You hate Starmer more for something that never happened than BoZo for all the shit that did.
That is warped.
The attempt to overthrow the Leave vote, by ignoring it, not enacting it, and getting a new vote to overturn it without ever Brexiting, was the most immoral, grotesque and dangerous political endeavour in the history of the modern United Kingdom.
My anger at Johnson has become a re-direction of my regret at wasting a big chunk of my life following a bunch of silly restrictions.
There must be plenty of people who, deep down, know they messed up by not attending that funeral, or hugging their elderly parents, or stopping their children playing with their friends.
Perhaps @DavidL and @Leon were smart/cynical enough to realise this at the time and the "betrayal" isn't as raw for them. It's toxic for those of us who were fool enough to trust the PM.
Aside from that, the Commons is just a laughing stock now (getting to Scottish Parliament levels of impotence).
I suspect this is very much it. Certainly I used whatever loopholes were available to do whatever needed to be done (for example, I was technically eligible for a support bubble so I took full advantage of that, even though my circumstances in no way fitted the intention of the support bubble) - then again, I was fortunate enough that I didn't have any dealings with hospitals or care homes and their policies which far exceeded what was necessary.
I just looked at my phone Photos for November 2020 ... at no stage do any of them look like this. Try it with your photos... if you can find a party with raised glasses you probably were a Tory politician or SPAD .. that's how bad it is https://mobile.twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1528835927279288322
I looked, and found pictures of only two people I don’t live with, for the entire month. FWIW.
Its the whole drinking at work culture which surprises me.
I've not seen any alcohol drunk at my workplace for over 20 years or any work sponsored pub lunches for over 10 years.
I thought this was also the general trend throughout the country.
But not it seems in Downing Street.
Considering how often the bars come up in conversations about politics, I'm surprised at your surprise.
Anyway, I've often had alcohol at work, which makes me struggle to get outraged at either Keir or Boris having the same. I feel sorry that some people are so dry, or so lacking in self-control, that they think alcohol and work can't ever mix.
Unless you're driving of course, that's a different matter. Alcohol and driving don't mix, alcohol and work absolutely can.
The Westminster bars I can understand - the late night sittings, the endless visitors to be entertained, the blokeish atmosphere, the home-away-from-home eating and drinking.
But the drinking while in the office should never have been acceptable and in my experience work sponsored pub and restaurant outings have faded away to leave only the Christmas evening meal remaining (and we've not had those for the last two years because of covid).
But you and others making this argument are guilty of a category error. Politics at a high level - like PM of the UK - just never stops. This is increasingly true with social media and 24/7 news, but it has been true for many decades
Consider the multiple movies and dramas made about Churchill during the Blitz. There are scenes where he is naked in his bath sucking on a cigar and drinking whisky, even as he gives orders to underlings and a Secretary writes down his next speech
Why? Because the work never stopped, so it all blended together. Churchill needed a bath and a cigar and some scotch to relax, but Britain was in a terrible war so the decisions and dilemmas came at him, hourly, and he could not stop entirely
Perhaps a special constable should have marched in and taken the whisky and cigar away and said “You’re not allowed this, Winston, just do your job”?
And of course Number 10 during peak Covid - November-March 2020-21 must have felt like a wartime government
FWIW I agree with @mwadams and Boris’ real sin was lying about this to the Commons. He should have just made my argument. Yes, we drank, because life and work was all of a piece in that terrible time
I think there's a difference between, for example, Thatcher who was a heavy drinker but was always working and on top of the details compared with the current situation where it appears the 'fun' is much more prominent and there's a general slovenly attitude to getting work done.
I’m not sure that’s true. Alcohol has always been closely interwoven with Westminster (perhaps too much, but that’s not my argument)
i can remember when Chancellors would delivery a budget with a tumbler of scotch at the side, in the House, and this was reported as if it was all perfectly normal. I imagine this has now stopped?! But the booze has always been there.
If anything we probably just notice it more because we live in a more censorious and puritan age (outside the home of Boris Johnson)
Gordon Brown stopped it.
Its still permitted. Only during delivery of the budget, but the CofExchq can have a drinky. Not allowed in the chamber any other time
I'm sure I can remember George Osborne having alcohol while delivering the budget and mentioning it. Not sure about any of his successors, and isn't Rishi teetotal anyway?
Boris (per @Cyclefree) could be said to have a legitimate reason for being at the event as it was a "leaving do" and that is something a PM is expected to attend.
However, someone was (apparently) fined for being there. This suggests the police thought it was a party.
No, it doesn't, because the regulations didn't care about parties.
That someone was fined for being there suggests only that police thought that person did not have a reasonable excuse for being present at the gathering.
Ah interesting and yes of course - I'm making the alcohol mistake. Which means that someone might have been passing and popped in and then it was found that they didn't have a reasonable excuse to be there.
Unlike the PM who would have had a reasonable excuse to be there.
I just looked at my phone Photos for November 2020 ... at no stage do any of them look like this. Try it with your photos... if you can find a party with raised glasses you probably were a Tory politician or SPAD .. that's how bad it is https://mobile.twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1528835927279288322
I looked, and found pictures of only two people I don’t live with, for the entire month. FWIW.
Its the whole drinking at work culture which surprises me.
I've not seen any alcohol drunk at my workplace for over 20 years or any work sponsored pub lunches for over 10 years.
I thought this was also the general trend throughout the country.
But not it seems in Downing Street.
Considering how often the bars come up in conversations about politics, I'm surprised at your surprise.
Anyway, I've often had alcohol at work, which makes me struggle to get outraged at either Keir or Boris having the same. I feel sorry that some people are so dry, or so lacking in self-control, that they think alcohol and work can't ever mix.
Unless you're driving of course, that's a different matter. Alcohol and driving don't mix, alcohol and work absolutely can.
The Westminster bars I can understand - the late night sittings, the endless visitors to be entertained, the blokeish atmosphere, the home-away-from-home eating and drinking.
But the drinking while in the office should never have been acceptable and in my experience work sponsored pub and restaurant outings have faded away to leave only the Christmas evening meal remaining (and we've not had those for the last two years because of covid).
But you and others making this argument are guilty of a category error. Politics at a high level - like PM of the UK - just never stops. This is increasingly true with social media and 24/7 news, but it has been true for many decades
Consider the multiple movies and dramas made about Churchill during the Blitz. There are scenes where he is naked in his bath sucking on a cigar and drinking whisky, even as he gives orders to underlings and a Secretary writes down his next speech
Why? Because the work never stopped, so it all blended together. Churchill needed a bath and a cigar and some scotch to relax, but Britain was in a terrible war so the decisions and dilemmas came at him, hourly, and he could not stop entirely
Perhaps a special constable should have marched in and taken the whisky and cigar away and said “You’re not allowed this, Winston, just do your job”?
And of course Number 10 during peak Covid - November-March 2020-21 must have felt like a wartime government
FWIW I agree with @mwadams and Boris’ real sin was lying about this to the Commons. He should have just made my argument. Yes, we drank, because life and work was all of a piece in that terrible time
I think there's a difference between, for example, Thatcher who was a heavy drinker but was always working and on top of the details compared with the current situation where it appears the 'fun' is much more prominent and there's a general slovenly attitude to getting work done.
I’m not sure that’s true. Alcohol has always been closely interwoven with Westminster (perhaps too much, but that’s not my argument)
i can remember when Chancellors would delivery a budget with a tumbler of scotch at the side, in the House, and this was reported as if it was all perfectly normal. I imagine this has now stopped?! But the booze has always been there.
If anything we probably just notice it more because we live in a more censorious and puritan age (outside the home of Boris Johnson)
Your comments are quite right. But wholly irrelevant. You're almost as good as the PM at seeking to divert attention from the issue at hand. Any debate about alcohol and work can be safely postponed for a later date. This is about breaking Covid rules in place at the time by having illegal gatherings (not drinking).
Thatcher and Churchill drank their whisky or whatever blissfully unaware of Covid rules. Johnson didn't.
That begs the question of whether Boris knew what the rules were. He should have known — he probably had a part in devising them, did approve them and even read them out on national television. Any normal Prime Minister would have known the rules but then we remember that press conference where Boris at the lectern said something along the lines of, everyone must stay at home and I am looking forward to visiting my mother.
From Eton via Oxford, newspapers and politics, throughout Boris's life he has acted as if rules do not apply to him. Perhaps this is not calculated defiance but arises because his brain is wired not to recognise rules in the first place.
Former Senator David Perdue ended his campaign for governor of Georgia with a racist appeal to Republican primary voters on Monday, accusing Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee, of “demeaning her own race.” https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1528873446255599617
The truly disgraceful thing is the number of voters who are prepared to support him.
Yep I sat with two people yesterday one of whom has completely turned against Johnson but the other is still in love with him. Two of us were trying to persuade her of a thousand reasons why Boris Johnson is unfit for the office of PM but she still continues to "like Boris".
She's not a graduate and I throw that into the mix with caution because, despite occasionally suggesting otherwise, I don't really like that supercilious 'we know best' attitude. But I think it's pertinent because there's no doubt that Boris is continuing to draw support from non-graduates and those who have failed as yet to see through the magician's sleight of hand. Oh dear, I've just been supercilious. It's hard so don't get angry BR & Co.
It genuinely baffles me how anyone can still support him. And I'd have a lot more respect for the Conservatives if they had not just the bottle but the integrity to remove him.
I often wonder the same about serial philanderers who still manage to convince the next woman that this time they will be faithful. I think some people just really want to believe in Boris because he is, in some way that the rest of us just don't see, charming to a large portion of the population.
I also think there is another sizeable chunk who have no love for the man but see him as a vehicle for their partisan agenda so are happy to overlook the character flaws so long as he is [delivering Brexit; insulting the French; keeping out the migrants]. Unfortunately for him that pragmatic group doesn't now include: cutting taxes; keeping out Corbyn; levelling up; or for that matter "delivering Brexit".
Well indeed I think Boris should be forced out and have said so for about 7 months now but that for me is because he raised taxes and that was a deal-breaker. Had he not done that, I'd be happy for him to stay on, but he did and that's a breach of trust I can't accept.
I think the brouhaha over your guy was drinking alcohol because he's a party animal, my guy was drinking alcohol because he's hard at work campaigning is stupid, hypocritical asinine bullshit that has dominated the public conversation far too much but that doesn't change the fact that Boris should go because he raised taxes.
Everyone has their own red lines and that was my one.
Your red line? Yes. The legal red line? No. Anyone else's red line? Don't be silly.
Yet this is this week's straw man that you have decided will batter all other arguments and posters into submission. Erm, no.
PS I'm not the only poster aggrieved about the taxes issue. I could name at least half a dozen other right-wing economically former Conservative voters who think the same on that, so its hardly unique even if it isn't sufficient on its own.
No you're not, it's true.
However, conflating that with the partying is rather disingenuous. Putting up taxes may piss you off but it doesn't break the law.
It's slightly disturbing that you don't seem to understand the difference.
The Metropolitan Police seem to think that him raising a glass of alcohol at work didn't break the law either, and I expect that Durham Police will find the same thing about his opposite number, so its you that doesn't understand the difference it seems.
Some people are saying its outrageous that the Metropolitan Police didn't fine him for this (and no doubt will find it outrageous if Durham Police do fine their guy) and are saying the Met got it wrong. The Met getting it wrong is certainly possible, they're far from infallible, but if that's the card you want to play then I will say they got it wrong issuing a fine for having cake at work at 1pm. Again, what's sauce for the goose . . . 🤷♂️
I said before the start of this that Boris should go and at the start of this if Boris broke the law its another reason he should go. Since the only fine is for cake, and I think the fine for cake was unreasonable, I don't think "partygate" is a reason for Boris to go. He should still go over taxes though.
The Met issued fines to people at this event. So the event was not legal. So why are you repeating the Peter Bone line that it was legal? You aren't dumb like Peter Bone...
If someone breaks the law at an event, that does not make the event illegal, it means the Police judged the actions of whoever got fined were illegal.
If you and thousands of others go to a concert, but one person who goes to the concert is caught taking or supply drugs by the Police and that individual is fined, then does that make the concert itself an illegal event? No, don't be ridiculous.
Unless we get told why the person who got fined was fined, we don't know what they were fined for, so all we know for certain is the Police believe that they broke the law in some way, not that the event itself was unlawful.
Could yoy upload an mp3 of the sound of one hand clapping? That would clarify things.
Here you go, from when right-on comedians didn't care about "cultural appropriation" it seems, which it seems was only nine years ago.
Former Senator David Perdue ended his campaign for governor of Georgia with a racist appeal to Republican primary voters on Monday, accusing Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee, of “demeaning her own race.” https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1528873446255599617
The truly disgraceful thing is the number of voters who are prepared to support him.
Yep I sat with two people yesterday one of whom has completely turned against Johnson but the other is still in love with him. Two of us were trying to persuade her of a thousand reasons why Boris Johnson is unfit for the office of PM but she still continues to "like Boris".
She's not a graduate and I throw that into the mix with caution because, despite occasionally suggesting otherwise, I don't really like that supercilious 'we know best' attitude. But I think it's pertinent because there's no doubt that Boris is continuing to draw support from non-graduates and those who have failed as yet to see through the magician's sleight of hand. Oh dear, I've just been supercilious. It's hard so don't get angry BR & Co.
It genuinely baffles me how anyone can still support him. And I'd have a lot more respect for the Conservatives if they had not just the bottle but the integrity to remove him.
I often wonder the same about serial philanderers who still manage to convince the next woman that this time they will be faithful. I think some people just really want to believe in Boris because he is, in some way that the rest of us just don't see, charming to a large portion of the population.
I also think there is another sizeable chunk who have no love for the man but see him as a vehicle for their partisan agenda so are happy to overlook the character flaws so long as he is [delivering Brexit; insulting the French; keeping out the migrants]. Unfortunately for him that pragmatic group doesn't now include: cutting taxes; keeping out Corbyn; levelling up; or for that matter "delivering Brexit".
Well indeed I think Boris should be forced out and have said so for about 7 months now but that for me is because he raised taxes and that was a deal-breaker. Had he not done that, I'd be happy for him to stay on, but he did and that's a breach of trust I can't accept.
I think the brouhaha over your guy was drinking alcohol because he's a party animal, my guy was drinking alcohol because he's hard at work campaigning is stupid, hypocritical asinine bullshit that has dominated the public conversation far too much but that doesn't change the fact that Boris should go because he raised taxes.
Everyone has their own red lines and that was my one.
Your red line? Yes. The legal red line? No. Anyone else's red line? Don't be silly.
Yet this is this week's straw man that you have decided will batter all other arguments and posters into submission. Erm, no.
PS I'm not the only poster aggrieved about the taxes issue. I could name at least half a dozen other right-wing economically former Conservative voters who think the same on that, so its hardly unique even if it isn't sufficient on its own.
No you're not, it's true.
However, conflating that with the partying is rather disingenuous. Putting up taxes may piss you off but it doesn't break the law.
It's slightly disturbing that you don't seem to understand the difference.
The Metropolitan Police seem to think that him raising a glass of alcohol at work didn't break the law either, and I expect that Durham Police will find the same thing about his opposite number, so its you that doesn't understand the difference it seems.
Some people are saying its outrageous that the Metropolitan Police didn't fine him for this (and no doubt will find it outrageous if Durham Police do fine their guy) and are saying the Met got it wrong. The Met getting it wrong is certainly possible, they're far from infallible, but if that's the card you want to play then I will say they got it wrong issuing a fine for having cake at work at 1pm. Again, what's sauce for the goose . . . 🤷♂️
I said before the start of this that Boris should go and at the start of this if Boris broke the law its another reason he should go. Since the only fine is for cake, and I think the fine for cake was unreasonable, I don't think "partygate" is a reason for Boris to go. He should still go over taxes though.
The Met issued fines to people at this event. So the event was not legal. So why are you repeating the Peter Bone line that it was legal? You aren't dumb like Peter Bone...
If someone breaks the law at an event, that does not make the event illegal, it means the Police judged the actions of whoever got fined were illegal.
If you and thousands of others go to a concert, but one person who goes to the concert is caught taking or supply drugs by the Police and that individual is fined, then does that make the concert itself an illegal event? No, don't be ridiculous.
Unless we get told why the person who got fined was fined, we don't know what they were fined for, so all we know for certain is the Police believe that they broke the law in some way, not that the event itself was unlawful.
IIRC yesterday Cyclefree said that gatherings cannot intrinsically be either legal or illegal - and she should know.
You may have misunderstood her. frinstance
1.—(1) No person may participate in a gathering in the Tier 1 area which consists of more than six people.
How does that not make a gathering of 7 people intrinsically illegal?
Read just one line further: (2) Sub-paragraph (1) does not apply if any of the exceptions set out in paragraph 3 applies.
Yes, so you run through the exceptions. if none applies the gathering is intrinsically illegal.
Pedantically, is the gathering itself intrinsically illegal, or is the person to whom the law applies the one that is acting illegally as opposed to the gathering?
If a gathering of 7 occurs, 6 of whom have an exception and 1 of whom does not, then has the 1 not broken the law while the 6 are lawfully gathered?
Former Senator David Perdue ended his campaign for governor of Georgia with a racist appeal to Republican primary voters on Monday, accusing Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee, of “demeaning her own race.” https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1528873446255599617
The truly disgraceful thing is the number of voters who are prepared to support him.
Yep I sat with two people yesterday one of whom has completely turned against Johnson but the other is still in love with him. Two of us were trying to persuade her of a thousand reasons why Boris Johnson is unfit for the office of PM but she still continues to "like Boris".
She's not a graduate and I throw that into the mix with caution because, despite occasionally suggesting otherwise, I don't really like that supercilious 'we know best' attitude. But I think it's pertinent because there's no doubt that Boris is continuing to draw support from non-graduates and those who have failed as yet to see through the magician's sleight of hand. Oh dear, I've just been supercilious. It's hard so don't get angry BR & Co.
It genuinely baffles me how anyone can still support him. And I'd have a lot more respect for the Conservatives if they had not just the bottle but the integrity to remove him.
I often wonder the same about serial philanderers who still manage to convince the next woman that this time they will be faithful. I think some people just really want to believe in Boris because he is, in some way that the rest of us just don't see, charming to a large portion of the population.
I also think there is another sizeable chunk who have no love for the man but see him as a vehicle for their partisan agenda so are happy to overlook the character flaws so long as he is [delivering Brexit; insulting the French; keeping out the migrants]. Unfortunately for him that pragmatic group doesn't now include: cutting taxes; keeping out Corbyn; levelling up; or for that matter "delivering Brexit".
Well indeed I think Boris should be forced out and have said so for about 7 months now but that for me is because he raised taxes and that was a deal-breaker. Had he not done that, I'd be happy for him to stay on, but he did and that's a breach of trust I can't accept.
I think the brouhaha over your guy was drinking alcohol because he's a party animal, my guy was drinking alcohol because he's hard at work campaigning is stupid, hypocritical asinine bullshit that has dominated the public conversation far too much but that doesn't change the fact that Boris should go because he raised taxes.
Everyone has their own red lines and that was my one.
Your red line? Yes. The legal red line? No. Anyone else's red line? Don't be silly.
Yet this is this week's straw man that you have decided will batter all other arguments and posters into submission. Erm, no.
PS I'm not the only poster aggrieved about the taxes issue. I could name at least half a dozen other right-wing economically former Conservative voters who think the same on that, so its hardly unique even if it isn't sufficient on its own.
No you're not, it's true.
However, conflating that with the partying is rather disingenuous. Putting up taxes may piss you off but it doesn't break the law.
It's slightly disturbing that you don't seem to understand the difference.
The Metropolitan Police seem to think that him raising a glass of alcohol at work didn't break the law either, and I expect that Durham Police will find the same thing about his opposite number, so its you that doesn't understand the difference it seems.
Some people are saying its outrageous that the Metropolitan Police didn't fine him for this (and no doubt will find it outrageous if Durham Police do fine their guy) and are saying the Met got it wrong. The Met getting it wrong is certainly possible, they're far from infallible, but if that's the card you want to play then I will say they got it wrong issuing a fine for having cake at work at 1pm. Again, what's sauce for the goose . . . 🤷♂️
I said before the start of this that Boris should go and at the start of this if Boris broke the law its another reason he should go. Since the only fine is for cake, and I think the fine for cake was unreasonable, I don't think "partygate" is a reason for Boris to go. He should still go over taxes though.
The Met issued fines to people at this event. So the event was not legal. So why are you repeating the Peter Bone line that it was legal? You aren't dumb like Peter Bone...
If someone breaks the law at an event, that does not make the event illegal, it means the Police judged the actions of whoever got fined were illegal.
If you and thousands of others go to a concert, but one person who goes to the concert is caught taking or supply drugs by the Police and that individual is fined, then does that make the concert itself an illegal event? No, don't be ridiculous.
Unless we get told why the person who got fined was fined, we don't know what they were fined for, so all we know for certain is the Police believe that they broke the law in some way, not that the event itself was unlawful.
