On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
Maybe the problem is that the idea of a non work gathering with people from work in a work setting is just totally ridiculous. So the cabinet meeting was a work setting until the Mrs brings a cake in at which everybody should apparently have fled?
The police are damned lucky this nonsense is not being challenged in the courts.
As ridiculous as the two women walking along (allowed) holding a coffee each (not allowed).
Them was the rules, as we all can't quite fucking believe now. And they were cheered on by plenty, including those here on the mighty PB.
They were indeed absurd and irrational. Only the common sense of most police officers in interpreting them judiciously (in the main) stopped them from falling into disrepute before they did.
Which rather brings home, once again, that the offence here is lying about it to the HoC. That is unacceptable.
It is an interesting point. Just like the two women with the coffee it is perfectly feasible that even the PM thought that a cake for a few minutes sprung on him couldn't possibly constitute a breach of the rules. So I get it that he genuinely thinks he didn't lie to the HoC.
But something is rotten about the process. Because he should have known so the answer to the question of whether he was a liar or an idiot is that he was the latter. And still gets cheered to the rafters by as @rottenborough notes the very MPs who voted for those rules.
In a way it is simpler than all of this - his fries are done. He isn't going to win the next election.
This isn't because he is or isn't guilty of breaching section 121.13.1 paragraph B.
It is because he partied in lockdown. That No10 was a non-stop conga line is now part of the non-political world - people make jokes about it in non-political conversation.
If he'd stuck to awkward Zoom quizzes, and told whoever produced the cake - "nice idea, but I can't" - then he would be fine.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
Nope - the risk for any Tory MP is that the fact that the opposition will be able to demonstrate that the Tory candidate is happy that Boris broke the law by partying as your relatives died alone.
Fabricant didn't seem too happy that Starmer had quoted one of his constituents.
Which serves him right, of course, and is unlikely to make much difference in Lichfield where they have cheerfully voted for a donkey in a blue rosette for years, but I can see why those with more marginal seats would be nervous.
Have to ask at which point the good people of Lichfield feel a bit of sick rising up the back of their throats. It is Solid Blue Tory. Which means nothing once the tide goes out as we have seen solid one colour seats flip to become solid for another colour.
As Big_G so eloquently puts it, do you support a lack of honesty and integrity? Tories running as Tories are saying "vote for lies, vote for illegality, vote for dishonesty - these are the values I identify with.
Question is at which point do enough voters say "you might, but I don't".
I am yet to see the potential for a collapse of the blue wall, although if anyone can furnish such a collapse Boris Johnson is the man.
The fact that safe Labour seats like Sedgefield are now solidly Conservative and Llanelli is a three way marginal shows how far a Party can fall, but I don't see the likes of Fabricant ever losing his safe seat. Mind you in the genteel town centres of the West Midlands, like my own home town of Solihull, of Lichfield, Sutton Coldfield, Stratford Upon Avon, Evesham and Malvern (Great Malvern in particular is on it's knees) are all looking very down at heel. And, however hard we try, it would be a push to blame decades of Labour corruption on their decline.
Sedgefield isn't solidly Conservative. I wouldn't say at the moment that any of the the Teesside / County Durham Red Wall seats are going to stay Tory at the next election (Bishop Auckland may be the exception but even then)..
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
Maybe the problem is that the idea of a non work gathering with people from work in a work setting is just totally ridiculous. So the cabinet meeting was a work setting until the Mrs brings a cake in at which everybody should apparently have fled?
The police are damned lucky this nonsense is not being challenged in the courts.
As ridiculous as the two women walking along (allowed) holding a coffee each (not allowed).
Them was the rules, as we all can't quite fucking believe now. And they were cheered on by plenty, including those here on the mighty PB.
They were indeed absurd and irrational. Only the common sense of most police officers in interpreting them judiciously (in the main) stopped them from falling into disrepute before they did.
Which rather brings home, once again, that the offence here is lying about it to the HoC. That is unacceptable.
It is an interesting point. Just like the two women with the coffee it is perfectly feasible that even the PM thought that a cake for a few minutes sprung on him couldn't possibly constitute a breach of the rules. So I get it that he genuinely thinks he didn't lie to the HoC.
But something is rotten about the process. Because he should have known so the answer to the question of whether he was a liar or an idiot is that he was the latter. And still gets cheered to the rafters by as @rottenborough notes the very MPs who voted for those rules.
I think that in the establishment of many of the rules, there was a nudge and a wink that people were expected to break them, just like people go over 70 on the motorway. I read a speech of Boris's at the time the rules came in saying 'be sensible in the way you interpret the rules' or something, and I knew the intention was for the rule to be privately bent, sensibly when the occasion demanded. This was always the way I handled the rules - in lockdown one I was surrounded by miles of beautiful walks, and it was Summer. Did I restrict myself to one outdoor exercise walk a day? Bollocks did I. However, there is another type of person who has a way more rigid interpretation of the rules, and I don't think Boris took that into account. In this instance, Scotland and England are quite different too - as soon as you drive into Scotland you notice far more frequent speed traps (for example).
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
It is not to do with Brexit, or really even the breaking of the rules, no-one is perfect. It is simply about a basic level of honesty.
The PM wants to live in a world where he is never wrong, never has to apologise, and can make up anything he likes and sell it to us. I don't think we should accept that.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
Maybe the problem is that the idea of a non work gathering with people from work in a work setting is just totally ridiculous. So the cabinet meeting was a work setting until the Mrs brings a cake in at which everybody should apparently have fled?
The police are damned lucky this nonsense is not being challenged in the courts.
As ridiculous as the two women walking along (allowed) holding a coffee each (not allowed).
Them was the rules, as we all can't quite fucking believe now. And they were cheered on by plenty, including those here on the mighty PB.
They were indeed absurd and irrational. Only the common sense of most police officers in interpreting them judiciously (in the main) stopped them from falling into disrepute before they did.
Which rather brings home, once again, that the offence here is lying about it to the HoC. That is unacceptable.
It is an interesting point. Just like the two women with the coffee it is perfectly feasible that even the PM thought that a cake for a few minutes sprung on him couldn't possibly constitute a breach of the rules. So I get it that he genuinely thinks he didn't lie to the HoC.
But something is rotten about the process. Because he should have known so the answer to the question of whether he was a liar or an idiot is that he was the latter. And still gets cheered to the rafters by as @rottenborough notes the very MPs who voted for those rules.
In a way it is simpler than all of this - his fries are done. He isn't going to win the next election.
This isn't because he is or isn't guilty of breaching section 121.13.1 paragraph B.
It is because he partied in lockdown. That No10 was a non-stop conga line is now part of the non-political world - people make jokes about it in non-political conversation.
If he'd stuck to awkward Zoom quizzes, and told whoever produced the cake - "nice idea, but I can't" - then he would be fine.
But he didn't. So he isn't.
Yes, because everyone is trying to give the impression that there were conga lines around Downing St every night.
When what actually happened, is that Johnson was ambushed by a cake on his birthday, and his team who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outside for half an hour after work one evening.
It’s not the PM that’s lying here.
Note that where there were definitely conga lines is in hospitals - there’s loads of video evidence of it, it was celebrated at the time.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
It is not to do with Brexit, or really even the breaking of the rules, no-one is perfect. It is simply about a basic level of honesty.
The PM wants to live in a world where he is never wrong, never has to apologise, and can make up anything he likes and sell it to us. I don't think we should accept that.
No, it’s very specifically about his answer given in Parliament, for which he is being accused of the serious offence of intentionally misleading.
Everyone who doesn’t like the guy, is trying to bring generalities into a very specific situation.
(Right, work beckons - will be back later to see if I’m still in a minority of one).
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason.
This is why partygate is toxic for Johnson; it reinforces everything that people already feel about him. That's he's a lying tosser who likes a good time all of the time. A PM who had been a model of probity might get a bit more forbearance on the issue.
Is anyone else unable to load/see comments? I load pages on Safari and Chrome on iOS devices, and Edge and Chrome on Win10 - it refreshes to just say comments are closed with no comments visible. I had to come to the Vanilla version to see what’s happening
Edit: just seen Mikes update about the vanilla problem. Glad it’s not just me
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
It is not to do with Brexit, or really even the breaking of the rules, no-one is perfect. It is simply about a basic level of honesty.
The PM wants to live in a world where he is never wrong, never has to apologise, and can make up anything he likes and sell it to us. I don't think we should accept that.
I've some sympathy with Mr S's view, but equally our PM denied emphatically that there'd been any rule breaking at No 10 when first (and indeed second) questioned. As another contributor here pointed out most of us pushed the envelope once or twice, but, when questioned admitted, sometimes shamefacedly, to doing so. Normally. In any event we didn't insist that we hadn't. Personally I wouldn't have had much of a problem with Mrs J coming in with a birthday cake at the end of a genuine meeting, particularly if there was some evidence that someone significant at the meeting had said something like 'we really shouldn't do this, you know', but there's apparently no evidence of that happening,
Is anyone else unable to load/see comments? I load pages on Safari and Chrome on iOS devices, and Edge and Chrome on Win10 - it refreshes to just say comments are closed with no comments visible. I had to come to the Vanilla version to see what’s happening
Yes - the comments on the site appear to be buggered at present.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
Maybe the problem is that the idea of a non work gathering with people from work in a work setting is just totally ridiculous. So the cabinet meeting was a work setting until the Mrs brings a cake in at which everybody should apparently have fled?
The police are damned lucky this nonsense is not being challenged in the courts.
As ridiculous as the two women walking along (allowed) holding a coffee each (not allowed).
Them was the rules, as we all can't quite fucking believe now. And they were cheered on by plenty, including those here on the mighty PB.
