Intended for internal security and garrison duties, the 13th's strength contained many men categorised as old or of a medically downgraded condition with the result that few men were well trained.
There was also pressure for a review of MPs' pensions – by some distance the most generous in the entire public sector — to be fast-tracked, to see off accusations that parliament would enforce downgraded pension conditions on government employees while enjoying "gold-plated" deals of their own.
Days before his death, his condition was downgraded from serious condition to critical but stable condition.
Ray Weaving, 75, charitably downgraded the condition ever so slightly.
With respect to the definition of "cancer," downgrading some conditions as no longer being "cancer" can and will used to justify reducing "unnecessary" screening tests (e.g., mammograms for women between ages 40-49).
Standard & Poor's said that the pristine rating of Britain's sovereign debt might be downgraded if economic conditions deteriorated further and the British debt load continued to grow.
At the centre of the dispute between unions and Southern is the move to driver-only operation of trains, which unions say is a safety issue, as well as potentially seeing many rail jobs lost or conditions downgraded in the future.
As residents of the Carolinas hunkered down for the night, the National Hurricane Center continued to warn of life-threatening storm surge and hurricane conditions, but downgraded the storm to a Category 1 hurricane as top winds lessened to 90 mph.
John Baker and Terry Neale, who served with the air safety regulator for a total of 40 years, told an employment tribunal that CAA managers changed their working conditions and downgraded their performance ratings after they expressed concerns to the board about dwindling numbers of qualified staff.
Vado Diomande, the New York City musician and drummer who contracted inhalation anthrax last month from making drums with untreated animal skins, was upgraded from serious to fair condition yesterday, the first change since Feb. 24, when his condition was downgraded from stable to serious.
