I became the 1st foreign leader to have a conversation with the newly elected 🇬🇧 PM @trussliz. Invited her to 🇺🇦. Thanked 🇬🇧 people for the major defense & economic aid for 🇺🇦. It's important that 🇬🇧 is ready to further strengthen it. Attention was paid to security guarantees 1/2
Coffey has a PhD in Chemistry and works like a trooper. She'll be fine.
Kwarteng is an ex Kings Scholar and a brainbox. He'll be fine.
Suella Braverman is absolutely lovely in person but appears to have gone off the deep end in recent years. She'll almost certainly fail at Home Secretary, which is a horrible job anyway. For her political career to survive she has to stop the boats. I have no confidence.
Kwasi is obviously very smart. On paper, he looks great.
The problem is that he seems to have been a dud in BEIS.
The fact that he has shagged the new PM (or vice versa) adds a interesting frisson perhaps not seems since James I.
I’ll be watching with interest.
Ruddy hell!
Are we sure about this? Are OGH's legal team sure about this?
I am concerned about the allegations and have asked for a link as I know Truss had affair but that was with Mark Field
Not sure OGH would be impressed
An allegation is a claim or assertion that someone has done something illegal or wrong,
It is not against the law to have sex. This can't possibly be actionable.
Whether it is true or not is another matter.
Are you sure about that? Surely at the very least it is potentially a civil offence. What is to stop you accusing me of being Andrew RT Davies's bitch if I can't sue your arse?
Libel is "a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation". It does not need to refer to breaking the law.
I really cannot believe he has not retracted it yet
Looks like the UK will soon be withdrawing from the ECHR if the odious Braverman has her way . Patel replaced by an equally nasty individual .
It is surely the principal reason for her appointment. Stop the boats, get out of the ECHR, job done - it'll give endless chances for them to claim Labour want to give succour to criminals.
Unfortunately the general public don’t seem to realize how many rights have been secured by the ECHR . I’m hoping there’s enough backbench Tories who would rebel and stop that from happening . It wasn’t in the manifesto , the HOL should not back down if legislation gets there. Can you imagine the optics at this time for the UK to be withdrawing from the ECHR .
This is a good argument for leaving. These questions should be decided politically in the UK.
So you trust the Tories to protect your rights ? Good luck with that .
Translation: "I don't trust the UK to govern itself. It needs babysitting by continental Europeans."
You’re missing the point . Governments can change , and rights could then be at the whim of those . Why don’t you read up on the rights won by Brits because of the ECHR .
Name one.
And name how the ECHR protected that right in Putin's Russia.
Russia and Belarus are not signatories to the ECHR.
Russia was until February 2022.
And before that the court's judgments could not be enforced in Russia because the courts were not independent of the government. The ECHR only works in countries in which the rule of law applies.
So the ECtHR does not work then. It isn't a guarantor.
It is in a country where courts are independent of government influence.
In a country where courts are independent of government influence, then why do you need it? Is it just the urge to standardise? You can't face the idea that 'rights' might be contingent?
Yep, I am guilty of that. I believe the right to vote, to hold private property, to be protected from arbitrary imprisonment and so on are not contingent, but inalienable.
But given that Parliament is sovereign and can repeal the HRA and leave the ECHR is there really any "protection"?
It's a very fair point. The protection is being a member of the ECHR, but it only exists as a protection for as long as Parliament allows it. I guess that all it represents is an extra hoop for a government that sought to curtail human rights to jump through before it could do so. That's not great - but it's better than nothing.
The government is incandescent with rage about those hoops - that shows they have an effect.
OR the hoops are now ridiculous foreign obstacles that prevent the UK government of the day enacting the will of the people
HMG’s Rwanda policy has been passed as lawful by all relevant British courts. It was the ECHR which stopped it
Now you may hate the Rwanda policy but it is an attempt to solve a problem that the British people want solved, and with reason. It might not work but it is surely worth trying. If independent British judges say it does not infringe human rights then that’s good enough for me
Get on with it
My problem with the Rwanda policy is not whether it is lawful or not, I think it is the wrong approach regardless of whether it is lawful. I am happy to concede that things may be lawful even if I think they are shitty. If the UK parliament wants to pursue that policy in non-compliance with the ECHR, if indeed it is, then I would object to the policy regardless, I just wouldn't mention the legality.
Same thing over the prorogation case, albeit that did not touch on ECHR issues - it was the wrong thing to do even if the court had ruled it was acceptable (frankly I was not entirely persuaded by the argument it was not legal).
Which is entirely fair. The Rwanda policy is highly contentious, and I can understand the many objections. I believe, however, we are at a stage when we need pretty radical solutions, because this will only get worse
But these are proper debates we need to have in a democratic country. What we don’t need is some ridiculous foreign court saying No a democratic British government can’t do something that the British people want, even though the British courts have said it is permissible. Enough
There's this many uninhabited Shetland islands (about 100 by eyeball)
Now, if 1 in 10 is buildable on that is Alcatraz x 10. Build them. Anyone from between about the 40th parallels will be pleading to be repatriated after one winter. Put them in a holding centre in Wick while you are running up the Alcatrazes.
Cheap, legal, effective.
Perhaps Northern Ireland, right next to the RoI border? That's basically what the French do to us.
