According to The Times, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from allies of Boris Johnson to block the appointment of a senior civil servant as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The absolutely worst thing Rishi could do is block the appointment.
He can't, anyway. At most he can advise a longer delay. And an excessive delay would be contested.
Good morning
Yes - the BBC said the same just now
I understand the cabinet office have seized her phone and are securing documents, as she has been present at many cabinet meetings
There is no doubt the Johnson supporters, including the mail with their over the top front page, are going to use this to undermine the case against him no matter how much the appointment is defended
Not sure the timing of this was politically sensible, as it would have made sense to do this after the privileges committee report
They'd squeal even more then. If they don't trust her report, it ought to be a relatively simple matter to verify the facts.
I don't think there's anything to worry about regarding the Gray appointment in terms of ethics or the rules, but politically it's a bit of a gaffe by Starmer if he didn't consider how it could be seen (or alternatively a very cunning way of reminding us all about Partygate by getting it back into the news....)
And the Tories are hypocritical on this anyway. They have regularly plucked people from public sector roles straight into government - particularly from the BBC - and put people with Tory links straight into prominent public sector roles.
I’m not sure the first is an issue?
Re any senior civil servant effectively joining the senior management of the opposition - isn’t the issue that she has been privy to confidential information that the government has a right to expect to be kept confidential?
By that logic no senior civil servant would ever be allowed to join or work for a political party after they retire or decide to leave the service.
People are going nuts over this story, and at the worst end its clearly out of excitement for a way to defend saint Boris.
But whilst the suddeness of the appointment doesn't look great and that's why it was a poor move at this time, a lot of people are just severely overreacting to the principle of it.
People are allowed to work for parties even if they were high up in the civil service. If it had been 5 years from now no one but obsessives would care. Its just distractingly close to an event she was in the news for.
This comes back to the general point about Civil Servants, “Purdah”, and taking jobs elsewhere.
There have been some cases, over the years, which were unpleasant. Civil servant X selected private firm Y for contract. Contract turns into a long running disaster for government, money spinner for Y. Civil Servant then gets big job at Y.
There have also been reverse cases.
So the idea came up of blocking civil servants from going to some jobs for a period of time.
The counter argument, which has some validity, is that ex civil servants have valuable knowledge on how to work with government - without that knowledge, doing contracts is a lot harder.
Like many things, it is impossible to produce a simple set of rules that cover all cases. Humans, eh?
Stating that the Elgin Marbles belong in London is a bit like saying the Crown Jewels belong in Athens!
The British Museum = Biggest Stolen Goods Warehouse in the World!
I think that's Boris's point. If the BM (or any museum for that matter) obliges itself to 'give everything back', it's not a museum, it's a room.
Indeed, loan exhibits abroad but if every major museum only displayed objects from the country it was located in there wouldn't be a lot of exhibits left in them
The Parthenon still exists, so the Marbles belong there.
All the places that all the exhibits in all the museums in the world came from still exist.
Not in the respect Sunil is talking about. The Elgin Marbles are literally fixtures ripped off the walls of an ancient building that is still there.
In most cases, the item is either by its nature moveable, or the context in which it was displayed either gone or massively changed.
It's objectively ludicrous - even if one attaches no blame to Elgin personally and thinks it all legal etc - that the Marbles are in Bloomsbury rather than an ancient building which they were literally part of and which (I'll repeat) is still effing there.
There's another side to this that I find interesting, and that's the soft power of artefacts.
A few years back, my son was fascinated by terracotta warriors and Easter Island heads. He was a bit too young to take him up to the Liverpool terracotta warrior exhibition in 2018, but last year we went to a tiny (but brilliant) 'fake' Terracotta Warrior exhibition in Dorchester, of all places, which he loved. (There's a fake Tutankhamun exhibition just up the road as well).
This isn't relevant to the marbles, but I wonder if having exhibits around the world actually helps the original country? Does have an Easter Island head in the BM create more knowledge and interest about/in Easter Island? Do all the exhibits of Ancient Egypt in local museums, of dusty mummies and strange inscriptions, actually create generations of people who are interested in Egypt and its history, and therefore more likely to travel there?
Would the world be richer if every ancient artefact was in its original place, or poorer? (Leaving aside issues if where an 'original' place is)?
This is not an argument for musuems keeping foreign artefacts: the same sort of effect may be achieved by travelling exhibitions. But I reckon there's a massive soft power in it - especially for small places like Easter Island.
That's a good point but I guess there is an important distinction between lending out artefacts of one's own volition and having them plundered by some Victoria cad and not returned.
People are also inclined to lend you their stuff when you have a gun to their head, in some cases.
The first polls following the Windsor unknotting have been published. Both show improved votes for the Conservatives. PeoplePolling have C on 24% (+4%) and Techne have C on 29% (+2%).
Rishi wanted to be basking in the warm glow of his genuine achievement. That story has been rather overtaken by events.
(I suspect the timing is driven more by government-in-waiting aspects than political optics. Let's say six months gardening leave is reasonable, that takes us to September and we really are in the GE run-up.)
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
There's a couple of other, minor side issues here.
*) Labour are potentially making themselves a hostage to fortune. If there were contacts between Labour and Gray during the inquiry, it could be insinuated that a deal had been done.
