Going in to the etymology of the term woke is a diversion. The original idea was that being woke is to be alive to various types of societal injustice. But it has morphed in to acceptance of a philosophical framework which rejects classical liberal ideas about the sanctity of the individual; in favour of one that is essentially derived from identity politics.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
Wouldn't that be inconsistent with parliamentary privilege?
Just looking at the Wiki article, the MPs who got done were prosecuted for false accounting.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
Sadly (and wrongly) as far as I can see taking money for lobbying for a company or individual is not in itself illegal. There were calls for it to be made a criminal offence after the Mercer affair in 2013 but nothing much was done about it.
To be clear, it was not just the lack of a declaration that was wrong in the Paterson case. It was the actual receipt of money whether declared or not.
From the Parliament website:
"2. Taking payment in return for advocating a particular matter in the House is strictly forbidden. Members may not speak in the House, vote, or initiate parliamentary proceedings for payment in cash or kind. Nor may they make approaches to Ministers, other Members or public officials in return for such payment.
3. A Member may not enter into any contractual arrangement which fetters the Member's complete independence in Parliament, nor may an outside body (or person) use any contractual arrangement with a Member of Parliament as an instrument by which it controls, or seeks to control, his or her conduct in Parliament, or to punish that Member for any parliamentary action."
Quite remarkably Ministers are actually exempt from these rules:
"19. The following fall outside the lobbying rules:
a) Ministers: Members who are acting in the House as government Ministers are not subject to these rules when acting in that capacity. "
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
Wouldn't that be inconsistent with parliamentary privilege?
I don't know.
Surely IF there is criminality, that would not be covered by Parliamentary privilege.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
Wouldn't that be inconsistent with parliamentary privilege?
I don't know.
Surely IF there is criminality, that would not be covered by Parliamentary privilege.
Then it wouldn't be parliamentary privilege. For example those breaking super-injunctions in Parliament are immune from any criminal punishment.
We then have the suspension clause which only comes into effect if the suspension from the Committee on Standards is longer than 10 sitting days, There is where my lack of knowledge of the process exists - does an MP not have the right of appeal to the Committee of Standards and can an MP not bring evidence to the Committee in support of their innocence?
If the answer is no, you have a point but if the answer is yes, frankly you don't as the process (with its appeal elements) will have been undertaken. If of course an MP has no right of appeal to the Committee on Standards, that seems curious to this observer and is a different question worth considering.
The biggest problem is that "standards" are being enforced by other MPs. Who guards the guardians etc.
The problem from where I'm sitting is the recommendations of the Standards Committee need to be ratified by MPs as a whole and as we've seen the "motivated self interest" of some MPs may cause them to dissent from the decisions of the Standards Committee.
However, the old quis custodiet, ipsos custodes (Please correct me, classics scholars, if required) principle does come to mind.
To be honest, does anyone believe the recall would have reached the numbers and even if it had, would the Conservatives be in any serious danger of losing the seat where Paterson is hanging on by his fingertips to a 23,000 majority (50% more than Chesham & Amersham)?
“I know that one,” said Vimes. “Who watches the watchmen? Me, Mr. Pessimal.”
Angela Leadsom going all guns blazing on Channel 4. Binning the rules and the independent commissioner is fighting for justice apparently.
It was a total coincidence it needed doing so urgently right now to save a mate from punishment. And the idea there is more than one principle of justice and its more complicated than 'we must right this wrong' is nonsense. Except when it saved another colleague. Which I defended at the time as unfortunate, but adhering to principle. A shame they did not mean it.
We then have the suspension clause which only comes into effect if the suspension from the Committee on Standards is longer than 10 sitting days, There is where my lack of knowledge of the process exists - does an MP not have the right of appeal to the Committee of Standards and can an MP not bring evidence to the Committee in support of their innocence?
If the answer is no, you have a point but if the answer is yes, frankly you don't as the process (with its appeal elements) will have been undertaken. If of course an MP has no right of appeal to the Committee on Standards, that seems curious to this observer and is a different question worth considering.
The biggest problem is that "standards" are being enforced by other MPs. Who guards the guardians etc.
To be honest, does anyone believe the recall would have reached the numbers and even if it had, would the Conservatives be in any serious danger of losing the seat where Paterson is hanging on by his fingertips to a 23,000 majority (50% more than Chesham & Amersham)?
The Tories were clearly afraid it would at the least reach recall numbers. There's no reason for the urgency otherwise.
I doubt anyone thought the by-election, if reached, would be lost though, and we know they have reselected people facing a recall before.
With a hat tip to Paul Weller, who wrote a song for most political occasions:
Oh we make the standards and we make the rules And if you don't abide by them you must be a fool We have the power to control the whole land You never must question our motives or plans - cause well outlaw your voices, do anything we want we've nothing to fear from the nation Well throw you out of your houses if you get too much If we have to well destroy your generation cause we've built up a frontage and we've gained respect there's no one to endanger our position - Standards rule ok Standards rule ok Standards rule ok Standards rule ok And we don't like people who stand in our way Awareness is gonna be redundant And ignorance is strength, we have God on our side Look, you know what happend to winston
Charles will be along shortly to call it an outrageous and baseless slur. When Tory donors pay money and receive nodded through planning contracts or PPE contracts or peerages there is no link, no possible suggestion of a link that a right-thinking person can infer and anyone who disagrees will get the rules abolished quicker than you can say Angela Leadsom.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
Wouldn't that be inconsistent with parliamentary privilege?
I don't know.
Surely IF there is criminality, that would not be covered by Parliamentary privilege.
Then it wouldn't be parliamentary privilege. For example those breaking super-injunctions in Parliament are immune from any criminal punishment.
I am assuming that is due to the notion of public interest. Fiddling Parliamentary expenses wasn't covered. Cash for peerages wasn't covered either was it? Is the idea of a random MP being paid to lobby for 3rd party contracts in the public interest? I don't know.
Going in to the etymology of the term woke is a diversion. The original idea was that being woke is to be alive to various types of societal injustice. But it has morphed in to acceptance of a philosophical framework which rejects classical liberal ideas about the sanctity of the individual; in favour of one that is essentially derived from identity politics.
People will naturally dispute what it has morphed into, and be critical of concern quite legitimately, but the salient point is that simply pointing to the origins of the term and its initial intentions as an end point to the debate is a deliberately disingenuous response.
If MPs are going to be suspended and subject to recall mid Parliament, they could at least be entitled to call witnesses and have a right to appeal as would happen in employment tribunal cases.
On that basis it is right the Leadsom amendment went through
Rubbish.
The whole point of an independent standards process is that it is not at the whim of Parliament or government. Now it is no longer independent.
Every MP voting for the amendment today is now an accessory to corruption.
Paterson was found guilty without even being allowed to call witnesses or have an appeal.
Even a suspended cleaner would have been allowed that under employment tribunal law.
If we are no longer going to solely leave MPs to be accountable to their constituents or their local parties before or at general elections but subject to sanctions from Parliament and then potential recall mid Parliament they must be allowed the same employment law rights in full everyone else in the workforce has
While that's true, Paterson was found guilty according to rules set by Members of Parliament themselves, and enacted into law by said MPs. He was judged by a panel of MPs, that contained Conservative MPs, and who were both satisfied by the process and by the evidence. Said Conservative MPs signed off on a report that was extremely damning of Mr Paterson.
If the current procedures are wrong, they should clearly be changed. But it is concerning when the change is rammed through on a whipped government vote, without the support - as far I can tell - of a single non-Conservative MP.
Lest we forget, this is the first time since the Second World War that the House of Commons has voted not to accept a recommendation from its own standards committee. Worse, it is a unanimous recommendation that is has chosen to ignore.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
As others have now said, I don't think it's criminal. In many societies it's of course commonplace for members of Parliament to take up issues that they have received money for - I doubt if it would raise many eyebrows in the US, let alone Russia. Britain has tried to maintain a higher standard, but by Parliamentary self-regulation through a cross-party committee. It's that tradition that has been broken here, and I think that inevitably one has to conclude that the law should ban such activities, since MPs have proved unwilling to respect the system.