IIRC yesterday Cyclefree said that gatherings cannot intrinsically be either legal or illegal - and she should know.
You may have misunderstood her. frinstance
1.—(1) No person may participate in a gathering in the Tier 1 area which consists of more than six people.
I just looked at my phone Photos for November 2020 ... at no stage do any of them look like this. Try it with your photos... if you can find a party with raised glasses you probably were a Tory politician or SPAD .. that's how bad it is https://mobile.twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1528835927279288322
I looked, and found pictures of only two people I don’t live with, for the entire month. FWIW.
Its the whole drinking at work culture which surprises me.
I've not seen any alcohol drunk at my workplace for over 20 years or any work sponsored pub lunches for over 10 years.
I thought this was also the general trend throughout the country.
But not it seems in Downing Street.
Considering how often the bars come up in conversations about politics, I'm surprised at your surprise.
Anyway, I've often had alcohol at work, which makes me struggle to get outraged at either Keir or Boris having the same. I feel sorry that some people are so dry, or so lacking in self-control, that they think alcohol and work can't ever mix.
Unless you're driving of course, that's a different matter. Alcohol and driving don't mix, alcohol and work absolutely can.
The Westminster bars I can understand - the late night sittings, the endless visitors to be entertained, the blokeish atmosphere, the home-away-from-home eating and drinking.
But the drinking while in the office should never have been acceptable and in my experience work sponsored pub and restaurant outings have faded away to leave only the Christmas evening meal remaining (and we've not had those for the last two years because of covid).
But you and others making this argument are guilty of a category error. Politics at a high level - like PM of the UK - just never stops. This is increasingly true with social media and 24/7 news, but it has been true for many decades
Consider the multiple movies and dramas made about Churchill during the Blitz. There are scenes where he is naked in his bath sucking on a cigar and drinking whisky, even as he gives orders to underlings and a Secretary writes down his next speech
Why? Because the work never stopped, so it all blended together. Churchill needed a bath and a cigar and some scotch to relax, but Britain was in a terrible war so the decisions and dilemmas came at him, hourly, and he could not stop entirely
Perhaps a special constable should have marched in and taken the whisky and cigar away and said “You’re not allowed this, Winston, just do your job”?
And of course Number 10 during peak Covid - November-March 2020-21 must have felt like a wartime government
FWIW I agree with @mwadams and Boris’ real sin was lying about this to the Commons. He should have just made my argument. Yes, we drank, because life and work was all of a piece in that terrible time
I think there's a difference between, for example, Thatcher who was a heavy drinker but was always working and on top of the details compared with the current situation where it appears the 'fun' is much more prominent and there's a general slovenly attitude to getting work done.
Maggie was a heavy drinker? Really? That does surprise me considering her Methodist background, only five hours sleep a night etc.
She was a boozer. Scotch at lunch
Maggie famously only had four or five hours sleep a night. What is less well known is her propensity for an afternoon nap - thereby topping her up to a normal amount of sleep and also allowing her to sleep off the effects of a boozy lunch.
I have often pondered this and whether it contributed to the stroke she had in her 70's.
I knew an Oxford don with a similar 4-5 hr sleep pattern who also went on to have a stroke.
You hate Starmer more for something that never happened than BoZo for all the shit that did.
That is warped.
The attempt to overthrow the Leave vote, by ignoring it, not enacting it, and getting a new vote to overturn it without ever Brexiting, was the most immoral, grotesque and dangerous political endeavour in the history of the modern United Kingdom. It is the exact equivalent - to me - of the Trumpite coup of Jan 6, we just skimped on the guns and flares
I understand that you don’t agree, but I’m not lying about my own opinion to get an argument going
it was also (tho less importantly) utterly counter-productive. By trying to thwart and reverse Brexit completely, Remainers missed multiple chances to get a much softer Brexit, one where we might have retained FoM, or the Single Market, who knows
But instead, driven crazy by the Leave vote, they went for the most extreme position: cancel Brexit, which meant we ended up with the hardest Brexit of all. It is an irony which will - eventually - be enjoyed by connoisseurs of political irony
And now I really AM having my tea. Later
You get what you vote for. And in 2017 we elected a parliament divided who could agree nothing. You're right that in voting down all soft versions of Brexit we ended up with our clown car Brexit. But that is literally parliamentary sovereignty in action. Unchecked by external powers free to vote how it wants.
If you didn't vote for parliament to be absolutely sovereign, what did you vote for? Sovereign doesn't mean it always doing what you think.
I just looked at my phone Photos for November 2020 ... at no stage do any of them look like this. Try it with your photos... if you can find a party with raised glasses you probably were a Tory politician or SPAD .. that's how bad it is https://mobile.twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1528835927279288322
I looked, and found pictures of only two people I don’t live with, for the entire month. FWIW.
Its the whole drinking at work culture which surprises me.
I've not seen any alcohol drunk at my workplace for over 20 years or any work sponsored pub lunches for over 10 years.
I thought this was also the general trend throughout the country.
But not it seems in Downing Street.
Considering how often the bars come up in conversations about politics, I'm surprised at your surprise.
Anyway, I've often had alcohol at work, which makes me struggle to get outraged at either Keir or Boris having the same. I feel sorry that some people are so dry, or so lacking in self-control, that they think alcohol and work can't ever mix.
Unless you're driving of course, that's a different matter. Alcohol and driving don't mix, alcohol and work absolutely can.
The Westminster bars I can understand - the late night sittings, the endless visitors to be entertained, the blokeish atmosphere, the home-away-from-home eating and drinking.
But the drinking while in the office should never have been acceptable and in my experience work sponsored pub and restaurant outings have faded away to leave only the Christmas evening meal remaining (and we've not had those for the last two years because of covid).
But you and others making this argument are guilty of a category error. Politics at a high level - like PM of the UK - just never stops. This is increasingly true with social media and 24/7 news, but it has been true for many decades
Consider the multiple movies and dramas made about Churchill during the Blitz. There are scenes where he is naked in his bath sucking on a cigar and drinking whisky, even as he gives orders to underlings and a Secretary writes down his next speech
Why? Because the work never stopped, so it all blended together. Churchill needed a bath and a cigar and some scotch to relax, but Britain was in a terrible war so the decisions and dilemmas came at him, hourly, and he could not stop entirely
Perhaps a special constable should have marched in and taken the whisky and cigar away and said “You’re not allowed this, Winston, just do your job”?
And of course Number 10 during peak Covid - November-March 2020-21 must have felt like a wartime government
FWIW I agree with @mwadams and Boris’ real sin was lying about this to the Commons. He should have just made my argument. Yes, we drank, because life and work was all of a piece in that terrible time
I think there's a difference between, for example, Thatcher who was a heavy drinker but was always working and on top of the details compared with the current situation where it appears the 'fun' is much more prominent and there's a general slovenly attitude to getting work done.
I’m not sure that’s true. Alcohol has always been closely interwoven with Westminster (perhaps too much, but that’s not my argument)
i can remember when Chancellors would delivery a budget with a tumbler of scotch at the side, in the House, and this was reported as if it was all perfectly normal. I imagine this has now stopped?! But the booze has always been there.
If anything we probably just notice it more because we live in a more censorious and puritan age (outside the home of Boris Johnson)
Gordon Brown stopped it.
Its still permitted. Only during delivery of the budget, but the CofExchq can have a drinky. Not allowed in the chamber any other time
True, it's still technically permitted. But a chancellor now who tried to use the permission would be buried in an avalanche of puritans.
Its a real shame, but you're right.
The puritanical attitude on display here today is representative of that. I'm not sure if all those saying but I'm not allowed alcohol at work are jealous that others are, or just puritanically want to take the booze away from others who are permitted it for purely puritanical reasons.
I just looked at my phone Photos for November 2020 ... at no stage do any of them look like this. Try it with your photos... if you can find a party with raised glasses you probably were a Tory politician or SPAD .. that's how bad it is https://mobile.twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1528835927279288322
I looked, and found pictures of only two people I don’t live with, for the entire month. FWIW.
Its the whole drinking at work culture which surprises me.
I've not seen any alcohol drunk at my workplace for over 20 years or any work sponsored pub lunches for over 10 years.
I thought this was also the general trend throughout the country.
But not it seems in Downing Street.
Considering how often the bars come up in conversations about politics, I'm surprised at your surprise.
Anyway, I've often had alcohol at work, which makes me struggle to get outraged at either Keir or Boris having the same. I feel sorry that some people are so dry, or so lacking in self-control, that they think alcohol and work can't ever mix.
Unless you're driving of course, that's a different matter. Alcohol and driving don't mix, alcohol and work absolutely can.
The Westminster bars I can understand - the late night sittings, the endless visitors to be entertained, the blokeish atmosphere, the home-away-from-home eating and drinking.
But the drinking while in the office should never have been acceptable and in my experience work sponsored pub and restaurant outings have faded away to leave only the Christmas evening meal remaining (and we've not had those for the last two years because of covid).
But you and others making this argument are guilty of a category error. Politics at a high level - like PM of the UK - just never stops. This is increasingly true with social media and 24/7 news, but it has been true for many decades
Consider the multiple movies and dramas made about Churchill during the Blitz. There are scenes where he is naked in his bath sucking on a cigar and drinking whisky, even as he gives orders to underlings and a Secretary writes down his next speech
Why? Because the work never stopped, so it all blended together. Churchill needed a bath and a cigar and some scotch to relax, but Britain was in a terrible war so the decisions and dilemmas came at him, hourly, and he could not stop entirely
Perhaps a special constable should have marched in and taken the whisky and cigar away and said “You’re not allowed this, Winston, just do your job”?
And of course Number 10 during peak Covid - November-March 2020-21 must have felt like a wartime government
FWIW I agree with @mwadams and Boris’ real sin was lying about this to the Commons. He should have just made my argument. Yes, we drank, because life and work was all of a piece in that terrible time
I think there's a difference between, for example, Thatcher who was a heavy drinker but was always working and on top of the details compared with the current situation where it appears the 'fun' is much more prominent and there's a general slovenly attitude to getting work done.
Maggie was a heavy drinker? Really? That does surprise me considering her Methodist background, only five hours sleep a night etc.
She was a boozer. Scotch at lunch
Maggie famously only had four or five hours sleep a night. What is less well known is her propensity for an afternoon nap - thereby topping her up to a normal amount of sleep and also allowing her to sleep off the effects of a boozy lunch.
I see. I suppose 4 to 5 hours sleep a night is easier if you have 4 to 5 in the afternoon.
I’m not belittling the “crime”, though as scandals go we’ve all seen far worse. And I am sure SW1 bubble-types can still get excited by this, but for the public the flogged horse is not just dead it is entombed
And the fact there is a very similar photo of Starmer, bottle raised, clearly breaking the rules (as Boris broke the rules) makes it all a wash
Boris AND Starmer will survive. Either could be PM in 24
Bones of four hundred councillors lie strewn about its lair. Yes. People care.
Anyone who was going to get all hot and bothered by this is already super-hot and extremely bothered, this won’t suddenly tip over into ultra-galactic white-hot hotness and mega-cosmic botheredness from the constellation Bothered, You Bet. Anyone who was going to switch votes or opinions on the basis of this, has already done so
The ones left frothing, as @DavidL suggests, are Boris-haters, and they are generally embittered Remoaners. They want their revenge; I doubt this will provide it
God, you and Brexit. Just let it go. Boris should go for numerous reasons that are post Brexit. Nobody mentions it anymore except you in the context of getting rid of Boris. Literally nobody at all.
It is absurd to pretend that Boris-hatred isn’t driven, largely (but not always) by Brexit
And Boris-hatred is sustaining this tedious half-arsed scandal about booze-ups during lockdown, which made me angry for a bit in early 2022, but about which I now just can’t be arsed, as they say, especially as Labour have been just as devious and hypocritical
The PM is a lying chancer possibly undermining democracy, Starmer is a boring liar who wanted to cancel democracy with a 2nd referendum
In 2024 we will have to choose between these two unsavoury characters. Hey ho
Nonsense. Just to name a few leavers that immediately come to mind that want to see Boris gone: MarqueeMark, BartholomewRoberts, Casino_Royale, etc, etc. Look at the MPs like Steve Baker. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit.
And the comments about Starmer are just tosh. I am no Starmer fan. I have never ever voted Labour, but there are no grounds to call him a liar (so far )
You are just driven mad by Brexit. God knows why. I am a passionate Remainer, but I accepted it. What is wrong with you; you won. Why can't you accept it.
Starmer is a lying c*** who wanted to overturn the biggest vote in British history, by ignoring it. He literally wanted to demolish democracy by telling all the thick racist Leavers “No, your vote didn’t count, so we’re having another one, until you get it right”
There’s no getting around it. This is what he did. And he was Shadow Secretary for Brexit. I can see why Starmer is desperate for everyone to forget this and “move on”. But some of us will not. He needs to grovel and apologise and ask for our forgiveness
Well for someone who writes for a living I think you are struggling to understand the meaning of lying. Now there is a debate on the ethics of a 2nd referendum which I can see you are slightly on one side of, but that is not lying. That is proposing something you bitterly don't like. Lying is when you say something that is untrue. No wonder you are confused about Boris.
I also note you actually ignored the principle point of my post showing your principle statement was false and attacked the minor (actually quite irrelevant) point I made about Starmer not lying (yet).
Just to reiterate the main point, this forum is full of leavers who want Boris to go (and bizarrely Remainers who want him to stay) as is Parliament, which proves you point is utter nonsense.
Starmer in 2016 said the vote MUST be respected. By 2019 he was saying the vote MUST be disrespected - ie, ignored and set aside and we have a new vote to supersede it
He didn’t just lie, he was the embodiment of a disgusting Trumpite coup that nearly won the day, and which would have shattered our democracy forever, by telling people there literally is no point in voting, as “they” can just ignore it
And now, I’m having some tea. Kalimera
You do know there was a general election in 2017? In the 2015 parliament which held the (advisory) referendum there was no real debate that they just take it under advisement. It would be enacted.
And then we had an election. And that parliament can do whatever the hell it likes. This parliament isn't just free to overturn anything it likes from any other previous parliament including 2017 and 2015, they are overturning manifesto pledge laws passed a couple of years ago in this parliament.
Is Johnson putting laws to parliament to overturn chunks of the core of the manifesto "oven-ready deal" also a "disgusting Trumpite coup"?
In no sense was the vote “advisory”. Anyone trying to use the word “advisory” as a way of justifying their anti-democratic 2nd vote c*ntishness should be thrown in the sewer
Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking to the British people, from Chatham House, in 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
Cameron goes on to say this:
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
That’s it. Starmer is a vile piece of work
In a very legal reality the vote was advisory. I can post you the statute law proving this if you like. And in a very direct sense the word of Cameron had validity only whilst he was PM - and he quit..
Yeah, in his recently discovered faux fury on this topic (remember @Leon was a Remainer right up to the polling booth) he is shooting at the wrong target.
Referenda cause trouble, almost without exception.
Head of UN World Food Programme confirms talks are underway to secure sea and rail corridors for grain exports out of Ukraine, as Harpoon anti-ship missiles are on their way from Denmark.
How much use will sea corridors be unless somebody provides Ukraine with mine sweeping vessels and equipment?
It sounds like the plan is for an international naval fleet, flying UN flags, sweeping the area and keeping the corridor open, backed by land-based anti-ship weapons in Odesa. It sounds plausible, but no doubt the Russians will see it as provocative. The alternative is a global grain shortage this summer.
It would sound plausible if anybody in the Biden administration had said it. It doesn't sound plausible when it's just the Lithuanian Foreign Minister and Fizzy Lizzy saying it.
Throughout this whole year 'Fizzy Lizzy' has been saying things which people have mocked here as Liz jockeying for position until Biden has then said it a few days later.
Its quite clear that the communications between the Oval Office and Whitehall are as close as they have ever been and the Americans are quite happy to have 'Fizzy Lizzy' kite-flying in saying things first before Biden confirms it.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Gen. Miley), today: "Right now we don’t have any naval assets on the Black Sea, we don’t intend to."
Just started re-reading Procopius' Secret History. For those into historical shitposting, it's hard to beat (even when Polybius has a section essentially shitting all over another historian).
It’s just a media conspiracy to try and put a bit of pressure back on the PM - but at least just the one newspaper stands on the side of truth and reason and beside the British People
The question I don't get is. What advantage does an employer get from having a half pissed workforce half of the day? That doesn't make any sense at all.
It’s just a media conspiracy to try and put a bit of pressure back on the PM - but at least just the one newspaper stands on the side of truth and reason and beside the British People
I just looked at my phone Photos for November 2020 ... at no stage do any of them look like this. Try it with your photos... if you can find a party with raised glasses you probably were a Tory politician or SPAD .. that's how bad it is https://mobile.twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1528835927279288322
I looked, and found pictures of only two people I don’t live with, for the entire month. FWIW.
Its the whole drinking at work culture which surprises me.
I've not seen any alcohol drunk at my workplace for over 20 years or any work sponsored pub lunches for over 10 years.
I thought this was also the general trend throughout the country.
But not it seems in Downing Street.
Considering how often the bars come up in conversations about politics, I'm surprised at your surprise.
Anyway, I've often had alcohol at work, which makes me struggle to get outraged at either Keir or Boris having the same. I feel sorry that some people are so dry, or so lacking in self-control, that they think alcohol and work can't ever mix.
Unless you're driving of course, that's a different matter. Alcohol and driving don't mix, alcohol and work absolutely can.
The Westminster bars I can understand - the late night sittings, the endless visitors to be entertained, the blokeish atmosphere, the home-away-from-home eating and drinking.
But the drinking while in the office should never have been acceptable and in my experience work sponsored pub and restaurant outings have faded away to leave only the Christmas evening meal remaining (and we've not had those for the last two years because of covid).
But you and others making this argument are guilty of a category error. Politics at a high level - like PM of the UK - just never stops. This is increasingly true with social media and 24/7 news, but it has been true for many decades
Consider the multiple movies and dramas made about Churchill during the Blitz. There are scenes where he is naked in his bath sucking on a cigar and drinking whisky, even as he gives orders to underlings and a Secretary writes down his next speech
Why? Because the work never stopped, so it all blended together. Churchill needed a bath and a cigar and some scotch to relax, but Britain was in a terrible war so the decisions and dilemmas came at him, hourly, and he could not stop entirely
Perhaps a special constable should have marched in and taken the whisky and cigar away and said “You’re not allowed this, Winston, just do your job”?
And of course Number 10 during peak Covid - November-March 2020-21 must have felt like a wartime government
FWIW I agree with @mwadams and Boris’ real sin was lying about this to the Commons. He should have just made my argument. Yes, we drank, because life and work was all of a piece in that terrible time
I think this is a very plausible account of what happened and the mindset. No wonder Boris doesn't see what the problem is.
BUT it is now nearly June and the political world is STILL consumed with Partygate. The revelations keep coming. It has been impossible to close down. And, yes, people may be bored and/or angry but who are they going to blame? The media? Starmer? Nope - it's Boris. AND it looks as if he may have knowingly misled parliament to boot - we still have that report to come after Sue Gray's.
The only thing saving him really is the implosion of Rishi plus Ukraine.
He's definitely hanging on a peg that is even shooglier than we thought.
I’m not belittling the “crime”, though as scandals go we’ve all seen far worse. And I am sure SW1 bubble-types can still get excited by this, but for the public the flogged horse is not just dead it is entombed
And the fact there is a very similar photo of Starmer, bottle raised, clearly breaking the rules (as Boris broke the rules) makes it all a wash
Boris AND Starmer will survive. Either could be PM in 24
Bones of four hundred councillors lie strewn about its lair. Yes. People care.
Anyone who was going to get all hot and bothered by this is already super-hot and extremely bothered, this won’t suddenly tip over into ultra-galactic white-hot hotness and mega-cosmic botheredness from the constellation Bothered, You Bet. Anyone who was going to switch votes or opinions on the basis of this, has already done so
The ones left frothing, as @DavidL suggests, are Boris-haters, and they are generally embittered Remoaners. They want their revenge; I doubt this will provide it
God, you and Brexit. Just let it go. Boris should go for numerous reasons that are post Brexit. Nobody mentions it anymore except you in the context of getting rid of Boris. Literally nobody at all.
It is absurd to pretend that Boris-hatred isn’t driven, largely (but not always) by Brexit
And Boris-hatred is sustaining this tedious half-arsed scandal about booze-ups during lockdown, which made me angry for a bit in early 2022, but about which I now just can’t be arsed, as they say, especially as Labour have been just as devious and hypocritical
The PM is a lying chancer possibly undermining democracy, Starmer is a boring liar who wanted to cancel democracy with a 2nd referendum
In 2024 we will have to choose between these two unsavoury characters. Hey ho
Nonsense. Just to name a few leavers that immediately come to mind that want to see Boris gone: MarqueeMark, BartholomewRoberts, Casino_Royale, etc, etc. Look at the MPs like Steve Baker. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit.