*) It sends a message: get the 'right' result in an inquiry, and the side might hire you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). I'm unconvinced that's a good thing, especially after the Shami Chakrabarti scandal.
Which leads to a question; if Gray had cleared Johnson, would she still have been hired by Labour?
IMV Labour were perfectly right in offering the job; I'm unsure Gray was wise to accept it.
Did Gray get the "right" result? IIRC her report was a bit of a damp squib - she refused to even look at some of the allegations, presented a load of uncontested facts about the partying and basically said that what happened wasn't great. To put it another way, which parts of her report do Tories now think were factually inaccurate or suggestive of anti-Tory bias?
Most UK voters and most 2019 Conservative voters think Starmer will keep the State the same size. Most 2019 Labour voters though think Starmer will grow the State. They can't both be right?
I don't think the public really grasp the question. Grow it how, in what area, all parts or just overall so some bits still stay the same?
Spending more money on the courts, for example, would be growing the public sector to the advantage of all of us. Except possibly those likely to be convicted!
Probably even them - speedier justice, even if they'd rather not face justice.
Magistrates are cheap, though the Labour Party is hard wired to dislike them.
The idea of replacing them with judges comes up from time to time. This would require a fuckton of judges. Which would mean a massive number of 6 figure jobs for lawyers…
The first polls following the Windsor unknotting have been published. Both show improved votes for the Conservatives. PeoplePolling have C on 24% (+4%) and Techne have C on 29% (+2%).
According to The Times, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from allies of Boris Johnson to block the appointment of a senior civil servant as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The absolutely worst thing Rishi could do is block the appointment.
He can't, anyway. At most he can advise a longer delay. And an excessive delay would be contested.
Good morning
Yes - the BBC said the same just now
I understand the cabinet office have seized her phone and are securing documents, as she has been present at many cabinet meetings
There is no doubt the Johnson supporters, including the mail with their over the top front page, are going to use this to undermine the case against him no matter how much the appointment is defended
Not sure the timing of this was politically sensible, as it would have made sense to do this after the privileges committee report
I'm not sure that Labour will be too upset if Boris Johnson lives to fight another day. Right now he is a bigger threat to Sunak than to Starmer. And if the Tories want us all to talk about Partygate again, that sounds great, be my guest!
To be honest I expected a response along those lines, but Johnson is over and Sunak will take the party into GE 24
This move will muddy the water and if Starmer had a good political antenna he would have done this after the privileges report
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
There's a couple of other, minor side issues here.
*) Labour are potentially making themselves a hostage to fortune. If there were contacts between Labour and Gray during the inquiry, it could be insinuated that a deal had been done.
*) It sends a message: get the 'right' result in an inquiry, and the side might hire you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). I'm unconvinced that's a good thing, especially after the Shami Chakrabarti scandal.
Which leads to a question; if Gray had cleared Johnson, would she still have been hired by Labour?
IMV Labour were perfectly right in offering the job; I'm unsure Gray was wise to accept it.
I think such contacts quite unlikely. And why shouldn't she accept the role ?
The idea that Labour influenced the enquiry is so utterly risible that only a complete fool like Dorries might actually believe it.
So about 1/3 of the parliamentary party and probably a higher proportion of the membership.
If even 'sensible' MPs or government ministers start playing along - "I'm sure it's fine but I understand the concerns, it raises questions" - then we can probably regard that as a sign they think the party's support will tank if Boris is punished, and they see this as a way out.
Stating that the Elgin Marbles belong in London is a bit like saying the Crown Jewels belong in Athens!
The British Museum = Biggest Stolen Goods Warehouse in the World!
I think that's Boris's point. If the BM (or any museum for that matter) obliges itself to 'give everything back', it's not a museum, it's a room.
Indeed, loan exhibits abroad but if every major museum only displayed objects from the country it was located in there wouldn't be a lot of exhibits left in them
The Parthenon still exists, so the Marbles belong there.
All the places that all the exhibits in all the museums in the world came from still exist.
Not in the respect Sunil is talking about. The Elgin Marbles are literally fixtures ripped off the walls of an ancient building that is still there.
In most cases, the item is either by its nature moveable, or the context in which it was displayed either gone or massively changed.
It's objectively ludicrous - even if one attaches no blame to Elgin personally and thinks it all legal etc - that the Marbles are in Bloomsbury rather than an ancient building which they were literally part of and which (I'll repeat) is still effing there.
There's another side to this that I find interesting, and that's the soft power of artefacts.
A few years back, my son was fascinated by terracotta warriors and Easter Island heads. He was a bit too young to take him up to the Liverpool terracotta warrior exhibition in 2018, but last year we went to a tiny (but brilliant) 'fake' Terracotta Warrior exhibition in Dorchester, of all places, which he loved. (There's a fake Tutankhamun exhibition just up the road as well).
This isn't relevant to the marbles, but I wonder if having exhibits around the world actually helps the original country? Does have an Easter Island head in the BM create more knowledge and interest about/in Easter Island? Do all the exhibits of Ancient Egypt in local museums, of dusty mummies and strange inscriptions, actually create generations of people who are interested in Egypt and its history, and therefore more likely to travel there?
