Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
And still a refusal to face into the issue that anyone supporting this government is personally supporting criminality and lying and impropriety.
Of course Starmer has done exactly the same. He broke the law just as seriously with photos of him drinking beer in a gathering with others. He also "inadvertently misled" Parliament yesterday it seems. Drakeford and Sturgeon also broke their own rules too.
But you don't care about any of that, do you?
If he broke the law, why do the police say that he broke the law?
As for misleading parliament by quoting the front page lead of the Daily Torygraph ...
The Police said they were not going to investigate Starmer and the others, which is exactly the same as the response they had initially with Downing Street too. The difference is that the Police very belatedly did investigate Downing Street after months of media pressure and the Sue Gray referral - the same wasn't done with pictures of Starmer drinking beer.
You've been repeatedly referring to photos of Boris with beer in hand as if that proves everything, when we know full well that there's photos of Starmer with beer in hand too. You don't care about them though, do you?
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote.
Only a Conservative mole would advocate that policy.
Seriously. Madness. And I'm a Remainer.
If ever we were to rejoin the EU it would have to be following a referendum and there's absolutely NO guarantee that the EU would have us back. We would lose all of the opt-out privileges we previously wangled.
Total madness.
It is the method - a total denial of democracy - that I find the mad part.
To me, the failure in British politics is the absence of connection to the people. We need more democracy, not less. I want a Swiss style vote-of-everything. Everything is on the table.
Some then say, what if the Head Count demand a referendum on the death penalty?
To the terror of many, I say "Let it happen".
To me, JA Froude was right. "Constitutions are made for men, not men for constitutions".
A "living constitution" (and similar laws) is the *current* settled will of the people. They are not there to bar the people from actions.
If you can't get the majority to ban the death penalty, then you have a choice between the death penalty and democracy.
And that is why you fudge it. Seriously. We have a well documented case study in ancient Athens, and I can promise you Athens would have voted for the Holocaust
In fact there's a test for you. You happy for a democratically mandated holocaust?
Then you need to stand up and say "No democracy today"
Not "I am protecting democracy from democracy".
I'd also note that the number of genocides in modern Switzerland seems on the low side. A country where the Germans, French and Italians live to together in harmony. With a common vision of the future.
The protection against genocide is not in the laws. It is in the culture and customs of the people as a group. See the reaction of the Dutch to the Hunger Winter.
Switzerland has nothing to do with it, we are talking about IF the vote THEN what do you do about it?
The Athenian assembly explicitly voted for the genocide of Mitylene, so if you are suggesting that highly educated democracies don't do that kind of shit, you are wrong
Switzerland is an example of the most extreme form of vote-for-anything-you-want that I believe exists among the advanced democracies.
The difference between now and then, is that back then, slaughtering the inhabitants of a city state was a conceivable action in war. Conceivable, as in the sense of "some barbarians would do this".
The reason we don't do Mitylene is because the common, accepted norms of war have moved vastly away from that kind of action.
Russia has signed up to all the human rights treaties. Russian law is full of human rights, legal protections... and they are busy creating "facts on the ground" as we type.
The protection for human rights, in a democracy, is not laws.
It is, for instance, that for the vast majority of the UK population, gay bashing is a horrible thing done by knuts. The laws are the expression of that view.
I think the 20th century went a bit differently in your time stream than it did in mine
Mitylene is absolutely proof against your different standards in those days argument because they voted on the same issue the following day and revoked the decision because it was so horrific. And managed, but only just, to send a second trireme to overtake the genocide one
It leads to many questions, such as: is he being forced into doing this by his army's situation? Does it free his troops for operations elsewhere, or does it tie them up? Is it just a ruse before an attack?
It is likely an attempt at psychological pressure on the remaining Ukrainian defenders holed up there. It is best for Russia if the Ukrainians surrender because that way, there will be no Russian casualties, whereas if they have to fight for it, even with overwhelming numbers, some will die. Plus Russia gets a working steel plant rather than a big pile of rubble.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote. Otherwise he is, apparently, worse than Boris Johnson.
My suggestion that he could try and move policy gradually in a direction, trying to bring the voters with him, is apparently heresy.
I voted Remain and all. But I just can't get my head to work that way - especially the demand for not vote - in parliament or otherwise!
Oh, the demand for no vote is easy to explain - it's the only way to get Rejoin.
It also makes Remoaners the absolute equivalents of Trumpites. Overthrow democracy? Sure. Why not. Have a MAGA hat and a croissant
This false equivalence you keep peddling is unhinged. The fact you use the Remoaner term immediately shows where you’re going! Amidst some of your interesting and fact based posts you also spew out a lot of hysterical nonsense !
"Remoaner" is a term that I've started using again, of a very particular group who are more interested in signalling their opposition to Brexit, and often the current Gov (where I largely agree), than in whether they are lying or not.
Marina Purkiss (must be a performance name, surely?), one of Jeremy Vine's resident rantaloons, is one such. Happy to broadcast anything anti-Boris or anti-Brexit, and doesn't give a fig whether it is true or a lie.
Two things can be true at the same time . No 10 have shown outstanding military support for Ukraine and Johnson is a pathological liar not fit for office .
Tory MPs are currently using 1 as an excuse for 2
It would be much better for all concerned if the PM was not a pathological liar not fit for office while No 10 continue to show outstanding military support for Ukraine
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
And still a refusal to face into the issue that anyone supporting this government is personally supporting criminality and lying and impropriety.
Of course Starmer has done exactly the same. He broke the law just as seriously with photos of him drinking beer in a gathering with others. He also "inadvertently misled" Parliament yesterday it seems. Drakeford and Sturgeon also broke their own rules too.
But you don't care about any of that, do you?
Of course we do; however, it's a matter of scale. And Starmer in particular wasn't in charge of the rules. And all three acknowledged their error; didn't bluster and deny.
IIf you think that Boris Johnson’s parties in Downing Street constitute a serious matter of state, you might want to take a look at what is happening in Germany right now. Olaf Scholz has been caught red-handed misrepresenting facts about weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Behind the scenes, he is busy frustrating efforts to help the country, while pretending to be outraged about Vladimir Putin’s aggression. Double games work until they don’t. His policies are now being exposed by the media. Scholz said on Tuesday that Germany and Ukraine went through a list of weapons deliveries, and that Germany planned to pay for them. Ukraine denied this. It said that there were no weapons on the list that it needed right now. Bild managed to get hold of the list, and was shocked to find that the original list of 48 pages had been shrunk in half. The German defence ministries, on orders from Scholz, had removed all the heavy weapons. … https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/olaf-scholz-is-becoming-putin-s-most-valuable-ally
1) At the end of February Germany's defense industry sends Scholz a long list of all available weapons. 2) Scholz doesn't share the list with Ukraine. 3) Scholz says that there are no more weapons left in Germany to give to Ukraine. 4) Germany's defense industry leakes the list to Ukraine's ambassador. 5) Scholz says that the weapons on the list don't work. 6) The defense industry denies this and leakes the list to the press. 7) Scholz states Ukrainians can't master the weapons in the available time. 8) German defense experts tell the German press that Ukrainians can master the weapons in 2-3 weeks. 9) Scholz says the weapons are needed by NATO and NATO must approve their transfer. 10) NATO officials and German generals deny this. 11) Scholz says no other NATO/EU ally is delivering heavy weapons to Ukraine. 12) The US, UK, Australia, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Turkey, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Romania, Netherlands, etc. publish the lists of heavy weapon they deliver to Ukraine. 13) Under pressure Scholz announces €2 billion for Ukraine's military. 14) German parliamentarians find out that it's really just €1 billion, which won't be available for another 2-3 months, and then Scholz can veto or delay indefinitely every item Ukraine wants to buy. 15) The US, France, Poland, Romania, Japan, the UK and Italy, plus the heads of EU and NATO spend an afternoon trying to talk sense into Scholz. 16) Scholz makes a statement and says Ukraine can have the €1 billion now and order whatever it wants from the list. 17) Ukraine's ambassador says that Scholz removed all the items Ukraine actually wants from the list before giving it to Ukraine and what remains on the list is just a fraction of the €1 billion.
I see Boris took the 320 - complete with refuelling stop in Turkey (flight after that not available on FlightRadar24) - I wonder if the 330 is otherwise engaged?
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
And still a refusal to face into the issue that anyone supporting this government is personally supporting criminality and lying and impropriety.
Of course Starmer has done exactly the same. He broke the law just as seriously with photos of him drinking beer in a gathering with others. He also "inadvertently misled" Parliament yesterday it seems. Drakeford and Sturgeon also broke their own rules too.
But you don't care about any of that, do you?
If he broke the law, why do the police say that he broke the law?
As for misleading parliament by quoting the front page lead of the Daily Torygraph ...
