Best Of

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Starmer got a bit lucky with the rebellion over welfare cuts. Imagine if a couple of weeks after voting to take £5bn off disabled people, it came out they had agreed £7bn for thr Afghan scheme.

Would Healey and Hoyle suffice, or do you need Starmer too? Fantastic opportunity for your team. Will Kemi take the win?

Why does Healey have to go?

Because he's sat on the story for a year, and (for now) appears to have continued to approve the super injunction. He certainly needs to explain himself better than he has so far.

As much as it makes me self-loathe I have to defend Healey if the advice he was getting from civil servants and/or government lawyers was along the lines of “you need to keep this super injunction and shell out loads of money or people will die” then what else is he supposed to do? Is he supposed to say “sorry guys, I know much more about the situation in my one year in charge than you do and I know the law better than government lawyers so drop it now”?

We get angry about the idea of Ministers making decisions based on their own prejudices or interests and ignoring advice so if Healey has followed what he can only consider the best advice then he can’t be blamed.

What is vital is that, if the advice from CC and legal was to continue (to both parties over the period) then how do we avoid bad advice, is there independent oversight etc to stop such a situation in the future.

No no no

The government as recently as June was eager to maintain the super injunction and indeed EXPAND the scheme to even more Afghans. Thus spending £7bn at least

They also connived in keeping the figures out of the ONS migration stats and it was the Labour government that decided to deliberately lie to the public, in the Commons, as to why all these afghans are arriving. They wanted to set a “false narrative”

This was one reason the judge lost his cool and decided it had all gone too far. Absolutely outrageous contempt for electors and democracy and a sacking offence in itself

What the F are you doing defending these people. They all need to go

I’m not defending these people, it’s a shit show by both parties but it also makes me wonder about the effects/power of legal and civil service advice over democratically elected politicians and will be interested what comes out.

If you are a minister/government and your own lawyers are telling you that you really have to continue doing something for important legal reasons the are you going to just pull the pin and say “bollocks I’m going public whatever the legal implications”?

BTW the minister said on Today that the figures weren’t kept out of the immigrations Stats and the reporter was wrong - brave move and resigning matter (hahaha) if he is lying.

I’d wager money he’s lying - in some form

Your defence of these people is pitiful and grotesque

I'll wager money your numbers are balls too.

But I’m the one quoting the judge in the transcript. Who seems the only reliable actor here. All the other numbers - which vary wildly from £400m to £800m to £2bn to £7bn to £10bn (and up) come from politicians with an agenda, and we KNOW these people are lying. They admitted it. “We want to set a false narrative as cover”

Why is the judge's number authoritative in any sense ?
He has no powers of audit, and no more information than he has been given, so it's a number which came second hand from the politicians whose numbers you don't believe.
He can clearly speak with authority on the legal position, but has little more idea than do you on what this is costing.

FWIW, the cost estimate for this particular mess is around an order of magnitude less
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg8zy78787o
The government also revealed on Tuesday:
The MoD believes 600 Afghan soldiers included in the leak, plus 1,800 of their family members, are still in Afghanistan
The scheme is being closed down, but relocation offers already made to those who remain in Afghanistan will be honoured
The secret scheme - officially called the Afghan Relocation Route - has cost £400m so far, and is expected to cost a further £400m to £450m
The breach was committed mistakenly by an unnamed official at the MoD
People whose details were leaked were only informed on Tuesday

As I noted upthread, the sensible way to deal with this is for the PAC to get to work and ferret out the actual numbers.

Your syllogism "everyone is lying, so I am right" is a load of nonsense.

And yet you blindly trust the new numbers given by a government which ADMITS IT IS LYING ON THIS EXACT ISSUE

You’re never the smartest but this is a new level of intellectual mediocrity

Are you seriously of such low IQ that you're incapable of comprehending some quite simple posts of mine ?

