Theo Bertram @theobertram · 3h When the expenses scandal broke, many in Westminster didn't realise it was indefensible. Everyone knows this how it has always worked, so what's the big deal? The public disagreed & what supercharged their anger was when they started to hear about the specific cases.
===
Personally, I'm not convinced by this argument in this case. But what do I know. I thought at the weekend that Johnson wont make the next PMQs.
I think it works as an argument as to why it has hurt and possibly permanently damaged Boris and the Tories, but it doesn't follow that it is necessarily terminal.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
It's a notably disingenuous article from Jenkins since he is fairly clearly aware that this isn't a "border dispute", but whether Ukraine is an independent nation or a Russian vassal.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Ukraine's President has just commented that he wants to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions
Biden's idiotic comments really have hit home
Biden was supposed to be the boring steady hand on the levers of power (after the chaos of Trump). If Trump was making the sort of stupid comments Biden regularly does, we would never hear the end of it.
Tbf there’s quite a lot of not hearing the end of it on here after many of Biden’s comments, granted mostly from the no fan of Trump but guys.
Even you cannot excuse such a crass statement by Biden surely
As Herman Kahn pointed out, saying that you will not go to war, often makes war more likely.
What world leaders should be doing is setting out clear demarcations lines.
As a reactionary old fashioned type, what about a Guarantee for Poland?
The Romans understood
Si vis pacem, para bellum
If you want peace, prepare for war.
So far the only European countries taking this seriously appear to be the U.K. and a couple of Baltic states - raising the price to Russia of invasion.
I had thought that was also the motto of The Protectorate, but if anything it is a bit more robust if wiki is to be believed, and more along what Russia probably thinks.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
Legality matters because the whole point of the criminal law is that it applies to everyone equally. Whips, Princes of the royal blood, 10 Downing Street, Police Officers, PMs, MPs and all us plebs all have to keep the same standards of conduct in matters which have criminal sanctions. If that is not the case then Partygate is a nullity about nothing.
Although in the case of blackmail, it's not quite so clearcut.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60 (1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—
(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
There is no "reasonable person" test for blackmail, as I understand it, so the belief of "reasonable grounds" or "proper means" is actually subject to the particular beliefs of the person charged with the offence.
Any actual criminal lawyers like to comment ?
IANAL but a whip will surely just say that long standing precedents meant they thought they were acting reasonably. Should be a sufficient defence?
I am pretty sure that the threat of withdrawing public funds from a constituency to ensure the support of an MP would be considered unreasonable.
This goes however to the root of the problem of whips - something I have ranted about often enough in the past. Effectively the way the whips do their job even in the milder cases is through the bribery or blackmailing of our elected representatives. If an external party was to do the same thing they would be prosecuted. The same should apply to the parties. We need to break the power of the parties over MPs by massively curtailing the power of the whips and making far more of the Parliamentary decisions free votes. MPs are supposed to serve their constituents not the parties and it is about time we put a stop to this sort of borderline criminal behaviour.
Parties have their place, but they are overpowerful now, to the point the handful who are not party automatons usually go to the other extreme and are ungovernable. A happy medium surely exists.
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 3h When the expenses scandal broke, many in Westminster didn't realise it was indefensible. Everyone knows this how it has always worked, so what's the big deal? The public disagreed & what supercharged their anger was when they started to hear about the specific cases.
===
Personally, I'm not convinced by this argument in this case. But what do I know. I thought at the weekend that Johnson wont make the next PMQs.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
Legality matters because the whole point of the criminal law is that it applies to everyone equally. Whips, Princes of the royal blood, 10 Downing Street, Police Officers, PMs, MPs and all us plebs all have to keep the same standards of conduct in matters which have criminal sanctions. If that is not the case then Partygate is a nullity about nothing.
Although in the case of blackmail, it's not quite so clearcut.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60 (1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—
(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
There is no "reasonable person" test for blackmail, as I understand it, so the belief of "reasonable grounds" or "proper means" is actually subject to the particular beliefs of the person charged with the offence.
Any actual criminal lawyers like to comment ?
IANAL but a whip will surely just say that long standing precedents meant they thought they were acting reasonably. Should be a sufficient defence?
Quite possibly not, which is why I'd like a lawyer's view on the matter. Threatening the quality of education of an MP's constituents' children doesn't seem something that is or should be covered by 'long standing precedents'.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Germany would simply not buy Russian gas, and would only buy LNG.
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
Legality matters because the whole point of the criminal law is that it applies to everyone equally. Whips, Princes of the royal blood, 10 Downing Street, Police Officers, PMs, MPs and all us plebs all have to keep the same standards of conduct in matters which have criminal sanctions. If that is not the case then Partygate is a nullity about nothing.
Although in the case of blackmail, it's not quite so clearcut.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60 (1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—
(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
There is no "reasonable person" test for blackmail, as I understand it, so the belief of "reasonable grounds" or "proper means" is actually subject to the particular beliefs of the person charged with the offence.
Any actual criminal lawyers like to comment ?
IANAL but a whip will surely just say that long standing precedents meant they thought they were acting reasonably. Should be a sufficient defence?
I am pretty sure that the threat of withdrawing public funds from a constituency to ensure the support of an MP would be considered unreasonable.
This goes however to the root of the problem of whips - something I have ranted about often enough in the past. Effectively the way the whips do their job even in the milder cases is through the bribery or blackmailing of our elected representatives. If an external party was to do the same thing they would be prosecuted. The same should apply to the parties. We need to break the power of the parties over MPs by massively curtailing the power of the whips and making far more of the Parliamentary decisions free votes. MPs are supposed to serve their constituents not the parties and it is about time we put a stop to this sort of borderline criminal behaviour.
I think I'd make a distinction between whipping to get policies through that were in the manifesto (which should be allowed) and whipping for personality issues. The whip's office should be attempting to get the government's business through Parliament rather than wasting time trying to save the PM. It's not as if there isn't a huge stack of policies that need to be voted on and enacted. What really annoys me about this is the paralysis during a time when the UK should be capitalising on being the first nation out of the pandemic to drum up investment, jobs and eventually taxes so we can have nice things. Yet the current paralysis in Westminster is dong precisely the opposite.
Ukraine's President has just commented that he wants to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions
Biden's idiotic comments really have hit home
Biden was supposed to be the boring steady hand on the levers of power (after the chaos of Trump). If Trump was making the sort of stupid comments Biden regularly does, we would never hear the end of it.
Tbf there’s quite a lot of not hearing the end of it on here after many of Biden’s comments, granted mostly from the no fan of Trump but guys.
Even you cannot excuse such a crass statement by Biden surely
It was a statement of clear and obvious truth. The US reaction to what Russia does depends on what Russia does.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well, people don't want war. And the German government appears to regard the whole issue transactionally.
So, I'm suggesting that we apply transactionality to Germany. Perhaps they will view things differently when *they* are being sold out.
Think of what we could do together with Russia. Two nuclear powers. Two votes on the Security Council. We have the perfect position to control the sea lanes of Europe. Lots of money to be made.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Germany would simply not buy Russian gas, and would only buy LNG.
I hate it when the victim does not play along with my fiendish plans ...
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
If this takes off as a major scandal, and I'm personally not convinced at this stage, then it will be one more unintended consequence of covid and specifically lockdown policy. These newer MPs are apparently known as 'grey wolves' as they were not properly socialised in first few months as all MPs were WFH and on zoom etc etc.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
Legality matters because the whole point of the criminal law is that it applies to everyone equally. Whips, Princes of the royal blood, 10 Downing Street, Police Officers, PMs, MPs and all us plebs all have to keep the same standards of conduct in matters which have criminal sanctions. If that is not the case then Partygate is a nullity about nothing.
Although in the case of blackmail, it's not quite so clearcut.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60 (1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—
(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
There is no "reasonable person" test for blackmail, as I understand it, so the belief of "reasonable grounds" or "proper means" is actually subject to the particular beliefs of the person charged with the offence.
Any actual criminal lawyers like to comment ?
I don't think you need to be a criminal lawyer to know that just because an accused person thinks something was reasonable that doesn't make it reasonable in law!
Oh dear
It doesn't have to make it reasonable, it only has to meet the lower test whether D thought it was reasonable
Long way to go to reach herd immunity......or is it as Leon says Omicron V2 ;-)
What is really disappointing is booster programme has totally ground to a halt. Only 67k in todays numbers.
Its not a surprise though. The most vulnerable have been done, and people can see the news about omicron, I wouldn't be worried. If they can, they should have their booster. Their loss if you don't.
For England and Scotland, the remaining numbers eligible for a 3rd shot are
Still plenty of 50+ that definitely should be getting boosted.
The 50+ numbers are down to the equivalent numbers of those who aren't getting vaccinated in the first place etc etc
That being said, they are gradually ticking down....
Maybe I misunderstood you numbers. I thought those were eligible for a 3rd shot i.e those that had had 2 shots and now could get a booster? So they are in addition to the unvaccinated?
Yes - they are the numbers of people in each age group that have 2 shots, but not three.
What I meant was that when you get down to a few hundred K in a group, the rest seem to be "sticky".