They were indeed absurd and irrational. Only the common sense of most police officers in interpreting them judiciously (in the main) stopped them from falling into disrepute before they did.
Which rather brings home, once again, that the offence here is lying about it to the HoC. That is unacceptable.
It is an interesting point. Just like the two women with the coffee it is perfectly feasible that even the PM thought that a cake for a few minutes sprung on him couldn't possibly constitute a breach of the rules. So I get it that he genuinely thinks he didn't lie to the HoC.
But something is rotten about the process. Because he should have known so the answer to the question of whether he was a liar or an idiot is that he was the latter. And still gets cheered to the rafters by as @rottenborough notes the very MPs who voted for those rules.
In a way it is simpler than all of this - his fries are done. He isn't going to win the next election.
This isn't because he is or isn't guilty of breaching section 121.13.1 paragraph B.
It is because he partied in lockdown. That No10 was a non-stop conga line is now part of the non-political world - people make jokes about it in non-political conversation.
If he'd stuck to awkward Zoom quizzes, and told whoever produced the cake - "nice idea, but I can't" - then he would be fine.
But he didn't. So he isn't.
Yes, because everyone is trying to give the impression that there were conga lines around Downing St every night.
When what actually happened, is that Johnson was ambushed by a cake on his birthday, and his team who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outside for half an hour after work one evening.
It’s not the PM that’s lying here.
Note that where there were definitely conga lines is in hospitals - there’s loads of video evidence of it, it was celebrated at the time.
The police are investigating TWELVE parties, so cooking that down to 2 is impressive
And anyway, blah blah blah. he is a fat lying shitbag. NZR, Arcuri, wallpaper. He needs to go, and in the extremely unlikely event of oyu being right and this being a serious miscarriage of justice, I can live with that
Anyway the Attorney General has presumably run a rule over this. She is useless as you'd expect of a Johnson appointee, but she probably has reliable underlings who have passed the FPNs as kosher
Times says Phatboi going to whip the vote on referral to priv committee. junior minister on r4 this morning was saying not decided yet waiting to see wording.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
Maybe the problem is that the idea of a non work gathering with people from work in a work setting is just totally ridiculous. So the cabinet meeting was a work setting until the Mrs brings a cake in at which everybody should apparently have fled?
The police are damned lucky this nonsense is not being challenged in the courts.
As ridiculous as the two women walking along (allowed) holding a coffee each (not allowed).
Them was the rules, as we all can't quite fucking believe now. And they were cheered on by plenty, including those here on the mighty PB.
They were indeed absurd and irrational. Only the common sense of most police officers in interpreting them judiciously (in the main) stopped them from falling into disrepute before they did.
Which rather brings home, once again, that the offence here is lying about it to the HoC. That is unacceptable.
It is an interesting point. Just like the two women with the coffee it is perfectly feasible that even the PM thought that a cake for a few minutes sprung on him couldn't possibly constitute a breach of the rules. So I get it that he genuinely thinks he didn't lie to the HoC.
But something is rotten about the process. Because he should have known so the answer to the question of whether he was a liar or an idiot is that he was the latter. And still gets cheered to the rafters by as @rottenborough notes the very MPs who voted for those rules.
I think that in the establishment of many of the rules, there was a nudge and a wink that people were expected to break them, just like people go over 70 on the motorway. I read a speech of Boris's at the time the rules came in saying 'be sensible in the way you interpret the rules' or something, and I knew the intention was for the rule to be privately bent, sensibly when the occasion demanded. This was always the way I handled the rules - in lockdown one I was surrounded by miles of beautiful walks, and it was Summer. Did I restrict myself to one outdoor exercise walk a day? Bollocks did I. However, there is another type of person who has a way more rigid interpretation of the rules, and I don't think Boris took that into account. In this instance, Scotland and England are quite different too - as soon as you drive into Scotland you notice far more frequent speed traps (for example).
In England the law was never one outdoor exercise only. But when I went out on one of need three or four bike rides per day I had the law on my phone in my pocket in case the police stopped me. Similarly to the example SKS gave yesterday.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
It is not to do with Brexit, or really even the breaking of the rules, no-one is perfect. It is simply about a basic level of honesty.
The PM wants to live in a world where he is never wrong, never has to apologise, and can make up anything he likes and sell it to us. I don't think we should accept that.
No, it’s very specifically about his answer given in Parliament, for which he is being accused of the serious offence of intentionally misleading.
Everyone who doesn’t like the guy, is trying to bring generalities into a very specific situation.
(Right, work beckons - will be back later to see if I’m still in a minority of one).
Not just that, you are more royalist than the king, because if any of your claims are valid why is nobody making them on Johnson's behalf except you?
To clarify: not just nobody but you on here but nobody in the Cabinet?
Drivers are going to be allowed to watch tv whilst driving on motorways as long as screen built in? Yet fined for touching the sat nav on their phone attached to the dashboard.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
Nope - the risk for any Tory MP is that the fact that the opposition will be able to demonstrate that the Tory candidate is happy that Boris broke the law by partying as your relatives died alone.
Fabricant didn't seem too happy that Starmer had quoted one of his constituents.
Which serves him right, of course, and is unlikely to make much difference in Lichfield where they have cheerfully voted for a donkey in a blue rosette for years, but I can see why those with more marginal seats would be nervous.
Have to ask at which point the good people of Lichfield feel a bit of sick rising up the back of their throats. It is Solid Blue Tory. Which means nothing once the tide goes out as we have seen solid one colour seats flip to become solid for another colour.
As Big_G so eloquently puts it, do you support a lack of honesty and integrity? Tories running as Tories are saying "vote for lies, vote for illegality, vote for dishonesty - these are the values I identify with.
Question is at which point do enough voters say "you might, but I don't".
I am yet to see the potential for a collapse of the blue wall, although if anyone can furnish such a collapse Boris Johnson is the man.
The fact that safe Labour seats like Sedgefield are now solidly Conservative and Llanelli is a three way marginal shows how far a Party can fall, but I don't see the likes of Fabricant ever losing his safe seat. Mind you in the genteel town centres of the West Midlands, like my own home town of Solihull, of Lichfield, Sutton Coldfield, Stratford Upon Avon, Evesham and Malvern (Great Malvern in particular is on it's knees) are all looking very down at heel. And, however hard we try, it would be a push to blame decades of Labour corruption on their decline.
I wouldn't describe Sedgefield as solidly Tory. It is 61st on the target list, has a majority of ~4k and goes on a 5% swing. We're currently seeing numbers roughly double that, which, even if there were a Government recovery (not a foregone conclusion) would still send that back to Labour.
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason. Of course, all politicians have an element of this, so what abouters have plenty to play with, the difference with Boris is the absolute consistency with which he does it all the time and has no boundaries in doing so. We have seen but a fraction of the danger of this approach.
So, look at his steadfast Ukraine support through this lens. Why did Boris take this position? High moral purpose? Like hell. Or was it the only he position he could take to defend from the fact that, having quietly dismantled the previous (themselves porous) boundaries, he has courted the oligarch ruble without limit. And not only that, his advantage lies in finding a way to quietly maintain that flow of rubles into Tory coffers to spend on re-election. And those looking to distance themselves from Putin or evade sanction will be happy to help. So, Boris's support for Ukraine has to be seen as pure Cakeism, a defence that "don't be ridiculous, nobody could have done more" whenever these questions come back to the fore.
If that sounds deeply cynical, what in Boris's behaviour, his jinking sorry, not sorry apologies, has ever disabused me of that. What is there to make me think my thinking on Boris's Ukraine position is unfair? Nothing, that's what.
Yes. It's terrible to have to be so cynical - I really dislike habitual 'man of the world' cynicism - but Johnson forces it. Your take on him is spot on. Any other is strictly for fools or partisans.
Netflix is doomed. No way they can compete with Amazon and Disney long term
It's not Amazon that is the problem - it's Disney. They carefully prepared the ground over 10 years, tested their Marvel propositions on Netflix, used Amazon as a channel for movie sales of their back catalog, at comparatively low-quality, acquired Star Wars and the Fox/Searchlight film and tv catalog, and when they were ready, launched a proposition targeted across the whole family demographic, with new 4k transfers of their prime properties, landing squarely on Netflix's turf.
Complete gulf in effort, class and quality at Anfield tonight.
Liverpool went d3cades between winning the First Division and the Premier League. I’ve felt for a while that United May be in for a similar length of wait for their next top flight title. Too much structurally wrong at the club, including how the owners see the club. How sad...
The great thing for Man U fans is that there is another more successful team in their city that they can support
Netflix is doomed. No way they can compete with Amazon and Disney long term
All down to content. They are investing a huge amount in content. Disney always have. Amazon is starting to get its shit together, but a long way behind Netflix.
If Netflix makes stuff people want to watch, it will survive.
The problem with all of them is the content is a mile wide and an inch deep. Very few things left to watch if you have binged them for a couple of weeks. Go check it out - there is very little content of wide application and a mountain of "Who the fuck watches this shit???"
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
Netflix is doomed. No way they can compete with Amazon and Disney long term
It's not Amazon that is the problem - it's Disney. They carefully prepared the ground over 10 years, tested their Marvel propositions on Netflix, used Amazon as a channel for movie sales of their back catalog, at comparatively low-quality, acquired Star Wars and the Fox/Searchlight film and tv catalog, and when they were ready, launched a proposition targeted across the whole family demographic, with new 4k transfers of their prime properties, landing squarely on Netflix's turf.
One of my students set me up with a seedbox in Poland that costs 6€/month. Sorted.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason. Of course, all politicians have an element of this, so what abouters have plenty to play with, the difference with Boris is the absolute consistency with which he does it all the time and has no boundaries in doing so. We have seen but a fraction of the danger of this approach.