The Police said they were not going to investigate Starmer and the others, which is exactly the same as the response they had initially with Downing Street too. The difference is that the Police very belatedly did investigate Downing Street after months of media pressure and the Sue Gray referral - the same wasn't done with pictures of Starmer drinking beer.
You've been repeatedly referring to photos of Boris with beer in hand as if that proves everything, when we know full well that there's photos of Starmer with beer in hand too. You don't care about them though, do you?
A fabulous piece of whataboutery. You're on record saying the crook must go and I respect that. But you hate yourself for having principles and need to keep trying to find other angles.
If you think Starmer is as guilty as Johnson feel free to start a public campaign to have him brought to justice. You might find it a bit of a lonely place.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote. Otherwise he is, apparently, worse than Boris Johnson.
My suggestion that he could try and move policy gradually in a direction, trying to bring the voters with him, is apparently heresy.
I voted Remain and all. But I just can't get my head to work that way - especially the demand for not vote - in parliament or otherwise!
Oh, the demand for no vote is easy to explain - it's the only way to get Rejoin.
It also makes Remoaners the absolute equivalents of Trumpites. Overthrow democracy? Sure. Why not. Have a MAGA hat and a croissant
This false equivalence you keep peddling is unhinged. The fact you use the Remoaner term immediately shows where you’re going! Amidst some of your interesting and fact based posts you also spew out a lot of hysterical nonsense !
I'm sorry, I can't have you misrepresenting @Leon's posts like that. Unless you can provide concrete evidence of anything "fact based" or "interesting" in his posts I think you should withdraw those outrageous slurs immediately!
There was one last summer I remember about driverless cars.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
And still a refusal to face into the issue that anyone supporting this government is personally supporting criminality and lying and impropriety.
Of course Starmer has done exactly the same. He broke the law just as seriously with photos of him drinking beer in a gathering with others. He also "inadvertently misled" Parliament yesterday it seems. Drakeford and Sturgeon also broke their own rules too.
But you don't care about any of that, do you?
If he broke the law, why do the police say that he broke the law?
As for misleading parliament by quoting the front page lead of the Daily Torygraph ...
The Police said they were not going to investigate Starmer and the others, which is exactly the same as the response they had initially with Downing Street too. The difference is that the Police very belatedly did investigate Downing Street after months of media pressure and the Sue Gray referral - the same wasn't done with pictures of Starmer drinking beer.
You've been repeatedly referring to photos of Boris with beer in hand as if that proves everything, when we know full well that there's photos of Starmer with beer in hand too. You don't care about them though, do you?
A fabulous piece of whataboutery. You're on record saying the crook must go and I respect that. But you hate yourself for having principles and need to keep trying to find other angles.
If you think Starmer is as guilty as Johnson feel free to start a public campaign to have him brought to justice. You might find it a bit of a lonely place.
I do think Boris should go, I also think Starmer is as guilty.
More than one thing can be true at the same time.
The law was so draconian that it seems every leading politician broke it. That should make people stop and consider just how such a draconian law was ever passed and that maybe the law itself was a bad one that should never be repeated - but instead its easier to just harp on about one individual as if that's the only issue here.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
And still a refusal to face into the issue that anyone supporting this government is personally supporting criminality and lying and impropriety.
Of course Starmer has done exactly the same. He broke the law just as seriously with photos of him drinking beer in a gathering with others. He also "inadvertently misled" Parliament yesterday it seems. Drakeford and Sturgeon also broke their own rules too.
But you don't care about any of that, do you?
If he broke the law, why do the police say that he broke the law?
As for misleading parliament by quoting the front page lead of the Daily Torygraph ...
It leads to many questions, such as: is he being forced into doing this by his army's situation? Does it free his troops for operations elsewhere, or does it tie them up? Is it just a ruse before an attack?
It is likely an attempt at psychological pressure on the remaining Ukrainian defenders holed up there. It is best for Russia if the Ukrainians surrender because that way, there will be no Russian casualties, whereas if they have to fight for it, even with overwhelming numbers, some will die. Plus Russia gets a working steel plant rather than a big pile of rubble.
It actually sounds a bit desperate to me - for the Russian side.
It seems clear that the siege has been very porous all the way through. The final defenders escaping would be a bit of a humiliation for Putin & Co.
Historically running a siege effectively required a very well trained, organised and equipped army.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote. Otherwise he is, apparently, worse than Boris Johnson.
My suggestion that he could try and move policy gradually in a direction, trying to bring the voters with him, is apparently heresy.
I voted Remain and all. But I just can't get my head to work that way - especially the demand for not vote - in parliament or otherwise!
Oh, the demand for no vote is easy to explain - it's the only way to get Rejoin.
It also makes Remoaners the absolute equivalents of Trumpites. Overthrow democracy? Sure. Why not. Have a MAGA hat and a croissant
This false equivalence you keep peddling is unhinged. The fact you use the Remoaner term immediately shows where you’re going! Amidst some of your interesting and fact based posts you also spew out a lot of hysterical nonsense !
I'm sorry, I can't have you misrepresenting @Leon's posts like that. Unless you can provide concrete evidence of anything "fact based" or "interesting" in his posts I think you should withdraw those outrageous slurs immediately!
There was one last summer I remember about driverless cars.
Were they going to cause the end of the world perchance? Or had the tech been appropriated from aliens?
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The level of dissonance created by Brexit among the 'chattering classes' has scarred them for a generation. Even with the chance of a returning Labour/Left Coalition government the level of derangement will still be there and place huge pressure on a Starmer led government. It may yet prevent it ever happening. The PB tendency to extrapolate 2 years ahead from current polling is already creating hubristic levels of expectations among some posters.
I have a friend of a friend who is *demanding* that Starmer immediately announces Rejoin. Specifically without any vote. Otherwise he is, apparently, worse than Boris Johnson.
My suggestion that he could try and move policy gradually in a direction, trying to bring the voters with him, is apparently heresy.
I voted Remain and all. But I just can't get my head to work that way - especially the demand for not vote - in parliament or otherwise!
Oh, the demand for no vote is easy to explain - it's the only way to get Rejoin.
It also makes Remoaners the absolute equivalents of Trumpites. Overthrow democracy? Sure. Why not. Have a MAGA hat and a croissant
This false equivalence you keep peddling is unhinged. The fact you use the Remoaner term immediately shows where you’re going! Amidst some of your interesting and fact based posts you also spew out a lot of hysterical nonsense !
I'm sorry, I can't have you misrepresenting @Leon's posts like that. Unless you can provide concrete evidence of anything "fact based" or "interesting" in his posts I think you should withdraw those outrageous slurs immediately!
There was one last summer I remember about driverless cars.
I asked an Albanian Black Cab driver about the driverless car thing. He said it was bollocks.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
And still a refusal to face into the issue that anyone supporting this government is personally supporting criminality and lying and impropriety.
Of course Starmer has done exactly the same. He broke the law just as seriously with photos of him drinking beer in a gathering with others. He also "inadvertently misled" Parliament yesterday it seems. Drakeford and Sturgeon also broke their own rules too.
But you don't care about any of that, do you?
If he broke the law, why do the police say that he broke the law?
As for misleading parliament by quoting the front page lead of the Daily Torygraph ...
Cops in Starmer's pocket. Reds under the bed.
Cops can't be bothered to investigate breaches of the law, until they're obliged to do so. Too much work for them to have investigated them, so they didn't bother with any until pressure forced them to do so with the Downing Street one.
Sadly not only true about Starmer and others breaking lockdown laws, try getting the cops to investigate burglaries and its just as bad. One time it happened to me the Police response was to give me a crime reference number and when I asked them about how they'd investigate it they advised that I should visit neighbouring properties and see if anyone had any CCTV of the incident and if I found any to let them know.
My local GP surgery is still "closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic".
Where would people put the over/under line for how much longer this will continue for?
What are they telling patients to do if they need gp care? Sounds disgraceful.
I wonder how many surgeries are like the one next to mine - they vanished for the pandemic. And are now so used to doing nothing that they've laid off the staff!
Ours was stretched before the pandemic (one surgery for 18,000 folk). They didn’t do bad through the last two years, but now have had two GPs retire. I am nervous for the future. Ultimately they are trying to find different ways to be more efficient. Email requests seem to work well. Ultimately we have too few GPs, too many work part time (why wouldn’t you if it makes sense financially?) Until we get more we will be struggling.
One of my brothers-in-law was a GP. Retired at 58. Before that he only worked 3 days a week.
There's the problem. Plenty of GPs, but spending their time playing golf, rather than in the surgery.
Pay them less, and they'd have to put a proper shift in, and not be able to pack it in early.
Strangely, when I contract for services (as part of business), hours of availability, response times etc are specified.
GPs contracts (on a practise basis) should specify such numbers.
@Leon you shouldn’t take too much inspiration from my day so far! I thought I remembered that the check out time for my apartment was 11, and cretinously forgot to check that until 9:50 this morning when I realised it was a 10 o’clock limit. I hadn’t showered, packed or finished washing up.
