Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Sat Feb 08, 2025 9:17 pm Andrew Gwynne has been fired, for making highly inappropriate comments in a What'sApp group.

Story:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... MP=bsky_gu

Found out and duly dealt with immediately. Another example of grown-up government.

I had thought better of him, mind.

Interesting and very indignant reaction from Declain Gaffney to Tony Yates here. Yates is often good, but has got a bit "everyone's useless".

I think Liz Kendall and (certainly) Alison McGovern have some good long term ideas. Apparently £1.1bn cuts are scheduled, which is shit. I thought that was going to be £3.1bn per Tory plans, but that's cold comfort. Hope that Reeves makes sure they have the budget to fix it

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2025 10:53 am I had thought better of him, mind.

Same.

Given that the MoS describes themselves as having seen thousands of messages, and the group as containing Labour councillors, party officials and one other MP, I don't think that we've heard the last of it.

The best I've heard is that "Starmer only sacked him because he got caught." Unlike all those prisoners who were locked up before they were arrested.

Samanfur wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2025 1:29 pm

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Sun Feb 09, 2025 10:53 am I had thought better of him, mind.

Same.

Given that the MoS describes themselves as having seen thousands of messages, and the group as containing Labour councillors, party officials and one other MP, I don't think that we've heard the last of it.

I'll reckon they'll leak it all out over the next few days to cause maximum damaage.

You would think that people would have learned the lesson that WhatsApp groups really are not secure. Particularly when your party is in government. Posting something like the things Gwynne said is bonkers, and he really deserves the consequences that have rightly come his way.. If you’ve been a longtime Labour Party hack/campaigner, you’ll know that every now and again someone will say something that’s a little dodgy - but you never do so in any print medium.

I’ll give you an actual example. Out on the doorsteps during one closely fought local election campaign we spoke to a Labour voter with a terminal cancer diagnosis who told us that he was determined to live long enough to cast his vote for Labour. After we had left him, one of us remarked, only half-joking, that if he (our voter) didn’t make it, he’d consider going along to the polling station to cast his vote for him (this was obviously before the Tories brought in a requirement to produce photographic id in order to be allowed to vote).

A couple of us thought this in questionable taste, but we understood the sentiment behind it. But the point is something like that is not anything you’d ever commit to print, anywhere. You’d think Andrew Gwynne would be wise to it.

Too many people still think that anything written online is in some secret code that can only be read by those they want to read it.

As I was saying:

Burnley MP Oliver Ryan investigated by Labour over ‘unacceptable’ WhatsApp comments

The Burnley MP Oliver Ryan is being investigated by the Labour party over “unacceptable and deeply disappointing” comments in a WhatsApp group.

Ryan said he was a member of the WhatsApp chat that MP Andrew Gwynne was sacked as a minister over and apologised for some of his own comments “which I deeply regret and would not make today”.

I suspect he's come forward before he was outed.

Disappointed to read that Gwynne started the group in the first place.

Oof ….

I see you, Andrew Gwynne.
Ding ding ding! Eight months in and the third time’s a charm. Another minister gone as a result of their own tone-deaf idiocy. This one really is a slam dunk, particularly for anyone playing along with their ‘British MP Disgracing Themselves’ bingo card at home. Those dabbers are hovering with anticipation the length and breadth of the country.
What’ll it be this time? Corruption scandal? Awkward OnlyFans subscriptions left open on a work laptop? Surely not WhatsApp messages leaked to the Daily Mail… again? Who would be fucking stupid enough to put themselves in that position after the last few years?
Turns out you would, thus becoming the latest crass idiot among Labour’s inner circle of nasty little bullies to expose himself as infinitely more stupid than Diane Abbott in the process. Say what you like about that woman (and apparently you still all do behind her back) but you’d think it would have dawned on at least some of the chuntering schoolboys by now that she seems to outlast every single one of you.
I can practically hear the slap of a manila folder hitting Starmer’s desk from here. One peek at it and you’re out on your arse faster than a Corbynite daring to suggest that children probably don’t deserve to live in poverty. Before we even get into the content here, you’re going to have to give me a second to cringe with second-hand embarrassment.
Because embarrassing is exactly what it is. Trigger Me Timbers? What are you, twelve? That’s not a chat group our supposedly grown-up and responsible new government should be anywhere near. It’s the title of a godawful Netflix comedy special from any one of a hundred tedious twats with tape over their mouths in the promotional poster. I don’t know what I expected from you as a health minister, but I know it wasn’t a shite Roseanne Barr tribute act.
Just how stupid do you have to be, to be so incapable of registering the discomfort of others? To be completely oblivious to the awkward lack of reaction from at least one participant in a chat group while you and your giggling buddies gleefully tap away your total contempt for your colleagues? Contempt not only them, but also for the people you were elected to represent? It’s like commenting on the intern’s tits when you’re stood by the one water cooler within earshot of the HR desk.
Clearly somebody in that group disliked you enough to take it all to the press, and that same person didn’t trust the party leadership to deal with it firmly enough without the fire of some embarrassing coverage lit beneath them. That’s a damning indictment of just how dismal Labour’s complaints process continues to be. Clearly the party still has a real problem with infantile and sexist bullying, almost as if the Forde Report had a point.
The irony, that the only trigger pulled as a result of this pathetic debacle is the one that so promptly fired you. Not that you gave Starmer much of a choice; wishing death on pensioners, casual sexism against your colleagues and a smattering of absolutely needless antisemitism? Why minister, with all these rightwing talking points you’re truly spoiling us.
If there’s a Guinness world record going for the fastest time taken to find the Daily Mail’s clitoris by a sitting politician, then I’d say congratulations are in order. Unfortunately there isn’t, so instead I’ll say this - you’re a complete moron, and it’s hard to understate just how damaging and grotesquely offensive all of this is to those pensioners currently turning away from Labour in their droves.
I see you, Andrew Gwynne. I fucking see you