So, look at his steadfast Ukraine support through this lens. Why did Boris take this position? High moral purpose? Like hell. Or was it the only he position he could take to defend from the fact that, having quietly dismantled the previous (themselves porous) boundaries, he has courted the oligarch ruble without limit. And not only that, his advantage lies in finding a way to quietly maintain that flow of rubles into Tory coffers to spend on re-election. And those looking to distance themselves from Putin or evade sanction will be happy to help. So, Boris's support for Ukraine has to be seen as pure Cakeism, a defence that "don't be ridiculous, nobody could have done more" whenever these questions come back to the fore.
If that sounds deeply cynical, what in Boris's behaviour, his jinking sorry, not sorry apologies, has ever disabused me of that. What is there to make me think my thinking on Boris's Ukraine position is unfair? Nothing, that's what.
Yes. It's terrible to have to be so cynical - I really dislike habitual 'man of the world' cynicism - but Johnson forces it. Your take on him is spot on. Any other is strictly for fools or partisans.
Our foreign policy on an issue of the magnitude of Ukraine isn't based on Boris's political needs, it is based on what America tells us to do. Even the fact that Boris has been more enthusiastic in his provision of weapons to Ukraine than the US at times is likely to have been on their say so. Floating ideas and measuring the response etc. Otherwise they'd have told him to get back in his box. Differences are presentational.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
Maybe the problem is that the idea of a non work gathering with people from work in a work setting is just totally ridiculous. So the cabinet meeting was a work setting until the Mrs brings a cake in at which everybody should apparently have fled?
The police are damned lucky this nonsense is not being challenged in the courts.
As ridiculous as the two women walking along (allowed) holding a coffee each (not allowed).
Them was the rules, as we all can't quite fucking believe now. And they were cheered on by plenty, including those here on the mighty PB.
Indeed. It was a grim time on PB, seeing the curtain twitching and the snitching. Who can forget the pearl clutching about London Fields and Bournemouth beach?
Netflix is doomed. No way they can compete with Amazon and Disney long term
All down to content. They are investing a huge amount in content. Disney always have. Amazon is starting to get its shit together, but a long way behind Netflix.
If Netflix makes stuff people want to watch, it will survive.
The problem with all of them is the content is a mile wide and an inch deep. Very few things left to watch if you have binged them for a couple of weeks. Go check it out - there is very little content of wide application and a mountain of "Who the fuck watches this shit???"
Stacks of good freebies on Prime movies atm: lots of Bond inc NTTD, Killing Fields, We Were Soldiers, Ex Machina
Plus I have shelled out for Apocalypse Now Final Cut. Completely different experience on a big TV in HD
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason. Of course, all politicians have an element of this, so what abouters have plenty to play with, the difference with Boris is the absolute consistency with which he does it all the time and has no boundaries in doing so. We have seen but a fraction of the danger of this approach.
So, look at his steadfast Ukraine support through this lens. Why did Boris take this position? High moral purpose? Like hell. Or was it the only he position he could take to defend from the fact that, having quietly dismantled the previous (themselves porous) boundaries, he has courted the oligarch ruble without limit. And not only that, his advantage lies in finding a way to quietly maintain that flow of rubles into Tory coffers to spend on re-election. And those looking to distance themselves from Putin or evade sanction will be happy to help. So, Boris's support for Ukraine has to be seen as pure Cakeism, a defence that "don't be ridiculous, nobody could have done more" whenever these questions come back to the fore.
If that sounds deeply cynical, what in Boris's behaviour, his jinking sorry, not sorry apologies, has ever disabused me of that. What is there to make me think my thinking on Boris's Ukraine position is unfair? Nothing, that's what.
Yes. It's terrible to have to be so cynical - I really dislike habitual 'man of the world' cynicism - but Johnson forces it. Your take on him is spot on. Any other is strictly for fools or partisans.
Our foreign policy on an issue of the magnitude of Ukraine isn't based on Boris's political needs, it is based on what America tells us to do. Even the fact that Boris has been more enthusiastic in his provision of weapons to Ukraine than the US at times is likely to have been on their say so. Floating ideas and measuring the response etc. Otherwise they'd have told him to get back in his box. Differences are presentational.
The West/US/NATO/Justice League seem to be carefully calibrating the arms deliveries to Ukraine. They want just enough to stop a politically uncomfortable level of Ukrainians getting killed and bleed out the Russian military but not enough to push the Russians so far back that they get really dickhurt and do something unpredictably mad.
Netflix is doomed. No way they can compete with Amazon and Disney long term
It's not Amazon that is the problem - it's Disney. They carefully prepared the ground over 10 years, tested their Marvel propositions on Netflix, used Amazon as a channel for movie sales of their back catalog, at comparatively low-quality, acquired Star Wars and the Fox/Searchlight film and tv catalog, and when they were ready, launched a proposition targeted across the whole family demographic, with new 4k transfers of their prime properties, landing squarely on Netflix's turf.
Myself and the boys share subscriptions. I have Netflix and BFI player, Foxjr1 has Skysports, and Foxjr2 MUBI and Disney. No way would I pay for all these myself. Indeed I would keep only BFI player and MUBI if forced to
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
Maybe the problem is that the idea of a non work gathering with people from work in a work setting is just totally ridiculous. So the cabinet meeting was a work setting until the Mrs brings a cake in at which everybody should apparently have fled?
The police are damned lucky this nonsense is not being challenged in the courts.
As ridiculous as the two women walking along (allowed) holding a coffee each (not allowed).
Them was the rules, as we all can't quite fucking believe now. And they were cheered on by plenty, including those here on the mighty PB.
They were indeed absurd and irrational. Only the common sense of most police officers in interpreting them judiciously (in the main) stopped them from falling into disrepute before they did.
Which rather brings home, once again, that the offence here is lying about it to the HoC. That is unacceptable.
It is an interesting point. Just like the two women with the coffee it is perfectly feasible that even the PM thought that a cake for a few minutes sprung on him couldn't possibly constitute a breach of the rules. So I get it that he genuinely thinks he didn't lie to the HoC.
But something is rotten about the process. Because he should have known so the answer to the question of whether he was a liar or an idiot is that he was the latter. And still gets cheered to the rafters by as @rottenborough notes the very MPs who voted for those rules.
It's a cake composed entirely of red herrings. This goes all the way back to the leaked video statement with Stratton joking about parties, and the PM's statement about it in the House.
Are today's apologist really telling us that the running joke around the PM's office related only to a ten minute cake break ?
The Johnson defence being peddled by his lapdogs really falls apart if he receives another FPN.
So we seem to be in a holding pattern to see if and when another FPN lands on the door of no 10.
We aren't in a holding pattern. On Thursday the Tory party is going to have to say what Boris did was fine.
And then (in all likelihood) the Met police are going to move on to the other parties and start issuing more fines (remember only a few events have so far been investigated to the point that FPNs have been issued).
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
You are trashing your own credibility as comprehensively as Boris has trashed his.
Although I disagree with @Sandpit he isn't one who blindly follows a party line so it is useful to hear a counter argument from someone who isn't a sheep. I must admit I have posted a few things that haven't attracted universal favour.
Netflix is doomed. No way they can compete with Amazon and Disney long term
It's not Amazon that is the problem - it's Disney. They carefully prepared the ground over 10 years, tested their Marvel propositions on Netflix, used Amazon as a channel for movie sales of their back catalog, at comparatively low-quality, acquired Star Wars and the Fox/Searchlight film and tv catalog, and when they were ready, launched a proposition targeted across the whole family demographic, with new 4k transfers of their prime properties, landing squarely on Netflix's turf.
Myself and the boys share subscriptions. I have Netflix and BFI player, Foxjr1 has Skysports, and Foxjr2 MUBI and Disney. No way would I pay for all these myself. Indeed I would keep only BFI player and MUBI if forced to
You've picked the right two there.
I would ditch Netflix, except the 8yo watches a lot of (very good) content on there; where would we be without Inbestigators? We all watch something from Disney (she's a massive Star Wars fan, plus the Disney movies). I watch a lot of B&W British B-movies from the 50s and 60s on Amazon, and it is essentially free with Prime which I see as removing next-day-delivery fees as its primary purpose.
The Johnson defence being peddled by his lapdogs really falls apart if he receives another FPN.
So we seem to be in a holding pattern to see if and when another FPN lands on the door of no 10.
We aren't in a holding pattern. On Thursday the Tory party is going to have to say what Boris did was fine.
And then (in all likelihood) the Met police are going to move on to the other parties and start issuing more fines (remember only a few events have so far been investigated to the point that FPNs have been issued).
Is the motion tomorrow amendable? If so, isn't it likely to get amended into something that means essentially "wait for Sue Grey"?
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason. Of course, all politicians have an element of this, so what abouters have plenty to play with, the difference with Boris is the absolute consistency with which he does it all the time and has no boundaries in doing so. We have seen but a fraction of the danger of this approach.
So, look at his steadfast Ukraine support through this lens. Why did Boris take this position? High moral purpose? Like hell. Or was it the only he position he could take to defend from the fact that, having quietly dismantled the previous (themselves porous) boundaries, he has courted the oligarch ruble without limit. And not only that, his advantage lies in finding a way to quietly maintain that flow of rubles into Tory coffers to spend on re-election. And those looking to distance themselves from Putin or evade sanction will be happy to help. So, Boris's support for Ukraine has to be seen as pure Cakeism, a defence that "don't be ridiculous, nobody could have done more" whenever these questions come back to the fore.