I brushed my teeth, got everything I could see rammed into my rucksack, grabbed the last few beers from the fridge, wiped the red wine marks off the sides, got all the rubbish into the bin bag and dashed off. I haven’t really had a chance to check I packed everything yet..
I’ve come down to the bus station in Roses (sadly no bar at this bus station - I had to sneak round the corner to swig one of my San Miguels where nobody could see me!) and I’m heading to a little town call Vilajuïga, from where I’m going to walk the couple of miles to Garriguella, where I’m hoping to find the tortoise sanctuary.
Sadly the weather is awful today, grey and wet.. and apparently the tortoises only like to come out on sunny mornings. But I want to make absolutely sure it’s there (there’s been some conflicting views on where it is online - it’s own Facebook page and website link to each other but to different places on the map!) so if I don’t see them today I can come back on Monday morning (my last day), which is the next forecast sunshine..
I see Boris took the 320 - complete with refuelling stop in Turkey (flight after that not available on FlightRadar24) - I wonder if the 330 is otherwise engaged?
G-XATW has the VVIP interior for getting pissed in whereas ZZ336 is rather more spartan and it's highly likely that some Crab Air comedian has wanked off into the soup.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
And still a refusal to face into the issue that anyone supporting this government is personally supporting criminality and lying and impropriety.
Of course Starmer has done exactly the same. He broke the law just as seriously with photos of him drinking beer in a gathering with others. He also "inadvertently misled" Parliament yesterday it seems. Drakeford and Sturgeon also broke their own rules too.
But you don't care about any of that, do you?
If he broke the law, why do the police say that he broke the law?
As for misleading parliament by quoting the front page lead of the Daily Torygraph ...
The Police said they were not going to investigate Starmer and the others, which is exactly the same as the response they had initially with Downing Street too. The difference is that the Police very belatedly did investigate Downing Street after months of media pressure and the Sue Gray referral - the same wasn't done with pictures of Starmer drinking beer.
You've been repeatedly referring to photos of Boris with beer in hand as if that proves everything, when we know full well that there's photos of Starmer with beer in hand too. You don't care about them though, do you?
A fabulous piece of whataboutery. You're on record saying the crook must go and I respect that. But you hate yourself for having principles and need to keep trying to find other angles.
If you think Starmer is as guilty as Johnson feel free to start a public campaign to have him brought to justice. You might find it a bit of a lonely place.
I do think Boris should go, I also think Starmer is as guilty.
More than one thing can be true at the same time.
The law was so draconian that it seems every leading politician broke it. That should make people stop and consider just how such a draconian law was ever passed and that maybe the law itself was a bad one that should never be repeated - but instead its easier to just harp on about one individual as if that's the only issue here.
It's actually very hard to keep harping on about the national disgrace that is Boris Johnson PM. Takes it out of you. Detracts from the enjoyment and variety of life. But it has to be done.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
@Leon you shouldn’t take too much inspiration from my day so far! I thought I remembered that the check out time for my apartment was 11, and cretinously forgot to check that until 9:50 this morning when I realised it was a 10 o’clock limit. I hadn’t showered, packed or finished washing up.
I brushed my teeth, got everything I could see rammed into my rucksack, grabbed the last few beers from the fridge, wiped the red wine marks off the sides, got all the rubbish into the bin bag and dashed off. I haven’t really had a chance to check I packed everything yet..
I’ve come down to the bus station in Roses (sadly no bar at this bus station - I had to sneak round the corner to swig one of my San Miguels where nobody could see me!) and I’m heading to a little town call Vilajuïga, from where I’m going to walk the couple of miles to Garriguella, where I’m hoping to find the tortoise sanctuary.
Sadly the weather is awful today, grey and wet.. and apparently the tortoises only like to come out on sunny mornings. But I want to make absolutely sure it’s there (there’s been some conflicting views on where it is online - it’s own Facebook page and website link to each other but to different places on the map!) so if I don’t see them today I can come back on Monday morning (my last day), which is the next forecast sunshine..
Your drinking heroics remind me a bit of Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas.
It leads to many questions, such as: is he being forced into doing this by his army's situation? Does it free his troops for operations elsewhere, or does it tie them up? Is it just a ruse before an attack?
It is likely an attempt at psychological pressure on the remaining Ukrainian defenders holed up there. It is best for Russia if the Ukrainians surrender because that way, there will be no Russian casualties, whereas if they have to fight for it, even with overwhelming numbers, some will die. Plus Russia gets a working steel plant rather than a big pile of rubble.
It sounds like an order that can't be carried out. iirc we have learnt that this steel plant has tunnels and exits that go all over the city. Something to do with the Cold War.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
A bit ironic that when so many of our leading politicians have studied PPE that we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
IIf you think that Boris Johnson’s parties in Downing Street constitute a serious matter of state, you might want to take a look at what is happening in Germany right now. Olaf Scholz has been caught red-handed misrepresenting facts about weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Behind the scenes, he is busy frustrating efforts to help the country, while pretending to be outraged about Vladimir Putin’s aggression. Double games work until they don’t. His policies are now being exposed by the media. Scholz said on Tuesday that Germany and Ukraine went through a list of weapons deliveries, and that Germany planned to pay for them. Ukraine denied this. It said that there were no weapons on the list that it needed right now. Bild managed to get hold of the list, and was shocked to find that the original list of 48 pages had been shrunk in half. The German defence ministries, on orders from Scholz, had removed all the heavy weapons. … https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/olaf-scholz-is-becoming-putin-s-most-valuable-ally
That's disgraceful! Anyone on here voting for Olaf Scholz shoud take a serious look at themselves in the mirror.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
To some extent, the Tories still have more Etonians and Wykehamists.
Albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Eton of Scotland.
Overall however the average Tory MP is much less posh than they were 50 years ago and that is even more so post Brexit. Indeed the LD MPs are almost as posh on average as the Tory MPs now (as more of the former come from London and the South and more of the latter from the Redwall)
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
Two points to make about that: 1) When did the US start sending those weapons? Before or after us? 2) The US has a lot more 'fat' in spare weaponry than we do. Their military budget is well over ten times ours; it is therefore 'easier' for them to send a vast amount of material.
I wouldn't bother DA is trolling a little.
He's got his currencies mixed up - the UK number is £350m not $.
The Politico list is incomplete (1 eg of many - 84,000 helmets 31/3 ?), and the important thing is that the Anglosphere and Nordics helped Ukr build professional armed forces from 2010 (ish) on, and heavily from 2014, whilst the likes of Merkel and whoever the French one was were licking Putin's boots and gagging to help him rearm.
Plus the supply of significant weaponry *before* the invasion, keeping the Russkies down for long enough to allow others to reverse-ferret.
@Leon you shouldn’t take too much inspiration from my day so far! I thought I remembered that the check out time for my apartment was 11, and cretinously forgot to check that until 9:50 this morning when I realised it was a 10 o’clock limit. I hadn’t showered, packed or finished washing up.
I brushed my teeth, got everything I could see rammed into my rucksack, grabbed the last few beers from the fridge, wiped the red wine marks off the sides, got all the rubbish into the bin bag and dashed off. I haven’t really had a chance to check I packed everything yet..
I’ve come down to the bus station in Roses (sadly no bar at this bus station - I had to sneak round the corner to swig one of my San Miguels where nobody could see me!) and I’m heading to a little town call Vilajuïga, from where I’m going to walk the couple of miles to Garriguella, where I’m hoping to find the tortoise sanctuary.
Sadly the weather is awful today, grey and wet.. and apparently the tortoises only like to come out on sunny mornings. But I want to make absolutely sure it’s there (there’s been some conflicting views on where it is online - it’s own Facebook page and website link to each other but to different places on the map!) so if I don’t see them today I can come back on Monday morning (my last day), which is the next forecast sunshine..
Your drinking heroics remind me a bit of Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas.
Didn’t feel particularly heroic when I spent most of yesterday in bed, horribly hungover. I couldn’t face a beer until 5!
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
To some extent, the Tories still have more Etonians and Wykehamists.
Albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Eton of Scotland.
Overall however the average Tory MP is much less posh than they were 50 years ago and that is even more so post Brexit. Indeed the LD MPs are almost as posh on average as the Tory MPs now (as more of the former come from London and the South and more of the latter from the Redwall)
By coincidence, I've just been rewatching A Very English Scandal, so am reminded Jeremy Thorpe was another Old Etonian who took a hard line with opponents.
I see Boris took the 320 - complete with refuelling stop in Turkey (flight after that not available on FlightRadar24) - I wonder if the 330 is otherwise engaged?