Would the world be richer if every ancient artefact was in its original place, or poorer? (Leaving aside issues if where an 'original' place is)?
This is not an argument for musuems keeping foreign artefacts: the same sort of effect may be achieved by travelling exhibitions. But I reckon there's a massive soft power in it - especially for small places like Easter Island.
That's a good point but I guess there is an important distinction between lending out artefacts of one's own volition and having them plundered by some Victoria cad and not returned.
People are also inclined to lend you their stuff when you have a gun to their head, in some cases.
You can more with a broadside of 68lbrs and a kind word, than you can with just a kind word.
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
There's a couple of other, minor side issues here.
*) Labour are potentially making themselves a hostage to fortune. If there were contacts between Labour and Gray during the inquiry, it could be insinuated that a deal had been done.
*) It sends a message: get the 'right' result in an inquiry, and the side might hire you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). I'm unconvinced that's a good thing, especially after the Shami Chakrabarti scandal.
Which leads to a question; if Gray had cleared Johnson, would she still have been hired by Labour?
IMV Labour were perfectly right in offering the job; I'm unsure Gray was wise to accept it.
Did Gray get the "right" result? IIRC her report was a bit of a damp squib - she refused to even look at some of the allegations, presented a load of uncontested facts about the partying and basically said that what happened wasn't great. To put it another way, which parts of her report do Tories now think were factually inaccurate or suggestive of anti-Tory bias?
People were a tad disappointed as I recall. Let's rerun it if that's what the tories want. Surely they're not saying it was all ok after all? I'm sure PM Boris expressed regret for what went on.
Stating that the Elgin Marbles belong in London is a bit like saying the Crown Jewels belong in Athens!
The British Museum = Biggest Stolen Goods Warehouse in the World!
I think that's Boris's point. If the BM (or any museum for that matter) obliges itself to 'give everything back', it's not a museum, it's a room.
Indeed, loan exhibits abroad but if every major museum only displayed objects from the country it was located in there wouldn't be a lot of exhibits left in them
The Parthenon still exists, so the Marbles belong there.
All the places that all the exhibits in all the museums in the world came from still exist.
Not in the respect Sunil is talking about. The Elgin Marbles are literally fixtures ripped off the walls of an ancient building that is still there.
In most cases, the item is either by its nature moveable, or the context in which it was displayed either gone or massively changed.
It's objectively ludicrous - even if one attaches no blame to Elgin personally and thinks it all legal etc - that the Marbles are in Bloomsbury rather than an ancient building which they were literally part of and which (I'll repeat) is still effing there.
There's another side to this that I find interesting, and that's the soft power of artefacts.
A few years back, my son was fascinated by terracotta warriors and Easter Island heads. He was a bit too young to take him up to the Liverpool terracotta warrior exhibition in 2018, but last year we went to a tiny (but brilliant) 'fake' Terracotta Warrior exhibition in Dorchester, of all places, which he loved. (There's a fake Tutankhamun exhibition just up the road as well).
This isn't relevant to the marbles, but I wonder if having exhibits around the world actually helps the original country? Does have an Easter Island head in the BM create more knowledge and interest about/in Easter Island? Do all the exhibits of Ancient Egypt in local museums, of dusty mummies and strange inscriptions, actually create generations of people who are interested in Egypt and its history, and therefore more likely to travel there?
Would the world be richer if every ancient artefact was in its original place, or poorer? (Leaving aside issues if where an 'original' place is)?
This is not an argument for musuems keeping foreign artefacts: the same sort of effect may be achieved by travelling exhibitions. But I reckon there's a massive soft power in it - especially for small places like Easter Island.
A fun fact about the terracotta warriors is that most are still buried. When the first ones were unearthed they were all painted but exposure to light quickly made the colours fade away. They are now waiting for the appropriate preservation technology to be developed before digging out any more.
According to The Times, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from allies of Boris Johnson to block the appointment of a senior civil servant as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The absolutely worst thing Rishi could do is block the appointment.
He can't, anyway. At most he can advise a longer delay. And an excessive delay would be contested.
Good morning
Yes - the BBC said the same just now
I understand the cabinet office have seized her phone and are securing documents, as she has been present at many cabinet meetings
There is no doubt the Johnson supporters, including the mail with their over the top front page, are going to use this to undermine the case against him no matter how much the appointment is defended
Not sure the timing of this was politically sensible, as it would have made sense to do this after the privileges committee report
I'm not sure that Labour will be too upset if Boris Johnson lives to fight another day. Right now he is a bigger threat to Sunak than to Starmer. And if the Tories want us all to talk about Partygate again, that sounds great, be my guest!
To be honest I expected a response along those lines, but Johnson is over and Sunak will take the party into GE 24
This move will muddy the water and if Starmer had a good political antenna he would have done this after the privileges report
No, raining on Sunak's parade is just the right thing to do this week. The timing was probably a complete accidental however.
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
There's a couple of other, minor side issues here.
*) Labour are potentially making themselves a hostage to fortune. If there were contacts between Labour and Gray during the inquiry, it could be insinuated that a deal had been done.
*) It sends a message: get the 'right' result in an inquiry, and the side might hire you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). I'm unconvinced that's a good thing, especially after the Shami Chakrabarti scandal.