Must be plenty of left over military bases that could be used. The ultimate, final form of Brexit.
Yes, that would be mildly amusing, and there must be 100s of acres of MOD property available
From that you’d believe we are basically North Korea. Admitting no one. But in fact the UK handed out 1 MILLION visas last year and we have one of the most liberal migration regimes on earth. Plus the boat people
Johnny Mercer's wife is not happy with her husband's sacking.
He asked her ‘why would you do this, who is going to be better at this role than me, which of your mates gets the job, you promised a meritocracy?’ PM - I can’t answer that Johnny
This system stinks & treats people appallingly
Best person I know sacked by an imbecile @trussliz
Skimming the European polling this evening - Sweden votes in 5 days and two polls tonight. A poll by SKOP gives the Greens 8.1% and has the centre-left bloc leading the centre-right 50.9% to 48.2%. It also has the Moderates just ahead of the Sweden Democrats.
Ipsos has just reported - Centre Left 49.7%, Centre Right 49.0% (Sweden Democrats 20.4%, Moderates 18.2%).
There's a poll from Iceland which as we know won't vote until 2025 - what strikes me is the sample size is 10,719 people over a month. In the 2021 election, 254,808 were eligible to vote so the poll represents 4.2% of the entire electorate.
That would be the equivalent of a UK opinion poll sampling nearly 2 million people !!
The three coalition parties in the Icelandic Government, Independence, Progressives and the Left-Green movement are down from a combined 54.3% in 2021 to 45.8% now. The main gainers are the Social Democrats and the Pirates.
Coffey has a PhD in Chemistry and works like a trooper. She'll be fine.
Kwarteng is an ex Kings Scholar and a brainbox. He'll be fine.
Suella Braverman is absolutely lovely in person but appears to have gone off the deep end in recent years. She'll almost certainly fail at Home Secretary, which is a horrible job anyway. For her political career to survive she has to stop the boats. I have no confidence.
Kwasi is obviously very smart. On paper, he looks great.
The problem is that he seems to have been a dud in BEIS.
The fact that he has shagged the new PM (or vice versa) adds a interesting frisson perhaps not seems since James I.
I’ll be watching with interest.
Ruddy hell!
Are we sure about this? Are OGH's legal team sure about this?
I am concerned about the allegations and have asked for a link as I know Truss had affair but that was with Mark Field
Not sure OGH would be impressed
An allegation is a claim or assertion that someone has done something illegal or wrong,
It is not against the law to have sex. This can't possibly be actionable.
Whether it is true or not is another matter.
Are you sure about that? Surely at the very least it is potentially a civil offence. What is to stop you accusing me of being Andrew RT Davies's bitch if I can't sue your arse?
Libel is "a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation". It does not need to refer to breaking the law.
I really cannot believe he has not retracted it yet
It was a nice thought that at least there’s one Tory in the land who likes the BBC.
To admins: my post was meant to be smutty, not racist btw. Happy for you to delete it if you decide to.
From that you’d believe we are basically North Korea. Admitting no one. But in fact the UK handed out 1 MILLION visas last year and we have one of the most liberal migration regimes on earth. Plus the boat people
It’s farcical
Nothing worse than someone who is the child of immigrants being anti-immigrant...
I don't see what's bad about that. People should not be expected to hold certain opinions due to their background.
I've never understood why immigrants are expected to be in favour of more immigration. Their communities are the first to suffer from overcrowding and under-resourced services. Why would a settled community of Bengalis welcome a sudden influx of Somalis?
"This use of singular they emerged by the 14th century, about a century after the plural they. It has been commonly employed in everyday English ever since and has gained currency in official contexts. Singular they has been criticised since the mid-18th century by prescriptive commentators who consider it an error. Its continued use in modern standard English has become more common and formally accepted with the move toward gender-neutral language. Though some early-21st-century style guides described it as colloquial and less appropriate in formal writing, by 2020 most style guides accepted the singular they as a personal pronoun."
Wikipedia also claims that there is a real possibility Nazareth didn't exist until the 1940s, that there is doubt as to whether Richard III murdered his nephews, and that probability and frequency are the same thing.
Articles depend on the cranks who write them, and most Wikipedia editors especially on controversial subjects are now cranks.
The citation for that paragraph is an OED piece that I noted above makes a very doubtful claim indeed and is stretching the evidence past breaking point.
I must admit, I'm surprised people are so adamant that we support bad grammar rather than trying to resolve the problem. I should have remembered PB loves a pointless discussion
Still HYUFDing away? Take the rest of the evening off. have a drink. you know as well as I do that "Each of {n where n is the biggest number in the entire world ever} is a singular. And it is awfully meta to be attacking the source because the proposition in the source is bulletproof.
Ummm...no I don't know that, because you're plainly wrong. As are they.
In the context, it's plainly a plural. The argument to the contrary is as unconvincing as most stuff OUP comes out with (and I used to work for them). It's just an attempt to push an agenda.
I think my favourite example of that was when they tried to claim that education in Norman England included universities, backing a (false) claim on their website that Oxford was founded in 1096 (which it wasn't - that was a school - the university itself certainly doesn't date from before the dissolution of St George's in 1149).
Anyway, I am off to bed shortly, not for that reason but because I've had two gruelling days and am very tired.