There are some interesting gaps between 1st and 2nd jabs as well, IIRC.
People who had side effects that they thought made the second one not worth it?
My wife reacted really badly to the booster and is now hard set against any further doses...
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
Legality matters because the whole point of the criminal law is that it applies to everyone equally. Whips, Princes of the royal blood, 10 Downing Street, Police Officers, PMs, MPs and all us plebs all have to keep the same standards of conduct in matters which have criminal sanctions. If that is not the case then Partygate is a nullity about nothing.
Although in the case of blackmail, it's not quite so clearcut.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60 (1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—
(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
There is no "reasonable person" test for blackmail, as I understand it, so the belief of "reasonable grounds" or "proper means" is actually subject to the particular beliefs of the person charged with the offence.
Any actual criminal lawyers like to comment ?
IANAL but a whip will surely just say that long standing precedents meant they thought they were acting reasonably. Should be a sufficient defence?
I am pretty sure that the threat of withdrawing public funds from a constituency to ensure the support of an MP would be considered unreasonable.
This goes however to the root of the problem of whips - something I have ranted about often enough in the past. Effectively the way the whips do their job even in the milder cases is through the bribery or blackmailing of our elected representatives. If an external party was to do the same thing they would be prosecuted. The same should apply to the parties. We need to break the power of the parties over MPs by massively curtailing the power of the whips and making far more of the Parliamentary decisions free votes. MPs are supposed to serve their constituents not the parties and it is about time we put a stop to this sort of borderline criminal behaviour.
We disagree on much but there are some issues where I am very strongly in agreement with you. Unfortunately those are mostly the issues, like this one, where neither of us will ever see the changes we want!
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
Legality matters because the whole point of the criminal law is that it applies to everyone equally. Whips, Princes of the royal blood, 10 Downing Street, Police Officers, PMs, MPs and all us plebs all have to keep the same standards of conduct in matters which have criminal sanctions. If that is not the case then Partygate is a nullity about nothing.
Although in the case of blackmail, it's not quite so clearcut.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60 (1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—
(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
There is no "reasonable person" test for blackmail, as I understand it, so the belief of "reasonable grounds" or "proper means" is actually subject to the particular beliefs of the person charged with the offence.
Any actual criminal lawyers like to comment ?
IANAL but a whip will surely just say that long standing precedents meant they thought they were acting reasonably. Should be a sufficient defence?
Quite possibly not, which is why I'd like a lawyer's view on the matter. Threatening the quality of education of an MP's constituents' children doesn't seem something that is or should be covered by 'long standing precedents'.
From a blackmail point of view, would the threat be a "menace" believed to be a proper means of reinforcing the demand that the whip believes to be reasonable? Hard to see that being the case if allocating funds to constituencies based on the compliance of MPs to political demands is a breach of the ministerial code. And even if it's "proper" despite that (for blackmail purposes).... it's still a breach of the ministerial code.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Germany would simply not buy Russian gas, and would only buy LNG.
I hate it when the victim does not play along with my fiendish plans ...
"Hmmmm. Yes. Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. No, due to new H&S rules, LNG tankers can only transit the UK economic zone (200 miles out) if they have passed our new inspection rules. Sorry about that. Yes - obviously the tankers heading to the UK are all A-OK. Don't worry the inspection paperwork is all in train - shouldn't take more than a decade to get through."
Ukraine's President has just commented that he wants to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions
Biden's idiotic comments really have hit home
Biden was supposed to be the boring steady hand on the levers of power (after the chaos of Trump). If Trump was making the sort of stupid comments Biden regularly does, we would never hear the end of it.
Tbf there’s quite a lot of not hearing the end of it on here after many of Biden’s comments, granted mostly from the no fan of Trump but guys.
Even you cannot excuse such a crass statement by Biden surely
It's not quite up there with April Glaspie, but close.
It needs also to be taken in the context of increasing US military aid to Ukraine.
The point Biden was clumsily trying to make is that any response will be proportional to any given Russian move. He is a great deal less sharp than he was, but I don't think he's yet entirely lost it.
Ukraine's President has just commented that he wants to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions
Biden's idiotic comments really have hit home
Biden was supposed to be the boring steady hand on the levers of power (after the chaos of Trump). If Trump was making the sort of stupid comments Biden regularly does, we would never hear the end of it.
Tbf there’s quite a lot of not hearing the end of it on here after many of Biden’s comments, granted mostly from the no fan of Trump but guys.
Even you cannot excuse such a crass statement by Biden surely
It was a statement of clear and obvious truth. The US reaction to what Russia does will depend on what Russia does.
Unwise and the White House has been issuing clarifications today but you cannot undo what he said and the President of Ukraine was not at all impressed
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 3h When the expenses scandal broke, many in Westminster didn't realise it was indefensible. Everyone knows this how it has always worked, so what's the big deal? The public disagreed & what supercharged their anger was when they started to hear about the specific cases.
===
Personally, I'm not convinced by this argument in this case. But what do I know. I thought at the weekend that Johnson wont make the next PMQs.
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
If this takes off as a major scandal, and I'm personally not convinced at this stage, then it will be one more unintended consequence of covid and specifically lockdown policy. These newer MPs are apparently known as 'grey wolves' as they were not properly socialised in first few months as all MPs were WFH and on zoom etc etc.
Allies of Boris will be scouring the memoirs / biographies of Labour politicians to find similar examples from yesteryear.
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
If this takes off as a major scandal, and I'm personally not convinced at this stage, then it will be one more unintended consequence of covid and specifically lockdown policy. These newer MPs are apparently known as 'grey wolves' as they were not properly socialised in first few months as all MPs were WFH and on zoom etc etc.
Essentially, it's much harder to physically bully and intimidate on occasional Zoom calls rather than cornering someone in the tea room.
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
If this takes off as a major scandal, and I'm personally not convinced at this stage, then it will be one more unintended consequence of covid and specifically lockdown policy. These newer MPs are apparently known as 'grey wolves' as they were not properly socialised in first few months as all MPs were WFH and on zoom etc etc.
It doesn't matter if they've been properly potty trained or not - it really shouldn't be the case that MPs are threatened with projects being cancelled based on the way they vote.
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
If this takes off as a major scandal, and I'm personally not convinced at this stage, then it will be one more unintended consequence of covid and specifically lockdown policy. These newer MPs are apparently known as 'grey wolves' as they were not properly socialised in first few months as all MPs were WFH and on zoom etc etc.
I think it works as an argument as to why it has hurt and possibly permanently damaged Boris and the Tories, but it doesn't follow that it is necessarily terminal.
Off the top of your head, what's the most famous expenses scandal claim/story?
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 3h When the expenses scandal broke, many in Westminster didn't realise it was indefensible. Everyone knows this how it has always worked, so what's the big deal? The public disagreed & what supercharged their anger was when they started to hear about the specific cases.
===
Personally, I'm not convinced by this argument in this case. But what do I know. I thought at the weekend that Johnson wont make the next PMQs.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well, people don't want war. And the German government appears to regard the whole issue transactionally.
So, I'm suggesting that we apply transactionality to Germany. Perhaps they will view things differently when *they* are being sold out.
Think of what we could do together with Russia. Two nuclear powers. Two votes on the Security Council. We have the perfect position to control the sea lanes of Europe. Lots of money to be made.
I wouldn't bet on how much longer the UK keeps its seat on the Security Council
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
Legality matters because the whole point of the criminal law is that it applies to everyone equally. Whips, Princes of the royal blood, 10 Downing Street, Police Officers, PMs, MPs and all us plebs all have to keep the same standards of conduct in matters which have criminal sanctions. If that is not the case then Partygate is a nullity about nothing.
Although in the case of blackmail, it's not quite so clearcut.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60 (1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—
(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
There is no "reasonable person" test for blackmail, as I understand it, so the belief of "reasonable grounds" or "proper means" is actually subject to the particular beliefs of the person charged with the offence.
Any actual criminal lawyers like to comment ?
IANAL but a whip will surely just say that long standing precedents meant they thought they were acting reasonably. Should be a sufficient defence?
I am pretty sure that the threat of withdrawing public funds from a constituency to ensure the support of an MP would be considered unreasonable.
This goes however to the root of the problem of whips - something I have ranted about often enough in the past. Effectively the way the whips do their job even in the milder cases is through the bribery or blackmailing of our elected representatives. If an external party was to do the same thing they would be prosecuted. The same should apply to the parties. We need to break the power of the parties over MPs by massively curtailing the power of the whips and making far more of the Parliamentary decisions free votes. MPs are supposed to serve their constituents not the parties and it is about time we put a stop to this sort of borderline criminal behaviour.
I think I'd make a distinction between whipping to get policies through that were in the manifesto (which should be allowed) and whipping for personality issues. The whip's office should be attempting to get the government's business through Parliament rather than wasting time trying to save the PM. It's not as if there isn't a huge stack of policies that need to be voted on and enacted. What really annoys me about this is the paralysis during a time when the UK should be capitalising on being the first nation out of the pandemic to drum up investment, jobs and eventually taxes so we can have nice things. Yet the current paralysis in Westminster is dong precisely the opposite.