G-XATW has the VVIP interior for getting pissed in whereas ZZ336 is rather more spartan and it's highly likely that some Crab Air comedian has wanked off into the soup.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
A bit ironic that when so many of our leading politicians have studied PPE that we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
What's more worrying is that many of our leading politicians don't think we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
And the profits from supplying PPE are an example of 'trade' and 'business' working well.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
And still a refusal to face into the issue that anyone supporting this government is personally supporting criminality and lying and impropriety.
Of course Starmer has done exactly the same. He broke the law just as seriously with photos of him drinking beer in a gathering with others. He also "inadvertently misled" Parliament yesterday it seems. Drakeford and Sturgeon also broke their own rules too.
But you don't care about any of that, do you?
If he broke the law, why do the police say that he broke the law?
As for misleading parliament by quoting the front page lead of the Daily Torygraph ...
Cops in Starmer's pocket. Reds under the bed.
Yep. The same giant Blairite conspiracy that the Strictly producers are involved in.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
A bit ironic that when so many of our leading politicians have studied PPE that we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
What's more worrying is that many of our leading politicians don't think we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
And the profits from supplying PPE are an example of 'trade' and 'business' working well.
Its 100% true.
There's an old saying, you can have it good, fast and cheap - but you need to pick two out of three.
During the pandemic we needed PPE fast and good. We got it, but it wasn't cheap. Considering the pandemic was costing billions, that was the right two out of three to go for and that people made a profit from that is business in action.
Without the profit motive, we would not have had the PPE.
Most of the write-down of PPE has come not from 'fraud' but from the fact that the stockpiles purchased now aren't worth what they were paid for at the time, as the price of the goods has come down since they were purchased. Again, that is how the market works.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
To some extent, the Tories still have more Etonians and Wykehamists.
Albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Eton of Scotland.
Overall however the average Tory MP is much less posh than they were 50 years ago and that is even more so post Brexit. Indeed the LD MPs are almost as posh on average as the Tory MPs now (as more of the former come from London and the South and more of the latter from the Redwall)
By coincidence, I've just been rewatching A Very English Scandal, so am reminded Jeremy Thorpe was another Old Etonian who took a hard line with opponents.
There's a fair few Labour frontbenchers who went to grammars and/or very high performing single-sex state schools that are effectively selective. So it's not clear cut. There's not many Labour high fliers who went to top public schools, admittedly, but there are equally few who went to bog-standard sink comps (Red Rayner, careful Ishmael, is the exception not the rule).
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
If someone truly believes that Russia spent millions trying to get influence within the Conservative Party, then they should be congratulating the Conservative Party for having taken the money, and then done exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin desired! Indeed, doing the opposite even whilst the money was being given...
Although IMV it's probably much more complex than that. I do not think all Russian donors who gave money in any western country were doing so under Putin's orders. It's just the way things are done in Russia, and the amounts were trivial to many of them. Some would also be feeling (with good reason) uncertain about their status.
Aside from Brexit, presumably.
And the defence is that oligarchs were trying to buy influence but that is all right because it is separate from the Russian state trying to buy influence? Some neutral observers might think influence-peddling is morally suspect from the off. Notwithstanding that some might be less independent from the Kremlin than advertised.
I think any connection between Brexit and Russia is fairly minor, if it exists at all.
Brexit occurred because the people voted for it; and remain lost the vote (sadly, IMO) because they could not make a good enough case for remaining. If they had made a better case, they would have won.
The sour grapes are just because some Remainers still don't understand why they lost the vote, since they think all sensible people must have voted like them, and so therefore there must be some nefarious explanation - despite no evidence for such being found despite nearly a decade of the most ardent Remainers digging and looking for that non-existent evidence.
As often in modern times the existence of Twitter has helped to further reinforce and radicalise those with these delusions.
And how do you account for the continuing sour grapes on the part of the Brexiteers?
Speaking personally I have no sour grapes because I think Brexit is going well. I think by and large we have what I voted for now.
However there are definite elements of sour grapes within some people who voted for Brexit:
1: There is a perpetually-sour element of society (stereotypical "grumpy old man") that Brexit appealed to. These people are never happier than when complaining, so they're never going to be happy.
2: An element of society ( @RochdalePioneers may fall in this category) that voted for it because it was contrarian to the Tory government policy and they could give the government a kicking. Now the Tory government is doing Brexit, they're appalled at what the Tory government is doing (as they always are) so are unhappy.
3: People who had a specific vision in mind for Brexit and its not "this" Brexit. I personally fell under this category when Theresa May was in charge and was trying to force through the Backstop, I think but am not certain that @Richard_Tyndall may fall in this category now.
I voted for Brexit because I could see the logic that as we did not want to participate in the currency or Schengen or the Army that we would be spun to the outer edges at some point anyway so best do it ourselves than be pushed.
As for Brexit going well, clearly. M20 car park, best in the world.
Yeah its going well. The M20 has long been an on-again, off-again car park even pre-Brexit, that didn't stop the voters of Kent voting for it.
IANAE but it seems to me that the fact that it is once again a car park, not for the first time and not just post-Brexit, might just have something to do with the fact that P&O recently sacked all their staff and now all their ferries are grounded.
Question: if it was. P&O issue why did queues not build when they stopped sailing and then dissipate now whilst they are not sailing?
The queues were only there on that scale when the broken customs computer was offline
I think it was 2 weeks ago that DFDS decided they would stop honouring P&O bookings for failed bookings. That has probably added some hassle to it.
And locals are getting annoyed now - it took a friend 2 hours to get to Canterbury on Sunday when it should have taken 45 minutes because Lorry drivers are doing anything and everything to avoid the M20 and using a different route.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
But without the UK’s active encouragement they would have done far less than they have
Normal service is resumed! I can happily disagree with that.
Which bit? The first two are incontestable facts… the third your position is that the UK has had zero influence on the U.S. on that topic… that doesn’t seem plausible
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
State school ones are just voting lobby fodder. The ones in control are toffs as you very well know.,
Toffs, liars and crooks. Vote Conservative.
The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary and Health Secretary in Cabinet all went to state schools, as did Theresa May and Philip Hammond. The PM and Chancellor in the previous Tory government
And still a refusal to face into the issue that anyone supporting this government is personally supporting criminality and lying and impropriety.
Of course Starmer has done exactly the same. He broke the law just as seriously with photos of him drinking beer in a gathering with others. He also "inadvertently misled" Parliament yesterday it seems. Drakeford and Sturgeon also broke their own rules too.
But you don't care about any of that, do you?
If he broke the law, why do the police say that he broke the law?
As for misleading parliament by quoting the front page lead of the Daily Torygraph ...
Cops in Starmer's pocket. Reds under the bed.
Yep. The same giant Blairite conspiracy that the Strictly producers are involved in.
Oh sweet summer child.
If you think that the cops don't like investigating crimes is a conspiracy then you've been very fortunate never to have been the victim of one and I hope that never changes.
IIf you think that Boris Johnson’s parties in Downing Street constitute a serious matter of state, you might want to take a look at what is happening in Germany right now. Olaf Scholz has been caught red-handed misrepresenting facts about weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Behind the scenes, he is busy frustrating efforts to help the country, while pretending to be outraged about Vladimir Putin’s aggression. Double games work until they don’t. His policies are now being exposed by the media. Scholz said on Tuesday that Germany and Ukraine went through a list of weapons deliveries, and that Germany planned to pay for them. Ukraine denied this. It said that there were no weapons on the list that it needed right now. Bild managed to get hold of the list, and was shocked to find that the original list of 48 pages had been shrunk in half. The German defence ministries, on orders from Scholz, had removed all the heavy weapons. … https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/olaf-scholz-is-becoming-putin-s-most-valuable-ally
That's disgraceful! Anyone on here voting for Olaf Scholz shoud take a serious look at themselves in the mirror.
I think the problem, for some in Germany, is that East Politics has been part of their political persona.
That they defined themselves as good, peaceful, humane, internationalist New Germans (in part), from their absolute belief in peaceful and deeper relations with Russia.
So half going to war with Russia is a cognitive break for some. Bit like BREXIT...
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
"He" is not. The excellent analysis by @StillWaters earlier should clear up your confusion.
So, on one side of the discussion we have both Russia and Ukraine saying that Boris Johnson and the UK are right at the top of Ukraine's supporters.
And on the other side we have people who hate Boris Johnson who say they aren't.
Hmm, I wonder who to believe.
I would argue it’s the UK and Boris Johnson not Boris Johnson and the UK… but that’s a nuanced position
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
To some extent, the Tories still have more Etonians and Wykehamists.
Albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Eton of Scotland.
Overall however the average Tory MP is much less posh than they were 50 years ago and that is even more so post Brexit. Indeed the LD MPs are almost as posh on average as the Tory MPs now (as more of the former come from London and the South and more of the latter from the Redwall)
Fettes is not the Eton of Scotland! It's merely one of a number of post-Arnoldian establishments across the UK designed from the start to decontaminate the offspring of the aspiring middle classes.