And the comments about Starmer are just tosh. I am no Starmer fan. I have never ever voted Labour, but there are no grounds to call him a liar (so far )
You are just driven mad by Brexit. God knows why. I am a passionate Remainer, but I accepted it. What is wrong with you; you won. Why can't you accept it.
Starmer is a lying c*** who wanted to overturn the biggest vote in British history, by ignoring it. He literally wanted to demolish democracy by telling all the thick racist Leavers “No, your vote didn’t count, so we’re having another one, until you get it right”
There’s no getting around it. This is what he did. And he was Shadow Secretary for Brexit. I can see why Starmer is desperate for everyone to forget this and “move on”. But some of us will not. He needs to grovel and apologise and ask for our forgiveness
Well for someone who writes for a living I think you are struggling to understand the meaning of lying. Now there is a debate on the ethics of a 2nd referendum which I can see you are slightly on one side of, but that is not lying. That is proposing something you bitterly don't like. Lying is when you say something that is untrue. No wonder you are confused about Boris.
I also note you actually ignored the principle point of my post showing your principle statement was false and attacked the minor (actually quite irrelevant) point I made about Starmer not lying (yet).
Just to reiterate the main point, this forum is full of leavers who want Boris to go (and bizarrely Remainers who want him to stay) as is Parliament, which proves you point is utter nonsense.
Starmer in 2016 said the vote MUST be respected. By 2019 he was saying the vote MUST be disrespected - ie, ignored and set aside and we have a new vote to supersede it
He didn’t just lie, he was the embodiment of a disgusting Trumpite coup that nearly won the day, and which would have shattered our democracy forever, by telling people there literally is no point in voting, as “they” can just ignore it
And now, I’m having some tea. Kalimera
You do know there was a general election in 2017? In the 2015 parliament which held the (advisory) referendum there was no real debate that they just take it under advisement. It would be enacted.
And then we had an election. And that parliament can do whatever the hell it likes. This parliament isn't just free to overturn anything it likes from any other previous parliament including 2017 and 2015, they are overturning manifesto pledge laws passed a couple of years ago in this parliament.
Is Johnson putting laws to parliament to overturn chunks of the core of the manifesto "oven-ready deal" also a "disgusting Trumpite coup"?
In no sense was the vote “advisory”. Anyone trying to use the word “advisory” as a way of justifying their anti-democratic 2nd vote c*ntishness should be thrown in the sewer
Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking to the British people, from Chatham House, in 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
Cameron goes on to say this:
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
That’s it. Starmer is a vile piece of work
This is precisely the problem (and why Cameron was such an unmitigated catastrophe of a politician).
He was so confident of a substantial Remain victory that would put the headbangers and Faragistes back in their box. So the terms of the referendum, and all the language he used, was of the form "this will be the settled will of the people, to which we will all cleave". Regardless of the actual legal status.
And (as subsequent events showed) no amount of technical argument could wind back from that position.
And then he resigned. And left the 2015 parliament and the new PM to it. She had a go, then decided we needed to elect a new parliament. They also had a go, got yet another new PM who also decided we needed to elect a new parliament.
Bonzo is doing us a favour. He is demonstrating that parliamentary sovereignty is absolute. It isn't just free to overturn any legal commitment of previous parliaments. He is about to overturn laws he passed two years ago. Which was very directly the manifesto pledge which saw them secure a big majority.
Whilst I think its funny that the government is overthrowing its own manifesto which so many voted for, its perfectly valid. Parliament can do what it likes.
That's a very important principle.
However, the politics of it don't usually let us perform an abrupt about-turn - which is why after all those shenanigans, we ended up with Johnsons' mob.
I just looked at my phone Photos for November 2020 ... at no stage do any of them look like this. Try it with your photos... if you can find a party with raised glasses you probably were a Tory politician or SPAD .. that's how bad it is https://mobile.twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1528835927279288322
I looked, and found pictures of only two people I don’t live with, for the entire month. FWIW.
Its the whole drinking at work culture which surprises me.
I've not seen any alcohol drunk at my workplace for over 20 years or any work sponsored pub lunches for over 10 years.
I thought this was also the general trend throughout the country.
But not it seems in Downing Street.
Considering how often the bars come up in conversations about politics, I'm surprised at your surprise.
Anyway, I've often had alcohol at work, which makes me struggle to get outraged at either Keir or Boris having the same. I feel sorry that some people are so dry, or so lacking in self-control, that they think alcohol and work can't ever mix.
Unless you're driving of course, that's a different matter. Alcohol and driving don't mix, alcohol and work absolutely can.
The Westminster bars I can understand - the late night sittings, the endless visitors to be entertained, the blokeish atmosphere, the home-away-from-home eating and drinking.
But the drinking while in the office should never have been acceptable and in my experience work sponsored pub and restaurant outings have faded away to leave only the Christmas evening meal remaining (and we've not had those for the last two years because of covid).
But you and others making this argument are guilty of a category error. Politics at a high level - like PM of the UK - just never stops. This is increasingly true with social media and 24/7 news, but it has been true for many decades
Consider the multiple movies and dramas made about Churchill during the Blitz. There are scenes where he is naked in his bath sucking on a cigar and drinking whisky, even as he gives orders to underlings and a Secretary writes down his next speech
Why? Because the work never stopped, so it all blended together. Churchill needed a bath and a cigar and some scotch to relax, but Britain was in a terrible war so the decisions and dilemmas came at him, hourly, and he could not stop entirely
Perhaps a special constable should have marched in and taken the whisky and cigar away and said “You’re not allowed this, Winston, just do your job”?
And of course Number 10 during peak Covid - November-March 2020-21 must have felt like a wartime government
FWIW I agree with @mwadams and Boris’ real sin was lying about this to the Commons. He should have just made my argument. Yes, we drank, because life and work was all of a piece in that terrible time
I think there's a difference between, for example, Thatcher who was a heavy drinker but was always working and on top of the details compared with the current situation where it appears the 'fun' is much more prominent and there's a general slovenly attitude to getting work done.
Maggie was a heavy drinker? Really? That does surprise me considering her Methodist background, only five hours sleep a night etc.
She was a boozer. Scotch at lunch
Maggie famously only had four or five hours sleep a night. What is less well known is her propensity for an afternoon nap - thereby topping her up to a normal amount of sleep and also allowing her to sleep off the effects of a boozy lunch.
I have often pondered this and whether it contributed to the stroke she had in her 70's.
I knew an Oxford don with a similar 4-5 hr sleep pattern who also went on to have a stroke.
Lack of sleep is now widely held to be a cause of dementia, which also afflicted Maggie in the end.
Former Senator David Perdue ended his campaign for governor of Georgia with a racist appeal to Republican primary voters on Monday, accusing Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee, of “demeaning her own race.” https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1528873446255599617
The truly disgraceful thing is the number of voters who are prepared to support him.
Yep I sat with two people yesterday one of whom has completely turned against Johnson but the other is still in love with him. Two of us were trying to persuade her of a thousand reasons why Boris Johnson is unfit for the office of PM but she still continues to "like Boris".
She's not a graduate and I throw that into the mix with caution because, despite occasionally suggesting otherwise, I don't really like that supercilious 'we know best' attitude. But I think it's pertinent because there's no doubt that Boris is continuing to draw support from non-graduates and those who have failed as yet to see through the magician's sleight of hand. Oh dear, I've just been supercilious. It's hard so don't get angry BR & Co.
It genuinely baffles me how anyone can still support him. And I'd have a lot more respect for the Conservatives if they had not just the bottle but the integrity to remove him.
I often wonder the same about serial philanderers who still manage to convince the next woman that this time they will be faithful. I think some people just really want to believe in Boris because he is, in some way that the rest of us just don't see, charming to a large portion of the population.
I also think there is another sizeable chunk who have no love for the man but see him as a vehicle for their partisan agenda so are happy to overlook the character flaws so long as he is [delivering Brexit; insulting the French; keeping out the migrants]. Unfortunately for him that pragmatic group doesn't now include: cutting taxes; keeping out Corbyn; levelling up; or for that matter "delivering Brexit".
Well indeed I think Boris should be forced out and have said so for about 7 months now but that for me is because he raised taxes and that was a deal-breaker. Had he not done that, I'd be happy for him to stay on, but he did and that's a breach of trust I can't accept.
I think the brouhaha over your guy was drinking alcohol because he's a party animal, my guy was drinking alcohol because he's hard at work campaigning is stupid, hypocritical asinine bullshit that has dominated the public conversation far too much but that doesn't change the fact that Boris should go because he raised taxes.
Everyone has their own red lines and that was my one.
Your red line? Yes. The legal red line? No. Anyone else's red line? Don't be silly.
Yet this is this week's straw man that you have decided will batter all other arguments and posters into submission. Erm, no.
PS I'm not the only poster aggrieved about the taxes issue. I could name at least half a dozen other right-wing economically former Conservative voters who think the same on that, so its hardly unique even if it isn't sufficient on its own.
No you're not, it's true.
However, conflating that with the partying is rather disingenuous. Putting up taxes may piss you off but it doesn't break the law.
It's slightly disturbing that you don't seem to understand the difference.
The Metropolitan Police seem to think that him raising a glass of alcohol at work didn't break the law either, and I expect that Durham Police will find the same thing about his opposite number, so its you that doesn't understand the difference it seems.
Some people are saying its outrageous that the Metropolitan Police didn't fine him for this (and no doubt will find it outrageous if Durham Police do fine their guy) and are saying the Met got it wrong. The Met getting it wrong is certainly possible, they're far from infallible, but if that's the card you want to play then I will say they got it wrong issuing a fine for having cake at work at 1pm. Again, what's sauce for the goose . . . 🤷♂️
I said before the start of this that Boris should go and at the start of this if Boris broke the law its another reason he should go. Since the only fine is for cake, and I think the fine for cake was unreasonable, I don't think "partygate" is a reason for Boris to go. He should still go over taxes though.
The Met issued fines to people at this event. So the event was not legal. So why are you repeating the Peter Bone line that it was legal? You aren't dumb like Peter Bone...
If someone breaks the law at an event, that does not make the event illegal, it means the Police judged the actions of whoever got fined were illegal.
If you and thousands of others go to a concert, but one person who goes to the concert is caught taking or supply drugs by the Police and that individual is fined, then does that make the concert itself an illegal event? No, don't be ridiculous.
Unless we get told why the person who got fined was fined, we don't know what they were fined for, so all we know for certain is the Police believe that they broke the law in some way, not that the event itself was unlawful.
Could yoy upload an mp3 of the sound of one hand clapping? That would clarify things.
Here you go, from when right-on comedians didn't care about "cultural appropriation" it seems, which it seems was only nine years ago.
That's an entirely different scene. In an entirely different show.
Its not that different.
And SNL and HIMYM are/were both comedies that take the piss out of things.
Why is comedy in one cultural appropriation, while comedy in the other is not whatsoever? Where's the line?
The real difference seems to be that generally Buddhists have a pretty good sense of humour and don't vocally complain when jokes are made at their expense. Andy Samberg and SNL would never dream of doing the same sketch, but with Mohammed instead of Buddha. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
The question I don't get is. What advantage does an employer get from having a half pissed workforce half of the day? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Seems like rather a strawman argument.
Everywhere I've worked, in a couple of different industries, the company has allowed (and paid for) a drink during the last hour on a Friday whilst work was being finished up, and this sometimes extended to further drinks after work had finished. And none of my employers has ever cared about staff having a drink at lunchtime off-site.
That doesn't mean being "half pissed half of the day".
Acting Head of Met's next appearance in front of the Assembly is going to be box office.
So many oddities and unanswered questions wrt the investigation into Downing Street piss-ups.
Starting with “Who decided that this was a good use of half a million quid of public funds?”
Why couldn't everyone, starting with Boris, simply have just fessed up at the start instead of getting the police involved.
In the last six months how much time has Johnson spent on running the country and how much time has he spent saving his own skin? I suspect fart more time and effort has gone into the latter than the former.
I’m not belittling the “crime”, though as scandals go we’ve all seen far worse. And I am sure SW1 bubble-types can still get excited by this, but for the public the flogged horse is not just dead it is entombed
And the fact there is a very similar photo of Starmer, bottle raised, clearly breaking the rules (as Boris broke the rules) makes it all a wash
Boris AND Starmer will survive. Either could be PM in 24
Bones of four hundred councillors lie strewn about its lair. Yes. People care.
Anyone who was going to get all hot and bothered by this is already super-hot and extremely bothered, this won’t suddenly tip over into ultra-galactic white-hot hotness and mega-cosmic botheredness from the constellation Bothered, You Bet. Anyone who was going to switch votes or opinions on the basis of this, has already done so
The ones left frothing, as @DavidL suggests, are Boris-haters, and they are generally embittered Remoaners. They want their revenge; I doubt this will provide it
God, you and Brexit. Just let it go. Boris should go for numerous reasons that are post Brexit. Nobody mentions it anymore except you in the context of getting rid of Boris. Literally nobody at all.
It is absurd to pretend that Boris-hatred isn’t driven, largely (but not always) by Brexit
And Boris-hatred is sustaining this tedious half-arsed scandal about booze-ups during lockdown, which made me angry for a bit in early 2022, but about which I now just can’t be arsed, as they say, especially as Labour have been just as devious and hypocritical
The PM is a lying chancer possibly undermining democracy, Starmer is a boring liar who wanted to cancel democracy with a 2nd referendum
In 2024 we will have to choose between these two unsavoury characters. Hey ho
Nonsense. Just to name a few leavers that immediately come to mind that want to see Boris gone: MarqueeMark, BartholomewRoberts, Casino_Royale, etc, etc. Look at the MPs like Steve Baker. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit.
And the comments about Starmer are just tosh. I am no Starmer fan. I have never ever voted Labour, but there are no grounds to call him a liar (so far )
You are just driven mad by Brexit. God knows why. I am a passionate Remainer, but I accepted it. What is wrong with you; you won. Why can't you accept it.
Starmer is a lying c*** who wanted to overturn the biggest vote in British history, by ignoring it. He literally wanted to demolish democracy by telling all the thick racist Leavers “No, your vote didn’t count, so we’re having another one, until you get it right”
There’s no getting around it. This is what he did. And he was Shadow Secretary for Brexit. I can see why Starmer is desperate for everyone to forget this and “move on”. But some of us will not. He needs to grovel and apologise and ask for our forgiveness
Well for someone who writes for a living I think you are struggling to understand the meaning of lying. Now there is a debate on the ethics of a 2nd referendum which I can see you are slightly on one side of, but that is not lying. That is proposing something you bitterly don't like. Lying is when you say something that is untrue. No wonder you are confused about Boris.
I also note you actually ignored the principle point of my post showing your principle statement was false and attacked the minor (actually quite irrelevant) point I made about Starmer not lying (yet).
Just to reiterate the main point, this forum is full of leavers who want Boris to go (and bizarrely Remainers who want him to stay) as is Parliament, which proves you point is utter nonsense.
Starmer in 2016 said the vote MUST be respected. By 2019 he was saying the vote MUST be disrespected - ie, ignored and set aside and we have a new vote to supersede it
He didn’t just lie, he was the embodiment of a disgusting Trumpite coup that nearly won the day, and which would have shattered our democracy forever, by telling people there literally is no point in voting, as “they” can just ignore it
And now, I’m having some tea. Kalimera
You do know there was a general election in 2017? In the 2015 parliament which held the (advisory) referendum there was no real debate that they just take it under advisement. It would be enacted.
And then we had an election. And that parliament can do whatever the hell it likes. This parliament isn't just free to overturn anything it likes from any other previous parliament including 2017 and 2015, they are overturning manifesto pledge laws passed a couple of years ago in this parliament.
Is Johnson putting laws to parliament to overturn chunks of the core of the manifesto "oven-ready deal" also a "disgusting Trumpite coup"?
In no sense was the vote “advisory”. Anyone trying to use the word “advisory” as a way of justifying their anti-democratic 2nd vote c*ntishness should be thrown in the sewer
Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking to the British people, from Chatham House, in 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
Cameron goes on to say this:
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
That’s it. Starmer is a vile piece of work
This is precisely the problem (and why Cameron was such an unmitigated catastrophe of a politician).
He was so confident of a substantial Remain victory that would put the headbangers and Faragistes back in their box. So the terms of the referendum, and all the language he used, was of the form "this will be the settled will of the people, to which we will all cleave". Regardless of the actual legal status.
And (as subsequent events showed) no amount of technical argument could wind back from that position.
And then he resigned. And left the 2015 parliament and the new PM to it. She had a go, then decided we needed to elect a new parliament. They also had a go, got yet another new PM who also decided we needed to elect a new parliament.
Bonzo is doing us a favour. He is demonstrating that parliamentary sovereignty is absolute. It isn't just free to overturn any legal commitment of previous parliaments. He is about to overturn laws he passed two years ago. Which was very directly the manifesto pledge which saw them secure a big majority.
Whilst I think its funny that the government is overthrowing its own manifesto which so many voted for, its perfectly valid. Parliament can do what it likes.
That's a very important principle.
However, the politics of it don't usually let us perform an abrupt about-turn - which is why after all those shenanigans, we ended up with Johnsons' mob.
Who are doing an abrupt u-turn. Manifesto pledges are by convention politically reserved. The House of Lords may dislike bills for major reasons of things like international law. But will defer to the Commons if they are a manifesto pledge.
And yet here we are. *The* manifesto pledge, the oven ready deal that was the bulk of their proposition which saw them secure a big majority. Enacted into law. Now to be dismantled within the same parliament because it has proven to be an act of national "self-harm".
The question I don't get is. What advantage does an employer get from having a half pissed workforce half of the day? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Seems like rather a strawman argument.
Everywhere I've worked, in a couple of different industries, the company has allowed (and paid for) a drink during the last hour on a Friday whilst work was being finished up, and this sometimes extended to further drinks after work had finished. And none of my employers has ever cared about staff having a drink at lunchtime off-site.
That doesn't mean being "half pissed half of the day".
When I worked for the Paymaster General's Office (a branch of the Civil Service back then) they had a fully stocked bar in the canteen.
I just looked at my phone Photos for November 2020 ... at no stage do any of them look like this. Try it with your photos... if you can find a party with raised glasses you probably were a Tory politician or SPAD .. that's how bad it is https://mobile.twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1528835927279288322
I looked, and found pictures of only two people I don’t live with, for the entire month. FWIW.
Its the whole drinking at work culture which surprises me.
I've not seen any alcohol drunk at my workplace for over 20 years or any work sponsored pub lunches for over 10 years.
I thought this was also the general trend throughout the country.
But not it seems in Downing Street.
Considering how often the bars come up in conversations about politics, I'm surprised at your surprise.
Anyway, I've often had alcohol at work, which makes me struggle to get outraged at either Keir or Boris having the same. I feel sorry that some people are so dry, or so lacking in self-control, that they think alcohol and work can't ever mix.
Unless you're driving of course, that's a different matter. Alcohol and driving don't mix, alcohol and work absolutely can.
The Westminster bars I can understand - the late night sittings, the endless visitors to be entertained, the blokeish atmosphere, the home-away-from-home eating and drinking.
But the drinking while in the office should never have been acceptable and in my experience work sponsored pub and restaurant outings have faded away to leave only the Christmas evening meal remaining (and we've not had those for the last two years because of covid).
But you and others making this argument are guilty of a category error. Politics at a high level - like PM of the UK - just never stops. This is increasingly true with social media and 24/7 news, but it has been true for many decades
Consider the multiple movies and dramas made about Churchill during the Blitz. There are scenes where he is naked in his bath sucking on a cigar and drinking whisky, even as he gives orders to underlings and a Secretary writes down his next speech
Why? Because the work never stopped, so it all blended together. Churchill needed a bath and a cigar and some scotch to relax, but Britain was in a terrible war so the decisions and dilemmas came at him, hourly, and he could not stop entirely
Perhaps a special constable should have marched in and taken the whisky and cigar away and said “You’re not allowed this, Winston, just do your job”?
And of course Number 10 during peak Covid - November-March 2020-21 must have felt like a wartime government
FWIW I agree with @mwadams and Boris’ real sin was lying about this to the Commons. He should have just made my argument. Yes, we drank, because life and work was all of a piece in that terrible time
Has he ever in Parliament said they didn't drink?
He said that he didn't party. He probably didn't think that giving a speech to say goodbye to a colleague at work was a party, or that being wished happy birthday by his colleagues was a party, any more than Winston would have thought having his whisky and cigar in his bathtub was a party.
If the question was asked "did you ever drink" then he should have said yes, but that wasn't the question as much as people keep trying to puritanically merge the two.
My anger at Johnson has become a re-direction of my regret at wasting a big chunk of my life following a bunch of silly restrictions.
There must be plenty of people who, deep down, know they messed up by not attending that funeral, or hugging their elderly parents, or stopping their children playing with their friends.
Perhaps @DavidL and @Leon were smart/cynical enough to realise this at the time and the "betrayal" isn't as raw for them. It's toxic for those of us who were fool enough to trust the PM.