So have a nice evening, and remember, the answer is several angels can be in the same place.
Looks like the UK will soon be withdrawing from the ECHR if the odious Braverman has her way . Patel replaced by an equally nasty individual .
It is surely the principal reason for her appointment. Stop the boats, get out of the ECHR, job done - it'll give endless chances for them to claim Labour want to give succour to criminals.
Unfortunately the general public don’t seem to realize how many rights have been secured by the ECHR . I’m hoping there’s enough backbench Tories who would rebel and stop that from happening . It wasn’t in the manifesto , the HOL should not back down if legislation gets there. Can you imagine the optics at this time for the UK to be withdrawing from the ECHR .
This is a good argument for leaving. These questions should be decided politically in the UK.
So you trust the Tories to protect your rights ? Good luck with that .
Translation: "I don't trust the UK to govern itself. It needs babysitting by continental Europeans."
You’re missing the point . Governments can change , and rights could then be at the whim of those . Why don’t you read up on the rights won by Brits because of the ECHR .
Name one.
And name how the ECHR protected that right in Putin's Russia.
Russia and Belarus are not signatories to the ECHR.
Russia was until February 2022.
And before that the court's judgments could not be enforced in Russia because the courts were not independent of the government. The ECHR only works in countries in which the rule of law applies.
So the ECtHR does not work then. It isn't a guarantor.
It is in a country where courts are independent of government influence.
In a country where courts are independent of government influence, then why do you need it? Is it just the urge to standardise? You can't face the idea that 'rights' might be contingent?
Yep, I am guilty of that. I believe the right to vote, to hold private property, to be protected from arbitrary imprisonment and so on are not contingent, but inalienable.
But given that Parliament is sovereign and can repeal the HRA and leave the ECHR is there really any "protection"?
It's a very fair point. The protection is being a member of the ECHR, but it only exists as a protection for as long as Parliament allows it. I guess that all it represents is an extra hoop for a government that sought to curtail human rights to jump through before it could do so. That's not great - but it's better than nothing.
The government is incandescent with rage about those hoops - that shows they have an effect.
OR the hoops are now ridiculous foreign obstacles that prevent the UK government of the day enacting the will of the people
HMG’s Rwanda policy has been passed as lawful by all relevant British courts. It was the ECHR which stopped it
Now you may hate the Rwanda policy but it is an attempt to solve a problem that the British people want solved, and with reason. It might not work but it is surely worth trying. If independent British judges say it does not infringe human rights then that’s good enough for me
Get on with it
My problem with the Rwanda policy is not whether it is lawful or not, I think it is the wrong approach regardless of whether it is lawful. I am happy to concede that things may be lawful even if I think they are shitty. If the UK parliament wants to pursue that policy in non-compliance with the ECHR, if indeed it is, then I would object to the policy regardless, I just wouldn't mention the legality.
Same thing over the prorogation case, albeit that did not touch on ECHR issues - it was the wrong thing to do even if the court had ruled it was acceptable (frankly I was not entirely persuaded by the argument it was not legal).
Which is entirely fair. The Rwanda policy is highly contentious, and I can understand the many objections. I believe, however, we are at a stage when we need pretty radical solutions, because this will only get worse
But these are proper debates we need to have in a democratic country. What we don’t need is some ridiculous foreign court saying No a democratic British government can’t do something that the British people want, even though the British courts have said it is permissible. Enough
There's this many uninhabited Shetland islands (about 100 by eyeball)
Now, if 1 in 10 is buildable on that is Alcatraz x 10. Build them. Anyone from between about the 40th parallels will be pleading to be repatriated after one winter. Put them in a holding centre in Wick while you are running up the Alcatrazes.
Cheap, legal, effective.
Perhaps Northern Ireland, right next to the RoI border? That's basically what the French do to us.
Must be plenty of left over military bases that could be used. The ultimate, final form of Brexit.
Hmm, I see a bit of geographical confusion in the previous poster re Wick/Shetlands. Maybe looking at the old kind of map which has the Shetlands moved down into the Moray Firth?
Yes, Mordaunt so far the only Cabinet appointment who was supporting another candidate other than Truss by the final Tory MPs round (as she was another candidate) and she gets the least powerful role so far. Telling.
Still not a single Sunak supporter appointed to Truss' Cabinet despite Rishi getting 38% of Tory MPs votes and 43% of Tory members votes
It means very few loyalists available for Parliamentary committees… Feck it means very few loyalists on the backbenches!
Johnny Mercer's wife is not happy with her husband's sacking.
He asked her ‘why would you do this, who is going to be better at this role than me, which of your mates gets the job, you promised a meritocracy?’ PM - I can’t answer that Johnny
This system stinks & treats people appallingly
Best person I know sacked by an imbecile @trussliz
Is she messing this up by making too many unnecessary enemies?
I think she'll survive Felicity Mercer being pissed off her baby beau got the sack. You'd think there had never been reshuffles the way some of them are bleating. Oozes 'entitlement'
From that you’d believe we are basically North Korea. Admitting no one. But in fact the UK handed out 1 MILLION visas last year and we have one of the most liberal migration regimes on earth. Plus the boat people
It’s farcical
Nothing worse than someone who is the child of immigrants being anti-immigrant...
I don't see what's bad about that. People should not be expected to hold certain opinions due to their background.
