied Intelligence (former Detica in Surrey) for £45m.[2][3]
From September 2016, Connect has interfaced with financial information from British Overseas Territories; these have been known tax havens. From 2017 Connect has interfaced with around sixty other OECD countries.
Sources of information
Connect cross-references information from many other UK government databases, including:
Adverts on the internet e.g. Rightmove and Zoopla
Bank accounts and pensions
Council tax
Credit and debit card transactions, going back four years
Companies House
DVLA
DWP (former Benefits Agency)
eBay and other internet marketplaces
The electoral roll
Gas Safe Register
Insurance companies
Land Registry - for capital gains tax
HMRC also independently looks at Google Earth.
Technology
The system deploys the chi-squared test and Benford's law to look for anomalous tax receipts. The system is operated by the Risk and Intelligence Service (RIS) division of HMRC. The software combines analytic tools (Enterprise Guide) from SAS Institute, which collects the information, and NetReveal from BAE Systems AI, which collates it into meaningful information.
It deploys predictive analytics similar to credit scoring, and has dynamic benchmarking. It looks for correlation of income with lifestyle, by comparing with multivariate statistical models; outliers from expected variance will be investigated.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:evtv6pco4glw5mu2omqxboig/bafkreiguwwd2uaev6lwfg6telk63akpy6diegp3p3q73uiwebfqu6jgfmi)
![Screenshot of the linked wikipedia page:
The Hands Across the Aisle Coalition (HATAC) is an organization founded in 2017 and operating primarily in the United States, known for its opposition to transgender rights. The organization aims to connect anti-trans radical feminists with conservative Christian anti-LGBT groups, ostensibly "tabling [their] ideological differences" to "oppose gender identity ideology". The organization actively supports anti-LGBT groups in legislation targeting transgender rights.[1][2][3][4]
Since 2019, HATAC has worked with the Heritage Foundation to hold panel discussion events featuring Republican Party strategists, Christian evangelical advocates, and leaders of anti-trans feminist organizations such as the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF).[5]
British anti-transgender activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull is a member of the organization.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:evtv6pco4glw5mu2omqxboig/bafkreidtinffd4lmrb2k35smkjsxc3pwy5f3q6a2vjmbpotmemcng7bvj4)
![In a conversation about Hamas with other students on the group that has been seen by the BBC, Elrayess said: "Any resistance group will inevitably be deemed a 'terrorist' organisation by the West until they achieve their liberation (by which time, they'll be lauded as heroes, as history has repeatedly proven)."
In a later message, she said: "I think the severity of resistance is often proportional to the severity of oppression.
"This is not to justify anything, but just to point out that it's quite rich to allow for decades of systematic oppression and massacres, only to act shocked when the resistance movement responds with proportional severity."
After being criticised in the group for this comment, she said: "In fact, some would argue it's less than proportional."
She then added: "Proportional does not mean 'right' by the way, just that [you] can't be shocked that it happened."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:evtv6pco4glw5mu2omqxboig/bafkreidazet32xqn5vbltukxhp2idrxobmjt6r3zrw57xnlubuv7cxeuwq)
![[Berr's] purpose, I suggested, was to bypass the House of Commons on behalf of capital. It allowed Gordon Brown’s government to create the impression that it was defending the public interest while simultaneously, but more quietly, appeasing powerful lobbyists. In contrast to other government departments, Berr was largely run by unelected lords, who had either been corporate executives, corporate lobbyists or, like Mandelson, members of a concierge class operating on their behalf. I wrote that these ministers, appointed by Brown, “appear to have formed their own lobby group within government”.
Berr sought to part-privatise Royal Mail, breaking a manifesto commitment. It succeeded. It tried to block the EU working time directive: UK government filibusters delayed and weakened it. It attempted, less successfully, to undermine the equality bill, whose aim was to ensure equal pay for women (Mandelson’s simultaneous dealings with Epstein were not the only respect in which he showed disdain for women’s rights). It undermined environmental legislation. It was “quietly building a bonfire of the measures that protect us from predatory corporate behaviour”.
So when Brown, who was prime minister at the time, expresses his shock and betrayal, please forgive me a small gasp of frustration. In his interview on the BBC’s Today programme, Brown claimed that in 2009: “We were solving a major financial crisis … all my thoughts were on how we could save people’s jobs and savings and their livelihoods.” But not only did he allow Mandelson to attack the public interest on behalf of business, he greatly increased Berr’s budget. This was despite the fact that, as I noted at the time, Mandelson “was partly responsible, both in Blair’s government and as European trade commissioner, for promoting the culture of deregulation that catalysed the economic crisis”. On one hand, Brown was trying to solve it. On the other, at the behest of corporate lobbyists, he was setting up the next one.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:evtv6pco4glw5mu2omqxboig/bafkreicqtwrw4ljfyv4lfpbenfrbbucxbs4thr3zocw7wf4enwi2e2ntdu)