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
"He" is not. The excellent analysis by @StillWaters earlier should clear up your confusion.
So, on one side of the discussion we have both Russia and Ukraine saying that Boris Johnson and the UK are right at the top of Ukraine's supporters.
And on the other side we have people who hate Boris Johnson who say they aren't.
Hmm, I wonder who to believe.
I would argue it’s the UK and Boris Johnson not Boris Johnson and the UK… but that’s a nuanced position
That would be fair. I worded it the way I did not for importance but for when I wrote the next sentence I didn't want to imply that the moaners hate the UK, as not all of them do.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
To some extent, the Tories still have more Etonians and Wykehamists.
Albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Eton of Scotland.
Overall however the average Tory MP is much less posh than they were 50 years ago and that is even more so post Brexit. Indeed the LD MPs are almost as posh on average as the Tory MPs now (as more of the former come from London and the South and more of the latter from the Redwall)
Fettes is not the Eton of Scotland! It's merely one of a number of post-Arnoldian establishments across the UK designed from the start to decontaminate the offspring of the aspiring middle classes.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
To some extent, the Tories still have more Etonians and Wykehamists.
Albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Eton of Scotland.
Overall however the average Tory MP is much less posh than they were 50 years ago and that is even more so post Brexit. Indeed the LD MPs are almost as posh on average as the Tory MPs now (as more of the former come from London and the South and more of the latter from the Redwall)
By coincidence, I've just been rewatching A Very English Scandal, so am reminded Jeremy Thorpe was another Old Etonian who took a hard line with opponents.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
To some extent, the Tories still have more Etonians and Wykehamists.
Albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Eton of Scotland.
Overall however the average Tory MP is much less posh than they were 50 years ago and that is even more so post Brexit. Indeed the LD MPs are almost as posh on average as the Tory MPs now (as more of the former come from London and the South and more of the latter from the Redwall)
Fettes is not the Eton of Scotland! It's merely one of a number of post-Arnoldian establishments across the UK designed from the start to decontaminate the offspring of the aspiring middle classes.
So where did the 'Eton of Scotland' thing come from? I have to say I'd never heard of Fettes before Blair came along. Was that phrase just an invention designed to make him seem posh?
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
A bit ironic that when so many of our leading politicians have studied PPE that we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
What's more worrying is that many of our leading politicians don't think we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
And the profits from supplying PPE are an example of 'trade' and 'business' working well.
Its 100% true.
There's an old saying, you can have it good, fast and cheap - but you need to pick two out of three.
During the pandemic we needed PPE fast and good. We got it, but it wasn't cheap. Considering the pandemic was costing billions, that was the right two out of three to go for and that people made a profit from that is business in action.
Without the profit motive, we would not have had the PPE.
Most of the write-down of PPE has come not from 'fraud' but from the fact that the stockpiles purchased now aren't worth what they were paid for at the time, as the price of the goods has come down since they were purchased. Again, that is how the market works.
The people making the profit weren't those producing the PPE but the middlemen, often well connected middlemen, who had been allowed to interpose themselves into the transaction.
In a well functioning market such people get told to sod off, with government procurement they make vast profits for doing sod all.
How do the Tories go into another GE with someone who the public think by a vast majority is a liar .
You will get people who vote Tory inspite of that but the opposition have an open goal . “He lied to you and why would you believe any manifesto pledges or a word he says “.
The Tories don’t have a Corbyn this time to use as a voter repellant .
All this talk of Starmer being dull and lacking charisma . The message to voters by Labour should be yes he’s dull but not a pathological liar !
"This is a courtroom drama where the defendant is an MP and minister (I assume Tory) who is accused of a rape in a lift in the House of Commons. The big question is whether the victim, a researcher, gave consent ...
An underlying theme is the power and influence of those who went to a certain school (no need to state which ONE!)"
There is something both charming & innocent about the LibDems. There really is.
Let us recollect that the most serious scandal of the last few decades ... by some very considerable stretch, as the charge was incitement to murder ... involved a Liberal leader who "went to a certain school".
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
To some extent, the Tories still have more Etonians and Wykehamists.
Albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Eton of Scotland.
Overall however the average Tory MP is much less posh than they were 50 years ago and that is even more so post Brexit. Indeed the LD MPs are almost as posh on average as the Tory MPs now (as more of the former come from London and the South and more of the latter from the Redwall)
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
Ray Mawby, an electrician and TU officer, wasTory MP for Totnes from the mid 50's to the 80's and was regularly trotted out as an example of the wide range of people who supported the Conservative party. IIRC he later got into trouble for working for Czech Communist Government.
He passed on nuggets to the Czech military security through the Cold War.
The only Conservative MP known to have spied on behalf of a Communist Govt.
So somewhat atypical!
Atypical because the others were too clever to get caught?
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
A bit ironic that when so many of our leading politicians have studied PPE that we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
What's more worrying is that many of our leading politicians don't think we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
And the profits from supplying PPE are an example of 'trade' and 'business' working well.
Without the profit motive, we would not have had the PPE. .
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
To some extent, the Tories still have more Etonians and Wykehamists.
Albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Eton of Scotland.
Overall however the average Tory MP is much less posh than they were 50 years ago and that is even more so post Brexit. Indeed the LD MPs are almost as posh on average as the Tory MPs now (as more of the former come from London and the South and more of the latter from the Redwall)
Fettes is not the Eton of Scotland! It's merely one of a number of post-Arnoldian establishments across the UK designed from the start to decontaminate the offspring of the aspiring middle classes.
For the Eton of Scotland, it seems to have been remarkably poor at getting its radicalised old boys (and more recently girls) into the governance of Scotland. I suppose de facto Blair did govern Scotland, but I doubt producing a hand maiden of devolution would be in the manifesto of Fettesinism.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
A bit ironic that when so many of our leading politicians have studied PPE that we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
What's more worrying is that many of our leading politicians don't think we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
And the profits from supplying PPE are an example of 'trade' and 'business' working well.
Its 100% true.
There's an old saying, you can have it good, fast and cheap - but you need to pick two out of three.
During the pandemic we needed PPE fast and good. We got it, but it wasn't cheap. Considering the pandemic was costing billions, that was the right two out of three to go for and that people made a profit from that is business in action.
Without the profit motive, we would not have had the PPE.
Most of the write-down of PPE has come not from 'fraud' but from the fact that the stockpiles purchased now aren't worth what they were paid for at the time, as the price of the goods has come down since they were purchased. Again, that is how the market works.
We spent something more than £500m on PPE that was unusable. I suppose it was fast, but it certainly wasn't cheap or even good enough.
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
A bit ironic that when so many of our leading politicians have studied PPE that we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
What's more worrying is that many of our leading politicians don't think we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
And the profits from supplying PPE are an example of 'trade' and 'business' working well.
Its 100% true.
There's an old saying, you can have it good, fast and cheap - but you need to pick two out of three.
During the pandemic we needed PPE fast and good. We got it, but it wasn't cheap. Considering the pandemic was costing billions, that was the right two out of three to go for and that people made a profit from that is business in action.
Without the profit motive, we would not have had the PPE.
Most of the write-down of PPE has come not from 'fraud' but from the fact that the stockpiles purchased now aren't worth what they were paid for at the time, as the price of the goods has come down since they were purchased. Again, that is how the market works.
The people making the profit weren't those producing the PPE but the middlemen, often well connected middlemen, who had been allowed to interpose themselves into the transaction.
In a well functioning market such people get told to sod off, with government procurement they make vast profits for doing sod all.
Except it was a pandemic and it was not a well functioning market.
Consumption of PPE had gone up 50x over and this was a product that was from memory 99% imported pre-pandemic. Now its from memory 70% domestically produced.
If you think that's all "middle men" then maybe those middle men were actually doing something?
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
To some extent, the Tories still have more Etonians and Wykehamists.
Albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Eton of Scotland.
Overall however the average Tory MP is much less posh than they were 50 years ago and that is even more so post Brexit. Indeed the LD MPs are almost as posh on average as the Tory MPs now (as more of the former come from London and the South and more of the latter from the Redwall)
By coincidence, I've just been rewatching A Very English Scandal, so am reminded Jeremy Thorpe was another Old Etonian who took a hard line with opponents.
There's a fair few Labour frontbenchers who went to grammars and/or very high performing single-sex state schools that are effectively selective. So it's not clear cut. There's not many Labour high fliers who went to top public schools, admittedly, but there are equally few who went to bog-standard sink comps (Red Rayner, careful Ishmael, is the exception not the rule).
It is very easy to throw a smokescreen over private education.
E.g., in University admissions, it is easy to benefit from private education up to GCSEs, and then go to a high performing state sixth form college. If you are admitted to Oxbridge, you will then count as a state school applicant.
