This is reminding me a bit of the old rule in Cricket around extension of the arm, and that once they looked at it scientifically it appeared virtually all bowlers were technically in breach, so they made the rules more flexible. It feels like a lot of MPs are going to be caught out, particularly with Zoom calls, and I wonder if there will be a push for zero tolerance adherence, or an attempt to distinguish a bit around the non-parliamentary work in question - eg political lobbying or significant external exployment.
I do like that Blunt is a little off message by saying he'll accept the findings of any investigation, but basically it never even occurred to him and there's a feeding frenzy.
I posted about Leyla Moran earlier, but was assured that because the money involved was less it was not an issue
Amazing Lib Dems cannot see that if it is prohibited it is prohibited, and she has broken the rule with no doubt many others
Interesting that you mentioned Moran, but not Blunt or Khan.
When I posted about Morgan I did not know about the other two
So you didn't even read the article you linked to
Typical Tory stuff, try to deflect from their wrong uns and put their foot in their mouths.
The obituaries for Johnson seem a little premature to me. Have we forgotten that governments tend to be behind in the polls in midterm? It won't necessarily be easy for them to find someone as amenable to the electorate.
That said Boris is an instant gratification prime minister who's unlikely to be able to afford a giveaway come 2024. And he doesn't command much sense of loyalty from the troops.
I still expect him to lead into the GE, however I no longer think he's a massive fav to be PM after it. Therefore I've cashed out my long BJ/Con positions and I'm starting again. I price it now (on PM post GE) as Johnson 50% Starmer 30% Other 20%.
As for that 'Other', I'm picking up in Toryland the pushing of a new cult of personality around the CoE. Just as Johnson is brand "Boris" - and people know my feelings about this - so Sunak seems to be becoming "Rishi" to lots of people who know him only through the tv. An unwelcome development.
Overegged?
I think he's been Rishi in the papers since I noticed him.
Yes the papers are in on it. They're lining up someone to get behind to stop the dreaded slightly left of centre Labour prevailing in the event of Johnson coming a cropper.
This is how you come across banging on about Boris, Ed, Dave, Rishi, Nicola etc getting referred to by their names:
It's not 1st names per se that I bridle at, it's when I detect the pushing and the swallowing of a brand. Wouldn't expect everyone to get the point but I'm slightly disappointed at how few seem to.
Some branding, calling people by *mock horror* their name!!!
I'd have thought you'd be more concerned if you were worried about 'branding' with Sunak's sleek social media operations with his signature attached to his policies. That's not even attempting to hide the branding.
But keep banging on about names if you like.
Once again, it's not about names, it's about where we're getting a brand, or to put it another way, a persona in lieu of a person.
Eg, Cameron, Blair, Brown in the world of internet punditry often got called Dave, Gordon, Tony but there was no Dave or Gordon or Tony brand to speak of. Maybe a touch of it with the latter but not really. Certainly nothing to touch the BB juggernaut.
And you're dead right about Sunak. Well spotted there. He is hell bent on a brand. He's seen "Boris" win the sort of landslide that "Johnson" - or even "Boris Johnson" - wouldn't have been able to and he's taken notes. He wants to be a consumer product and he wants that product to be called Rishi.
Whatever, I won't be buying it. Not because I dislike Rishi Sunak, I don't, but because I wish to retain some detachment, assess him objectively as a politician.
Dave, Gordon, Tony all had brands in that sense. Quite strong ones.
Not in the sense of a separate and powerful first name persona which people en masse got attracted to and as a consequence cut far more slack to than is usual for a politician. The BB is in a league of its own on this score. Starting to crumble now, thank god, but boy it's been something to see.
Prediction: it'll be a nothing burger, Boris on 20-65 approval or something like that
Whatever it turns out to be the whole Paterson issue has moved the fences. I'm not sure quite who did what and when, but Paterson will be an unfortunate persona-non-grata for ever. I think he deserved his initial fate (having read the documents). I think Paterson will have damned Boris to the footnotes too. He may well come back from this, but he's never going to be the great PM he wanted to be.
But you won't see it reported on the leftie, biased BBC
Will anyone see the use of a parliamentary office for private work to be much of a problem? Everyone must do it, on a small scale, you take a phone call wherever you happen to be.
And MPs must often do parliamentary work in whichever of their residencies they don't claim for. So quid pro quo.
His earnings have all come from the Bar, so that is just keeping his hand in his previous profession as a QC not lobbying. His constituents have consistently re elected him on that basis
I love this. Really love it. The more you take this kind of line the more I know Labour will win the next election.
You don't have a clue how angry people are about this ...
Surely not as angry as they were about the lockdowns in October? 😉
We're going to see more MPs fall foul of stupidly using Portcullis House for naughty meetings. I'm not sure that some posters understand why Cox is different to Moran, Blunt etc etc.
It isn't that he was using his office for a private meeting. Its that he wasn't doing his job as an MP. Whilst being paid £stupid to spend long periods on a paradise island defending a foreign government against a corruption investigation brought by his own government that he was the most senior law officer of until very recently.
The politics of envy has always been strong in this country. And this is a cracking example of other people being significantly richer than yow and becoming so by troughing off yow's back.
Because? He inserted his hand all the way up Hamilton's slot and the stewards took a dim view and fined him for it. What did you want them to do instead?
EDIT - ah! Hamilton's slot despite being violated by Verstappen's hand was not wide enough.
Because? He inserted his hand all the way up Hamilton's slot and the stewards took a dim view and fined him for it. What did you want them to do instead?
Because? He inserted his hand all the way up Hamilton's slot and the stewards took a dim view and fined him for it. What did you want them to do instead?