I've repeatedly said that the only way to get to the true figures is for them to be ferreted out.
The Commons Pubic Accounts Committee is one of the better bodies for the task, as it has a pretty good record, and won't take a dozen years to get a result.
I'm entirely open to better suggestions, of which you have produced ... approximately zero.

Get them in court and sling them all in jail. For a long long time. But first sack the woke lawyers and judges so we make sure the courts are hard and fair - but hard

I’m done with “inquiries” and “committees” and all this self serving, bullshitting nonsense where no one ever pays a price for anything. The Nu10k. They all need to be in prison; they are destroying the country and they seem to be doing it deliberately. They cannot even defend our beaches from invaders

I want a revolution (peaceful, please). I want to see lots of pro politicians facing 20 year jail terms. I want to tear it all down and start again. I’m done

Yes, you just want a Leon dictatorship.
You keep your fantasies; the rest of us will struggle on.

His ceaseless twattish hysteria enlightens no-one and is just tiresome. We just know that whatever is next week's story will also be the worst thing ever and also presage the end of times, rinsed and repeated over and over until Farage doesn't become prime minister in four years time ...

On the other hand, I get paid for my “ ceaseless twattish hysteria” and you DON’T get paid for your bizarre if touching dog-based sex travelogues

In other news I’ve noticed that my stalker has just published a Spectator article comparing the British to hillbillies. The man pilfers without shame

Another of your logic fails.

a) @IanB2 doesn't get paid here, but then neither do you and you post a hell of a lot more.

b) You get paid for writing elsewhere, but then others get paid for doing other stuff elsewhere.

Your point is?

Equally to the point, I don't need to be paid to be travelling about, and have the freedom and time to linger and learn that being on a whistle stop assignment will never offer.

Since he's so sadly money driven, perhaps we could organise a whip round for him to **** off?

I don’t need to be paid. I would travel for free because I love it. But the happy fact is, I DO get paid, indeed sometimes I get paid to do insanely luxurious travel in £6000 a night hotels

It’s dark and lonely work, but someone has to do it. Etc

And had you even average intelligence, insight and understanding, just think what a wise fellow you might have become.

I do sometimes think Would I have had a more fulfilling life and career if I'd gone into a job like what @IanB2 did, accountancy, or quantity surveying, or whatever the fuck it was, and then I think HAHAHAHAHAHAH LOL NO

Becoming Karl Pilkington with added booze and without the cameras is hardly an achievement.

To have travelled the world and yet still have the views of someone who has never been more than ten miles from Jaywick is a truly tragic fail.

What was it you did? Chartered management or something? Widget supply analysis? Now you wander the world, tragically alone, trafficking your dog across borders like the Humbert Humbert of pet husbandry

Do you think this is a life well spent?

Absolutely!

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Starmer got a bit lucky with the rebellion over welfare cuts. Imagine if a couple of weeks after voting to take £5bn off disabled people, it came out they had agreed £7bn for thr Afghan scheme.

Would Healey and Hoyle suffice, or do you need Starmer too? Fantastic opportunity for your team. Will Kemi take the win?

Why does Healey have to go?

Because he's sat on the story for a year, and (for now) appears to have continued to approve the super injunction. He certainly needs to explain himself better than he has so far.

As much as it makes me self-loathe I have to defend Healey if the advice he was getting from civil servants and/or government lawyers was along the lines of “you need to keep this super injunction and shell out loads of money or people will die” then what else is he supposed to do? Is he supposed to say “sorry guys, I know much more about the situation in my one year in charge than you do and I know the law better than government lawyers so drop it now”?

We get angry about the idea of Ministers making decisions based on their own prejudices or interests and ignoring advice so if Healey has followed what he can only consider the best advice then he can’t be blamed.

What is vital is that, if the advice from CC and legal was to continue (to both parties over the period) then how do we avoid bad advice, is there independent oversight etc to stop such a situation in the future.