If that sounds deeply cynical, what in Boris's behaviour, his jinking sorry, not sorry apologies, has ever disabused me of that. What is there to make me think my thinking on Boris's Ukraine position is unfair? Nothing, that's what.
Yes. It's terrible to have to be so cynical - I really dislike habitual 'man of the world' cynicism - but Johnson forces it. Your take on him is spot on. Any other is strictly for fools or partisans.
Our foreign policy on an issue of the magnitude of Ukraine isn't based on Boris's political needs, it is based on what America tells us to do. Even the fact that Boris has been more enthusiastic in his provision of weapons to Ukraine than the US at times is likely to have been on their say so. Floating ideas and measuring the response etc. Otherwise they'd have told him to get back in his box. Differences are presentational.
My instinctive reaction is that you just wrote some tinfoil-hatted nonsense. But just in case you do have a point lingering somewhere, what evidence do you put forward for that?
Personally, I might put the government's reactions towards Russia over the last few years down to their attacks on us, rather than us following American orders.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
Maybe the problem is that the idea of a non work gathering with people from work in a work setting is just totally ridiculous. So the cabinet meeting was a work setting until the Mrs brings a cake in at which everybody should apparently have fled?
The police are damned lucky this nonsense is not being challenged in the courts.
As ridiculous as the two women walking along (allowed) holding a coffee each (not allowed).
Them was the rules, as we all can't quite fucking believe now. And they were cheered on by plenty, including those here on the mighty PB.
Indeed. It was a grim time on PB, seeing the curtain twitching and the snitching. Who can forget the pearl clutching about London Fields and Bournemouth beach?
Never again.
Ah, yes, Bournemouth beach - a complete non-story cooked up by the media with misleading foreshortened photos and a grandstanding council leader who rightly got chucked out shortly afterwards,
Netflix is doomed. No way they can compete with Amazon and Disney long term
It's not Amazon that is the problem - it's Disney. They carefully prepared the ground over 10 years, tested their Marvel propositions on Netflix, used Amazon as a channel for movie sales of their back catalog, at comparatively low-quality, acquired Star Wars and the Fox/Searchlight film and tv catalog, and when they were ready, launched a proposition targeted across the whole family demographic, with new 4k transfers of their prime properties, landing squarely on Netflix's turf.
Myself and the boys share subscriptions. I have Netflix and BFI player, Foxjr1 has Skysports, and Foxjr2 MUBI and Disney. No way would I pay for all these myself. Indeed I would keep only BFI player and MUBI if forced to
You've picked the right two there.
I would ditch Netflix, except the 8yo watches a lot of (very good) content on there; where would we be without Inbestigators? We all watch something from Disney (she's a massive Star Wars fan, plus the Disney movies). I watch a lot of B&W British B-movies from the 50s and 60s on Amazon, and it is essentially free with Prime which I see as removing next-day-delivery fees as its primary purpose.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
You are trashing your own credibility as comprehensively as Boris has trashed his.
Although I disagree with @Sandpit he isn't one who blindly follows a party line so it is useful to hear a counter argument from someone who isn't a sheep. I must admit I have posted a few things that haven't attracted universal favour.
Ok, but when it gets to the point of pointing out that water is wet....
Netflix is doomed. No way they can compete with Amazon and Disney long term
It's not Amazon that is the problem - it's Disney. They carefully prepared the ground over 10 years, tested their Marvel propositions on Netflix, used Amazon as a channel for movie sales of their back catalog, at comparatively low-quality, acquired Star Wars and the Fox/Searchlight film and tv catalog, and when they were ready, launched a proposition targeted across the whole family demographic, with new 4k transfers of their prime properties, landing squarely on Netflix's turf.
Myself and the boys share subscriptions. I have Netflix and BFI player, Foxjr1 has Skysports, and Foxjr2 MUBI and Disney. No way would I pay for all these myself. Indeed I would keep only BFI player and MUBI if forced to
You've picked the right two there.
I would ditch Netflix, except the 8yo watches a lot of (very good) content on there; where would we be without Inbestigators? We all watch something from Disney (she's a massive Star Wars fan, plus the Disney movies). I watch a lot of B&W British B-movies from the 50s and 60s on Amazon, and it is essentially free with Prime which I see as removing next-day-delivery fees as its primary purpose.
Is MUBI just films?
Yes, and they have content cycling in and out - if you miss it, you've missed it. It is trying to create "conversation" rather like "live TV" but with a longer window.
Netflix is doomed. No way they can compete with Amazon and Disney long term
It's not Amazon that is the problem - it's Disney. They carefully prepared the ground over 10 years, tested their Marvel propositions on Netflix, used Amazon as a channel for movie sales of their back catalog, at comparatively low-quality, acquired Star Wars and the Fox/Searchlight film and tv catalog, and when they were ready, launched a proposition targeted across the whole family demographic, with new 4k transfers of their prime properties, landing squarely on Netflix's turf.
Myself and the boys share subscriptions. I have Netflix and BFI player, Foxjr1 has Skysports, and Foxjr2 MUBI and Disney. No way would I pay for all these myself. Indeed I would keep only BFI player and MUBI if forced to
You've picked the right two there.
I would ditch Netflix, except the 8yo watches a lot of (very good) content on there; where would we be without Inbestigators? We all watch something from Disney (she's a massive Star Wars fan, plus the Disney movies). I watch a lot of B&W British B-movies from the 50s and 60s on Amazon, and it is essentially free with Prime which I see as removing next-day-delivery fees as its primary purpose.
Netflix is doomed. No way they can compete with Amazon and Disney long term
It's not Amazon that is the problem - it's Disney. They carefully prepared the ground over 10 years, tested their Marvel propositions on Netflix, used Amazon as a channel for movie sales of their back catalog, at comparatively low-quality, acquired Star Wars and the Fox/Searchlight film and tv catalog, and when they were ready, launched a proposition targeted across the whole family demographic, with new 4k transfers of their prime properties, landing squarely on Netflix's turf.
Myself and the boys share subscriptions. I have Netflix and BFI player, Foxjr1 has Skysports, and Foxjr2 MUBI and Disney. No way would I pay for all these myself. Indeed I would keep only BFI player and MUBI if forced to
You've picked the right two there.
I would ditch Netflix, except the 8yo watches a lot of (very good) content on there; where would we be without Inbestigators? We all watch something from Disney (she's a massive Star Wars fan, plus the Disney movies). I watch a lot of B&W British B-movies from the 50s and 60s on Amazon, and it is essentially free with Prime which I see as removing next-day-delivery fees as its primary purpose.
Is MUBI just films?
Yes, quite a few shorts too.
It seems to stream better than BFI, but both show much more interesting films than seen on Netflix etc. The only good thing that I have seen on Netflix recently was Boiling Point.
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason. Of course, all politicians have an element of this, so what abouters have plenty to play with, the difference with Boris is the absolute consistency with which he does it all the time and has no boundaries in doing so. We have seen but a fraction of the danger of this approach.
So, look at his steadfast Ukraine support through this lens. Why did Boris take this position? High moral purpose? Like hell. Or was it the only he position he could take to defend from the fact that, having quietly dismantled the previous (themselves porous) boundaries, he has courted the oligarch ruble without limit. And not only that, his advantage lies in finding a way to quietly maintain that flow of rubles into Tory coffers to spend on re-election. And those looking to distance themselves from Putin or evade sanction will be happy to help. So, Boris's support for Ukraine has to be seen as pure Cakeism, a defence that "don't be ridiculous, nobody could have done more" whenever these questions come back to the fore.
If that sounds deeply cynical, what in Boris's behaviour, his jinking sorry, not sorry apologies, has ever disabused me of that. What is there to make me think my thinking on Boris's Ukraine position is unfair? Nothing, that's what.
Yes. It's terrible to have to be so cynical - I really dislike habitual 'man of the world' cynicism - but Johnson forces it. Your take on him is spot on. Any other is strictly for fools or partisans.
Our foreign policy on an issue of the magnitude of Ukraine isn't based on Boris's political needs, it is based on what America tells us to do. Even the fact that Boris has been more enthusiastic in his provision of weapons to Ukraine than the US at times is likely to have been on their say so. Floating ideas and measuring the response etc. Otherwise they'd have told him to get back in his box. Differences are presentational.
The West/US/NATO/Justice League seem to be carefully calibrating the arms deliveries to Ukraine. They want just enough to stop a politically uncomfortable level of Ukrainians getting killed and bleed out the Russian military but not enough to push the Russians so far back that they get really dickhurt and do something unpredictably mad.
There's a "real buzz" in LOTO and Southside around the idea of Ed Balls standing in Wakefield, says a senior Labour source...
Party figures think he'd bring a "big beast factor" to the by-election and a "big brain" to the Labour benches
I don't get all the affection for Ed Balls TBH. He arguably damaged Miliband's leadership from 2013 onwards as Steve Richards pointed out at the time. With the benefit of hindsight it might have actually been better if Balls had lost his seat in 2010 and then Yvette Cooper had been leader from 2010-15 instead of Miliband, she might have been a trickier opponent for Cameron.
Nothing to do with Brexit. Nothing to do with Spanish exporters refusing to try and get their produce into the UK, after repeatedly seeing their produce rot and have to be fed to French pigs. Pay no attention to the heaving shelves on the continent.
Just believe harder. Unicorns are coming.
It’s not like tomatoes are essential.
Not much lettuce either.
Good news for salad dodging, gammon munching Brexiteers!
Netflix is doomed. No way they can compete with Amazon and Disney long term
It's not Amazon that is the problem - it's Disney. They carefully prepared the ground over 10 years, tested their Marvel propositions on Netflix, used Amazon as a channel for movie sales of their back catalog, at comparatively low-quality, acquired Star Wars and the Fox/Searchlight film and tv catalog, and when they were ready, launched a proposition targeted across the whole family demographic, with new 4k transfers of their prime properties, landing squarely on Netflix's turf.