He wanted him disqualified as well, because unless Verstappen has a DNF Hamilton pretty much can't win the title now.
But the stewards took the view it was a technical infringement, while Mercedes were blatantly cheating.
Dr Raghib Ali MD(Epi) MPH MSc(Epi) MA DLSHTM FRCP @drraghibali · 4h As those us who supported step 4 in July said at the time, an 'exit wave' was inevitable and it was better to have it before the Winter. That higher level of immunity we gained is now preventing the surges we are seeing in many European countries.
===
Fingers crossed...
Professor Ferguson is also in the optimistic camp on this (as am I, for what little that's worth.) We've had a successful vaccination campaign, with extraordinarily high take-up amongst the most vulnerable; 14% of the entire population has been confirmed Covid positive by test, likely with several multiples of that having been infected but undetected due to widespread prevalence of asymptomatic and mild infections; society has now been operating with very few restrictions for four months; and the disease has been allowed to rip almost unchecked through the bulk of schools (i.e. those in England) since September, saturating the principal remaining carrier demographic in virus.
Re-infection rates are very low, and the total size of the UK population (and, thus, the remaining pool of individuals susceptible to severe infection) is finite. The wretched disease is a formidable opponent but it's not the product of sorcery: we must, by now, have blunted its ability to cause more mass carnage.
Interestingly, having been neck and neck until Hamilton's disqualification, the voodoo poll HYS on the BBC is now breaking to 'wrong decision' to fine Verstappen - suggesting a sudden 75-25 split in people who wanted him disqualified.
I am late to this and I apologise if this has already been done to death down thread but this story in my view shows how stupid things have got: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59275207
Layla Moran and Crispin Blunt are being condemned because they used their office to conduct a virtual conference call for which they got fees. I mean, this is completely nuts. Who the hell cares where they were? We are all working remotely now. This isn't using the rooms and facilities of Portcullis House. Its a call. They may as well have been in the Caribbean sharing a villa with Geoffrey for all the difference that it made.
We really need to get a grip before the last sane MP quits in disgust (I appreciate that there is an assumption in that statement which may or may not be warranted).
The obituaries for Johnson seem a little premature to me. Have we forgotten that governments tend to be behind in the polls in midterm? It won't necessarily be easy for them to find someone as amenable to the electorate.
That said Boris is an instant gratification prime minister who's unlikely to be able to afford a giveaway come 2024. And he doesn't command much sense of loyalty from the troops.
I still expect him to lead into the GE, however I no longer think he's a massive fav to be PM after it. Therefore I've cashed out my long BJ/Con positions and I'm starting again. I price it now (on PM post GE) as Johnson 50% Starmer 30% Other 20%.
As for that 'Other', I'm picking up in Toryland the pushing of a new cult of personality around the CoE. Just as Johnson is brand "Boris" - and people know my feelings about this - so Sunak seems to be becoming "Rishi" to lots of people who know him only through the tv. An unwelcome development.
Overegged?
I think he's been Rishi in the papers since I noticed him.
Yes the papers are in on it. They're lining up someone to get behind to stop the dreaded slightly left of centre Labour prevailing in the event of Johnson coming a cropper.
This is how you come across banging on about Boris, Ed, Dave, Rishi, Nicola etc getting referred to by their names:
It's not 1st names per se that I bridle at, it's when I detect the pushing and the swallowing of a brand. Wouldn't expect everyone to get the point but I'm slightly disappointed at how few seem to.
I'm disappointed you persist in pretending those that disagree with you about the effectiveness of such a brand are just being stupid and not 'getting' your point. We get it, we just don't put as much onto it as you appear to.
First time I've mentioned it in ages.
You bridle at it because, I think, you're thinking that I think you've succumbed to the Boris brand yourself, given you're an habitual user of the "Boris" handle. I can reassure you on this. I don't think that. Indeed I think the opposite - that you haven't. You don't use "Boris" in a manner that indicates to me you've succumbed.
Always calling him "Boris" is a necessary but not sufficient piece of evidence of having succumbed. The extra evidence required lies in the tone in which "Boris" is said and discussed. Does the speaker seem to be talking about a bloke they know well and are rather fond of? Could one insert the missing words "good old" before the "Boris" without compromising the sentiment being expressed by them?
If the answer here is 'yes' one knows one is in the presence of one who has succumbed.
I didn't say you had mentioned it much in ages, I cannot remember the last time you did. The reason I bridle is I think it is fundamentally patronising, eg your 'disappointed how few seem [to get it]' line. I know you don't mean to be, and you're right branding is important for a politician and Boris's is powerful, but I think you present a picture where we should presume use of the name indicates someone has 'succumbed', when as you've just noted more than that is needed. I just spent a weekend in a Corbynite household which unprompted literally wished death on 'Boris' more than once - even if that is not the norm, I just find it hard to accept the brand of the name cannot equally be a hindrance to him.
Fair enough. And yes I have just clarified and explained how it's the "Boris" babble PLUS the tone of the babble that's key. So we agree on this now. We're sorted.
Prediction: it'll be a nothing burger, Boris on 20-65 approval or something like that
Whatever it turns out to be the whole Paterson issue has moved the fences. I'm not sure quite who did what and when, but Paterson will be an unfortunate persona-non-grata for ever. I think he deserved his initial fate (having read the documents). I think Paterson will have damned Boris to the footnotes too. He may well come back from this, but he's never going to be the great PM he wanted to be.
I agree with most of that, but not the implication that Paterson is somehow the one who's damned Boris. That would be Boris. He has been the author of his own disgrace several times and this is once again his fault. Oh sure, he's been badly advised but at some point you need to recognise bad advice or at the very least the type of people likely to give it.