The assumption seems to be that the new disciplinary process to which Paterson will now be subjected will exonerate him, or at least tone down the sanctions significantly. If that turns out to be not the case - or alternatively, if it is absolutely clear from the new evidence that he should never have been sanctioned in the first place (unlikely - he seems pretty much bang to rights, and it's hard to see what new evidence could be brought that everyone would agree changed the picture materially) - then the attack line gets blunted.
What's par here? Suspension of long enough to trigger the recall petition probably - I would guess (based on nothing other than cynicism) that he will end up with a 7 day suspension, thus avoiding the possibility of recall, and allowing both sides to claim moral victory.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
There must be a political equivalent to John Maynard Keynes statement that, "The stock market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."
Something like, "The government can remain popular longer than you can stave of misanthropy," perhaps?
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
Wouldn't that be inconsistent with parliamentary privilege?
I don't know.
Surely IF there is criminality, that would not be covered by Parliamentary privilege.
Then it wouldn't be parliamentary privilege. For example those breaking super-injunctions in Parliament are immune from any criminal punishment.
I am assuming that is due to the notion of public interest. Fiddling Parliamentary expenses wasn't covered. .
Notably the Recall of MPs criteria is a significant suspension (and we've seen now that means jack sh*t as they can get around it if the government likes you), a custodial sentence of less than a year, or simply a conviction for fiddling expenses, regardless of sentence.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
Wouldn't that be inconsistent with parliamentary privilege?
I don't know.
Surely IF there is criminality, that would not be covered by Parliamentary privilege.
Then it wouldn't be parliamentary privilege. For example those breaking super-injunctions in Parliament are immune from any criminal punishment.
I am assuming that is due to the notion of public interest. Fiddling Parliamentary expenses wasn't covered. Cash for peerages wasn't covered either was it? Is the idea of a random MP being paid to lobby for 3rd party contracts in the public interest? I don't know.
Those weren't things explicitly said in Parliament, were they?
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2h I don’t understand the politics in this Owen Patterson vote. What’s the upside for Boris and the government. What does he think he gets out of it. Complete gift for Labour.
We then have the suspension clause which only comes into effect if the suspension from the Committee on Standards is longer than 10 sitting days, There is where my lack of knowledge of the process exists - does an MP not have the right of appeal to the Committee of Standards and can an MP not bring evidence to the Committee in support of their innocence?
If the answer is no, you have a point but if the answer is yes, frankly you don't as the process (with its appeal elements) will have been undertaken. If of course an MP has no right of appeal to the Committee on Standards, that seems curious to this observer and is a different question worth considering.
The biggest problem is that "standards" are being enforced by other MPs. Who guards the guardians etc.
To be honest, does anyone believe the recall would have reached the numbers and even if it had, would the Conservatives be in any serious danger of losing the seat where Paterson is hanging on by his fingertips to a 23,000 majority (50% more than Chesham & Amersham)?
The Tories were clearly afraid it would at the least reach recall numbers. There's no reason for the urgency otherwise.
I doubt anyone thought the by-election, if reached, would be lost though, and we know they have reselected people facing a recall before.
I don't like the idea of recall elections to be honest. Hard on the constituents of their MP is sidelined for 30 days butt hey can always punish him at the next election.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2h I don’t understand the politics in this Owen Patterson vote. What’s the upside for Boris and the government. What does he think he gets out of it. Complete gift for Labour.
Paterson should live or die by the old rules. There's no wiggle room on that.
People submitting complaints or subject to complaint should be able to have confidence of what the rules of the process they are subject to are and will be. What's the bloody point of them if at any point the one with the power can get the process changed? Why even have a Commissioner or Committee at that point? "This will happen, then X, then Y...except maybe not because we'll cancel it part way through"
I only mention this as an amusing aside, not because it is in fact a direct comparison, but I am reminded of authoritarians seeking to change the rules of winning mid way through elections, or amending their constitutions eg on term limits so the first ones don't count anymore. What? It 'solves' a problem they've identified.
If MPs are going to be suspended and subject to recall mid Parliament, they could at least be entitled to call witnesses and have a right to appeal as would happen in employment tribunal cases.
On that basis it is right the Leadsom amendment went through
Rubbish.
The whole point of an independent standards process is that it is not at the whim of Parliament or government. Now it is no longer independent.
Every MP voting for the amendment today is now an accessory to corruption.
Paterson was found guilty without even being allowed to call witnesses or have an appeal.
Even a suspended cleaner would have been allowed that under employment tribunal law.
If we are no longer going to solely leave MPs to be accountable to their constituents or their local parties before or at general elections but subject to sanctions from Parliament and then potential recall mid Parliament they must be allowed the same employment law rights in full everyone else in the workforce has
While that's true, Paterson was found guilty according to rules set by Members of Parliament themselves, and enacted into law by said MPs. He was judged by a panel of MPs, that contained Conservative MPs, and who were both satisfied by the process and by the evidence. Said Conservative MPs signed off on a report that was extremely damning of Mr Paterson.
If the current procedures are wrong, they should clearly be changed. But it is concerning when the change is rammed through on a whipped government vote, without the support - as far I can tell - of a single non-Conservative MP.
Lest we forget, this is the first time since the Second World War that the House of Commons has voted not to accept a recommendation from its own standards committee. Worse, it is a unanimous recommendation that is has chosen to ignore.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
As others have now said, I don't think it's criminal. In many societies it's of course commonplace for members of Parliament to take up issues that they have received money for - I doubt if it would raise many eyebrows in the US, let alone Russia. Britain has tried to maintain a higher standard, but by Parliamentary self-regulation through a cross-party committee. It's that tradition that has been broken here, and I think that inevitably one has to conclude that the law should ban such activities, since MPs have proved unwilling to respect the system.
My understanding that paid lobbying by MPs for hire is not against the rules, but failure to declare that paid interest is.
Paterson could have evaded suspension if he had simply by declaring in any intervention that he was a paid lobbyist for the company.
If MPs are going to be suspended and subject to recall mid Parliament, they could at least be entitled to call witnesses and have a right to appeal as would happen in employment tribunal cases.
On that basis it is right the Leadsom amendment went through
Rubbish.
The whole point of an independent standards process is that it is not at the whim of Parliament or government. Now it is no longer independent.
Every MP voting for the amendment today is now an accessory to corruption.
Paterson was found guilty without even being allowed to call witnesses or have an appeal.
Even a suspended cleaner would have been allowed that under employment tribunal law.
If we are no longer going to solely leave MPs to be accountable to their constituents or their local parties before or at general elections but subject to sanctions from Parliament and then potential recall mid Parliament they must be allowed the same employment law rights in full everyone else in the workforce has
While that's true, Paterson was found guilty according to rules set by Members of Parliament themselves, and enacted into law by said MPs. He was judged by a panel of MPs, that contained Conservative MPs, and who were both satisfied by the process and by the evidence. Said Conservative MPs signed off on a report that was extremely damning of Mr Paterson.
If the current procedures are wrong, they should clearly be changed. But it is concerning when the change is rammed through on a whipped government vote, without the support - as far I can tell - of a single non-Conservative MP.
Lest we forget, this is the first time since the Second World War that the House of Commons has voted not to accept a recommendation from its own standards committee. Worse, it is a unanimous recommendation that is has chosen to ignore.
For the record there was a non-Tory MP to vote Aye, from Northern Ireland.
That the British non-Tories acted partisanly in seeking to embarrass their political opponents is not proof that the MPs who voted Aye did the wrong thing.
Under the existing rules the House of Commons had the right to not accept the recommendation. They've not changed the rules by choosing to act here, it was always their prerogative.
If MPs are going to be suspended and subject to recall mid Parliament, they could at least be entitled to call witnesses and have a right to appeal as would happen in employment tribunal cases.