No no no

The government as recently as June was eager to maintain the super injunction and indeed EXPAND the scheme to even more Afghans. Thus spending £7bn at least

They also connived in keeping the figures out of the ONS migration stats and it was the Labour government that decided to deliberately lie to the public, in the Commons, as to why all these afghans are arriving. They wanted to set a “false narrative”

This was one reason the judge lost his cool and decided it had all gone too far. Absolutely outrageous contempt for electors and democracy and a sacking offence in itself

What the F are you doing defending these people. They all need to go

I’m not defending these people, it’s a shit show by both parties but it also makes me wonder about the effects/power of legal and civil service advice over democratically elected politicians and will be interested what comes out.

If you are a minister/government and your own lawyers are telling you that you really have to continue doing something for important legal reasons the are you going to just pull the pin and say “bollocks I’m going public whatever the legal implications”?

BTW the minister said on Today that the figures weren’t kept out of the immigrations Stats and the reporter was wrong - brave move and resigning matter (hahaha) if he is lying.

I’d wager money he’s lying - in some form

Your defence of these people is pitiful and grotesque

I'll wager money your numbers are balls too.

But I’m the one quoting the judge in the transcript. Who seems the only reliable actor here. All the other numbers - which vary wildly from £400m to £800m to £2bn to £7bn to £10bn (and up) come from politicians with an agenda, and we KNOW these people are lying. They admitted it. “We want to set a false narrative as cover”

Why is the judge's number authoritative in any sense ?
He has no powers of audit, and no more information than he has been given, so it's a number which came second hand from the politicians whose numbers you don't believe.
He can clearly speak with authority on the legal position, but has little more idea than do you on what this is costing.

FWIW, the cost estimate for this particular mess is around an order of magnitude less
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg8zy78787o
The government also revealed on Tuesday:
The MoD believes 600 Afghan soldiers included in the leak, plus 1,800 of their family members, are still in Afghanistan
The scheme is being closed down, but relocation offers already made to those who remain in Afghanistan will be honoured
The secret scheme - officially called the Afghan Relocation Route - has cost £400m so far, and is expected to cost a further £400m to £450m
The breach was committed mistakenly by an unnamed official at the MoD
People whose details were leaked were only informed on Tuesday

As I noted upthread, the sensible way to deal with this is for the PAC to get to work and ferret out the actual numbers.

Your syllogism "everyone is lying, so I am right" is a load of nonsense.

And yet you blindly trust the new numbers given by a government which ADMITS IT IS LYING ON THIS EXACT ISSUE

You’re never the smartest but this is a new level of intellectual mediocrity

Are you seriously of such low IQ that you're incapable of comprehending some quite simple posts of mine ?

I've repeatedly said that the only way to get to the true figures is for them to be ferreted out.
The Commons Pubic Accounts Committee is one of the better bodies for the task, as it has a pretty good record, and won't take a dozen years to get a result.
I'm entirely open to better suggestions, of which you have produced ... approximately zero.

Get them in court and sling them all in jail. For a long long time. But first sack the woke lawyers and judges so we make sure the courts are hard and fair - but hard

I’m done with “inquiries” and “committees” and all this self serving, bullshitting nonsense where no one ever pays a price for anything. The Nu10k. They all need to be in prison; they are destroying the country and they seem to be doing it deliberately. They cannot even defend our beaches from invaders

I want a revolution (peaceful, please). I want to see lots of pro politicians facing 20 year jail terms. I want to tear it all down and start again. I’m done

Yes, you just want a Leon dictatorship.
You keep your fantasies; the rest of us will struggle on.

His ceaseless twattish hysteria enlightens no-one and is just tiresome. We just know that whatever is next week's story will also be the worst thing ever and also presage the end of times, rinsed and repeated over and over until Farage doesn't become prime minister in four years time ...