Of course you're right in that it's the Paterson issue rather than Paterson himself.
Because? He inserted his hand all the way up Hamilton's slot and the stewards took a dim view and fined him for it. What did you want them to do instead?
Disqualify him.
Look. Touching a gentleman's rear wing is Not Allowed. So he got a big fine. But he touched Hamilton's wing area because he noticed it had been tampered with, which is cheating. So the wing has been impounded and the time set expunged.
Anyway, Serlewis is a bloody genius at scything his way through a field - and as its a Sprint race weekend he gets to do that before the grid is formed. Had Mercedes cheated last week or next week this would have been much more serious.
All very Rush this Grand Prix stuff - that movie had an incident where Lauda dobbed in Hunt for a wing or other element was a few tenths of an inch too small. I'm surprised Verstappen was able to notice.
This is reminding me a bit of the old rule in Cricket around extension of the arm, and that once they looked at it scientifically it appeared virtually all bowlers were technically in breach, so they made the rules more flexible. It feels like a lot of MPs are going to be caught out, particularly with Zoom calls, and I wonder if there will be a push for zero tolerance adherence, or an attempt to distinguish a bit around the non-parliamentary work in question - eg political lobbying or significant external exployment.
I do like that Blunt is a little off message by saying he'll accept the findings of any investigation, but basically it never even occurred to him and there's a feeding frenzy.
I posted about Leyla Moran earlier, but was assured that because the money involved was less it was not an issue
Amazing Lib Dems cannot see that if it is prohibited it is prohibited, and she has broken the rule with no doubt many others
Interesting that you mentioned Moran, but not Blunt or Khan.
When I posted about Morgan I did not know about the other two
So you didn't even read the article you linked to
You really are out of order.
My original post was about Moran before this article, and was making the point that Lib Dems were trying to make out it was minor
Of course I read the article but that was not my point
Because? He inserted his hand all the way up Hamilton's slot and the stewards took a dim view and fined him for it. What did you want them to do instead?
Disqualify him.
Look. Touching a gentleman's rear wing is Not Allowed. So he got a big fine. But he touched Hamilton's wing area because he noticed it had been tampered with, which is cheating. So the wing has been impounded and the time set expunged.
Anyway, Serlewis is a bloody genius at scything his way through a field - and as its a Sprint race weekend he gets to do that before the grid is formed. Had Mercedes cheated last week or next week this would have been much more serious.
Arguably as well it would have been potentially far more damaging if they *hadn't* disqualified him. Suppose he hadn't been, had gone from pole, Red Bull had successfully appealed later and he was disqualified from the actual races? Then he would have been in real trouble.
Verstappen gets a €50,000 fine whilst Hamilton is disqualified.
Racist anti British stewards.
Disqualification is a bit of an odd one, usually they just gird penalty you for stuff.
I think they felt without it he wouldn't have been as fast.
Of course, sometimes they do let people off for breaking the technical regs. Remember Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher at Kuala Lumpar in 2000?
But, there was a legitimate argument that made no difference to the performance. Here, however...
Plus Hamilton already had a penalty.
Yes, and of course not all breaches of rules reasonably have the same punishment, we don't chop off hands for both theft and littering. On the face of it touching the car is wrong, but it take deliberate contrary action to breach car set up rules - remember I think it was BAR having a tank inside the tank or something, so they could leave fuel in for the weigh in?
Verstappen gets a €50,000 fine whilst Hamilton is disqualified.
Racist anti British stewards.
Disqualification is a bit of an odd one, usually they just gird penalty you for stuff.
Disqualified from qualifying.
It's a bit complicated because of the sprint race thing.
What does disqualified from qualifying mean? If he disqualified from the race now, because he can't qualify for it?
IIRC he has to appeal to the stewards to give him special dispensation to compete, in the past it has been granted, not sure what happens in sprint race weekends.
Are you suggesting a connection? That's putting a lot on yourself.
About a decade ago there was a span of a few years in a row where after my girlfriend/fiancée/wife and I visited a foreign country, the next year there'd be a coup or other major outbreak of violence.
It became a creepy coincidence after a while, then suddenly stopped happening.
I managed a double header as a kid in 1974. Flew out of Lisbon in April the day before the Carnation Revolution overthrew Salazar. Left Cyprus in July the week the Turks invaded. Spent a lovely day on the beach in Kyrenia making friends with a local Greek Cypriot kid. The very place the Turks landed. Were among the last tourists to stay in Famagusta which was bombed, taken after a 2 day battle, and eventually walled off. I remember the coup which precipitated it. So must have been less than a week.
Chris Christie wants to be very clear about something: The election of 2020 was not stolen.
“An election for president was held on November 3, 2020. Joe Biden won. Donald Trump did not,” Mr. Christie writes in his new book, “Republican Rescue: Saving the Party From Truth Deniers, Conspiracy Theorists, and the Dangerous Policies of Joe Biden.”
Verstappen gets a €50,000 fine whilst Hamilton is disqualified.
Racist anti British stewards.
Disqualification is a bit of an odd one, usually they just gird penalty you for stuff.
I think they felt without it he wouldn't have been as fast.
Of course, sometimes they do let people off for breaking the technical regs. Remember Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher at Kuala Lumpar in 2000?
But, there was a legitimate argument that made no difference to the performance. Here, however...
Plus Hamilton already had a penalty.
Yes, and of course not all breaches of rules reasonably have the same punishment, we don't chop off hands for both theft and littering. On the face of it touching the car is wrong, but it take deliberate contrary action to breach car set up rules - remember I think it was BAR having a tank inside the tank or something, so they could leave fuel in for the weigh in?
Er...I didn't know we chopped hands off at all in this country.