Abernathy wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 8:12 am Oof ….

I see you, Andrew Gwynne.
Ding ding ding! Eight months in and the third time’s a charm. Another minister gone as a result of their own tone-deaf idiocy. This one really is a slam dunk, particularly for anyone playing along with their ‘British MP Disgracing Themselves’ bingo card at home. Those dabbers are hovering with anticipation the length and breadth of the country.
What’ll it be this time? Corruption scandal? Awkward OnlyFans subscriptions left open on a work laptop? Surely not WhatsApp messages leaked to the Daily Mail… again? Who would be fucking stupid enough to put themselves in that position after the last few years?
Turns out you would, thus becoming the latest crass idiot among Labour’s inner circle of nasty little bullies to expose himself as infinitely more stupid than Diane Abbott in the process. Say what you like about that woman (and apparently you still all do behind her back) but you’d think it would have dawned on at least some of the chuntering schoolboys by now that she seems to outlast every single one of you.
I can practically hear the slap of a manila folder hitting Starmer’s desk from here. One peek at it and you’re out on your arse faster than a Corbynite daring to suggest that children probably don’t deserve to live in poverty. Before we even get into the content here, you’re going to have to give me a second to cringe with second-hand embarrassment.
Because embarrassing is exactly what it is. Trigger Me Timbers? What are you, twelve? That’s not a chat group our supposedly grown-up and responsible new government should be anywhere near. It’s the title of a godawful Netflix comedy special from any one of a hundred tedious twats with tape over their mouths in the promotional poster. I don’t know what I expected from you as a health minister, but I know it wasn’t a shite Roseanne Barr tribute act.
Just how stupid do you have to be, to be so incapable of registering the discomfort of others? To be completely oblivious to the awkward lack of reaction from at least one participant in a chat group while you and your giggling buddies gleefully tap away your total contempt for your colleagues? Contempt not only them, but also for the people you were elected to represent? It’s like commenting on the intern’s tits when you’re stood by the one water cooler within earshot of the HR desk.
Clearly somebody in that group disliked you enough to take it all to the press, and that same person didn’t trust the party leadership to deal with it firmly enough without the fire of some embarrassing coverage lit beneath them. That’s a damning indictment of just how dismal Labour’s complaints process continues to be. Clearly the party still has a real problem with infantile and sexist bullying, almost as if the Forde Report had a point.
The irony, that the only trigger pulled as a result of this pathetic debacle is the one that so promptly fired you. Not that you gave Starmer much of a choice; wishing death on pensioners, casual sexism against your colleagues and a smattering of absolutely needless antisemitism? Why minister, with all these rightwing talking points you’re truly spoiling us.
If there’s a Guinness world record going for the fastest time taken to find the Daily Mail’s clitoris by a sitting politician, then I’d say congratulations are in order. Unfortunately there isn’t, so instead I’ll say this - you’re a complete moron, and it’s hard to understate just how damaging and grotesquely offensive all of this is to those pensioners currently turning away from Labour in their droves.
I see you, Andrew Gwynne. I fucking see you

This once again proves that Starmer has poor political judgement. He expects high standards from fellow MPs, only to routinely fail them himself. The way Labour selects candidates will now be under greater scrutiny.

Meanwhile the cost of living continues to infect the length and breadth of Britain. One wonders why many people want real fascism as opposed to Labour's fake fascism. The far right are on the march because Labour are failing to deliver transformative change to the country. They not only have a combs problem, but crucially a policy problem.

What they are doing will certainly bring a full-fat Reform government that much closer, and when that happens, it will be Starmer's fault...HIS alone.

He's back.

NevTheSweeper wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 8:47 am

Abernathy wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 8:12 am Oof ….