On that basis it is right the Leadsom amendment went through
Rubbish.
The whole point of an independent standards process is that it is not at the whim of Parliament or government. Now it is no longer independent.
Every MP voting for the amendment today is now an accessory to corruption.
Paterson was found guilty without even being allowed to call witnesses or have an appeal.
Even a suspended cleaner would have been allowed that under employment tribunal law.
If we are no longer going to solely leave MPs to be accountable to their constituents or their local parties before or at general elections but subject to sanctions from Parliament and then potential recall mid Parliament they must be allowed the same employment law rights in full everyone else in the workforce has
While that's true, Paterson was found guilty according to rules set by Members of Parliament themselves, and enacted into law by said MPs. He was judged by a panel of MPs, that contained Conservative MPs, and who were both satisfied by the process and by the evidence. Said Conservative MPs signed off on a report that was extremely damning of Mr Paterson.
If the current procedures are wrong, they should clearly be changed. But it is concerning when the change is rammed through on a whipped government vote, without the support - as far I can tell - of a single non-Conservative MP.
Lest we forget, this is the first time since the Second World War that the House of Commons has voted not to accept a recommendation from its own standards committee. Worse, it is a unanimous recommendation that is has chosen to ignore.
For the record there was a non-Tory MP to vote Aye, from Northern Ireland.
That the British non-Tories acted partisanly in seeking to embarrass their political opponents is not proof that the MPs who voted Aye did the wrong thing.
Under the existing rules the House of Commons had the right to not accept the recommendation. They've not changed the rules by choosing to act here, it was always their prerogative.
I apologise. There was a single Northern Irish MP - presumably DUP - who also voted against the unanimous recommendation of the Standards Committee.
We then have the suspension clause which only comes into effect if the suspension from the Committee on Standards is longer than 10 sitting days, There is where my lack of knowledge of the process exists - does an MP not have the right of appeal to the Committee of Standards and can an MP not bring evidence to the Committee in support of their innocence?
If the answer is no, you have a point but if the answer is yes, frankly you don't as the process (with its appeal elements) will have been undertaken. If of course an MP has no right of appeal to the Committee on Standards, that seems curious to this observer and is a different question worth considering.
The biggest problem is that "standards" are being enforced by other MPs. Who guards the guardians etc.
To be honest, does anyone believe the recall would have reached the numbers and even if it had, would the Conservatives be in any serious danger of losing the seat where Paterson is hanging on by his fingertips to a 23,000 majority (50% more than Chesham & Amersham)?
The Tories were clearly afraid it would at the least reach recall numbers. There's no reason for the urgency otherwise.
I doubt anyone thought the by-election, if reached, would be lost though, and we know they have reselected people facing a recall before.
I don't like the idea of recall elections to be honest. Hard on the constituents of their MP is sidelined for 30 days butt hey can always punish him at the next election.
I'm in two minds on recall of MPs. I do think if you have it it should be relatively hard, because you don't want it triggered based on temporary issues of popularity or minority recalcitrant opinion or trivialities, but on the other hand I can see that it does not add a great deal when triggered by suspension that could not be dealt with at a future election.
On balance I could probably support expanding disqualification to cover anyone convicted of a crime, and do away with recall.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
As others have now said, I don't think it's criminal. In many societies it's of course commonplace for members of Parliament to take up issues that they have received money for - I doubt if it would raise many eyebrows in the US, let alone Russia. Britain has tried to maintain a higher standard, but by Parliamentary self-regulation through a cross-party committee. It's that tradition that has been broken here, and I think that inevitably one has to conclude that the law should ban such activities, since MPs have proved unwilling to respect the system.
My understanding that paid lobbying by MPs for hire is not against the rules, but failure to declare that paid interest is.
Paterson could have evaded suspension if he had simply by declaring in any intervention that he was a paid lobbyist for the company.
No it is against the rules. I quoted them earlier but just to repeat:
"2. Taking payment in return for advocating a particular matter in the House is strictly forbidden. Members may not speak in the House, vote, or initiate parliamentary proceedings for payment in cash or kind. Nor may they make approaches to Ministers, other Members or public officials in return for such payment."
We then have the suspension clause which only comes into effect if the suspension from the Committee on Standards is longer than 10 sitting days, There is where my lack of knowledge of the process exists - does an MP not have the right of appeal to the Committee of Standards and can an MP not bring evidence to the Committee in support of their innocence?
If the answer is no, you have a point but if the answer is yes, frankly you don't as the process (with its appeal elements) will have been undertaken. If of course an MP has no right of appeal to the Committee on Standards, that seems curious to this observer and is a different question worth considering.
The biggest problem is that "standards" are being enforced by other MPs. Who guards the guardians etc.
To be honest, does anyone believe the recall would have reached the numbers and even if it had, would the Conservatives be in any serious danger of losing the seat where Paterson is hanging on by his fingertips to a 23,000 majority (50% more than Chesham & Amersham)?
The Tories were clearly afraid it would at the least reach recall numbers. There's no reason for the urgency otherwise.
I doubt anyone thought the by-election, if reached, would be lost though, and we know they have reselected people facing a recall before.
I don't like the idea of recall elections to be honest. Hard on the constituents of their MP is sidelined for 30 days butt hey can always punish him at the next election.
I'm in two minds on recall of MPs. I do think if you have it it should be relatively hard, because you don't want it triggered based on temporary issues of popularity or minority recalcitrant opinion or trivialities, but on the other hand I can see that it does not add a great deal when triggered by suspension that could not be dealt with at a future election.
On balance I could probably support expanding disqualification to cover anyone convicted of a crime, and do away with recall.
Agree. California is simply absurd when it comes to number of recall elections.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
I think they will get away with it at the next election anyway, but when the Torys do fall from favour, it will be hard and fast, and wont be pretty, and one even with all their friends in high places, they may never recover for years, the clock is ticking
Sounds like fun! I assume we could have negotiated a fix but didn't bother to read up on the details.
The fix is to acquire an Irish passport, if you are eligible.
This is the EU applying the same biometric border system for international visa free travel as other developed countries; only it took them about 15 years longer than everyone else, and will probably be delayed again by a year or so.
Paterson should live or die by the old rules. There's no wiggle room on that.
The old rules give the MPs the final say.
This vote happened under the old rules.
I don't believe there's ever been a whipped vote on a recommendation by the Standards Committee.
Doesn't that stink just a little bit? It's supposed to be MPs, not the Party machinery, that does the policing.
Letter not spirit of the law is defendable in respect of whipping the vote, but not a great look because it implicitly accepts that this was about politics. If it was about a principle why was whipping it necessary even if it is acceptable?
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
As others have now said, I don't think it's criminal. In many societies it's of course commonplace for members of Parliament to take up issues that they have received money for - I doubt if it would raise many eyebrows in the US, let alone Russia. Britain has tried to maintain a higher standard, but by Parliamentary self-regulation through a cross-party committee. It's that tradition that has been broken here, and I think that inevitably one has to conclude that the law should ban such activities, since MPs have proved unwilling to respect the system.
My understanding that paid lobbying by MPs for hire is not against the rules, but failure to declare that paid interest is.
Paterson could have evaded suspension if he had simply by declaring in any intervention that he was a paid lobbyist for the company.
No it is against the rules. I quoted them earlier but just to repeat:
"2. Taking payment in return for advocating a particular matter in the House is strictly forbidden. Members may not speak in the House, vote, or initiate parliamentary proceedings for payment in cash or kind. Nor may they make approaches to Ministers, other Members or public officials in return for such payment."
I thought his representations were outside the House, but in the capacity as an MP with undeclared financial interests, hence this rule does not apply.
Edit: I suppose that the FSA would be included in "Public Officials" so yes, I think that you are right. It is even more egregious.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
I think they will get away with it at the next election anyway, but when the Torys do fall from favour, it will be hard and fast, and wont be pretty, and one even with all their friends in high places, they may never recover for years, the clock is ticking
The Tories will be in power for at least 14 years, possibly 19 or more. A massive fall from grace is frankly what should be expected of any party in power so long.