Vettel spun on the first lap yet fought back for the title. And in Singapore (I think) that year he was disqualified yet I think got all the way to the podium.
Chris Christie wants to be very clear about something: The election of 2020 was not stolen.
“An election for president was held on November 3, 2020. Joe Biden won. Donald Trump did not,” Mr. Christie writes in his new book, “Republican Rescue: Saving the Party From Truth Deniers, Conspiracy Theorists, and the Dangerous Policies of Joe Biden.”
Verstappen gets a €50,000 fine whilst Hamilton is disqualified.
Racist anti British stewards.
Disqualification is a bit of an odd one, usually they just gird penalty you for stuff.
I think they felt without it he wouldn't have been as fast.
Of course, sometimes they do let people off for breaking the technical regs. Remember Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher at Kuala Lumpar in 2000?
But, there was a legitimate argument that made no difference to the performance. Here, however...
Plus Hamilton already had a penalty.
Yes, and of course not all breaches of rules reasonably have the same punishment, we don't chop off hands for both theft and littering. On the face of it touching the car is wrong, but it take deliberate contrary action to breach car set up rules - remember I think it was BAR having a tank inside the tank or something, so they could leave fuel in for the weigh in?
Er...I didn't know we chopped hands off at all in this country.
We being humanity - unless there is somewhere which has introduced hand chopping for littering, possibly Singapore.
What whiter than blue Tory will have been caught with their fingers in the till by then? Or will the Tories be third behind the LD's, the public having been reminded of the existence of the lovely Layla and her friends?
Eugh. Do the sodding Picard manuever man. You look like one of the chimps off the PG Tips advert with your jacket all wrutched up like that.
You want him to move between two points in space so fast that he momentarily appears to be two rumpled winos instead of just the one? How does this help matters?
I am late to this and I apologise if this has already been done to death down thread but this story in my view shows how stupid things have got: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59275207
Layla Moran and Crispin Blunt are being condemned because they used their office to conduct a virtual conference call for which they got fees. I mean, this is completely nuts. Who the hell cares where they were? We are all working remotely now. This isn't using the rooms and facilities of Portcullis House. Its a call. They may as well have been in the Caribbean sharing a villa with Geoffrey for all the difference that it made.
We really need to get a grip before the last sane MP quits in disgust (I appreciate that there is an assumption in that statement which may or may not be warranted).
I agree. If this goes the way of "MPs are all shysters" rather than "Boris Johnson is unfit for office" it would be a travesty imo.
Ratcliffe believes that it was the move that followed [Boris’s gaffe] a few days later, as Johnson sought to put out the fire he had started, that cost his wife most dearly. Johnson briefed friendly papers that Britain would repay the £400m it owed Iran for an unfulfilled 1970s arms deal, a move he clearly tied to Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release. According to Ratcliffe, setting that price for Nazanin and not meeting it is “why she is still held to this day”.
Again, that one act contains multitudes. Johnson let people believe he was going to pay off the debt to Iran because he needed to get out of a hole, and that’s how he always is – telling people what they want to hear, issuing promises he won’t keep. In 2018, he assured Unionists that there would be no border down the Irish Sea; a year later he’d made a deal that would put a border down the Irish Sea. He promised “frictionless trade” after Brexit, only eventually to have a colleague admit that there would, after all, be the friction of border checks. Whether it’s £350m on the side of a bus, 40 new hospitals or a continued 0.7% on aid, a nice number thrown out by Boris Johnson should always prompt a swift counting of spoons. Richard Ratcliffe is one of many to have learned that lesson the hard way.
Even so, Johnson is clearly too frightened to face Ratcliffe, a man frail and exhausted with hunger. Perhaps he knows that in the story of that man and his imprisoned wife all his weaknesses are laid bare – and he can’t bear to look.
Eugh. Do the sodding Picard manuever man. You look like one of the chimps off the PG Tips advert with your jacket all wrutched up like that.
You want him to move between two points in space so fast that he momentarily appears to be two rumpled winos instead of just the one? How does this help matters?
A while back somebody (who would know) that the reason Boris Johnson wears ill fitting suits is that he cannot afford to buy new ones.
I dismissed that as a joke but now....
I suspect its more that his weight yo-yos quite a bit and he is somewhat on the chubbier side at the moment. Of course, from personal experience, the first thing you stop doing in such a scenario is button up your jacket.
Verstappen gets a €50,000 fine whilst Hamilton is disqualified.
Racist anti British stewards.
Disqualification is a bit of an odd one, usually they just gird penalty you for stuff.
I think they felt without it he wouldn't have been as fast.
Of course, sometimes they do let people off for breaking the technical regs. Remember Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher at Kuala Lumpar in 2000?
But, there was a legitimate argument that made no difference to the performance. Here, however...
Plus Hamilton already had a penalty.
Yes, and of course not all breaches of rules reasonably have the same punishment, we don't chop off hands for both theft and littering. On the face of it touching the car is wrong, but it take deliberate contrary action to breach car set up rules - remember I think it was BAR having a tank inside the tank or something, so they could leave fuel in for the weigh in?
Er...I didn't know we chopped hands off at all in this country.
We being humanity - unless there is somewhere which has introduced hand chopping for littering, possibly Singapore.
When did they stop chopping off hands for theft in Saudi Arabia?
A while back somebody (who would know) that the reason Boris Johnson wears ill fitting suits is that he cannot afford to buy new ones.
I dismissed that as a joke but now....
You can fix your collar for no cost though.
I don't particularly worry that Boris should be so ill-turned-out. However the visual image is starting to match the performance. That's going to be deadly.
Starting the sprint race from the back is a great asset for Hamilton. If he'd been starting the race proper from the back it'd be much worse.