Members of the current government are fond of statements to the effect that the only check on government actions is the voters' opportunity to have a say at a general election in a few years. Shouldn't the same apply to individual MPs - if they don't vote in line with their party's manifesto, the voters get an opportunity to kick them out after 5 years? No need for whipping.
Unless the governing party sticks firmly to its manifesto it's also more difficult to make the case for whipping MPs in favour of those policies it does choose to retain.
I think it works as an argument as to why it has hurt and possibly permanently damaged Boris and the Tories, but it doesn't follow that it is necessarily terminal.
Off the top of your head, what's the most famous expenses scandal claim/story?
Either the one that wasn't paid, or the one that wasn't actually claimed for as such.
Ukraine's President has just commented that he wants to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions
Biden's idiotic comments really have hit home
Biden was supposed to be the boring steady hand on the levers of power (after the chaos of Trump). If Trump was making the sort of stupid comments Biden regularly does, we would never hear the end of it.
Tbf there’s quite a lot of not hearing the end of it on here after many of Biden’s comments, granted mostly from the no fan of Trump but guys.
Even you cannot excuse such a crass statement by Biden surely
It was a statement of clear and obvious truth. The US reaction to what Russia does will depend on what Russia does.
Unwise and the White House has been issuing clarifications today but you cannot undo what he said and the President of Ukraine was not at all impressed
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well, people don't want war. And the German government appears to regard the whole issue transactionally.
So, I'm suggesting that we apply transactionality to Germany. Perhaps they will view things differently when *they* are being sold out.
Think of what we could do together with Russia. Two nuclear powers. Two votes on the Security Council. We have the perfect position to control the sea lanes of Europe. Lots of money to be made.
I wouldn't bet on how much longer the UK keeps its seat on the Security Council
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well, people don't want war. And the German government appears to regard the whole issue transactionally.
So, I'm suggesting that we apply transactionality to Germany. Perhaps they will view things differently when *they* are being sold out.
Think of what we could do together with Russia. Two nuclear powers. Two votes on the Security Council. We have the perfect position to control the sea lanes of Europe. Lots of money to be made.
I wouldn't bet on how much longer the UK keeps its seat on the Security Council
There is no way to kick a country off.
If we went all in on EvulBritain we would be signing the Chinese up as an ally as well, probably.
EDIT: It is interesting how people feel differently about selling out German interests than Ukrainian interests. Why is that?
Ukraine's President has just commented that he wants to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions
Biden's idiotic comments really have hit home
Biden was supposed to be the boring steady hand on the levers of power (after the chaos of Trump). If Trump was making the sort of stupid comments Biden regularly does, we would never hear the end of it.
Tbf there’s quite a lot of not hearing the end of it on here after many of Biden’s comments, granted mostly from the no fan of Trump but guys.
Even you cannot excuse such a crass statement by Biden surely
It was a statement of clear and obvious truth. The US reaction to what Russia does depends on what Russia does.
If he wanted to speak clear and obvious truths he should not have become a politician! (This is semi serious, it was a crass statement politically despite being clear and obviously true).
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
Legality matters because the whole point of the criminal law is that it applies to everyone equally. Whips, Princes of the royal blood, 10 Downing Street, Police Officers, PMs, MPs and all us plebs all have to keep the same standards of conduct in matters which have criminal sanctions. If that is not the case then Partygate is a nullity about nothing.
Although in the case of blackmail, it's not quite so clearcut.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60 (1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—
(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
There is no "reasonable person" test for blackmail, as I understand it, so the belief of "reasonable grounds" or "proper means" is actually subject to the particular beliefs of the person charged with the offence.
Any actual criminal lawyers like to comment ?
I don't think you need to be a criminal lawyer to know that just because an accused person thinks something was reasonable that doesn't make it reasonable in law!
The test for blackmail is different. If it's judged that the belief was genuine (even if objectively unreasonable), then it does appear to be a defence. I don't know what the case law is on how precisely that belief is to be judged, but it's certainly not a general reasonableness test.
I think it works as an argument as to why it has hurt and possibly permanently damaged Boris and the Tories, but it doesn't follow that it is necessarily terminal.
Off the top of your head, what's the most famous expenses scandal claim/story?
What do I think is the most famous one, or which one springs to my mind first?
Duck Island and trouser press respectively.
I don't see what difference it makes though - it was a question of why something cut through, and both stories have.
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
If this takes off as a major scandal, and I'm personally not convinced at this stage, then it will be one more unintended consequence of covid and specifically lockdown policy. These newer MPs are apparently known as 'grey wolves' as they were not properly socialised in first few months as all MPs were WFH and on zoom etc etc.
Allies of Boris will be scouring the memoirs / biographies of Labour politicians to find similar examples from yesteryear.
Perhaps Nicholas Soames should start writing Boris biography.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well, people don't want war. And the German government appears to regard the whole issue transactionally.
So, I'm suggesting that we apply transactionality to Germany. Perhaps they will view things differently when *they* are being sold out.
Think of what we could do together with Russia. Two nuclear powers. Two votes on the Security Council. We have the perfect position to control the sea lanes of Europe. Lots of money to be made.
I wouldn't bet on how much longer the UK keeps its seat on the Security Council
Wouldn't we have a veto on being removed?
Yes and so would the French and the precedent is so blindingly obvious even Macron wouldn't be able to miss it.
Also the Americans quite like a friendly face on that body.
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
If this takes off as a major scandal, and I'm personally not convinced at this stage, then it will be one more unintended consequence of covid and specifically lockdown policy. These newer MPs are apparently known as 'grey wolves' as they were not properly socialised in first few months as all MPs were WFH and on zoom etc etc.
Allies of Boris will be scouring the memoirs / biographies of Labour politicians to find similar examples from yesteryear.
Perhaps Nicholas Soames should start writing Boris biography.
Perhaps if Boris reads it he'll be able to find out if he believed there was a party.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well, people don't want war. And the German government appears to regard the whole issue transactionally.
So, I'm suggesting that we apply transactionality to Germany. Perhaps they will view things differently when *they* are being sold out.
Think of what we could do together with Russia. Two nuclear powers. Two votes on the Security Council. We have the perfect position to control the sea lanes of Europe. Lots of money to be made.
I wouldn't bet on how much longer the UK keeps its seat on the Security Council
Wouldn't we have a veto on being removed?
Yes and so would the French and the precedent is so blindingly obvious even Macron wouldn't be able to miss it.
Also the Americans quite like a friendly face on that body.
I'd think it's more likely that the permanent membership is expanded rather than shrunk, or changed but kept at 5.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
Legality matters because the whole point of the criminal law is that it applies to everyone equally. Whips, Princes of the royal blood, 10 Downing Street, Police Officers, PMs, MPs and all us plebs all have to keep the same standards of conduct in matters which have criminal sanctions. If that is not the case then Partygate is a nullity about nothing.
Although in the case of blackmail, it's not quite so clearcut.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60 (1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—
(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
There is no "reasonable person" test for blackmail, as I understand it, so the belief of "reasonable grounds" or "proper means" is actually subject to the particular beliefs of the person charged with the offence.
Any actual criminal lawyers like to comment ?
IANAL but a whip will surely just say that long standing precedents meant they thought they were acting reasonably. Should be a sufficient defence?
I am pretty sure that the threat of withdrawing public funds from a constituency to ensure the support of an MP would be considered unreasonable.
This goes however to the root of the problem of whips - something I have ranted about often enough in the past. Effectively the way the whips do their job even in the milder cases is through the bribery or blackmailing of our elected representatives. If an external party was to do the same thing they would be prosecuted. The same should apply to the parties. We need to break the power of the parties over MPs by massively curtailing the power of the whips and making far more of the Parliamentary decisions free votes. MPs are supposed to serve their constituents not the parties and it is about time we put a stop to this sort of borderline criminal behaviour.
Parties have their place, but they are overpowerful now, to the point the handful who are not party automatons usually go to the other extreme and are ungovernable. A happy medium surely exists.
Well, that handful didn't get invites. Of course they are stroppy about it.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well if the EU and Biden aren't going to fight it does look as if we would rather be exposed to that meat-grinder if we did!
The reality is that we cannot and will not either.
It's a sad, but also richly entertaining, day when a senior Tory backbencher encourages his colleagues to go to the Metropolitan Police and seek a criminal charge of blackmail against government ministers.
I am not entertained. I'm extremely worried. This has the risk of turning into a generation-level crisis. I think I'm just about done with the Conservatives for life now. I don't see a way back for me now. Previously I thought it was just a case of we needed to get Boris and his small group toxic idiots out, but it's much more profound now.
The idea that you would ever vote Conservative ever is ludicrous anyway
That depends. If you're talking about looking forward from here, then, yes, that's the point I'm getting to, so you merely agree with me.
If you're talking about the past, then no, you're wrong, because I have voted Conservative in the past.
I don't need you to decide on my purity because I am proud of being a floating voter. Luckily there are multiple parties out there who are acceptable to my tastes. Perhaps I'm just being greedy in wanting the Conservative party to return to being one of them.
