Russian-state outlets are reporting Ukrainian shelling in Luhansk, eastern #Ukraine. Now, this isn't particularly unusual, considering this region has been in conflict for 8 years now. What's unusual is how many Russian outlets are reporting on this.
That’s the ‘false flag’ excuse they’re looking for.
After they had "peacefully withdrawn" their army units.
"I've put away that gun I was threatening you with. Dont I deserve praise and a cookie for that? No? How dare you!"
"I'm putting away the gun. Let's forget about the gun. What do you mean the gun is still in my hand? Look, it's incredibly aggressive of you not to accept my word that I've put away the gun. I'm so disappointed in you that I'm forced to take the safety off."
I think Johnson will survive until the locals at least - and I've been laying Sunak for some time.
He isn't going to be so popular once the tax rises bite.
The battle between them is going to be brutal. Sunak's team have already spun "the Prime Minister's tax rises" in relation to NI. That Number 10 imposed its will over the Treasury isn't a fanciful notion as it has happened before so maybe it is true...
Use the NHS as an excuse to put up NI so that you have the cash to cut income tax before the GE seems like such an obvious ploy that I don't think No. 10 will have had to impose it on Sunak - though it does show how ambitious Sunak is that he's doing all he can to pin the blame for the NI tax increase on Johnson.
I know people have said that it will be bad for Sunak to be Chancellor when NI goes up, but I wonder whether one calculation for him was that he had to be "forced" to put up NI before becoming PM, so that as PM he could take the credit for cutting income tax before the GE. If he became PM too soon he wouldn't be able to blame Johnson for the NI increase.
In yesterday's poll just 28% oppose the NI rise with 31% in favour and 34% neither
Have just seen a clip from the Scottish version of Question Time. Commentator points out that for 29 years of her 43 years Scotland has had a government that we didn't elect.
What's the equivalent figure for London (or Manchester, Liverpool, etc)? Lots of the country lives in areas that would never vote Tory but gets stuck with them in power nationally...
Father Ted: Ok, one last time. This is a country within a union, these are cities within a country..ah, forget it.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
I think Johnson will survive until the locals at least - and I've been laying Sunak for some time.
He isn't going to be so popular once the tax rises bite.
The battle between them is going to be brutal. Sunak's team have already spun "the Prime Minister's tax rises" in relation to NI. That Number 10 imposed its will over the Treasury isn't a fanciful notion as it has happened before so maybe it is true...
Use the NHS as an excuse to put up NI so that you have the cash to cut income tax before the GE seems like such an obvious ploy that I don't think No. 10 will have had to impose it on Sunak - though it does show how ambitious Sunak is that he's doing all he can to pin the blame for the NI tax increase on Johnson.
I know people have said that it will be bad for Sunak to be Chancellor when NI goes up, but I wonder whether one calculation for him was that he had to be "forced" to put up NI before becoming PM, so that as PM he could take the credit for cutting income tax before the GE. If he became PM too soon he wouldn't be able to blame Johnson for the NI increase.
In yesterday's poll just 28% oppose the NI rise with 31% in favour and 34% neither
Yes. I don't understand why this is. Is it as simple as the tax using the word "Insurance" in it, rather than "Tax", or are there enough oldies who don't have to pay it and are happy to see young working people pay more tax on their behalf?
For whatever reason, the game of increase NI and cut Income Tax will be popular, however much many of us on here will object to the intergenerational unfairness, or the economy-damaging consequences. The current government may be many things, but they have some basic understanding of public opinion, and they know what they are doing with the NI increase.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
I drove to Wolverhampton and back last Thursday. The M40 was heaving with lorries.
Starmer at 8 or 9 does appear the value in the next PM market at the moment.
Will the wider country really want to keep talking about 2020 birthday cakes for much longer, even if the Lobby think it’s the most important thing going on in the world right now?
Sunak’s chance of being next PM I think disappears after the May election. His reputation is going to quickly go from being the nice guy handing out piles of money to get us through the pandemic, to being the nasty guy raising taxes while bills are rising.
That said, he’s still young (41) and will have other opportunities in the next couple of decades of leadership contests.
Will the wider country remember that they suffered whilst the crook partied? Yes. Will they talk about nothing else? No. Will they remember that the PM is an amoral liar who thinks the law only applies to the little people? Yes. Will their vote change accordingly? Likely.
I know you are a long way away and don't seem to share the majority opinion that a lying crook in Downing Street is a bad thing. So I understand your question even if I sadly shake my head when I read it.
I'm not sure Sandpit has ever acknowledged the concern over a brazenly dishonest PM ? It's always a fuss over cakes for him.
Yes, it’s the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with politics and media in the UK, obsessing about trivialities from years ago while ignoring the important stories going on in the country and wider world.
We saw it almost daily during the pandemic press conferences, with the most stupid, scientifically illiterate questions and media obsessions, it’s really not healthy for the country.
I agree with pretty much all of that @Sandpit but the fact that the PM lied to Parliament is not trivial.
Agreed. What exactly was he supposed to have said that was a direct lie?
He told the Commons that to the best of his knowledge there had been no parties and that he would be angry if there had been.
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
We'd know it was against the rules though, especially if we wrote them. What they were called is besides the point, when he was so clear on what was pernissable. It no more works to claim he wouldn't call it a party than people saying they attended a rave not a party.
The triviality of his breaches is also part of the point, not an argument in his favour - wilfully or unwilfully careless.
His defence relies on him claiming he must be incredibly stupid or inattentive or both. Neither of which makes him the person to sought out a mess going on under his nose (and he acknowledges a need to sort it out so it cannot be called nothing) which he apparently knew nothing about or couldn't recognise even if it put a drink in his hand.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
I drove to Wolverhampton and back last Thursday. The M40 was heaving with lorries.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
I drove to Wolverhampton and back last Thursday. The M40 was heaving with lorries.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
I drove to Wolverhampton and back last Thursday. The M40 was heaving with lorries.
Great! Your point is...?
Doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
The M40 is from London to Birmingham - it's not really a gauge for imports / exports to Europe or Ireland where far better guides are the M2 / M20 in Kent the A14 to Felixstowe and the A55 / A75 for Ireland.
You are looking at UK trade and claiming it relates to something utterly different.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
I drove to Wolverhampton and back last Thursday. The M40 was heaving with lorries.
Great! Your point is...?
Doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
The M40 is from London to Birmingham - it's not really a gauge for imports / exports to Europe or Ireland where far better guides are the M2 / M20 in Kent the A14 to Felixstowe and the A55 / A75 for Ireland.
You are looking at UK trade and claiming it relates to something utterly different.
Oh, sorry, I thought this was about a lorry driver shortage.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
So it's OUR side that are making it difficult? Does JRM know?
Starmer at 8 or 9 does appear the value in the next PM market at the moment.
Will the wider country really want to keep talking about 2020 birthday cakes for much longer, even if the Lobby think it’s the most important thing going on in the world right now?
Sunak’s chance of being next PM I think disappears after the May election. His reputation is going to quickly go from being the nice guy handing out piles of money to get us through the pandemic, to being the nasty guy raising taxes while bills are rising.
That said, he’s still young (41) and will have other opportunities in the next couple of decades of leadership contests.
Will the wider country remember that they suffered whilst the crook partied? Yes. Will they talk about nothing else? No. Will they remember that the PM is an amoral liar who thinks the law only applies to the little people? Yes. Will their vote change accordingly? Likely.
I know you are a long way away and don't seem to share the majority opinion that a lying crook in Downing Street is a bad thing. So I understand your question even if I sadly shake my head when I read it.
I'm not sure Sandpit has ever acknowledged the concern over a brazenly dishonest PM ? It's always a fuss over cakes for him.
Yes, it’s the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with politics and media in the UK, obsessing about trivialities from years ago while ignoring the important stories going on in the country and wider world.
We saw it almost daily during the pandemic press conferences, with the most stupid, scientifically illiterate questions and media obsessions, it’s really not healthy for the country.
I agree with pretty much all of that @Sandpit but the fact that the PM lied to Parliament is not trivial.
Agreed. What exactly was he supposed to have said that was a direct lie?
He told the Commons that to the best of his knowledge there had been no parties and that he would be angry if there had been.
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
We'd know it was against the rules though, especially if we wrote them. What they were called is besides the point, when he was so clear on what was pernissable. It no more works to claim he wouldn't call it a party than people saying they attended a rave not a party.
The triviality of his breaches is also part of the point, not an argument in his favour - wilfully or unwilfully careless.
His defence relies on him claiming he must be incredibly stupid or inattentive or both. Neither of which makes him the person to sought out a mess going on under his nose (and he acknowledges a need to sort it out so it cannot be called nothing) which he apparently knew nothing about or couldn't recognise even if it put a drink in his hand.
I can well believe he was inattentive at the time, with the context that he was recovering from Covid himself, in some pretty serious meetings for most of the day and doing daily press conferences.
I just really don’t think that sort of thing is important now, and certainly isn’t something worth a PM’s resignation.
It also looks silly to many people, who see this obsession with triviality as being more important than the more serious stories. Okay, so taxes are about to go up to pay for the pandemic, so how are the fraud investigations going into the fake companies set up to receive grants and loans, plus the undelivered PPE, that cost the country billions?
The Post Office enquiry and Ukraine should be running the news at the moment, not birthday cake and Prince Andrew. The serious press have all turned into lowest-common-denominator clickbait tabloids, and no-one is actually holding the government to account for the serious things.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
I drove to Wolverhampton and back last Thursday. The M40 was heaving with lorries.
Great! Your point is...?
Doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
The M40 is from London to Birmingham - it's not really a gauge for imports / exports to Europe or Ireland where far better guides are the M2 / M20 in Kent the A14 to Felixstowe and the A55 / A75 for Ireland.
You are looking at UK trade and claiming it relates to something utterly different.
Oh, sorry, I thought this was about a lorry driver shortage.
There *is* a shortage but not as acute as previously. Helped by the absolute collapse in GB to NI/ROI traffic and the UK's removal from its previous place as a logistics hub for this part of Europe. So much stuff now bypasses us so less truck moves so less drivers needed - a decline that really has accelerated since January's latest tangle of red tape imposed by Rees-Mogg.
I think Johnson will brass neck it out and while poorish for the Tories the locals will be survivable.
I agree with Mike, the value is on Starmer. Sunak has missed his chance and it won't come again. Indeed I expect him gone in a reshuffle this year, replaced by a plodding yes-man.
Johnson may have survived the new year onslaught but there's little in the way of `wins' for him in the next few weeks/months as digging into the finances/party scandals and economic costs start to bear, it'll be interesting to see how the Locals GOTV campaign goes by Tory workers - will it be for the PM, or the party they campaign for? and I reckon he'll be in trouble if any more tricky byelections pop up.... still he aint known as the greased piglet for nothing and whilst his Defence Sec and Foreign Sec had reasonable response to the Ukraine crisis, little has reflected back onto BJ
There are no obvious wins for Boris before the local elections in May.
News that Britain will scrap the golden visa scheme suggests Boris is already moving to counter allegations that his party is in Russia's pocket. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60410844
But from summer onwards there are a series of feel-good events made for Boris's boosterism. The Platinum Jubilee; Emma at Wimbledon; the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham; England winning the World Cup.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
I drove to Wolverhampton and back last Thursday. The M40 was heaving with lorries.
Great! Your point is...?
Doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
The M40 is from London to Birmingham - it's not really a gauge for imports / exports to Europe or Ireland where far better guides are the M2 / M20 in Kent the A14 to Felixstowe and the A55 / A75 for Ireland.
You are looking at UK trade and claiming it relates to something utterly different.
Oh, sorry, I thought this was about a lorry driver shortage.
There *is* a shortage but not as acute as previously. Helped by the absolute collapse in GB to NI/ROI traffic and the UK's removal from its previous place as a logistics hub for this part of Europe. So much stuff now bypasses us so less truck moves so less drivers needed - a decline that really has accelerated since January's latest tangle of red tape imposed by Rees-Mogg.
The M40 is very much part of the land bridge. So if Europe <--> Ireland flows are missing us out, we're certainly making up for it with internal flows.
UK businesses are calling on the government for more help exporting to Europe, after new research found that many firms believed the EU trade deal was not helping them grow or increase sales.
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has surveyed 1,000 businesses, and found that a majority said it has created problems such as pushing up costs, increasing paperwork and delays, and putting the UK at a competitive disadvantage.
Just 8% of firms agreed that the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) was ‘enabling their business to grow or increase sales’, while 54% disagreed.
For UK exporters 12% (or just one in eight) agreed that the TCA was helping them, while 71% disagreed.
Starmer at 8 or 9 does appear the value in the next PM market at the moment.
Will the wider country really want to keep talking about 2020 birthday cakes for much longer, even if the Lobby think it’s the most important thing going on in the world right now?
Sunak’s chance of being next PM I think disappears after the May election. His reputation is going to quickly go from being the nice guy handing out piles of money to get us through the pandemic, to being the nasty guy raising taxes while bills are rising.
That said, he’s still young (41) and will have other opportunities in the next couple of decades of leadership contests.
Will the wider country remember that they suffered whilst the crook partied? Yes. Will they talk about nothing else? No. Will they remember that the PM is an amoral liar who thinks the law only applies to the little people? Yes. Will their vote change accordingly? Likely.
I know you are a long way away and don't seem to share the majority opinion that a lying crook in Downing Street is a bad thing. So I understand your question even if I sadly shake my head when I read it.