He may yet be. Remember he has a grid penalty.
The whole situation is an epic clusterfuck. If it's accidental heads should roll at Mercedes. If it was deliberate heads should still roll for being so fucking stupid as to think they would get away with it.
Verstappen gets a €50,000 fine whilst Hamilton is disqualified.
Racist anti British stewards.
Disqualification is a bit of an odd one, usually they just gird penalty you for stuff.
I think they felt without it he wouldn't have been as fast.
Of course, sometimes they do let people off for breaking the technical regs. Remember Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher at Kuala Lumpar in 2000?
But, there was a legitimate argument that made no difference to the performance. Here, however...
Plus Hamilton already had a penalty.
Yes, and of course not all breaches of rules reasonably have the same punishment, we don't chop off hands for both theft and littering. On the face of it touching the car is wrong, but it take deliberate contrary action to breach car set up rules - remember I think it was BAR having a tank inside the tank or something, so they could leave fuel in for the weigh in?
Er...I didn't know we chopped hands off at all in this country.
We being humanity - unless there is somewhere which has introduced hand chopping for littering, possibly Singapore.
When did they stop chopping off hands for theft in Saudi Arabia?
That was the point - if they still do, I doubt they also do it for littering.
Eugh. Do the sodding Picard manuever man. You look like one of the chimps off the PG Tips advert with your jacket all wrutched up like that.
You want him to move between two points in space so fast that he momentarily appears to be two rumpled winos instead of just the one? How does this help matters?
I am late to this and I apologise if this has already been done to death down thread but this story in my view shows how stupid things have got: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59275207
Layla Moran and Crispin Blunt are being condemned because they used their office to conduct a virtual conference call for which they got fees. I mean, this is completely nuts. Who the hell cares where they were? We are all working remotely now. This isn't using the rooms and facilities of Portcullis House. Its a call. They may as well have been in the Caribbean sharing a villa with Geoffrey for all the difference that it made.
We really need to get a grip before the last sane MP quits in disgust (I appreciate that there is an assumption in that statement which may or may not be warranted).
I agree. If this goes the way of "MPs are all shysters" rather than "Boris Johnson is unfit for office" it would be a travesty imo.
Except there's a lot of that sort of ingrained cynicism about already. The expenses episode did lasting damage.
Bottas needs to do his duty and take out Verstappen.
He tried that earlier in the season. Why would he do anything like that now? The team have no hold over him. Lewis needs to win fairly surely?
He's going to chop his way through the sprint, finish high up, take the grid penalty and then repeat tomorrow. What makes you think the Honda engine is as reliable as Christian Smug thinks it is anyway...?
I am late to this and I apologise if this has already been done to death down thread but this story in my view shows how stupid things have got: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59275207
Layla Moran and Crispin Blunt are being condemned because they used their office to conduct a virtual conference call for which they got fees. I mean, this is completely nuts. Who the hell cares where they were? We are all working remotely now. This isn't using the rooms and facilities of Portcullis House. Its a call. They may as well have been in the Caribbean sharing a villa with Geoffrey for all the difference that it made.
We really need to get a grip before the last sane MP quits in disgust (I appreciate that there is an assumption in that statement which may or may not be warranted).
It should be noted that Moran has said her actions were wrong and has apologised, and Blunt has done similar. So are you ok reconciling your defence of these MPs with an explicit acknowledgement of wrongdoing from them. Note that this doesn't say that the wrongdoing is particularly serious, but it is a well-established rule about the use of parliamentary resources for non-parliamentary business. I don't see anything wrong with these MPs being rapped on the knuckles.
It's a bloody stupid rule when you are talking about a video call. If they used a Zoom background which looked exactly like their office whilst parked in a MacDonald's across the road that would have been ok. Bloody stupid rules lead to bloody stupid MPs of which we already have a surfeit.
I am late to this and I apologise if this has already been done to death down thread but this story in my view shows how stupid things have got: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59275207
Layla Moran and Crispin Blunt are being condemned because they used their office to conduct a virtual conference call for which they got fees. I mean, this is completely nuts. Who the hell cares where they were? We are all working remotely now. This isn't using the rooms and facilities of Portcullis House. Its a call. They may as well have been in the Caribbean sharing a villa with Geoffrey for all the difference that it made.
We really need to get a grip before the last sane MP quits in disgust (I appreciate that there is an assumption in that statement which may or may not be warranted).
I agree. If this goes the way of "MPs are all shysters" rather than "Boris Johnson is unfit for office" it would be a travesty imo.
Except there's a lot of that sort of ingrained cynicism about already. The expenses episode did lasting damage.
Yes, exactly. General corrosive cynicism does nobody any good. All it does is roll the pitch for the next charlatan. I don't want this story going that way.
A while back somebody (who would know) that the reason Boris Johnson wears ill fitting suits is that he cannot afford to buy new ones.
I dismissed that as a joke but now....
I suspect its more that his weight yo-yos quite a bit and he is somewhat on the chubbier side at the moment. Of course, from personal experience, the first thing you stop doing in such a scenario is button up your jacket.
Can relate.
I bet Boris Johnson only buys one pair of trousers when he buys a suit.
This is reminding me a bit of the old rule in Cricket around extension of the arm, and that once they looked at it scientifically it appeared virtually all bowlers were technically in breach, so they made the rules more flexible. It feels like a lot of MPs are going to be caught out, particularly with Zoom calls, and I wonder if there will be a push for zero tolerance adherence, or an attempt to distinguish a bit around the non-parliamentary work in question - eg political lobbying or significant external exployment.
I do like that Blunt is a little off message by saying he'll accept the findings of any investigation, but basically it never even occurred to him and there's a feeding frenzy.