Which leads to a question; if Gray had cleared Johnson, would she still have been hired by Labour?
IMV Labour were perfectly right in offering the job; I'm unsure Gray was wise to accept it.
Did Gray get the "right" result? IIRC her report was a bit of a damp squib - she refused to even look at some of the allegations, presented a load of uncontested facts about the partying and basically said that what happened wasn't great. To put it another way, which parts of her report do Tories now think were factually inaccurate or suggestive of anti-Tory bias?
Yes, wasn't Sue Gray's most damning revelation that Boris nibbled on a slice of birthday cake? For the other stuff - the raucous disco sex party in the Downing Street basement - she concluded that Boris was wholesomely and blamelessly somewhere else at the time.
re the recent US Government comments saying its increasingly likely Covid came from a lab leak, seems to me this a fairly blatant hint to the Chinese that, supply weapons to the Russians and we are going to be telling the world you are responsible for the leak and have been lying out of your ass.
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
There's a couple of other, minor side issues here.
*) Labour are potentially making themselves a hostage to fortune. If there were contacts between Labour and Gray during the inquiry, it could be insinuated that a deal had been done.
*) It sends a message: get the 'right' result in an inquiry, and the side might hire you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). I'm unconvinced that's a good thing, especially after the Shami Chakrabarti scandal.
Which leads to a question; if Gray had cleared Johnson, would she still have been hired by Labour?
IMV Labour were perfectly right in offering the job; I'm unsure Gray was wise to accept it.
Did Gray get the "right" result? IIRC her report was a bit of a damp squib - she refused to even look at some of the allegations, presented a load of uncontested facts about the partying and basically said that what happened wasn't great. To put it another way, which parts of her report do Tories now think were factually inaccurate or suggestive of anti-Tory bias?
Yes, wasn't Sue Gray's most damning revelation that Boris nibbled on a slice of birthday cake? For the other stuff - the raucous disco sex party in the Downing Street basement - she concluded that Boris was wholesomely and blamelessly somewhere else at the time.
I distinctly recall Tories here being broadly supportive of it at the time. How strange
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
There's a couple of other, minor side issues here.
*) Labour are potentially making themselves a hostage to fortune. If there were contacts between Labour and Gray during the inquiry, it could be insinuated that a deal had been done.
*) It sends a message: get the 'right' result in an inquiry, and the side might hire you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). I'm unconvinced that's a good thing, especially after the Shami Chakrabarti scandal.
Which leads to a question; if Gray had cleared Johnson, would she still have been hired by Labour?
IMV Labour were perfectly right in offering the job; I'm unsure Gray was wise to accept it.
I think such contacts quite unlikely. And why shouldn't she accept the role ?
The idea that Labour influenced the enquiry is so utterly risible that only a complete fool like Dorries might actually believe it.
So about 1/3 of the parliamentary party and probably a higher proportion of the membership.
If even 'sensible' MPs or government ministers start playing along - "I'm sure it's fine but I understand the concerns, it raises questions" - then we can probably regard that as a sign they think the party's support will tank if Boris is punished, and they see this as a way out.
The Conservatives are in trouble either way. The current support base will be seriously dischuffed if Boris is Betrayed, but the swing voters will be furious if he gets away with it.
According to The Times, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from allies of Boris Johnson to block the appointment of a senior civil servant as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The absolutely worst thing Rishi could do is block the appointment.
He can't, anyway. At most he can advise a longer delay. And an excessive delay would be contested.
Good morning
Yes - the BBC said the same just now
I understand the cabinet office have seized her phone and are securing documents, as she has been present at many cabinet meetings
There is no doubt the Johnson supporters, including the mail with their over the top front page, are going to use this to undermine the case against him no matter how much the appointment is defended
Not sure the timing of this was politically sensible, as it would have made sense to do this after the privileges committee report
I'm not sure that Labour will be too upset if Boris Johnson lives to fight another day. Right now he is a bigger threat to Sunak than to Starmer. And if the Tories want us all to talk about Partygate again, that sounds great, be my guest!
To be honest I expected a response along those lines, but Johnson is over and Sunak will take the party into GE 24
This move will muddy the water and if Starmer had a good political antenna he would have done this after the privileges report
No, raining on Sunak's parade is just the right thing to do this week. The timing was probably a complete accidental however.
Looks as if you are concerned about Sunak
This is a bubble story and Sunak's visit to France next week, the budget a few days later, the 10.1% increase in pensions, benefits, and minimum wage, with the possible resolution of the nurses dispute and continuing fuel support are far more likely to be noticed by the voters
First, I remind her that the Prime Minister came here yesterday and apologised. He said that with hindsight it was not what should have happened or what he would have wanted to happen. It is being investigated by Sue Gray, a civil servant of the highest integrity and of the greatest reputation.
According to The Times, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from allies of Boris Johnson to block the appointment of a senior civil servant as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The absolutely worst thing Rishi could do is block the appointment.
He can't, anyway. At most he can advise a longer delay. And an excessive delay would be contested.