I've never understood why immigrants are expected to be in favour of more immigration. Their communities are the first to suffer from overcrowding and under-resourced services. Why would a settled community of Bengalis welcome a sudden influx of Somalis?
I did have an acquaintance who was put out by their elderly parents, immigrants themselves, being anti-polish immigration. People don't always hold the views you'd expect, it's fine - immigration rules change, and your ancestors might have gotten in at a more lenient time and culture.
Personally I'm more in favour of liberal immigration rules, but that's not the average position thesedays.
Johnny Mercer's wife is not happy with her husband's sacking.
He asked her ‘why would you do this, who is going to be better at this role than me, which of your mates gets the job, you promised a meritocracy?’ PM - I can’t answer that Johnny
This system stinks & treats people appallingly
Best person I know sacked by an imbecile @trussliz
From that you’d believe we are basically North Korea. Admitting no one. But in fact the UK handed out 1 MILLION visas last year and we have one of the most liberal migration regimes on earth. Plus the boat people
It’s farcical
You must be delighted that wishy-washy namby-pamby cancel culture loving pro-migrant snowflake Priti Patel is gone.
Yet another liberal Home Secretary removed - perhaps we'll get a proper Conservative Home Secretary this time - to be fair, if you want a hard-line Home Secretary, wait for a Labour Government.
Coffey has a PhD in Chemistry and works like a trooper. She'll be fine.
Kwarteng is an ex Kings Scholar and a brainbox. He'll be fine.
Suella Braverman is absolutely lovely in person but appears to have gone off the deep end in recent years. She'll almost certainly fail at Home Secretary, which is a horrible job anyway. For her political career to survive she has to stop the boats. I have no confidence.
Kwasi is obviously very smart. On paper, he looks great.
The problem is that he seems to have been a dud in BEIS.
The fact that he has shagged the new PM (or vice versa) adds a interesting frisson perhaps not seems since James I.
I’ll be watching with interest.
Ruddy hell!
Are we sure about this? Are OGH's legal team sure about this?
I am concerned about the allegations and have asked for a link as I know Truss had affair but that was with Mark Field
Not sure OGH would be impressed
An allegation is a claim or assertion that someone has done something illegal or wrong,
It is not against the law to have sex. This can't possibly be actionable.
Whether it is true or not is another matter.
Are you sure about that? Surely at the very least it is potentially a civil offence. What is to stop you accusing me of being Andrew RT Davies's bitch if I can't sue your arse?
Libel is "a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation". It does not need to refer to breaking the law.
I really cannot believe he has not retracted it yet
From that you’d believe we are basically North Korea. Admitting no one. But in fact the UK handed out 1 MILLION visas last year and we have one of the most liberal migration regimes on earth. Plus the boat people
It’s farcical
Nothing worse than someone who is the child of immigrants being anti-immigrant...
I don't see what's bad about that. People should not be expected to hold certain opinions due to their background.
Well I disagree . If your life chances have been helped by the welcome you were given in the UK it’s not right to then be anti giving that to others who were in the same position .
Johnny Mercer's wife is not happy with her husband's sacking.
He asked her ‘why would you do this, who is going to be better at this role than me, which of your mates gets the job, you promised a meritocracy?’ PM - I can’t answer that Johnny
This system stinks & treats people appallingly
Best person I know sacked by an imbecile @trussliz
Johnny Mercer's wife is not happy with her husband's sacking.
He asked her ‘why would you do this, who is going to be better at this role than me, which of your mates gets the job, you promised a meritocracy?’ PM - I can’t answer that Johnny
This system stinks & treats people appallingly
Best person I know sacked by an imbecile @trussliz
Coffey has a PhD in Chemistry and works like a trooper. She'll be fine.
Kwarteng is an ex Kings Scholar and a brainbox. He'll be fine.
Suella Braverman is absolutely lovely in person but appears to have gone off the deep end in recent years. She'll almost certainly fail at Home Secretary, which is a horrible job anyway. For her political career to survive she has to stop the boats. I have no confidence.
Kwasi is obviously very smart. On paper, he looks great.
The problem is that he seems to have been a dud in BEIS.
The fact that he has shagged the new PM (or vice versa) adds a interesting frisson perhaps not seems since James I.
I’ll be watching with interest.
Ruddy hell!
Are we sure about this? Are OGH's legal team sure about this?
I am concerned about the allegations and have asked for a link as I know Truss had affair but that was with Mark Field
Not sure OGH would be impressed
An allegation is a claim or assertion that someone has done something illegal or wrong,
It is not against the law to have sex. This can't possibly be actionable.
Whether it is true or not is another matter.
Are you sure about that? Surely at the very least it is potentially a civil offence. What is to stop you accusing me of being Andrew RT Davies's bitch if I can't sue your arse?
Libel is "a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation". It does not need to refer to breaking the law.
So, the question is does: the suggestion (whether true or not) that Kwasi had an affair with Liz tend to damage either of their reputations.
I don't see how it does.
Their partners might take umbrage. More seriously, it would imply that he had only got the job by sleeping his way to it rather than through talent, and that WOULD be damaging. Also, the fact that it's not true makes it pretty unpleasant.
If they had partners at the time, and there was an expectation of fidelity, then I agree that their partners could rightly take umbrage.