It's about fucking time. He's actually got off the fence and done an all-guns-blazing attack on the government, pulling no punches. He should have been doing this earlier, for example on dodgy Covid contracts and many other issues. But better late than never.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
Wouldn't that be inconsistent with parliamentary privilege?
I don't know.
Surely IF there is criminality, that would not be covered by Parliamentary privilege.
Then it wouldn't be parliamentary privilege. For example those breaking super-injunctions in Parliament are immune from any criminal punishment.
I am assuming that is due to the notion of public interest. Fiddling Parliamentary expenses wasn't covered. Cash for peerages wasn't covered either was it? Is the idea of a random MP being paid to lobby for 3rd party contracts in the public interest? I don't know.
Those weren't things explicitly said in Parliament, were they?
I didn't explain myself very well, but I am not sure of your point either.
Revealing details of footballers private lives in the public interest ( for no monetary gain) can be executed using Parliamentary privilege. My genuine question is this. Is a random MP asking a question, having been paid to do so, and influencing government business having been paid so to do, legal or illegal?
Miss Moorehead @MissMooreheadCV · Nov 1 P3B have been preparing for Thursday, when P6 are encouraging everybody to wear a skirt to raise awareness of #LaRopaNoTieneGenero, or as our lovely posters say ‘clothing has no gender’ @MissWhiteCV@MissMcGroryCV.
I think this type of thing will seem very normal by this time next year.
Yes, Peak Woke will never happen, it will just continue and worsen
You have to wonder how mad it might get
2020 went beyond what happened in 1968. The revolution will keep going until it reaches some sort of limit: either it collapses due to the absurdity of its own contradictions, or it gets attacked from outside. All you can really do is try and stay out of its way.
The absent @SeanT, erstwhile citizen of this same manor, posits in the Spectator that Woke is actually a proper new religion, and will thus endure
Let us hope that, as always, he is entirely wrong and befuddled by The Drink
For woke to be a new religion (rather than a variant of christianity, as suggested by some) it needs to travel. And from what I can see, it isn't doing that - quite the reverse.
It is certainly spreading in the English speaking world, and now - bizarrely - into India
Miss Moorehead @MissMooreheadCV · Nov 1 P3B have been preparing for Thursday, when P6 are encouraging everybody to wear a skirt to raise awareness of #LaRopaNoTieneGenero, or as our lovely posters say ‘clothing has no gender’ @MissWhiteCV@MissMcGroryCV.
I think this type of thing will seem very normal by this time next year.
Yes, Peak Woke will never happen, it will just continue and worsen
You have to wonder how mad it might get
2020 went beyond what happened in 1968. The revolution will keep going until it reaches some sort of limit: either it collapses due to the absurdity of its own contradictions, or it gets attacked from outside. All you can really do is try and stay out of its way.
The absent @SeanT, erstwhile citizen of this same manor, posits in the Spectator that Woke is actually a proper new religion, and will thus endure
Let us hope that, as always, he is entirely wrong and befuddled by The Drink
For woke to be a new religion (rather than a variant of christianity, as suggested by some) it needs to travel. And from what I can see, it isn't doing that - quite the reverse.
It is certainly spreading in the English speaking world, and now - bizarrely - into India
As far as I can see it is an anglo saxon thing, largely driven by post colonial guilt.
It has origins going way back to obscure, extreme American race and gender studies of the 1960s, with half a nod to Cultural Marxism. From there the fungus slowly infested sociology, then anthropology, geography, and in the last decade pretty much all of academe
And in the last few years, it has exploded everywhere. Shedding spores
It is dangerous because it is so similar to a religion. It replaces religion, by offering the same absolute moral certainties, in a bewildering world. There is no arguing with Woke. You either submit and agree, as in Islam, or you are haram. A racist or a transphobe or whatever. That's it
Yet who are the true believers of the woke religion? Mainly students and some liberal academics and a few in the public sector.
It is hardly a religious force growing on the scale of evangelical Christianity or Islam globally yet.
Woke fulfills a need for religion, in the same way that climate change activism does. But it doesn't do much more than that. The problem with the analogy is that, when you really go in to it, as a belief system it is completely empty. There is no coherent and inclusive system of meaning and purpose; such that exists within Christianity and Islam, for instance.
I still don't know what "woke" means. Perhaps since you have really gone into it, you can help me out?
Do you know what pornography is? What’s the difference between a nude photo study and porn? I think you DO know what woke is, but wish to suggest it doesn’t exist as it is not easy to define simply. My example is a student requesting I not use the term ‘men’ when discussing the science of prostate cancer. To me, only men have a prostate, but I suspect I could get into hot water by saying this.
But women do have a prostate gland too, much as men have mammaries (and are at some risk of breast cancer).
Not really - women do not have a prostate, rather there are tissues which are sometimes called the female prostate, but but known as Skenes glands. Prostate cancer is driven by testosterone, which is crucial in prostate tissue. Breast cancer is a different kettle of fish, both men and women have breast tissue, and can indeed get breast cancer.
Sounds like you've run into the opposite of the "only women have a cervix" thing that got people het up recently. That is, you say "only men have a prostate" but this is not the case since trans women have one too. I am really not animated on this, almost all prostates in the world belong to people born male, but that's the issue. Eg the NHS has to try and cover trans women for prostate cancer and trans men for cervical cancer. And their gender is a matter of legal fact if they've transitioned.
Seems to me that someone's gender is generally irrelevant, it should make no difference to anything, but the details of someone's biological sex, including whether they are a rare exception to the dominant dichotomy, can be very relevant in a small number of situations, such as medicine, or assuring people of their safety from sex-based violence.
So I'd suggest that we try, as much as possible, to stop talking about gender whenever possible, and only talk about biological sex when it is imperative to do so.
I'd just drop gender from passports for example. I'd also drop titles like Mr, Ms, Mrs, Miss, etc, completely. I'd create a unified system of clothes and shoe sizes.
Let's get rid of pointless gender differences, rather than policing who they apply to.
Paterson should live or die by the old rules. There's no wiggle room on that.
Yes, he should. Whether or not the rules are right or fair isn’t the point here. They are the rules. They apply to everyone. Change them by all means but let them run their course here.
A lot. The Committee did not accept it as total mitigation, and even if his complaints of them are right there are issues with this approach being necessary and proportionate.
Paterson should live or die by the old rules. There's no wiggle room on that.
The old rules give the MPs the final say.
This vote happened under the old rules.
I don't believe there's ever been a whipped vote on a recommendation by the Standards Committee.
Doesn't that stink just a little bit? It's supposed to be MPs, not the Party machinery, that does the policing.
Yes I agree that the whipping stinks, but that cuts both ways.
The fact that the opposition whipped it into a party partisan fervour and not one Opposition MP backed the right for an appeal (despite according to Sam Coates multiple Labour MPs agreeing that this process was flawed) equally stinks.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
I think they will get away with it at the next election anyway, but when the Torys do fall from favour, it will be hard and fast, and wont be pretty, and one even with all their friends in high places, they may never recover for years, the clock is ticking
And how far will the Conservatives have to go to find a clean pair of hands?
Has anyone asked Rishi how he'd have voted had he been in Westminster today?
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2h I don’t understand the politics in this Owen Patterson vote. What’s the upside for Boris and the government. What does he think he gets out of it. Complete gift for Labour.
I think it was eek who pointed out that the message is 'If you get in trouble the government can back you to solve it for you', as a means of controlling its MPs.
We then have the suspension clause which only comes into effect if the suspension from the Committee on Standards is longer than 10 sitting days, There is where my lack of knowledge of the process exists - does an MP not have the right of appeal to the Committee of Standards and can an MP not bring evidence to the Committee in support of their innocence?
If the answer is no, you have a point but if the answer is yes, frankly you don't as the process (with its appeal elements) will have been undertaken. If of course an MP has no right of appeal to the Committee on Standards, that seems curious to this observer and is a different question worth considering.
