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It is hard to see Old Bexley & Sidcup being other than a comfortable CON hold – politicalbetting.com
It is hard to see Old Bexley & Sidcup being other than a comfortable CON hold – politicalbetting.com
The Old Bexley & Sidcup by-election has been scheduled for Thursday 2nd December.Here's everything you need to know: pic.twitter.com/n7odqIYwrj
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-> Since the coalition the party has found it difficult.
Wonder why OB&S was so heavily for Leave. Agree that under the circumstances. it doesn't seem fertile LD territory, but I expect quite a low turnout, unless someone can find a 'firework' local issue.
I would expect Le Pen-ite France would be an uncomfortable neighbour for southern England.
I mean - seriously?
Some really good medical news for a change: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59148620 The HPV vaccine has cut cervical cancer rates by nearly 90%. I think that the government should be making a fuss about this as yet another example of vaccines saving lives. I know that this is approaching anti vaxxers with reason which is probably futile but its got to be worth a go.
Kwarteng gives strong hint the commissioner Kathryn Stone should resign:
"It's difficult to see what the future of the commissioner is, given the fact we are overturning and trying to reform the process".
https://twitter.com/tamcohen/status/1456158302409199617
Morality, like sanity, is purely statistical.
If you have the votes, you can do whatever you damn well please.
Rightists to the right of him
Rightists to the left of him
Rightists on all sides of him
He gibbered and chundered ...
Which I think is driving his Putinesque behaviour.
Macron is putting out that he is doing it all to defend all the other members of the EU.
But I'm interested in the impact on France, us, and the EU, if there was a very different government in Paris.
I just can't think of the last time there was one in France.
Absurd. Even Charles is calling it corruption and he was loathe to call out all of the previous Tory corruption.
Its the front page of the Daily Mail. The top of all the news bulletins. Remember the expenses scandal? That was also "obscure parliamentary procedure" but it ran and ran and ran. Why - because of the clear sense of right and wrong.
What happened last night is wrong. You don't need to put it through a partisan filter for that judgement - its wrong. And the dripping sneering arrogance of the Tory party - loathsome Leadsom on C4 News, HYUFD on here, Paterson saying "I'd do it all again".
And there's more. People didn't really poke the stick too hard at connections between donations to Tory HQ and MPs and the awarding of vast contracts without tender, peerages, planning consent etc etc etc. Paterson is so outrageous in waving his shilling for Randox that I expect the rest of it to be given another run over by the media as this story continues to have legs.
HYUFD can foam on about voters, but all that is needed to remove this disgrace of a government from office is Tory voters abstaining. They don't need to be persuaded to vote Starmer or Davey or Farage or anyone else. Just to stay at home.
It's getting a bit like Poland. Only government approved judges permitted, and only as long as they facilitate government corruption.
https://thecritic.co.uk/nothing-matters-to-careless-people/
Wow.
HYUFD really needs to watch it. The Tory Party is getting eviscerated by Tory supporters in a Tory newspaper. The idea that the corrupt and their shills are in the right and the parliamentary commissioner is wrong is laughable.
Bertrand etc would be more traditional Gaullists.
The whole Tory party is funded on a pay for access model. It is blatantly corrupt. Poor old Neil Hamilton and his brown envelopes of cash seem almost quaint by comparison.
https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1456164643785822208
Though his line is that if Tory MPs approve then it's not corruption.
It ought to trouble the Tories that they appear to be acting in precisely the way Labour would like to portray them: rich people doing favours for their rich friends, lining their pockets and living lives of reckless extravagance while pensioners are dying alone in care homes.
Conservatives ought to be able to say, with more confidence than they are at the moment, that their leader is an honest man who acted within both the letter and the spirit of the law. That used to be the sort of thing that mattered. But it’s a different party now.
I'd have liked countries to move as fast as technically possible on coal, rather than as fast as economically inevitable - but the economics is going to see off coal now, and I think we'll end up being surprised at how fast the transition ends up being. The news on solar in India is really positive: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/03/indias-huge-uptake-in-solar-is-driving-more-ambitious-climate-goals-says-minister
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/03/owen-paterson-his-claims-and-how-they-stack-up-in-analysis
His argument lacks credibility, to put it mildly. Effectively he's arguing that if an MP believes he's exempt from the rules, that should be the end of the matter.
And it is not an argument which would be significantly altered by any witness statements. The essential facts of the case are not in dispute.
Johnson has a long history of avoiding any inquiries into his actions. The Garden Bridge debacle is typical: a vainunglorious project, wanted by few except him and his sycophants, with little useful purpose, and which wasted £43 million of public money. He did not cooperate with the inquiry, preferring to ignore and debase it.
I'm unsurprised his party is making this move now. I have some sympathy for Owen Paterson; the actions of his party overwhelm the sympathy. There may be problems with the defined processes; there may be problems with the way Paterson's case was handled. Even if those are both true, that truth will be lose beneath the stinking slurry of yesterday's vote, and those MPs who are swimming in the pigswill.
Bait and switch is a favoured technique of grifters.
https://senedd.wales/how-we-work/code-of-conduct-and-associated-rules-and-guidance-for-members-of-the-senedd/section-2-5-guidance-on-lobbying-and-access-to-assembly-members/
I am not sure what is the scarier: that someone with so little insight was once a cabinet minister or that Leadsom was once a non joke candidate (at least in some eyes) for the leadership of the Tory party. Its a shameful episode which reduces standards in public life significantly.