What is true is very few people who went to a bog-standard sink comp pull through and become an MP. Those that do (e.g., Rayner or John Prescott) must be remarkable.
Most MPs come from same-y backgrounds, whatever their party label.
"This is a courtroom drama where the defendant is an MP and minister (I assume Tory) who is accused of a rape in a lift in the House of Commons. The big question is whether the victim, a researcher, gave consent ...
An underlying theme is the power and influence of those who went to a certain school (no need to state which ONE!)"
There is something both charming & innocent about the LibDems. There really is.
Let us recollect that the most serious scandal of the last few decades ... by some very considerable stretch, as the charge was incitement to murder ... involved a Liberal leader who "went to a certain school".
Some years after the events referred to I was at a Liberal Conference and Leadership was being discussed. A very nicely spoken elderly lady got up and asked 'why couldn't we just have Jeremy back.'
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
A bit ironic that when so many of our leading politicians have studied PPE that we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
What's more worrying is that many of our leading politicians don't think we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
And the profits from supplying PPE are an example of 'trade' and 'business' working well.
Its 100% true.
There's an old saying, you can have it good, fast and cheap - but you need to pick two out of three.
During the pandemic we needed PPE fast and good. We got it, but it wasn't cheap. Considering the pandemic was costing billions, that was the right two out of three to go for and that people made a profit from that is business in action.
Without the profit motive, we would not have had the PPE.
Most of the write-down of PPE has come not from 'fraud' but from the fact that the stockpiles purchased now aren't worth what they were paid for at the time, as the price of the goods has come down since they were purchased. Again, that is how the market works.
We spent something more than £500m on PPE that was unusable. I suppose it was fast, but it certainly wasn't cheap or even good enough.
Unless people went without the PPE then it was good enough, on aggregate.
Some wastage is entirely to be expected when you're trying to get something in major volumes rapidly.
Trying to ensure there is as close to zero wastage as possible is possible, but that then you need to either sacrifice speed, or cost, or quality.
"This is a courtroom drama where the defendant is an MP and minister (I assume Tory) who is accused of a rape in a lift in the House of Commons. The big question is whether the victim, a researcher, gave consent ...
An underlying theme is the power and influence of those who went to a certain school (no need to state which ONE!)"
There is something both charming & innocent about the LibDems. There really is.
Let us recollect that the most serious scandal of the last few decades ... by some very considerable stretch, as the charge was incitement to murder ... involved a Liberal leader who "went to a certain school".
I found it more interesting that Mike needed to ascribe a party to the wrongdoer when it is not stated
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
I agree the government has been solidly supportive of Ukraine during the current offensive. It wasn't always the case before this year. Including after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014 when Boris Johnson wrote an article criticising the EU and indirectly Ukraine for provoking Russia. The Conservative Party has certainly received a lot of Russian money. This money may not have directly come from Putin, but it never does. The Government tried to suppress a Russia Report that said while there is no identified Russian influence on the 2016 Brexit vote, it was because the government deliberately chose not to investigate (presumably in case someone found something). The UK has a flourishing money laundering business that was (still is?) targeted at Russian oligarchs who have established themselves in all parts of UK society including parliament.
So if there is evidence they are guilty and if there is no evidence they are guilty. Ok then
Russia and the Conservative Party are associated. How much effective influence the first have on the second is unknown because governance is weak and the current government is undermining it further. If they had proper governance in place these Russian actors would be not be close to the Conservative Party as now.
Russians by birth now UK citizens.
But you would exclude them from the full rights and privileges of a British citizen.
How very progressive of you
Bought and sold with Russian Gold, now pretendy Tory Gammons
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
AH! But that just because since they’ve been bought they need to prove their independence by acting direct against Russia’s interests.
I think that was the argument that the anti-Tories were advancing yesterday….
Some were arguing that Boris's fondness for Ukraine is not out of principle (and the much-heralded training began long before Boris was in office) but because he has seized on Putin's invasion as a massive dead cat. Never mind partygate, there's a war on!
The government have been supporting Ukraine from well before partygate. And whilst you are correct that the training started before Boris was in office, it was extended and expanded whilst he was in office - amongst others, in 2019 and 2020. It would have been easy for Boris to cur Operation Orbital off at the knees.
I am not a fan of Boris, but the attempts of some to make him into the devil incarnate are ridiculous. He is a deeply flawed man, and he should not be PM, but even deeply flawed people can make the right decisions for the right reasons.
It's especially rich from those who supported Corbyn's Labour party...
Your argument is weak when your benchmark for success is that a Corbyn Labour Government would be even worse.
The UK's support for Ukraine is admirable, better than some, not as good as others. But this fantasy notion that Johnson is leading the charge and making the running is a fiction, disrespectful to those suffering in and those now out of Ukraine.
Like it or not, Johnson is leading the charge and making the run. That's a matter of fact and Zelenskyy and others have said as much.
"He" is not. The excellent analysis by @StillWaters earlier should clear up your confusion.
So, on one side of the discussion we have both Russia and Ukraine saying that Boris Johnson and the UK are right at the top of Ukraine's supporters.
And on the other side we have people who hate Boris Johnson who say they aren't.
Hmm, I wonder who to believe.
You clearly didn't read the post quoted.
He is not that bright, regularly posts crap. Tory shill.
With Commons leader Mark Spencer confirming Tory MPs will have a free vote on the Labour motion (rather than the 3-line whip they were briefing last night) it means Boris Johnson will almost certainly face a privileges committee investigation into whether he misled the Commons. https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1517086619207090176
How do the Tories go into another GE with someone who the public think by a vast majority is a liar .
You will get people who vote Tory inspite of that but the opposition have an open goal . “He lied to you and why would you believe any manifesto pledges or a word he says “.
The Tories don’t have a Corbyn this time to use as a voter repellant .
All this talk of Starmer being dull and lacking charisma . The message to voters by Labour should be yes he’s dull but not a pathological liar !
Couldnt put it better, who would you rather vote for, Starmer dull but honest and competent, or Johnson, incompetent, workshy, liar, tricky one
"This is a courtroom drama where the defendant is an MP and minister (I assume Tory) who is accused of a rape in a lift in the House of Commons. The big question is whether the victim, a researcher, gave consent ...
An underlying theme is the power and influence of those who went to a certain school (no need to state which ONE!)"
There is something both charming & innocent about the LibDems. There really is.
Let us recollect that the most serious scandal of the last few decades ... by some very considerable stretch, as the charge was incitement to murder ... involved a Liberal leader who "went to a certain school".
Some years after the events referred to I was at a Liberal Conference and Leadership was being discussed. A very nicely spoken elderly lady got up and asked 'why couldn't we just have Jeremy back.'
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
A bit ironic that when so many of our leading politicians have studied PPE that we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
What's more worrying is that many of our leading politicians don't think we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
And the profits from supplying PPE are an example of 'trade' and 'business' working well.
Its 100% true.
There's an old saying, you can have it good, fast and cheap - but you need to pick two out of three.
During the pandemic we needed PPE fast and good. We got it, but it wasn't cheap. Considering the pandemic was costing billions, that was the right two out of three to go for and that people made a profit from that is business in action.
Without the profit motive, we would not have had the PPE.
Most of the write-down of PPE has come not from 'fraud' but from the fact that the stockpiles purchased now aren't worth what they were paid for at the time, as the price of the goods has come down since they were purchased. Again, that is how the market works.
We spent something more than £500m on PPE that was unusable. I suppose it was fast, but it certainly wasn't cheap or even good enough.
A lot wasn't that fast either. Sweetheart contacts were being given out to mates of the government in summer 2020
"This is a courtroom drama where the defendant is an MP and minister (I assume Tory) who is accused of a rape in a lift in the House of Commons. The big question is whether the victim, a researcher, gave consent ...
An underlying theme is the power and influence of those who went to a certain school (no need to state which ONE!)"
There is something both charming & innocent about the LibDems. There really is.
Let us recollect that the most serious scandal of the last few decades ... by some very considerable stretch, as the charge was incitement to murder ... involved a Liberal leader who "went to a certain school".
I found it more interesting that Mike needed to ascribe a party to the wrongdoer when it is not stated
Eton and the Bullingdon. The formbook says Conservative is the way to bet.
No10- scrambling to insist today's motion U-turn is NOT a shambles...
Senior govt source: “The Prime Minister has always been clear that he’s happy to face whatever inquiries Parliament sees fit and is happy for the House to decide how it wishes to proceed"
Lubov Chernukhin wife of ex Putin crony and who has had paid for access to our last 3 PMs with £2m donated to the Tory party turns out to have been a director of a company secretly owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Of course she now can't recall being a director of said company. Her husband received $8m from the same Russian oligarch she can't remember being a director for.
I wonder if the Tory fan boys will continue to say it is racist for links between Putin and Tory funding to be highlighted.