The biggest problem is that "standards" are being enforced by other MPs. Who guards the guardians etc.
To be honest, does anyone believe the recall would have reached the numbers and even if it had, would the Conservatives be in any serious danger of losing the seat where Paterson is hanging on by his fingertips to a 23,000 majority (50% more than Chesham & Amersham)?
The Tories were clearly afraid it would at the least reach recall numbers. There's no reason for the urgency otherwise.
I doubt anyone thought the by-election, if reached, would be lost though, and we know they have reselected people facing a recall before.
I don't like the idea of recall elections to be honest. Hard on the constituents of their MP is sidelined for 30 days butt hey can always punish him at the next election.
I'm in two minds on recall of MPs. I do think if you have it it should be relatively hard, because you don't want it triggered based on temporary issues of popularity or minority recalcitrant opinion or trivialities, but on the other hand I can see that it does not add a great deal when triggered by suspension that could not be dealt with at a future election.
On balance I could probably support expanding disqualification to cover anyone convicted of a crime, and do away with recall.
I think the problem with that is that it could be abused so that spurious prosecutions or illegality of the form of, for example, protest, could be used to remove MPs against the wishes of their constituents. There are good reasons for ensuring that only the voters get to choose who their MP is. It is hopefully not the case that the current administration or their successors would do such a thing but you can see how it could be abused by an administration not interested in protecting the democratic process.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
Sadly (and wrongly) as far as I can see taking money for lobbying for a company or individual is not in itself illegal. There were calls for it to be made a criminal offence after the Mercer affair in 2013 but nothing much was done about it.
To be clear, it was not just the lack of a declaration that was wrong in the Paterson case. It was the actual receipt of money whether declared or not.
From the Parliament website:
"2. Taking payment in return for advocating a particular matter in the House is strictly forbidden. Members may not speak in the House, vote, or initiate parliamentary proceedings for payment in cash or kind. Nor may they make approaches to Ministers, other Members or public officials in return for such payment.
3. A Member may not enter into any contractual arrangement which fetters the Member's complete independence in Parliament, nor may an outside body (or person) use any contractual arrangement with a Member of Parliament as an instrument by which it controls, or seeks to control, his or her conduct in Parliament, or to punish that Member for any parliamentary action."
Quite remarkably Ministers are actually exempt from these rules:
"19. The following fall outside the lobbying rules:
a) Ministers: Members who are acting in the House as government Ministers are not subject to these rules when acting in that capacity. "
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
Wouldn't that be inconsistent with parliamentary privilege?
I don't know.
Surely IF there is criminality, that would not be covered by Parliamentary privilege.
Then it wouldn't be parliamentary privilege. For example those breaking super-injunctions in Parliament are immune from any criminal punishment.
I am assuming that is due to the notion of public interest. Fiddling Parliamentary expenses wasn't covered. Cash for peerages wasn't covered either was it? Is the idea of a random MP being paid to lobby for 3rd party contracts in the public interest? I don't know.
Those weren't things explicitly said in Parliament, were they?
I didn't explain myself very well, but I am not sure of your point either.
Revealing details of footballers private lives in the public interest ( for no monetary gain) can be executed using Parliamentary privilege. My genuine question is this. Is a random MP asking a question, having been paid to do so, and influencing government business having been paid so to do, legal or illegal?
Sadly legal but against the rules of Parliament. So not a criminal offence liable to prosecution.
We then have the suspension clause which only comes into effect if the suspension from the Committee on Standards is longer than 10 sitting days, There is where my lack of knowledge of the process exists - does an MP not have the right of appeal to the Committee of Standards and can an MP not bring evidence to the Committee in support of their innocence?
If the answer is no, you have a point but if the answer is yes, frankly you don't as the process (with its appeal elements) will have been undertaken. If of course an MP has no right of appeal to the Committee on Standards, that seems curious to this observer and is a different question worth considering.
The biggest problem is that "standards" are being enforced by other MPs. Who guards the guardians etc.
To be honest, does anyone believe the recall would have reached the numbers and even if it had, would the Conservatives be in any serious danger of losing the seat where Paterson is hanging on by his fingertips to a 23,000 majority (50% more than Chesham & Amersham)?
The Tories were clearly afraid it would at the least reach recall numbers. There's no reason for the urgency otherwise.
I doubt anyone thought the by-election, if reached, would be lost though, and we know they have reselected people facing a recall before.
Presumably there would be a lot of pressure on Paterson to repay the money if he'd been suspended. And it would make it harder for the rest of them to receive such money in the future.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2h I don’t understand the politics in this Owen Patterson vote. What’s the upside for Boris and the government. What does he think he gets out of it. Complete gift for Labour.
I think it was eek who pointed out that the message is 'If you get in trouble the government can back you to solve it for you', as a means of controlling its MPs.
Well it was an Alistair Meeks tweet but yep - it's a means of controlling their MPs - posting it in full.
It’s entirely rational. The new system means in practice MPs will need govt support to escape punishment, increasing executive control. MPs have been forced to commit themselves to this. And scrutiny of the executive is further weakened. A good day’s work for the PM.
A lot. The Committee did not accept it as total mitigation, and even if his complaints of them are right there are issues with this approach being necessary and proportionate.
Using your position as an MP to pocket £100,000 by lobbying under deceit doesn't warrant (as a minimum) a temporary ban?
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2h I don’t understand the politics in this Owen Patterson vote. What’s the upside for Boris and the government. What does he think he gets out of it. Complete gift for Labour.
I think it was eek who pointed out that the message is 'If you get in trouble the government can back you to solve it for you', as a means of controlling its MPs.
Yes that was a good insight and Johnson has form on this; see also the survival of Robert Jenrick for so long.
Paterson should live or die by the old rules. There's no wiggle room on that.
The old rules give the MPs the final say.
This vote happened under the old rules.
I don't believe there's ever been a whipped vote on a recommendation by the Standards Committee.
Doesn't that stink just a little bit? It's supposed to be MPs, not the Party machinery, that does the policing.
I think it was @Richard_Tyndall (may be wrong) who suggested that whipping should not be allowed ever. It was not something I had ever thought of, but I think it has merits. Difficult to monitor as there is always the unofficial threat of not getting a job if you vote against the party line, but it would be a step forward to giving the MPs more freedom. Possibly cloud cuckooland stuff, but I like the idea.
We then have the suspension clause which only comes into effect if the suspension from the Committee on Standards is longer than 10 sitting days, There is where my lack of knowledge of the process exists - does an MP not have the right of appeal to the Committee of Standards and can an MP not bring evidence to the Committee in support of their innocence?
If the answer is no, you have a point but if the answer is yes, frankly you don't as the process (with its appeal elements) will have been undertaken. If of course an MP has no right of appeal to the Committee on Standards, that seems curious to this observer and is a different question worth considering.
The biggest problem is that "standards" are being enforced by other MPs. Who guards the guardians etc.
To be honest, does anyone believe the recall would have reached the numbers and even if it had, would the Conservatives be in any serious danger of losing the seat where Paterson is hanging on by his fingertips to a 23,000 majority (50% more than Chesham & Amersham)?
The Tories were clearly afraid it would at the least reach recall numbers. There's no reason for the urgency otherwise.
I doubt anyone thought the by-election, if reached, would be lost though, and we know they have reselected people facing a recall before.
Presumably there would be a lot of pressure on Paterson to repay the money if he'd been suspended. And it would make it harder for the rest of them to receive such money in the future.
Paterson had the opportunity to repay the outside money at the start of the investigation. Had he chosen to do so, the investigation would have been called off as there would have been no case to answer. He chose not to. That speaks to a) his greed, and b) his arrogance in believing that the rules don't apply to him.
Paterson should live or die by the old rules. There's no wiggle room on that.
The old rules give the MPs the final say.
This vote happened under the old rules.