Say it isn't so.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12140345.anger-as-watchdog-for-mps-loses-her-job-standards-commissioner-ruffled-a-few-feathers/
But I was disturbed by @HYUFD argument that it was all ok because the House had voted it was ok.
The idea of a completely independent body having the ability to suspend elected representatives doesn’t sit well with me. But a system where MPs vote in judgement on their peers falls apart when it becomes partisan. May be you need something like a panel of former Speakers? I don’t see a particularly good way out.
Frontbencher Thangam Debbonaire says it "is appalling" the government is "trying to bully the standards commissioner out of her job".
“Boris Johnson must distance himself from these latest attempts to poison British politics." https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1456165133173018636
As Bryant said this morning, if there was genuinely a risk to public health, how come Paterson as an MP with access to the media did nothing else about it - no speeches, no articles, no other letters, nothing?
You might make them in the context of the Covid pandemic*, but they are considerably less convincing in the case of paid lobbying to get a competitor's products relabelled.
*Some might recall this.
In March 2020, Randox was awarded a £133 million contract from the Department of Health and Social Care to produce testing kits (at a cost of £49 each)[61] during the coronavirus pandemic without any other firms being given the opportunity to bid for the work.[62] Paterson represented Randox in a call with James Bethell, the minister responsible for awarding contracts to the private sector during the pandemic in April 2020.[61] A further £347 million contract was awarded to Randox six months later without other companies being able to bid...
https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1456035773896171523
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-59158458
The serious emergency argument appears to be infinitely flexible.
There is now no good option for the Prime Minister. The choice is between backing any reform plan advanced by the new Tory-only committee, or not doing so for fear of that slender majority of 18 vanishing
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1456173265366528000
Sack her sorry arse and let John Whittingdale give the Number 10 refurbishment a clean bill of health.
If as alleged the process followed was unfair and the "Tsar" was biased then that's an issue, isn't it?
Corruption never prospers, for if it does no-one dare call it corruption.
And it wouldn't exactly be out of character for BoJo to use the (genuine, I think) personal sympathy for OP to get something that will make Johnson's life easier.
The smash'n'grab nature of this vote is classic Bozza.
Activists never 'do' anything - they perform a mutual onanism ritual to show they are better than the hoi poloi. But they will claim they are the cause. Even the recalcitrant nations will eventually take a bribe to fall into line.
From a scientific point of view, it will be interesting to see how much effect the fall in CO2 has. No one can predict what percentage of global warming is caused by this gas. I won't live to see it but I think I know what will be claimed.
If there's no change - it would have been much worse if we hadn't done it.
If there's little change - we didn't reduce methane and X, Y, and Z. And reducing pollution in the air cooled the atmosphere, but it had to be done.
If there's a large change, the onanists did it all.
Then they'll have to find another six-year-old with a cause.
Chris Bryant's closing contribution to the Owen Paterson debate is one of the most quietly effective and damning Commons speeches you'll hear in a while. Worth watching in full.
https://t.co/Wf9RdBpaRk
https://twitter.com/peterwalker99/status/1455928741067214853?t=nuMMRUcqAqTCfZrJRmNdlg&s=19
It is up to the Senedd member to determine whether the person he/she is talking to is a lobbyist. It is self-regulation 😉
Is what Owen Patterson did against the rules of the Senedd ?
The penalty for complacency would be a billion or so climate refugees in Europe by 2070.
https://www.ft.com/content/072b5c87-7330-459b-a947-be6767a1099d
I just cannot understand why Boris or his advisors thought this was a good idea.
Paterson should take his punishment, and if there is an issue with the procedures then it is sensible to address it in the future
The media say this morning that Paterson's 30 day exclusion has been suspended pending this new procedure but we all know that that is a long way away
@HYUFD comments last night have rightly been called out as I did when he made them
And to add to Parliament's woes Claudia Webbe is to be sentenced today
Eyes on the prize - call it the Paterson Principle.
Apart from all the other egregiousness, he strikes me as a deeply stupid man.
Mr. NorthWales, if that's the Labour MP I think it is then not only has the idiot in Number 10 been stupid with the vote yesterday all by itself, he's also created a negative Conservative headline to eclipse a negative Labour one.
And for what? One man, to be suspended for 30 days?
Old Bexley and Sidcup stayed Conservative even in 1997 and 2001. It was over 60% Leave and the LDs got just 8% there in 2019, so it offers little chance for a LD by election upset.
The Conservatives have also selected a local candidate, the former deputy leader of Bexley council, who is well known in the area.
Indeed the question will be more the size of the Conseervative majority, not whether the Tories win or not.
The more interesting thing will be whether Labour can hold second from the LDs and ReformUK, whose leader Richard Tice will be their candidate in the by election
I would hardly call what we are undergoing is complacency, but with activists, nothing will ever be good enough, otherwise they'll be out of a job.
Compared to the vagaries of planet Earth, projected estimates for a mere virus are a piece of piss.
As always, we'll muddle through.
Firstly it can mean a fall in the amount of CO2 (PPM) in the atmosphere.
Secondly it can mean a reduction in the rate at which CO2 is being added to the atmosphere (currently at record high and increasing after 30 years of 'last chance' talk).
The first will, if the science is right, save us but the technology does not exist.
The second, if the science is right, will eventually destroy life as we know it
and meanwhile will make us all variously uncomfortable.
Because of the radical difference between the outcomes in 'CO2 fall' it is important for politicians to get them confused - like deficit and debt. So it is massively important for people who like clarity and truth to not confuse them.
Which did you mean?