Good morning
Yes - the BBC said the same just now
I understand the cabinet office have seized her phone and are securing documents, as she has been present at many cabinet meetings
There is no doubt the Johnson supporters, including the mail with their over the top front page, are going to use this to undermine the case against him no matter how much the appointment is defended
Not sure the timing of this was politically sensible, as it would have made sense to do this after the privileges committee report
I'm not sure that Labour will be too upset if Boris Johnson lives to fight another day. Right now he is a bigger threat to Sunak than to Starmer. And if the Tories want us all to talk about Partygate again, that sounds great, be my guest!
To be honest I expected a response along those lines, but Johnson is over and Sunak will take the party into GE 24
This move will muddy the water and if Starmer had a good political antenna he would have done this after the privileges report
I would like Johnson to disappear from public life - as I have said on here repeatedly I think he is a congenital liar and lacks the moral character to have any political role. It's up to others on here to reflect on how they have helped to further his career. But he is the Tory party's problem now. If they can't flush the turd that is a sign of their disunity and the PM's lack of authority within his party. It's not Labour's job to help them dispatch Johnson. Labour have hired a highly competent public-spirited ex official to help them to prepare for government. If it causes the Tories some additional discomfort, great. They deserve it.
According to The Times, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from allies of Boris Johnson to block the appointment of a senior civil servant as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The absolutely worst thing Rishi could do is block the appointment.
He can't, anyway. At most he can advise a longer delay. And an excessive delay would be contested.
Good morning
Yes - the BBC said the same just now
I understand the cabinet office have seized her phone and are securing documents, as she has been present at many cabinet meetings
There is no doubt the Johnson supporters, including the mail with their over the top front page, are going to use this to undermine the case against him no matter how much the appointment is defended
Not sure the timing of this was politically sensible, as it would have made sense to do this after the privileges committee report
I'm not sure that Labour will be too upset if Boris Johnson lives to fight another day. Right now he is a bigger threat to Sunak than to Starmer. And if the Tories want us all to talk about Partygate again, that sounds great, be my guest!
To be honest I expected a response along those lines, but Johnson is over and Sunak will take the party into GE 24
This move will muddy the water and if Starmer had a good political antenna he would have done this after the privileges report
No, raining on Sunak's parade is just the right thing to do this week. The timing was probably a complete accidental however.
Looks as if you are concerned about Sunak
This is a bubble story and Sunak's visit to France next week, the budget a few days later, the 10.1% increase in pensions, benefits, and minimum wage, with the possible resolution of the nurses dispute and continuing fuel support are far more likely to be noticed by the voters
You finally made a sensible post consolations congratulations
Looks like Sir Keir has played a blinder with Sue Gray. Until now this week was all about Rishi, getting Brexit done and a return to mature and consensual politics. Sir Keir has ensured that we're now back talking about Boris and his lockdown antics. Moreover, by shifting the the perspective in this way, Sir Keir has ensured that, once again, the Tory Party is perceived as nothing more than Boris's instrument. A masterstroke really.
This is a very silly, Westminster bubble reading of events. From the profiles I've read, Grey is a very influential figure - apparently even cabinet appointments in the Cameron/Osborne era needed her say so. I have read that she now wants the Cabinet Secretary role - the effective boss of the UK, and this is a step in that direction. For Starmer's part, her appointment is like a rite of passage toward governing, which we're seeing more and more of with Labour these days. The political implications, such as they are, must have been considered, and deemed to be not significant enough to bother with. Of course, it would be delicious if Labour lost the next election and these assumptions all proved premature, but as long as Rishi survives, the prospect looks unlikely.
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
There's a couple of other, minor side issues here.
*) Labour are potentially making themselves a hostage to fortune. If there were contacts between Labour and Gray during the inquiry, it could be insinuated that a deal had been done.
*) It sends a message: get the 'right' result in an inquiry, and the side might hire you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). I'm unconvinced that's a good thing, especially after the Shami Chakrabarti scandal.
Which leads to a question; if Gray had cleared Johnson, would she still have been hired by Labour?
IMV Labour were perfectly right in offering the job; I'm unsure Gray was wise to accept it.
I think such contacts quite unlikely. And why shouldn't she accept the role ?
The idea that Labour influenced the enquiry is so utterly risible that only a complete fool like Dorries might actually believe it.
So about 1/3 of the parliamentary party and probably a higher proportion of the membership.
If even 'sensible' MPs or government ministers start playing along - "I'm sure it's fine but I understand the concerns, it raises questions" - then we can probably regard that as a sign they think the party's support will tank if Boris is punished, and they see this as a way out.
The Conservatives are in trouble either way. The current support base will be seriously dischuffed if Boris is Betrayed, but the swing voters will be furious if he gets away with it.
Not so much Big Dog as an albatross.
Yes, Keir is fortunate his albatross problem took care of itself by planting himself firmly on the tiny minority side of major issues. No such luck for Rishi, Boris is not going anywhere and really not that out of step with the main party, he's just got the morals of a corrupt praying mantis.
The first polls following the Windsor unknotting have been published. Both show improved votes for the Conservatives. PeoplePolling have C on 24% (+4%) and Techne have C on 29% (+2%).
Well those new polls at least get the Tories up to about 100 to 150 seats rather than the 50 PP were forecasting in their last poll
Broken sleazy Reform (and "others") on the slide.