I posted about Leyla Moran earlier, but was assured that because the money involved was less it was not an issue
Amazing Lib Dems cannot see that if it is prohibited it is prohibited, and she has broken the rule with no doubt many others
Interesting that you mentioned Moran, but not Blunt or Khan.
When I posted about Morgan I did not know about the other two
So you didn't even read the article you linked to
You really are out of order.
My original post was about Moran before this article, and was making the point that Lib Dems were trying to make out it was minor
Of course I read the article but that was not my point
Either you didn't notice the other names, or you did and decided that you'd make the story into a partisan one. I was going with the kinder interpretation that made you look better, but I'll take you at your word if you say it was the other.
I may make errors, but I do cherish my integrity and I hope posters will accept that I will not lie or knowingly make anything up
When I have made errors I do apologise as can be seen in my posts over the years, but sometimes and especially as I head towards my 80's I may not be as erudite as I once was when I ran my business and where most of my employees are still in touch with me over 12 years since I retired
Time for all Patriots to ask themselves a question. How can the fate of such a land be in the palm of this bloke's hands?
Someone been listening to "Hurricane" by chance? For a sense of pure outrage in a song possibly only ever matched by the Lonesome death of Hattie Carroll.
Verstappen gets a €50,000 fine whilst Hamilton is disqualified.
Racist anti British stewards.
Disqualification is a bit of an odd one, usually they just gird penalty you for stuff.
I think they felt without it he wouldn't have been as fast.
Of course, sometimes they do let people off for breaking the technical regs. Remember Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher at Kuala Lumpar in 2000?
But, there was a legitimate argument that made no difference to the performance. Here, however...
Plus Hamilton already had a penalty.
Yes, and of course not all breaches of rules reasonably have the same punishment, we don't chop off hands for both theft and littering. On the face of it touching the car is wrong, but it take deliberate contrary action to breach car set up rules - remember I think it was BAR having a tank inside the tank or something, so they could leave fuel in for the weigh in?
Er...I didn't know we chopped hands off at all in this country.
Oh yes we do. It happened as recently as 1579. See R v Stubbe (1579) KB 29/215, m.20.
It's a bloody stupid rule when you are talking about a video call. If they used a Zoom background which looked exactly like their office whilst parked in a MacDonald's across the road that would have been ok. Bloody stupid rules lead to bloody stupid MPs of which we already have a surfeit.
I also think it's a very minor issue and most people outside the Commons won't care. But it's not totally stupid. We pay for the offices and expect them to be used for public purposes. If it becomes common practice to use them for all sorts of other activities, it's a slippery slope. Where it's a one-off, I agree it's really not worth worrying about - comes under the same heading as using an office pen to write a shopping list.
Verstappen gets a €50,000 fine whilst Hamilton is disqualified.
Racist anti British stewards.
Disqualification is a bit of an odd one, usually they just gird penalty you for stuff.
I think they felt without it he wouldn't have been as fast.
Of course, sometimes they do let people off for breaking the technical regs. Remember Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher at Kuala Lumpar in 2000?
But, there was a legitimate argument that made no difference to the performance. Here, however...
Plus Hamilton already had a penalty.
Yes, and of course not all breaches of rules reasonably have the same punishment, we don't chop off hands for both theft and littering. On the face of it touching the car is wrong, but it take deliberate contrary action to breach car set up rules - remember I think it was BAR having a tank inside the tank or something, so they could leave fuel in for the weigh in?
Er...I didn't know we chopped hands off at all in this country.
Oh yes we do. It happened as recently as 1579. See R v Stubbe (1579) KB 29/215, m.20.
Time for all Patriots to ask themselves a question. How can the fate of such a land be in the palm of this bloke's hands?
Someone been listening to "Hurricane" by chance? For a sense of pure outrage in a song possibly only ever matched by the Lonesome death of Hattie Carroll.
A while back somebody (who would know) that the reason Boris Johnson wears ill fitting suits is that he cannot afford to buy new ones.
I dismissed that as a joke but now....
You can fix your collar for no cost though.
I don't particularly worry that Boris should be so ill-turned-out. However the visual image is starting to match the performance. That's going to be deadly.
It's a bloody stupid rule when you are talking about a video call. If they used a Zoom background which looked exactly like their office whilst parked in a MacDonald's across the road that would have been ok. Bloody stupid rules lead to bloody stupid MPs of which we already have a surfeit.
I also think it's a very minor issue and most people outside the Commons won't care. But it's not totally stupid. We pay for the offices and expect them to be used for public purposes. If it becomes common practice to use them for all sorts of other activities, it's a slippery slope. Where it's a one-off, I agree it's really not worth worrying about - comes under the same heading as using an office pen to write a shopping list.
"Former Lab MP CONFESSES to shocking corruption of using office equipment for person use" raves the Daily Express.
Ah, "sleaze", the gift that keeps on giving, apparently?
It seems supporters of the Government are now frantically trumpeting the slightest indiscretion or minor breach of the rules by non-Conservative MPs playing the "they're all at it" argument.
That's missing the fundamental point.
The current political crisis is nothing to do with "sleaze" - what Owen Paterson did was bad but it wasn't a hanging offence. A 30-day suspension would have been politically embarrassing but that would probably have been the end of it - I suspect the chances of a successful recall petition would have been very low assuming a little contrition on Mr Paterson's part.
Instead, it seems a combination of a sense of injustice and friends in the right places enabled Mr Paterson's supporters to successfully lobby the Prime Minister into ordering MPs to overrule the decision of the Standards Committee. However you dress that up and it's up there with lipstick on a pig, it looked terrible.