I'm not sure Sandpit has ever acknowledged the concern over a brazenly dishonest PM ? It's always a fuss over cakes for him.
Yes, it’s the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with politics and media in the UK, obsessing about trivialities from years ago while ignoring the important stories going on in the country and wider world.
We saw it almost daily during the pandemic press conferences, with the most stupid, scientifically illiterate questions and media obsessions, it’s really not healthy for the country.
I agree with pretty much all of that @Sandpit but the fact that the PM lied to Parliament is not trivial.
Agreed. What exactly was he supposed to have said that was a direct lie?
He told the Commons that to the best of his knowledge there had been no parties and that he would be angry if there had been.
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
We'd know it was against the rules though, especially if we wrote them. What they were called is besides the point, when he was so clear on what was pernissable. It no more works to claim he wouldn't call it a party than people saying they attended a rave not a party.
The triviality of his breaches is also part of the point, not an argument in his favour - wilfully or unwilfully careless.
His defence relies on him claiming he must be incredibly stupid or inattentive or both. Neither of which makes him the person to sought out a mess going on under his nose (and he acknowledges a need to sort it out so it cannot be called nothing) which he apparently knew nothing about or couldn't recognise even if it put a drink in his hand.
I can well believe he was inattentive at the time, with the context that he was recovering from Covid himself, in some pretty serious meetings for most of the day and doing daily press conferences.
I just really don’t think that sort of thing is important now, and certainly isn’t something worth a PM’s resignation.
It also looks silly to many people, who see this obsession with triviality as being more important than the more serious stories. Okay, so taxes are about to go up to pay for the pandemic, so how are the fraud investigations going into the fake companies set up to receive grants and loans, plus the undelivered PPE, that cost the country billions?
The Post Office enquiry and Ukraine should be running the news at the moment, not birthday cake and Prince Andrew. The serious press have all turned into lowest-common-denominator clickbait tabloids, and no-one is actually holding the government to account for the serious things.
Again, you are a long way from these shores so may not get it. But to strip the argument back:
I just really don’t think that sort of thing is important now, and certainly isn’t something worth a PM’s resignation.
That sort of thing is lying to parliament. Something that has been seen as very important since we had a PM and requires the resignation of the minister telling the lies according to the ministerial code.
That sort of thing is not breaking the law. Again something seen as very important for a long time and even being formally investigated is enough for a minister to need to resign.
This is basic standards. Propriety. Right and Wrong. A pity that you are arguing for wrong. No other issue can be resolved when the person doing so is a liar, is corrupt, breaks the law with impunity. How exactly is Boris Johnson supposed to go after the Post Office scandal? Him, telling others they have lied and broken the law? Please.
I do think that Sunak missed his chance when Boris was truly vulnerable. A major defection from his cabinet a couple of weeks ago and he would have been gone. But the legend of he who weilds the dagger never wears the Crown is strong. Or perhaps Sunak is just naturally cautious. Or likes being Chancellor, which clearly plays to his strengths. Whatever.
Now, his future is tied to Johnson. If he wasn't willing to jump ship during this fiasco it is not obvious how he credibly can in the future. And if Boris is voted out by the MPs before the next election is someone so obviously tied to him the answer? I have my doubts. He's a sell.
I think you're overestimating how weak Boris was/is. We still haven't got to 50+ people wanting a leadership election.
Even if there are 50 MPs who would back Sunak as soon as he announced (which is hard to be know for certain), and all of those already unhappy with Boris backed him... he would still be well short of a majority.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
How much effort did Labour put into Guildford et al in 2019?
More than you'd think. I'm CLP chair in SW Surrey next door, where we're in coalition with LibDems and Greens. We didn't attack the LibDems at all in 2019, but we countered their tactical voting bar charts with contradictory bar charts. They based theirs partly on local results where we'd stood down for them; we felt that was against the spirit of the thing. We retaliated with charts based on national polls; they felt that was unhelpfully irrelevant to the local situation. We've all got over it, but that sort of squabble wouldn't happen with the kind of informal understanding described.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
I drove to Wolverhampton and back last Thursday. The M40 was heaving with lorries.
Great! Your point is...?
Doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
The M40 is from London to Birmingham - it's not really a gauge for imports / exports to Europe or Ireland where far better guides are the M2 / M20 in Kent the A14 to Felixstowe and the A55 / A75 for Ireland.
You are looking at UK trade and claiming it relates to something utterly different.
Oh, sorry, I thought this was about a lorry driver shortage.
There *is* a shortage but not as acute as previously. Helped by the absolute collapse in GB to NI/ROI traffic and the UK's removal from its previous place as a logistics hub for this part of Europe. So much stuff now bypasses us so less truck moves so less drivers needed - a decline that really has accelerated since January's latest tangle of red tape imposed by Rees-Mogg.
The M40 is very much part of the land bridge. So if Europe <--> Ireland flows are missing us out, we're certainly making up for it with internal flows.
Because a singular snapshot of traffic based on whatever expectation you had is clearly the most accurate way to judge things.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
I drove to Wolverhampton and back last Thursday. The M40 was heaving with lorries.
Great! Your point is...?
Doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
The M40 is from London to Birmingham - it's not really a gauge for imports / exports to Europe or Ireland where far better guides are the M2 / M20 in Kent the A14 to Felixstowe and the A55 / A75 for Ireland.
You are looking at UK trade and claiming it relates to something utterly different.
Oh, sorry, I thought this was about a lorry driver shortage.
Yes it's ridiculous isn't it. It's sunny and windless where I am now. So all these ridiculous stories of gales and bad weather elsewhere in the UK are some lame conspiracy.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
Starmer at 8 or 9 does appear the value in the next PM market at the moment.
Will the wider country really want to keep talking about 2020 birthday cakes for much longer, even if the Lobby think it’s the most important thing going on in the world right now?
Sunak’s chance of being next PM I think disappears after the May election. His reputation is going to quickly go from being the nice guy handing out piles of money to get us through the pandemic, to being the nasty guy raising taxes while bills are rising.
That said, he’s still young (41) and will have other opportunities in the next couple of decades of leadership contests.
Will the wider country remember that they suffered whilst the crook partied? Yes. Will they talk about nothing else? No. Will they remember that the PM is an amoral liar who thinks the law only applies to the little people? Yes. Will their vote change accordingly? Likely.
I know you are a long way away and don't seem to share the majority opinion that a lying crook in Downing Street is a bad thing. So I understand your question even if I sadly shake my head when I read it.
I'm not sure Sandpit has ever acknowledged the concern over a brazenly dishonest PM ? It's always a fuss over cakes for him.
Yes, it’s the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with politics and media in the UK, obsessing about trivialities from years ago while ignoring the important stories going on in the country and wider world.
We saw it almost daily during the pandemic press conferences, with the most stupid, scientifically illiterate questions and media obsessions, it’s really not healthy for the country.
I agree with pretty much all of that @Sandpit but the fact that the PM lied to Parliament is not trivial.
Agreed. What exactly was he supposed to have said that was a direct lie?
He told the Commons that to the best of his knowledge there had been no parties and that he would be angry if there had been.
This is why the 'I didn't consider these events with wine, cheese, and tinsel to be parties" defence is so compelling to his case.
The spinning from No10 that he always considered himself to be working whilst on the premises of No10, even when Carrie was holding her Abba themed work event, may seem in the realms of Prince Andrew fantasy defences. However, it makes sense, because even Johnson understands were it proven he mislead Parliament, the game is up.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
Suggests Labour will not make more than a token campaign in any of the top 30 LD target seats apart from Sheffield Hallam and Cambridge, where Labour hold the seats not the Tories.
Also states Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers have been getting to know Davey's team in case there is a hung parliament and they need a confidence and supply deal. Suggesting if there is a hung parliament the LDs would definitely back Labour this time unlike 2010 when they backed the Tories
Did you really think that the last 5 words of that post were necessary for this audience?
The wider fact that the LibDems aren't going to back the Tories next time is so self evident as to hardly be worth saying.
Starmer at 8 or 9 does appear the value in the next PM market at the moment.
Will the wider country really want to keep talking about 2020 birthday cakes for much longer, even if the Lobby think it’s the most important thing going on in the world right now?
Sunak’s chance of being next PM I think disappears after the May election. His reputation is going to quickly go from being the nice guy handing out piles of money to get us through the pandemic, to being the nasty guy raising taxes while bills are rising.
That said, he’s still young (41) and will have other opportunities in the next couple of decades of leadership contests.
Will the wider country remember that they suffered whilst the crook partied? Yes. Will they talk about nothing else? No. Will they remember that the PM is an amoral liar who thinks the law only applies to the little people? Yes. Will their vote change accordingly? Likely.
I know you are a long way away and don't seem to share the majority opinion that a lying crook in Downing Street is a bad thing. So I understand your question even if I sadly shake my head when I read it.
I'm not sure Sandpit has ever acknowledged the concern over a brazenly dishonest PM ? It's always a fuss over cakes for him.
Yes, it’s the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with politics and media in the UK, obsessing about trivialities from years ago while ignoring the important stories going on in the country and wider world.
We saw it almost daily during the pandemic press conferences, with the most stupid, scientifically illiterate questions and media obsessions, it’s really not healthy for the country.
I agree with pretty much all of that @Sandpit but the fact that the PM lied to Parliament is not trivial.
Agreed. What exactly was he supposed to have said that was a direct lie?
He told the Commons that to the best of his knowledge there had been no parties and that he would be angry if there had been.
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
We'd know it was against the rules though, especially if we wrote them. What they were called is besides the point, when he was so clear on what was pernissable. It no more works to claim he wouldn't call it a party than people saying they attended a rave not a party.
The triviality of his breaches is also part of the point, not an argument in his favour - wilfully or unwilfully careless.
His defence relies on him claiming he must be incredibly stupid or inattentive or both. Neither of which makes him the person to sought out a mess going on under his nose (and he acknowledges a need to sort it out so it cannot be called nothing) which he apparently knew nothing about or couldn't recognise even if it put a drink in his hand.
I can well believe he was inattentive at the time, with the context that he was recovering from Covid himself, in some pretty serious meetings for most of the day and doing daily press conferences.
I just really don’t think that sort of thing is important now, and certainly isn’t something worth a PM’s resignation.
It also looks silly to many people, who see this obsession with triviality as being more important than the more serious stories. Okay, so taxes are about to go up to pay for the pandemic, so how are the fraud investigations going into the fake companies set up to receive grants and loans, plus the undelivered PPE, that cost the country billions?
The Post Office enquiry and Ukraine should be running the news at the moment, not birthday cake and Prince Andrew. The serious press have all turned into lowest-common-denominator clickbait tabloids, and no-one is actually holding the government to account for the serious things.
Sorry your argument is ridiculous. This is fundamentally about his suitability to lead and hold the most important political position in the land. All of this is NOT trivial. It underlines his unsuitability for high office and should resign in favour of someone who is a serious and credible figure. In spite of protestations to the contrary, there are plenty of people in the PCP who are far more suitable than Johnson.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
I drove to Wolverhampton and back last Thursday. The M40 was heaving with lorries.
Great! Your point is...?
Doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
The M40 is from London to Birmingham - it's not really a gauge for imports / exports to Europe or Ireland where far better guides are the M2 / M20 in Kent the A14 to Felixstowe and the A55 / A75 for Ireland.
You are looking at UK trade and claiming it relates to something utterly different.
Oh, sorry, I thought this was about a lorry driver shortage.
There *is* a shortage but not as acute as previously. Helped by the absolute collapse in GB to NI/ROI traffic and the UK's removal from its previous place as a logistics hub for this part of Europe. So much stuff now bypasses us so less truck moves so less drivers needed - a decline that really has accelerated since January's latest tangle of red tape imposed by Rees-Mogg.
You forget:
Trade that bypasses the UK = blessed relief Trade that bypasses, say, France = proof if proof be needed that the EU is suffering post-Brexit.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
How much effort did Labour put into Guildford et al in 2019?
More than you'd think. I'm CLP chair in SW Surrey next door, where we're in coalition with LibDems and Greens. We didn't attack the LibDems at all in 2019, but we countered their tactical voting bar charts with contradictory bar charts. They based theirs partly on local results where we'd stood down for them; we felt that was against the spirit of the thing. We retaliated with charts based on national polls; they felt that was unhelpfully irrelevant to the local situation. We've all got over it, but that sort of squabble wouldn't happen with the kind of informal understanding described.
It will be critical to have such an understanding. I think that it is very important that both parties run a full slate. But little point Labour going out campaigning in seats where the LibDems are obviously the challenger and vice versa.
Would be helpful if the LD team were better organised than in 2019. It was my forst GE in the party after 25 years in the red team and I have never seen anything so chaotic. Suspect that was Jo "Flight of Icarus" and her team insisting that Harrogate and York and Durham and Berwick were all viable targets - a position which abruptly reversed towards the end where it was "go defend Tim Farron".
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
I see what you mean. But if you'd personally instigated a law at the time making exactly that illegal, and lots of people had been prosecuted and fined for infringing your law in similar or more minor ways, don't you think that changes the position? I know we've rehearsed this debate many times, but it's still the view of most of the public.
Starmer at 8 or 9 does appear the value in the next PM market at the moment.
Will the wider country really want to keep talking about 2020 birthday cakes for much longer, even if the Lobby think it’s the most important thing going on in the world right now?