Did you vote Conservative in 2015 or 2019 when the Conservatives won a UK majority? If no your views are irrelevant for Tories as you will almost never vote Tory anyway
The number of people who ALWAYS vote Conservative is too small for you to win an election. You NEED people who, like me, switch their votes. The more switchers you alienate, the harder it is for you to win. That's just the truth.
All I'm saying is, this current behaviour, this PM, alienates me. And it feels like it's solidifying from a "ugh, not this guy, maybe next time" to "never, ever again".
If other people feel the same way as me, you're doomed. If I'm fairly "out there", then you can relax and not worry about my opinion. It is, in that case, as you say, irrelevant. The polling suggest that it's probably closer to column A than column B, but you do you.
HYUFD seems to be assuming that the Tories can win next time by simply reassembling the coalition of voters who won them the last election. But it's far from certain they'll be able to. For one, the 2019 Tory majority was heavily dependent on socially conservative yet economically left wing working class voters who lived in the North of England. Even if BJ is replaced before then, it really is far from certain the Conservatives will be able to retain enough of these voters to remain in power. Which means they need to be able to reach out to other voters in different parts of the UK... you know, such as socially liberal voters who voted to remain in the UK yet were more than happy to vote for David Cameron (but are now appalled at seeing the likes of JRM and Dorries in the Cabinet). By taking HYUFD's advice, the Tories just make it much easier for Starmer to win the next election.
Socially liberal voters like that who voted Tory in 2015 for Cameron but Labour or LD since are unlikely to vote for even a Sunak led Tories unless he pursues a softer Brexit.
That would in turn mean hardline Leavers moving from Tory to RefUK and the redwall would still likely go Labour anyway.
Essentially it is unlikely the Tories can win again next time without repeating their coalition of 2019, certainly in terms of winning another Tory majority.
In some respects it would be better for the Tories to go into opposition than risk splitting that coalition even further and add leakage to RefUK to leakage already seen to Starmer Labour. Especially given it is unlikely even Sunak will win over 2015 Remainers who backed Cameron and have not voted Tory since
So you'd rather go into opposition rather than try and convince the likes of TSE and Richard Nabavi to vote Tory again? As a Labour supporter, that's good to know...
@HYUFD delights in telling people the conservative party do not want their votes unless they have a Little Englander right wing agenda, worship the Queen and the CoE, always vote conservative, and he has the same attitude as a Corbynista to purity of his views and actually prefers opposition to government
Of course he tries to dismiss that he voted for Plaid, and this conservative who actually lives in Wales has no such guilt
On the wider issue of Boris he has become so toxic not only with the public but now a full blown civil war in his party threatening to hand GE24 to labour much as Corbyn achieved for the conservatives in 2019
I can only hope that the conservatives mps defenestrate Boris next week and immediately start the process to appoint his successor, which seems would be Rishi as the best choice
I voted for every Tory on the ballot paper in Wales, you did not vote for the Tory candidate when you voted Labour in 1997 and 2001
You are a SOCIALIST because you voted REMAIN in 2016.
So George Galloway is a Conservative because he voted Leave in 2016.
What a ridiculous post.
However respecting the Leave vote and backing Brexit is now a Conservative principle
Really? I thought the central tenet of the Conservative success as a multi-century election-winning machine was that the parties only principle is to have no fixed principles. I mean, it was a low-tax, low-inflation party once...
It still is, certainly compared to Labour.
However if the Conservatives now tried to abandon Brexit they would be back to the 9% they got in the 2019 European elections and ReformUK would become the main right of centre party in the UK instead
Sure, full rejoin might not be a smart policy. But what does "respecting the Leave vote" really mean: is Frost-level antipathy now needed to see off RefUK? Would CU/SM membership even have the salience to be a problem for the Tories in a few years, or could it be sold as a sensible economic policy to improve productivity, reduce border friction and red tape, and thus reduce taxes? None of that seems inherently unConservative.
CU/SM membership means the UK cannot do its own trade deals and also means restoration of full free movement from the EEA to the UK.
If the Tories adopted that as their policy it would lead to almost as much leakage to RefUK as full rejoin.
On Brexit the only viable position for the Tories, for at least a generation, is the current deal with the EU.
The only party which could viably do CU/SM or something close to it given it does not want full free movement in order to win the redwall back is Labour
Was the person being reasonable or unreasonable in thinking what they did was reasonable?
Is this the exact same question as would a generic reasonable person find what the person did to be reasonable?
Not sure.
Also not sure how you'd judge whether they really thought it reasonable, either reasonably or unreasonably, or are merely saying they did when in fact they didn't.
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 3h When the expenses scandal broke, many in Westminster didn't realise it was indefensible. Everyone knows this how it has always worked, so what's the big deal? The public disagreed & what supercharged their anger was when they started to hear about the specific cases.
===
Personally, I'm not convinced by this argument in this case. But what do I know. I thought at the weekend that Johnson wont make the next PMQs.
It would be nice if Vanilla automatically embedded tweets from the link. Maybe Twitter doesn't allow it...
It used to do just that, but slowed the page load times so much as to make the site unusable. I think the Twitter API doesn’t like a single page with a couple of dozen embeds being constantly refreshed.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well, people don't want war. And the German government appears to regard the whole issue transactionally.
So, I'm suggesting that we apply transactionality to Germany. Perhaps they will view things differently when *they* are being sold out.
Think of what we could do together with Russia. Two nuclear powers. Two votes on the Security Council. We have the perfect position to control the sea lanes of Europe. Lots of money to be made.
I wouldn't bet on how much longer the UK keeps its seat on the Security Council
Wouldn't we have a veto on being removed?
Yes and so would the French and the precedent is so blindingly obvious even Macron wouldn't be able to miss it.
Also the Americans quite like a friendly face on that body.
It's an interesting though experiment -
- The Germans believe that gas supplies and jobs selling stuff to Russian are more important than protecting a nation they gave a formal guarantee to (the Ukrainian nuclear disarmament deal). - Why should we (the UK) regard gas supplies and UK jobs are *less* important than protecting a nation we gave a formal guarantee to.... Germany?
I think it works as an argument as to why it has hurt and possibly permanently damaged Boris and the Tories, but it doesn't follow that it is necessarily terminal.
Off the top of your head, what's the most famous expenses scandal claim/story?
What do I think is the most famous one, or which one springs to my mind first?
Duck Island and trouser press respectively.
I don't see what difference it makes though - it was a question of why something cut through, and both stories have.
My point, set up like a terrible knock-knock joke, was that neither of those were the most serious offences in the scandal.
Enough MPs ended up in clink that the Grandstand videprinter would have to spell out the word afterwards, to really make the quantity clear.
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
That's appalling behaviour by the Government, if true.
My view is that whips usually offer a mix of bribes and threats, but those are usually confined to the MP. The bribe of preferment, the threat of being ignored, the bribe of a photo op with the PM, the threat of him choosing to visit a neighbouring marginal seat over yours, etc.
Threatening the constituents via "we'll pull funding for this new school", though, is absolutely appalling behaviour, if true.
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 3h When the expenses scandal broke, many in Westminster didn't realise it was indefensible. Everyone knows this how it has always worked, so what's the big deal? The public disagreed & what supercharged their anger was when they started to hear about the specific cases.
===
Personally, I'm not convinced by this argument in this case. But what do I know. I thought at the weekend that Johnson wont make the next PMQs.
It would be nice if Vanilla automatically embedded tweets from the link. Maybe Twitter doesn't allow it...
It used to do just that, but slowed the page load times so much as to make the site unusable. I think the Twitter API doesn’t like a single page with a couple of dozen embeds being constantly refreshed.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well if the EU and Biden aren't going to fight it does look as if we would rather be exposed to that meat-grinder if we did!
The reality is that we cannot and will not either.
I want you to lay down your life, Perkins. We need a futile gesture at this stage. It will raise the whole tone of the new cold war. Get up in a crate, Perkins, pop over to Kyiv with some AT weapons, take a shufti, don't come back. Goodbye, Perkins. God, I wish I was going too.
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
That's appalling behaviour by the Government, if true.
My view is that whips usually offer a mix of bribes and threats, but those are usually confined to the MP. The bribe of preferment, the threat of being ignored, the bribe of a photo op with the PM, the threat of him choosing to visit a neighbouring marginal seat over yours, etc.
Threatening the constituents via "we'll pull funding for this new school", though, is absolutely appalling behaviour, if true.
I went to a hustings event during the 2017GE campaign in a Tory/LD marginal where the Tory candidate said openly "if you elect a Conservative MP more funding will flow into the constituency" which I was shocked by at the time - I'm still not sure if that was a naive reaction, but I thought it wasn't the done thing to say it out loud. If the approach becomes accepted as legitimate in elections I guess it's difficult to argue it's not OK for whipping purposes.
(He was elected, but the funding hasn't exactly flooded in)
I think it works as an argument as to why it has hurt and possibly permanently damaged Boris and the Tories, but it doesn't follow that it is necessarily terminal.
Off the top of your head, what's the most famous expenses scandal claim/story?
What do I think is the most famous one, or which one springs to my mind first?
Duck Island and trouser press respectively.