As John Major so correctly said it smacked of the hubris of a large majority and a sense of being untouchable or unreachable. Courageously, some Conservative MPs refused to be whipped into supporting this asinine notion but too many gave in and it conveyed to the public the sense of a Government and Prime Minister looking as though it could bend or break the rules to favour their friends on the basis, given its parliamentary majority, there would be nothing anyone could do about it.
I've often said on here the test of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister wouldn't be Brexit or even Coronavirus but the day-to-day business of Government. As the virus eases its grip on both public consciousness and the body politic and normal service returns, we can see how the Government is performing and once again it's not the big things that cause problems but the small things which are allowed to become big things.
Boris Johnson's hubris has turned what was at worst a little local difficulty into a serious problem for his party. None of this means he can't or won't win the next GE but confidence has been lost and after nearly a dozen years of leading the Government, people may just be starting to ask whether the Conservatives have had their time and whether it's time for a change or at the very least there may be a more profound sense that "good old Boris" is just as bad as all the others.
It's a bloody stupid rule when you are talking about a video call. If they used a Zoom background which looked exactly like their office whilst parked in a MacDonald's across the road that would have been ok. Bloody stupid rules lead to bloody stupid MPs of which we already have a surfeit.
I also think it's a very minor issue and most people outside the Commons won't care. But it's not totally stupid. We pay for the offices and expect them to be used for public purposes. If it becomes common practice to use them for all sorts of other activities, it's a slippery slope. Where it's a one-off, I agree it's really not worth worrying about - comes under the same heading as using an office pen to write a shopping list.
"Former Lab MP CONFESSES to shocking corruption of using office equipment for person use" raves the Daily Express.
That is topical, I picked up the DVD set about 2 weeks ago to watch for the first time, cheers. I think effects being 'charmingly ropey' is a euphemism for 'crap' anyone watching British sci-fi is aware of.
A while back somebody (who would know) that the reason Boris Johnson wears ill fitting suits is that he cannot afford to buy new ones.
I dismissed that as a joke but now....
Nope.
BoZo the clown wears crumpled suits.
It's as much part of the costume as Chaplin's trousers
Johnson wears his suits as he does, deliberately. If you see Benny Hill as Fred Scuttle, Hill wore his jacket like Johnson, and Hill's "Scuttle" salute was identical to Johnson's.
Neither Hill nor Johnson were my cup of tea, but Hill was supremely popular with the hoi polloi, as was Johnson.
That is topical, I picked up the DVD set about 2 weeks ago to watch for the first time, cheers. I think effects being 'charmingly ropey' is a euphemism for 'crap' anyone watching British sci-fi is aware of.
Around the time when the new Doctor Who was announced I rewatched lots of the old episodes and it was blimey, I didn't realise the effects were that bad?
A while back somebody (who would know) that the reason Boris Johnson wears ill fitting suits is that he cannot afford to buy new ones.
I dismissed that as a joke but now....
Nope.
BoZo the clown wears crumpled suits.
It's as much part of the costume as Chaplin's trousers
Johnson wears his suits as he does, deliberately. If you see Benny Hill as Fred Scuttle, Hill wore his jacket like Johnson, and Hill's "Scuttle" salute was identical to Johnson's.
Neither Hill nor Johnson were my cup of tea, but Hill was supremely popular with the hoi polloi, as was Johnson.
Almost a good comparison, but Johnson can be quite sleazy with women.
That is topical, I picked up the DVD set about 2 weeks ago to watch for the first time, cheers. I think effects being 'charmingly ropey' is a euphemism for 'crap' anyone watching British sci-fi is aware of.
Around the time when the new Doctor Who was announced I rewatched lots of the old episodes and it was blimey, I didn't realise the effects were that bad?
Comments
And MPs must often do parliamentary work in whichever of their residencies they don't claim for. So quid pro quo.
It isn't that he was using his office for a private meeting. Its that he wasn't doing his job as an MP. Whilst being paid £stupid to spend long periods on a paradise island defending a foreign government against a corruption investigation brought by his own government that he was the most senior law officer of until very recently.
The politics of envy has always been strong in this country. And this is a cracking example of other people being significantly richer than yow and becoming so by troughing off yow's back.
EDIT - ah! Hamilton's slot despite being violated by Verstappen's hand was not wide enough.
Verstappen gets a €50,000 fine whilst Hamilton is disqualified.
Racist anti British stewards.
But the stewards took the view it was a technical infringement, while Mercedes were blatantly cheating.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/11/12/its-time-to-put-covid-behind-us/
Re-infection rates are very low, and the total size of the UK population (and, thus, the remaining pool of individuals susceptible to severe infection) is finite. The wretched disease is a formidable opponent but it's not the product of sorcery: we must, by now, have blunted its ability to cause more mass carnage.
voodoo pollHYS on the BBC is now breaking to 'wrong decision' to fine Verstappen - suggesting a sudden 75-25 split in people who wanted him disqualified.Layla Moran and Crispin Blunt are being condemned because they used their office to conduct a virtual conference call for which they got fees. I mean, this is completely nuts. Who the hell cares where they were? We are all working remotely now. This isn't using the rooms and facilities of Portcullis House. Its a call. They may as well have been in the Caribbean sharing a villa with Geoffrey for all the difference that it made.
We really need to get a grip before the last sane MP quits in disgust (I appreciate that there is an assumption in that statement which may or may not be warranted).
It's a bit complicated because of the sprint race thing.
Anyway, Serlewis is a bloody genius at scything his way through a field - and as its a Sprint race weekend he gets to do that before the grid is formed. Had Mercedes cheated last week or next week this would have been much more serious.
