[davidjay]

Corruption is a hiding for nothing for the Tories. If they want to make an issue of a Labour MP who's been 'at it' to go for a score draw (not dotting their 'i's and crossing their't's on expenses will be enough for tabloid fury) then Starmer will remove the whip. There are plenty of straight people in the Tory Party but the one's who are bent as nine bob note will almost certainly be Boris backers.

Sir Keir mentions that he oversaw the prosecutions for the 2009 expenses cases. He's good and confident on this territory. Combine this stuff (in time) with "so where's the £350m a week?" and he's got a winning hand.

Yeahbut Savile.

[zuriblue]

Corruption is a hiding for nothing for the Tories. If they want to make an issue of a Labour MP who's been 'at it' to go for a score draw (not dotting their 'i's and crossing their't's on expenses will be enough for tabloid fury) then Starmer will remove the whip. There are plenty of straight people in the Tory Party but the one's who are bent as nine bob note will almost certainly be Boris backers.

Sir Keir mentions that he oversaw the prosecutions for the 2009 expenses cases. He's good and confident on this territory. Combine this stuff (in time) with "so where's the £350m a week?" and he's got a winning hand.

Yeahbut Savile.

[Boiler]

Sir Keir mentions that he oversaw the prosecutions for the 2009 expenses cases. He's good and confident on this territory. Combine this stuff (in time) with "so where's the £350m a week?" and he's got a winning hand.

Yeahbut Savile.

"Yebbut we didn't know he was a nonce then!"

[Youngian]

Robinson didn’t read Nadine’s memo. Why is poor old Sergeant Kwarteng always sent out first to be shot at? he rhetorically asked.

Nick Robinson: Can you think of a single thing the PM has done to uphold standards of probity and integrity in public life?

Kwasi Kwarteng: we delivered Brexit

[Youngian]

No one’s more careful with words than ‘me learned friend Starmer’ but its now beyond reasonable doubt the Tories are a party of crooks and sex predators. Unsurprising, as fish rots from the head, Keir notes. Disappointed Keir hasn’t acted like a US state prosecutor sticking the boot while running for Governor. So more of this please.

That the Tories are yet again wallowing in sleaze comes as no surprise. From the pathetic attempts to defend Dominic Cummings when he breached lockdown to David Cameron’s rebirth as a Cameron’s rebirth as a super-lobbyist, this government has always chosen to lay down with the dogs. The blase manner in which it acts, the Trump-like attempts to fix the system to its own benefit, the complicity of those who justify and enable it, shows that it is now, inevitably, covered in fleas.

I am sick of people skirting around calling this out for what it is: corruption. Paterson was receiving money from a private company to ask questions on its behalf. Roberts was found to have made repeated and unwanted sexual advances toward a young staffer. Both of them should be gone – neither are fit to serve as MPs. Their continued presence in the Tory party is scandalous. It will further undermine public faith in politics at a time when we should be trying to restore decency and honesty.

But the rot starts at the top. We have a prime minister whose name is synonymous with sleaze, dodgy deals and hypocrisy. This is the man who allows his ministers to breach with impunity the codes that govern public life; who thinks it should be one rule for him and his chums, another for everyone else. With his every action he signals to his MPs: do what you like. There are no consequences.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... SApp_Other

[Tubby Isaacs]

Johnson on Owen Paterson. Even worse than you expect. He has to get Brexit in to rally the troops.

I am very sad that parliament will lose the services of Owen Paterson who has been a friend and colleague of mine for decades.

He has had a distinguished career, serving in two cabinet positions, and above all he has been a voice for freedom - for free markets and free trade and free societies - and he was an early and powerful champion of Brexit.

I know that this must have been a very difficult decision but I can understand why - after the tragic circumstances in which he lost his beloved wife Rose - he has decided to put his family first.

[Youngian]

Paterson is the first person I can recall for over 40 years to use the phrase ‘Southern Ireland.’ Thanks to free market champions like him, Ireland now calls Britain a navigational obstacle.

[mattomac]

Johnson on Owen Paterson. Even worse than you expect. He has to get Brexit in to rally the troops.

I am very sad that parliament will lose the services of Owen Paterson who has been a friend and colleague of mine for decades.

He has had a distinguished career, serving in two cabinet positions, and above all he has been a voice for freedom - for free markets and free trade and free societies - and he was an early and powerful champion of Brexit.

I know that this must have been a very difficult decision but I can understand why - after the tragic circumstances in which he lost his beloved wife Rose - he has decided to put his family first.

He is also a symbol of sleaze and corruption….

[Tubby Isaacs]

"But as a long time friend of Owen's I told him he should resign to take the heat off me".

[Tubby Isaacs]

Paterson is the first person I can recall for over 40 years to use the phrase ‘Southern Ireland.’ Thanks to free market champions like him, Ireland now calls Britain a navigational obstacle.