I don't think @Gardenwalker was suggesting that Kwasi only got the job by sleeping his way to it rather than through talent.
Coffey has a PhD in Chemistry and works like a trooper. She'll be fine.
Kwarteng is an ex Kings Scholar and a brainbox. He'll be fine.
Suella Braverman is absolutely lovely in person but appears to have gone off the deep end in recent years. She'll almost certainly fail at Home Secretary, which is a horrible job anyway. For her political career to survive she has to stop the boats. I have no confidence.
Kwasi is obviously very smart. On paper, he looks great.
The problem is that he seems to have been a dud in BEIS.
The fact that he has shagged the new PM (or vice versa) adds a interesting frisson perhaps not seems since James I.
I’ll be watching with interest.
Ruddy hell!
Are we sure about this? Are OGH's legal team sure about this?
I am concerned about the allegations and have asked for a link as I know Truss had affair but that was with Mark Field
Not sure OGH would be impressed
An allegation is a claim or assertion that someone has done something illegal or wrong,
It is not against the law to have sex. This can't possibly be actionable.
Whether it is true or not is another matter.
Are you sure about that? Surely at the very least it is potentially a civil offence. What is to stop you accusing me of being Andrew RT Davies's bitch if I can't sue your arse?
"This use of singular they emerged by the 14th century, about a century after the plural they. It has been commonly employed in everyday English ever since and has gained currency in official contexts. Singular they has been criticised since the mid-18th century by prescriptive commentators who consider it an error. Its continued use in modern standard English has become more common and formally accepted with the move toward gender-neutral language. Though some early-21st-century style guides described it as colloquial and less appropriate in formal writing, by 2020 most style guides accepted the singular they as a personal pronoun."
Wikipedia also claims that there is a real possibility Nazareth didn't exist until the 1940s, that there is doubt as to whether Richard III murdered his nephews, and that probability and frequency are the same thing.
Articles depend on the cranks who write them, and most Wikipedia editors especially on controversial subjects are now cranks.
The citation for that paragraph is an OED piece that I noted above makes a very doubtful claim indeed and is stretching the evidence past breaking point.
I must admit, I'm surprised people are so adamant that we support bad grammar rather than trying to resolve the problem. I should have remembered PB loves a pointless discussion
It's only bad grammar if you want to impose a rule which is not necessary and delcare non adherence as 'bad'. Examples have been provided of where it even makes more sense than using an alternative.
If a 'rule' is not necessary we don't need to retain it, there isn't a law to keep archaic (or pseudo archaic) rules of expression, language evolves - words change meaning, expressions change, and how we structure things change.
Why some people think grammar 'rules' alone must be fixed in time forever I have not the slightest idea.
Grammar is descriptive, not prescriptive. Or should be.
Johnny Mercer's wife is not happy with her husband's sacking.
He asked her ‘why would you do this, who is going to be better at this role than me, which of your mates gets the job, you promised a meritocracy?’ PM - I can’t answer that Johnny
This system stinks & treats people appallingly
Best person I know sacked by an imbecile @trussliz
Jake's a top bloke, follows me on Twitter, he has excellent judgment.
He is a complete wanker, he pretends to live in a Red Wall constituency and speak for the North while maintaining multiple homes and a property empire on Ynys Mon.
Johnny Mercer's wife is not happy with her husband's sacking.
He asked her ‘why would you do this, who is going to be better at this role than me, which of your mates gets the job, you promised a meritocracy?’ PM - I can’t answer that Johnny
This system stinks & treats people appallingly
Best person I know sacked by an imbecile @trussliz
Is she messing this up by making too many unnecessary enemies?
I think she'll survive Felicity Mercer being pissed off her baby beau got the sack. You'd think there had never been reshuffles the way some of them are bleating. Oozes 'entitlement'
The idea that anything Johnny Mercer does oozes entitlement is bullshit. It just shows how skewed your moral compass is. And given that it was Mercer who campaigned for and got the Minister for Veterans affairs post created and that is basically what his whole Parliamentary career has been about, I would say he has a point in asking which of her mates could do a better job.
Surprised she accepted that and didn't return to the backbenches to be honest.
Me too. Odd. I know the photos weren't taken today but she looks nearly dead in her Ministerial mugshot. A very talented politician but a layered and complex person, and probably not right to face the times we have now as PM. Truss has much more of the toughness of the old boot about her.
It is still a little too early I think to see whether Truss has alienated a large chunk of her party.
Mercer (and his wife) is a rentagob, ignore him.
How terrible that someone should actually care about something rather than just wanting power and position for its own sake like the rest of the rabble.
Pippa Crerar @PippaCrerar · 3m Replying to @PippaCrerar Alok Sharma has been reappointed as COP 26 President which presumably puts him on direct collision course with JRM.
Surprised she accepted that and didn't return to the backbenches to be honest.
Well it’s hardly a job that generates controversy, you get to sit round the table, you can do media rounds without your own performance to defend and it can be a launching pad. So all in all it’s a bit of a crap job, but I can see why you’d take it if it was on the table. It’s better than a lot of the hospital passes in government.
Johnny Mercer's wife is not happy with her husband's sacking.