I don't believe there's ever been a whipped vote on a recommendation by the Standards Committee.
Doesn't that stink just a little bit? It's supposed to be MPs, not the Party machinery, that does the policing.
Yes I agree that the whipping stinks, but that cuts both ways.
The fact that the opposition whipped it into a party partisan fervour and not one Opposition MP backed the right for an appeal (despite according to Sam Coates multiple Labour MPs agreeing that this process was flawed) equally stinks.
Just to be clear, are you saying:
Opposition parties issued a formal Whip (as in an instruction that MPs must vote a certain way, as the government did)? If so, that's disgraceful, as the government's actions were.
Or
Opposition parties whipped up a storm by making a lot of noise about this issue? Because that's the stuff of politics. And "we should review the future process but this verdict is so egregious it has to stand" is a perfectly logical position to take.
Wow. She should have voted against rather than abstained - would have made it more worthwhile to lose her job over. I'll bet she's regretting she didn't.
We then have the suspension clause which only comes into effect if the suspension from the Committee on Standards is longer than 10 sitting days, There is where my lack of knowledge of the process exists - does an MP not have the right of appeal to the Committee of Standards and can an MP not bring evidence to the Committee in support of their innocence?
If the answer is no, you have a point but if the answer is yes, frankly you don't as the process (with its appeal elements) will have been undertaken. If of course an MP has no right of appeal to the Committee on Standards, that seems curious to this observer and is a different question worth considering.
The biggest problem is that "standards" are being enforced by other MPs. Who guards the guardians etc.
To be honest, does anyone believe the recall would have reached the numbers and even if it had, would the Conservatives be in any serious danger of losing the seat where Paterson is hanging on by his fingertips to a 23,000 majority (50% more than Chesham & Amersham)?
The Tories were clearly afraid it would at the least reach recall numbers. There's no reason for the urgency otherwise.
I doubt anyone thought the by-election, if reached, would be lost though, and we know they have reselected people facing a recall before.
Presumably there would be a lot of pressure on Paterson to repay the money if he'd been suspended. And it would make it harder for the rest of them to receive such money in the future.
Paterson had the opportunity to repay the outside money at the start of the investigation. Had he chosen to do so, the investigation would have been called off as there would have been no case to answer. He chose not to. That speaks to a) his greed, and b) his arrogance in believing that the rules don't apply to him.
Well there is a surprise. Locally considered as a bit of a sheep in following the party line. Either motivated by morals or the 3,000 odd majority over the LDs
Paterson should live or die by the old rules. There's no wiggle room on that.
The old rules give the MPs the final say.
This vote happened under the old rules.
I don't believe there's ever been a whipped vote on a recommendation by the Standards Committee.
Doesn't that stink just a little bit? It's supposed to be MPs, not the Party machinery, that does the policing.
This is the worst part of the whole process.
If we accept that whipping has an effect, which seems likely because otherwise it would be unlikely to exist, then it seems likely that a majority of MPs would have voted against the amendment, and voted to suspend Paterson, had the vote not been whipped.
I can just about reconcile myself to whipping for normal votes, because as an individual MP you will likely see more of what you want enacted if you are part of an organised group that agrees to abide by collective decision-making, and so you compromise to accept the judgement of others from time-to-time, in exchange for them doing the same for you.
But for something like this? To make this a loyalty test?
Boris Johnson has done, and continues to do, immense harm to the traditions and conventions of British democracy. I fear that we will suffer the consequences for many years to come.
Paterson should live or die by the old rules. There's no wiggle room on that.
The old rules give the MPs the final say.
This vote happened under the old rules.
I don't believe there's ever been a whipped vote on a recommendation by the Standards Committee.
Doesn't that stink just a little bit? It's supposed to be MPs, not the Party machinery, that does the policing.
This is the worst part of the whole process.
If we accept that whipping has an effect, which seems likely because otherwise it would be unlikely to exist, then it seems likely that a majority of MPs would have voted against the amendment, and voted to suspend Paterson, had the vote not been whipped.
I can just about reconcile myself to whipping for normal votes, because as an individual MP you will likely see more of what you want enacted if you are part of an organised group that agrees to abide by collective decision-making, and so you compromise to accept the judgement of others from time-to-time, in exchange for them doing the same for you.
But for something like this? To make this a loyalty test?
Boris Johnson has done, and continues to do, immense harm to the traditions and conventions of British democracy. I fear that we will suffer the consequences for many years to come.
Yes, I am ideologically closer to the current Tory Party than the current Labour Party, but anti-democratic tendencies are clearly on the rise with the Tories. Unless things are turned around sharpish, I am voting for Labour in the next election.
Well there is a surprise. Locally considered as a bit of a sheep in following the party line. Either motivated by morals or the 3,000 odd majority over the LDs
Her morals weren’t enough for her to vote against the amendment she merely abstained.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2h I don’t understand the politics in this Owen Patterson vote. What’s the upside for Boris and the government. What does he think he gets out of it. Complete gift for Labour.
True, except no-one will remember this whole saga in a few days' time.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2h I don’t understand the politics in this Owen Patterson vote. What’s the upside for Boris and the government. What does he think he gets out of it. Complete gift for Labour.
True, except no-one will remember this whole saga in a few days' time.
Unfortunately, that's probably the calculation that has been made here. Potentially (and only potentially) add another by-election which, though probably safe, would be awkward because of the circumstances of it, or protect Patterson and bank on only a few remembering it in a few weeks.
Following the precedent set by the government today.
Apparently, it has been agreed by the football authorities in the UK that if any Liverpool player is shown a red card in tonight's game against Atletico Madrid, the red card will immediately be rescinded. And the referee will be changed.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
Wouldn't that be inconsistent with parliamentary privilege?
I don't know.
Surely IF there is criminality, that would not be covered by Parliamentary privilege.
Then it wouldn't be parliamentary privilege. For example those breaking super-injunctions in Parliament are immune from any criminal punishment.
I am assuming that is due to the notion of public interest. Fiddling Parliamentary expenses wasn't covered. Cash for peerages wasn't covered either was it? Is the idea of a random MP being paid to lobby for 3rd party contracts in the public interest? I don't know.
Those weren't things explicitly said in Parliament, were they?
I didn't explain myself very well, but I am not sure of your point either.
Revealing details of footballers private lives in the public interest ( for no monetary gain) can be executed using Parliamentary privilege. My genuine question is this. Is a random MP asking a question, having been paid to do so, and influencing government business having been paid so to do, legal or illegal?
Misconduct in public office is a nice broad concept
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2h I don’t understand the politics in this Owen Patterson vote. What’s the upside for Boris and the government. What does he think he gets out of it. Complete gift for Labour.
True, except no-one will remember this whole saga in a few days' time.
Unfortunately, that's probably the calculation that has been made here. Potentially (and only potentially) add another by-election which, though probably safe, would be awkward because of the circumstances of it, or protect Patterson and bank on only a few remembering it in a few weeks.
Subtle use of the work 'bank' there, after Paterson. I like it.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
As others have now said, I don't think it's criminal. In many societies it's of course commonplace for members of Parliament to take up issues that they have received money for - I doubt if it would raise many eyebrows in the US, let alone Russia. Britain has tried to maintain a higher standard, but by Parliamentary self-regulation through a cross-party committee. It's that tradition that has been broken here, and I think that inevitably one has to conclude that the law should ban such activities, since MPs have proved unwilling to respect the system.
Thank you. I agree completely. Change isn't going to happen on Johnson's watch, unfortunately. Today may well be a seminal moment for a future Government to reference.
Paterson should live or die by the old rules. There's no wiggle room on that.
The old rules give the MPs the final say.
This vote happened under the old rules.
I don't believe there's ever been a whipped vote on a recommendation by the Standards Committee.
Doesn't that stink just a little bit? It's supposed to be MPs, not the Party machinery, that does the policing.
Yes I agree that the whipping stinks, but that cuts both ways.
