[Tubby Isaacs]

Absolute performative nonsense.

I quite like that sort of stuff, hard to take too seriously. People stopping workmen from getting on (how hard is it to get anything built in this country?), I'm less keen on.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Town Councils used to like Plane trees, slow growing, quite easy to maintain and good at drawing pollution from the air (into their bark, which falls off - we use to collect it as kids). But all they are is street furniture, and can be easily replaced. Many are now ending their lives.

I really don't get the emotional entanglement with trees. Once, when teaching how modern France has more forests than medieval France (because Louis XIV couldn't get big enough oak beams and they replanted massively) a kid in my class started sobbing uncontrollably 'because cutting down trees is murder'. Under questioning he believed that trees should be allowed to die and fall down, and then be used for lumber. To be fair, he was 13, these people are adults.

To be fair my attitudes are formed in Normandy, where trees are considered a crop, to be used as timber or firewood, and raised as such. Similar in the USA I believe.

[Tubby Isaacs]

There’s cod environmentalism in this case. It’s an electric railway being built, Jeez. Object to the price/priority, sure, but spare me the ecocide talk.

The “look at this carnage” argument is also getting a good run in the shires, I understand, like all the access tracks are going to be left behind afterwards. Kent must be full of these “scars” from HS1, by their logic.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Sunak can apparently block this appointment. He'll come under lots of pressure to do so, but that would just bring all the deeply unpopular party stuff back into the news. Hard to call it a leftwing hit job if there were 120 fixed penalty notices willingly accepted .

Does James Duddridge think Sue Gray was in charge of Durham Police or something? Why would she have been investigating Labour if her brief was to investigate Downing Street?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Who's this fool Labour MP? The Chief of Staff doesn't run campaigns. Her intended role is to work on stuff in Government, for which her experience of the civil service would seem to be a good fit.

Some of the Jez fans BTL on the Guardian aren't happy about this appointment. Jez had Karie Murphy.

[Abernathy]

I fail to see how any Tory MP can plausibly argue that the appointment of Gray represents a conflict of interests when :

a. Her investigation is long since completed

and

b. She was appointed to carry out the investigation by Johnson himself in the first place.


Brilliant move by Starmer, though.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Conflict of interest? Just like when Dennis Law scored for City against United, presumably.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I fail to see how any Tory MP can plausibly argue that the appointment of Gray resents a conflict of interests when :

a. Her investigation is long since completed

and

b. She was appointed to carry out the investigation by Johnson himself in the first place.


Brilliant move by Starmer, though.

Yep.

Sunak's had a good week looking sane. Last think he needs is the swivel eyed loons back in the limelight bringing this all up again, and trying to blame Tories coughing to FPNs to the Met on Keir Starmer.

If he suddenly discovers a conflict on interest here, that's going to put Richard Sharp, Robbie Gibb and all back in the frame. Even if he doesn't go for that, and just let's ACOBA go ahead normally with, say, a 3 month delay before taking up the new appointment, that shows up Bozo who didn't even consult ACOBA. And as things stand, ACOBA just advise. Starmer would be well advised not just to accept the advice, but make ACOBA recommendations compulsory.

[Crabcakes]

You have to think that the wails of corruption and stitch-up are not because any exists, given Johnson appointed her under no pressure, accepted her report, and it concluded some time ago. They’re actually because they’re so used to organising their own corrupt stitch-ups they can’t believe this could be legit without some sort of backhander or bung.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Brilliant move by Starmer, though.

You know you're winning when you become a talent magnet.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Great effort by totally non-partisan bloke from opaquely funded Policy Exchange here.

`1) She's not becoming a peer. What's that got to do with anything? You're objecting to somebody getting another job.

2) Lord Frost became a peer, and was a Minister for the Tories, not a Crossbencher.

3) Any specific objections to her report? Why was it corroborated by the Met, and why did all those people accept FPNs?

[Tubby Isaacs]

I can't take my eyes off this stuff.

Any libel angle here? Marcus Fysh has accused her of "working for the EU for some years now".

[Youngian]

2) Lord Frost became a peer, and was a Minister for the Tories, not a Crossbencher.

Sue Gray sounds like a wiser appointment.

[Arrowhead]

Another genius aspect of this appointment is that everybody is suddenly talking about Partygate once again. Y'know, the thing the Tories were desperate to move on from when they finally gave Boris the Ledge the old heave-ho last year.

None of this paints the Tories in a very flattering light, to put it mildly.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Do they really think we're this stupid? Bozo resigned after everybody walked out, and that was after Pincher, not Partygate, where there was a Met investigation too.

It's over 9 months since her report. Frost took up a Tory peerage while holding a civil service role and kept the role afterwards.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Some of the online Jez twats don't like it. She's establishment or Tory depending who's speaking.

I think this is unfair really. Bozo got away without fines for some things for which other people were fined, but that was a Met decision. She didn't investigate the Abba thing, but how would you prove that Bozo and other people weren't working in a room at the other end of the flat?

[Bones McCoy]

Can any of our fearless press remember events from a mere six months ago?

[Tubby Isaacs]

If it's all so awful and unfair on the Government, why is this Minister anonymous? I reckon he/she knows that Sunak's going to pass on kicking up a fuss, for very obvious reasons.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Can any of our fearless press remember events from a mere six months ago?

Funny you should say that.

[Tubby Isaacs]

No doubt the civil service code has been breached apparently. From a friend of well known stickler for rules, Boris Johnson.