He asked her ‘why would you do this, who is going to be better at this role than me, which of your mates gets the job, you promised a meritocracy?’ PM - I can’t answer that Johnny
This system stinks & treats people appallingly
Best person I know sacked by an imbecile @trussliz
Is she messing this up by making too many unnecessary enemies?
I think she'll survive Felicity Mercer being pissed off her baby beau got the sack. You'd think there had never been reshuffles the way some of them are bleating. Oozes 'entitlement'
The idea that anything Johnny Mercer does oozes entitlement is bullshit. It just shows how skewed your moral compass is. And given that it was Mercer who campaigned for and got the Minister for Veterans affairs post created and that is basically what his whole Parliamentary career has been about, I would say he has a point in asking which of her mates could do a better job.
The obvious answer is no one.
I mean, his wife tweeted a photo of him a few weeks ago on his first day in the job asleep in a cabinet office meeting. So the answer might be loads of people.
Johnny Mercer's wife is not happy with her husband's sacking.
He asked her ‘why would you do this, who is going to be better at this role than me, which of your mates gets the job, you promised a meritocracy?’ PM - I can’t answer that Johnny
This system stinks & treats people appallingly
Best person I know sacked by an imbecile @trussliz
Is she messing this up by making too many unnecessary enemies?
I think she'll survive Felicity Mercer being pissed off her baby beau got the sack. You'd think there had never been reshuffles the way some of them are bleating. Oozes 'entitlement'
The idea that anything Johnny Mercer does oozes entitlement is bullshit. It just shows how skewed your moral compass is. And given that it was Mercer who campaigned for and got the Minister for Veterans affairs post created and that is basically what his whole Parliamentary career has been about, I would say he has a point in asking which of her mates could do a better job.
The obvious answer is no one.
And creaming 85k a year NED salary from a load of fraudulent scumbags who cost thousands their life savings. Good bloke.
From that you’d believe we are basically North Korea. Admitting no one. But in fact the UK handed out 1 MILLION visas last year and we have one of the most liberal migration regimes on earth. Plus the boat people
It’s farcical
Nothing worse than someone who is the child of immigrants being anti-immigrant...
I don't see what's bad about that. People should not be expected to hold certain opinions due to their background.
Well I disagree . If your life chances have been helped by the welcome you were given in the UK it’s not right to then be anti giving that to others who were in the same position .
That might well be considered hypocritical, to a degree, but it is outweighed in my view by the idea you must hold certain political opinions based on your origins or else you are condemned for your views.
And your example does not in any case cover the children of immigrants. How many generations should they be bound by the act of their forebears? If only one parent was an immigrant are they half as bound?
What if someone says their life chances were helped by being born in a UK with lower immigration? Are their no limits, are they required to support unrestricted immigration or can they suggest there be limits on numbers? There might have been such limits for their parents' generation, so why would it be wrong to place restrictions now? If, say, 100k were allowed in the year your parents came, and you support a limit of 100k now, is that wrong? Why, it is no more or less than was in place before?
As I say, I am in favour of immigration, but I think it genuinely unfair to hold someone to account for choices not their own made in a different time. Patel, Braverman, anyone else with relatives who have immigrated in recent times or themselves did, I'll judge the policy on its merits, not on the race or origin of the person presenting it.
ason Groves @JasonGroves1 · 1h New Health Sec Therese Coffey sets out a new 'ABCD' of priorities: Ambulances, Backlogs, Care, Doctors (and Dentists), adding: 'We are going to work through that and make sure we are working for patients'
Him and Mogg are going to have some robust debates.
Must be difficult understanding COP27's rationale if one is living in a Zeitgeist where 'fixed air' hasn't yet been discovered by that Scot Black, let alone renamed 'carbon dioxide'.
It is still a little too early I think to see whether Truss has alienated a large chunk of her party.
Mercer (and his wife) is a rentagob, ignore him.
His “resignation” letter is bizarrely over-emotional
Maybe, but its a bit more human as a result. I cannot stand those 'thank you for sacking me letters' you get sometimes - that's why some of the bolder resignation letters to Boris were refreshing, whilst others were so full of praise you almost missed the resignation part.
Johnny Mercer's wife is not happy with her husband's sacking.
He asked her ‘why would you do this, who is going to be better at this role than me, which of your mates gets the job, you promised a meritocracy?’ PM - I can’t answer that Johnny
This system stinks & treats people appallingly
Best person I know sacked by an imbecile @trussliz
Is she messing this up by making too many unnecessary enemies?
I think she'll survive Felicity Mercer being pissed off her baby beau got the sack. You'd think there had never been reshuffles the way some of them are bleating. Oozes 'entitlement'
The idea that anything Johnny Mercer does oozes entitlement is bullshit. It just shows how skewed your moral compass is. And given that it was Mercer who campaigned for and got the Minister for Veterans affairs post created and that is basically what his whole Parliamentary career has been about, I would say he has a point in asking which of her mates could do a better job.
The obvious answer is no one.
I'm talking about his wifes reaction. Ministers are appointed by the PM, you don't get to just keep it forever 'because'. Thats politics. He may well have done a bang up job. So did many ministers in the past who got binned from various positions. A Meritocracy approach is always going to be subjective. The toys out of the pram reaction from Felicity is ridiculous. The PM wants someone else, thats an entirely normal political thing.