I don't see what difference it makes though - it was a question of why something cut through, and both stories have.
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 3h When the expenses scandal broke, many in Westminster didn't realise it was indefensible. Everyone knows this how it has always worked, so what's the big deal? The public disagreed & what supercharged their anger was when they started to hear about the specific cases.
===
Personally, I'm not convinced by this argument in this case. But what do I know. I thought at the weekend that Johnson wont make the next PMQs.
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 3h When the expenses scandal broke, many in Westminster didn't realise it was indefensible. Everyone knows this how it has always worked, so what's the big deal? The public disagreed & what supercharged their anger was when they started to hear about the specific cases.
===
Personally, I'm not convinced by this argument in this case. But what do I know. I thought at the weekend that Johnson wont make the next PMQs.
It would be nice if Vanilla automatically embedded tweets from the link. Maybe Twitter doesn't allow it...
It used to do just that, but slowed the page load times so much as to make the site unusable. I think the Twitter API doesn’t like a single page with a couple of dozen embeds being constantly refreshed.
Ah, that's a shame. Technical difficulties...
It didn't slow the site down too much for me but then again my hardware is probably slightly more state of the art than other posters.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well if the EU and Biden aren't going to fight it does look as if we would rather be exposed to that meat-grinder if we did!
The reality is that we cannot and will not either.
So why don't we make some money at the expense of our "friends" while we are at it. Or is there some kind of rule about which countries interests we can sell out, and to whom?
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 3h When the expenses scandal broke, many in Westminster didn't realise it was indefensible. Everyone knows this how it has always worked, so what's the big deal? The public disagreed & what supercharged their anger was when they started to hear about the specific cases.
===
Personally, I'm not convinced by this argument in this case. But what do I know. I thought at the weekend that Johnson wont make the next PMQs.
It would be nice if Vanilla automatically embedded tweets from the link. Maybe Twitter doesn't allow it...
It used to do just that, but slowed the page load times so much as to make the site unusable. I think the Twitter API doesn’t like a single page with a couple of dozen embeds being constantly refreshed.
Ah, that's a shame. Technical difficulties...
It didn't slow the site down too much for me but then again my hardware is probably slightly more state of the art than other posters.
Just because you managed to get hold of an RTX 3090, doesn’t mean the rest of us were so lucky!
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Germany would simply not buy Russian gas, and would only buy LNG.
I hate it when the victim does not play along with my fiendish plans ...
"Hmmmm. Yes. Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. No, due to new H&S rules, LNG tankers can only transit the UK economic zone (200 miles out) if they have passed our new inspection rules. Sorry about that. Yes - obviously the tankers heading to the UK are all A-OK. Don't worry the inspection paperwork is all in train - shouldn't take more than a decade to get through."
Well, I think that would be regarded as an extremely hostile act by whoever was selling the LNG (the US probably). And even the 200 mile zone wouldn't actually stop vessels being able to go through Faroe Island and Norwegian waters to get to Germany.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Germany would simply not buy Russian gas, and would only buy LNG.
I hate it when the victim does not play along with my fiendish plans ...
"Hmmmm. Yes. Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. No, due to new H&S rules, LNG tankers can only transit the UK economic zone (200 miles out) if they have passed our new inspection rules. Sorry about that. Yes - obviously the tankers heading to the UK are all A-OK. Don't worry the inspection paperwork is all in train - shouldn't take more than a decade to get through."
Well, I think that would be regarded as an extremely hostile act by whoever was selling the LNG (the US probably). And even the 200 mile zone wouldn't actually stop vessels being able to go through Faroe Island and Norwegian waters to get to Germany.
But I know you're only jesting
It's a global market anyway - tankers recently enroute to China have turned back when the EU has outbid them for the gas.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Germany would simply not buy Russian gas, and would only buy LNG.
I hate it when the victim does not play along with my fiendish plans ...
"Hmmmm. Yes. Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. No, due to new H&S rules, LNG tankers can only transit the UK economic zone (200 miles out) if they have passed our new inspection rules. Sorry about that. Yes - obviously the tankers heading to the UK are all A-OK. Don't worry the inspection paperwork is all in train - shouldn't take more than a decade to get through."
Well, I think that would be regarded as an extremely hostile act by whoever was selling the LNG (the US probably). And even the 200 mile zone wouldn't actually stop vessels being able to go through Faroe Island and Norwegian waters to get to Germany.
But I know you're only jesting
There was actually a suggestion by a German politician that LNG tankers delivering to Poland etc. shouldn't be allowed to sail near German waters because of the danger.
Said politician was a wholly owned subsidiary of Gazprom, of course.
EDIT: "And of course, our new Russian allies will be conducting a joint live fire exercise in the area. Not a suitable place for an LNG tanker, really, is it?"
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
That's appalling behaviour by the Government, if true.
My view is that whips usually offer a mix of bribes and threats, but those are usually confined to the MP. The bribe of preferment, the threat of being ignored, the bribe of a photo op with the PM, the threat of him choosing to visit a neighbouring marginal seat over yours, etc.
Threatening the constituents via "we'll pull funding for this new school", though, is absolutely appalling behaviour, if true.
I went to a hustings event during the 2017GE campaign in a Tory/LD marginal where the Tory candidate said openly "if you elect a Conservative MP more funding will flow into the constituency" which I was shocked by at the time - I'm still not sure if that was a naive reaction, but I thought it wasn't the done thing to say it out loud. If the approach becomes accepted as legitimate in elections I guess it's difficult to argue it's not OK for whipping purposes.
(He was elected, but the funding hasn't exactly flooded in)
Pork barrel has long been a feature of US politics, and is so pervasive there have even been attempts to reel it in somewhat. And part of the incumbent advantage in elections is openly admitted as being, as someone established in the ways of DC, in a better position to bring home the pork.
The supreme maestro of pork barrel was Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. It is impossible to go anywhere in the state without seeing some infrastructure item named after him.
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
That's appalling behaviour by the Government, if true.
My view is that whips usually offer a mix of bribes and threats, but those are usually confined to the MP. The bribe of preferment, the threat of being ignored, the bribe of a photo op with the PM, the threat of him choosing to visit a neighbouring marginal seat over yours, etc.
Threatening the constituents via "we'll pull funding for this new school", though, is absolutely appalling behaviour, if true.
I’m on the other side of the argument, that this has been going on for ever. I have really thought about it in relation to my own premiership. If my whips can’t do their job effectively I won’t be in long! I want at least three terms to stamp Jadeism on country.
Of course blabbermouth Judas will say that, but can he prove it? Nope. Because truth is The money didn’t go to the school as it didn’t go to many schools and deserving cases. It doesn’t grow on trees you know, money. Tough decisions had to be made.
The fact he had to make the office move and shares a space with brooms, mop and slop bucket, is yet another example that not everyone can have what they want all the time, at least not at the lower levels. But do we all cross the floor and bleet like spoiled sheep?
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well, people don't want war. And the German government appears to regard the whole issue transactionally.
So, I'm suggesting that we apply transactionality to Germany. Perhaps they will view things differently when *they* are being sold out.
Think of what we could do together with Russia. Two nuclear powers. Two votes on the Security Council. We have the perfect position to control the sea lanes of Europe. Lots of money to be made.
I wouldn't bet on how much longer the UK keeps its seat on the Security Council
Wouldn't we have a veto on being removed?
Yes and so would the French and the precedent is so blindingly obvious even Macron wouldn't be able to miss it.
Also the Americans quite like a friendly face on that body.
It's an interesting though experiment -
- The Germans believe that gas supplies and jobs selling stuff to Russian are more important than protecting a nation they gave a formal guarantee to (the Ukrainian nuclear disarmament deal). - Why should we (the UK) regard gas supplies and UK jobs are *less* important than protecting a nation we gave a formal guarantee to.... Germany?
Because we don't have a long history of selling out the free world while Germany does? During the Cold War it was Ostpolitik, now it's Gaspolitik. Same old Krauts.
Also we have some gas of our own, if only the government would let us develop it properly, and didn't make the idiotic mistake of shutting down our nuclear plants in a momentarily Panik.
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
That's appalling behaviour by the Government, if true.
My view is that whips usually offer a mix of bribes and threats, but those are usually confined to the MP. The bribe of preferment, the threat of being ignored, the bribe of a photo op with the PM, the threat of him choosing to visit a neighbouring marginal seat over yours, etc.
Threatening the constituents via "we'll pull funding for this new school", though, is absolutely appalling behaviour, if true.
I’m on the other side of the argument, that this has been going on for ever. I have really thought about it in relation to my own premiership. If my whips can’t do their job effectively I won’t be in long! I want at least three terms to stamp Jadeism on country.
Of course blabbermouth Judas will say that, but can he prove it? Nope. Because truth is The money didn’t go to the school as it didn’t go to many schools and deserving cases. It doesn’t grow on trees you know, money. Tough decisions had to be made.
The fact he had to make the office move and shares a space with brooms, mop and slop bucket, is yet another example that not everyone can have what they want all the time, at least not at the lower levels. But do we all cross the floor and bleet like spoiled sheep?
No.