Aside from that, the Commons is just a laughing stock now (getting to Scottish Parliament levels of impotence).
Indeed.
Not personally, I was merely inconvenienced for a year, but there are many millions who did suffer.
I’m not belittling the “crime”, though as scandals go we’ve all seen far worse. And I am sure SW1 bubble-types can still get excited by this, but for the public the flogged horse is not just dead it is entombed
And the fact there is a very similar photo of Starmer, bottle raised, clearly breaking the rules (as Boris broke the rules) makes it all a wash
Boris AND Starmer will survive. Either could be PM in 24
Bones of four hundred councillors lie strewn about its lair. Yes. People care.
Anyone who was going to get all hot and bothered by this is already super-hot and extremely bothered, this won’t suddenly tip over into ultra-galactic white-hot hotness and mega-cosmic botheredness from the constellation Bothered, You Bet. Anyone who was going to switch votes or opinions on the basis of this, has already done so
The ones left frothing, as @DavidL suggests, are Boris-haters, and they are generally embittered Remoaners. They want their revenge; I doubt this will provide it
God, you and Brexit. Just let it go. Boris should go for numerous reasons that are post Brexit. Nobody mentions it anymore except you in the context of getting rid of Boris. Literally nobody at all.
It is absurd to pretend that Boris-hatred isn’t driven, largely (but not always) by Brexit
And Boris-hatred is sustaining this tedious half-arsed scandal about booze-ups during lockdown, which made me angry for a bit in early 2022, but about which I now just can’t be arsed, as they say, especially as Labour have been just as devious and hypocritical
The PM is a lying chancer possibly undermining democracy, Starmer is a boring liar who wanted to cancel democracy with a 2nd referendum
In 2024 we will have to choose between these two unsavoury characters. Hey ho
Nonsense. Just to name a few leavers that immediately come to mind that want to see Boris gone: MarqueeMark, BartholomewRoberts, Casino_Royale, etc, etc. Look at the MPs like Steve Baker. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit.
And the comments about Starmer are just tosh. I am no Starmer fan. I have never ever voted Labour, but there are no grounds to call him a liar (so far )
You are just driven mad by Brexit. God knows why. I am a passionate Remainer, but I accepted it. What is wrong with you; you won. Why can't you accept it.
Starmer is a lying c*** who wanted to overturn the biggest vote in British history, by ignoring it. He literally wanted to demolish democracy by telling all the thick racist Leavers “No, your vote didn’t count, so we’re having another one, until you get it right”
There’s no getting around it. This is what he did. And he was Shadow Secretary for Brexit. I can see why Starmer is desperate for everyone to forget this and “move on”. But some of us will not. He needs to grovel and apologise and ask for our forgiveness
Well for someone who writes for a living I think you are struggling to understand the meaning of lying. Now there is a debate on the ethics of a 2nd referendum which I can see you are slightly on one side of, but that is not lying. That is proposing something you bitterly don't like. Lying is when you say something that is untrue. No wonder you are confused about Boris.
I also note you actually ignored the principle point of my post showing your principle statement was false and attacked the minor (actually quite irrelevant) point I made about Starmer not lying (yet).
Just to reiterate the main point, this forum is full of leavers who want Boris to go (and bizarrely Remainers who want him to stay) as is Parliament, which proves you point is utter nonsense.
Starmer in 2016 said the vote MUST be respected. By 2019 he was saying the vote MUST be disrespected - ie, ignored and set aside and we have a new vote to supersede it
He didn’t just lie, he was the embodiment of a disgusting Trumpite coup that nearly won the day, and which would have shattered our democracy forever, by telling people there literally is no point in voting, as “they” can just ignore it
And now, I’m having some tea. Kalimera
You do know there was a general election in 2017? In the 2015 parliament which held the (advisory) referendum there was no real debate that they just take it under advisement. It would be enacted.
And then we had an election. And that parliament can do whatever the hell it likes. This parliament isn't just free to overturn anything it likes from any other previous parliament including 2017 and 2015, they are overturning manifesto pledge laws passed a couple of years ago in this parliament.
Is Johnson putting laws to parliament to overturn chunks of the core of the manifesto "oven-ready deal" also a "disgusting Trumpite coup"?
In no sense was the vote “advisory”. Anyone trying to use the word “advisory” as a way of justifying their anti-democratic 2nd vote c*ntishness should be thrown in the sewer
Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking to the British people, from Chatham House, in 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
Cameron goes on to say this:
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
That’s it. Starmer is a vile piece of work
This is precisely the problem (and why Cameron was such an unmitigated catastrophe of a politician).
He was so confident of a substantial Remain victory that would put the headbangers and Faragistes back in their box. So the terms of the referendum, and all the language he used, was of the form "this will be the settled will of the people, to which we will all cleave". Regardless of the actual legal status.
And (as subsequent events showed) no amount of technical argument could wind back from that position.
And then he resigned. And left the 2015 parliament and the new PM to it. She had a go, then decided we needed to elect a new parliament. They also had a go, got yet another new PM who also decided we needed to elect a new parliament.
Bonzo is doing us a favour. He is demonstrating that parliamentary sovereignty is absolute. It isn't just free to overturn any legal commitment of previous parliaments. He is about to overturn laws he passed two years ago. Which was very directly the manifesto pledge which saw them secure a big majority.
Whilst I think its funny that the government is overthrowing its own manifesto which so many voted for, its perfectly valid. Parliament can do what it likes.
That's a very important principle.
However, the politics of it don't usually let us perform an abrupt about-turn - which is why after all those shenanigans, we ended up with Johnsons' mob.
Don't blame me I voted Labour and have a badge from 1980 that is back out in public.
Not that I would consider voting Labour under SKS of course.
Dominic Cummings @Dominic2306 · 17m Reminder: intervening to boot people off the planes so the *animals* were evacuated, those people then hung/tortured, & covering that up too - is *worse* than the parties
I just looked at my phone Photos for November 2020 ... at no stage do any of them look like this. Try it with your photos... if you can find a party with raised glasses you probably were a Tory politician or SPAD .. that's how bad it is https://mobile.twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1528835927279288322
I looked, and found pictures of only two people I don’t live with, for the entire month. FWIW.
Its the whole drinking at work culture which surprises me.
I've not seen any alcohol drunk at my workplace for over 20 years or any work sponsored pub lunches for over 10 years.
I thought this was also the general trend throughout the country.
But not it seems in Downing Street.
Considering how often the bars come up in conversations about politics, I'm surprised at your surprise.
Anyway, I've often had alcohol at work, which makes me struggle to get outraged at either Keir or Boris having the same. I feel sorry that some people are so dry, or so lacking in self-control, that they think alcohol and work can't ever mix.
Unless you're driving of course, that's a different matter. Alcohol and driving don't mix, alcohol and work absolutely can.
The Westminster bars I can understand - the late night sittings, the endless visitors to be entertained, the blokeish atmosphere, the home-away-from-home eating and drinking.
But the drinking while in the office should never have been acceptable and in my experience work sponsored pub and restaurant outings have faded away to leave only the Christmas evening meal remaining (and we've not had those for the last two years because of covid).
But you and others making this argument are guilty of a category error. Politics at a high level - like PM of the UK - just never stops. This is increasingly true with social media and 24/7 news, but it has been true for many decades
Consider the multiple movies and dramas made about Churchill during the Blitz. There are scenes where he is naked in his bath sucking on a cigar and drinking whisky, even as he gives orders to underlings and a Secretary writes down his next speech
Why? Because the work never stopped, so it all blended together. Churchill needed a bath and a cigar and some scotch to relax, but Britain was in a terrible war so the decisions and dilemmas came at him, hourly, and he could not stop entirely
Perhaps a special constable should have marched in and taken the whisky and cigar away and said “You’re not allowed this, Winston, just do your job”?
And of course Number 10 during peak Covid - November-March 2020-21 must have felt like a wartime government
FWIW I agree with @mwadams and Boris’ real sin was lying about this to the Commons. He should have just made my argument. Yes, we drank, because life and work was all of a piece in that terrible time
I think there's a difference between, for example, Thatcher who was a heavy drinker but was always working and on top of the details compared with the current situation where it appears the 'fun' is much more prominent and there's a general slovenly attitude to getting work done.
Maggie was a heavy drinker? Really? That does surprise me considering her Methodist background, only five hours sleep a night etc.
She was a boozer. Scotch at lunch
Maggie famously only had four or five hours sleep a night. What is less well known is her propensity for an afternoon nap - thereby topping her up to a normal amount of sleep and also allowing her to sleep off the effects of a boozy lunch.
I have often pondered this and whether it contributed to the stroke she had in her 70's.
I knew an Oxford don with a similar 4-5 hr sleep pattern who also went on to have a stroke.
Lack of sleep is now widely held to be a cause of dementia, which also afflicted Maggie in the end.
But my point is that she didn't lack sleep - she topped up her sleep in the afternoon. (That may itself be sub-optimal - I don't know.)
Head of UN World Food Programme confirms talks are underway to secure sea and rail corridors for grain exports out of Ukraine, as Harpoon anti-ship missiles are on their way from Denmark.
How much use will sea corridors be unless somebody provides Ukraine with mine sweeping vessels and equipment?
It sounds like the plan is for an international naval fleet, flying UN flags, sweeping the area and keeping the corridor open, backed by land-based anti-ship weapons in Odesa. It sounds plausible, but no doubt the Russians will see it as provocative. The alternative is a global grain shortage this summer.
It would sound plausible if anybody in the Biden administration had said it. It doesn't sound plausible when it's just the Lithuanian Foreign Minister and Fizzy Lizzy saying it.
Throughout this whole year 'Fizzy Lizzy' has been saying things which people have mocked here as Liz jockeying for position until Biden has then said it a few days later.
Its quite clear that the communications between the Oval Office and Whitehall are as close as they have ever been and the Americans are quite happy to have 'Fizzy Lizzy' kite-flying in saying things first before Biden confirms it.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Gen. Miley), today: "Right now we don’t have any naval assets on the Black Sea, we don’t intend to."
One thing to note on the narrative - mines... seem to be more of a defensive weapon than assault to me. It's not the Russians that are strategically defending Odessa. The Russian Navy (Even with the Moskva sinking) still outmatches Ukraine's navy. So the side I'd expect to use (more) sea mines is Ukraine. Have I missed something ?
It’s just a media conspiracy to try and put a bit of pressure back on the PM - but at least just the one newspaper stands on the side of truth and reason and beside the British People
Parody again, right?
For completeness and balance, the ‘fronts’ Mike didn’t use - telling us “nothing to see here, Boris broke no rules” and “yep, defo not a party”
My anger at Johnson has become a re-direction of my regret at wasting a big chunk of my life following a bunch of silly restrictions.
There must be plenty of people who, deep down, know they messed up by not attending that funeral, or hugging their elderly parents, or stopping their children playing with their friends.
Perhaps @DavidL and @Leon were smart/cynical enough to realise this at the time and the "betrayal" isn't as raw for them. It's toxic for those of us who were fool enough to trust the PM.
Aside from that, the Commons is just a laughing stock now (getting to Scottish Parliament levels of impotence).
I suspect this is very much it. Certainly I used whatever loopholes were available to do whatever needed to be done (for example, I was technically eligible for a support bubble so I took full advantage of that, even though my circumstances in no way fitted the intention of the support bubble) - then again, I was fortunate enough that I didn't have any dealings with hospitals or care homes and their policies which far exceeded what was necessary.
It was said that for the middle classes their support bubble was whomever they happened to be seeing at that moment.
I am astounded that people would not have visited elderly relatives on account of a bizarre, authoritarian law. But then I look at the curtain-twitching (not least on PB) and the opinion polls in favour of all and longer restrictions and I slightly despair at my fellow citizens.
It’s just a media conspiracy to try and put a bit of pressure back on the PM - but at least just the one newspaper stands on the side of truth and reason and beside the British People
Head of UN World Food Programme confirms talks are underway to secure sea and rail corridors for grain exports out of Ukraine, as Harpoon anti-ship missiles are on their way from Denmark.
How much use will sea corridors be unless somebody provides Ukraine with mine sweeping vessels and equipment?
It sounds like the plan is for an international naval fleet, flying UN flags, sweeping the area and keeping the corridor open, backed by land-based anti-ship weapons in Odesa. It sounds plausible, but no doubt the Russians will see it as provocative. The alternative is a global grain shortage this summer.
It would sound plausible if anybody in the Biden administration had said it. It doesn't sound plausible when it's just the Lithuanian Foreign Minister and Fizzy Lizzy saying it.
Throughout this whole year 'Fizzy Lizzy' has been saying things which people have mocked here as Liz jockeying for position until Biden has then said it a few days later.
Its quite clear that the communications between the Oval Office and Whitehall are as close as they have ever been and the Americans are quite happy to have 'Fizzy Lizzy' kite-flying in saying things first before Biden confirms it.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Gen. Miley), today: "Right now we don’t have any naval assets on the Black Sea, we don’t intend to."
If ships are put in place under the UN flag as suggested earlier, that could meet both what Liz and Miley said. The problem is I don't see how the UN flag can be used as Russia can veto any UNSC resolution but I'm sure all sorts of plans and contingencies are being worked on all the time.
Just remember this conversation if it does indeed turn out not to be the 'end of that' which has happened a few times already.
Dominic Cummings @Dominic2306 · 17m Reminder: intervening to boot people off the planes so the *animals* were evacuated, those people then hung/tortured, & covering that up too - is *worse* than the parties
Former Senator David Perdue ended his campaign for governor of Georgia with a racist appeal to Republican primary voters on Monday, accusing Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee, of “demeaning her own race.” https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1528873446255599617
The truly disgraceful thing is the number of voters who are prepared to support him.
Yep I sat with two people yesterday one of whom has completely turned against Johnson but the other is still in love with him. Two of us were trying to persuade her of a thousand reasons why Boris Johnson is unfit for the office of PM but she still continues to "like Boris".
She's not a graduate and I throw that into the mix with caution because, despite occasionally suggesting otherwise, I don't really like that supercilious 'we know best' attitude. But I think it's pertinent because there's no doubt that Boris is continuing to draw support from non-graduates and those who have failed as yet to see through the magician's sleight of hand. Oh dear, I've just been supercilious. It's hard so don't get angry BR & Co.
It genuinely baffles me how anyone can still support him. And I'd have a lot more respect for the Conservatives if they had not just the bottle but the integrity to remove him.
I often wonder the same about serial philanderers who still manage to convince the next woman that this time they will be faithful. I think some people just really want to believe in Boris because he is, in some way that the rest of us just don't see, charming to a large portion of the population.
I also think there is another sizeable chunk who have no love for the man but see him as a vehicle for their partisan agenda so are happy to overlook the character flaws so long as he is [delivering Brexit; insulting the French; keeping out the migrants]. Unfortunately for him that pragmatic group doesn't now include: cutting taxes; keeping out Corbyn; levelling up; or for that matter "delivering Brexit".
Well indeed I think Boris should be forced out and have said so for about 7 months now but that for me is because he raised taxes and that was a deal-breaker. Had he not done that, I'd be happy for him to stay on, but he did and that's a breach of trust I can't accept.
I think the brouhaha over your guy was drinking alcohol because he's a party animal, my guy was drinking alcohol because he's hard at work campaigning is stupid, hypocritical asinine bullshit that has dominated the public conversation far too much but that doesn't change the fact that Boris should go because he raised taxes.
Everyone has their own red lines and that was my one.
Your red line? Yes. The legal red line? No. Anyone else's red line? Don't be silly.
Yet this is this week's straw man that you have decided will batter all other arguments and posters into submission. Erm, no.
PS I'm not the only poster aggrieved about the taxes issue. I could name at least half a dozen other right-wing economically former Conservative voters who think the same on that, so its hardly unique even if it isn't sufficient on its own.
No you're not, it's true.
However, conflating that with the partying is rather disingenuous. Putting up taxes may piss you off but it doesn't break the law.
It's slightly disturbing that you don't seem to understand the difference.
The Metropolitan Police seem to think that him raising a glass of alcohol at work didn't break the law either, and I expect that Durham Police will find the same thing about his opposite number, so its you that doesn't understand the difference it seems.
Some people are saying its outrageous that the Metropolitan Police didn't fine him for this (and no doubt will find it outrageous if Durham Police do fine their guy) and are saying the Met got it wrong. The Met getting it wrong is certainly possible, they're far from infallible, but if that's the card you want to play then I will say they got it wrong issuing a fine for having cake at work at 1pm. Again, what's sauce for the goose . . . 🤷♂️
I said before the start of this that Boris should go and at the start of this if Boris broke the law its another reason he should go. Since the only fine is for cake, and I think the fine for cake was unreasonable, I don't think "partygate" is a reason for Boris to go. He should still go over taxes though.
The Met issued fines to people at this event. So the event was not legal. So why are you repeating the Peter Bone line that it was legal? You aren't dumb like Peter Bone...
If someone breaks the law at an event, that does not make the event illegal, it means the Police judged the actions of whoever got fined were illegal.
If you and thousands of others go to a concert, but one person who goes to the concert is caught taking or supply drugs by the Police and that individual is fined, then does that make the concert itself an illegal event? No, don't be ridiculous.
Unless we get told why the person who got fined was fined, we don't know what they were fined for, so all we know for certain is the Police believe that they broke the law in some way, not that the event itself was unlawful.
Could yoy upload an mp3 of the sound of one hand clapping? That would clarify things.
Here you go, from when right-on comedians didn't care about "cultural appropriation" it seems, which it seems was only nine years ago.
That's an entirely different scene. In an entirely different show.
Its not that different.
And SNL and HIMYM are/were both comedies that take the piss out of things.
Why is comedy in one cultural appropriation, while comedy in the other is not whatsoever? Where's the line?
The real difference seems to be that generally Buddhists have a pretty good sense of humour and don't vocally complain when jokes are made at their expense. Andy Samberg and SNL would never dream of doing the same sketch, but with Mohammed instead of Buddha. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
BUT. It isn't at Buddhists expense. Slapping is a long standing Buddhist tradition. I didn't say one was and the other wasn't. (Although one is all the better for Alyson Hannigan).
Dominic Cummings @Dominic2306 · 17m Reminder: intervening to boot people off the planes so the *animals* were evacuated, those people then hung/tortured, & covering that up too - is *worse* than the parties
Head of UN World Food Programme confirms talks are underway to secure sea and rail corridors for grain exports out of Ukraine, as Harpoon anti-ship missiles are on their way from Denmark.
How much use will sea corridors be unless somebody provides Ukraine with mine sweeping vessels and equipment?
It sounds like the plan is for an international naval fleet, flying UN flags, sweeping the area and keeping the corridor open, backed by land-based anti-ship weapons in Odesa. It sounds plausible, but no doubt the Russians will see it as provocative. The alternative is a global grain shortage this summer.
It would sound plausible if anybody in the Biden administration had said it. It doesn't sound plausible when it's just the Lithuanian Foreign Minister and Fizzy Lizzy saying it.
Throughout this whole year 'Fizzy Lizzy' has been saying things which people have mocked here as Liz jockeying for position until Biden has then said it a few days later.
Its quite clear that the communications between the Oval Office and Whitehall are as close as they have ever been and the Americans are quite happy to have 'Fizzy Lizzy' kite-flying in saying things first before Biden confirms it.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Gen. Miley), today: "Right now we don’t have any naval assets on the Black Sea, we don’t intend to."
That reminds me of John Major's "we have no plans to extend the scope of VAT". It might be true at the time, but it doesn't therefore follow that it holds for all time.
Former Senator David Perdue ended his campaign for governor of Georgia with a racist appeal to Republican primary voters on Monday, accusing Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee, of “demeaning her own race.” https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1528873446255599617
The truly disgraceful thing is the number of voters who are prepared to support him.
Yep I sat with two people yesterday one of whom has completely turned against Johnson but the other is still in love with him. Two of us were trying to persuade her of a thousand reasons why Boris Johnson is unfit for the office of PM but she still continues to "like Boris".
She's not a graduate and I throw that into the mix with caution because, despite occasionally suggesting otherwise, I don't really like that supercilious 'we know best' attitude. But I think it's pertinent because there's no doubt that Boris is continuing to draw support from non-graduates and those who have failed as yet to see through the magician's sleight of hand. Oh dear, I've just been supercilious. It's hard so don't get angry BR & Co.
It genuinely baffles me how anyone can still support him. And I'd have a lot more respect for the Conservatives if they had not just the bottle but the integrity to remove him.
I often wonder the same about serial philanderers who still manage to convince the next woman that this time they will be faithful. I think some people just really want to believe in Boris because he is, in some way that the rest of us just don't see, charming to a large portion of the population.
I also think there is another sizeable chunk who have no love for the man but see him as a vehicle for their partisan agenda so are happy to overlook the character flaws so long as he is [delivering Brexit; insulting the French; keeping out the migrants]. Unfortunately for him that pragmatic group doesn't now include: cutting taxes; keeping out Corbyn; levelling up; or for that matter "delivering Brexit".