On the other hand, I get paid for my “ ceaseless twattish hysteria” and you DON’T get paid for your bizarre if touching dog-based sex travelogues

In other news I’ve noticed that my stalker has just published a Spectator article comparing the British to hillbillies. The man pilfers without shame

I’ve got some good news about your stalker, he’s going to have his passport seized.

Reading all his old posts boasting about prostitution, drugs, and travel I was obligated under the Online Safety Act to report that to the authorities.

The poor fecker will never be allowed to leave the UK.

Couldn't you have waited?

Time it for when he's out of the country, he'd never have been able to come back.

Horrible to be so pessimistic but I feel there's a dearth of talent everywhere.

Good morning, everybody.

And also with you.

Beyond a certain point, you can't keep blaming the poor buggers who try and fail to run the country well. Maybe the job as currently configured is essentially undoable.

As an analogy, consider a formerly great but currently struggling football team. (I'm from near Portsmouth- I know of what I speak). Changing the manager every five minutes rarely helps and often makes things worse.

If that's what's going on, what's the answer? I don't think that being bought out by some shady foreign squillionaire is an option.

I agree - no government is going to satisfy the current electorate which seems to expect to be given everything they want without really doing much or contributing more. Most seem to prefer to sit on the sidelines and whinge about everything.

The country is not in an economic position to deliver more than a fraction of what the voters want and feel entitled to, but heaven help any politician that dared to tell them that. The voters simply don't want to know, they prefer to bury their heads in the sand and blame it all on somebody else.

Former defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace said he makes "no apology" for stopping the reporting of a leak that revealed data about thousands of Afghans who had supported British forces.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1k8yvj89kyo

Did anyone expect him to ?

While there might have been a case for the injunction for a relatively short period of time while damage was assessed (6 months perhaps), there's absolutely no case for keeping this covered up for so long.

Labour were right to review it - but why did it take them an entire year to come to what ought to have been a completely obvious conclusion ?

Did they come to the obvious conclusion?

From the reporting last night, it seems that the Judge made the decision for them, so they never did.

I honestly don't know; the story has only been out for a day.
At least their DefSec has had the grace to admit being troubled by it. That hardly excuses him, but it is a recognition that the issue is serious.

As for Wallace, the original leak ought to have been a clear resignation matter for him - there had been a similar leak earlier, and he had specifically promised that there would be no repetition.
Covering it up via super injunction - and keeping Parliament and electorate blind on contentious political issues throughout an election campaign - is blatantly undemocratic.

Wallace should be condemned across the political spectrum.
The relevant select committee should call both him and John Healey before them immediately.

Apparently, the Speaker has also been involved throughout in ensuring no Parliamentary questions on the matter.
MPs need to question him, and probably sack him. His job is to act for them, not the government.

The problem Healey has is that Labour kept the super injunction in place for longer than the previous government, so clearly not that troubled.
That aside this absolutely requires a parliamentary inquiry and accountability

Worse. The Labour government appealed AGAINST lifting the super injunction. They wanted it; they liked it

It is a feast of lies inside a carnival of lies. Many many people should resign, and the more you learn the worse it gets

Also looks like they increased the funding and scope of the programme once they got in.
Hmmmmm, a trail of deceit and disgrace from Wallace onwards. Full inquiry!

Great, so we spend another £7 billion to find out that 'lessons have been learned.'

Really, we need to change so that Civil Servants are held accountable, legally and morally, for their actions. It may have been feasible in the past to blame ministers, when departments were small and most policy was directly controlled by them, but it simply isn't any more.

We still have, for example, a Permanent Secretary at the DfE who hosted an unlawful works party in lockdown and then gave completely the wrong budget to all schools plunging many of them into crisis. She's apologised for both, but that isn't good enough. She should have been sacked (as anyone in any other field would have been).

And Simon Case oversaw more car crashes than a medic at a junkyard rally, but he was eventually allowed to retire on health grounds.

As long as we continue to tolerate failures and disasters like this we will continue to have them. We need to start being more proactive as a country and political system in rooting them out.