He’s someone else’s problem now.
How does that make it right? Children suffer to save Fat Bozo's arse?
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well, people don't want war. And the German government appears to regard the whole issue transactionally.
So, I'm suggesting that we apply transactionality to Germany. Perhaps they will view things differently when *they* are being sold out.
Think of what we could do together with Russia. Two nuclear powers. Two votes on the Security Council. We have the perfect position to control the sea lanes of Europe. Lots of money to be made.
I wouldn't bet on how much longer the UK keeps its seat on the Security Council
Wouldn't we have a veto on being removed?
Yes and so would the French and the precedent is so blindingly obvious even Macron wouldn't be able to miss it.
Also the Americans quite like a friendly face on that body.
It's an interesting though experiment -
- The Germans believe that gas supplies and jobs selling stuff to Russian are more important than protecting a nation they gave a formal guarantee to (the Ukrainian nuclear disarmament deal). - Why should we (the UK) regard gas supplies and UK jobs are *less* important than protecting a nation we gave a formal guarantee to.... Germany?
Because we don't have a long history of selling out the free world while Germany does? During the Cold War it was Ostpolitik, now it's Gaspolitik. Same old Krauts.
Also we have some gas of our own, if only the government would let us develop it properly, and didn't make the idiotic mistake of shutting down our nuclear plants in a momentarily Panik.
If you can't beat them. Join them. If selling everyone else out is the new RealPolitic, then let's get selling!
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
That's appalling behaviour by the Government, if true.
My view is that whips usually offer a mix of bribes and threats, but those are usually confined to the MP. The bribe of preferment, the threat of being ignored, the bribe of a photo op with the PM, the threat of him choosing to visit a neighbouring marginal seat over yours, etc.
Threatening the constituents via "we'll pull funding for this new school", though, is absolutely appalling behaviour, if true.
In the 2002 BBC drama The Project (which was about New Labour), the chief whip threatens the Naomi Harris in precisely this way. I have no idea if this was based on any suggestion that this went on with New Labour, but it didn’t strike me as being an outlandish suggestion.
If anyone thinks that selling a friendly country out to be annexed by an expansionist dictatorship is in itself cost free, I have a book on twentieth century history you could borrow.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
There is not, as far as I am aware, any exemption in the law for threats by Whips.
Unless they are insane, keeping their threats inside the law would be important. And a number of Whips are and have been lawyers by trade.
And if Beckham had gone to the police when he had a boot kicked into his face, would a football manager have been able to properly manage his dressing room ever again?
Nice set of Monoliths by the way.
I believe (@PBLawyers requested) that there is a whole body of law about assault and sports. As in people have be done for assault in sport, but not every physical contact in sport is an assault.
If anyone thinks that selling a friendly country out to be annexed by an expansionist dictatorship is in itself cost free, I have a book on twentieth century history you could borrow.
As opposed to starting World War 3 with Russia over a country not even in NATO with far right elements in it stirring up trouble?
We have obligations to defend NATO members in Europe from Russia, not beyond
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well, people don't want war. And the German government appears to regard the whole issue transactionally.
So, I'm suggesting that we apply transactionality to Germany. Perhaps they will view things differently when *they* are being sold out.
Think of what we could do together with Russia. Two nuclear powers. Two votes on the Security Council. We have the perfect position to control the sea lanes of Europe. Lots of money to be made.
I wouldn't bet on how much longer the UK keeps its seat on the Security Council
Wouldn't we have a veto on being removed?
Yes and so would the French and the precedent is so blindingly obvious even Macron wouldn't be able to miss it.
Also the Americans quite like a friendly face on that body.
It's an interesting though experiment -
- The Germans believe that gas supplies and jobs selling stuff to Russian are more important than protecting a nation they gave a formal guarantee to (the Ukrainian nuclear disarmament deal). - Why should we (the UK) regard gas supplies and UK jobs are *less* important than protecting a nation we gave a formal guarantee to.... Germany?
Because we don't have a long history of selling out the free world while Germany does? During the Cold War it was Ostpolitik, now it's Gaspolitik. Same old Krauts.
Also we have some gas of our own, if only the government would let us develop it properly, and didn't make the idiotic mistake of shutting down our nuclear plants in a momentarily Panik.
The problem with developing UK gas is that it's simply not economic compared to the US. Henry Hub is about $3/mmbtu. Long term LNG contracts are $8-9. Shale gas in the UK is probably $20-25.
Edit to add: and to get those numbers in the UK would take a long time, and a lot of investment.
The problem the UK has is that power companies preferred to buy on the spot LNG market (where they could get gas for $6-7/mmbtu), rather than entering into long term agreements. And then - due to many factors - the cost of spot LNG cargoes went to $30.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
Legality matters because the whole point of the criminal law is that it applies to everyone equally. Whips, Princes of the royal blood, 10 Downing Street, Police Officers, PMs, MPs and all us plebs all have to keep the same standards of conduct in matters which have criminal sanctions. If that is not the case then Partygate is a nullity about nothing.
Although in the case of blackmail, it's not quite so clearcut.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60 (1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—
(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
There is no "reasonable person" test for blackmail, as I understand it, so the belief of "reasonable grounds" or "proper means" is actually subject to the particular beliefs of the person charged with the offence.
Any actual criminal lawyers like to comment ?
I don't think you need to be a criminal lawyer to know that just because an accused person thinks something was reasonable that doesn't make it reasonable in law!
The test for blackmail is different. If it's judged that the belief was genuine (even if objectively unreasonable), then it does appear to be a defence. I don't know what the case law is on how precisely that belief is to be judged, but it's certainly not a general reasonableness test.
There's kind of a convergence though (maybe).
If the person is a reasonable person and they claim to believe that an act that is objectively unreasonable was reasonable it follows that they are probably lying with that claim.
So for the defence to hold they need to demonstrate that they are not a reasonable person. Since only an unreasonable person could genuinely believe what they did was reasonable.
I seem to remember many of the same arguments were advanced for allowing the Germans to annexe the Sudetenland.
The dark side of my brain keeps wanting to suggest a policy where we sell out German interests
How about -
- Putin gets some bits of Ukraine - We support Russia in the Security Council - The sell us LNG at 50% of the world price. - They sell gas to Germany at 200% of the world price. - We get a cut of the extra money.
No involvement in war, cheap gas for Britain... what's not to like?
Do you seriously think Putin would leave it like that?
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
Well, people don't want war. And the German government appears to regard the whole issue transactionally.
So, I'm suggesting that we apply transactionality to Germany. Perhaps they will view things differently when *they* are being sold out.
Think of what we could do together with Russia. Two nuclear powers. Two votes on the Security Council. We have the perfect position to control the sea lanes of Europe. Lots of money to be made.
I wouldn't bet on how much longer the UK keeps its seat on the Security Council
Wouldn't we have a veto on being removed?
Yes and so would the French and the precedent is so blindingly obvious even Macron wouldn't be able to miss it.
Also the Americans quite like a friendly face on that body.
It's an interesting though experiment -
- The Germans believe that gas supplies and jobs selling stuff to Russian are more important than protecting a nation they gave a formal guarantee to (the Ukrainian nuclear disarmament deal). - Why should we (the UK) regard gas supplies and UK jobs are *less* important than protecting a nation we gave a formal guarantee to.... Germany?
It would be a classic cockup of the kind made by UK Governments.
Such a deal to swap temporary gas - which will be almost vanishing from our energy mix quite soon, and of which we still have a fair amount of production, for a permanent or much longer term benefit for the counterparty.
See Boris's proposal to sell off our national vaccine development / manufacturing centre for a small fraction of the price of the latest single order.
Germany are in stuck because they have no plan B that will work in less than 5-15 years.
The one thing Mutti Merkel obviously has better than BJ is departure timing - leave before your repution implodes.
The Conservative Party is having a nervous breakdown.
There is still a window for coming out of this looking like a reasonable human being, like Wragg and Baker (not a thing I thought I'd say about Baker ever)
But fuck it is closing rapidly
Sunak needs to do a Blix on Gray. Report by Monday lunchtime or we invade anyway.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
Legality matters because the whole point of the criminal law is that it applies to everyone equally. Whips, Princes of the royal blood, 10 Downing Street, Police Officers, PMs, MPs and all us plebs all have to keep the same standards of conduct in matters which have criminal sanctions. If that is not the case then Partygate is a nullity about nothing.
Although in the case of blackmail, it's not quite so clearcut.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60 (1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—
(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
There is no "reasonable person" test for blackmail, as I understand it, so the belief of "reasonable grounds" or "proper means" is actually subject to the particular beliefs of the person charged with the offence.
Any actual criminal lawyers like to comment ?
I don't think you need to be a criminal lawyer to know that just because an accused person thinks something was reasonable that doesn't make it reasonable in law!
The test for blackmail is different. If it's judged that the belief was genuine (even if objectively unreasonable), then it does appear to be a defence. I don't know what the case law is on how precisely that belief is to be judged, but it's certainly not a general reasonableness test.
There's kind of a convergence though (maybe).
If the person is a reasonable person and they claim to believe that an act that is objectively unreasonable was reasonable it follows that they are probably lying with that claim.