The fact that the opposition whipped it into a party partisan fervour and not one Opposition MP backed the right for an appeal (despite according to Sam Coates multiple Labour MPs agreeing that this process was flawed) equally stinks.
Just to be clear, are you saying:
Opposition parties issued a formal Whip (as in an instruction that MPs must vote a certain way, as the government did)? If so, that's disgraceful, as the government's actions were.
Or
Opposition parties whipped up a storm by making a lot of noise about this issue? Because that's the stuff of politics. And "we should review the future process but this verdict is so egregious it has to stand" is a perfectly logical position to take.
I'd hate us to get confused here.
I think both are disgraceful. It should not have been politicised and should have been an apolitical conscience vote for both sides.
You say that one is "the stuff of politics" but so is whipping. If you're going to politicise it, then that's when whipping comes into play. If you want it unwhipped, then it shouldn't be politicised.
The question about this Owen Patterson story, is will it travel outside of political circles. And I don't think it will. It doesn't have the pure entertainment value of the expenses scandal. The story quickly descends in to a distant fog of leadsom amendments, standards commissioners and food safety; which mean little or nothing to many people.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
Nick, I asked earlier, and no one replied, is there anything here that looks potentially like criminality rather than unparliamentary behaviour.
Bearing in mind some Labour MPs did jail time for the expenses scandal. Is being paid to ask questions in the house unlawful? Genuine question.
Wouldn't that be inconsistent with parliamentary privilege?
I don't know.
Surely IF there is criminality, that would not be covered by Parliamentary privilege.
Then it wouldn't be parliamentary privilege. For example those breaking super-injunctions in Parliament are immune from any criminal punishment.
I am assuming that is due to the notion of public interest. Fiddling Parliamentary expenses wasn't covered. Cash for peerages wasn't covered either was it? Is the idea of a random MP being paid to lobby for 3rd party contracts in the public interest? I don't know.
Those weren't things explicitly said in Parliament, were they?
I didn't explain myself very well, but I am not sure of your point either.
Revealing details of footballers private lives in the public interest ( for no monetary gain) can be executed using Parliamentary privilege. My genuine question is this. Is a random MP asking a question, having been paid to do so, and influencing government business having been paid so to do, legal or illegal?
I don't see how it can be illegal since what is said in parliament is covered by parliamentary privilege. Your other examples were not things said in parliament, so are not covered by it.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2h I don’t understand the politics in this Owen Patterson vote. What’s the upside for Boris and the government. What does he think he gets out of it. Complete gift for Labour.
True, except no-one will remember this whole saga in a few days' time.
Unfortunately, that's probably the calculation that has been made here. Potentially (and only potentially) add another by-election which, though probably safe, would be awkward because of the circumstances of it, or protect Patterson and bank on only a few remembering it in a few weeks.
Except the issue won't go away.
We've now got the reform of the whole process, which it looks like opposition parties will boycott. Awks.
Then OP's appeal under the new process. Which will either be a kangaroo court finding him innocent, or come to the same conclusion as the original process. Mega awks.
In any case, this drags the issue out for months. The best way to bury the issue would have been to make OP accept the punishment and send him on a 30 day trip somewhere nice, because the recall threat in a seat like his is no threat at all.
But one of the key beliefs of Johnsonism is short-termism; never put off until tomorrow something unpleasant that can be spread out over months in the future.
This is clearly some sort of extreme comedy wind-up as to what might make people like me not vote Tory. Very accurate in its aim, I hope that it's inaccurate as to veracity.
Following the precedent set by the government today.
Apparently, it has been agreed by the football authorities in the UK that if any Liverpool player is shown a red card in tonight's game against Atletico Madrid, the red card will immediately be rescinded. And the referee will be changed.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
I think they will get away with it at the next election anyway, but when the Torys do fall from favour, it will be hard and fast, and wont be pretty, and one even with all their friends in high places, they may never recover for years, the clock is ticking
And how far will the Conservatives have to go to find a clean pair of hands?
Has anyone asked Rishi how he'd have voted had he been in Westminster today?
There's a nasty brutal element to the Johnson regime. Absolute loyalty or you swim with the fishes. Eddie Mair had it right when he called Johnson a nasty piece of work.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2h I don’t understand the politics in this Owen Patterson vote. What’s the upside for Boris and the government. What does he think he gets out of it. Complete gift for Labour.
True, except no-one will remember this whole saga in a few days' time.
Unfortunately, that's probably the calculation that has been made here. Potentially (and only potentially) add another by-election which, though probably safe, would be awkward because of the circumstances of it, or protect Patterson and bank on only a few remembering it in a few weeks.
Subtle use of the work 'bank' there, after Paterson. I like it.
I don't think it counts as subtlety if it was unintentional.
Thinking back to when I briefly claimed JSA (as UC was then called), I remember the ferocious warnings given to claimants who failed to declare income in order to reduce the effective tax rate of 80-90%. People who "forgot" to mention £100 of earnings would be subject to criminals sanctions, with very little sympathy from anyone.
Conservatives have now voted to protect a colleague who received exactly 1000 times that from private companies and was then found by an all-party committee to have broken the rules on lobbying.
Having a large majority and a polling lead is encouraging the Government to think it can get away with anything. I suspect that will turn out not to be true for much longer.
I think they will get away with it at the next election anyway, but when the Torys do fall from favour, it will be hard and fast, and wont be pretty, and one even with all their friends in high places, they may never recover for years, the clock is ticking
And how far will the Conservatives have to go to find a clean pair of hands?
Has anyone asked Rishi how he'd have voted had he been in Westminster today?
If he was paired then his hands are dirty.
And it he wasn't paired, then his position in the Cabinet is untenable.
Which is why it would be of public interest to know his view on the matter.
(But the wider point is that, if BoJo comes to be seen as unfit to rule, anyone who has served under him is compromised as well.)
I’m (nearly) proud of you for (being on the verge of) doing the right thing and (trying to take credit) for the brave stand you (almost) took.
If the vote had just gone the other way, as it was close, she and others could claim credit by proxy. But it didn't. Getting sacked over an abstention is just Johnson rubbing it in her face.
Johnson can never and will never do anything but facilitate sleaze on his benches.
He is the King Rat in the sewer in terms of sleaze. Sexual, financial, you name it.
He cannot possibly EVER do anything but excuse and support the offenders, otherwise the bucket of his own sh1t, forever hanging by a thread over his own head, comes down.
I’m (nearly) proud of you for (being on the verge of) doing the right thing and (trying to take credit) for the brave stand you (almost) took.
If the vote had just gone the other way, as it was close, she and others could claim credit by proxy. But it didn't. Getting sacked over an abstention is just Johnson rubbing it in her face.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 2h I don’t understand the politics in this Owen Patterson vote. What’s the upside for Boris and the government. What does he think he gets out of it. Complete gift for Labour.
True, except no-one will remember this whole saga in a few days' time.
Unfortunately, that's probably the calculation that has been made here. Potentially (and only potentially) add another by-election which, though probably safe, would be awkward because of the circumstances of it, or protect Patterson and bank on only a few remembering it in a few weeks.
Except the issue won't go away.
We've now got the reform of the whole process, which it looks like opposition parties will boycott. Awks.
Then OP's appeal under the new process. Which will either be a kangaroo court finding him innocent, or come to the same conclusion as the original process. Mega awks.
In any case, this drags the issue out for months. The best way to bury the issue would have been to make OP accept the punishment and send him on a 30 day trip somewhere nice, because the recall threat in a seat like his is no threat at all.
But one of the key beliefs of Johnsonism is short-termism; never put off until tomorrow something unpleasant that can be spread out over months in the future.
I hope that is true. That they tried to be clever to save a friend and at the same time neuter a process most of them dislike anyway, assuming they'd stir up some criticism but it'd swiftly get lost, and then it turns out their own solution helps drag it out.
Comments
There is no other word for it.
https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1455950196177870851
To be clear, it was not just the lack of a declaration that was wrong in the Paterson case. It was the actual receipt of money whether declared or not.