The ridicule is directed at the idea that the Tory party has been bought or influenced by Russian oligarchs when the UK has led the charge in both supporting and training Ukrainian forces. Yesterday the UK was being specifically named as having caused the default on Russian state backed loans by its sanctions regime. Not only is there no evidence of influence but such evidence as there is points in the opposite direction.
About four or five regular posters have called me racist over it in the last year, two of which have been occasional header writers in the past. The search system is not being helpful to quickly find those posts, but this is from BR in response to Scott_xP on Feb 19th this year, which got BR 3 likes making a very similar accusation, anti-immigrant this time, about Scott. If it is really important to you exactly who said what (it is not to me), I can dig through the search but it might take hours to find so I prefer not to unless there is a quicker way of doing it than typing words into the search bar and hoping the right thread pops up on the right page.
"That will be British citizen Vladimir Chernukhin you're talking about? Who left Russia and came to the UK and has lived here since 2004?
Are you suggesting we should treat naturalised citizens in this country as second class citizens who're unable to engage in politics? Are you always so anti-immigrants, should all immigrants be treated as scum in your eyes? Should we deport all immigrants just to prevent anyone from engaging in politics?"
Scott_xP said: .@thesundaytimes’ scoop reveals Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, the former Russian deputy finance minister under Vladimir Putin, donated almost £2m to the Tories since 2012.
The @Conservatives’ addiction to Russian money is endangering our democracy.
Absolutely and I stand by every single word I wrote. Someone who has British citizenship is a British citizen regardless of where they were born and it is thoroughly repugnant and racist to say otherwise. Let alone to say that their wife/husband/children etc are otherwise.
My wife was born overseas and only emigrated to the UK as a young adult. I met her not long after she arrived here as an immigrant and before we were dating I consoled her after she was told by a racist to "go back to where she came from".
Are you saying my wife is not a true Brit because she wasn't born here? Am I not a true Brit because I am married to someone who wasn't born here?
That blood and soil nationalism is racism and there is no other word for it. From the moment someone acquires British citizenship to the moment they lose it (in the unlikely event they do) they are British citizens and to say otherwise is nothing other than racism.
That doesn't mean Britons can't be wrong'uns, plenty are, but if they are they are British wrong'uns not wrong'uns of their nationality at birth.
Is she from Russia and given shedloads to the Tories for favours.
Tories now on a one line whip. It would seem they’ve given up the ghost. Johnson will be the first prime minister in history not just to receive a criminal sanction but to be referred to the Committee of Privileges. https://twitter.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1517087242719801344
How do the Tories go into another GE with someone who the public think by a vast majority is a liar .
You will get people who vote Tory inspite of that but the opposition have an open goal . “He lied to you and why would you believe any manifesto pledges or a word he says “.
The Tories don’t have a Corbyn this time to use as a voter repellant .
All this talk of Starmer being dull and lacking charisma . The message to voters by Labour should be yes he’s dull but not a pathological liar !
When he was elected only 20% thought he was trustworthy or honest.
"This is a courtroom drama where the defendant is an MP and minister (I assume Tory) who is accused of a rape in a lift in the House of Commons. The big question is whether the victim, a researcher, gave consent ...
An underlying theme is the power and influence of those who went to a certain school (no need to state which ONE!)"
There is something both charming & innocent about the LibDems. There really is.
Let us recollect that the most serious scandal of the last few decades ... by some very considerable stretch, as the charge was incitement to murder ... involved a Liberal leader who "went to a certain school".
I found it more interesting that Mike needed to ascribe a party to the wrongdoer when it is not stated
One of the things that made Yes (Prime) Minister so good was that they were very careful not to ascribe a party to Hacker...
How do the Tories go into another GE with someone who the public think by a vast majority is a liar .
You will get people who vote Tory inspite of that but the opposition have an open goal . “He lied to you and why would you believe any manifesto pledges or a word he says “.
The Tories don’t have a Corbyn this time to use as a voter repellant .
All this talk of Starmer being dull and lacking charisma . The message to voters by Labour should be yes he’s dull but not a pathological liar !
Couldnt put it better, who would you rather vote for, Starmer dull but honest and competent, or Johnson, incompetent, workshy, liar, tricky one
8% of people think Johnson hasn't lied. 27% of people think he would make the best Prime Minister.
Understand why that is and you might just work out how to beat him.
It needn't be that the 19% are stupid or evil, in fact it probably isn't. But it's a slice of the population that winning oppositions need to understand so they can speak to them.
I suspect it's a perception that all pols lie, which had some truth in it- but it ignores how much BoJo is far far worse...
I have watched, it is OK as a drama but a bit far fetched. Also out of date, the majority of Tory MPs are not Eton and Oxford educated with glamorous wives living in Belgravia.
Indeed most Tory MPs now went to state schools. As for Oxford it too has changed, the Bullingdon Club has effectively gone extinct and there about as many privately educated pupils at St Andrews, Durham and Edinburgh now as Oxford and Cambridge has more state educated pupils than all of them
I've not seen it, but I do think there's a general tendency to simplify and play up to viewers' caricatures. Bridgerton is a ridiculous pastiche of Jane Austen, but I know people who think that aristocrats really were and are like that. Political dramas portray all politicians as scheming crooks, idiots or fanatics (much like CD13's post upthread). Tories are all Eton-educated toffs. Labour MPs are either smooth careerists or horny-handed trade unionists.
It's hard to complain since these are primarily for entertainment, and really they can portray people any way they like. But it's worth being careful not to swallow the portrayals as having much to do with reality.
Indeed, it is more entertainment than reality.
In the 1950s there was certainly a big class difference between MPs, most Tory MPs were privately educated and often Oxbridge educated as well. Most Labour MPs were state school educated with many having had working class jobs down the mines or on the factory floor.
Now most Labour and Conservative MPs went to state schools, indeed there were almost as many LD MPs who went to private schools as Conservative MPs who did percentage wise after the 2019 general election.
Almost all MPs are middle class and went to university with about a third going to Oxbridge. Indeed class wise MPs of all parties now look more like each other than the rest of the population, with many having been SPADs or researchers after university and rarely stepped outside politics
My rule of thumb is that Tories went to major public schools and Labour to minor public schools.
Not true now.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
But of the ones who did go to public schools, does the major/minor relationship still hold? A quick look at Wikipedia finds a lot of PPE, economists and lawyers, and that is just the Shadow Cabinet.
A bit ironic that when so many of our leading politicians have studied PPE that we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
What's more worrying is that many of our leading politicians don't think we were so ripped off when purchasing it.
And the profits from supplying PPE are an example of 'trade' and 'business' working well.
Its 100% true.
There's an old saying, you can have it good, fast and cheap - but you need to pick two out of three.
During the pandemic we needed PPE fast and good. We got it, but it wasn't cheap. Considering the pandemic was costing billions, that was the right two out of three to go for and that people made a profit from that is business in action.
Without the profit motive, we would not have had the PPE.
Most of the write-down of PPE has come not from 'fraud' but from the fact that the stockpiles purchased now aren't worth what they were paid for at the time, as the price of the goods has come down since they were purchased. Again, that is how the market works.
We spent something more than £500m on PPE that was unusable. I suppose it was fast, but it certainly wasn't cheap or even good enough.
A lot wasn't that fast either. Sweetheart contacts were being given out to mates of the government in summer 2020
Of course, Labour were demanding to know why we weren't doing deals with people who, er, had no PPE.
We ended up with enough PPE. The Govt. did its job. The same people saying we spent too much on dodgy PPE would have been demanding the Government fall if we had actually, you know, run out of PPE. On this aspect of Covid at least, Labour deserve to be called out as shameless political hypocrites.
Comments
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/4/20/2092953/-Ukraine-Update-The-heavy-weapons-spigot-has-finally-opened-for-Ukraine
The Daily Kos is quite a left wing US site, but seems to have quite good military correspondent.
You've been repeatedly referring to photos of Boris with beer in hand as if that proves everything, when we know full well that there's photos of Starmer with beer in hand too. You don't care about them though, do you?
Mitylene is absolutely proof against your different standards in those days argument because they voted on the same issue the following day and revoked the decision because it was so horrific. And managed, but only just, to send a second trireme to overtake the genocide one
Marina Purkiss (must be a performance name, surely?), one of Jeremy Vine's resident rantaloons, is one such. Happy to broadcast anything anti-Boris or anti-Brexit, and doesn't give a fig whether it is true or a lie.
It would be much better for all concerned if the PM was not a pathological liar not fit for office while No 10 continue to show outstanding military support for Ukraine
And all three acknowledged their error; didn't bluster and deny.
1) At the end of February Germany's defense industry sends Scholz a long list of all available weapons.
2) Scholz doesn't share the list with Ukraine.
3) Scholz says that there are no more weapons left in Germany to give to Ukraine.
4) Germany's defense industry leakes the list to Ukraine's ambassador.
5) Scholz says that the weapons on the list don't work.