Well indeed I think Boris should be forced out and have said so for about 7 months now but that for me is because he raised taxes and that was a deal-breaker. Had he not done that, I'd be happy for him to stay on, but he did and that's a breach of trust I can't accept.
I think the brouhaha over your guy was drinking alcohol because he's a party animal, my guy was drinking alcohol because he's hard at work campaigning is stupid, hypocritical asinine bullshit that has dominated the public conversation far too much but that doesn't change the fact that Boris should go because he raised taxes.
Everyone has their own red lines and that was my one.
Your red line? Yes. The legal red line? No. Anyone else's red line? Don't be silly.
Yet this is this week's straw man that you have decided will batter all other arguments and posters into submission. Erm, no.
PS I'm not the only poster aggrieved about the taxes issue. I could name at least half a dozen other right-wing economically former Conservative voters who think the same on that, so its hardly unique even if it isn't sufficient on its own.
No you're not, it's true.
However, conflating that with the partying is rather disingenuous. Putting up taxes may piss you off but it doesn't break the law.
It's slightly disturbing that you don't seem to understand the difference.
The Metropolitan Police seem to think that him raising a glass of alcohol at work didn't break the law either, and I expect that Durham Police will find the same thing about his opposite number, so its you that doesn't understand the difference it seems.
Some people are saying its outrageous that the Metropolitan Police didn't fine him for this (and no doubt will find it outrageous if Durham Police do fine their guy) and are saying the Met got it wrong. The Met getting it wrong is certainly possible, they're far from infallible, but if that's the card you want to play then I will say they got it wrong issuing a fine for having cake at work at 1pm. Again, what's sauce for the goose . . . 🤷♂️
I said before the start of this that Boris should go and at the start of this if Boris broke the law its another reason he should go. Since the only fine is for cake, and I think the fine for cake was unreasonable, I don't think "partygate" is a reason for Boris to go. He should still go over taxes though.
The Met issued fines to people at this event. So the event was not legal. So why are you repeating the Peter Bone line that it was legal? You aren't dumb like Peter Bone...
If someone breaks the law at an event, that does not make the event illegal, it means the Police judged the actions of whoever got fined were illegal.
If you and thousands of others go to a concert, but one person who goes to the concert is caught taking or supply drugs by the Police and that individual is fined, then does that make the concert itself an illegal event? No, don't be ridiculous.
Unless we get told why the person who got fined was fined, we don't know what they were fined for, so all we know for certain is the Police believe that they broke the law in some way, not that the event itself was unlawful.
Could yoy upload an mp3 of the sound of one hand clapping? That would clarify things.
Here you go, from when right-on comedians didn't care about "cultural appropriation" it seems, which it seems was only nine years ago.
That's an entirely different scene. In an entirely different show.
Its not that different.
And SNL and HIMYM are/were both comedies that take the piss out of things.
Why is comedy in one cultural appropriation, while comedy in the other is not whatsoever? Where's the line?
The real difference seems to be that generally Buddhists have a pretty good sense of humour and don't vocally complain when jokes are made at their expense. Andy Samberg and SNL would never dream of doing the same sketch, but with Mohammed instead of Buddha. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
BUT. It isn't at Buddhists expense. Slapping is a long standing Buddhist tradition. I didn't say one was and the other wasn't. (Although one is all the better for Alyson Hannigan).
Did you watch the whole sketch? It certainly was - it was also funny, and as I said Buddhists seem by and large able to take a joke as ideally should everyone, but such a joke wouldn't be done about other communities and the whole 'cultural appropriation' complaining means that SNL and Samberg would probably not make that joke today. Which is a shame I feel, as it was funny, and being able to make jokes is a healthy thing for society.
You to be fair didn't call Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra cultural appropriation but many other people did at the time.
It’s just a media conspiracy to try and put a bit of pressure back on the PM - but at least just the one newspaper stands on the side of truth and reason and beside the British People
Parody again, right?
The Mail Exclusive about the communist union barons in love with Putin trying to cripple UK with power cuts, certainly stands out on the paper rack.
If the Tories want to lance the boil they will lance it. If not, they'll mope along until the media find a new ball to kick. He should go, SKS should go, people should be angry but ultimately its now baked in to the polling. Nobody is going to say 'i was prepared to give the benefit of the doubt until i saw a toast'. There will be increasing frustration at the inability to move on as a government, economy and country whilst this pitiful affair rumbles on. And, of course, it means any government trying to muzzle and restrict in future can cram it up their butt.
SSE shares down 10% this morning on rumours of a windfall tax. That's over 2bn loss of value. Just this one company alone. I think that is more than a windfall tax is going to raise?
And I'm not clear where the windfall is. If SSE, and other companies, are passing on the extra cost of the raw material to customers then SSE is getting no windfall on which to be taxed.
It’s just a media conspiracy to try and put a bit of pressure back on the PM - but at least just the one newspaper stands on the side of truth and reason and beside the British People
Parody again, right?
The Mail Exclusive about the communist union barons in love with Putin trying to cripple UK with power cuts, certainly stands out on the paper rack.
Indeed so. It’s the one story that might have a real impact on the country in the coming weeks and months.
Tottenham Court Road to Paddington in FIVE minutes
Farringdon to Canary Wharf: ten minutes
Heathrow to anywhere in central London: thirty minutes, 44 minutes to Canary Wharf
Game-changer for a lot of places along the line
More money spunked on London and the South East while the rest of the nation gets nothing.
Au contraire. We get massive bus cuts.
Rest of the country needs to stop voting Tory if they don't want that kind of thing to happen to them.
Well New Labour gave us sweet FA too in terms of transport investment. Both HS2 and Crossrail started under their watch as well. Money lavished on the south east and London.
The question I don't get is. What advantage does an employer get from having a half pissed workforce half of the day? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Seems like rather a strawman argument.
Everywhere I've worked, in a couple of different industries, the company has allowed (and paid for) a drink during the last hour on a Friday whilst work was being finished up, and this sometimes extended to further drinks after work had finished. And none of my employers has ever cared about staff having a drink at lunchtime off-site.
That doesn't mean being "half pissed half of the day".
I still don't see the advantage. It just seems to be something that still happens as a matter of course in some jobs. And is grounds for dismissal in many others. The reasoning for this doesn't appear to be clear at all.
The question I don't get is. What advantage does an employer get from having a half pissed workforce half of the day? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Seems like rather a strawman argument.
Everywhere I've worked, in a couple of different industries, the company has allowed (and paid for) a drink during the last hour on a Friday whilst work was being finished up, and this sometimes extended to further drinks after work had finished. And none of my employers has ever cared about staff having a drink at lunchtime off-site.
That doesn't mean being "half pissed half of the day".
I still don't see the advantage. It just seems to be something that still happens as a matter of course in some jobs. And is grounds for dismissal in many others. The reasoning for this doesn't appear to be clear at all.
You don't see the advantage in giving workers a perk that they enjoy?
It’s just a media conspiracy to try and put a bit of pressure back on the PM - but at least just the one newspaper stands on the side of truth and reason and beside the British People
Parody again, right?
Newspapers lie, fact! they just make things up - for example Take a look at this headline on the lefty workers daily aka The Times “Sue Gray was pressured to drop report in No. 10 meeting”. They are making it up surely, how could they possibly know that, no one else is saying this?
The question I don't get is. What advantage does an employer get from having a half pissed workforce half of the day? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Seems like rather a strawman argument.
Everywhere I've worked, in a couple of different industries, the company has allowed (and paid for) a drink during the last hour on a Friday whilst work was being finished up, and this sometimes extended to further drinks after work had finished. And none of my employers has ever cared about staff having a drink at lunchtime off-site.
That doesn't mean being "half pissed half of the day".
I still don't see the advantage. It just seems to be something that still happens as a matter of course in some jobs. And is grounds for dismissal in many others. The reasoning for this doesn't appear to be clear at all.
Whitehall, Fleet St, and some parts of the City, are pretty much the only places that still have a lunchtime drinking culture.
SSE shares down 10% this morning on rumours of a windfall tax. That's over 2bn loss of value. Just this one company alone. I think that is more than a windfall tax is going to raise?
And I'm not clear where the windfall is. If SSE, and other companies, are passing on the extra cost of the raw material to customers then SSE is getting no windfall on which to be taxed.
Windfall taxes are a sixth form debate club policy. Utterly useless. Its the hated family member who shows up when you win the pools.
The question I don't get is. What advantage does an employer get from having a half pissed workforce half of the day? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Seems like rather a strawman argument.
Everywhere I've worked, in a couple of different industries, the company has allowed (and paid for) a drink during the last hour on a Friday whilst work was being finished up, and this sometimes extended to further drinks after work had finished. And none of my employers has ever cared about staff having a drink at lunchtime off-site.
That doesn't mean being "half pissed half of the day".
I still don't see the advantage. It just seems to be something that still happens as a matter of course in some jobs. And is grounds for dismissal in many others. The reasoning for this doesn't appear to be clear at all.
If its an health and safety concern then it should be grounds for dismissal. I sacked someone once for being under the influence of alcohol, but he was working on the road so I called it Gross Misconduct.
If its not a health and safety concern, then it shouldn't be a dismissable offence, and if it aids teamwork or teambuilding then it can be a positive instead. I've paid for drinks for my colleagues during work hours before.
So as an employer, I've personally done both extremes. I can see the difference between Gross Misconduct and teamwork and they aren't the same thing.
SSE shares down 10% this morning on rumours of a windfall tax. That's over 2bn loss of value. Just this one company alone. I think that is more than a windfall tax is going to raise?
And I'm not clear where the windfall is. If SSE, and other companies, are passing on the extra cost of the raw material to customers then SSE is getting no windfall on which to be taxed.
I think it's best if a windfall tax takes place now in terms of shareholder value. Once the tax is taken, it's out the way. Right now it'll affect the share price without the benefit of actually benefitting the UK treasury.
The "windfall" is basically the massive arb between North Sea hydrocarbons and the broad UK/EU market price I think. It won't go on indefinitely, indeed Osborne* helped them out when the oil price was low back in the day.
The question I don't get is. What advantage does an employer get from having a half pissed workforce half of the day? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Seems like rather a strawman argument.
Everywhere I've worked, in a couple of different industries, the company has allowed (and paid for) a drink during the last hour on a Friday whilst work was being finished up, and this sometimes extended to further drinks after work had finished. And none of my employers has ever cared about staff having a drink at lunchtime off-site.
That doesn't mean being "half pissed half of the day".
I still don't see the advantage. It just seems to be something that still happens as a matter of course in some jobs. And is grounds for dismissal in many others. The reasoning for this doesn't appear to be clear at all.
You don't see the advantage in giving workers a perk that they enjoy?
Well of course. There are plenty of perks people would like. Why this one? Why doesn't everyone?
The arguments about what constitutes a party have moved to the point of angels on pinheads. Ultimately this will be judged in the court of public opinion and I just don't buy the arguments advanced on here that the public don't care.
People will look at these photos and ask themselves whether they would have held a similar event with their friends and family during lockdown. It's no good trying to split hairs about what constitutes a work place because that's not how people think. I've heard Boris and parties brought up by so many people in so many different circumstances I will never believe that this is a bubble issue. Of course it will not be enough in itself to lose the Tories the election but it will certainly be one reason for many people.
@Stocky I'd expect the shares to go back up once the windfall tax is actually announced. Right now there's uncertainty over it. It needs to be done ASAP.
Former Senator David Perdue ended his campaign for governor of Georgia with a racist appeal to Republican primary voters on Monday, accusing Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee, of “demeaning her own race.” https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1528873446255599617
The truly disgraceful thing is the number of voters who are prepared to support him.
Yep I sat with two people yesterday one of whom has completely turned against Johnson but the other is still in love with him. Two of us were trying to persuade her of a thousand reasons why Boris Johnson is unfit for the office of PM but she still continues to "like Boris".
She's not a graduate and I throw that into the mix with caution because, despite occasionally suggesting otherwise, I don't really like that supercilious 'we know best' attitude. But I think it's pertinent because there's no doubt that Boris is continuing to draw support from non-graduates and those who have failed as yet to see through the magician's sleight of hand. Oh dear, I've just been supercilious. It's hard so don't get angry BR & Co.
It genuinely baffles me how anyone can still support him. And I'd have a lot more respect for the Conservatives if they had not just the bottle but the integrity to remove him.
I often wonder the same about serial philanderers who still manage to convince the next woman that this time they will be faithful. I think some people just really want to believe in Boris because he is, in some way that the rest of us just don't see, charming to a large portion of the population.
I also think there is another sizeable chunk who have no love for the man but see him as a vehicle for their partisan agenda so are happy to overlook the character flaws so long as he is [delivering Brexit; insulting the French; keeping out the migrants]. Unfortunately for him that pragmatic group doesn't now include: cutting taxes; keeping out Corbyn; levelling up; or for that matter "delivering Brexit".
Well indeed I think Boris should be forced out and have said so for about 7 months now but that for me is because he raised taxes and that was a deal-breaker. Had he not done that, I'd be happy for him to stay on, but he did and that's a breach of trust I can't accept.
I think the brouhaha over your guy was drinking alcohol because he's a party animal, my guy was drinking alcohol because he's hard at work campaigning is stupid, hypocritical asinine bullshit that has dominated the public conversation far too much but that doesn't change the fact that Boris should go because he raised taxes.
Everyone has their own red lines and that was my one.
Your red line? Yes. The legal red line? No. Anyone else's red line? Don't be silly.
Yet this is this week's straw man that you have decided will batter all other arguments and posters into submission. Erm, no.
PS I'm not the only poster aggrieved about the taxes issue. I could name at least half a dozen other right-wing economically former Conservative voters who think the same on that, so its hardly unique even if it isn't sufficient on its own.
No you're not, it's true.
However, conflating that with the partying is rather disingenuous. Putting up taxes may piss you off but it doesn't break the law.
It's slightly disturbing that you don't seem to understand the difference.
The Metropolitan Police seem to think that him raising a glass of alcohol at work didn't break the law either, and I expect that Durham Police will find the same thing about his opposite number, so its you that doesn't understand the difference it seems.
Some people are saying its outrageous that the Metropolitan Police didn't fine him for this (and no doubt will find it outrageous if Durham Police do fine their guy) and are saying the Met got it wrong. The Met getting it wrong is certainly possible, they're far from infallible, but if that's the card you want to play then I will say they got it wrong issuing a fine for having cake at work at 1pm. Again, what's sauce for the goose . . . 🤷♂️
I said before the start of this that Boris should go and at the start of this if Boris broke the law its another reason he should go. Since the only fine is for cake, and I think the fine for cake was unreasonable, I don't think "partygate" is a reason for Boris to go. He should still go over taxes though.
The Met issued fines to people at this event. So the event was not legal. So why are you repeating the Peter Bone line that it was legal? You aren't dumb like Peter Bone...
If someone breaks the law at an event, that does not make the event illegal, it means the Police judged the actions of whoever got fined were illegal.
If you and thousands of others go to a concert, but one person who goes to the concert is caught taking or supply drugs by the Police and that individual is fined, then does that make the concert itself an illegal event? No, don't be ridiculous.
Unless we get told why the person who got fined was fined, we don't know what they were fined for, so all we know for certain is the Police believe that they broke the law in some way, not that the event itself was unlawful.
Could yoy upload an mp3 of the sound of one hand clapping? That would clarify things.
Here you go, from when right-on comedians didn't care about "cultural appropriation" it seems, which it seems was only nine years ago.
That's an entirely different scene. In an entirely different show.
Its not that different.
And SNL and HIMYM are/were both comedies that take the piss out of things.
Why is comedy in one cultural appropriation, while comedy in the other is not whatsoever? Where's the line?
The real difference seems to be that generally Buddhists have a pretty good sense of humour and don't vocally complain when jokes are made at their expense. Andy Samberg and SNL would never dream of doing the same sketch, but with Mohammed instead of Buddha. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
BUT. It isn't at Buddhists expense. Slapping is a long standing Buddhist tradition. I didn't say one was and the other wasn't. (Although one is all the better for Alyson Hannigan).
Did you watch the whole sketch? It certainly was - it was also funny, and as I said Buddhists seem by and large able to take a joke as ideally should everyone, but such a joke wouldn't be done about other communities and the whole 'cultural appropriation' complaining means that SNL and Samberg would probably not make that joke today. Which is a shame I feel, as it was funny, and being able to make jokes is a healthy thing for society.
You to be fair didn't call Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra cultural appropriation but many other people did at the time.
Buddhism is full of jokes. At the expense of Buddhists. Otherwise you end up like Myanmar. Or Sri Lanka. Or 30's Japan. It is to be positively encouraged.
Real life scenario where legal and employment decisions mix. What would you do as the employer here?
Previous job many years ago I was contacted to say one of my employees had been pulled over by the Police and had blown just under the limit. The Police were taking no further action since it was [only just] under the limit and therefore legal, but the employee was driving using my corporate insurance and so I was informed about what had happened. What do you do?
What I did was suspend the employee on full pay immediately pending an investigation. Invited him in to a meeting he claimed he'd had drinks with his family before work and denied drinking while working.
My concern was that since he claimed the alcohol was in his blood from before work, he'd been on the road for us for four hours by the time he'd been pulled over, so if he was only just under the limit four hours into his shift then he must have been over the limit when he began it, which is breaking the law, which is Gross Misconduct, so I fired him.
If he'd blown under the limit on his way into work, I don't see how I could or should have taken any action against him, even with the [legal] presence of alcohol in the bloodstream. If he wasn't working on the road, I'd have had no issue.
The question I don't get is. What advantage does an employer get from having a half pissed workforce half of the day? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Seems like rather a strawman argument.
Everywhere I've worked, in a couple of different industries, the company has allowed (and paid for) a drink during the last hour on a Friday whilst work was being finished up, and this sometimes extended to further drinks after work had finished. And none of my employers has ever cared about staff having a drink at lunchtime off-site.
That doesn't mean being "half pissed half of the day".
I still don't see the advantage. It just seems to be something that still happens as a matter of course in some jobs. And is grounds for dismissal in many others. The reasoning for this doesn't appear to be clear at all.
Whitehall, Fleet St, and some parts of the City, are pretty much the only places that still have a lunchtime drinking culture.
Once went to a meeting with a large insurance brokerage (90s). The MD paused the meeting whilst his 1950s looking bun-wearing secretary brought him in his 11.45 glass of scotch on a silver tray. We were then taken out to get munted.
Former Senator David Perdue ended his campaign for governor of Georgia with a racist appeal to Republican primary voters on Monday, accusing Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee, of “demeaning her own race.” https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1528873446255599617
The truly disgraceful thing is the number of voters who are prepared to support him.
Yep I sat with two people yesterday one of whom has completely turned against Johnson but the other is still in love with him. Two of us were trying to persuade her of a thousand reasons why Boris Johnson is unfit for the office of PM but she still continues to "like Boris".
She's not a graduate and I throw that into the mix with caution because, despite occasionally suggesting otherwise, I don't really like that supercilious 'we know best' attitude. But I think it's pertinent because there's no doubt that Boris is continuing to draw support from non-graduates and those who have failed as yet to see through the magician's sleight of hand. Oh dear, I've just been supercilious. It's hard so don't get angry BR & Co.
It genuinely baffles me how anyone can still support him. And I'd have a lot more respect for the Conservatives if they had not just the bottle but the integrity to remove him.
I often wonder the same about serial philanderers who still manage to convince the next woman that this time they will be faithful. I think some people just really want to believe in Boris because he is, in some way that the rest of us just don't see, charming to a large portion of the population.
I also think there is another sizeable chunk who have no love for the man but see him as a vehicle for their partisan agenda so are happy to overlook the character flaws so long as he is [delivering Brexit; insulting the French; keeping out the migrants]. Unfortunately for him that pragmatic group doesn't now include: cutting taxes; keeping out Corbyn; levelling up; or for that matter "delivering Brexit".
Well indeed I think Boris should be forced out and have said so for about 7 months now but that for me is because he raised taxes and that was a deal-breaker. Had he not done that, I'd be happy for him to stay on, but he did and that's a breach of trust I can't accept.
I think the brouhaha over your guy was drinking alcohol because he's a party animal, my guy was drinking alcohol because he's hard at work campaigning is stupid, hypocritical asinine bullshit that has dominated the public conversation far too much but that doesn't change the fact that Boris should go because he raised taxes.
Everyone has their own red lines and that was my one.
Your red line? Yes. The legal red line? No. Anyone else's red line? Don't be silly.
Yet this is this week's straw man that you have decided will batter all other arguments and posters into submission. Erm, no.
PS I'm not the only poster aggrieved about the taxes issue. I could name at least half a dozen other right-wing economically former Conservative voters who think the same on that, so its hardly unique even if it isn't sufficient on its own.
No you're not, it's true.
However, conflating that with the partying is rather disingenuous. Putting up taxes may piss you off but it doesn't break the law.
It's slightly disturbing that you don't seem to understand the difference.