Of course, sometimes they do let people off for breaking the technical regs. Remember Eddie Irvine and Michael Schumacher at Kuala Lumpar in 2000?
But, there was a legitimate argument that made no difference to the performance. Here, however...
Plus Hamilton already had a penalty.
My original post was about Moran before this article, and was making the point that Lib Dems were trying to make out it was minor
Of course I read the article but that was not my point
Here, he can at least make it back up.
Flew out of Lisbon in April the day before the Carnation Revolution overthrew Salazar.
Left Cyprus in July the week the Turks invaded.
Spent a lovely day on the beach in Kyrenia making friends with a local Greek Cypriot kid. The very place the Turks landed.
Were among the last tourists to stay in Famagusta which was bombed, taken after a 2 day battle, and eventually walled off.
I remember the coup which precipitated it. So must have been less than a week.
Remember, the seven-time world champion also has that five-place grid penalty for Sunday's race.
“An election for president was held on November 3, 2020. Joe Biden won. Donald Trump did not,” Mr. Christie writes in his new book, “Republican Rescue: Saving the Party From Truth Deniers, Conspiracy Theorists, and the Dangerous Policies of Joe Biden.”
NY Times
Vettel spun on the first lap yet fought back for the title. And in Singapore (I think) that year he was disqualified yet I think got all the way to the podium.
I dismissed that as a joke but now....
What whiter than blue Tory will have been caught with their fingers in the till by then? Or will the Tories be third behind the LD's, the public having been reminded of the existence of the lovely Layla and her friends?
I've taken a nibble. If Trump can't run for some reason then who knows who will emerge from a brutal primary season. He's got campaigning experience.
Again, that one act contains multitudes. Johnson let people believe he was going to pay off the debt to Iran because he needed to get out of a hole, and that’s how he always is – telling people what they want to hear, issuing promises he won’t keep. In 2018, he assured Unionists that there would be no border down the Irish Sea; a year later he’d made a deal that would put a border down the Irish Sea. He promised “frictionless trade” after Brexit, only eventually to have a colleague admit that there would, after all, be the friction of border checks. Whether it’s £350m on the side of a bus, 40 new hospitals or a continued 0.7% on aid, a nice number thrown out by Boris Johnson should always prompt a swift counting of spoons. Richard Ratcliffe is one of many to have learned that lesson the hard way.
Even so, Johnson is clearly too frightened to face Ratcliffe, a man frail and exhausted with hunger. Perhaps he knows that in the story of that man and his imprisoned wife all his weaknesses are laid bare – and he can’t bear to look.
https://uproxx.com/tv/video-supercut-demonstrates-picard-maneuver-from-star-trek-the-next-generation/
I don't particularly worry that Boris should be so ill-turned-out. However the visual image is starting to match the performance. That's going to be deadly.
The whole situation is an epic clusterfuck. If it's accidental heads should roll at Mercedes. If it was deliberate heads should still roll for being so fucking stupid as to think they would get away with it.
BoZo the clown wears crumpled suits.
It's as much part of the costume as Chaplin's trousers
He's going to chop his way through the sprint, finish high up, take the grid penalty and then repeat tomorrow. What makes you think the Honda engine is as reliable as Christian Smug thinks it is anyway...?
I bet Boris Johnson only buys one pair of trousers when he buys a suit.
He seems that disorganised.
When I have made errors I do apologise as can be seen in my posts over the years, but sometimes and especially as I head towards my 80's I may not be as erudite as I once was when I ran my business and where most of my employees are still in touch with me over 12 years since I retired
Don't tell me the softies have stopped doing it.
But we don't.
https://thaddeusthesixth.blogspot.com/2021/11/review-series-1-of-blakes-7.html
He seems oddly to be following Churchill's path who was a sartorial shambles.
There are certainly better PMs on the Tory benches than the current Boris performance.
Ah, "sleaze", the gift that keeps on giving, apparently?
It seems supporters of the Government are now frantically trumpeting the slightest indiscretion or minor breach of the rules by non-Conservative MPs playing the "they're all at it" argument.
That's missing the fundamental point.
The current political crisis is nothing to do with "sleaze" - what Owen Paterson did was bad but it wasn't a hanging offence. A 30-day suspension would have been politically embarrassing but that would probably have been the end of it - I suspect the chances of a successful recall petition would have been very low assuming a little contrition on Mr Paterson's part.
Instead, it seems a combination of a sense of injustice and friends in the right places enabled Mr Paterson's supporters to successfully lobby the Prime Minister into ordering MPs to overrule the decision of the Standards Committee. However you dress that up and it's up there with lipstick on a pig, it looked terrible.
As John Major so correctly said it smacked of the hubris of a large majority and a sense of being untouchable or unreachable. Courageously, some Conservative MPs refused to be whipped into supporting this asinine notion but too many gave in and it conveyed to the public the sense of a Government and Prime Minister looking as though it could bend or break the rules to favour their friends on the basis, given its parliamentary majority, there would be nothing anyone could do about it.
I've often said on here the test of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister wouldn't be Brexit or even Coronavirus but the day-to-day business of Government. As the virus eases its grip on both public consciousness and the body politic and normal service returns, we can see how the Government is performing and once again it's not the big things that cause problems but the small things which are allowed to become big things.
Boris Johnson's hubris has turned what was at worst a little local difficulty into a serious problem for his party. None of this means he can't or won't win the next GE but confidence has been lost and after nearly a dozen years of leading the Government, people may just be starting to ask whether the Conservatives have had their time and whether it's time for a change or at the very least there may be a more profound sense that "good old Boris" is just as bad as all the others.
Neither Hill nor Johnson were my cup of tea, but Hill was supremely popular with the hoi polloi, as was Johnson.