Sunak’s chance of being next PM I think disappears after the May election. His reputation is going to quickly go from being the nice guy handing out piles of money to get us through the pandemic, to being the nasty guy raising taxes while bills are rising.
That said, he’s still young (41) and will have other opportunities in the next couple of decades of leadership contests.
Will the wider country remember that they suffered whilst the crook partied? Yes. Will they talk about nothing else? No. Will they remember that the PM is an amoral liar who thinks the law only applies to the little people? Yes. Will their vote change accordingly? Likely.
I know you are a long way away and don't seem to share the majority opinion that a lying crook in Downing Street is a bad thing. So I understand your question even if I sadly shake my head when I read it.
I'm not sure Sandpit has ever acknowledged the concern over a brazenly dishonest PM ? It's always a fuss over cakes for him.
Yes, it’s the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with politics and media in the UK, obsessing about trivialities from years ago while ignoring the important stories going on in the country and wider world.
We saw it almost daily during the pandemic press conferences, with the most stupid, scientifically illiterate questions and media obsessions, it’s really not healthy for the country.
I agree with pretty much all of that @Sandpit but the fact that the PM lied to Parliament is not trivial.
Agreed. What exactly was he supposed to have said that was a direct lie?
He told the Commons that to the best of his knowledge there had been no parties and that he would be angry if there had been.
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
We'd know it was against the rules though, especially if we wrote them. What they were called is besides the point, when he was so clear on what was pernissable. It no more works to claim he wouldn't call it a party than people saying they attended a rave not a party.
The triviality of his breaches is also part of the point, not an argument in his favour - wilfully or unwilfully careless.
His defence relies on him claiming he must be incredibly stupid or inattentive or both. Neither of which makes him the person to sought out a mess going on under his nose (and he acknowledges a need to sort it out so it cannot be called nothing) which he apparently knew nothing about or couldn't recognise even if it put a drink in his hand.
I can well believe he was inattentive at the time, with the context that he was recovering from Covid himself, in some pretty serious meetings for most of the day and doing daily press conferences.
I just really don’t think that sort of thing is important now, and certainly isn’t something worth a PM’s resignation.
It also looks silly to many people, who see this obsession with triviality as being more important than the more serious stories. Okay, so taxes are about to go up to pay for the pandemic, so how are the fraud investigations going into the fake companies set up to receive grants and loans, plus the undelivered PPE, that cost the country billions?
The Post Office enquiry and Ukraine should be running the news at the moment, not birthday cake and Prince Andrew. The serious press have all turned into lowest-common-denominator clickbait tabloids, and no-one is actually holding the government to account for the serious things.
Sorry your argument is ridiculous. This is fundamentally about his suitability to lead and hold the most important political position in the land. All of this is NOT trivial. It underlines his unsuitability for high office and should resign in favour of someone who is a serious and credible figure. In spite of protestations to the contrary, there are plenty of people in the PCP who are far more suitable than Johnson.
Exactly. We have a dishonest national leader, willing to impose rules on the entire population, enforced by penalty, that he himself feels aren't worth bothering with. Yet is quite happy to lecture the rest of us about all being in it together. Then tells a successive series of lies when challenged about his own behaviour.
And let's not forget that the sorry episode of the party revelations followed the fiascos of Peppa Pig and Paterson, and that he's separately being investigated for the financing of his home decorations (and appears to have lied about that too).
I think Johnson will brass neck it out and while poorish for the Tories the locals will be survivable.
I agree with Mike, the value is on Starmer. Sunak has missed his chance and it won't come again. Indeed I expect him gone in a reshuffle this year, replaced by a plodding yes-man.
Johnson may have survived the new year onslaught but there's little in the way of `wins' for him in the next few weeks/months as digging into the finances/party scandals and economic costs start to bear, it'll be interesting to see how the Locals GOTV campaign goes by Tory workers - will it be for the PM, or the party they campaign for? and I reckon he'll be in trouble if any more tricky byelections pop up.... still he aint known as the greased piglet for nothing and whilst his Defence Sec and Foreign Sec had reasonable response to the Ukraine crisis, little has reflected back onto BJ
There are no obvious wins for Boris before the local elections in May.
News that Britain will scrap the golden visa scheme suggests Boris is already moving to counter allegations that his party is in Russia's pocket. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60410844
But from summer onwards there are a series of feel-good events made for Boris's boosterism. The Platinum Jubilee; Emma at Wimbledon; the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham; England winning the World Cup.
Summer 2012 didn't do much for the Conservative ratings.
And it could count against Boris. It's hard to say "HMQ has served her country faithfully for 70 years" without mentally adding "unlike her current PM".
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
lst of his knowledge there had been no parties and that he would be angry if there had been. .. That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
I see what you mean. But if you'd personally instigated a law at the time making exactly that illegal, and lots of people had been prosecuted and fined for infringing your law in similar or more minor ways, don't you think that changes the position? I know we've rehearsed this debate many times, but it's still the view of most of the public.
He was the person leading press conferences that spelled out, in detail, what we could and couldn't do, and for why. And he specifically advised others, including children, on not having birthday gatherings. He was at the centre of - and indeed responsible for - all of this, yet it never occurred to him that he ought to lead by setting some sort of example?
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
How much effort did Labour put into Guildford et al in 2019?
More than you'd think. I'm CLP chair in SW Surrey next door, where we're in coalition with LibDems and Greens. We didn't attack the LibDems at all in 2019, but we countered their tactical voting bar charts with contradictory bar charts. They based theirs partly on local results where we'd stood down for them; we felt that was against the spirit of the thing. We retaliated with charts based on national polls; they felt that was unhelpfully irrelevant to the local situation. We've all got over it, but that sort of squabble wouldn't happen with the kind of informal understanding described.
Russian-state outlets are reporting Ukrainian shelling in Luhansk, eastern #Ukraine. Now, this isn't particularly unusual, considering this region has been in conflict for 8 years now. What's unusual is how many Russian outlets are reporting on this.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
How much effort did Labour put into Guildford et al in 2019?
More than you'd think. I'm CLP chair in SW Surrey next door, where we're in coalition with LibDems and Greens. We didn't attack the LibDems at all in 2019, but we countered their tactical voting bar charts with contradictory bar charts. They based theirs partly on local results where we'd stood down for them; we felt that was against the spirit of the thing. We retaliated with charts based on national polls; they felt that was unhelpfully irrelevant to the local situation. We've all got over it, but that sort of squabble wouldn't happen with the kind of informal understanding described.
It will be critical to have such an understanding. I think that it is very important that both parties run a full slate. But little point Labour going out campaigning in seats where the LibDems are obviously the challenger and vice versa.
Would be helpful if the LD team were better organised than in 2019. It was my forst GE in the party after 25 years in the red team and I have never seen anything so chaotic. Suspect that was Jo "Flight of Icarus" and her team insisting that Harrogate and York and Durham and Berwick were all viable targets - a position which abruptly reversed towards the end where it was "go defend Tim Farron".
The big difference between last time and next time is that Ed Davey and not Jo Swinson is LD leader. Also there are no EU election results which could go to the party's head. My guess is that the total focus will be all on 20-30 CON held seats where Remain won and where the party is in a clear second place. A good guide to which ones they are is that they are seats where the PPC is already in place. My assumption is that Nick P's Guildford is on the list and this will flip.
I do think that Sunak missed his chance when Boris was truly vulnerable. A major defection from his cabinet a couple of weeks ago and he would have been gone. But the legend of he who weilds the dagger never wears the Crown is strong. Or perhaps Sunak is just naturally cautious. Or likes being Chancellor, which clearly plays to his strengths. Whatever.
Now, his future is tied to Johnson. If he wasn't willing to jump ship during this fiasco it is not obvious how he credibly can in the future. And if Boris is voted out by the MPs before the next election is someone so obviously tied to him the answer? I have my doubts. He's a sell.
The trouble with that 1st para David is although what you have said is what any sane person would conclude, there have now been so many events where for anyone else they would have been toast, and yet Boris is still here. So concluding a defection from the cabinet would have done it is rash. Good god he seems to be able to survive anything.
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
I see what you mean. But if you'd personally instigated a law at the time making exactly that illegal, and lots of people had been prosecuted and fined for infringing your law in similar or more minor ways, don't you think that changes the position? I know we've rehearsed this debate many times, but it's still the view of most of the public.
BLOCK QUOTES MESSED UP. THIS IS WHERE MY COMMENT STARTS.
Lying to Parliament is the issue.
But at the risk of repeating myself, at the relevant time - May 2020 - what was an offence was being outside your home without a reasonable excuse. If you were at your workplace you had a reasonable excuse for being away from home. So no offence was committed. The fact that you were at your workplace on your birthday and had a glass of wine and a birthday cake does not really change anything.
A similar analysis has to be made for every single person for each occasion. And this could result in some of the people at the event not being fined because they did not commit an offence and others at the same event being fined.
For instance, I can well see Boris not being fined for being at his workplace on his birthday but Carrie being fined for leaving her home to go to his office to bring him a cake. And so on.
The more fundamental political point is the government's whole approach ie that law is for others not themselves. A divine right approach to everything.
One point which is being missed though - and I wish it weren't - is the way the law was misused during the whole Covid period: the misuse of primary and secondary legislation, the confusion between law and guidance, the overreach by the police etc. There was an abuse of power which is very dangerous. Labour should be making more of this. I fear that they are not because either (a) they don't really get it or (b) given half a chance they'd do much the same themselves.
Starmer at 8 or 9 does appear the value in the next PM market at the moment.
Will the wider country really want to keep talking about 2020 birthday cakes for much longer, even if the Lobby think it’s the most important thing going on in the world right now?
Sunak’s chance of being next PM I think disappears after the May election. His reputation is going to quickly go from being the nice guy handing out piles of money to get us through the pandemic, to being the nasty guy raising taxes while bills are rising.
That said, he’s still young (41) and will have other opportunities in the next couple of decades of leadership contests.
Will the wider country remember that they suffered whilst the crook partied? Yes. Will they talk about nothing else? No. Will they remember that the PM is an amoral liar who thinks the law only applies to the little people? Yes. Will their vote change accordingly? Likely.
I know you are a long way away and don't seem to share the majority opinion that a lying crook in Downing Street is a bad thing. So I understand your question even if I sadly shake my head when I read it.
I'm not sure Sandpit has ever acknowledged the concern over a brazenly dishonest PM ? It's always a fuss over cakes for him.
Yes, it’s the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with politics and media in the UK, obsessing about trivialities from years ago while ignoring the important stories going on in the country and wider world.
We saw it almost daily during the pandemic press conferences, with the most stupid, scientifically illiterate questions and media obsessions, it’s really not healthy for the country.
I agree with pretty much all of that @Sandpit but the fact that the PM lied to Parliament is not trivial.
Agreed. What exactly was he supposed to have said that was a direct lie?
He told the Commons that to the best of his knowledge there had been no parties and that he would be angry if there had been.
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
We'd know it was against the rules though, especially if we wrote them. What they were called is besides the point, when he was so clear on what was pernissable. It no more works to claim he wouldn't call it a party than people saying they attended a rave not a party.
The triviality of his breaches is also part of the point, not an argument in his favour - wilfully or unwilfully careless.
His defence relies on him claiming he must be incredibly stupid or inattentive or both. Neither of which makes him the person to sought out a mess going on under his nose (and he acknowledges a need to sort it out so it cannot be called nothing) which he apparently knew nothing about or couldn't recognise even if it put a drink in his hand.
I can well believe he was inattentive at the time, with the context that he was recovering from Covid himself, in some pretty serious meetings for most of the day and doing daily press conferences....
Sure, just as he was 'shocked and appalled" by the parties back in December, as he accepted the tearful resignation of his spokesperson.
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
I see what you mean. But if you'd personally instigated a law at the time making exactly that illegal, and lots of people had been prosecuted and fined for infringing your law in similar or more minor ways, don't you think that changes the position? I know we've rehearsed this debate many times, but it's still the view of most of the public.
From the reports that I’ve seen, there were two incidents that could reasonably be described as parties.
One was instigated by Mrs Johnson on the day Cummings resigned, and the other was a staff party when the PM was out of town.
It’s also a slightly weird position that the PM lives and works in the same building, so rules about inviting people into your home are not necessarily relevant, except to the dedicated private flat above the office.
I also think there’s confusion between law and guidance, and a number of the incidents refer to what may be breaches of guidance, with the context of most of the people there having had covid already and their all being at their regular place of work.
If there is evidence of the PM inviting people not working in the government complex, to a purely social gathering when this was prohibited by law, then that is of course more serious.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
How much effort did Labour put into Guildford et al in 2019?
More than you'd think. I'm CLP chair in SW Surrey next door, where we're in coalition with LibDems and Greens. We didn't attack the LibDems at all in 2019, but we countered their tactical voting bar charts with contradictory bar charts. They based theirs partly on local results where we'd stood down for them; we felt that was against the spirit of the thing. We retaliated with charts based on national polls; they felt that was unhelpfully irrelevant to the local situation. We've all got over it, but that sort of squabble wouldn't happen with the kind of informal understanding described.
I think you lost sight of the end objective of these types of arrangement there, Nick? The idea is that the Tories lose; getting into a petty scrap over statistics when, it would appear, the LibDem figures were accurate, ignores the wood to obsess over one of the trees.
Starmer at 8 or 9 does appear the value in the next PM market at the moment.
Will the wider country really want to keep talking about 2020 birthday cakes for much longer, even if the Lobby think it’s the most important thing going on in the world right now?