The Metropolitan Police seem to think that him raising a glass of alcohol at work didn't break the law either, and I expect that Durham Police will find the same thing about his opposite number, so its you that doesn't understand the difference it seems.
Some people are saying its outrageous that the Metropolitan Police didn't fine him for this (and no doubt will find it outrageous if Durham Police do fine their guy) and are saying the Met got it wrong. The Met getting it wrong is certainly possible, they're far from infallible, but if that's the card you want to play then I will say they got it wrong issuing a fine for having cake at work at 1pm. Again, what's sauce for the goose . . . 🤷♂️
I said before the start of this that Boris should go and at the start of this if Boris broke the law its another reason he should go. Since the only fine is for cake, and I think the fine for cake was unreasonable, I don't think "partygate" is a reason for Boris to go. He should still go over taxes though.
The Met issued fines to people at this event. So the event was not legal. So why are you repeating the Peter Bone line that it was legal? You aren't dumb like Peter Bone...
If someone breaks the law at an event, that does not make the event illegal, it means the Police judged the actions of whoever got fined were illegal.
If you and thousands of others go to a concert, but one person who goes to the concert is caught taking or supply drugs by the Police and that individual is fined, then does that make the concert itself an illegal event? No, don't be ridiculous.
Unless we get told why the person who got fined was fined, we don't know what they were fined for, so all we know for certain is the Police believe that they broke the law in some way, not that the event itself was unlawful.
Could yoy upload an mp3 of the sound of one hand clapping? That would clarify things.
Here you go, from when right-on comedians didn't care about "cultural appropriation" it seems, which it seems was only nine years ago.
That's an entirely different scene. In an entirely different show.
Its not that different.
And SNL and HIMYM are/were both comedies that take the piss out of things.
Why is comedy in one cultural appropriation, while comedy in the other is not whatsoever? Where's the line?
The real difference seems to be that generally Buddhists have a pretty good sense of humour and don't vocally complain when jokes are made at their expense. Andy Samberg and SNL would never dream of doing the same sketch, but with Mohammed instead of Buddha. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
BUT. It isn't at Buddhists expense. Slapping is a long standing Buddhist tradition. I didn't say one was and the other wasn't. (Although one is all the better for Alyson Hannigan).
Did you watch the whole sketch? It certainly was - it was also funny, and as I said Buddhists seem by and large able to take a joke as ideally should everyone, but such a joke wouldn't be done about other communities and the whole 'cultural appropriation' complaining means that SNL and Samberg would probably not make that joke today. Which is a shame I feel, as it was funny, and being able to make jokes is a healthy thing for society.
You to be fair didn't call Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra cultural appropriation but many other people did at the time.
Buddhism is full of jokes. At the expense of Buddhists. Otherwise you end up like Myanmar. Or Sri Lanka. Or 30's Japan. It is to be positively encouraged.
I agree it should be.
Those who whinge about "cultural appropriation" at perfectly funny and respectful jokes like Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra do not though.
Head of UN World Food Programme confirms talks are underway to secure sea and rail corridors for grain exports out of Ukraine, as Harpoon anti-ship missiles are on their way from Denmark.
How much use will sea corridors be unless somebody provides Ukraine with mine sweeping vessels and equipment?
It sounds like the plan is for an international naval fleet, flying UN flags, sweeping the area and keeping the corridor open, backed by land-based anti-ship weapons in Odesa. It sounds plausible, but no doubt the Russians will see it as provocative. The alternative is a global grain shortage this summer.
It would sound plausible if anybody in the Biden administration had said it. It doesn't sound plausible when it's just the Lithuanian Foreign Minister and Fizzy Lizzy saying it.
Throughout this whole year 'Fizzy Lizzy' has been saying things which people have mocked here as Liz jockeying for position until Biden has then said it a few days later.
Its quite clear that the communications between the Oval Office and Whitehall are as close as they have ever been and the Americans are quite happy to have 'Fizzy Lizzy' kite-flying in saying things first before Biden confirms it.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Gen. Miley), today: "Right now we don’t have any naval assets on the Black Sea, we don’t intend to."
That reminds me of John Major's "we have no plans to extend the scope of VAT". It might be true at the time, but it doesn't therefore follow that it holds for all time.
Note "on", not "in".
Or he could just be lying, a useful strategy in time of war.
Ex the morning Staggers email from Freddie Hayward:
"The more damning revelation could be in The Times this morning, which says that the Prime Minister suggested to Sue Gray, the civil servant investigating the Downing Street parties, that she should not publish her report. This would constitute an interference in the investigation and could prove more problematic for the Prime Minister than the photos. It is worth remembering that Johnson’s position as Gray’s boss and her role as a civil servant means the investigation was never going to be fully independent. The fact that Johnson can initiate a meeting with the person deciding his political fate, allegedly ask her to drop her report and then have his cabinet colleagues argue that it was merely a meeting about timings only illustrates that."
Real life scenario where legal and employment decisions mix. What would you do as the employer here?
Previous job many years ago I was contacted to say one of my employees had been pulled over by the Police and had blown just under the limit. The Police were taking no further action since it was [only just] under the limit and therefore legal, but the employee was driving using my corporate insurance and so I was informed about what had happened. What do you do?
What I did was suspend the employee on full pay immediately pending an investigation. Invited him in to a meeting he claimed he'd had drinks with his family before work and denied drinking while working.
My concern was that since he claimed the alcohol was in his blood from before work, he'd been on the road for us for four hours by the time he'd been pulled over, so if he was only just under the limit four hours into his shift then he must have been over the limit when he began it, which is breaking the law, which is Gross Misconduct, so I fired him.
If he'd blown under the limit on his way into work, I don't see how I could or should have taken any action against him, even with the [legal] presence of alcohol in the bloodstream. If he wasn't working on the road, I'd have had no issue.
Tottenham Court Road to Paddington in FIVE minutes
Farringdon to Canary Wharf: ten minutes
Heathrow to anywhere in central London: thirty minutes, 44 minutes to Canary Wharf
Game-changer for a lot of places along the line
More money spunked on London and the South East while the rest of the nation gets nothing.
Au contraire. We get massive bus cuts.
Rest of the country needs to stop voting Tory if they don't want that kind of thing to happen to them.
Well New Labour gave us sweet FA too in terms of transport investment. Both HS2 and Crossrail started under their watch as well. Money lavished on the south east and London.
Government net support for bus travel in England outside London in real terms (2020/21 prices) rose from £1.02bn in 1996/97 to £1.89bn in 2009/10. By 2019/20 it had fallen back to £1.35bn. So Tory governments = "massive bus cuts" outside of London. Yet these areas keep voting Tory. Data from www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus05-subsidies-and-concessions; BUS0502, tab BUS0502b.
Real life scenario where legal and employment decisions mix. What would you do as the employer here?
Previous job many years ago I was contacted to say one of my employees had been pulled over by the Police and had blown just under the limit. The Police were taking no further action since it was [only just] under the limit and therefore legal, but the employee was driving using my corporate insurance and so I was informed about what had happened. What do you do?
What I did was suspend the employee on full pay immediately pending an investigation. Invited him in to a meeting he claimed he'd had drinks with his family before work and denied drinking while working.
My concern was that since he claimed the alcohol was in his blood from before work, he'd been on the road for us for four hours by the time he'd been pulled over, so if he was only just under the limit four hours into his shift then he must have been over the limit when he began it, which is breaking the law, which is Gross Misconduct, so I fired him.
If he'd blown under the limit on his way into work, I don't see how I could or should have taken any action against him, even with the [legal] presence of alcohol in the bloodstream. If he wasn't working on the road, I'd have had no issue.
Who contacted you ?
He did, while he was with the Police, he needed the insurance details.
EDIT: I think from memory the officer while we were talking about insurance may have mentioned his concern about how very close to the limit it was. I'm not 100% certain though, it was many years ago and the precise details are fuzzy now.
I just looked at my phone Photos for November 2020 ... at no stage do any of them look like this. Try it with your photos... if you can find a party with raised glasses you probably were a Tory politician or SPAD .. that's how bad it is https://mobile.twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1528835927279288322
I looked, and found pictures of only two people I don’t live with, for the entire month. FWIW.
Its the whole drinking at work culture which surprises me.
I've not seen any alcohol drunk at my workplace for over 20 years or any work sponsored pub lunches for over 10 years.
I thought this was also the general trend throughout the country.
But not it seems in Downing Street.
Considering how often the bars come up in conversations about politics, I'm surprised at your surprise.
Anyway, I've often had alcohol at work, which makes me struggle to get outraged at either Keir or Boris having the same. I feel sorry that some people are so dry, or so lacking in self-control, that they think alcohol and work can't ever mix.
Unless you're driving of course, that's a different matter. Alcohol and driving don't mix, alcohol and work absolutely can.
The Westminster bars I can understand - the late night sittings, the endless visitors to be entertained, the blokeish atmosphere, the home-away-from-home eating and drinking.
But the drinking while in the office should never have been acceptable and in my experience work sponsored pub and restaurant outings have faded away to leave only the Christmas evening meal remaining (and we've not had those for the last two years because of covid).
But you and others making this argument are guilty of a category error. Politics at a high level - like PM of the UK - just never stops. This is increasingly true with social media and 24/7 news, but it has been true for many decades
Consider the multiple movies and dramas made about Churchill during the Blitz. There are scenes where he is naked in his bath sucking on a cigar and drinking whisky, even as he gives orders to underlings and a Secretary writes down his next speech
Why? Because the work never stopped, so it all blended together. Churchill needed a bath and a cigar and some scotch to relax, but Britain was in a terrible war so the decisions and dilemmas came at him, hourly, and he could not stop entirely
Perhaps a special constable should have marched in and taken the whisky and cigar away and said “You’re not allowed this, Winston, just do your job”?
And of course Number 10 during peak Covid - November-March 2020-21 must have felt like a wartime government
FWIW I agree with @mwadams and Boris’ real sin was lying about this to the Commons. He should have just made my argument. Yes, we drank, because life and work was all of a piece in that terrible time
I think there's a difference between, for example, Thatcher who was a heavy drinker but was always working and on top of the details compared with the current situation where it appears the 'fun' is much more prominent and there's a general slovenly attitude to getting work done.
Maggie was a heavy drinker? Really? That does surprise me considering her Methodist background, only five hours sleep a night etc.
She was a boozer. Scotch at lunch
Maggie famously only had four or five hours sleep a night. What is less well known is her propensity for an afternoon nap - thereby topping her up to a normal amount of sleep and also allowing her to sleep off the effects of a boozy lunch.
I have often pondered this and whether it contributed to the stroke she had in her 70's.
I knew an Oxford don with a similar 4-5 hr sleep pattern who also went on to have a stroke.
Lack of sleep is now widely held to be a cause of dementia, which also afflicted Maggie in the end.
Interesting. I have often wondered if it was a contributory factor. Better go and have another doze...
Dominic Cummings @Dominic2306 · 17m Reminder: intervening to boot people off the planes so the *animals* were evacuated, those people then hung/tortured, & covering that up too - is *worse* than the parties
Ex the morning Staggers email from Freddie Hayward:
"The more damning revelation could be in The Times this morning, which says that the Prime Minister suggested to Sue Gray, the civil servant investigating the Downing Street parties, that she should not publish her report. This would constitute an interference in the investigation and could prove more problematic for the Prime Minister than the photos. It is worth remembering that Johnson’s position as Gray’s boss and her role as a civil servant means the investigation was never going to be fully independent. The fact that Johnson can initiate a meeting with the person deciding his political fate, allegedly ask her to drop her report and then have his cabinet colleagues argue that it was merely a meeting about timings only illustrates that."
Sue Gray woukd need to confirm some pressure was applied for it to be a gotcha, or its just another 'allegedly' thing
My anger at Johnson has become a re-direction of my regret at wasting a big chunk of my life following a bunch of silly restrictions.
There must be plenty of people who, deep down, know they messed up by not attending that funeral, or hugging their elderly parents, or stopping their children playing with their friends.
Perhaps @DavidL and @Leon were smart/cynical enough to realise this at the time and the "betrayal" isn't as raw for them. It's toxic for those of us who were fool enough to trust the PM.
Aside from that, the Commons is just a laughing stock now (getting to Scottish Parliament levels of impotence).
I suspect this is very much it. Certainly I used whatever loopholes were available to do whatever needed to be done (for example, I was technically eligible for a support bubble so I took full advantage of that, even though my circumstances in no way fitted the intention of the support bubble) - then again, I was fortunate enough that I didn't have any dealings with hospitals or care homes and their policies which far exceeded what was necessary.
It was said that for the middle classes their support bubble was whomever they happened to be seeing at that moment.
I am astounded that people would not have visited elderly relatives on account of a bizarre, authoritarian law. But then I look at the curtain-twitching (not least on PB) and the opinion polls in favour of all and longer restrictions and I slightly despair at my fellow citizens.
Surely a good reason for not visiting elderly relatives was to not give them a potentially fatal disease. I certainly didn't visit my mum and neither did she expect me to.
Head of UN World Food Programme confirms talks are underway to secure sea and rail corridors for grain exports out of Ukraine, as Harpoon anti-ship missiles are on their way from Denmark.
How much use will sea corridors be unless somebody provides Ukraine with mine sweeping vessels and equipment?
It sounds like the plan is for an international naval fleet, flying UN flags, sweeping the area and keeping the corridor open, backed by land-based anti-ship weapons in Odesa. It sounds plausible, but no doubt the Russians will see it as provocative. The alternative is a global grain shortage this summer.
It would sound plausible if anybody in the Biden administration had said it. It doesn't sound plausible when it's just the Lithuanian Foreign Minister and Fizzy Lizzy saying it.
Throughout this whole year 'Fizzy Lizzy' has been saying things which people have mocked here as Liz jockeying for position until Biden has then said it a few days later.
Its quite clear that the communications between the Oval Office and Whitehall are as close as they have ever been and the Americans are quite happy to have 'Fizzy Lizzy' kite-flying in saying things first before Biden confirms it.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Gen. Miley), today: "Right now we don’t have any naval assets on the Black Sea, we don’t intend to."
One thing to note on the narrative - mines... seem to be more of a defensive weapon than assault to me. It's not the Russians that are strategically defending Odessa. The Russian Navy (Even with the Moskva sinking) still outmatches Ukraine's navy. So the side I'd expect to use (more) sea mines is Ukraine. Have I missed something ?
Who the fuck knows? They are probably both at it with unmapped abandon.
If Sue Gray went public and announced that Boris had asked her to ditch her report, that could indeed be the end for him. Not likely to happen, but she is in her mid-60s and may not care too much about the consequences.
Former Senator David Perdue ended his campaign for governor of Georgia with a racist appeal to Republican primary voters on Monday, accusing Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee, of “demeaning her own race.” https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1528873446255599617
The truly disgraceful thing is the number of voters who are prepared to support him.
Yep I sat with two people yesterday one of whom has completely turned against Johnson but the other is still in love with him. Two of us were trying to persuade her of a thousand reasons why Boris Johnson is unfit for the office of PM but she still continues to "like Boris".
She's not a graduate and I throw that into the mix with caution because, despite occasionally suggesting otherwise, I don't really like that supercilious 'we know best' attitude. But I think it's pertinent because there's no doubt that Boris is continuing to draw support from non-graduates and those who have failed as yet to see through the magician's sleight of hand. Oh dear, I've just been supercilious. It's hard so don't get angry BR & Co.
It genuinely baffles me how anyone can still support him. And I'd have a lot more respect for the Conservatives if they had not just the bottle but the integrity to remove him.
I often wonder the same about serial philanderers who still manage to convince the next woman that this time they will be faithful. I think some people just really want to believe in Boris because he is, in some way that the rest of us just don't see, charming to a large portion of the population.
I also think there is another sizeable chunk who have no love for the man but see him as a vehicle for their partisan agenda so are happy to overlook the character flaws so long as he is [delivering Brexit; insulting the French; keeping out the migrants]. Unfortunately for him that pragmatic group doesn't now include: cutting taxes; keeping out Corbyn; levelling up; or for that matter "delivering Brexit".
Well indeed I think Boris should be forced out and have said so for about 7 months now but that for me is because he raised taxes and that was a deal-breaker. Had he not done that, I'd be happy for him to stay on, but he did and that's a breach of trust I can't accept.
I think the brouhaha over your guy was drinking alcohol because he's a party animal, my guy was drinking alcohol because he's hard at work campaigning is stupid, hypocritical asinine bullshit that has dominated the public conversation far too much but that doesn't change the fact that Boris should go because he raised taxes.
Everyone has their own red lines and that was my one.
Your red line? Yes. The legal red line? No. Anyone else's red line? Don't be silly.
Yet this is this week's straw man that you have decided will batter all other arguments and posters into submission. Erm, no.
PS I'm not the only poster aggrieved about the taxes issue. I could name at least half a dozen other right-wing economically former Conservative voters who think the same on that, so its hardly unique even if it isn't sufficient on its own.
No you're not, it's true.
However, conflating that with the partying is rather disingenuous. Putting up taxes may piss you off but it doesn't break the law.
It's slightly disturbing that you don't seem to understand the difference.
The Metropolitan Police seem to think that him raising a glass of alcohol at work didn't break the law either, and I expect that Durham Police will find the same thing about his opposite number, so its you that doesn't understand the difference it seems.
Some people are saying its outrageous that the Metropolitan Police didn't fine him for this (and no doubt will find it outrageous if Durham Police do fine their guy) and are saying the Met got it wrong. The Met getting it wrong is certainly possible, they're far from infallible, but if that's the card you want to play then I will say they got it wrong issuing a fine for having cake at work at 1pm. Again, what's sauce for the goose . . . 🤷♂️
I said before the start of this that Boris should go and at the start of this if Boris broke the law its another reason he should go. Since the only fine is for cake, and I think the fine for cake was unreasonable, I don't think "partygate" is a reason for Boris to go. He should still go over taxes though.
The Met issued fines to people at this event. So the event was not legal. So why are you repeating the Peter Bone line that it was legal? You aren't dumb like Peter Bone...
If someone breaks the law at an event, that does not make the event illegal, it means the Police judged the actions of whoever got fined were illegal.
If you and thousands of others go to a concert, but one person who goes to the concert is caught taking or supply drugs by the Police and that individual is fined, then does that make the concert itself an illegal event? No, don't be ridiculous.
Unless we get told why the person who got fined was fined, we don't know what they were fined for, so all we know for certain is the Police believe that they broke the law in some way, not that the event itself was unlawful.
Could yoy upload an mp3 of the sound of one hand clapping? That would clarify things.
Here you go, from when right-on comedians didn't care about "cultural appropriation" it seems, which it seems was only nine years ago.
That's an entirely different scene. In an entirely different show.
Its not that different.
And SNL and HIMYM are/were both comedies that take the piss out of things.
Why is comedy in one cultural appropriation, while comedy in the other is not whatsoever? Where's the line?
The real difference seems to be that generally Buddhists have a pretty good sense of humour and don't vocally complain when jokes are made at their expense. Andy Samberg and SNL would never dream of doing the same sketch, but with Mohammed instead of Buddha. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
BUT. It isn't at Buddhists expense. Slapping is a long standing Buddhist tradition. I didn't say one was and the other wasn't. (Although one is all the better for Alyson Hannigan).
Did you watch the whole sketch? It certainly was - it was also funny, and as I said Buddhists seem by and large able to take a joke as ideally should everyone, but such a joke wouldn't be done about other communities and the whole 'cultural appropriation' complaining means that SNL and Samberg would probably not make that joke today. Which is a shame I feel, as it was funny, and being able to make jokes is a healthy thing for society.
You to be fair didn't call Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra cultural appropriation but many other people did at the time.
Buddhism is full of jokes. At the expense of Buddhists. Otherwise you end up like Myanmar. Or Sri Lanka. Or 30's Japan. It is to be positively encouraged.
I agree it should be.
Those who whinge about "cultural appropriation" at perfectly funny and respectful jokes like Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra do not though.
Quite a few koans end with a Buddhist getting slapped. It's an integral part of (some) Buddhist traditions.
Real life scenario where legal and employment decisions mix. What would you do as the employer here?
Previous job many years ago I was contacted to say one of my employees had been pulled over by the Police and had blown just under the limit. The Police were taking no further action since it was [only just] under the limit and therefore legal, but the employee was driving using my corporate insurance and so I was informed about what had happened. What do you do?
What I did was suspend the employee on full pay immediately pending an investigation. Invited him in to a meeting he claimed he'd had drinks with his family before work and denied drinking while working.
My concern was that since he claimed the alcohol was in his blood from before work, he'd been on the road for us for four hours by the time he'd been pulled over, so if he was only just under the limit four hours into his shift then he must have been over the limit when he began it, which is breaking the law, which is Gross Misconduct, so I fired him.
If he'd blown under the limit on his way into work, I don't see how I could or should have taken any action against him, even with the [legal] presence of alcohol in the bloodstream. If he wasn't working on the road, I'd have had no issue.
Real life scenario where legal and employment decisions mix. What would you do as the employer here?