6) The defense industry denies this and leakes the list to the press.
7) Scholz states Ukrainians can't master the weapons in the available time.
8) German defense experts tell the German press that Ukrainians can master the weapons in 2-3 weeks.
9) Scholz says the weapons are needed by NATO and NATO must approve their transfer.
10) NATO officials and German generals deny this.
11) Scholz says no other NATO/EU ally is delivering heavy weapons to Ukraine.
12) The US, UK, Australia, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Romania, Turkey, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Romania, Netherlands, etc. publish the lists of heavy weapon they deliver to Ukraine.
13) Under pressure Scholz announces €2 billion for Ukraine's military.
14) German parliamentarians find out that it's really just €1 billion, which won't be available for another 2-3 months, and then Scholz can veto or delay indefinitely every item Ukraine wants to buy.
15) The US, France, Poland, Romania, Japan, the UK and Italy, plus the heads of EU and NATO spend an afternoon trying to talk sense into Scholz.
16) Scholz makes a statement and says Ukraine can have the €1 billion now and order whatever it wants from the list.
17) Ukraine's ambassador says that Scholz removed all the items Ukraine actually wants from the list before giving it to Ukraine and what remains on the list is just a fraction of the €1 billion.
https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1516545893805273091?cxt=HHwWhsC53ZKd7YsqAAAA
https://twitter.com/borisjohnson/status/1517013558726430721
If you think Starmer is as guilty as Johnson feel free to start a public campaign to have him brought to justice. You might find it a bit of a lonely place.
Only 44% of current Conservative MPs, 38% of LD MPs and just 19% of Labour MPs went to private schools.
In 1979 by contrast 73% of Conservative MPs, 55% of Liberal MPs and 18% of Labour MPs went to private schools
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7483/
More than one thing can be true at the same time.
The law was so draconian that it seems every leading politician broke it. That should make people stop and consider just how such a draconian law was ever passed and that maybe the law itself was a bad one that should never be repeated - but instead its easier to just harp on about one individual as if that's the only issue here.
It seems clear that the siege has been very porous all the way through. The final defenders escaping would be a bit of a humiliation for Putin & Co.
Historically running a siege effectively required a very well trained, organised and equipped army.
That proposition sounds rather like an investment rather than someone wanting to enjoy success at a football club.
I hope it wins.
Sadly not only true about Starmer and others breaking lockdown laws, try getting the cops to investigate burglaries and its just as bad. One time it happened to me the Police response was to give me a crime reference number and when I asked them about how they'd investigate it they advised that I should visit neighbouring properties and see if anyone had any CCTV of the incident and if I found any to let them know.
GPs contracts (on a practise basis) should specify such numbers.
I brushed my teeth, got everything I could see rammed into my rucksack, grabbed the last few beers from the fridge, wiped the red wine marks off the sides, got all the rubbish into the bin bag and dashed off. I haven’t really had a chance to check I packed everything yet..
I’ve come down to the bus station in Roses (sadly no bar at this bus station - I had to sneak round the corner to swig one of my San Miguels where nobody could see me!) and I’m heading to a little town call Vilajuïga, from where I’m going to walk the couple of miles to Garriguella, where I’m hoping to find the tortoise sanctuary.
Sadly the weather is awful today, grey and wet.. and apparently the tortoises only like to come out on sunny mornings. But I want to make absolutely sure it’s there (there’s been some conflicting views on where it is online - it’s own Facebook page and website link to each other but to different places on the map!) so if I don’t see them today I can come back on Monday morning (my last day), which is the next forecast sunshine..
78% of voters think he has lied
Including 61% of 2019 Tory voters, and 51% of those still saying they would vote Tory
More on @TimesRadio from 10am https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1517041598055526402/photo/1
Albeit Blair went to Fettes, the Eton of Scotland.
Overall however the average Tory MP is much less posh than they were 50 years ago and that is even more so post Brexit. Indeed the LD MPs are almost as posh on average as the Tory MPs now (as more of the former come from London and the South and more of the latter from the Redwall)
He's got his currencies mixed up - the UK number is £350m not $.
The Politico list is incomplete (1 eg of many - 84,000 helmets 31/3 ?), and the important thing is that the Anglosphere and Nordics helped Ukr build professional armed forces from 2010 (ish) on, and heavily from 2014, whilst the likes of Merkel and whoever the French one was were licking Putin's boots and gagging to help him rearm.
Plus the supply of significant weaponry *before* the invasion, keeping the Russkies down for long enough to allow others to reverse-ferret.
Brilliant.
And the profits from supplying PPE are an example of 'trade' and 'business' working well.
Johnny Marr. Absolutely bloody great.
Some people will believe anything. Not even sure he is sorry he was caught, more angry that people are holding him to rules.
There's an old saying, you can have it good, fast and cheap - but you need to pick two out of three.
During the pandemic we needed PPE fast and good. We got it, but it wasn't cheap. Considering the pandemic was costing billions, that was the right two out of three to go for and that people made a profit from that is business in action.
Without the profit motive, we would not have had the PPE.
Most of the write-down of PPE has come not from 'fraud' but from the fact that the stockpiles purchased now aren't worth what they were paid for at the time, as the price of the goods has come down since they were purchased. Again, that is how the market works.
And locals are getting annoyed now - it took a friend 2 hours to get to Canterbury on Sunday when it should have taken 45 minutes because Lorry drivers are doing anything and everything to avoid the M20 and using a different route.
If you think that the cops don't like investigating crimes is a conspiracy then you've been very fortunate never to have been the victim of one and I hope that never changes.
That they defined themselves as good, peaceful, humane, internationalist New Germans (in part), from their absolute belief in peaceful and deeper relations with Russia.
So half going to war with Russia is a cognitive break for some. Bit like BREXIT...
Eton fees are £14,698 per term. Little difference
https://issuu.com/fettes_college/docs/fettes_college_admissions_handbook__0cd7b40c9ea8a3#:~:text=fee structure Session 2021-2022,all meals taken at School.
https://www.etoncollege.com/admissions/fees/
In a well functioning market such people get told to sod off, with government procurement they make vast profits for doing sod all.
You will get people who vote Tory inspite of that but the opposition have an open goal . “He lied to you and why would you believe any manifesto pledges or a word he says “.
The Tories don’t have a Corbyn this time to use as a voter repellant .
All this talk of Starmer being dull and lacking charisma . The message to voters by Labour should be yes he’s dull but not a pathological liar !
An underlying theme is the power and influence of those who went to a certain school (no need to state which ONE!)"
There is something both charming & innocent about the LibDems. There really is.
Let us recollect that the most serious scandal of the last few decades ... by some very considerable stretch, as the charge was incitement to murder ... involved a Liberal leader who "went to a certain school".
I suppose it was fast, but it certainly wasn't cheap or even good enough.
Consumption of PPE had gone up 50x over and this was a product that was from memory 99% imported pre-pandemic. Now its from memory 70% domestically produced.
If you think that's all "middle men" then maybe those middle men were actually doing something?
E.g., in University admissions, it is easy to benefit from private education up to GCSEs, and then go to a high performing state sixth form college. If you are admitted to Oxbridge, you will then count as a state school applicant.
What is true is very few people who went to a bog-standard sink comp pull through and become an MP. Those that do (e.g., Rayner or John Prescott) must be remarkable.
Most MPs come from same-y backgrounds, whatever their party label.
Some wastage is entirely to be expected when you're trying to get something in major volumes rapidly.
Trying to ensure there is as close to zero wastage as possible is possible, but that then you need to either sacrifice speed, or cost, or quality.
......of which 6% are posters on PB and the other 2% are certifiable
https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1517084005669167104
Just shows this 'poison pill' amendment was more poisonous to the PM than Labour
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1517085082145677312
https://twitter.com/BBCVickiYoung/status/1517086228880969728
https://twitter.com/KevinASchofield/status/1517086619207090176
You read it here.
Senior govt source:
“The Prime Minister has always been clear that he’s happy to face whatever inquiries Parliament sees fit and is happy for the House to decide how it wishes to proceed"
https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1517088170399182848
World King.
https://twitter.com/RhonddaBryant/status/1517087242719801344
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/07/23/everything-we-know-about-what-public-think-boris-j
Understand why that is and you might just work out how to beat him.
https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1517068096942583809?t=y23TV0AnG4l0qr-K3V-BSA&s=09
It needn't be that the 19% are stupid or evil, in fact it probably isn't. But it's a slice of the population that winning oppositions need to understand so they can speak to them.
I suspect it's a perception that all pols lie, which had some truth in it- but it ignores how much BoJo is far far worse...
We ended up with enough PPE. The Govt. did its job. The same people saying we spent too much on dodgy PPE would have been demanding the Government fall if we had actually, you know, run out of PPE. On this aspect of Covid at least, Labour deserve to be called out as shameless political hypocrites.