I see you, Andrew Gwynne.
Ding ding ding! Eight months in and the third time’s a charm. Another minister gone as a result of their own tone-deaf idiocy. This one really is a slam dunk, particularly for anyone playing along with their ‘British MP Disgracing Themselves’ bingo card at home. Those dabbers are hovering with anticipation the length and breadth of the country.
What’ll it be this time? Corruption scandal? Awkward OnlyFans subscriptions left open on a work laptop? Surely not WhatsApp messages leaked to the Daily Mail… again? Who would be fucking stupid enough to put themselves in that position after the last few years?
Turns out you would, thus becoming the latest crass idiot among Labour’s inner circle of nasty little bullies to expose himself as infinitely more stupid than Diane Abbott in the process. Say what you like about that woman (and apparently you still all do behind her back) but you’d think it would have dawned on at least some of the chuntering schoolboys by now that she seems to outlast every single one of you.
I can practically hear the slap of a manila folder hitting Starmer’s desk from here. One peek at it and you’re out on your arse faster than a Corbynite daring to suggest that children probably don’t deserve to live in poverty. Before we even get into the content here, you’re going to have to give me a second to cringe with second-hand embarrassment.
Because embarrassing is exactly what it is. Trigger Me Timbers? What are you, twelve? That’s not a chat group our supposedly grown-up and responsible new government should be anywhere near. It’s the title of a godawful Netflix comedy special from any one of a hundred tedious twats with tape over their mouths in the promotional poster. I don’t know what I expected from you as a health minister, but I know it wasn’t a shite Roseanne Barr tribute act.
Just how stupid do you have to be, to be so incapable of registering the discomfort of others? To be completely oblivious to the awkward lack of reaction from at least one participant in a chat group while you and your giggling buddies gleefully tap away your total contempt for your colleagues? Contempt not only them, but also for the people you were elected to represent? It’s like commenting on the intern’s tits when you’re stood by the one water cooler within earshot of the HR desk.
Clearly somebody in that group disliked you enough to take it all to the press, and that same person didn’t trust the party leadership to deal with it firmly enough without the fire of some embarrassing coverage lit beneath them. That’s a damning indictment of just how dismal Labour’s complaints process continues to be. Clearly the party still has a real problem with infantile and sexist bullying, almost as if the Forde Report had a point.
The irony, that the only trigger pulled as a result of this pathetic debacle is the one that so promptly fired you. Not that you gave Starmer much of a choice; wishing death on pensioners, casual sexism against your colleagues and a smattering of absolutely needless antisemitism? Why minister, with all these rightwing talking points you’re truly spoiling us.
If there’s a Guinness world record going for the fastest time taken to find the Daily Mail’s clitoris by a sitting politician, then I’d say congratulations are in order. Unfortunately there isn’t, so instead I’ll say this - you’re a complete moron, and it’s hard to understate just how damaging and grotesquely offensive all of this is to those pensioners currently turning away from Labour in their droves.
I see you, Andrew Gwynne. I fucking see you

This once again proves that Starmer has poor political judgement. He expects high standards from fellow MPs, only to routinely fail them himself. The way Labour selects candidates will now be under greater scrutiny.

Meanwhile the cost of living continues to infect the length and breadth of Britain. One wonders why many people want real fascism as opposed to Labour's fake fascism. The far right are on the march because Labour are failing to deliver transformative change to the country. They not only have a combs problem, but crucially a policy problem.

What they are doing will certainly bring a full-fat Reform government that much closer, and when that happens, it will be Starmer's fault...HIS alone.

Ok Trigger.

Yeah that’s what the communists said in the Weimar Republic.

They blamed the moderates.

As for “I see you” it’s eurgh.

Labour has a combs problem, eh?

I told Keir he needed a new hairbrush.

Meanwhile the cost of living continues to infect the length and breadth of Britain. One wonders why many people want real fascism as opposed to Labour's fake fascism. The far right are on the march because Labour are failing to deliver transformative change to the country.

Do you drive a taxi or cut hair?

Oliver Ryan suspended.

How is Starmer - who is not responsible for selecting every MP - taking decisive, quick action indicative of poor judgement or hypocrisy on standards? It would only be hypocrisy if he fired them and was himself gobbing off on WhatsApp groups.

Also, there is always a cost of living. It doesn’t ‘infect’ anything one way or the other. And despite it being quite cold, funny how the complaints about winter fuel payments have all but gone away isn’t it? Almost as if the people who need it are still getting it.

Try not to let the lack of pensioners proven to have frozen to death upset you too much. I’m sure someone will be along shortly to post in the Telegraph about how they can’t afford a new reg Mercedes this spring because of those awful school fees, and will have to wait 6 months.

Crabcakes wrote: ↑Mon Feb 10, 2025 7:18 pm I’m sure someone will be along shortly to post in the Telegraph about how they can’t afford a new reg Mercedes this spring because of those awful school fees, and will have to wait 6 months.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/l ... h-a-21000/

Also what is this fake fascism that Starmer is practicing? Does the rentier's bill fall under this umbrella?