Myself and the boys share subscriptions. I have Netflix and BFI player, Foxjr1 has Skysports, and Foxjr2 MUBI and Disney. No way would I pay for all these myself. Indeed I would keep only BFI player and MUBI if forced to
You've picked the right two there.
I would ditch Netflix, except the 8yo watches a lot of (very good) content on there; where would we be without Inbestigators? We all watch something from Disney (she's a massive Star Wars fan, plus the Disney movies). I watch a lot of B&W British B-movies from the 50s and 60s on Amazon, and it is essentially free with Prime which I see as removing next-day-delivery fees as its primary purpose.
Is MUBI just films?
Yes, and they have content cycling in and out - if you miss it, you've missed it. It is trying to create "conversation" rather like "live TV" but with a longer window.
Thanks, I find films both too long and short at the same time nowadays. I rarely want to spend two consecutive hours watching TV (well non sport TV anyway), but also prefer the deeper characterisation you get from a series.
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason. Of course, all politicians have an element of this, so what abouters have plenty to play with, the difference with Boris is the absolute consistency with which he does it all the time and has no boundaries in doing so. We have seen but a fraction of the danger of this approach.
So, look at his steadfast Ukraine support through this lens. Why did Boris take this position? High moral purpose? Like hell. Or was it the only he position he could take to defend from the fact that, having quietly dismantled the previous (themselves porous) boundaries, he has courted the oligarch ruble without limit. And not only that, his advantage lies in finding a way to quietly maintain that flow of rubles into Tory coffers to spend on re-election. And those looking to distance themselves from Putin or evade sanction will be happy to help. So, Boris's support for Ukraine has to be seen as pure Cakeism, a defence that "don't be ridiculous, nobody could have done more" whenever these questions come back to the fore.
If that sounds deeply cynical, what in Boris's behaviour, his jinking sorry, not sorry apologies, has ever disabused me of that. What is there to make me think my thinking on Boris's Ukraine position is unfair? Nothing, that's what.
Yes. It's terrible to have to be so cynical - I really dislike habitual 'man of the world' cynicism - but Johnson forces it. Your take on him is spot on. Any other is strictly for fools or partisans.
Our foreign policy on an issue of the magnitude of Ukraine isn't based on Boris's political needs, it is based on what America tells us to do. Even the fact that Boris has been more enthusiastic in his provision of weapons to Ukraine than the US at times is likely to have been on their say so. Floating ideas and measuring the response etc. Otherwise they'd have told him to get back in his box. Differences are presentational.
The West/US/NATO/Justice League seem to be carefully calibrating the arms deliveries to Ukraine. They want just enough to stop a politically uncomfortable level of Ukrainians getting killed and bleed out the Russian military but not enough to push the Russians so far back that they get really dickhurt and do something unpredictably mad.
....whilst telling them to nearest inch where the Russian kit is.
The Germans meanwhile are carefully calibrating so they don't actually send anything to Ukraine.
There's a "real buzz" in LOTO and Southside around the idea of Ed Balls standing in Wakefield, says a senior Labour source...
Party figures think he'd bring a "big beast factor" to the by-election and a "big brain" to the Labour benches
I don't get all the affection for Ed Balls TBH. He arguably damaged Miliband's leadership from 2013 onwards as Steve Richards pointed out at the time. With the benefit of hindsight it might have actually been better if Balls had lost his seat in 2010 and then Yvette Cooper had been leader from 2010-15 instead of Miliband, she might have been a trickier opponent for Cameron.
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason. Of course, all politicians have an element of this, so what abouters have plenty to play with, the difference with Boris is the absolute consistency with which he does it all the time and has no boundaries in doing so. We have seen but a fraction of the danger of this approach.
So, look at his steadfast Ukraine support through this lens. Why did Boris take this position? High moral purpose? Like hell. Or was it the only he position he could take to defend from the fact that, having quietly dismantled the previous (themselves porous) boundaries, he has courted the oligarch ruble without limit. And not only that, his advantage lies in finding a way to quietly maintain that flow of rubles into Tory coffers to spend on re-election. And those looking to distance themselves from Putin or evade sanction will be happy to help. So, Boris's support for Ukraine has to be seen as pure Cakeism, a defence that "don't be ridiculous, nobody could have done more" whenever these questions come back to the fore.
If that sounds deeply cynical, what in Boris's behaviour, his jinking sorry, not sorry apologies, has ever disabused me of that. What is there to make me think my thinking on Boris's Ukraine position is unfair? Nothing, that's what.
Yes. It's terrible to have to be so cynical - I really dislike habitual 'man of the world' cynicism - but Johnson forces it. Your take on him is spot on. Any other is strictly for fools or partisans.
Our foreign policy on an issue of the magnitude of Ukraine isn't based on Boris's political needs, it is based on what America tells us to do. Even the fact that Boris has been more enthusiastic in his provision of weapons to Ukraine than the US at times is likely to have been on their say so. Floating ideas and measuring the response etc. Otherwise they'd have told him to get back in his box. Differences are presentational.
I agree with the point we are peripheral to the Ukraine war. And there's no doubt in my mind that Johnson views it purely through the lens of his political survival.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
You are trashing your own credibility as comprehensively as Boris has trashed his.
Although I disagree with @Sandpit he isn't one who blindly follows a party line so it is useful to hear a counter argument from someone who isn't a sheep. I must admit I have posted a few things that haven't attracted universal favour.
Ok, but when it gets to the point of pointing out that water is wet....
Not having a go at you Peter. It would have been better if I had posted that direct to Sandpit. It would have been very hypocritical if it had been directed at your post considering l am the last to let go if I disagree with someone. Just look at some of my mammoth arguments. I'm the world's worst.
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason. Of course, all politicians have an element of this, so what abouters have plenty to play with, the difference with Boris is the absolute consistency with which he does it all the time and has no boundaries in doing so. We have seen but a fraction of the danger of this approach.
So, look at his steadfast Ukraine support through this lens. Why did Boris take this position? High moral purpose? Like hell. Or was it the only he position he could take to defend from the fact that, having quietly dismantled the previous (themselves porous) boundaries, he has courted the oligarch ruble without limit. And not only that, his advantage lies in finding a way to quietly maintain that flow of rubles into Tory coffers to spend on re-election. And those looking to distance themselves from Putin or evade sanction will be happy to help. So, Boris's support for Ukraine has to be seen as pure Cakeism, a defence that "don't be ridiculous, nobody could have done more" whenever these questions come back to the fore.
If that sounds deeply cynical, what in Boris's behaviour, his jinking sorry, not sorry apologies, has ever disabused me of that. What is there to make me think my thinking on Boris's Ukraine position is unfair? Nothing, that's what.
Yes. It's terrible to have to be so cynical - I really dislike habitual 'man of the world' cynicism - but Johnson forces it. Your take on him is spot on. Any other is strictly for fools or partisans.
Our foreign policy on an issue of the magnitude of Ukraine isn't based on Boris's political needs, it is based on what America tells us to do. Even the fact that Boris has been more enthusiastic in his provision of weapons to Ukraine than the US at times is likely to have been on their say so. Floating ideas and measuring the response etc. Otherwise they'd have told him to get back in his box. Differences are presentational.
I agree with the point we are peripheral to the Ukraine war. And there's no doubt in my mind that Johnson views it purely through the lens of his political survival.
Everyone is peripheral to the war, except Russia and Ukraine. We are pretty bloody important though subject to that, and Johnson has turned in a solid performance on all fronts except refugees which hurts out overall score very badly (but is arguably Patel's fault more than his)
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
Their share price was off 20% at one point yesterday. The fragmentation of the streaming industry is going to be bad for all competitors, and the need for original content is going to be the trump card in future.
Quite why Netflix now thinks that throwing millions at Mr and Mrs Sussex is the way to achieve that, is another question.
From that thread about their 'world class data science'... They noticed 3 key things:
1. The British version of House of Cards was a hit.
2. Films with Kevin Spacey were, too...
They were an innovator on their own back then. Now they're scrapping in the gutter with everyone else.
Two things they should do:
Tighten up significantly on shared accounts Offer an annual pass at similar to todays prices, but bump up monthly by 10%+ per year or so to deal with people choosing to do 4 months with netflix, 4 month with amazon, 4 months with dsiney/apple on rotation and get all the content over a year for the price of 3.
Netflix is barely worth the subscription fee now, as I was saying the other day. iPlayer is superior I think (although I still subscribe to both, plus Prime).
Disney+ is utter garbage. Apple has just two good shows. So they have both been binned.
Disagree. All the channels have one or two must-see things. It's difficult to distinguish. Even iPlayer although less, imo, than the others. Disney and Apple I don't do, that said.
There are 2 programmes on Disney + which are well worth watching: "The Dropout" about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos and "Dopesick" about the US's opioid scandal.
The Johnson defence being peddled by his lapdogs really falls apart if he receives another FPN.
So we seem to be in a holding pattern to see if and when another FPN lands on the door of no 10.
We aren't in a holding pattern. On Thursday the Tory party is going to have to say what Boris did was fine.
And then (in all likelihood) the Met police are going to move on to the other parties and start issuing more fines (remember only a few events have so far been investigated to the point that FPNs have been issued).
Is the motion tomorrow amendable? If so, isn't it likely to get amended into something that means essentially "wait for Sue Grey"?
The motion Johnson is in is probably not amendable...