Sunak’s chance of being next PM I think disappears after the May election. His reputation is going to quickly go from being the nice guy handing out piles of money to get us through the pandemic, to being the nasty guy raising taxes while bills are rising.
That said, he’s still young (41) and will have other opportunities in the next couple of decades of leadership contests.
Will the wider country remember that they suffered whilst the crook partied? Yes. Will they talk about nothing else? No. Will they remember that the PM is an amoral liar who thinks the law only applies to the little people? Yes. Will their vote change accordingly? Likely.
I know you are a long way away and don't seem to share the majority opinion that a lying crook in Downing Street is a bad thing. So I understand your question even if I sadly shake my head when I read it.
I'm not sure Sandpit has ever acknowledged the concern over a brazenly dishonest PM ? It's always a fuss over cakes for him.
Yes, it’s the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with politics and media in the UK, obsessing about trivialities from years ago while ignoring the important stories going on in the country and wider world.
We saw it almost daily during the pandemic press conferences, with the most stupid, scientifically illiterate questions and media obsessions, it’s really not healthy for the country.
I agree with pretty much all of that @Sandpit but the fact that the PM lied to Parliament is not trivial.
Agreed. What exactly was he supposed to have said that was a direct lie?
He told the Commons that to the best of his knowledge there had been no parties and that he would be angry if there had been.
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
We'd know it was against the rules though, especially if we wrote them. What they were called is besides the point, when he was so clear on what was pernissable. It no more works to claim he wouldn't call it a party than people saying they attended a rave not a party.
The triviality of his breaches is also part of the point, not an argument in his favour - wilfully or unwilfully careless.
His defence relies on him claiming he must be incredibly stupid or inattentive or both. Neither of which makes him the person to sought out a mess going on under his nose (and he acknowledges a need to sort it out so it cannot be called nothing) which he apparently knew nothing about or couldn't recognise even if it put a drink in his hand.
I can well believe he was inattentive at the time, with the context that he was recovering from Covid himself, in some pretty serious meetings for most of the day and doing daily press conferences.
I just really don’t think that sort of thing is important now, and certainly isn’t something worth a PM’s resignation.
It also looks silly to many people, who see this obsession with triviality as being more important than the more serious stories. Okay, so taxes are about to go up to pay for the pandemic, so how are the fraud investigations going into the fake companies set up to receive grants and loans, plus the undelivered PPE, that cost the country billions?
The Post Office enquiry and Ukraine should be running the news at the moment, not birthday cake and Prince Andrew. The serious press have all turned into lowest-common-denominator clickbait tabloids, and no-one is actually holding the government to account for the serious things.
Again, you are a long way from these shores so may not get it. But to strip the argument back:
I just really don’t think that sort of thing is important now, and certainly isn’t something worth a PM’s resignation.
That sort of thing is lying to parliament. Something that has been seen as very important since we had a PM and requires the resignation of the minister telling the lies according to the ministerial code.
That sort of thing is not breaking the law. Again something seen as very important for a long time and even being formally investigated is enough for a minister to need to resign.
This is basic standards. Propriety. Right and Wrong. A pity that you are arguing for wrong. No other issue can be resolved when the person doing so is a liar, is corrupt, breaks the law with impunity. How exactly is Boris Johnson supposed to go after the Post Office scandal? Him, telling others they have lied and broken the law? Please.
I think we can all be certain that Sandy would be just as magnanimous if it was a Lab pm accused of lying to parliament.
Brexit was leaving the EU. That is staying. But I think Adonis and Hezza refer to BREXIT - the act of destroying as much trade as possible and blaming it on the EU.
I think they are right. BREXIT will go. Because once the foaming dog fever calms down what is BREXIT? In practice it is the imposition by Tories of the exact thing they spent decades campaigning to get rid of.
With Brexit secured and receding into the past you can see how a future Tory PM can look at the mess they have inherited and seek to streamline things. That is what Hezza and Adonis are envisaging in the short term.
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
I see what you mean. But if you'd personally instigated a law at the time making exactly that illegal, and lots of people had been prosecuted and fined for infringing your law in similar or more minor ways, don't you think that changes the position? I know we've rehearsed this debate many times, but it's still the view of most of the public.
From the reports that I’ve seen, there were two incidents that could reasonably be described as parties.
One was instigated by Mrs Johnson on the day Cummings resigned, and the other was a staff party when the PM was out of town.
It’s also a slightly weird position that the PM lives and works in the same building, so rules about inviting people into your home are not necessarily relevant, except to the dedicated private flat above the office.
I also think there’s confusion between law and guidance, and a number of the incidents refer to what may be breaches of guidance, with the context of most of the people there having had covid already and their all being at their regular place of work.
If there is evidence of the PM inviting people not working in the government complex, to a purely social gathering when this was prohibited by law, then that is of course more serious.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
How much effort did Labour put into Guildford et al in 2019?
More than you'd think. I'm CLP chair in SW Surrey next door, where we're in coalition with LibDems and Greens. We didn't attack the LibDems at all in 2019, but we countered their tactical voting bar charts with contradictory bar charts. They based theirs partly on local results where we'd stood down for them; we felt that was against the spirit of the thing. We retaliated with charts based on national polls; they felt that was unhelpfully irrelevant to the local situation. We've all got over it, but that sort of squabble wouldn't happen with the kind of informal understanding described.
It will be critical to have such an understanding. I think that it is very important that both parties run a full slate. But little point Labour going out campaigning in seats where the LibDems are obviously the challenger and vice versa.
Would be helpful if the LD team were better organised than in 2019. It was my forst GE in the party after 25 years in the red team and I have never seen anything so chaotic. Suspect that was Jo "Flight of Icarus" and her team insisting that Harrogate and York and Durham and Berwick were all viable targets - a position which abruptly reversed towards the end where it was "go defend Tim Farron".
The big difference between last time and next time is that Ed Davey and not Jo Swinson is LD leader. Also there are no EU election results which could go to the party's head. My guess is that the total focus will be all on 20-30 CON held seats where Remain won and where the party is in a clear second place. A good guide to which ones they are is that they are seats where the PPC is already in place. My assumption is that Nick P's Guildford is on the list and this will flip.
Ed Davey was of course in Cameron's coalition government unlike Swinson and indeed Boris, so may have more appeal to fiscally conservative Remainers in southern LD target seats held by the Tories
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
On the Johnson "defences": if I read the semi-coherent briefings of "allies", they are rehearsing arguments to justify the PM's innocence based on a very specific interpretation of what was reasonably required for work purposes. References to whether things are or are not "parties" are purely for public opinion, because there's nothing to do with parties in law. The defence is based on the specific circumstances of the PM spending all of his time in No. 10 working so hard he doesn't really notice what's going on around him, and he can't be expected to make a judgement about any activity he undertakes, because it's obviously work as far as he's concerned.
There seem to be two problems with this (other than the absurdity of a PM claiming he's too stupid to realise what's happening in his immediate vicinity, I mean).
The first is that it doesn't get anyone else off the hook: not his staff, not his advisers, not his wife. It implicitly accepts the gatherings were illegal, just not for him. It's probably not great optics for him if everybody else gets PCNed but him: literally one rule for King Boris and another rule for everyone else.
The second is that his statements to the House don't simply concern his own conduct - his fondness for talking in third person passive to distance from the events means that he didn't say "I followed all the guidance" but rather "all guidance was followed", that events didn't take place and so on. Even if the "unawareness and working" argument works for him, it doesn't work as a justification for believing his statements to the House to be true at the time he made them. Clear proof of knowingly lying to the House is still a bigger threat to him than receiving fines.
Brexit was leaving the EU. That is staying. But I think Adonis and Hezza refer to BREXIT - the act of destroying as much trade as possible and blaming it on the EU.
I think they are right. BREXIT will go. Because once the foaming dog fever calms down what is BREXIT? In practice it is the imposition by Tories of the exact thing they spent decades campaigning to get rid of.
With Brexit secured and receding into the past you can see how a future Tory PM can look at the mess they have inherited and seek to streamline things. That is what Hezza and Adonis are envisaging in the short term.
Off-topic looks like another day dealing with customs bullshit. The process either changes from order to order or HMRC are making it up as they go along. Whether that is because they don't know what they are doing or because the rules our government demanded are unclear and contradictory I don't know.
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
I drove to Wolverhampton and back last Thursday. The M40 was heaving with lorries.
Great! Your point is...?
Doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
The M40 is from London to Birmingham - it's not really a gauge for imports / exports to Europe or Ireland where far better guides are the M2 / M20 in Kent the A14 to Felixstowe and the A55 / A75 for Ireland.
You are looking at UK trade and claiming it relates to something utterly different.
Oh, sorry, I thought this was about a lorry driver shortage.
Yes it's ridiculous isn't it. It's sunny and windless where I am now. So all these ridiculous stories of gales and bad weather elsewhere in the UK are some lame conspiracy.
Big Weather has to justify the next Big Supercomputer somehow.
Worth noting that Storm Eunice was named days ago, but only started spinning up into existence last night. As the wind lashes Westminster tomorrow it's a shame that it is in recess, so that members will not be able to reflect on the laughter of their predecessors nearly 168 years ago.
But at the risk of repeating myself, at the relevant time - May 2020 - what was an offence was being outside your home without a reasonable excuse. If you were at your workplace you had a reasonable excuse for being away from home. So no offence was committed. The fact that you were at your workplace on your birthday and had a glass of wine and a birthday cake does not really change anything.
A similar analysis has to be made for every single person for each occasion. And this could result in some of the people at the event not being fined because they did not commit an offence and others at the same event being fined.
For instance, I can well see Boris not being fined for being at his workplace on his birthday but Carrie being fined for leaving her home to go to his office to bring him a cake. And so on.
The more fundamental political point is the government's whole approach ie that law is for others not themselves. A divine right approach to everything.
One point which is being missed though - and I wish it weren't - is the way the law was misused during the whole Covid period: the misuse of primary and secondary legislation, the confusion between law and guidance, the overreach by the police etc. There was an abuse of power which is very dangerous. Labour should be making more of this. I fear that they are not because either (a) they don't really get it or (b) given half a chance they'd do much the same themselves.
Yes. And that fear is justified because let's look at the opinion polls. Which were much trumpeted by the lockdown mongers here on PB, of which there were many. The public was or appeared to be resolutely behind more and longer lockdowns. Wasn't there some ridiculous percentage (10? 20?) who wanted nightclubs to be closed forever.
RefUK aside there is no party for people to go to who dislike the state overreach.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
How much effort did Labour put into Guildford et al in 2019?
More than you'd think. I'm CLP chair in SW Surrey next door, where we're in coalition with LibDems and Greens. We didn't attack the LibDems at all in 2019, but we countered their tactical voting bar charts with contradictory bar charts. They based theirs partly on local results where we'd stood down for them; we felt that was against the spirit of the thing. We retaliated with charts based on national polls; they felt that was unhelpfully irrelevant to the local situation. We've all got over it, but that sort of squabble wouldn't happen with the kind of informal understanding described.
It will be critical to have such an understanding. I think that it is very important that both parties run a full slate. But little point Labour going out campaigning in seats where the LibDems are obviously the challenger and vice versa.
Would be helpful if the LD team were better organised than in 2019. It was my forst GE in the party after 25 years in the red team and I have never seen anything so chaotic. Suspect that was Jo "Flight of Icarus" and her team insisting that Harrogate and York and Durham and Berwick were all viable targets - a position which abruptly reversed towards the end where it was "go defend Tim Farron".
The big difference between last time and next time is that Ed Davey and not Jo Swinson is LD leader. Also there are no EU election results which could go to the party's head. My guess is that the total focus will be all on 20-30 CON held seats where Remain won and where the party is in a clear second place. A good guide to which ones they are is that they are seats where the PPC is already in place. My assumption is that Nick P's Guildford is on the list and this will flip.
Ed Davey was of course in Cameron's coalition government unlike Swinson and indeed Boris, so may have more appeal to fiscally conservative Remainers in southern LD target seats held by the Tories
Swinson was in the coalition government as Under Secretary of State for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs if not in the cabinet. In fact she probably left more fingerprints on the Post Office fcuk up than she should feel comfortable with.
Brexit was leaving the EU. That is staying. But I think Adonis and Hezza refer to BREXIT - the act of destroying as much trade as possible and blaming it on the EU.
I think they are right. BREXIT will go. Because once the foaming dog fever calms down what is BREXIT? In practice it is the imposition by Tories of the exact thing they spent decades campaigning to get rid of.
With Brexit secured and receding into the past you can see how a future Tory PM can look at the mess they have inherited and seek to streamline things. That is what Hezza and Adonis are envisaging in the short term.
Brexit succeeded. We are out.
Brexit is not a success. It's a shitshow.
But it doesn't need to be. None of the mess is a result of leaving the EU. Its a result of what we chose to do afterwards.
On the Johnson "defences": if I read the semi-coherent briefings of "allies", they are rehearsing arguments to justify the PM's innocence based on a very specific interpretation of what was reasonably required for work purposes. References to whether things are or are not "parties" are purely for public opinion, because there's nothing to do with parties in law. The defence is based on the specific circumstances of the PM spending all of his time in No. 10 working so hard he doesn't really notice what's going on around him, and he can't be expected to make a judgement about any activity he undertakes, because it's obviously work as far as he's concerned.