That's genuinely funny. Even better that Truss apparentlycan't find ANYONE who wants to serve him as climate change minister. let nobody say that MPs will do anything for a Ministerial title.
James Oh Brien @mrjamesob · 2h The last Cabinet contained only sycophants prepared to ignore Johnson's epic unsuitability for high office. The new one will contain only sycophants prepared to ignore Johnson's epic unsuitability for high office who haven't criticised or upset Liz Truss. It's a narrowing field!
Looks like the UK will soon be withdrawing from the ECHR if the odious Braverman has her way . Patel replaced by an equally nasty individual .
It is surely the principal reason for her appointment. Stop the boats, get out of the ECHR, job done - it'll give endless chances for them to claim Labour want to give succour to criminals.
Unfortunately the general public don’t seem to realize how many rights have been secured by the ECHR . I’m hoping there’s enough backbench Tories who would rebel and stop that from happening . It wasn’t in the manifesto , the HOL should not back down if legislation gets there. Can you imagine the optics at this time for the UK to be withdrawing from the ECHR .
This is a good argument for leaving. These questions should be decided politically in the UK.
So you trust the Tories to protect your rights ? Good luck with that .
Translation: "I don't trust the UK to govern itself. It needs babysitting by continental Europeans."
You’re missing the point . Governments can change , and rights could then be at the whim of those . Why don’t you read up on the rights won by Brits because of the ECHR .
Name one.
And name how the ECHR protected that right in Putin's Russia.
Russia and Belarus are not signatories to the ECHR.
Russia was until February 2022.
And before that the court's judgments could not be enforced in Russia because the courts were not independent of the government. The ECHR only works in countries in which the rule of law applies.
So the ECtHR does not work then. It isn't a guarantor.
It is in a country where courts are independent of government influence.
In a country where courts are independent of government influence, then why do you need it? Is it just the urge to standardise? You can't face the idea that 'rights' might be contingent?
I think for Remainers it is a last shred of European rule over the UK that they are desperate to cling onto. Which is probably reason enough to get rid of it. But more importantly, all the arguments in favour of it seem to melt away when analysed, like snow in spring sun
Says the man who was suggesting a few posts back that the ECHR should be incorporated into British law without realising that this was done by the last Labour government in the Human Rights Act which this government wants to abolish.
Good speech and interesting that she referenced building and spades in the ground so much. Perhaps she's planning some genuine free market reforms on planning.
Tbh I was wondering if the Prime Minister accidentally skipped a section there. It made no sense.
The Prime Minister said, "We'll get spades in the ground to make sure people are not facing unaffordable energy bills."
It makes no sense; she must have lost her place in the script and missed a sentence.
Metaphor surely? No planning and talking, immediate action
No, it's incoherent even as a metaphor. Going with "Brexit is like having a baby" would have made more sense.
Because you’ll be paying for it the rest of your life?
Brexit is very much like making love to a beautiful woman…
It’s possible I suppose that Truss intends to be her own BEIS minister.
It’s genuinely difficult to explain that appointment. She owes Rees-Mogg very little.
I think she wants to put the department to the metaphorical fire. She was Trade Secretary (it is the DTI isn't it?) so will know the department well, and know what she thinks it needs. Which is probably a good hiding, and he will do it.
It’s possible I suppose that Truss intends to be her own BEIS minister.
It’s genuinely difficult to explain that appointment. She owes Rees-Mogg very little.
I think she wants to put the department to the metaphorical fire. She was Trade Secretary (it is the DTI isn't it?) so will know the department well, and know what she thinks it needs. Which is probably a good hiding, and he will do it.
Yes something like that. Kwasi too must know (or think he knows) where the bodies are buried.
Rees-Mogg is there to do what he’s told and absorb flak. It’s the only explanation.
ason Groves @JasonGroves1 · 1h New Health Sec Therese Coffey sets out a new 'ABCD' of priorities: Ambulances, Backlogs, Care, Doctors (and Dentists), adding: 'We are going to work through that and make sure we are working for patients'
The grammar is bad but the point is an important one. Anyone who didn't realise that this was what Brexit was about is a moron. (Interestingly, the person I heard pointing this out most forcefully, spitting with rage about a project to dismantle the welfare state being sold as all about getting more money for the NHS, was a former Tory PM, John Major. It sure as hell isn't his party anymore).
You've not read the story. He's at business AND he's doing the energy junior minister job as well!!!
Jacob now has one of the most powerful jobs in Cabinet then
After literally being the least important member of the Cabinet under Boris (it was in the ministerial ranking and everything), it is quite the promotion.
At current rate of progress he'll be the next PM, heaven help us.
The grammar is bad but the point is an important one. Anyone who didn't realise that this was what Brexit was about is a moron. (Interestingly, the person I heard pointing this out most forcefully, spitting with rage about a project to dismantle the welfare state being sold as all about getting more money for the NHS, was a former Tory PM, John Major. It sure as hell isn't his party anymore).
The IEA mob think the UK need to be more like America.
Living as I now do in New York, I would argue that would be a big mistake.
You've not read the story. He's at business AND he's doing the energy junior minister job as well!!!
Jacob now has one of the most powerful jobs in Cabinet then
After literally being the least important member of the Cabinet under Boris (it was in the ministerial ranking and everything), it is quite the promotion.
