[Tubby Isaacs]

I think most countries had the same problem- get the Covid payments out the door to stop the economy collapsing- and will have had fraud problems. That isn't to say that the Treasury (or as he here means, Rishi Sunak) doesn't care about fraud. It's trying to get money back, but they've got to put an estimate in the accounts for what they won't get. I've seen no evidence that Sunak did anything but sign off the numbers the accountants put before him. On the other hand, this is what they'd do to us, so I'm not going out to bat for Sunak. Though, it is a bit surprising that a fellow Tory would go down this road.

It sounds like a reasonable sort of thing to be a public body, pulling together stuff from scams across the country and all levels of government. I don't think even Nick Clegg would have abolished this in his "cull of the quangos" phase. But I guess Jacob wants to tick off some civil servant job cuts.

[Andy McDandy]

The difference was that in the UK the desire to source PPE was matched by an urge to get rich quick.

The speed at which paper companies were set up, or "found" in the bottoms of drawers, the way reputable companies that actually manufactured PPE were locked out, suggests a very coordinated fleecing of public funds.

[Boiler]

Cunt was on "Any Questions?" tonight, if you can stomach it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The difference was that in the UK the desire to source PPE was matched by an urge to get rich quick.

The speed at which paper companies were set up, or "found" in the bottoms of drawers, the way reputable companies that actually manufactured PPE were locked out, suggests a very coordinated fleecing of public funds.

Fair point on PPE, though some of the "spent X on PPE that's no longer usable" is unfair- of course they bought lots of it. I was thinking of the furlough and business support.

[Youngian]

Pitchforks out in Dorset for the evil Baron Mogg

[Watchman]

Jacob Rees-Mogg to sell London offices as civil servants work from home
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... SApp_Other

Or the start of a fire sale to his mates, before the Tories are chucked out of office

[Yug]

Is this the same Jacob Rees-Mogg who was insisting civil servants *must* get back to the office?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Jacob Rees-Mogg to sell London offices as civil servants work from home
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... SApp_Other

Or the start of a fire sale to his mates, before the Tories are chucked out of office

That was the plan (partly enacted) c2000 when they wanted civil servants to do hybrid working to ease travel problems and reduce office space...

[Tubby Isaacs]

He's talking a brave game about jobs being moved out to regions.

"Hey, your job's moving out of London"
"Is it? Where?"
"Derby"
"I like Derby, but my kids are at a good school here, and my partner's just been promoted in their job. So, no thanks!"
"Um, how about if we let you work from home?"
"Yeah OK".

[Abernathy]

Jacob Rees-Mogg should never be allowed within a thousand miles of any sort of governmental job or function. That alone is one of the finest reasons not to vote Tory there has perhaps ever been.

[Andy McDandy]

Seen the clip of him getting roasted by Ed Miliband and some Lancashire tory over fracking? Serious "I've told you once..." public school teacher energy, and clear he (and the government) have no strategy beyond "piss off the libs".

[Abernathy]

Rees-Mogg is malign, avaricious, arrogant, self-entitled, and spectacularly, crashingly, inept at the actual craft of politics itself - nominally at least his bread and butter.

Today’s performance in the Commons crystallised all of this. The man is a disgraceful, absolutely worthless human being.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Takes after his old man...

[mattomac]

I’m a bit a loss on why the GMB want Fracking,I totally back them on nuclear as a solution but surely they don’t have any workforce in it and will know the scale is so small fry compared to Nuclear.

Disappointing to hear from my Union.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The argument that it'll lower domestic energy prices is bogus, but I suppose there could still be good union jobs in it. I guess this is why.

Rees Mogg has a problem with Tory backbenchers on fracking, I think. Lib Dems will be hovering.

[Andy McDandy]

Interesting anecdote by Ros Wynne-Jones in yesterday's Mirror. They were contemporaries at Oxford, and RWJ remembered trying to get period products provided for free in a student union committee, and who should turn up but Mogg, purposely to filibuster it out.

So, unsurprisingly a cunt back then.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That happened in my college, which was generally regarded as a fairly lefty-liberal one. Think it was a matter of voting down, rather than filibustering. I never attended a JCR meeting.

In other news.

[davidjay]

I see he's done his walk-through-a crowd-of-protestors stunt again today.

[Crabcakes]

His interview on the NewsAgents podcast was excruciatingly poor. Smug, lecturing and utterly transparent. All everyone else’s fault and the run on the pound was a result of global issues, no empathy with people’s financial woes, and attempting to pass it all off as practically nothing and a ‘rounding error’ and just the right policy at the wrong time.

He is absolutely the worst sort of Tory to put up for interview at the moment, yet they have to have him as there’s more or less no one else left.

[Andy McDandy]

At this stage under Major it would have been Jimmy Hanley or Iain Lang, both of whom may have been tin eared and stupid, but at least were affable and largely harmless.