Mike's suggestion that polls might show the lead down to single figures seems to have been overreach - still around 20%. The NI deal has given Sunak a useful personal boost and his party a small nudge, which is probably in the midrange of what PBers predicted.
First, I remind her that the Prime Minister came here yesterday and apologised. He said that with hindsight it was not what should have happened or what he would have wanted to happen. It is being investigated by Sue Gray, a civil servant of the highest integrity and of the greatest reputation.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Haha. I don't even need to guess what he is saying now, without acknowledging that.
Obvious point - but there is no way Starmer hired this woman just to make life difficult for the Tories.
Chief of staff is probably in his top 5 of most important decisions, he will want someone excellent to do the job with deep govt experience. Remember he has never even been a minister.
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
There's a couple of other, minor side issues here.
*) Labour are potentially making themselves a hostage to fortune. If there were contacts between Labour and Gray during the inquiry, it could be insinuated that a deal had been done.
*) It sends a message: get the 'right' result in an inquiry, and the side might hire you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). I'm unconvinced that's a good thing, especially after the Shami Chakrabarti scandal.
Which leads to a question; if Gray had cleared Johnson, would she still have been hired by Labour?
IMV Labour were perfectly right in offering the job; I'm unsure Gray was wise to accept it.
I think such contacts quite unlikely. And why shouldn't she accept the role ?
The idea that Labour influenced the enquiry is so utterly risible that only a complete fool like Dorries might actually believe it.
So about 1/3 of the parliamentary party and probably a higher proportion of the membership.
If even 'sensible' MPs or government ministers start playing along - "I'm sure it's fine but I understand the concerns, it raises questions" - then we can probably regard that as a sign they think the party's support will tank if Boris is punished, and they see this as a way out.
The Conservatives are in trouble either way. The current support base will be seriously dischuffed if Boris is Betrayed, but the swing voters will be furious if he gets away with it.
Not so much Big Dog as an albatross.
Yes, Keir is fortunate his albatross problem took care of itself by planting himself firmly on the tiny minority side of major issues. No such luck for Rishi, Boris is not going anywhere and really not that out of step with the main party, he's just got the morals of a corrupt praying mantis.
According to The Times, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from allies of Boris Johnson to block the appointment of a senior civil servant as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The absolutely worst thing Rishi could do is block the appointment.
He can't, anyway. At most he can advise a longer delay. And an excessive delay would be contested.
Good morning
Yes - the BBC said the same just now
I understand the cabinet office have seized her phone and are securing documents, as she has been present at many cabinet meetings
There is no doubt the Johnson supporters, including the mail with their over the top front page, are going to use this to undermine the case against him no matter how much the appointment is defended
Not sure the timing of this was politically sensible, as it would have made sense to do this after the privileges committee report
I'm not sure that Labour will be too upset if Boris Johnson lives to fight another day. Right now he is a bigger threat to Sunak than to Starmer. And if the Tories want us all to talk about Partygate again, that sounds great, be my guest!
To be honest I expected a response along those lines, but Johnson is over and Sunak will take the party into GE 24
This move will muddy the water and if Starmer had a good political antenna he would have done this after the privileges report
I would like Johnson to disappear from public life - as I have said on here repeatedly I think he is a congenital liar and lacks the moral character to have any political role. It's up to others on here to reflect on how they have helped to further his career. But he is the Tory party's problem now. If they can't flush the turd that is a sign of their disunity and the PM's lack of authority within his party. It's not Labour's job to help them dispatch Johnson. Labour have hired a highly competent public-spirited ex official to help them to prepare for government. If it causes the Tories some additional discomfort, great. They deserve it.
I don't know if you were aware but Johnson was addressing a conference yesterday when he said to the audience
Obvious point - but there is no way Starmer hired this woman just to make life difficult for the Tories.
Chief of staff is probably in his top 5 of most important decisions, he will want someone excellent to do the job with deep govt experience. Remember he has never even been a minister.
It seems to me that he hired her for competence and the fact she’s very experienced? Is there really any more to it than that?
He is taking the job seriously, that can only be a good thing.
According to The Times, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from allies of Boris Johnson to block the appointment of a senior civil servant as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The absolutely worst thing Rishi could do is block the appointment.
He can't, anyway. At most he can advise a longer delay. And an excessive delay would be contested.
Good morning
Yes - the BBC said the same just now
I understand the cabinet office have seized her phone and are securing documents, as she has been present at many cabinet meetings
There is no doubt the Johnson supporters, including the mail with their over the top front page, are going to use this to undermine the case against him no matter how much the appointment is defended
Not sure the timing of this was politically sensible, as it would have made sense to do this after the privileges committee report
I'm not sure that Labour will be too upset if Boris Johnson lives to fight another day. Right now he is a bigger threat to Sunak than to Starmer. And if the Tories want us all to talk about Partygate again, that sounds great, be my guest!
To be honest I expected a response along those lines, but Johnson is over and Sunak will take the party into GE 24
This move will muddy the water and if Starmer had a good political antenna he would have done this after the privileges report
No, raining on Sunak's parade is just the right thing to do this week. The timing was probably a complete accidental however.