From the Parliament website:
"2. Taking payment in return for advocating a particular matter in the House is strictly forbidden. Members may not speak in the House, vote, or initiate parliamentary proceedings for payment in cash or kind. Nor may they make approaches to Ministers, other Members or public officials in return for such payment.
3. A Member may not enter into any contractual arrangement which fetters the Member's complete independence in Parliament, nor may an outside body (or person) use any contractual arrangement with a Member of Parliament as an instrument by which it controls, or seeks to control, his or her conduct in Parliament, or to punish that Member for any parliamentary action."
Quite remarkably Ministers are actually exempt from these rules:
"19. The following fall outside the lobbying rules:
a) Ministers: Members who are acting in the House as government Ministers are not subject to these rules when acting in that capacity. "
Surely IF there is criminality, that would not be covered by Parliamentary privilege.
I doubt anyone thought the by-election, if reached, would be lost though, and we know they have reselected people facing a recall before.
Oh we make the standards and we make the rules
And if you don't abide by them you must be a fool
We have the power to control the whole land
You never must question our motives or plans -
cause well outlaw your voices, do anything we want
we've nothing to fear from the nation
Well throw you out of your houses if you get too much
If we have to well destroy your generation
cause we've built up a frontage and we've gained respect
there's no one to endanger our position -
Standards rule ok
Standards rule ok
Standards rule ok
Standards rule ok
And we don't like people who stand in our way
Awareness is gonna be redundant
And ignorance is strength, we have God on our side
Look, you know what happend to winston
If the current procedures are wrong, they should clearly be changed. But it is concerning when the change is rammed through on a whipped government vote, without the support - as far I can tell - of a single non-Conservative MP.
Lest we forget, this is the first time since the Second World War that the House of Commons has voted not to accept a recommendation from its own standards committee. Worse, it is a unanimous recommendation that is has chosen to ignore.
What's par here? Suspension of long enough to trigger the recall petition probably - I would guess (based on nothing other than cynicism) that he will end up with a 7 day suspension, thus avoiding the possibility of recall, and allowing both sides to claim moral victory.
Something like, "The government can remain popular longer than you can stave of misanthropy," perhaps?
@DPJHodges
·
2h
I don’t understand the politics in this Owen Patterson vote. What’s the upside for Boris and the government. What does he think he gets out of it. Complete gift for Labour.
This vote happened under the old rules.
I only mention this as an amusing aside, not because it is in fact a direct comparison, but I am reminded of authoritarians seeking to change the rules of winning mid way through elections, or amending their constitutions eg on term limits so the first ones don't count anymore. What? It 'solves' a problem they've identified.
Paterson could have evaded suspension if he had simply by declaring in any intervention that he was a paid lobbyist for the company.
That the British non-Tories acted partisanly in seeking to embarrass their political opponents is not proof that the MPs who voted Aye did the wrong thing.
Under the existing rules the House of Commons had the right to not accept the recommendation. They've not changed the rules by choosing to act here, it was always their prerogative.
Doesn't that stink just a little bit? It's supposed to be MPs, not the Party machinery, that does the policing.
On balance I could probably support expanding disqualification to cover anyone convicted of a crime, and do away with recall.
"2. Taking payment in return for advocating a particular matter in the House is strictly forbidden. Members may not speak in the House, vote, or initiate parliamentary proceedings for payment in cash or kind. Nor may they make approaches to Ministers, other Members or public officials in return for such payment."
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmcode/1076/107606.htm
This is the EU applying the same biometric border system for international visa free travel as other developed countries; only it took them about 15 years longer than everyone else, and will probably be delayed again by a year or so.
Edit: I suppose that the FSA would be included in "Public Officials" so yes, I think that you are right. It is even more egregious.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/03/call-out-tories-corruption-conservative-owen-paterson-keir-starmer
It's about fucking time. He's actually got off the fence and done an all-guns-blazing attack on the government, pulling no punches. He should have been doing this earlier, for example on dodgy Covid contracts and many other issues. But better late than never.
Revealing details of footballers private lives in the public interest ( for no monetary gain) can be executed using Parliamentary privilege. My genuine question is this. Is a random MP asking a question, having been paid to do so, and influencing government business having been paid so to do, legal or illegal?
So I'd suggest that we try, as much as possible, to stop talking about gender whenever possible, and only talk about biological sex when it is imperative to do so.
I'd just drop gender from passports for example. I'd also drop titles like Mr, Ms, Mrs, Miss, etc, completely. I'd create a unified system of clothes and shoe sizes.
Let's get rid of pointless gender differences, rather than policing who they apply to.
The fact that the opposition whipped it into a party partisan fervour and not one Opposition MP backed the right for an appeal (despite according to Sam Coates multiple Labour MPs agreeing that this process was flawed) equally stinks.
Has anyone asked Rishi how he'd have voted had he been in Westminster today?
It’s entirely rational. The new system means in practice MPs will need govt support to escape punishment, increasing executive control. MPs have been forced to commit themselves to this. And scrutiny of the executive is further weakened. A good day’s work for the PM.
PBers cannot spell their bloody names.
Opposition parties issued a formal Whip (as in an instruction that MPs must vote a certain way, as the government did)? If so, that's disgraceful, as the government's actions were.
Or
Opposition parties whipped up a storm by making a lot of noise about this issue? Because that's the stuff of politics. And "we should review the future process but this verdict is so egregious it has to stand" is a perfectly logical position to take.
I'd hate us to get confused here.
They just didn't make it clear who would have day-to-day control afterwards.
If we accept that whipping has an effect, which seems likely because otherwise it would be unlikely to exist, then it seems likely that a majority of MPs would have voted against the amendment, and voted to suspend Paterson, had the vote not been whipped.
I can just about reconcile myself to whipping for normal votes, because as an individual MP you will likely see more of what you want enacted if you are part of an organised group that agrees to abide by collective decision-making, and so you compromise to accept the judgement of others from time-to-time, in exchange for them doing the same for you.
But for something like this? To make this a loyalty test?
Boris Johnson has done, and continues to do, immense harm to the traditions and conventions of British democracy. I fear that we will suffer the consequences for many years to come.
Apparently, it has been agreed by the football authorities in the UK that if any Liverpool player is shown a red card in tonight's game against Atletico Madrid, the red card will immediately be rescinded. And the referee will be changed.
You say that one is "the stuff of politics" but so is whipping. If you're going to politicise it, then that's when whipping comes into play. If you want it unwhipped, then it shouldn't be politicised.
We've now got the reform of the whole process, which it looks like opposition parties will boycott. Awks.
Then OP's appeal under the new process. Which will either be a kangaroo court finding him innocent, or come to the same conclusion as the original process. Mega awks.
In any case, this drags the issue out for months. The best way to bury the issue would have been to make OP accept the punishment and send him on a 30 day trip somewhere nice, because the recall threat in a seat like his is no threat at all.
But one of the key beliefs of Johnsonism is short-termism; never put off until tomorrow something unpleasant that can be spread out over months in the future.
I’m (nearly) proud of you for (being on the verge of) doing the right thing and (trying to take credit) for the brave stand you (almost) took.
http://news.sky.com/story/owen-paterson-ex-minister-defends-lobbying-for-two-firms-after-suspension-from-parliament-halted-12459119
Transcript: https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1455980402242428932/photo/1
This is clearly some sort of extreme comedy wind-up as to what might make people like me not vote Tory. Very accurate in its aim, I hope that it's inaccurate as to veracity.
All the opposition needs to do is find a simple story to works.
Which is why it would be of public interest to know his view on the matter.
(But the wider point is that, if BoJo comes to be seen as unfit to rule, anyone who has served under him is compromised as well.)
He is the King Rat in the sewer in terms of sleaze. Sexual, financial, you name it.
He cannot possibly EVER do anything but excuse and support the offenders, otherwise the bucket of his own sh1t, forever hanging by a thread over his own head, comes down.
I don't think we're that lucky.