He was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and before that, shadow. Incredible. Cuddly old Cameron.

You might enjoy this. Owen on how Remain is the real dicey option.

https://www.owenpaterson.org/news/future-europe

Here's a flavour.

Mentioning the United States brings me to President Obama.

You will have noticed that he is, how shall I put it, sceptical of a UK US trade deal. The President, with just months left in the White House but plenty of golf to play, is of course in no position to negotiate a trade deal with the United Kingdom whatever happens.

I was in Washington this time last year talking to his political opponents and they are enthusiastic for a UK US deal. They agreed that the US would never give up its rights to do trade deals with other countries, and were amazed that the UK already had.

Did they tell you what would be in the deal? If so, I bet you didn't tell the farmers in your constituency.

[Cyclist]

I find it telling that the woman he said he was "happily married to for 40 years" chose his birthday as the day to kill herself. What had he put her through to make her try to hurt him like that? A loving wife in a happy marriage doesn't do things like that. A downtrodden victim of years of abuse might well do.


(Speaking from personal experience here)

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha ha.

3b) Exit – continuity in trade

We can leave the political arrangements of the Union and still enjoy access to the market, trading freely with our European neighbours as we have been doing for millennia, an openness that has always been the key to our success.

Not only does the EU have a surplus with the UK of nearly £70 billion, but over 5 million EU jobs depend on sales to the UK.18 In many sectors of activity we are closely integrated. As an example, we make 1.5 million cars and 2.4 million engines.19 These engines form a crucial part of the European supply chain. Our neighbours and ourselves have a selfish and strategic interest, in reaching a mutually beneficial agreement ensuring trade continues to flow smoothly.

The realpolitik is that European politicians will be under pressure from their own electorates to ensure a smooth transfer.

It is in everyone’s interest that this process is successful.

How did that go?

Irregular verb-

We have brilliant entrepreneurs who will adapt.
They have useless ones who can't even imagine sourcing products from elsewhere.

[Crabcakes]

I find it telling that the woman he said he was "happily married to for 40 years" chose his birthday as the day to kill herself. What had he put her through to make her try to hurt him like that? A loving wife in a happy marriage doesn't do things like that. A downtrodden victim of years of abuse might well do.


(Speaking from personal experience here)

Turns out her brother is Matt “want some cheap Northern Rock shares?” Ridley. It might be the pressure of yet more very obvious financial horse shittery - and you would assume conversations about her support - coming to light played into it.

[Andy McDandy]

Along with Hancock's horse chums and Dido Harding, not to mention Woodrow Wyatt and his obsession with running the Tote (when it was nationalised). Seems the betting/racing 'industry' is just one massive back channel for the Tories.

[Cyclist]

JOHNSON – NOT A JOKE, NOR A JOKER, DEFINITELY NOT TRIVIAL. BUT A SADO-POPULIST THREAT TO LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
Posted by Alastair Campbell | Oct 27, 2021 | Articles |


As promised, a text of the speech I made in Hamburg last night, at a conference of German business leaders, scientists and thinkers, based around the theme of ‘the next ten years.’

https://alastaircampbell.org/2021/10/jo ... democracy/

A lengthy piece by someone who knows what he's talking about.


As a teaser, here's the final paragraph:

I am sorry if my speech is on the depressing end of the scale, and that it is stronger on analysis than on answers. But I think unless we face up to the scale of the problem, we will not even begin to work out the solutions. This next decade must be the one in which we find them, in which the battle for democracy and truth is recognised as being such, and fought with the same determination that the sado-populists have shown, in storming so many citadels of power. Complacency is their friend, and they exploit it well. If we don’t wake up pretty soon, then, to use a famous English phrase, we are going to hell in a handcart and I don’t want to go anywhere in a cart driven by Johnson, Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro – let alone to hell! So let’s all of us work out what we can do, how we can join with others to do it, and do it.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Also worth a moment of your time, Simon Jenkins in The Guardian:



https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -courtiers

[Bones McCoy]

Alistair Campbell, playing Ode to Joy on German bagpipes.

That's peak urban liberal elite.

[Youngian]

Also worth a moment of your time, Simon Jenkins in The Guardian:



https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... -courtiers

Didn’t read it all but just a relief to see people catching up. Its been a long time.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Jenkins has been there a long time!

[Abernathy]

Excellent analysis from Alastair, though - who so often has exceptionally perceptive insights into where we are and what we might do to get ourselves out of it.

I thought this para was particularly telling :

‘If in the long run,’ said Snyder, ‘you govern by making people hurt, and who don’t mind because others feel worse, what you intend to do is take the vote away from people who expect more, the people who need government. You move slowly away from democracy. And if where we end up is the sense that “government can’t do anything,” you have more inequality, less social mobility, more hopelessness.’