Is it a good street though? Could be a competition amongst world leaders - my street has an embassy on it, whilst his has a dunkin donuts...they clearly like him more.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
Maybe the problem is that the idea of a non work gathering with people from work in a work setting is just totally ridiculous. So the cabinet meeting was a work setting until the Mrs brings a cake in at which everybody should apparently have fled?
The police are damned lucky this nonsense is not being challenged in the courts.
As ridiculous as the two women walking along (allowed) holding a coffee each (not allowed).
Them was the rules, as we all can't quite fucking believe now. And they were cheered on by plenty, including those here on the mighty PB.
They were indeed absurd and irrational. Only the common sense of most police officers in interpreting them judiciously (in the main) stopped them from falling into disrepute before they did.
Which rather brings home, once again, that the offence here is lying about it to the HoC. That is unacceptable.
It is an interesting point. Just like the two women with the coffee it is perfectly feasible that even the PM thought that a cake for a few minutes sprung on him couldn't possibly constitute a breach of the rules. So I get it that he genuinely thinks he didn't lie to the HoC.
But something is rotten about the process. Because he should have known so the answer to the question of whether he was a liar or an idiot is that he was the latter. And still gets cheered to the rafters by as @rottenborough notes the very MPs who voted for those rules.
I think that in the establishment of many of the rules, there was a nudge and a wink that people were expected to break them, just like people go over 70 on the motorway. I read a speech of Boris's at the time the rules came in saying 'be sensible in the way you interpret the rules' or something, and I knew the intention was for the rule to be privately bent, sensibly when the occasion demanded. This was always the way I handled the rules - in lockdown one I was surrounded by miles of beautiful walks, and it was Summer. Did I restrict myself to one outdoor exercise walk a day? Bollocks did I. However, there is another type of person who has a way more rigid interpretation of the rules, and I don't think Boris took that into account. In this instance, Scotland and England are quite different too - as soon as you drive into Scotland you notice far more frequent speed traps (for example).
In England the law was never one outdoor exercise only. But when I went out on one of need three or four bike rides per day I had the law on my phone in my pocket in case the police stopped me. Similarly to the example SKS gave yesterday.
There's a "real buzz" in LOTO and Southside around the idea of Ed Balls standing in Wakefield, says a senior Labour source...
Party figures think he'd bring a "big beast factor" to the by-election and a "big brain" to the Labour benches
I don't get all the affection for Ed Balls TBH. He arguably damaged Miliband's leadership from 2013 onwards as Steve Richards pointed out at the time. With the benefit of hindsight it might have actually been better if Balls had lost his seat in 2010 and then Yvette Cooper had been leader from 2010-15 instead of Miliband, she might have been a trickier opponent for Cameron.
Ed Balls achieved national treasure status on Strictly and, as that blond chap off HIGNFY shows, a little telly goes a long way in politics. When Balls was a minister, the public did not take to him but that was a generation ago.
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason. Of course, all politicians have an element of this, so what abouters have plenty to play with, the difference with Boris is the absolute consistency with which he does it all the time and has no boundaries in doing so. We have seen but a fraction of the danger of this approach.
So, look at his steadfast Ukraine support through this lens. Why did Boris take this position? High moral purpose? Like hell. Or was it the only he position he could take to defend from the fact that, having quietly dismantled the previous (themselves porous) boundaries, he has courted the oligarch ruble without limit. And not only that, his advantage lies in finding a way to quietly maintain that flow of rubles into Tory coffers to spend on re-election. And those looking to distance themselves from Putin or evade sanction will be happy to help. So, Boris's support for Ukraine has to be seen as pure Cakeism, a defence that "don't be ridiculous, nobody could have done more" whenever these questions come back to the fore.
If that sounds deeply cynical, what in Boris's behaviour, his jinking sorry, not sorry apologies, has ever disabused me of that. What is there to make me think my thinking on Boris's Ukraine position is unfair? Nothing, that's what.
Yes. It's terrible to have to be so cynical - I really dislike habitual 'man of the world' cynicism - but Johnson forces it. Your take on him is spot on. Any other is strictly for fools or partisans.
Our foreign policy on an issue of the magnitude of Ukraine isn't based on Boris's political needs, it is based on what America tells us to do. Even the fact that Boris has been more enthusiastic in his provision of weapons to Ukraine than the US at times is likely to have been on their say so. Floating ideas and measuring the response etc. Otherwise they'd have told him to get back in his box. Differences are presentational.
My instinctive reaction is that you just wrote some tinfoil-hatted nonsense. But just in case you do have a point lingering somewhere, what evidence do you put forward for that?
Personally, I might put the government's reactions towards Russia over the last few years down to their attacks on us, rather than us following American orders.
Payback for polonium and Novichok is a bitch, huh, Vlad?
I hope everything we send Ukraine has a nice picture of Salisbury cathedral fastened to it.
There's a "real buzz" in LOTO and Southside around the idea of Ed Balls standing in Wakefield, says a senior Labour source...
Party figures think he'd bring a "big beast factor" to the by-election and a "big brain" to the Labour benches
I don't get all the affection for Ed Balls TBH. He arguably damaged Miliband's leadership from 2013 onwards as Steve Richards pointed out at the time. With the benefit of hindsight it might have actually been better if Balls had lost his seat in 2010 and then Yvette Cooper had been leader from 2010-15 instead of Miliband, she might have been a trickier opponent for Cameron.
Ed Balls achieved national treasure status on Strictly and, as that blond chap off HIGNFY shows, a little telly goes a long way in politics. When Balls was a minister, the public did not take to him but that was a generation ago.
He's since developed a fulsome media career.
Also, is the current champion of Best Celebrity Home Cook – which is not an easy contest to win by any means. The field was remarkably strong. Balls was Mary Berry's favourite.
Scott Rose @rprose · 4h A small but growing number of senior Kremlin insiders are quietly questioning Putin's decision to go to war. So far, these people see no chance he'll change course and no prospect of any challenge to him at home
There's a "real buzz" in LOTO and Southside around the idea of Ed Balls standing in Wakefield, says a senior Labour source...
Party figures think he'd bring a "big beast factor" to the by-election and a "big brain" to the Labour benches
I don't get all the affection for Ed Balls TBH. He arguably damaged Miliband's leadership from 2013 onwards as Steve Richards pointed out at the time. With the benefit of hindsight it might have actually been better if Balls had lost his seat in 2010 and then Yvette Cooper had been leader from 2010-15 instead of Miliband, she might have been a trickier opponent for Cameron.
Ed Balls achieved national treasure status on Strictly and, as that blond chap off HIGNFY shows, a little telly goes a long way in politics. When Balls was a minister, the public did not take to him but that was a generation ago.
He's since developed a fulsome media career.
Also, is the current champion of Best Celebrity Home Cook – which is not an easy contest to win by any means. The field was remarkably strong. Balls was Mary Berry's favourite.
And everyone loves a great cook.
I can't imagine Ed Balls will have as much fun back in Westminster as he had being tasered by an American cop.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
You are trashing your own credibility as comprehensively as Boris has trashed his.
Although I disagree with @Sandpit he isn't one who blindly follows a party line so it is useful to hear a counter argument from someone who isn't a sheep. I must admit I have posted a few things that haven't attracted universal favour.
Sandpit is looking at this from outside, and from outside his points make total sense.
But from the inside, people are thinking "he didn't care about his own rules".
It's all about the narrative. There's a reason why the birthday gathering didn't become a story when it was reported the day after it happened.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
You are trashing your own credibility as comprehensively as Boris has trashed his.
Although I disagree with @Sandpit he isn't one who blindly follows a party line so it is useful to hear a counter argument from someone who isn't a sheep. I must admit I have posted a few things that haven't attracted universal favour.
Ok, but when it gets to the point of pointing out that water is wet....
Except that water isn't wet. Water makes things wet...
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
Maybe the problem is that the idea of a non work gathering with people from work in a work setting is just totally ridiculous. So the cabinet meeting was a work setting until the Mrs brings a cake in at which everybody should apparently have fled?
The police are damned lucky this nonsense is not being challenged in the courts.
It had to be specifically essential for work.
Bullshit.
They had to be essentially there for work, the law never said a single damned thing about every single action while at essential work being essential.
How many nurses/doctors/teachers/care and other essential key workers went viral making Twitter/TikTok/Facebook etc dancing videos etc during the pandemic in their uniform at work. Were they all fined? Did they break the law?
Its total bollocks. Staying after work to party was against the law, having a slice of cake or singing happy birthday (or making a video for TikTok or whatever) during work was not.
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
The story is that the Prime Minister lied in office. Broke the law in office. Not cake. Reasonably happy that when right-wingers stop putting up straw men "this is the story" distractions that other countries also agree the need for honesty and legality and propriety in public office.
Direct question - do YOU agree the need for honesty and legality and propriety in public office? If the answer is yes why are you supporting the opposite view?
Complete gulf in effort, class and quality at Anfield tonight.
Liverpool went d3cades between winning the First Division and the Premier League. I’ve felt for a while that United May be in for a similar length of wait for their next top flight title. Too much structurally wrong at the club, including how the owners see the club. How sad...
The great thing for Man U fans is that there is another more successful team in their city that they can support
Scott Rose @rprose · 4h A small but growing number of senior Kremlin insiders are quietly questioning Putin's decision to go to war. So far, these people see no chance he'll change course and no prospect of any challenge to him at home
Complete gulf in effort, class and quality at Anfield tonight.
Liverpool went d3cades between winning the First Division and the Premier League. I’ve felt for a while that United May be in for a similar length of wait for their next top flight title. Too much structurally wrong at the club, including how the owners see the club. How sad...