So for the defence to hold they need to demonstrate that they are not a reasonable person. Since only an unreasonable person could genuinely believe what they did was reasonable.
Quite an interesting one.
Would a reasonable person with the role of whip behave reasonably?
BBC North West @BBCNWT BREAKING: @UKLabour newest MP - former Tory @Christian4BuryS -backs up @William_Wragg allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
That's appalling behaviour by the Government, if true.
My view is that whips usually offer a mix of bribes and threats, but those are usually confined to the MP. The bribe of preferment, the threat of being ignored, the bribe of a photo op with the PM, the threat of him choosing to visit a neighbouring marginal seat over yours, etc.
Threatening the constituents via "we'll pull funding for this new school", though, is absolutely appalling behaviour, if true.
In the 2002 BBC drama The Project (which was about New Labour), the chief whip threatens the Naomi Harris in precisely this way. I have no idea if this was based on any suggestion that this went on with New Labour, but it didn’t strike me as being an outlandish suggestion.
Alistair Campbell Malcolm Tucker would never have suggested anything like that to the Chief Whip in his days. Definitely not.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
1. He doesn't seem stupid
2. There's a lot of wanna be worldly cynicism abvout this sort of thing. Like people saying All politicians lie, it's expected. It shouldn't be, and the way to keep it in check is come down on them like a t of b when they are caught out
3. It may always have been done like this, but sexual bullying, drunkenness on the job and industrial level expenses fraud were also business as usual in living memory. Time to stop.
4. NB also: it used allegedly to be *sexual* misdoings in the little black books, and that has loargely lost its bite. I don't go to gay bdsm clubs but if I did, and got outed, I would neither be embarrassed nor feel I had to resign from everything. So it is very credible the focus has moved from that sort of thing which doesn't matter and no longer works, to constituency funding which matters a lot.
This is a great post and great response.
Are you saying though that these rebels also have a wokist agenda to bring business of Parliament and Government into the 21st century? Wether they conscious they have or not?
If anyone thinks that selling a friendly country out to be annexed by an expansionist dictatorship is in itself cost free, I have a book on twentieth century history you could borrow.
As opposed to starting World War 3 with Russia over a country not even in NATO with far right elements in it stirring up trouble?
We have obligations to defend NATO members in Europe from Russia, not beyond
It's in our own interests to constrain Russia's aggressive expansion. Dictatorships are really bad for business and they tend to create waves of refugees that could further destabilise our region.
Plus, there's the minor point that it's the Right Thing To Do. But I don't think that's an argument that's likely to connect with you, so feel free to focus just on paragraph 1.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
There is not, as far as I am aware, any exemption in the law for threats by Whips.
Unless they are insane, keeping their threats inside the law would be important. And a number of Whips are and have been lawyers by trade.
And if Beckham had gone to the police when he had a boot kicked into his face, would a football manager have been able to properly manage his dressing room ever again?
Nice set of Monoliths by the way.
I believe (@PBLawyers requested) that there is a whole body of law about assault and sports. As in people have be done for assault in sport, but not every physical contact in sport is an assault.
Theo Bertram @theobertram · 3h When the expenses scandal broke, many in Westminster didn't realise it was indefensible. Everyone knows this how it has always worked, so what's the big deal? The public disagreed & what supercharged their anger was when they started to hear about the specific cases.
===
Personally, I'm not convinced by this argument in this case. But what do I know. I thought at the weekend that Johnson wont make the next PMQs.
It would be nice if Vanilla automatically embedded tweets from the link. Maybe Twitter doesn't allow it...
It used to do just that, but slowed the page load times so much as to make the site unusable. I think the Twitter API doesn’t like a single page with a couple of dozen embeds being constantly refreshed.
Ah, that's a shame. Technical difficulties...
It didn't slow the site down too much for me but then again my hardware is probably slightly more state of the art than other posters.
Just because you managed to get hold of an RTX 3090, doesn’t mean the rest of us were so lucky!
Should I point out that this RTX 3090 cost me less than £1000 as it was from Amazon warehouse or would that annoy some people too much.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
Legality matters because the whole point of the criminal law is that it applies to everyone equally. Whips, Princes of the royal blood, 10 Downing Street, Police Officers, PMs, MPs and all us plebs all have to keep the same standards of conduct in matters which have criminal sanctions. If that is not the case then Partygate is a nullity about nothing.
Although in the case of blackmail, it's not quite so clearcut.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60 (1)A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief—
(a)that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and
(b)that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
There is no "reasonable person" test for blackmail, as I understand it, so the belief of "reasonable grounds" or "proper means" is actually subject to the particular beliefs of the person charged with the offence.
Any actual criminal lawyers like to comment ?
I don't think you need to be a criminal lawyer to know that just because an accused person thinks something was reasonable that doesn't make it reasonable in law!
The test for blackmail is different. If it's judged that the belief was genuine (even if objectively unreasonable), then it does appear to be a defence. I don't know what the case law is on how precisely that belief is to be judged, but it's certainly not a general reasonableness test.
There's kind of a convergence though (maybe).
If the person is a reasonable person and they claim to believe that an act that is objectively unreasonable was reasonable it follows that they are probably lying with that claim.
So for the defence to hold they need to demonstrate that they are not a reasonable person. Since only an unreasonable person could genuinely believe what they did was reasonable.
Quite an interesting one.
Would a reasonable person with the role of whip behave reasonably?
You make the assumption that whips are reasonable people.
If anyone thinks that selling a friendly country out to be annexed by an expansionist dictatorship is in itself cost free, I have a book on twentieth century history you could borrow.
As opposed to starting World War 3 with Russia over a country not even in NATO with far right elements in it stirring up trouble?
We have obligations to defend NATO members in Europe from Russia, not beyond
It's in our own interests to constrain Russia's aggressive expansion. Dictatorships are really bad for business and they tend to create waves of refugees that could further destabilise our region.
Plus, there's the minor point that it's the Right Thing To Do. But I don't think that's an argument that's likely to connect with you, so feel free to focus just on paragraph 1.
Not if it means WW3.
Ukraine is an ex part of the USSR and Putin's Russia sees them as Nationalist separatists.
Yes ideally Russia would leave it be but Ukraine is not a NATO member so therefore we are not going to start WW3 to defend it
Had my booster yesterday. Feel dreadful, very sore shoulder, shivers, headache etc.
Slightly concerned as my international travel pass has been updated, but not my domestic (Scottish) one.
I really hope that is the last one I'm forced to get. Will be interesting to see what the rule will be next winter - over 50s only? Voluntary?
I think we can be reasonably confident that domestic vaxports will become a thing of the past once the devolved administrations eventually scrap them. Covid vaccine requirements (and, for that matter, masks on aircraft) for international travel, on the other hand - well, your guess is as good as mine.
These kinds of regulations have a habit of sticking. The ban on liquids in hand luggage has been in force since 2006.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
There is not, as far as I am aware, any exemption in the law for threats by Whips.
Unless they are insane, keeping their threats inside the law would be important. And a number of Whips are and have been lawyers by trade.
And if Beckham had gone to the police when he had a boot kicked into his face, would a football manager have been able to properly manage his dressing room ever again?
Nice set of Monoliths by the way.
I believe (@PBLawyers requested) that there is a whole body of law about assault and sports. As in people have be done for assault in sport, but not every physical contact in sport is an assault.
by the way....
What is it?
You mentioned monoliths.. which reminded me.
It's bolted to the side of the Tower Thistle Hotel in St Katherine's Dock, Tower Bridge in London. I used to live round the corner.
It's the original prototype for the Monolith in 2001 (the film). Apparently after it was cast (the largest and heaviest acrylic plastic casting ever made), Kubrick decided he didn't want a transparent monolith.
So it got given to a sculptor, who carved it for the Queens Silver Jubilee.
He is right though isn’t he? This can’t really stand up, so was best not said?
Putting public money into a seat so it stays with you in elections is not against the law? Making government decisions so the next ship is built Xx, or government hand out to car factory where marginals are, to save jobs where you need them is not against the law? If these things were against the law, how on earth would you ever prove it was gerrymandering and not sound decision making?
And how does whipping work if there isn’t some sort of threat? Even down to collecting all details of private lives, and dropping in conversation it could end up in the papers. The age of social media is probably a boon for the whips? Dr Y will be on later to tell us this is how it’s been for the last nine thousand years. “Does your wife and the papers know what you’ve been up to on your trips to Slough?”
I *believe*, that as with many things, it depends what was said and by whom.
I was cautioned by a lawyer, when involved with a commercial dispute, that making statements about what I would or wouldn't do needed to be carefully parsed by a lawyer. Since it was easy to say something that could be construed as a threat in a legal sense.
So not all "threats" by the Whips might be illegal, but equally, some might be illegal.
Does it it matter if they are legal or not to the question of wether the system of government can function if they can’t do this?
There’s probably even laws in civil service you can’t have sensitive details against 100s names In Little black books. Do those laws apply to whips?
The question here is, when vice chair of 1922 committee opened Pandora’s Box today, did he have a clue what comes out? Where it leads? Or was he simply stupid to have opened his mouth like that?