Previous job many years ago I was contacted to say one of my employees had been pulled over by the Police and had blown just under the limit. The Police were taking no further action since it was [only just] under the limit and therefore legal, but the employee was driving using my corporate insurance and so I was informed about what had happened. What do you do?
What I did was suspend the employee on full pay immediately pending an investigation. Invited him in to a meeting he claimed he'd had drinks with his family before work and denied drinking while working.
My concern was that since he claimed the alcohol was in his blood from before work, he'd been on the road for us for four hours by the time he'd been pulled over, so if he was only just under the limit four hours into his shift then he must have been over the limit when he began it, which is breaking the law, which is Gross Misconduct, so I fired him.
If he'd blown under the limit on his way into work, I don't see how I could or should have taken any action against him, even with the [legal] presence of alcohol in the bloodstream. If he wasn't working on the road, I'd have had no issue.
If you didnt have evidence of him being over the limit during work hours youre lucky he didnt clean up at tribunal
Tottenham Court Road to Paddington in FIVE minutes
Farringdon to Canary Wharf: ten minutes
Heathrow to anywhere in central London: thirty minutes, 44 minutes to Canary Wharf
Game-changer for a lot of places along the line
More money spunked on London and the South East while the rest of the nation gets nothing.
Au contraire. We get massive bus cuts.
Rest of the country needs to stop voting Tory if they don't want that kind of thing to happen to them.
Well New Labour gave us sweet FA too in terms of transport investment. Both HS2 and Crossrail started under their watch as well. Money lavished on the south east and London.
Government net support for bus travel in England outside London in real terms (2020/21 prices) rose from £1.02bn in 1996/97 to £1.89bn in 2009/10. By 2019/20 it had fallen back to £1.35bn. So Tory governments = "massive bus cuts" outside of London. Yet these areas keep voting Tory. Data from www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus05-subsidies-and-concessions; BUS0502, tab BUS0502b.
That's because most people outside London (and perhaps a few other big cities) never use buses.
Former Senator David Perdue ended his campaign for governor of Georgia with a racist appeal to Republican primary voters on Monday, accusing Stacey Abrams, the presumptive Democratic nominee, of “demeaning her own race.” https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1528873446255599617
The truly disgraceful thing is the number of voters who are prepared to support him.
Yep I sat with two people yesterday one of whom has completely turned against Johnson but the other is still in love with him. Two of us were trying to persuade her of a thousand reasons why Boris Johnson is unfit for the office of PM but she still continues to "like Boris".
She's not a graduate and I throw that into the mix with caution because, despite occasionally suggesting otherwise, I don't really like that supercilious 'we know best' attitude. But I think it's pertinent because there's no doubt that Boris is continuing to draw support from non-graduates and those who have failed as yet to see through the magician's sleight of hand. Oh dear, I've just been supercilious. It's hard so don't get angry BR & Co.
It genuinely baffles me how anyone can still support him. And I'd have a lot more respect for the Conservatives if they had not just the bottle but the integrity to remove him.
I often wonder the same about serial philanderers who still manage to convince the next woman that this time they will be faithful. I think some people just really want to believe in Boris because he is, in some way that the rest of us just don't see, charming to a large portion of the population.
I also think there is another sizeable chunk who have no love for the man but see him as a vehicle for their partisan agenda so are happy to overlook the character flaws so long as he is [delivering Brexit; insulting the French; keeping out the migrants]. Unfortunately for him that pragmatic group doesn't now include: cutting taxes; keeping out Corbyn; levelling up; or for that matter "delivering Brexit".
Well indeed I think Boris should be forced out and have said so for about 7 months now but that for me is because he raised taxes and that was a deal-breaker. Had he not done that, I'd be happy for him to stay on, but he did and that's a breach of trust I can't accept.
I think the brouhaha over your guy was drinking alcohol because he's a party animal, my guy was drinking alcohol because he's hard at work campaigning is stupid, hypocritical asinine bullshit that has dominated the public conversation far too much but that doesn't change the fact that Boris should go because he raised taxes.
Everyone has their own red lines and that was my one.
Your red line? Yes. The legal red line? No. Anyone else's red line? Don't be silly.
Yet this is this week's straw man that you have decided will batter all other arguments and posters into submission. Erm, no.
PS I'm not the only poster aggrieved about the taxes issue. I could name at least half a dozen other right-wing economically former Conservative voters who think the same on that, so its hardly unique even if it isn't sufficient on its own.
No you're not, it's true.
However, conflating that with the partying is rather disingenuous. Putting up taxes may piss you off but it doesn't break the law.
It's slightly disturbing that you don't seem to understand the difference.
The Metropolitan Police seem to think that him raising a glass of alcohol at work didn't break the law either, and I expect that Durham Police will find the same thing about his opposite number, so its you that doesn't understand the difference it seems.
Some people are saying its outrageous that the Metropolitan Police didn't fine him for this (and no doubt will find it outrageous if Durham Police do fine their guy) and are saying the Met got it wrong. The Met getting it wrong is certainly possible, they're far from infallible, but if that's the card you want to play then I will say they got it wrong issuing a fine for having cake at work at 1pm. Again, what's sauce for the goose . . . 🤷♂️
I said before the start of this that Boris should go and at the start of this if Boris broke the law its another reason he should go. Since the only fine is for cake, and I think the fine for cake was unreasonable, I don't think "partygate" is a reason for Boris to go. He should still go over taxes though.
The Met issued fines to people at this event. So the event was not legal. So why are you repeating the Peter Bone line that it was legal? You aren't dumb like Peter Bone...
If someone breaks the law at an event, that does not make the event illegal, it means the Police judged the actions of whoever got fined were illegal.
If you and thousands of others go to a concert, but one person who goes to the concert is caught taking or supply drugs by the Police and that individual is fined, then does that make the concert itself an illegal event? No, don't be ridiculous.
Unless we get told why the person who got fined was fined, we don't know what they were fined for, so all we know for certain is the Police believe that they broke the law in some way, not that the event itself was unlawful.
Could yoy upload an mp3 of the sound of one hand clapping? That would clarify things.
Here you go, from when right-on comedians didn't care about "cultural appropriation" it seems, which it seems was only nine years ago.
That's an entirely different scene. In an entirely different show.
Its not that different.
And SNL and HIMYM are/were both comedies that take the piss out of things.
Why is comedy in one cultural appropriation, while comedy in the other is not whatsoever? Where's the line?
The real difference seems to be that generally Buddhists have a pretty good sense of humour and don't vocally complain when jokes are made at their expense. Andy Samberg and SNL would never dream of doing the same sketch, but with Mohammed instead of Buddha. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
BUT. It isn't at Buddhists expense. Slapping is a long standing Buddhist tradition. I didn't say one was and the other wasn't. (Although one is all the better for Alyson Hannigan).
Did you watch the whole sketch? It certainly was - it was also funny, and as I said Buddhists seem by and large able to take a joke as ideally should everyone, but such a joke wouldn't be done about other communities and the whole 'cultural appropriation' complaining means that SNL and Samberg would probably not make that joke today. Which is a shame I feel, as it was funny, and being able to make jokes is a healthy thing for society.
You to be fair didn't call Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra cultural appropriation but many other people did at the time.
Buddhism is full of jokes. At the expense of Buddhists. Otherwise you end up like Myanmar. Or Sri Lanka. Or 30's Japan. It is to be positively encouraged.
I agree it should be.
Those who whinge about "cultural appropriation" at perfectly funny and respectful jokes like Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra do not though.
Quite a few koans end with a Buddhist getting slapped. It's an integral part of (some) Buddhist traditions.
Indeed but that wasn't the point.
Andy Samberg dressing as the Buddha would be called by some to be "cultural appropriation" now just as Alyson Hannigan dressing in Asian outfits for a Kung-Fu style sketch in their show was.
Racism is disgraceful, but much of what people now call "cultural appropriation" used to be called "multiculturalism" and was welcomed as a positive from having a melting pot of many cultures. I believe in multiculturalism more than "appropriation" or "cultural purity" which are awful concepts.
Head of UN World Food Programme confirms talks are underway to secure sea and rail corridors for grain exports out of Ukraine, as Harpoon anti-ship missiles are on their way from Denmark.
How much use will sea corridors be unless somebody provides Ukraine with mine sweeping vessels and equipment?
It sounds like the plan is for an international naval fleet, flying UN flags, sweeping the area and keeping the corridor open, backed by land-based anti-ship weapons in Odesa. It sounds plausible, but no doubt the Russians will see it as provocative. The alternative is a global grain shortage this summer.
It would sound plausible if anybody in the Biden administration had said it. It doesn't sound plausible when it's just the Lithuanian Foreign Minister and Fizzy Lizzy saying it.
Throughout this whole year 'Fizzy Lizzy' has been saying things which people have mocked here as Liz jockeying for position until Biden has then said it a few days later.
Its quite clear that the communications between the Oval Office and Whitehall are as close as they have ever been and the Americans are quite happy to have 'Fizzy Lizzy' kite-flying in saying things first before Biden confirms it.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Gen. Miley), today: "Right now we don’t have any naval assets on the Black Sea, we don’t intend to."
One thing to note on the narrative - mines... seem to be more of a defensive weapon than assault to me. It's not the Russians that are strategically defending Odessa. The Russian Navy (Even with the Moskva sinking) still outmatches Ukraine's navy. So the side I'd expect to use (more) sea mines is Ukraine. Have I missed something ?
Who the fuck knows? They are probably both at it with unmapped abandon.
I was in Varna when the South Ossetia war was on. Have to wonder if drifting mines will be a long term potential issue for all countries with a black sea coast now.
If Sue Gray went public and announced that Boris had asked her to ditch her report, that could indeed be the end for him. Not likely to happen, but she is in her mid-60s and may not care too much about the consequences.
That would be a right laugh.
Agree 100%. However if she confirms no pressure it tends towards sources and media making shit up to force an end result.
Real life scenario where legal and employment decisions mix. What would you do as the employer here?
Previous job many years ago I was contacted to say one of my employees had been pulled over by the Police and had blown just under the limit. The Police were taking no further action since it was [only just] under the limit and therefore legal, but the employee was driving using my corporate insurance and so I was informed about what had happened. What do you do?
What I did was suspend the employee on full pay immediately pending an investigation. Invited him in to a meeting he claimed he'd had drinks with his family before work and denied drinking while working.
My concern was that since he claimed the alcohol was in his blood from before work, he'd been on the road for us for four hours by the time he'd been pulled over, so if he was only just under the limit four hours into his shift then he must have been over the limit when he began it, which is breaking the law, which is Gross Misconduct, so I fired him.
If he'd blown under the limit on his way into work, I don't see how I could or should have taken any action against him, even with the [legal] presence of alcohol in the bloodstream. If he wasn't working on the road, I'd have had no issue.
It would depend on what his contract said. If it was a PSV, for example, then the contract would stipulate no alcohol in the bloodstream during work hours, whether under the legal limit or not. If it wasn't and the contract was silent then I think your hands would be tied.
I’m not belittling the “crime”, though as scandals go we’ve all seen far worse. And I am sure SW1 bubble-types can still get excited by this, but for the public the flogged horse is not just dead it is entombed
And the fact there is a very similar photo of Starmer, bottle raised, clearly breaking the rules (as Boris broke the rules) makes it all a wash
Boris AND Starmer will survive. Either could be PM in 24
Bones of four hundred councillors lie strewn about its lair. Yes. People care.
Anyone who was going to get all hot and bothered by this is already super-hot and extremely bothered, this won’t suddenly tip over into ultra-galactic white-hot hotness and mega-cosmic botheredness from the constellation Bothered, You Bet. Anyone who was going to switch votes or opinions on the basis of this, has already done so
The ones left frothing, as @DavidL suggests, are Boris-haters, and they are generally embittered Remoaners. They want their revenge; I doubt this will provide it
God, you and Brexit. Just let it go. Boris should go for numerous reasons that are post Brexit. Nobody mentions it anymore except you in the context of getting rid of Boris. Literally nobody at all.
It is absurd to pretend that Boris-hatred isn’t driven, largely (but not always) by Brexit
And Boris-hatred is sustaining this tedious half-arsed scandal about booze-ups during lockdown, which made me angry for a bit in early 2022, but about which I now just can’t be arsed, as they say, especially as Labour have been just as devious and hypocritical
The PM is a lying chancer possibly undermining democracy, Starmer is a boring liar who wanted to cancel democracy with a 2nd referendum
In 2024 we will have to choose between these two unsavoury characters. Hey ho
Nonsense. Just to name a few leavers that immediately come to mind that want to see Boris gone: MarqueeMark, BartholomewRoberts, Casino_Royale, etc, etc. Look at the MPs like Steve Baker. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit.
And the comments about Starmer are just tosh. I am no Starmer fan. I have never ever voted Labour, but there are no grounds to call him a liar (so far )
You are just driven mad by Brexit. God knows why. I am a passionate Remainer, but I accepted it. What is wrong with you; you won. Why can't you accept it.
Starmer is a lying c*** who wanted to overturn the biggest vote in British history, by ignoring it. He literally wanted to demolish democracy by telling all the thick racist Leavers “No, your vote didn’t count, so we’re having another one, until you get it right”
There’s no getting around it. This is what he did. And he was Shadow Secretary for Brexit. I can see why Starmer is desperate for everyone to forget this and “move on”. But some of us will not. He needs to grovel and apologise and ask for our forgiveness
Well for someone who writes for a living I think you are struggling to understand the meaning of lying. Now there is a debate on the ethics of a 2nd referendum which I can see you are slightly on one side of, but that is not lying. That is proposing something you bitterly don't like. Lying is when you say something that is untrue. No wonder you are confused about Boris.
I also note you actually ignored the principle point of my post showing your principle statement was false and attacked the minor (actually quite irrelevant) point I made about Starmer not lying (yet).
Just to reiterate the main point, this forum is full of leavers who want Boris to go (and bizarrely Remainers who want him to stay) as is Parliament, which proves you point is utter nonsense.
Starmer in 2016 said the vote MUST be respected. By 2019 he was saying the vote MUST be disrespected - ie, ignored and set aside and we have a new vote to supersede it
He didn’t just lie, he was the embodiment of a disgusting Trumpite coup that nearly won the day, and which would have shattered our democracy forever, by telling people there literally is no point in voting, as “they” can just ignore it
And now, I’m having some tea. Kalimera
You do know there was a general election in 2017? In the 2015 parliament which held the (advisory) referendum there was no real debate that they just take it under advisement. It would be enacted.
And then we had an election. And that parliament can do whatever the hell it likes. This parliament isn't just free to overturn anything it likes from any other previous parliament including 2017 and 2015, they are overturning manifesto pledge laws passed a couple of years ago in this parliament.
Is Johnson putting laws to parliament to overturn chunks of the core of the manifesto "oven-ready deal" also a "disgusting Trumpite coup"?
In no sense was the vote “advisory”. Anyone trying to use the word “advisory” as a way of justifying their anti-democratic 2nd vote c*ntishness should be thrown in the sewer
Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking to the British people, from Chatham House, in 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
Cameron goes on to say this:
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
That’s it. Starmer is a vile piece of work
In a very legal reality the vote was advisory. I can post you the statute law proving this if you like. And in a very direct sense the word of Cameron had validity only whilst he was PM - and he quit.
Anyway, back to the points I raised. The 2015 parliament committed to progressing with the result. Then we had an election. Which is not bound by anything by any previous parliament. So its perfectly valid for that parliament to seek to act as it sees fit on this and any issue.
To demonstrate this simply, this government in this parliament is to bring forward laws to overturn laws passed by itself just 2 years ago. Laws which were a manifesto promise at the heart of the Tories successful election campaign. It is demonstrably against what people voted for, yet it is also perfectly valid because parliament is sovereign.
I've never understood, even when I was a leaver, wht the advisory point caused such consternation. It is legal fact as the authorising act did not make it binding. Ministerial statements otherwise are not law.
Now, that does not make the public expectation irrelevant, and one could and many did make the argument that morally it was binding. And the public when asked, in proxy fashion, for their view again made it clear (whilst people can quibble over percentages, they could have voted in a way to get a second referendum government instead) that they wanted it done.
It doesnt mean people cannot be outraged at the attempts to overturn the referendum, or think it a stupid idea. Or thinking that it being legally advisory was secondary to the political and moral imperative to do it. But advisory it most definitely was.
So why lose one's shit over that fact? It being advisory didnt mean the arguments for Brexit were meaningless, and the attempts to override it failed because the public also didnt care legally it was advisory.
Real life scenario where legal and employment decisions mix. What would you do as the employer here?
Previous job many years ago I was contacted to say one of my employees had been pulled over by the Police and had blown just under the limit. The Police were taking no further action since it was [only just] under the limit and therefore legal, but the employee was driving using my corporate insurance and so I was informed about what had happened. What do you do?
What I did was suspend the employee on full pay immediately pending an investigation. Invited him in to a meeting he claimed he'd had drinks with his family before work and denied drinking while working.
My concern was that since he claimed the alcohol was in his blood from before work, he'd been on the road for us for four hours by the time he'd been pulled over, so if he was only just under the limit four hours into his shift then he must have been over the limit when he began it, which is breaking the law, which is Gross Misconduct, so I fired him.
If he'd blown under the limit on his way into work, I don't see how I could or should have taken any action against him, even with the [legal] presence of alcohol in the bloodstream. If he wasn't working on the road, I'd have had no issue.
If you didnt have evidence of him being over the limit during work hours youre lucky he didnt clean up at tribunal
That's why I asked the question, I was curious what others would think.
It never went to tribunal but I had the details on just how close to the limit he was [very, very close] and my lawyer agreed that if he was four hours into his shift that he was that close to the limit then that was sufficient evidence [combined with his own testimony that the only alcohol consumed was before his shift] that he must have been over the limit at some point earlier in the shift.
So if it had gone to tribunal, then the lawyers indemnified us from that. Supposedly at least, got taken to tribunal two times but won both cases so that never got tested.
My anger at Johnson has become a re-direction of my regret at wasting a big chunk of my life following a bunch of silly restrictions.
There must be plenty of people who, deep down, know they messed up by not attending that funeral, or hugging their elderly parents, or stopping their children playing with their friends.
Perhaps @DavidL and @Leon were smart/cynical enough to realise this at the time and the "betrayal" isn't as raw for them. It's toxic for those of us who were fool enough to trust the PM.
Aside from that, the Commons is just a laughing stock now (getting to Scottish Parliament levels of impotence).
I suspect this is very much it. Certainly I used whatever loopholes were available to do whatever needed to be done (for example, I was technically eligible for a support bubble so I took full advantage of that, even though my circumstances in no way fitted the intention of the support bubble) - then again, I was fortunate enough that I didn't have any dealings with hospitals or care homes and their policies which far exceeded what was necessary.
It was said that for the middle classes their support bubble was whomever they happened to be seeing at that moment.
I am astounded that people would not have visited elderly relatives on account of a bizarre, authoritarian law. But then I look at the curtain-twitching (not least on PB) and the opinion polls in favour of all and longer restrictions and I slightly despair at my fellow citizens.
Surely a good reason for not visiting elderly relatives was to not give them a potentially fatal disease. I certainly didn't visit my mum and neither did she expect me to.
That's up to the individuals involved. Entirely different from the government making it illegal so that you can't.
Tottenham Court Road to Paddington in FIVE minutes
Farringdon to Canary Wharf: ten minutes
Heathrow to anywhere in central London: thirty minutes, 44 minutes to Canary Wharf
Game-changer for a lot of places along the line
More money spunked on London and the South East while the rest of the nation gets nothing.
Au contraire. We get massive bus cuts.
Rest of the country needs to stop voting Tory if they don't want that kind of thing to happen to them.
Well New Labour gave us sweet FA too in terms of transport investment. Both HS2 and Crossrail started under their watch as well. Money lavished on the south east and London.
Government net support for bus travel in England outside London in real terms (2020/21 prices) rose from £1.02bn in 1996/97 to £1.89bn in 2009/10. By 2019/20 it had fallen back to £1.35bn. So Tory governments = "massive bus cuts" outside of London. Yet these areas keep voting Tory. Data from www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus05-subsidies-and-concessions; BUS0502, tab BUS0502b.
That's because most people outside London (and perhaps a few other big cities) never use buses.
I’m not belittling the “crime”, though as scandals go we’ve all seen far worse. And I am sure SW1 bubble-types can still get excited by this, but for the public the flogged horse is not just dead it is entombed
And the fact there is a very similar photo of Starmer, bottle raised, clearly breaking the rules (as Boris broke the rules) makes it all a wash
Boris AND Starmer will survive. Either could be PM in 24
Bones of four hundred councillors lie strewn about its lair. Yes. People care.