At current rate of progress he'll be the next PM, heaven help us.
I think JRM at business could achieve the remarkable feat of getting the bosses to go on strike.
Comments
@JakeBerry
has been appointed Minister without Portfolio.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1567234747817926661
Cut the blue wire.
https://twitter.com/10DowningStreet/status/1567235211397570574?s=20&t=S3vZZNxeI7KoT2rgiO48Mg
Ipsos has just reported - Centre Left 49.7%, Centre Right 49.0% (Sweden Democrats 20.4%, Moderates 18.2%).
There's a poll from Iceland which as we know won't vote until 2025 - what strikes me is the sample size is 10,719 people over a month. In the 2021 election, 254,808 were eligible to vote so the poll represents 4.2% of the entire electorate.
That would be the equivalent of a UK opinion poll sampling nearly 2 million people !!
The three coalition parties in the Icelandic Government, Independence, Progressives and the Left-Green movement are down from a combined 54.3% in 2021 to 45.8% now. The main gainers are the Social Democrats and the Pirates.
I’m from Yorkshire but I am trying.
Tragic that I would have laughed my ass off.
In the context, it's plainly a plural. The argument to the contrary is as unconvincing as most stuff OUP comes out with (and I used to work for them). It's just an attempt to push an agenda.
I think my favourite example of that was when they tried to claim that education in Norman England included universities, backing a (false) claim on their website that Oxford was founded in 1096 (which it wasn't - that was a school - the university itself certainly doesn't date from before the dissolution of St George's in 1149).
Anyway, I am off to bed shortly, not for that reason but because I've had two gruelling days and am very tired.
So have a nice evening, and remember, the answer is several angels can be in the same place.
Oozes 'entitlement'
Bloody good thing too, because think what it would have done to the price of Amarone.
Personally I'm more in favour of liberal immigration rules, but that's not the average position thesedays.
Straight to camera.
"Phwoar. That was quick. Missing me already?"
Fade to black.
Jake's a top bloke, follows me on Twitter, he has excellent judgment.
Yet another liberal Home Secretary removed - perhaps we'll get a proper Conservative Home Secretary this time - to be fair, if you want a hard-line Home Secretary, wait for a Labour Government.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1567234747817926661?s=20&t=S3vZZNxeI7KoT2rgiO48Mg
Mercer (and his wife) is a rentagob, ignore him.
I don't think @Gardenwalker was suggesting that Kwasi only got the job by sleeping his way to it rather than through talent.
Or should be.
https://twitter.com/10DowningStreet/status/1567237359854288897?s=20&t=S3vZZNxeI7KoT2rgiO48Mg
We need more Latin lessons in our schools.
He'll be the first one out, Paterson-style
The obvious answer is no one.
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1567216544412745730?s=20&t=S3vZZNxeI7KoT2rgiO48Mg
Who gets to go to COP27?
Pippa Crerar
@PippaCrerar
·
3m
Replying to
@PippaCrerar
Alok Sharma has been reappointed as COP 26 President which presumably puts him on direct collision course with JRM.
Irony is dead in the Tory Party.
And your example does not in any case cover the children of immigrants. How many generations should they be bound by the act of their forebears? If only one parent was an immigrant are they half as bound?
What if someone says their life chances were helped by being born in a UK with lower immigration? Are their no limits, are they required to support unrestricted immigration or can they suggest there be limits on numbers? There might have been such limits for their parents' generation, so why would it be wrong to place restrictions now? If, say, 100k were allowed in the year your parents came, and you support a limit of 100k now, is that wrong? Why, it is no more or less than was in place before?
As I say, I am in favour of immigration, but I think it genuinely unfair to hold someone to account for choices not their own made in a different time. Patel, Braverman, anyone else with relatives who have immigrated in recent times or themselves did, I'll judge the policy on its merits, not on the race or origin of the person presenting it.
One thing that Truss must absolutely do is rebuild the relationship with business after the era of "fuck business" and Peppa pig speeches to CBI.
So Mogg is not the answer the City or CBI want to hear, never mind the climate angle.
It’s genuinely difficult to explain that appointment. She owes Rees-Mogg very little.
@JasonGroves1
·
1h
New Health Sec Therese Coffey sets out a new 'ABCD' of priorities: Ambulances, Backlogs, Care, Doctors (and Dentists), adding: 'We are going to work through that and make sure we are working for patients'
A Meritocracy approach is always going to be subjective. The toys out of the pram reaction from Felicity is ridiculous. The PM wants someone else, thats an entirely normal political thing.
@mrjamesob
·
2h
The last Cabinet contained only sycophants prepared to ignore Johnson's epic unsuitability for high office. The new one will contain only sycophants prepared to ignore Johnson's epic unsuitability for high office who haven't criticised or upset Liz Truss. It's a narrowing field!
Kwasi too must know (or think he knows) where the bodies are buried.
Rees-Mogg is there to do what he’s told and absorb flak. It’s the only explanation.
(Interestingly, the person I heard pointing this out most forcefully, spitting with rage about a project to dismantle the welfare state being sold as all about getting more money for the NHS, was a former Tory PM, John Major. It sure as hell isn't his party anymore).
At current rate of progress he'll be the next PM, heaven help us.
Living as I now do in New York, I would argue that would be a big mistake.