1. He doesn't seem stupid
2. There's a lot of wanna be worldly cynicism abvout this sort of thing. Like people saying All politicians lie, it's expected. It shouldn't be, and the way to keep it in check is come down on them like a t of b when they are caught out
3. It may always have been done like this, but sexual bullying, drunkenness on the job and industrial level expenses fraud were also business as usual in living memory. Time to stop.
4. NB also: it used allegedly to be *sexual* misdoings in the little black books, and that has loargely lost its bite. I don't go to gay bdsm clubs but if I did, and got outed, I would neither be embarrassed nor feel I had to resign from everything. So it is very credible the focus has moved from that sort of thing which doesn't matter and no longer works, to constituency funding which matters a lot.
This is a great post and great response.
Are you saying though that these rebels also have a wokist agenda to bring business of Parliament and Government into the 21st century? Wether they conscious they have or not?
I think they have made a brave decision to ignore the unwritten rules, and I have a lot of sympathy for the theory that Covid - no physical parliament - no learning How Things Are Done Here - has something to do with it
btw I would be a *bit* embarrassed about the gay bdsm thing, if you could keep that to yourself
Comments
Do you seriously think he wouldn't want us to look the other way as he executed a few dissidents with Novichok on British soil next time?
Yeah a few British citizens were maimed or killed as collateral damage, but we got some cheap gas right?
We never do these deals with tyrants, ever. The point is, the EU and Biden are about to.
{clunk-click}
Like this
https://twitter.com/theobertram/status/1484163529821364224
HOW HARD WAS THAT?
Threatening the quality of education of an MP's constituents' children doesn't seem something that is or should be covered by 'long standing precedents'.
@BBCNWT
BREAKING:
@UKLabour
newest MP - former Tory
@Christian4BuryS
-backs up
@William_Wragg
allegations about rebel MPs being threatened by whips. He says he was told that plans for a new high school in his constituency could be scrapped unless he voted a certain way.
https://twitter.com/BBCNWT/status/1484149149700341770
Dynamite
So, I'm suggesting that we apply transactionality to Germany. Perhaps they will view things differently when *they* are being sold out.
Think of what we could do together with Russia. Two nuclear powers. Two votes on the Security Council. We have the perfect position to control the sea lanes of Europe. Lots of money to be made.
It doesn't have to make it reasonable, it only has to meet the lower test whether D thought it was reasonable
My wife reacted really badly to the booster and is now hard set against any further doses...
As has now Biden himself:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/590601-biden-clarifies-any-russian-movement-into-ukraine-is-an-invasion
It needs also to be taken in the context of increasing US military aid to Ukraine.
The point Biden was clumsily trying to make is that any response will be proportional to any given Russian move. He is a great deal less sharp than he was, but I don't think he's yet entirely lost it.
I think it works as an argument as to why it has hurt and possibly permanently damaged Boris and the Tories, but it doesn't follow that it is necessarily terminal.
Off the top of your head, what's the most famous expenses scandal claim/story?
Unless the governing party sticks firmly to its manifesto it's also more difficult to make the case for whipping MPs in favour of those policies it does choose to retain.
If we went all in on EvulBritain we would be signing the Chinese up as an ally as well, probably.
EDIT: It is interesting how people feel differently about selling out German interests than Ukrainian interests. Why is that?
If it's judged that the belief was genuine (even if objectively unreasonable), then it does appear to be a defence.
I don't know what the case law is on how precisely that belief is to be judged, but it's certainly not a general reasonableness test.
Duck Island and trouser press respectively.
I don't see what difference it makes though - it was a question of why something cut through, and both stories have.
Also the Americans quite like a friendly face on that body.
The reality is that we cannot and will not either.
If the Tories adopted that as their policy it would lead to almost as much leakage to RefUK as full rejoin.
On Brexit the only viable position for the Tories, for at least a generation, is the current deal with the EU.
The only party which could viably do CU/SM or something close to it given it does not want full free movement in order to win the redwall back is Labour
Is this the exact same question as would a generic reasonable person find what the person did to be reasonable?
Not sure.
Also not sure how you'd judge whether they really thought it reasonable, either reasonably or unreasonably, or are merely saying they did when in fact they didn't.
- The Germans believe that gas supplies and jobs selling stuff to Russian are more important than protecting a nation they gave a formal guarantee to (the Ukrainian nuclear disarmament deal).
- Why should we (the UK) regard gas supplies and UK jobs are *less* important than protecting a nation we gave a formal guarantee to.... Germany?
Enough MPs ended up in clink that the Grandstand videprinter would have to spell out the word afterwards, to really make the quantity clear.
That's appalling behaviour by the Government, if true.
My view is that whips usually offer a mix of bribes and threats, but those are usually confined to the MP. The bribe of preferment, the threat of being ignored, the bribe of a photo op with the PM, the threat of him choosing to visit a neighbouring marginal seat over yours, etc.
Threatening the constituents via "we'll pull funding for this new school", though, is absolutely appalling behaviour, if true.
Goodbye, sir — or is it — au revoir?
No, Perkins.
(He was elected, but the funding hasn't exactly flooded in)
But I know you're only jesting
Said politician was a wholly owned subsidiary of Gazprom, of course.
EDIT: "And of course, our new Russian allies will be conducting a joint live fire exercise in the area. Not a suitable place for an LNG tanker, really, is it?"
The supreme maestro of pork barrel was Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. It is impossible to go anywhere in the state without seeing some infrastructure item named after him.
Of course blabbermouth Judas will say that, but can he prove it? Nope. Because truth is The money didn’t go to the school as it didn’t go to many schools and deserving cases. It doesn’t grow on trees you know, money. Tough decisions had to be made.
The fact he had to make the office move and shares a space with brooms, mop and slop bucket, is yet another example that not everyone can have what they want all the time, at least not at the lower levels. But do we all cross the floor and bleet like spoiled sheep?
No.
He’s someone else’s problem now.
Also we have some gas of our own, if only the government would let us develop it properly, and didn't make the idiotic mistake of shutting down our nuclear plants in a momentarily Panik.
We have obligations to defend NATO members in Europe from Russia, not beyond
Edit to add: and to get those numbers in the UK would take a long time, and a lot of investment.
The problem the UK has is that power companies preferred to buy on the spot LNG market (where they could get gas for $6-7/mmbtu), rather than entering into long term agreements. And then - due to many factors - the cost of spot LNG cargoes went to $30.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/19/us-capitol-riot-trump-documents-national-archives
Lock him up.
If the person is a reasonable person and they claim to believe that an act that is objectively unreasonable was reasonable it follows that they are probably lying with that claim.
So for the defence to hold they need to demonstrate that they are not a reasonable person. Since only an unreasonable person could genuinely believe what they did was reasonable.
Quite an interesting one.
Such a deal to swap temporary gas - which will be almost vanishing from our energy mix quite soon, and of which we still have a fair amount of production, for a permanent or much longer term benefit for the counterparty.
See Boris's proposal to sell off our national vaccine development / manufacturing centre for a small fraction of the price of the latest single order.
Germany are in stuck because they have no plan B that will work in less than 5-15 years.
The one thing Mutti Merkel obviously has better than BJ is departure timing - leave before your repution implodes.
https://twitter.com/USNavyEurope/status/1483715936922308612?s=20
But fuck it is closing rapidly
Sunak needs to do a Blix on Gray. Report by Monday lunchtime or we invade anyway.
Slightly concerned as my international travel pass has been updated, but not my domestic (Scottish) one.
I really hope that is the last one I'm forced to get. Will be interesting to see what the rule will be next winter - over 50s only? Voluntary?
Are you saying though that these rebels also have a wokist agenda to bring business of Parliament and Government into the 21st century? Wether they conscious they have or not?
Lab 57 (+16)
CON 15 (-17)
LD 2 (+1)
Spkr 1 (-)
Interestingly William Wragg is projected to narrowly hold Hazel Grove on a uniform swing but Graham Brady loses his seat by 4% to Labour.
Plus, there's the minor point that it's the Right Thing To Do. But I don't think that's an argument that's likely to connect with you, so feel free to focus just on paragraph 1.
I'm guessing that passing the Bosporus submerged is problematic
Ukraine is an ex part of the USSR and Putin's Russia sees them as Nationalist separatists.
Yes ideally Russia would leave it be but Ukraine is not a NATO member so therefore we are not going to start WW3 to defend it
When we made Turkey write the convention (1936?) we were concerned about German superiority in U-Boats perhaps.
These kinds of regulations have a habit of sticking. The ban on liquids in hand luggage has been in force since 2006.
It's bolted to the side of the Tower Thistle Hotel in St Katherine's Dock, Tower Bridge in London. I used to live round the corner.
It's the original prototype for the Monolith in 2001 (the film). Apparently after it was cast (the largest and heaviest acrylic plastic casting ever made), Kubrick decided he didn't want a transparent monolith.
So it got given to a sculptor, who carved it for the Queens Silver Jubilee.
It is rather hidden and quite hard to find.
btw I would be a *bit* embarrassed about the gay bdsm thing, if you could keep that to yourself