There seem to be two problems with this (other than the absurdity of a PM claiming he's too stupid to realise what's happening in his immediate vicinity, I mean).
The first is that it doesn't get anyone else off the hook: not his staff, not his advisers, not his wife. It implicitly accepts the gatherings were illegal, just not for him. It's probably not great optics for him if everybody else gets PCNed but him: literally one rule for King Boris and another rule for everyone else.
The second is that his statements to the House don't simply concern his own conduct - his fondness for talking in third person passive to distance from the events means that he didn't say "I followed all the guidance" but rather "all guidance was followed", that events didn't take place and so on. Even if the "unawareness and working" argument works for him, it doesn't work as a justification for believing his statements to the House to be true at the time he made them. Clear proof of knowingly lying to the House is still a bigger threat to him than receiving fines.
There's a significant risk that if he's seen to be trying to 'get off on a technicality', it will make things worse. People aren't stupid, nor devoid of memory. The object - which Johnson himself spent many afternoons spelling out to us - was that people should keep apart, and not gather together without good reason, in order to protect the NHS. Being seen to quibble over definitions after the event, when he was the one telling the rest of us in the first place, could easily be counter-productive.
Unlike most political scandals, there aren't any complexities here, everyone can understand and see pretty clearly what the position is. The only missing piece is what his final excuse or act of contrition is going to be.
"BBC reporter Sarah Smith says gun-toting America is a less stressful place to work in than Scotland Former BBC Scotland editor glad to walk away from ‘bile, hatred and misogyny’ of her home country’s politics" (£)
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
Suggests Labour will not make more than a token campaign in any of the top 30 LD target seats apart from Sheffield Hallam and Cambridge, where Labour hold the seats not the Tories.
Also states Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers have been getting to know Davey's team in case there is a hung parliament and they need a confidence and supply deal. Suggesting if there is a hung parliament the LDs would definitely back Labour this time unlike 2010 when they backed the Tories
After the way the Tories shafted their LD partners in 2014-5 I think there's more chance of them making a pact with Farage than the Tories.
How did the Conservatives shaft the LD while in government ?
I know this is a common meme in centre-left thoughts but the reality is the LibDems shafted themselves.
Firstly by totally breaking their word on issues such as student tuition fees and Middle Eastern warmongering.
Secondly by the behaviour of such people as Chris Huhne and David Laws.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
How much effort did Labour put into Guildford et al in 2019?
More than you'd think. I'm CLP chair in SW Surrey next door, where we're in coalition with LibDems and Greens. We didn't attack the LibDems at all in 2019, but we countered their tactical voting bar charts with contradictory bar charts. They based theirs partly on local results where we'd stood down for them; we felt that was against the spirit of the thing. We retaliated with charts based on national polls; they felt that was unhelpfully irrelevant to the local situation. We've all got over it, but that sort of squabble wouldn't happen with the kind of informal understanding described.
I think you lost sight of the end objective of these types of arrangement there, Nick? The idea is that the Tories lose; getting into a petty scrap over statistics when, it would appear, the LibDem figures were accurate, ignores the wood to obsess over one of the trees.
Perhaps, but note that there wasn't a GE arrangement, unlike what the FT is suggesting. But if you first persuade X to defer to you in some wards, then use that fact to suggest they have little local support, it's abusing the relationship. These arrangements have to be based on mutual respect, as in North Shropshire - saying "We have the best chance to beat the Tories in the GE here, please lend your votes, X" is fine, because it doesn't damage X at local level. We've all learned from it.
But it doesn't need to be. None of the mess is a result of leaving the EU. Its a result of what we chose to do afterwards.
The full contribution by Natalie Elphicke MP is quite incredible.
She claims simultaneously that there's no pressure on borders, that the pressure on borders is nothing to do with Brexit, and that the extra costs of the pressure on borders is *an economic benefit* of Brexit. ~AA
I do think that Sunak missed his chance when Boris was truly vulnerable. A major defection from his cabinet a couple of weeks ago and he would have been gone. But the legend of he who weilds the dagger never wears the Crown is strong. Or perhaps Sunak is just naturally cautious. Or likes being Chancellor, which clearly plays to his strengths. Whatever.
Now, his future is tied to Johnson. If he wasn't willing to jump ship during this fiasco it is not obvious how he credibly can in the future. And if Boris is voted out by the MPs before the next election is someone so obviously tied to him the answer? I have my doubts. He's a sell.
How many dagger wielders have they're been ?
1) Thatcher against Heath 2) Heseltine against Thatcher
Any others ?
If not that's a 50% success rate and Heseltine did at least return to the cabinet.
Whereas the likes of Portillo and David Miliband and David Davis bottled their opportunities assuming they would get the top job automatically at some future point.
re BoJo I think @pigeon had it right, the May elections, assuming the Cons retain at least five seats, will be spun as being much better than expectations. In addition we finally have some classic "mid term polling" will be the story from CCHQ to the masses.
I think, amazingly, Boris stays. What TF will it take for him to be ousted now, who knows.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
Suggests Labour will not make more than a token campaign in any of the top 30 LD target seats apart from Sheffield Hallam and Cambridge, where Labour hold the seats not the Tories.
Also states Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers have been getting to know Davey's team in case there is a hung parliament and they need a confidence and supply deal. Suggesting if there is a hung parliament the LDs would definitely back Labour this time unlike 2010 when they backed the Tories
After the way the Tories shafted their LD partners in 2014-5 I think there's more chance of them making a pact with Farage than the Tories.
How did the Conservatives shaft the LD while in government ?
I know this is a common meme in centre-left thoughts but the reality is the LibDems shafted themselves.
Firstly by totally breaking their word on issues such as student tuition fees and Middle Eastern warmongering.
Secondly by the behaviour of such people as Chris Huhne and David Laws.
Clearly the LDs believed that they had an agreement that the Conservatives would not (at least officially) campaign for No on the voting reform referendum. A belief which Cameron disabused them of in short order.
Otherwise, yes: the LDs mostly stabbed themselves in the front by voting for policies which they had explicitly pledged not to do in their campaign literature. No amount of real-politic about how the student loan scheme was really a graduate tax in disguise & that was down to LD influence on the government could change the fact that the LDs had voted in a thing that called itself a student loan scheme.
Starmer at 8 or 9 does appear the value in the next PM market at the moment.
Will the wider country really want to keep talking about 2020 birthday cakes for much longer, even if the Lobby think it’s the most important thing going on in the world right now?
Sunak’s chance of being next PM I think disappears after the May election. His reputation is going to quickly go from being the nice guy handing out piles of money to get us through the pandemic, to being the nasty guy raising taxes while bills are rising.
That said, he’s still young (41) and will have other opportunities in the next couple of decades of leadership contests.
Will the wider country remember that they suffered whilst the crook partied? Yes. Will they talk about nothing else? No. Will they remember that the PM is an amoral liar who thinks the law only applies to the little people? Yes. Will their vote change accordingly? Likely.
I know you are a long way away and don't seem to share the majority opinion that a lying crook in Downing Street is a bad thing. So I understand your question even if I sadly shake my head when I read it.
I'm not sure Sandpit has ever acknowledged the concern over a brazenly dishonest PM ? It's always a fuss over cakes for him.
Yes, it’s the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with politics and media in the UK, obsessing about trivialities from years ago while ignoring the important stories going on in the country and wider world.
We saw it almost daily during the pandemic press conferences, with the most stupid, scientifically illiterate questions and media obsessions, it’s really not healthy for the country.
I agree with pretty much all of that @Sandpit but the fact that the PM lied to Parliament is not trivial.
Agreed. What exactly was he supposed to have said that was a direct lie?
He told the Commons that to the best of his knowledge there had been no parties and that he would be angry if there had been.
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
We'd know it was against the rules though, especially if we wrote them. What they were called is besides the point, when he was so clear on what was pernissable. It no more works to claim he wouldn't call it a party than people saying they attended a rave not a party.
The triviality of his breaches is also part of the point, not an argument in his favour - wilfully or unwilfully careless.
His defence relies on him claiming he must be incredibly stupid or inattentive or both. Neither of which makes him the person to sought out a mess going on under his nose (and he acknowledges a need to sort it out so it cannot be called nothing) which he apparently knew nothing about or couldn't recognise even if it put a drink in his hand.
I can well believe he was inattentive at the time, with the context that he was recovering from Covid himself, in some pretty serious meetings for most of the day and doing daily press conferences.
I just really don’t think that sort of thing is important now, and certainly isn’t something worth a PM’s resignation.
It also looks silly to many people, who see this obsession with triviality as being more important than the more serious stories. Okay, so taxes are about to go up to pay for the pandemic, so how are the fraud investigations going into the fake companies set up to receive grants and loans, plus the undelivered PPE, that cost the country billions?
The Post Office enquiry and Ukraine should be running the news at the moment, not birthday cake and Prince Andrew. The serious press have all turned into lowest-common-denominator clickbait tabloids, and no-one is actually holding the government to account for the serious things.
Again, you are a long way from these shores so may not get it. But to strip the argument back:
I just really don’t think that sort of thing is important now, and certainly isn’t something worth a PM’s resignation.
That sort of thing is lying to parliament. Something that has been seen as very important since we had a PM and requires the resignation of the minister telling the lies according to the ministerial code.
That sort of thing is not breaking the law. Again something seen as very important for a long time and even being formally investigated is enough for a minister to need to resign.
This is basic standards. Propriety. Right and Wrong. A pity that you are arguing for wrong. No other issue can be resolved when the person doing so is a liar, is corrupt, breaks the law with impunity. How exactly is Boris Johnson supposed to go after the Post Office scandal? Him, telling others they have lied and broken the law? Please.
I think we can all be certain that Sandy would be just as magnanimous if it was a Lab pm accused of lying to parliament.
On the Johnson "defences": if I read the semi-coherent briefings of "allies", they are rehearsing arguments to justify the PM's innocence based on a very specific interpretation of what was reasonably required for work purposes. References to whether things are or are not "parties" are purely for public opinion, because there's nothing to do with parties in law. The defence is based on the specific circumstances of the PM spending all of his time in No. 10 working so hard he doesn't really notice what's going on around him, and he can't be expected to make a judgement about any activity he undertakes, because it's obviously work as far as he's concerned.
There seem to be two problems with this (other than the absurdity of a PM claiming he's too stupid to realise what's happening in his immediate vicinity, I mean).
The first is that it doesn't get anyone else off the hook: not his staff, not his advisers, not his wife. It implicitly accepts the gatherings were illegal, just not for him. It's probably not great optics for him if everybody else gets PCNed but him: literally one rule for King Boris and another rule for everyone else.
The second is that his statements to the House don't simply concern his own conduct - his fondness for talking in third person passive to distance from the events means that he didn't say "I followed all the guidance" but rather "all guidance was followed", that events didn't take place and so on. Even if the "unawareness and working" argument works for him, it doesn't work as a justification for believing his statements to the House to be true at the time he made them. Clear proof of knowingly lying to the House is still a bigger threat to him than receiving fines.
There's a significant risk that if he's seen to be trying to 'get off on a technicality', it will make things worse. People aren't stupid, nor devoid of memory. The object - which Johnson himself spent many afternoons spelling out to us - was that people should keep apart, and not gather together without good reason, in order to protect the NHS. Being seen to quibble over definitions after the event, when he was the one telling the rest of us in the first place, could easily be counter-productive.
Unlike most political scandals, there aren't any complexities here, everyone can understand and see pretty clearly what the position is. The only missing piece is what his final excuse or act of contrition is going to be.
I’m sure Labour is loving the idea that, come the next general election, they’re going to be able to whack up posters across the country with “he partied, your mother died alone” on them. Johnson is going to be the gift that keeps on giving electorally.
Meanwhile where is @BartholomewRoberts these days. Very interested to read his higher wages and higher prices and higher wages is a good thing posts. .
Russian-state outlets are reporting Ukrainian shelling in Luhansk, eastern #Ukraine. Now, this isn't particularly unusual, considering this region has been in conflict for 8 years now. What's unusual is how many Russian outlets are reporting on this.
That’s the ‘false flag’ excuse they’re looking for.
Probably such attacks being done by Putin's informals, of course.
See Poland, Sept 1 1939.
Yes, it was reported a couple of weeks ago that Ukraine found a bunch of informal Russian soldiers (either mercenaries or special forces) on the Ukranian side of the border, planning to lob munitions onto the Russian side so that Russia could say they were attacked first.
re BoJo I think @pigeon had it right, the May elections, assuming the Cons retain at least five seats, will be spun as being much better than expectations. In addition we finally have some classic "mid term polling" will be the story from CCHQ to the masses.
I think, amazingly, Boris stays. What TF will it take for him to be ousted now, who knows.
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
I see what you mean. But if you'd personally instigated a law at the time making exactly that illegal, and lots of people had been prosecuted and fined for infringing your law in similar or more minor ways, don't you think that changes the position? I know we've rehearsed this debate many times, but it's still the view of most of the public.
From the reports that I’ve seen, there were two incidents that could reasonably be described as parties.
One was instigated by Mrs Johnson on the day Cummings resigned, and the other was a staff party when the PM was out of town.
It’s also a slightly weird position that the PM lives and works in the same building, so rules about inviting people into your home are not necessarily relevant, except to the dedicated private flat above the office.
I also think there’s confusion between law and guidance, and a number of the incidents refer to what may be breaches of guidance, with the context of most of the people there having had covid already and their all being at their regular place of work.