Looks as if you are concerned about Sunak
This is a bubble story and Sunak's visit to France next week, the budget a few days later, the 10.1% increase in pensions, benefits, and minimum wage, with the possible resolution of the nurses dispute and continuing fuel support are far more likely to be noticed by the voters
It's not really about whether its noticed by voters IMO. They're screwed by events and the economy anyway, despite a good week on NI.
It's how Tory MPs react. And that will depend on how Tory Members react. Scare stories of deselections were circulating just last week for those insufficiently loyal to Boris. Inboxes will be filling up with what an outrage it is and our lad were stitched up.
The only depressing thing about Starmer's appointment is the reprisal of people who struggle to type Gray instead of Grey.
Otherwise, Starmer obviously thinks Gray is a top appointment, he's probably right, and he won't give a flying fuck about the whinging as there's absolutely nothing wrong with what he's done.
The first polls following the Windsor unknotting have been published. Both show improved votes for the Conservatives. PeoplePolling have C on 24% (+4%) and Techne have C on 29% (+2%).
Well those new polls at least get the Tories up to about 100 to 150 seats rather than the 50 PP were forecasting in their last poll
Broken sleazy Reform (and "others") on the slide.
Mike's suggestion that polls might show the lead down to single figures seems to have been overreach - still around 20%. The NI deal has given Sunak a useful personal boost and his party a small nudge, which is probably in the midrange of what PBers predicted.
Too early to say. We've only had two polls since, and neither is from a firm with a pre-2019 track record.
I think the bleating from the Johnson camp is ridiculous. I do think it was an odd appointment that wasn’t the best tactical move by Starmer, but I don’t think it’s going to cause much if any damage to him.
I don't think there's anything to worry about regarding the Gray appointment in terms of ethics or the rules, but politically it's a bit of a gaffe by Starmer if he didn't consider how it could be seen (or alternatively a very cunning way of reminding us all about Partygate by getting it back into the news....)
And the Tories are hypocritical on this anyway. They have regularly plucked people from public sector roles straight into government - particularly from the BBC - and put people with Tory links straight into prominent public sector roles.
I’m not sure the first is an issue?
Re any senior civil servant effectively joining the senior management of the opposition - isn’t the issue that she has been privy to confidential information that the government has a right to expect to be kept confidential?
By that logic no senior civil servant would ever be allowed to join or work for a political party after they retire or decide to leave the service.
People are going nuts over this story, and at the worst end its clearly out of excitement for a way to defend saint Boris.
But whilst the suddeness of the appointment doesn't look great and that's why it was a poor move at this time, a lot of people are just severely overreacting to the principle of it.
People are allowed to work for parties even if they were high up in the civil service. If it had been 5 years from now no one but obsessives would care. Its just distractingly close to an event she was in the news for.
I think its a good appointment by Starmer, just at the wrong time. I think Gray did a decent job with the poisoned chalice she was given, and I also see no barrier to people from the civil service joining parties. I do think that the timing is off on this occassion.
I don't think there's anything to worry about regarding the Gray appointment in terms of ethics or the rules, but politically it's a bit of a gaffe by Starmer if he didn't consider how it could be seen (or alternatively a very cunning way of reminding us all about Partygate by getting it back into the news....)
And the Tories are hypocritical on this anyway. They have regularly plucked people from public sector roles straight into government - particularly from the BBC - and put people with Tory links straight into prominent public sector roles.
I’m not sure the first is an issue?
Re any senior civil servant effectively joining the senior management of the opposition - isn’t the issue that she has been privy to confidential information that the government has a right to expect to be kept confidential?
By that logic no senior civil servant would ever be allowed to join or work for a political party after they retire or decide to leave the service.
People are going nuts over this story, and at the worst end its clearly out of excitement for a way to defend saint Boris.
But whilst the suddeness of the appointment doesn't look great and that's why it was a poor move at this time, a lot of people are just severely overreacting to the principle of it.
People are allowed to work for parties even if they were high up in the civil service. If it had been 5 years from now no one but obsessives would care. Its just distractingly close to an event she was in the news for.
This comes back to the general point about Civil Servants, “Purdah”, and taking jobs elsewhere.
There have been some cases, over the years, which were unpleasant. Civil servant X selected private firm Y for contract. Contract turns into a long running disaster for government, money spinner for Y. Civil Servant then gets big job at Y.
There have also been reverse cases.
So the idea came up of blocking civil servants from going to some jobs for a period of time.
The counter argument, which has some validity, is that ex civil servants have valuable knowledge on how to work with government - without that knowledge, doing contracts is a lot harder.
Like many things, it is impossible to produce a simple set of rules that cover all cases. Humans, eh?
Yep, it’s difficult to write rules on these things, that are sufficiently broad yet don’t restrict the rights of people to earn a living. No matter what the detail, there will always be the occasional edge case that doesn’t feel right.
Not great for any Ukrainian forces still in Bakhmut. This could be very bad. This is the O0506 highway, the road between Chasiv Yar and Bakhmut and the only paved road left in and out of Bakhmut. (Pic looks north with village of Khromove to the right.) There are still dirt roads for the military. But supplies and aid are disrupted. https://mobile.twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1631589987337510913
Stating that the Elgin Marbles belong in London is a bit like saying the Crown Jewels belong in Athens!
The British Museum = Biggest Stolen Goods Warehouse in the World!