The great thing for Man U fans is that there is another more successful team in their city that they can support
On the new thread which we cannot comment on in it, I would say the risk of voting for an inquiry is it extends the issue in the headlines. The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on.
As for the Green vote being available for Labour to squeeze, don't forget the Tories also have ReformUK to squeeze too
'The PM and Chancellor have been fined and apologised, we are now out of restrictions anyway, for Tory MPs move on'.
The only way they are going to move on with this attitude is to extinction
Where are the values of honesty and integrity - they need to get a backbone and realise ordinary voters hold these values in high esteem
The latest polls still have the Tories on 32 to 34%. Hardly extinction and indeed still significantly higher than they were polling in the final period of the Major and May governments and indeed than Labour were polling in the final years of the Brown government
Do you think the Big Man should go? Or is all well just a nine minute party what's all the fuss about.
Right now, the only decided issue on which the PM has been found to have done anything wrong, is indeed his birthday cake, which he knew nothing about until his wife and a junior member of staff produced at the start of a meeting.
The alleged misleading of Parliament, relies on this event being called a ‘party’, when he was asked about parties in general more than a year later, with no mention of this specific event in the public domain beforehand.
If there are more serious offences in reports to come, then fair enough, but right now it just appears to be a distraction from more important things going on in the world - political opponents and journalists getting ever more hyperbolic, doesn’t change the facts of the case.
How many times do we have to explain that the rules were not about parties, but non work gatherings? You have an unusual blind spot on this, your other posts are consistently logical and accurate whether agreed with or not.
I just think that this story illustrates brilliantly all that is wrong with modern politics, with everyone looking for a ‘gotcha’ rather than advancing arguments. I don’t even particularly like the guy, but it appears that I’m one of very few willing to defend him on this.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
The story is that the Prime Minister lied in office. Broke the law in office. Not cake. Reasonably happy that when right-wingers stop putting up straw men "this is the story" distractions that other countries also agree the need for honesty and legality and propriety in public office.
Direct question - do YOU agree the need for honesty and legality and propriety in public office? If the answer is yes why are you supporting the opposite view?
His timeline is wrong anyway; the garden photograph emerged on 19 December, Stratton video 7 December. Which buggers his entire narrative.
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason. Of course, all politicians have an element of this, so what abouters have plenty to play with, the difference with Boris is the absolute consistency with which he does it all the time and has no boundaries in doing so. We have seen but a fraction of the danger of this approach.
So, look at his steadfast Ukraine support through this lens. Why did Boris take this position? High moral purpose? Like hell. Or was it the only he position he could take to defend from the fact that, having quietly dismantled the previous (themselves porous) boundaries, he has courted the oligarch ruble without limit. And not only that, his advantage lies in finding a way to quietly maintain that flow of rubles into Tory coffers to spend on re-election. And those looking to distance themselves from Putin or evade sanction will be happy to help. So, Boris's support for Ukraine has to be seen as pure Cakeism, a defence that "don't be ridiculous, nobody could have done more" whenever these questions come back to the fore.
If that sounds deeply cynical, what in Boris's behaviour, his jinking sorry, not sorry apologies, has ever disabused me of that. What is there to make me think my thinking on Boris's Ukraine position is unfair? Nothing, that's what.
Yes. It's terrible to have to be so cynical - I really dislike habitual 'man of the world' cynicism - but Johnson forces it. Your take on him is spot on. Any other is strictly for fools or partisans.
Our foreign policy on an issue of the magnitude of Ukraine isn't based on Boris's political needs, it is based on what America tells us to do. Even the fact that Boris has been more enthusiastic in his provision of weapons to Ukraine than the US at times is likely to have been on their say so. Floating ideas and measuring the response etc. Otherwise they'd have told him to get back in his box. Differences are presentational.
What a shock that Putinguy1983 thinks us standing up to Russia is us just following America's orders.
Ignoring the fact that Britain took the lead in supporting Ukraine before America did. Ignoring the fact that Biden had to be convinced to support Ukraine more, not the other way around. Ignoring the fact that Russia has repeatedly used chemical attacks on British soil in recent years.
Yes its all because we're doing what America says.
Get your head out of Putin's ass for five minutes.
Scott Rose @rprose · 4h A small but growing number of senior Kremlin insiders are quietly questioning Putin's decision to go to war. So far, these people see no chance he'll change course and no prospect of any challenge to him at home
How kind of them to share their views with Mr Rose and Bloomberg........
What is more likely? Senior Kremlin insiders risking death for a Bloomberg article, or a journalist doing a Johnson with his sourcing?
I can't be arsed to get all huffly puffly about defamation law, but that is an incredibly serious allegation to make against an identifiable journalist on the sole basis that Johnson is Johnson, therefore so is everyone else. I think you should withdraw it.
Scott Rose @rprose · 4h A small but growing number of senior Kremlin insiders are quietly questioning Putin's decision to go to war. So far, these people see no chance he'll change course and no prospect of any challenge to him at home
Scott Rose @rprose · 4h A small but growing number of senior Kremlin insiders are quietly questioning Putin's decision to go to war. So far, these people see no chance he'll change course and no prospect of any challenge to him at home
Hasn't that been going on for some time. Didn't some Ukrainians 'emigrate' voluntarily to the Far East? And/or didn't Stalin (or the Tsars) send some there?
....whilst telling them to nearest inch where the Russian kit is.
The Germans meanwhile are carefully calibrating so they don't actually send anything to Ukraine.
I'm starting to wonder if the Germans are actually going to rearm, or is that more hot air as well?
So you really want them to? There is a reason why they haven't before now.
The Germans massively disarmed since the end of the cold war. The Americans, among others in NATO, having been pushing hard for them to re-arm. For years.
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason. Of course, all politicians have an element of this, so what abouters have plenty to play with, the difference with Boris is the absolute consistency with which he does it all the time and has no boundaries in doing so. We have seen but a fraction of the danger of this approach.
So, look at his steadfast Ukraine support through this lens. Why did Boris take this position? High moral purpose? Like hell. Or was it the only he position he could take to defend from the fact that, having quietly dismantled the previous (themselves porous) boundaries, he has courted the oligarch ruble without limit. And not only that, his advantage lies in finding a way to quietly maintain that flow of rubles into Tory coffers to spend on re-election. And those looking to distance themselves from Putin or evade sanction will be happy to help. So, Boris's support for Ukraine has to be seen as pure Cakeism, a defence that "don't be ridiculous, nobody could have done more" whenever these questions come back to the fore.
If that sounds deeply cynical, what in Boris's behaviour, his jinking sorry, not sorry apologies, has ever disabused me of that. What is there to make me think my thinking on Boris's Ukraine position is unfair? Nothing, that's what.
Yes. It's terrible to have to be so cynical - I really dislike habitual 'man of the world' cynicism - but Johnson forces it. Your take on him is spot on. Any other is strictly for fools or partisans.
Our foreign policy on an issue of the magnitude of Ukraine isn't based on Boris's political needs, it is based on what America tells us to do. Even the fact that Boris has been more enthusiastic in his provision of weapons to Ukraine than the US at times is likely to have been on their say so. Floating ideas and measuring the response etc. Otherwise they'd have told him to get back in his box. Differences are presentational.
My instinctive reaction is that you just wrote some tinfoil-hatted nonsense. But just in case you do have a point lingering somewhere, what evidence do you put forward for that?
Personally, I might put the government's reactions towards Russia over the last few years down to their attacks on us, rather than us following American orders.
When the UK Government six months ago wanted to buy back Nazanin (with the Iranians' tank money), the US State Department refused to allow them to. It was our money, and our prisoner. The 'No' wasn't even because they believed it would be spent on weapons or some such, it was because they wanted their man out too, and the Iranians wouldn't add him to the deal. So they canned the idea, and Nazanin remained imprisoned.
That's just the most recent example. If they can veto something so comparatively trivial, what on earth makes you think that there is any meaningful independence in British foreign policy? Barring the Trumpite interregnum (when Trump himself was against the American establishment), can you find any recent foreign policy stances we've taken on anything that have been at odds with US positions? I can't. Is that because they're such good chaps they just happen to agree with us do you think?
Partygate is not a side issue because it goes to the core of why Johnson does everything he does politically, for pure personal advantage or amusement and no other reason. Of course, all politicians have an element of this, so what abouters have plenty to play with, the difference with Boris is the absolute consistency with which he does it all the time and has no boundaries in doing so. We have seen but a fraction of the danger of this approach.
So, look at his steadfast Ukraine support through this lens. Why did Boris take this position? High moral purpose? Like hell. Or was it the only he position he could take to defend from the fact that, having quietly dismantled the previous (themselves porous) boundaries, he has courted the oligarch ruble without limit. And not only that, his advantage lies in finding a way to quietly maintain that flow of rubles into Tory coffers to spend on re-election. And those looking to distance themselves from Putin or evade sanction will be happy to help. So, Boris's support for Ukraine has to be seen as pure Cakeism, a defence that "don't be ridiculous, nobody could have done more" whenever these questions come back to the fore.
If that sounds deeply cynical, what in Boris's behaviour, his jinking sorry, not sorry apologies, has ever disabused me of that. What is there to make me think my thinking on Boris's Ukraine position is unfair? Nothing, that's what.
Yes. It's terrible to have to be so cynical - I really dislike habitual 'man of the world' cynicism - but Johnson forces it. Your take on him is spot on. Any other is strictly for fools or partisans.
Our foreign policy on an issue of the magnitude of Ukraine isn't based on Boris's political needs, it is based on what America tells us to do. Even the fact that Boris has been more enthusiastic in his provision of weapons to Ukraine than the US at times is likely to have been on their say so. Floating ideas and measuring the response etc. Otherwise they'd have told him to get back in his box. Differences are presentational.