If there is evidence of the PM inviting people not working in the government complex, to a purely social gathering when this was prohibited by law, then that is of course more serious.
The law doesn't refer to parties so it doesn't matter how they could reasonably be described for legal purposes.
The PMs denials in Parliament were not limited to parties so it doesn't matter whether he can claim that they were not parties for the purpose of backing up his parliamentary statements.
The Downing Street complex in its entirety is not the PM's dwelling.
The law was not based on "inviting" people into a home.
First the law was based on being outside your home without a reasonable excuse (for these purposes, the absence from home would need to be reasonably necessary for work, and once the work that necessitated it was complete there was no longer a reasonable excuse, which means that killing 10 minutes at a social event and then returning work doesn't cut it).
Latterly it was based on gatherings of two or more people (other than those within a household) without reasonable excuse/permitted purpose. If someone turned up to "gather" then it was not relevant who had caused that to happen. I guess the PM would have an excuse if he tried to run away but wasn't fit enough to escape, e.g., an over-enthusiastic technology tutor. But that's about it.
re BoJo I think @pigeon had it right, the May elections, assuming the Cons retain at least five seats, will be spun as being much better than expectations. In addition we finally have some classic "mid term polling" will be the story from CCHQ to the masses.
I think, amazingly, Boris stays. What TF will it take for him to be ousted now, who knows.
Voters in 2024, the Tories are heading for a 1992 style wipeout.
As a Tory I will take a 1992 style wipeout, yes we lost a few seats but we won the first general election for a party after 10 years in power for over 150 years!
But it doesn't need to be. None of the mess is a result of leaving the EU. Its a result of what we chose to do afterwards.
The full contribution by Natalie Elphicke MP is quite incredible.
She claims simultaneously that there's no pressure on borders, that the pressure on borders is nothing to do with Brexit, and that the extra costs of the pressure on borders is *an economic benefit* of Brexit. ~AA
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
Suggests Labour will not make more than a token campaign in any of the top 30 LD target seats apart from Sheffield Hallam and Cambridge, where Labour hold the seats not the Tories.
Also states Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers have been getting to know Davey's team in case there is a hung parliament and they need a confidence and supply deal. Suggesting if there is a hung parliament the LDs would definitely back Labour this time unlike 2010 when they backed the Tories
After the way the Tories shafted their LD partners in 2014-5 I think there's more chance of them making a pact with Farage than the Tories.
How did the Conservatives shaft the LD while in government ?
I know this is a common meme in centre-left thoughts but the reality is the LibDems shafted themselves.
Firstly by totally breaking their word on issues such as student tuition fees and Middle Eastern warmongering.
Secondly by the behaviour of such people as Chris Huhne and David Laws.
Reneging on tuition fees was indeed an act of incredible stupidity. And David Laws was an idiot; not quite so sure about Chris Huhne. However once the government had settled down, and as we got toward the election the Tories worked hard in LD seats, and, it should be forgotten, actually lost a few seats to Labour. If they hadn't stuffed the LD's 2016 and 2017 probably wouldn't have happened. There'd have been a referendum, but Remain would have won.
I do think that Sunak missed his chance when Boris was truly vulnerable. A major defection from his cabinet a couple of weeks ago and he would have been gone. But the legend of he who weilds the dagger never wears the Crown is strong. Or perhaps Sunak is just naturally cautious. Or likes being Chancellor, which clearly plays to his strengths. Whatever.
Now, his future is tied to Johnson. If he wasn't willing to jump ship during this fiasco it is not obvious how he credibly can in the future. And if Boris is voted out by the MPs before the next election is someone so obviously tied to him the answer? I have my doubts. He's a sell.
How many dagger wielders have they're been ?
1) Thatcher against Heath 2) Heseltine against Thatcher
Any others ?
If not that's a 50% success rate and Heseltine did at least return to the cabinet.
Whereas the likes of Portillo and David Miliband and David Davis bottled their opportunities assuming they would get the top job automatically at some future point.
Thatcher only challenged Heath after he lost the October 1974 general election and refused to go, not when he was PM
We've had this argument on here though. In terms of leaving the EU, Brexit is over. The new landscape is still forming, and that is where the big questions are. Should we try to be closer to the EU in trade, or carry on with what we are doing at the moment (which seems to be self harm to an extent)? Would a closer trading relationship without the political project mean that Brexit is over? I don't think so.
On the Johnson "defences": if I read the semi-coherent briefings of "allies", they are rehearsing arguments to justify the PM's innocence based on a very specific interpretation of what was reasonably required for work purposes. References to whether things are or are not "parties" are purely for public opinion, because there's nothing to do with parties in law. The defence is based on the specific circumstances of the PM spending all of his time in No. 10 working so hard he doesn't really notice what's going on around him, and he can't be expected to make a judgement about any activity he undertakes, because it's obviously work as far as he's concerned.
There seem to be two problems with this (other than the absurdity of a PM claiming he's too stupid to realise what's happening in his immediate vicinity, I mean).
The first is that it doesn't get anyone else off the hook: not his staff, not his advisers, not his wife. It implicitly accepts the gatherings were illegal, just not for him. It's probably not great optics for him if everybody else gets PCNed but him: literally one rule for King Boris and another rule for everyone else.
The second is that his statements to the House don't simply concern his own conduct - his fondness for talking in third person passive to distance from the events means that he didn't say "I followed all the guidance" but rather "all guidance was followed", that events didn't take place and so on. Even if the "unawareness and working" argument works for him, it doesn't work as a justification for believing his statements to the House to be true at the time he made them. Clear proof of knowingly lying to the House is still a bigger threat to him than receiving fines.
There's a significant risk that if he's seen to be trying to 'get off on a technicality', it will make things worse. People aren't stupid, nor devoid of memory. The object - which Johnson himself spent many afternoons spelling out to us - was that people should keep apart, and not gather together without good reason, in order to protect the NHS. Being seen to quibble over definitions after the event, when he was the one telling the rest of us in the first place, could easily be counter-productive.
Unlike most political scandals, there aren't any complexities here, everyone can understand and see pretty clearly what the position is. The only missing piece is what his final excuse or act of contrition is going to be.
I’m sure Labour is loving the idea that, come the next general election, they’re going to be able to whack up posters across the country with “he partied, your mother died alone” on them. Johnson is going to be the gift that keeps on giving electorally.
It only makes sense if a significant bunch of MPs have decided the best time to dump him is after May. Because it ought to be blindingly obvious that he can't lead them into another GE; it simply won't be possible to dodge all of the potential heart-rending stories that voters have from the lockdowns.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
Suggests Labour will not make more than a token campaign in any of the top 30 LD target seats apart from Sheffield Hallam and Cambridge, where Labour hold the seats not the Tories.
Also states Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers have been getting to know Davey's team in case there is a hung parliament and they need a confidence and supply deal. Suggesting if there is a hung parliament the LDs would definitely back Labour this time unlike 2010 when they backed the Tories
After the way the Tories shafted their LD partners in 2014-5 I think there's more chance of them making a pact with Farage than the Tories.
How did the Conservatives shaft the LD while in government ?
I know this is a common meme in centre-left thoughts but the reality is the LibDems shafted themselves.
Firstly by totally breaking their word on issues such as student tuition fees and Middle Eastern warmongering.
Secondly by the behaviour of such people as Chris Huhne and David Laws.
Reneging on tuition fees was indeed an act of incredible stupidity. And David Laws was an idiot; not quite so sure about Chris Huhne. However once the government had settled down, and as we got toward the election the Tories worked hard in LD seats, and, it should be forgotten, actually lost a few seats to Labour. If they hadn't stuffed the LD's 2016 and 2017 probably wouldn't have happened. There'd have been a referendum, but Remain would have won.
Had the Tories not won a majority in 2015 then the Coalition would have continued, Cameron would have remained PM, there would have been no EU referendum but UKIP would be on 20% of the vote
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
I see what you mean. But if you'd personally instigated a law at the time making exactly that illegal, and lots of people had been prosecuted and fined for infringing your law in similar or more minor ways, don't you think that changes the position? I know we've rehearsed this debate many times, but it's still the view of most of the public.
What happened weren't really parties, or at least not good ones.
And counter to some people's memories, we didn't need a good reason to be out of the house by 20th May. I remember the joy of being able to get out of a 5km radius and go for walk in the Peak District with my daughters. There were still issues around rural communities being terrified - because the machinery of the state had spent the last six weeks terrifying them - and putting up signs dissuading you from going there, but it wasn't actually illegal, and many people did it.
Socialisation was a different issue though.
The point is that many people last year - as a direct and deliberate consequence of the actions taken by the government led by Boris - were prosecuted for the same or less. The only way in which Downing Street 'parties' might have been acceptable was if some clarity had been given from government that of course a few drinks after work in the garden were acceptable; of course you could have a cup of tea in the garden with your mum, of course your kids could play with other kids in the park - just be sensible.
But none of that happened. The messaging was always "don't". Even when it later turned out the people telling us not to "were". [Unless you're going on a march to protest about the death of a man in Minneapolis of course. That's fine.]
Excellent comment, and sadly something that the most rabid on here are not understanding. The legal side of it is not the slam dunk that people think, for the reasons you have elegantly explained.
The political impact and damage has been done.
The actions of the police throughout suggested that they too did not understand the law. Was it ever illegal to sit on a park bench? Was it illegal to drive 5 miles to walk round a reservoir with a coffee while staying 2m distant from a friend? Was it actually illegal to go to Snowdonia for a walk? As in was the a LAW that said you couldn't do it? I suspect there was not.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
Suggests Labour will not make more than a token campaign in any of the top 30 LD target seats apart from Sheffield Hallam and Cambridge, where Labour hold the seats not the Tories.
Also states Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers have been getting to know Davey's team in case there is a hung parliament and they need a confidence and supply deal. Suggesting if there is a hung parliament the LDs would definitely back Labour this time unlike 2010 when they backed the Tories
After the way the Tories shafted their LD partners in 2014-5 I think there's more chance of them making a pact with Farage than the Tories.
How did the Conservatives shaft the LD while in government ?
I know this is a common meme in centre-left thoughts but the reality is the LibDems shafted themselves.
Firstly by totally breaking their word on issues such as student tuition fees and Middle Eastern warmongering.
Secondly by the behaviour of such people as Chris Huhne and David Laws.
Reneging on tuition fees was indeed an act of incredible stupidity. And David Laws was an idiot; not quite so sure about Chris Huhne. However once the government had settled down, and as we got toward the election the Tories worked hard in LD seats, and, it should be forgotten, actually lost a few seats to Labour. If they hadn't stuffed the LD's 2016 and 2017 probably wouldn't have happened. There'd have been a referendum, but Remain would have won.
Had the Tories not won a majority in 2015 then the Coalition would have continued, Cameron would have remained PM, there would have been no EU referendum but UKIP would be on 20% of the vote
I suspect there would have been a Referendum, as I said.
On the Johnson "defences": if I read the semi-coherent briefings of "allies", they are rehearsing arguments to justify the PM's innocence based on a very specific interpretation of what was reasonably required for work purposes. References to whether things are or are not "parties" are purely for public opinion, because there's nothing to do with parties in law. The defence is based on the specific circumstances of the PM spending all of his time in No. 10 working so hard he doesn't really notice what's going on around him, and he can't be expected to make a judgement about any activity he undertakes, because it's obviously work as far as he's concerned.
There seem to be two problems with this (other than the absurdity of a PM claiming he's too stupid to realise what's happening in his immediate vicinity, I mean).
The first is that it doesn't get anyone else off the hook: not his staff, not his advisers, not his wife. It implicitly accepts the gatherings were illegal, just not for him. It's probably not great optics for him if everybody else gets PCNed but him: literally one rule for King Boris and another rule for everyone else.
The second is that his statements to the House don't simply concern his own conduct - his fondness for talking in third person passive to distance from the events means that he didn't say "I followed all the guidance" but rather "all guidance was followed", that events didn't take place and so on. Even if the "unawareness and working" argument works for him, it doesn't work as a justification for believing his statements to the House to be true at the time he made them. Clear proof of knowingly lying to the House is still a bigger threat to him than receiving fines.
There's a significant risk that if he's seen to be trying to 'get off on a technicality', it will make things worse. People aren't stupid, nor devoid of memory. The object - which Johnson himself spent many afternoons spelling out to us - was that people should keep apart, and not gather together without good reason, in order to protect the NHS. Being seen to quibble over definitions after the event, when he was the one telling the rest of us in the first place, could easily be counter-productive.
Unlike most political scandals, there aren't any complexities here, everyone can understand and see pretty clearly what the position is. The only missing piece is what his final excuse or act of contrition is going to be.
I’m sure Labour is loving the idea that, come the next general election, they’re going to be able to whack up posters across the country with “he partied, your mother died alone” on them. Johnson is going to be the gift that keeps on giving electorally.
Yep - there is zero downside and an awful lot of upside from Bozo remaining in power.
Come the election, you can attack Bozo for partying and the local candidate for supporting it.
I suspect the few MPs with morals and standards, such as @Tissue_Price will have a difficult decision to make.
re BoJo I think @pigeon had it right, the May elections, assuming the Cons retain at least five seats, will be spun as being much better than expectations. In addition we finally have some classic "mid term polling" will be the story from CCHQ to the masses.
I think, amazingly, Boris stays. What TF will it take for him to be ousted now, who knows.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
Suggests Labour will not make more than a token campaign in any of the top 30 LD target seats apart from Sheffield Hallam and Cambridge, where Labour hold the seats not the Tories.