Anyone who was going to get all hot and bothered by this is already super-hot and extremely bothered, this won’t suddenly tip over into ultra-galactic white-hot hotness and mega-cosmic botheredness from the constellation Bothered, You Bet. Anyone who was going to switch votes or opinions on the basis of this, has already done so
The ones left frothing, as @DavidL suggests, are Boris-haters, and they are generally embittered Remoaners. They want their revenge; I doubt this will provide it
God, you and Brexit. Just let it go. Boris should go for numerous reasons that are post Brexit. Nobody mentions it anymore except you in the context of getting rid of Boris. Literally nobody at all.
It is absurd to pretend that Boris-hatred isn’t driven, largely (but not always) by Brexit
And Boris-hatred is sustaining this tedious half-arsed scandal about booze-ups during lockdown, which made me angry for a bit in early 2022, but about which I now just can’t be arsed, as they say, especially as Labour have been just as devious and hypocritical
The PM is a lying chancer possibly undermining democracy, Starmer is a boring liar who wanted to cancel democracy with a 2nd referendum
In 2024 we will have to choose between these two unsavoury characters. Hey ho
Nonsense. Just to name a few leavers that immediately come to mind that want to see Boris gone: MarqueeMark, BartholomewRoberts, Casino_Royale, etc, etc. Look at the MPs like Steve Baker. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit.
And the comments about Starmer are just tosh. I am no Starmer fan. I have never ever voted Labour, but there are no grounds to call him a liar (so far )
You are just driven mad by Brexit. God knows why. I am a passionate Remainer, but I accepted it. What is wrong with you; you won. Why can't you accept it.
Starmer is a lying c*** who wanted to overturn the biggest vote in British history, by ignoring it. He literally wanted to demolish democracy by telling all the thick racist Leavers “No, your vote didn’t count, so we’re having another one, until you get it right”
There’s no getting around it. This is what he did. And he was Shadow Secretary for Brexit. I can see why Starmer is desperate for everyone to forget this and “move on”. But some of us will not. He needs to grovel and apologise and ask for our forgiveness
Well for someone who writes for a living I think you are struggling to understand the meaning of lying. Now there is a debate on the ethics of a 2nd referendum which I can see you are slightly on one side of, but that is not lying. That is proposing something you bitterly don't like. Lying is when you say something that is untrue. No wonder you are confused about Boris.
I also note you actually ignored the principle point of my post showing your principle statement was false and attacked the minor (actually quite irrelevant) point I made about Starmer not lying (yet).
Just to reiterate the main point, this forum is full of leavers who want Boris to go (and bizarrely Remainers who want him to stay) as is Parliament, which proves you point is utter nonsense.
Starmer in 2016 said the vote MUST be respected. By 2019 he was saying the vote MUST be disrespected - ie, ignored and set aside and we have a new vote to supersede it
He didn’t just lie, he was the embodiment of a disgusting Trumpite coup that nearly won the day, and which would have shattered our democracy forever, by telling people there literally is no point in voting, as “they” can just ignore it
And now, I’m having some tea. Kalimera
You do know there was a general election in 2017? In the 2015 parliament which held the (advisory) referendum there was no real debate that they just take it under advisement. It would be enacted.
And then we had an election. And that parliament can do whatever the hell it likes. This parliament isn't just free to overturn anything it likes from any other previous parliament including 2017 and 2015, they are overturning manifesto pledge laws passed a couple of years ago in this parliament.
Is Johnson putting laws to parliament to overturn chunks of the core of the manifesto "oven-ready deal" also a "disgusting Trumpite coup"?
In no sense was the vote “advisory”. Anyone trying to use the word “advisory” as a way of justifying their anti-democratic 2nd vote c*ntishness should be thrown in the sewer
Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking to the British people, from Chatham House, in 2015
'Ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum... You will have to judge what is best for you and your family, for your children and grandchildren, for our country, for our future. It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure, or whether we leave. Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide. At that moment, you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country, perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be the final decision.'
Cameron goes on to say this:
'So to those who suggest that a decision in the referendum to leave would merely produce another stronger renegotiation, and then a second referendum in which Britain would stay, I say: think again. The renegotiation is happening right now. And the referendum that follows will be a once in a generation choice. An in or out referendum. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected – not ignored. If we vote to leave, then we will leave. There will not be another renegotiation and another referendum.'
That’s it. Starmer is a vile piece of work
In a very legal reality the vote was advisory. I can post you the statute law proving this if you like. And in a very direct sense the word of Cameron had validity only whilst he was PM - and he quit.
Anyway, back to the points I raised. The 2015 parliament committed to progressing with the result. Then we had an election. Which is not bound by anything by any previous parliament. So its perfectly valid for that parliament to seek to act as it sees fit on this and any issue.
To demonstrate this simply, this government in this parliament is to bring forward laws to overturn laws passed by itself just 2 years ago. Laws which were a manifesto promise at the heart of the Tories successful election campaign. It is demonstrably against what people voted for, yet it is also perfectly valid because parliament is sovereign.
I've never understood, even when I was a leaver, wht the advisory point caused such consternation. It is legal fact as the authorising act did not make it binding. Ministerial statements otherwise are not law.
Now, that does not make the public expectation irrelevant, and one could and many did make the argument that morally it was binding. And the public when asked, in proxy fashion, for their view again made it clear (whilst people can quibble over percentages, they could have voted in a way to get a second referendum government instead) that they wanted it done.
It doesnt mean people cannot be outraged at the attempts to overturn the referendum, or think it a stupid idea. Or thinking that it being legally advisory was secondary to the political and moral imperative to do it. But advisory it most definitely was.
So why lose one's shit over that fact? It being advisory didnt mean the arguments for Brexit were meaningless, and the attempts to override it failed because the public also didnt care legally it was advisory.
It's because it was only used by those showing contempt for the stupid racist plebs who voted the wrong way. Nobody would have dismissed the biggest democratic vote in British history as "advisory" (translation: "we can ignore this") had it been the other way.
Head of UN World Food Programme confirms talks are underway to secure sea and rail corridors for grain exports out of Ukraine, as Harpoon anti-ship missiles are on their way from Denmark.
How much use will sea corridors be unless somebody provides Ukraine with mine sweeping vessels and equipment?
It sounds like the plan is for an international naval fleet, flying UN flags, sweeping the area and keeping the corridor open, backed by land-based anti-ship weapons in Odesa. It sounds plausible, but no doubt the Russians will see it as provocative. The alternative is a global grain shortage this summer.
It would sound plausible if anybody in the Biden administration had said it. It doesn't sound plausible when it's just the Lithuanian Foreign Minister and Fizzy Lizzy saying it.
Throughout this whole year 'Fizzy Lizzy' has been saying things which people have mocked here as Liz jockeying for position until Biden has then said it a few days later.
Its quite clear that the communications between the Oval Office and Whitehall are as close as they have ever been and the Americans are quite happy to have 'Fizzy Lizzy' kite-flying in saying things first before Biden confirms it.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (Gen. Miley), today: "Right now we don’t have any naval assets on the Black Sea, we don’t intend to."
If ships are put in place under the UN flag as suggested earlier, that could meet both what Liz and Miley said. The problem is I don't see how the UN flag can be used as Russia can veto any UNSC resolution but I'm sure all sorts of plans and contingencies are being worked on all the time.
Just remember this conversation if it does indeed turn out not to be the 'end of that' which has happened a few times already.
There's no such thing as a UN flagged ship. UNCLOS states that all ships have to fly the flag of the state in which they are registered. Also neither article mentions UN flagged ships so I don't know where you are getting that idea from.
Real life scenario where legal and employment decisions mix. What would you do as the employer here?
Previous job many years ago I was contacted to say one of my employees had been pulled over by the Police and had blown just under the limit. The Police were taking no further action since it was [only just] under the limit and therefore legal, but the employee was driving using my corporate insurance and so I was informed about what had happened. What do you do?
What I did was suspend the employee on full pay immediately pending an investigation. Invited him in to a meeting he claimed he'd had drinks with his family before work and denied drinking while working.
My concern was that since he claimed the alcohol was in his blood from before work, he'd been on the road for us for four hours by the time he'd been pulled over, so if he was only just under the limit four hours into his shift then he must have been over the limit when he began it, which is breaking the law, which is Gross Misconduct, so I fired him.
If he'd blown under the limit on his way into work, I don't see how I could or should have taken any action against him, even with the [legal] presence of alcohol in the bloodstream. If he wasn't working on the road, I'd have had no issue.
If you didnt have evidence of him being over the limit during work hours youre lucky he didnt clean up at tribunal
That's why I asked the question, I was curious what others would think.
It never went to tribunal but I had the details on just how close to the limit he was [very, very close] and my lawyer agreed that if he was four hours into his shift that he was that close to the limit then that was sufficient evidence [combined with his own testimony that the only alcohol consumed was before his shift] that he must have been over the limit at some point earlier in the shift.
So if it had gone to tribunal, then the lawyers indemnified us from that. Supposedly at least, got taken to tribunal two times but won both cases so that never got tested.
Get better lawyers. No tribunal is going with 'he must have been'
Tottenham Court Road to Paddington in FIVE minutes
Farringdon to Canary Wharf: ten minutes
Heathrow to anywhere in central London: thirty minutes, 44 minutes to Canary Wharf
Game-changer for a lot of places along the line
More money spunked on London and the South East while the rest of the nation gets nothing.
Au contraire. We get massive bus cuts.
Rest of the country needs to stop voting Tory if they don't want that kind of thing to happen to them.
Well New Labour gave us sweet FA too in terms of transport investment. Both HS2 and Crossrail started under their watch as well. Money lavished on the south east and London.
Government net support for bus travel in England outside London in real terms (2020/21 prices) rose from £1.02bn in 1996/97 to £1.89bn in 2009/10. By 2019/20 it had fallen back to £1.35bn. So Tory governments = "massive bus cuts" outside of London. Yet these areas keep voting Tory. Data from www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus05-subsidies-and-concessions; BUS0502, tab BUS0502b.
That's because most people outside London (and perhaps a few other big cities) never use buses.
Because there aren't any busses.
Nah. There are plenty of buses where I live. There's also a direct train from 5 minutes walk from my front door to 5 minutes walk from my wife's workplace - and it's still better to drive.
Real life scenario where legal and employment decisions mix. What would you do as the employer here?
Previous job many years ago I was contacted to say one of my employees had been pulled over by the Police and had blown just under the limit. The Police were taking no further action since it was [only just] under the limit and therefore legal, but the employee was driving using my corporate insurance and so I was informed about what had happened. What do you do?
What I did was suspend the employee on full pay immediately pending an investigation. Invited him in to a meeting he claimed he'd had drinks with his family before work and denied drinking while working.
My concern was that since he claimed the alcohol was in his blood from before work, he'd been on the road for us for four hours by the time he'd been pulled over, so if he was only just under the limit four hours into his shift then he must have been over the limit when he began it, which is breaking the law, which is Gross Misconduct, so I fired him.
If he'd blown under the limit on his way into work, I don't see how I could or should have taken any action against him, even with the [legal] presence of alcohol in the bloodstream. If he wasn't working on the road, I'd have had no issue.
Who contacted you ?
He did, while he was with the Police, he needed the insurance details.
EDIT: I think from memory the officer while we were talking about insurance may have mentioned his concern about how very close to the limit it was. I'm not 100% certain though, it was many years ago and the precise details are fuzzy now.
Comments
Unlike the PM who would have had a reasonable excuse to be there.
What am I missing.
From Eton via Oxford, newspapers and politics, throughout Boris's life he has acted as if rules do not apply to him. Perhaps this is not calculated defiance but arises because his brain is wired not to recognise rules in the first place.
If a gathering of 7 occurs, 6 of whom have an exception and 1 of whom does not, then has the 1 not broken the law while the 6 are lawfully gathered?
I knew an Oxford don with a similar 4-5 hr sleep pattern who also went on to have a stroke.
If you didn't vote for parliament to be absolutely sovereign, what did you vote for? Sovereign doesn't mean it always doing what you think.
The puritanical attitude on display here today is representative of that. I'm not sure if all those saying but I'm not allowed alcohol at work are jealous that others are, or just puritanically want to take the booze away from others who are permitted it for purely puritanical reasons.
If you come at the voters with a dictionary, you're asking for a kicking.
Referenda cause trouble, almost without exception.
https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2022/05/23/ukraine-to-get-harpoon-anti-ship-missiles-from-denmark-amid-russian-black-sea-blockade/
That's the end of that.
It’s just a media conspiracy to try and put a bit of pressure back on the PM - but at least just the one newspaper stands on the side of truth and reason and beside the British People
That doesn't make any sense at all.
BUT it is now nearly June and the political world is STILL consumed with Partygate. The revelations keep coming. It has been impossible to close down. And, yes, people may be bored and/or angry but who are they going to blame? The media? Starmer? Nope - it's Boris. AND it looks as if he may have knowingly misled parliament to boot - we still have that report to come after Sue Gray's.
The only thing saving him really is the implosion of Rishi plus Ukraine.
He's definitely hanging on a peg that is even shooglier than we thought.
@PaulBrandITV
·
2h
Responding to government denials this morning one source who was at the leaving party tells me:
1. The PM orchestrated the event
2. He encouraged people to fill their glasses after a tense day
3. He gave a speech and chatted to everyone for 20mins or so
No10 dispute all this.
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1528993802387656709
However, the politics of it don't usually let us perform an abrupt about-turn - which is why after all those shenanigans, we ended up with Johnsons' mob.
And SNL and HIMYM are/were both comedies that take the piss out of things.
Why is comedy in one cultural appropriation, while comedy in the other is not whatsoever? Where's the line?
The real difference seems to be that generally Buddhists have a pretty good sense of humour and don't vocally complain when jokes are made at their expense. Andy Samberg and SNL would never dream of doing the same sketch, but with Mohammed instead of Buddha. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
And f they die next week - well, they ain't gonna sue.
Everywhere I've worked, in a couple of different industries, the company has allowed (and paid for) a drink during the last hour on a Friday whilst work was being finished up, and this sometimes extended to further drinks after work had finished. And none of my employers has ever cared about staff having a drink at lunchtime off-site.
That doesn't mean being "half pissed half of the day".
And yet here we are. *The* manifesto pledge, the oven ready deal that was the bulk of their proposition which saw them secure a big majority. Enacted into law. Now to be dismantled within the same parliament because it has proven to be an act of national "self-harm".
That may be bonkers, but it IS valid.
I shall not rise to it.
G'day all.
xx
He said that he didn't party. He probably didn't think that giving a speech to say goodbye to a colleague at work was a party, or that being wished happy birthday by his colleagues was a party, any more than Winston would have thought having his whisky and cigar in his bathtub was a party.
If the question was asked "did you ever drink" then he should have said yes, but that wasn't the question as much as people keep trying to puritanically merge the two.
Alcohol is not a party.
Not personally, I was merely inconvenienced for a year, but there are many millions who did suffer.
Not that I would consider voting Labour under SKS of course.
Dominic Cummings
@Dominic2306
·
17m
Reminder: intervening to boot people off the planes so the *animals* were evacuated, those people then hung/tortured, & covering that up too - is *worse* than the parties
https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1529027848442417152
Have I missed something ?
I am astounded that people would not have visited elderly relatives on account of a bizarre, authoritarian law. But then I look at the curtain-twitching (not least on PB) and the opinion polls in favour of all and longer restrictions and I slightly despair at my fellow citizens.
If ships are put in place under the UN flag as suggested earlier, that could meet both what Liz and Miley said. The problem is I don't see how the UN flag can be used as Russia can veto any UNSC resolution but I'm sure all sorts of plans and contingencies are being worked on all the time.
Just remember this conversation if it does indeed turn out not to be the 'end of that' which has happened a few times already.
Slapping is a long standing Buddhist tradition.
I didn't say one was and the other wasn't. (Although one is all the better for Alyson Hannigan).
I don't think many people give a toss about the Afghans and would prefer to never hear about them again.
Piss ups in Downing Street while everyone else were under restrictions has real life relevance by comparison.
You to be fair didn't call Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra cultural appropriation but many other people did at the time.
There will be increasing frustration at the inability to move on as a government, economy and country whilst this pitiful affair rumbles on.
And, of course, it means any government trying to muzzle and restrict in future can cram it up their butt.
And I'm not clear where the windfall is. If SSE, and other companies, are passing on the extra cost of the raw material to customers then SSE is getting no windfall on which to be taxed.
And is grounds for dismissal in many others.
The reasoning for this doesn't appear to be clear at all.
Its the hated family member who shows up when you win the pools.
If its not a health and safety concern, then it shouldn't be a dismissable offence, and if it aids teamwork or teambuilding then it can be a positive instead. I've paid for drinks for my colleagues during work hours before.
So as an employer, I've personally done both extremes. I can see the difference between Gross Misconduct and teamwork and they aren't the same thing.
The "windfall" is basically the massive arb between North Sea hydrocarbons and the broad UK/EU market price I think. It won't go on indefinitely, indeed Osborne* helped them out when the oil price was low back in the day.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/18/osborne-gambles-cutting-taxes-north-sea-oil-budget-2015 *
Why doesn't everyone?
People will look at these photos and ask themselves whether they would have held a similar event with their friends and family during lockdown. It's no good trying to split hairs about what constitutes a work place because that's not how people think. I've heard Boris and parties brought up by so many people in so many different circumstances I will never believe that this is a bubble issue. Of course it will not be enough in itself to lose the Tories the election but it will certainly be one reason for many people.
Best thing I ever bought for the kitchen ...
Roger Gale shifting this morning from the 'not yet' to the 'go immediately' column.
15 Tory MPs now publicly calling for the PM's immediate resignation. How many more in the next 48h? https://twitter.com/TomLarkinSky/status/1529037330459279360/photo/1
It is to be positively encouraged.
Previous job many years ago I was contacted to say one of my employees had been pulled over by the Police and had blown just under the limit. The Police were taking no further action since it was [only just] under the limit and therefore legal, but the employee was driving using my corporate insurance and so I was informed about what had happened. What do you do?
What I did was suspend the employee on full pay immediately pending an investigation. Invited him in to a meeting he claimed he'd had drinks with his family before work and denied drinking while working.
My concern was that since he claimed the alcohol was in his blood from before work, he'd been on the road for us for four hours by the time he'd been pulled over, so if he was only just under the limit four hours into his shift then he must have been over the limit when he began it, which is breaking the law, which is Gross Misconduct, so I fired him.
If he'd blown under the limit on his way into work, I don't see how I could or should have taken any action against him, even with the [legal] presence of alcohol in the bloodstream. If he wasn't working on the road, I'd have had no issue.
Those who whinge about "cultural appropriation" at perfectly funny and respectful jokes like Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra do not though.
Or he could just be lying, a useful strategy in time of war.
"The more damning revelation could be in The Times this morning, which says that the Prime Minister suggested to Sue Gray, the civil servant investigating the Downing Street parties, that she should not publish her report. This would constitute an interference in the investigation and could prove more problematic for the Prime Minister than the photos. It is worth remembering that Johnson’s position as Gray’s boss and her role as a civil servant means the investigation was never going to be fully independent. The fact that Johnson can initiate a meeting with the person deciding his political fate, allegedly ask her to drop her report and then have his cabinet colleagues argue that it was merely a meeting about timings only illustrates that."
Data from www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/bus05-subsidies-and-concessions; BUS0502, tab BUS0502b.
EDIT: I think from memory the officer while we were talking about insurance may have mentioned his concern about how very close to the limit it was. I'm not 100% certain though, it was many years ago and the precise details are fuzzy now.
https://news.sky.com/story/serious-failures-of-afghanistan-evacuation-lowered-uks-global-standing-damning-report-calls-for-foreign-office-boss-to-resign-12620053
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61555821
That would be a right laugh.
It's an integral part of (some) Buddhist traditions.
Andy Samberg dressing as the Buddha would be called by some to be "cultural appropriation" now just as Alyson Hannigan dressing in Asian outfits for a Kung-Fu style sketch in their show was.
Racism is disgraceful, but much of what people now call "cultural appropriation" used to be called "multiculturalism" and was welcomed as a positive from having a melting pot of many cultures. I believe in multiculturalism more than "appropriation" or "cultural purity" which are awful concepts.
Now, that does not make the public expectation irrelevant, and one could and many did make the argument that morally it was binding. And the public when asked, in proxy fashion, for their view again made it clear (whilst people can quibble over percentages, they could have voted in a way to get a second referendum government instead) that they wanted it done.
It doesnt mean people cannot be outraged at the attempts to overturn the referendum, or think it a stupid idea. Or thinking that it being legally advisory was secondary to the political and moral imperative to do it. But advisory it most definitely was.
So why lose one's shit over that fact? It being advisory didnt mean the arguments for Brexit were meaningless, and the attempts to override it failed because the public also didnt care legally it was advisory.
It never went to tribunal but I had the details on just how close to the limit he was [very, very close] and my lawyer agreed that if he was four hours into his shift that he was that close to the limit then that was sufficient evidence [combined with his own testimony that the only alcohol consumed was before his shift] that he must have been over the limit at some point earlier in the shift.
So if it had gone to tribunal, then the lawyers indemnified us from that. Supposedly at least, got taken to tribunal two times but won both cases so that never got tested.