My instinctive reaction is that you just wrote some tinfoil-hatted nonsense. But just in case you do have a point lingering somewhere, what evidence do you put forward for that?
Personally, I might put the government's reactions towards Russia over the last few years down to their attacks on us, rather than us following American orders.
When the UK Government six months ago wanted to buy back Nazanin (with the Iranians' tank money), the US State Department refused to allow them to. It was our money, and our prisoner. The 'No' wasn't even because they believed it would be spent on weapons or some such, it was because they wanted their man out too, and the Iranians wouldn't add him to the deal. So they canned the idea, and Nazanin remained imprisoned.
That's just the most recent example. If they can veto something so comparatively trivial, what on earth makes you think that there is any meaningful independence in British foreign policy? Barring the Trumpite interregnum (when Trump himself was against the American establishment), can you find any recent foreign policy stances we've taken on anything that have been at odds with US positions? I can't. Is that because they're such good chaps they just happen to agree with us do you think?
Cf Grenada. And Reagan's treatment of Thatcher over it.
Comments
This isn't because he is or isn't guilty of breaching section 121.13.1 paragraph B.
It is because he partied in lockdown. That No10 was a non-stop conga line is now part of the non-political world - people make jokes about it in non-political conversation.
If he'd stuck to awkward Zoom quizzes, and told whoever produced the cake - "nice idea, but I can't" - then he would be fine.
But he didn't. So he isn't.
Consider the timeline here:
1.There was a story that on one day during the pandemic, a number of people who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outdoors at the end of a sunny day where their boss thanked them for their hard work. They were invited to bring their own refreshments.
2. This was a technical breach of the regulations in force at the time, which did not allow ‘non-work gatherings’.
3. The PM was asked in Parliament if there were any more such gatherings, to which he replied that there were not.
4. Someone then noted that, on his birthday 18 months earlier, when he was just out of hospital and recovering from Covid himself, his wife ambushed a meeting to present him with a cake for nine minutes.
5. On the basis of event 4, people are now saying that his response in 3 makes him a lying liar who needs to resign forthwith.
6. The media (who have had a terrible pandemic, including multiple actual parties of their own, mentioning no names Kay Burley), and his political opponents, think this is the most important thing going on in the world at the moment, to the point that the PM was reported to have considered cancelling an important trip to India taking place today. They are, with ever more hyperbolic language, saying that he’s a lying liar who should resign, and are hoping to keep the story running until the formal report on such incidents is released.
7. There is, as with anything in politics at the moment, a strong Brexit-related undercurrent to all this, especially within the media. They are continuing to report poor economic data such as inflation, as if it were exclusively a British issue, when the whole developed world is seeing the same problems.
There’s many things on which I have and would criticise the PM, but this whole politically-motivated charade definitely isn’t one of them.
As Zoe Strimpel commented in the Telegraph yesterday, other countries are looking on astonished at this story. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/17/sorry-remainiacs-britain-far-laughing-stock-world/
So we seem to be in a holding pattern to see if and when another FPN lands on the door of no 10.
Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ
Conservative lead over Labour on economy
Dec 2019 = 32 pts
Mar 2020 = 39 pts
Jun 2020 = 20 pts
Sep 2020 = 15 pts
Dec 2020 = 16 pts
Mar 2021 = 20 pts
Jun 2021 = 22 pts
Sep 2021 = 19 pts
Dec 2021 = 10 pts
Jan 2022 = 6 pts
Feb 2022 = 3 pts
Mar 2022 = 9 pts
Apr 2022 = 0 pts
YouGov
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1516453063904665610
The PM wants to live in a world where he is never wrong, never has to apologise, and can make up anything he likes and sell it to us. I don't think we should accept that.
When what actually happened, is that Johnson was ambushed by a cake on his birthday, and his team who had been working together indoors all day, gathered outside for half an hour after work one evening.
It’s not the PM that’s lying here.
Note that where there were definitely conga lines is in hospitals - there’s loads of video evidence of it, it was celebrated at the time.
Everyone who doesn’t like the guy, is trying to bring generalities into a very specific situation.
(Right, work beckons - will be back later to see if I’m still in a minority of one).
Edit: just seen Mikes update about the vanilla problem. Glad it’s not just me
Personally I wouldn't have had much of a problem with Mrs J coming in with a birthday cake at the end of a genuine meeting, particularly if there was some evidence that someone significant at the meeting had said something like 'we really shouldn't do this, you know', but there's apparently no evidence of that happening,
And anyway, blah blah blah. he is a fat lying shitbag. NZR, Arcuri, wallpaper. He needs to go, and in the extremely unlikely event of oyu being right and this being a serious miscarriage of justice, I can live with that
Anyway the Attorney General has presumably run a rule over this. She is useless as you'd expect of a Johnson appointee, but she probably has reliable underlings who have passed the FPNs as kosher
That is what we were living under. As was Boris.
To clarify: not just nobody but you on here but nobody in the Cabinet?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-61155735
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/20/france-emmanuel-macron-president-far-right-marine-le-pen
If Netflix makes stuff people want to watch, it will survive.
The problem with all of them is the content is a mile wide and an inch deep. Very few things left to watch if you have binged them for a couple of weeks. Go check it out - there is very little content of wide application and a mountain of "Who the fuck watches this shit???"
Never again.
Plus I have shelled out for Apocalypse Now Final Cut. Completely different experience on a big TV in HD
This goes all the way back to the leaked video statement with Stratton joking about parties, and the PM's statement about it in the House.
Are today's apologist really telling us that the running joke around the PM's office related only to a ten minute cake break ?
And then (in all likelihood) the Met police are going to move on to the other parties and start issuing more fines (remember only a few events have so far been investigated to the point that FPNs have been issued).
I would ditch Netflix, except the 8yo watches a lot of (very good) content on there; where would we be without Inbestigators? We all watch something from Disney (she's a massive Star Wars fan, plus the Disney movies). I watch a lot of B&W British B-movies from the 50s and 60s on Amazon, and it is essentially free with Prime which I see as removing next-day-delivery fees as its primary purpose.
Personally, I might put the government's reactions towards Russia over the last few years down to their attacks on us, rather than us following American orders.
It seems to stream better than BFI, but both show much more interesting films than seen on Netflix etc. The only good thing that I have seen on Netflix recently was Boiling Point.
The Germans meanwhile are carefully calibrating so they don't actually send anything to Ukraine.
4️⃣8️⃣
7️⃣5️⃣
quordle.com
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟨⬜🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟨
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
Top tip: reduce the agonising decisions in your day to day life by one, by using the wordle result as the starter for quordle
Modern life is rubbish.
Stupidly went for an unlikely possibility - when the much more likely outcome was staring me in the face!
Wordle 305 3/6
🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I hope everything we send Ukraine has a nice picture of Salisbury cathedral fastened to it.
Also, is the current champion of Best Celebrity Home Cook – which is not an easy contest to win by any means. The field was remarkably strong. Balls was Mary Berry's favourite.
And everyone loves a great cook.
@rprose
·
4h
A small but growing number of senior Kremlin insiders are quietly questioning Putin's decision to go to war. So far, these people see no chance he'll change course and no prospect of any challenge to him at home
https://twitter.com/rprose/status/1516646471642365957
https://twitter.com/tomhfh/status/1516708267011055618?s=21&t=ut6gerWKJGRakA52e9hYEA
But from the inside, people are thinking "he didn't care about his own rules".
It's all about the narrative. There's a reason why the birthday gathering didn't become a story when it was reported the day after it happened.
Wordle 305 4/6*
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
They had to be essentially there for work, the law never said a single damned thing about every single action while at essential work being essential.
How many nurses/doctors/teachers/care and other essential key workers went viral making Twitter/TikTok/Facebook etc dancing videos etc during the pandemic in their uniform at work. Were they all fined? Did they break the law?
Its total bollocks. Staying after work to party was against the law, having a slice of cake or singing happy birthday (or making a video for TikTok or whatever) during work was not.
Direct question - do YOU agree the need for honesty and legality and propriety in public office? If the answer is yes why are you supporting the opposite view?
What is more likely? Senior Kremlin insiders risking death for a Bloomberg article, or a journalist doing a Johnson with his sourcing?
Ignoring the fact that Britain took the lead in supporting Ukraine before America did.
Ignoring the fact that Biden had to be convinced to support Ukraine more, not the other way around.
Ignoring the fact that Russia has repeatedly used chemical attacks on British soil in recent years.
Yes its all because we're doing what America says.
Get your head out of Putin's ass for five minutes.
🇺🇦citizens are sent to🇷🇺's "economically depressed regions" as N regions, Sakhalin island; banned from leaving🇷🇺for 2 y,–🇺🇦's representative to the UN at UN Sec.Council
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1516719380201357313
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/russia-likely-has-local-air-superiority-donbas-it-may-not-matter
TL;DR: RU airforce has at least three major flaws which means they will struggle in Donbas.
The German Chancellor has been caught by the opposition stalling on sending arms to Ukraine.
The reason they haven't is pandering to your beloved Russia and chasing money, not because we or the Americans don't want them to.
West Germany was spending 3% of GDP on defence until the end of the Cold War.
That's just the most recent example. If they can veto something so comparatively trivial, what on earth makes you think that there is any meaningful independence in British foreign policy? Barring the Trumpite interregnum (when Trump himself was against the American establishment), can you find any recent foreign policy stances we've taken on anything that have been at odds with US positions? I can't. Is that because they're such good chaps they just happen to agree with us do you think?
Boris out, Keir in, before the country caves in.
@JohnRentoul
·
1m
PM almost begs Starmer to ask about something else