Also states Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers have been getting to know Davey's team in case there is a hung parliament and they need a confidence and supply deal. Suggesting if there is a hung parliament the LDs would definitely back Labour this time unlike 2010 when they backed the Tories
After the way the Tories shafted their LD partners in 2014-5 I think there's more chance of them making a pact with Farage than the Tories.
How did the Conservatives shaft the LD while in government ?
I know this is a common meme in centre-left thoughts but the reality is the LibDems shafted themselves.
Firstly by totally breaking their word on issues such as student tuition fees and Middle Eastern warmongering.
Secondly by the behaviour of such people as Chris Huhne and David Laws.
Clearly the LDs believed that they had an agreement that the Conservatives would not (at least officially) campaign for No on the voting reform referendum. A belief which Cameron disabused them of in short order.
Otherwise, yes: the LDs mostly stabbed themselves in the front by voting for policies which they had explicitly pledged not to do in their campaign literature. No amount of real-politic about how the student loan scheme was really a graduate tax in disguise & that was down to LD influence on the government could change the fact that the LDs had voted in a thing that called itself a student loan scheme.
Even worse, Nick Clegg then said in more-or-less as many words that voters were fools for ever believing any LibDem policies because at best they were, and could only ever be, mere bargaining chips in coalition negotiations.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
Suggests Labour will not make more than a token campaign in any of the top 30 LD target seats apart from Sheffield Hallam and Cambridge, where Labour hold the seats not the Tories.
Also states Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers have been getting to know Davey's team in case there is a hung parliament and they need a confidence and supply deal. Suggesting if there is a hung parliament the LDs would definitely back Labour this time unlike 2010 when they backed the Tories
After the way the Tories shafted their LD partners in 2014-5 I think there's more chance of them making a pact with Farage than the Tories.
How did the Conservatives shaft the LD while in government ?
I know this is a common meme in centre-left thoughts but the reality is the LibDems shafted themselves.
Firstly by totally breaking their word on issues such as student tuition fees and Middle Eastern warmongering.
Secondly by the behaviour of such people as Chris Huhne and David Laws.
Reneging on tuition fees was indeed an act of incredible stupidity. And David Laws was an idiot; not quite so sure about Chris Huhne. However once the government had settled down, and as we got toward the election the Tories worked hard in LD seats, and, it should be forgotten, actually lost a few seats to Labour. If they hadn't stuffed the LD's 2016 and 2017 probably wouldn't have happened. There'd have been a referendum, but Remain would have won.
But why shouldn't the Conservatives have targeted LibDem seats in 2015 ?
The local elections from 2011 onwards showed that the LibDem vote had collapsed in those areas - mostly to Labour rather than the Conservatives.
And after all the only way for the Conservatives to stay in government in 2015 was to gain seats from the LibDems to make up for expected losses to Labour.
Have just seen a clip from the Scottish version of Question Time. Commentator points out that for 29 years of her 43 years Scotland has had a government that we didn't elect.
What's the equivalent figure for London (or Manchester, Liverpool, etc)? Lots of the country lives in areas that would never vote Tory but gets stuck with them in power nationally...
LOL. What a convenient time to be born, in the first year of Mrs Thatcher's 18 years - the point of maximum outrage! I wonder if she actually is 43.
If she had been born 15 years earlier, it would have been 33 years out of 59.
The point is a bit vapid though, it is not unusual for a region, and is perhaps inevitable for one currently dominated by its own sectarian political party.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
Suggests Labour will not make more than a token campaign in any of the top 30 LD target seats apart from Sheffield Hallam and Cambridge, where Labour hold the seats not the Tories.
Also states Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers have been getting to know Davey's team in case there is a hung parliament and they need a confidence and supply deal. Suggesting if there is a hung parliament the LDs would definitely back Labour this time unlike 2010 when they backed the Tories
After the way the Tories shafted their LD partners in 2014-5 I think there's more chance of them making a pact with Farage than the Tories.
How did the Conservatives shaft the LD while in government ?
I know this is a common meme in centre-left thoughts but the reality is the LibDems shafted themselves.
Firstly by totally breaking their word on issues such as student tuition fees and Middle Eastern warmongering.
Secondly by the behaviour of such people as Chris Huhne and David Laws.
Reneging on tuition fees was indeed an act of incredible stupidity. And David Laws was an idiot; not quite so sure about Chris Huhne. However once the government had settled down, and as we got toward the election the Tories worked hard in LD seats, and, it should be forgotten, actually lost a few seats to Labour. If they hadn't stuffed the LD's 2016 and 2017 probably wouldn't have happened. There'd have been a referendum, but Remain would have won.
But why shouldn't the Conservatives have targeted LibDem seats in 2015 ?
The local elections from 2011 onwards showed that the LibDem vote had collapsed in those areas - mostly to Labour rather than the Conservatives.
And after all the only way for the Conservatives to stay in government in 2015 was to gain seats from the LibDems to make up for expected losses to Labour.
Exactly, in 2005 the LDs were pursuing a 'decapitation' strategy against Tory MPs in marginal seats and the LDs expected the Tories to go easy on them 10 years later in LD seats they were targeting?
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
I see what you mean. But if you'd personally instigated a law at the time making exactly that illegal, and lots of people had been prosecuted and fined for infringing your law in similar or more minor ways, don't you think that changes the position? I know we've rehearsed this debate many times, but it's still the view of most of the public.
From the reports that I’ve seen, there were two incidents that could reasonably be described as parties.
One was instigated by Mrs Johnson on the day Cummings resigned, and the other was a staff party when the PM was out of town.
It’s also a slightly weird position that the PM lives and works in the same building, so rules about inviting people into your home are not necessarily relevant, except to the dedicated private flat above the office.
I also think there’s confusion between law and guidance, and a number of the incidents refer to what may be breaches of guidance, with the context of most of the people there having had covid already and their all being at their regular place of work.
If there is evidence of the PM inviting people not working in the government complex, to a purely social gathering when this was prohibited by law, then that is of course more serious.
The law doesn't refer to parties so it doesn't matter how they could reasonably be described for legal purposes.
The PMs denials in Parliament were not limited to parties so it doesn't matter whether he can claim that they were not parties for the purpose of backing up his parliamentary statements.
The Downing Street complex in its entirety is not the PM's dwelling.
The law was not based on "inviting" people into a home.
First the law was based on being outside your home without a reasonable excuse (for these purposes, the absence from home would need to be reasonably necessary for work, and once the work that necessitated it was complete there was no longer a reasonable excuse, which means that killing 10 minutes at a social event and then returning work doesn't cut it).
Latterly it was based on gatherings of two or more people (other than those within a household) without reasonable excuse/permitted purpose. If someone turned up to "gather" then it was not relevant who had caused that to happen. I guess the PM would have an excuse if he tried to run away but wasn't fit enough to escape, e.g., an over-enthusiastic technology tutor. But that's about it.
Ah okay, someone genuinely engaging with the discussion. Thank you.
Do we know exactly what the PM said in Parliament, it must be written somewhere? It has been suggested here that the PM was lying when he said there were no other parties in Downing St.
Whether or not people got up from their desks for a few minutes, to eat food which someone had brought to the office, is in my mind the most trivial of incidents, not something which one might reasonably expect the PM to remember more than a year later, and certainly not something on which he might be accused of lying for not remembering.
The fact that Mr Cummings was clearly keeping detailed notes at the time, doesn’t mean the PM himself might be rather more forgetful of past instances. Would he have even written in his diary, that his wife bought a cake to the office on his birthday?
I’m not a particular fan of Johnson and his style of government, I just think that this ‘scandal’ is nothing of the sort. I’ve been happy to critisise him for not following processes and and making silly decisions in other areas. My biggest critism is for the media environment, in no other country do we see this keeping trivialities in the news for weeks.
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
Suggests Labour will not make more than a token campaign in any of the top 30 LD target seats apart from Sheffield Hallam and Cambridge, where Labour hold the seats not the Tories.
Also states Labour Shadow Cabinet Ministers have been getting to know Davey's team in case there is a hung parliament and they need a confidence and supply deal. Suggesting if there is a hung parliament the LDs would definitely back Labour this time unlike 2010 when they backed the Tories
After the way the Tories shafted their LD partners in 2014-5 I think there's more chance of them making a pact with Farage than the Tories.
How did the Conservatives shaft the LD while in government ?
I know this is a common meme in centre-left thoughts but the reality is the LibDems shafted themselves.
Firstly by totally breaking their word on issues such as student tuition fees and Middle Eastern warmongering.
Secondly by the behaviour of such people as Chris Huhne and David Laws.
Reneging on tuition fees was indeed an act of incredible stupidity. And David Laws was an idiot; not quite so sure about Chris Huhne. However once the government had settled down, and as we got toward the election the Tories worked hard in LD seats, and, it should be forgotten, actually lost a few seats to Labour. If they hadn't stuffed the LD's 2016 and 2017 probably wouldn't have happened. There'd have been a referendum, but Remain would have won.
Had the Tories not won a majority in 2015 then the Coalition would have continued, Cameron would have remained PM, there would have been no EU referendum but UKIP would be on 20% of the vote
I suspect there would have been a Referendum, as I said.
There wouldn't as the LDs would have vetoed it and Cameron would not have risked it
That’s what I thought. In his mind, the events that occurred were not “parties”. It could be argued that, most of us looking from the outside probably wouldn’t describe a glass of wine after work or a birthday cake as “parties” either.
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
I see what you mean. But if you'd personally instigated a law at the time making exactly that illegal, and lots of people had been prosecuted and fined for infringing your law in similar or more minor ways, don't you think that changes the position? I know we've rehearsed this debate many times, but it's still the view of most of the public.
From the reports that I’ve seen, there were two incidents that could reasonably be described as parties.
One was instigated by Mrs Johnson on the day Cummings resigned, and the other was a staff party when the PM was out of town.
It’s also a slightly weird position that the PM lives and works in the same building, so rules about inviting people into your home are not necessarily relevant, except to the dedicated private flat above the office.
I also think there’s confusion between law and guidance, and a number of the incidents refer to what may be breaches of guidance, with the context of most of the people there having had covid already and their all being at their regular place of work.
If there is evidence of the PM inviting people not working in the government complex, to a purely social gathering when this was prohibited by law, then that is of course more serious.
The law doesn't refer to parties so it doesn't matter how they could reasonably be described for legal purposes.
The PMs denials in Parliament were not limited to parties so it doesn't matter whether he can claim that they were not parties for the purpose of backing up his parliamentary statements.
The Downing Street complex in its entirety is not the PM's dwelling.
The law was not based on "inviting" people into a home.
First the law was based on being outside your home without a reasonable excuse (for these purposes, the absence from home would need to be reasonably necessary for work, and once the work that necessitated it was complete there was no longer a reasonable excuse, which means that killing 10 minutes at a social event and then returning work doesn't cut it).
Latterly it was based on gatherings of two or more people (other than those within a household) without reasonable excuse/permitted purpose. If someone turned up to "gather" then it was not relevant who had caused that to happen. I guess the PM would have an excuse if he tried to run away but wasn't fit enough to escape, e.g., an over-enthusiastic technology tutor. But that's about it.
Ah okay, someone genuinely engaging with the discussion. Thank you.
Do we know exactly what the PM said in Parliament, it must be written somewhere? It has been suggested here that the PM was lying when he said there were no other parties in Downing St.
Whether or not people got up from their desks for a few minutes, to eat food which someone had brought to the office, is in my mind the most trivial of incidents, not something which one might reasonably expect the PM to remember more than a year later, and certainly not something on which he might be accused of lying for not remembering.
The fact that Mr Cummings was clearly keeping detailed notes at the time, doesn’t mean the PM himself might be rather more forgetful of past instances. Would he have even written in his diary, that his wife bought a cake to the office on his birthday?
I’m not a particular fan of Johnson and his style of government, I just think that this ‘scandal’ is nothing of the sort. I’ve been happy to critisise him for not following processes and and making silly decisions in other areas. My biggest critism is for the media environment, in no other country do we see this keeping trivialities in the news for weeks.
Once again, the fact that we have an entitled dishonest hypocrite as our national leader is not a triviality. Especially since he's not even competent in the first place.
Comments
In yesterday's poll just 28% oppose the NI rise with 31% in favour and 34% neither
https://twitter.com/IpsosUK/status/1493955343130447872?t=MPa7H5c7wOwgD4zlWize_A&s=19
https://twitter.com/tassagency_en/status/1493978692267220999
Little wonder that finding transport companies wanting to come here is so hard. We put their drivers through hell.
For whatever reason, the game of increase NI and cut Income Tax will be popular, however much many of us on here will object to the intergenerational unfairness, or the economy-damaging consequences. The current government may be many things, but they have some basic understanding of public opinion, and they know what they are doing with the NI increase.
The optimum GoT experience is listen to the first four books on audiobook. Don't bother with any of the other books or the TV series.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-60405521
The triviality of his breaches is also part of the point, not an argument in his favour - wilfully or unwilfully careless.
His defence relies on him claiming he must be incredibly stupid or inattentive or both. Neither of which makes him the person to sought out a mess going on under his nose (and he acknowledges a need to sort it out so it cannot be called nothing) which he apparently knew nothing about or couldn't recognise even if it put a drink in his hand.
You are looking at UK trade and claiming it relates to something utterly different.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10520757/Biden-taps-non-binary-drag-queen-look-nuclear-waste.html
I just really don’t think that sort of thing is important now, and certainly isn’t something worth a PM’s resignation.
It also looks silly to many people, who see this obsession with triviality as being more important than the more serious stories. Okay, so taxes are about to go up to pay for the pandemic, so how are the fraud investigations going into the fake companies set up to receive grants and loans, plus the undelivered PPE, that cost the country billions?
The Post Office enquiry and Ukraine should be running the news at the moment, not birthday cake and Prince Andrew. The serious press have all turned into lowest-common-denominator clickbait tabloids, and no-one is actually holding the government to account for the serious things.
News that Britain will scrap the golden visa scheme suggests Boris is already moving to counter allegations that his party is in Russia's pocket.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60410844
But from summer onwards there are a series of feel-good events made for Boris's boosterism. The Platinum Jubilee; Emma at Wimbledon; the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham; England winning the World Cup.
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has surveyed 1,000 businesses, and found that a majority said it has created problems such as pushing up costs, increasing paperwork and delays, and putting the UK at a competitive disadvantage.
Just 8% of firms agreed that the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) was ‘enabling their business to grow or increase sales’, while 54% disagreed.
For UK exporters 12% (or just one in eight) agreed that the TCA was helping them, while 71% disagreed.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2022/feb/17/uk-exporters-brexit-trade-stock-markets-ftse-inflation-economy-consumers-us-jobs-business-live
At least we've still got tax havens.
Has gone though much that would have broken many others and is now an elected representative.
Call me up for Team Dehenna.
I just really don’t think that sort of thing is important now, and certainly isn’t something worth a PM’s resignation.
That sort of thing is lying to parliament. Something that has been seen as very important since we had a PM and requires the resignation of the minister telling the lies according to the ministerial code.
That sort of thing is not breaking the law. Again something seen as very important for a long time and even being formally investigated is enough for a minister to need to resign.
This is basic standards. Propriety. Right and Wrong. A pity that you are arguing for wrong. No other issue can be resolved when the person doing so is a liar, is corrupt, breaks the law with impunity. How exactly is Boris Johnson supposed to go after the Post Office scandal? Him, telling others they have lied and broken the law? Please.
We still haven't got to 50+ people wanting a leadership election.
Even if there are 50 MPs who would back Sunak as soon as he announced (which is hard to be know for certain), and all of those already unhappy with Boris backed him... he would still be well short of a majority.
The spinning from No10 that he always considered himself to be working whilst on the premises of No10, even when Carrie was holding her Abba themed work event, may seem in the realms of Prince Andrew fantasy defences. However, it makes sense, because even Johnson understands were it proven he mislead Parliament, the game is up.
Trade that bypasses the UK = blessed relief
Trade that bypasses, say, France = proof if proof be needed that the EU is suffering post-Brexit.
Would be helpful if the LD team were better organised than in 2019. It was my forst GE in the party after 25 years in the red team and I have never seen anything so chaotic. Suspect that was Jo "Flight of Icarus" and her team insisting that Harrogate and York and Durham and Berwick were all viable targets - a position which abruptly reversed towards the end where it was "go defend Tim Farron".
Asking someone if he went to any parties, him saying no, then saying that you had a birthday cake for 10 minutes two years ago, you’re a lying liar who needs to resign, is in my mind taking the piss.
I see what you mean. But if you'd personally instigated a law at the time making exactly that illegal, and lots of people had been prosecuted and fined for infringing your law in similar or more minor ways, don't you think that changes the position? I know we've rehearsed this debate many times, but it's still the view of most of the public.
And let's not forget that the sorry episode of the party revelations followed the fiascos of Peppa Pig and Paterson, and that he's separately being investigated for the financing of his home decorations (and appears to have lied about that too).
And it could count against Boris. It's hard to say "HMQ has served her country faithfully for 70 years" without mentally adding "unlike her current PM".
@GeorgeWParker
New - Labour to fight only minimal campaign in top 30 Lib Dem target seats as part of "ruthless" targeting of scarce resources by @Keir_Starmer on Lab targets..Blue Wall danger for Tories as informal Lib-Labbery grows
https://twitter.com/GeorgeWParker/status/1494218484854796288
See Poland, Sept 1 1939.
If Boris goes, Brexit goes
https://twitter.com/Andrew_Adonis/status/1494234832527839233
BLOCK QUOTES MESSED UP. THIS IS WHERE MY COMMENT STARTS.
Lying to Parliament is the issue.
But at the risk of repeating myself, at the relevant time - May 2020 - what was an offence was being outside your home without a reasonable excuse. If you were at your workplace you had a reasonable excuse for being away from home. So no offence was committed. The fact that you were at your workplace on your birthday and had a glass of wine and a birthday cake does not really change anything.
A similar analysis has to be made for every single person for each occasion. And this could result in some of the people at the event not being fined because they did not commit an offence and others at the same event being fined.
For instance, I can well see Boris not being fined for being at his workplace on his birthday but Carrie being fined for leaving her home to go to his office to bring him a cake. And so on.
The more fundamental political point is the government's whole approach ie that law is for others not themselves. A divine right approach to everything.
One point which is being missed though - and I wish it weren't - is the way the law was misused during the whole Covid period: the misuse of primary and secondary legislation, the confusion between law and guidance, the overreach by the police etc. There was an abuse of power which is very dangerous. Labour should be making more of this. I fear that they are not because either (a) they don't really get it or (b) given half a chance they'd do much the same themselves.
One was instigated by Mrs Johnson on the day Cummings resigned, and the other was a staff party when the PM was out of town.
It’s also a slightly weird position that the PM lives and works in the same building, so rules about inviting people into your home are not necessarily relevant, except to the dedicated private flat above the office.
I also think there’s confusion between law and guidance, and a number of the incidents refer to what may be breaches of guidance, with the context of most of the people there having had covid already and their all being at their regular place of work.
If there is evidence of the PM inviting people not working in the government complex, to a purely social gathering when this was prohibited by law, then that is of course more serious.
I think they are right. BREXIT will go. Because once the foaming dog fever calms down what is BREXIT? In practice it is the imposition by Tories of the exact thing they spent decades campaigning to get rid of.
With Brexit secured and receding into the past you can see how a future Tory PM can look at the mess they have inherited and seek to streamline things. That is what Hezza and Adonis are envisaging in the short term.
There seem to be two problems with this (other than the absurdity of a PM claiming he's too stupid to realise what's happening in his immediate vicinity, I mean).
The first is that it doesn't get anyone else off the hook: not his staff, not his advisers, not his wife. It implicitly accepts the gatherings were illegal, just not for him. It's probably not great optics for him if everybody else gets PCNed but him: literally one rule for King Boris and another rule for everyone else.
The second is that his statements to the House don't simply concern his own conduct - his fondness for talking in third person passive to distance from the events means that he didn't say "I followed all the guidance" but rather "all guidance was followed", that events didn't take place and so on. Even if the "unawareness and working" argument works for him, it doesn't work as a justification for believing his statements to the House to be true at the time he made them. Clear proof of knowingly lying to the House is still a bigger threat to him than receiving fines.
Brexit is not a success. It's a shitshow.
Worth noting that Storm Eunice was named days ago, but only started spinning up into existence last night. As the wind lashes Westminster tomorrow it's a shame that it is in recess, so that members will not be able to reflect on the laughter of their predecessors nearly 168 years ago.
RefUK aside there is no party for people to go to who dislike the state overreach.
Unlike most political scandals, there aren't any complexities here, everyone can understand and see pretty clearly what the position is. The only missing piece is what his final excuse or act of contrition is going to be.
Former BBC Scotland editor glad to walk away from ‘bile, hatred and misogyny’ of her home country’s politics" (£)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bbc-reporter-sarah-smith-says-gun-toting-america-is-a-less-stressful-to-work-in-than-scotland-sp2q23w5d
I know this is a common meme in centre-left thoughts but the reality is the LibDems shafted themselves.
Firstly by totally breaking their word on issues such as student tuition fees and Middle Eastern warmongering.
Secondly by the behaviour of such people as Chris Huhne and David Laws.
🧐Just 29% say he has been a good PM, down 8pts
📉 54% of 2019 Con voters still think he has been good but this has dropped 15pts
@IpsosUK: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/half-britons-say-boris-johnson-has-done-bad-job-prime-minister-13-points-last-year https://twitter.com/CameronGarrett_/status/1494227620392693763/photo/1
She claims simultaneously that there's no pressure on borders, that the pressure on borders is nothing to do with Brexit, and that the extra costs of the pressure on borders is *an economic benefit* of Brexit. ~AA
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1494242972770222080/video/1
1) Thatcher against Heath
2) Heseltine against Thatcher
Any others ?
If not that's a 50% success rate and Heseltine did at least return to the cabinet.
Whereas the likes of Portillo and David Miliband and David Davis bottled their opportunities assuming they would get the top job automatically at some future point.
I think, amazingly, Boris stays. What TF will it take for him to be ousted now, who knows.
Come back @isam all is forgiven.
.
Otherwise, yes: the LDs mostly stabbed themselves in the front by voting for policies which they had explicitly pledged not to do in their campaign literature. No amount of real-politic about how the student loan scheme was really a graduate tax in disguise & that was down to LD influence on the government could change the fact that the LDs had voted in a thing that called itself a student loan scheme.
.
The PMs denials in Parliament were not limited to parties so it doesn't matter whether he can claim that they were not parties for the purpose of backing up his parliamentary statements.
The Downing Street complex in its entirety is not the PM's dwelling.
The law was not based on "inviting" people into a home.
First the law was based on being outside your home without a reasonable excuse (for these purposes, the absence from home would need to be reasonably necessary for work, and once the work that necessitated it was complete there was no longer a reasonable excuse, which means that killing 10 minutes at a social event and then returning work doesn't cut it).
Latterly it was based on gatherings of two or more people (other than those within a household) without reasonable excuse/permitted purpose. If someone turned up to "gather" then it was not relevant who had caused that to happen. I guess the PM would have an excuse if he tried to run away but wasn't fit enough to escape, e.g., an over-enthusiastic technology tutor. But that's about it.
Two jabs 85%
Three jabs 66%
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk
Some of these people appear to be in denial, and cannot come to terms with the practical implications of what they campaigned and voted for.
However once the government had settled down, and as we got toward the election the Tories worked hard in LD seats, and, it should be forgotten, actually lost a few seats to Labour.
If they hadn't stuffed the LD's 2016 and 2017 probably wouldn't have happened. There'd have been a referendum, but Remain would have won.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations?areaType=nation&areaName=England
What happened weren't really parties, or at least not good ones.
And counter to some people's memories, we didn't need a good reason to be out of the house by 20th May. I remember the joy of being able to get out of a 5km radius and go for walk in the Peak District with my daughters. There were still issues around rural communities being terrified - because the machinery of the state had spent the last six weeks terrifying them - and putting up signs dissuading you from going there, but it wasn't actually illegal, and many people did it.
Socialisation was a different issue though.
The point is that many people last year - as a direct and deliberate consequence of the actions taken by the government led by Boris - were prosecuted for the same or less. The only way in which Downing Street 'parties' might have been acceptable was if some clarity had been given from government that of course a few drinks after work in the garden were acceptable; of course you could have a cup of tea in the garden with your mum, of course your kids could play with other kids in the park - just be sensible.
But none of that happened. The messaging was always "don't". Even when it later turned out the people telling us not to "were".
[Unless you're going on a march to protest about the death of a man in Minneapolis of course. That's fine.]
Excellent comment, and sadly something that the most rabid on here are not understanding. The legal side of it is not the slam dunk that people think, for the reasons you have elegantly explained.
The political impact and damage has been done.
The actions of the police throughout suggested that they too did not understand the law. Was it ever illegal to sit on a park bench? Was it illegal to drive 5 miles to walk round a reservoir with a coffee while staying 2m distant from a friend? Was it actually illegal to go to Snowdonia for a walk? As in was the a LAW that said you couldn't do it? I suspect there was not.
Come the election, you can attack Bozo for partying and the local candidate for supporting it.
I suspect the few MPs with morals and standards, such as @Tissue_Price will have a difficult decision to make.
The local elections from 2011 onwards showed that the LibDem vote had collapsed in those areas - mostly to Labour rather than the Conservatives.
And after all the only way for the Conservatives to stay in government in 2015 was to gain seats from the LibDems to make up for expected losses to Labour.
If she had been born 15 years earlier, it would have been 33 years out of 59.
The point is a bit vapid though, it is not unusual for a region, and is perhaps inevitable for one currently dominated by its own sectarian political party.
Do we know exactly what the PM said in Parliament, it must be written somewhere? It has been suggested here that the PM was lying when he said there were no other parties in Downing St.
Whether or not people got up from their desks for a few minutes, to eat food which someone had brought to the office, is in my mind the most trivial of incidents, not something which one might reasonably expect the PM to remember more than a year later, and certainly not something on which he might be accused of lying for not remembering.
The fact that Mr Cummings was clearly keeping detailed notes at the time, doesn’t mean the PM himself might be rather more forgetful of past instances. Would he have even written in his diary, that his wife bought a cake to the office on his birthday?
I’m not a particular fan of Johnson and his style of government, I just think that this ‘scandal’ is nothing of the sort. I’ve been happy to critisise him for not following processes and and making silly decisions in other areas. My biggest critism is for the media environment, in no other country do we see this keeping trivialities in the news for weeks.