I think that's Boris's point. If the BM (or any museum for that matter) obliges itself to 'give everything back', it's not a museum, it's a room.
Indeed, loan exhibits abroad but if every major museum only displayed objects from the country it was located in there wouldn't be a lot of exhibits left in them
The Parthenon still exists, so the Marbles belong there.
All the places that all the exhibits in all the museums in the world came from still exist.
Not in the respect Sunil is talking about. The Elgin Marbles are literally fixtures ripped off the walls of an ancient building that is still there.
In most cases, the item is either by its nature moveable, or the context in which it was displayed either gone or massively changed.
It's objectively ludicrous - even if one attaches no blame to Elgin personally and thinks it all legal etc - that the Marbles are in Bloomsbury rather than an ancient building which they were literally part of and which (I'll repeat) is still effing there.
There's another side to this that I find interesting, and that's the soft power of artefacts.
A few years back, my son was fascinated by terracotta warriors and Easter Island heads. He was a bit too young to take him up to the Liverpool terracotta warrior exhibition in 2018, but last year we went to a tiny (but brilliant) 'fake' Terracotta Warrior exhibition in Dorchester, of all places, which he loved. (There's a fake Tutankhamun exhibition just up the road as well).
This isn't relevant to the marbles, but I wonder if having exhibits around the world actually helps the original country? Does have an Easter Island head in the BM create more knowledge and interest about/in Easter Island? Do all the exhibits of Ancient Egypt in local museums, of dusty mummies and strange inscriptions, actually create generations of people who are interested in Egypt and its history, and therefore more likely to travel there?
Would the world be richer if every ancient artefact was in its original place, or poorer? (Leaving aside issues if where an 'original' place is)?
This is not an argument for musuems keeping foreign artefacts: the same sort of effect may be achieved by travelling exhibitions. But I reckon there's a massive soft power in it - especially for small places like Easter Island.
A fun fact about the terracotta warriors is that most are still buried. When the first ones were unearthed they were all painted but exposure to light quickly made the colours fade away. They are now waiting for the appropriate preservation technology to be developed before digging out any more.
IIRC most ancient statues in Rome, Greece etc were painted. The white marble we associate with the classics era is totally false.
Stating that the Elgin Marbles belong in London is a bit like saying the Crown Jewels belong in Athens!
The British Museum = Biggest Stolen Goods Warehouse in the World!
I think that's Boris's point. If the BM (or any museum for that matter) obliges itself to 'give everything back', it's not a museum, it's a room.
Indeed, loan exhibits abroad but if every major museum only displayed objects from the country it was located in there wouldn't be a lot of exhibits left in them
The Parthenon still exists, so the Marbles belong there.
All the places that all the exhibits in all the museums in the world came from still exist.
Not in the respect Sunil is talking about. The Elgin Marbles are literally fixtures ripped off the walls of an ancient building that is still there.
In most cases, the item is either by its nature moveable, or the context in which it was displayed either gone or massively changed.
It's objectively ludicrous - even if one attaches no blame to Elgin personally and thinks it all legal etc - that the Marbles are in Bloomsbury rather than an ancient building which they were literally part of and which (I'll repeat) is still effing there.
There's another side to this that I find interesting, and that's the soft power of artefacts.
A few years back, my son was fascinated by terracotta warriors and Easter Island heads. He was a bit too young to take him up to the Liverpool terracotta warrior exhibition in 2018, but last year we went to a tiny (but brilliant) 'fake' Terracotta Warrior exhibition in Dorchester, of all places, which he loved. (There's a fake Tutankhamun exhibition just up the road as well).
This isn't relevant to the marbles, but I wonder if having exhibits around the world actually helps the original country? Does have an Easter Island head in the BM create more knowledge and interest about/in Easter Island? Do all the exhibits of Ancient Egypt in local museums, of dusty mummies and strange inscriptions, actually create generations of people who are interested in Egypt and its history, and therefore more likely to travel there?
Would the world be richer if every ancient artefact was in its original place, or poorer? (Leaving aside issues if where an 'original' place is)?
This is not an argument for musuems keeping foreign artefacts: the same sort of effect may be achieved by travelling exhibitions. But I reckon there's a massive soft power in it - especially for small places like Easter Island.
A fun fact about the terracotta warriors is that most are still buried. When the first ones were unearthed they were all painted but exposure to light quickly made the colours fade away. They are now waiting for the appropriate preservation technology to be developed before digging out any more.
Actually, I think it's a bit more complex than that. From what I've seen (and I've watched many, many hours of documentaries with him...) they're still digging out statues from a pit at a time, but at a slow cadence.
The thing they're not tackling is the mausoleum's tomb. And that thing's truly gargantuan. It was written that it had a recreation of a city in it, with rivers of mercury. Which was widely disbelieved, until some analysis of soil from the site showed high levels of mercury...
The first polls following the Windsor unknotting have been published. Both show improved votes for the Conservatives. PeoplePolling have C on 24% (+4%) and Techne have C on 29% (+2%).
Well those new polls at least get the Tories up to about 100 to 150 seats rather than the 50 PP were forecasting in their last poll
Broken sleazy Reform (and "others") on the slide.
Mike's suggestion that polls might show the lead down to single figures seems to have been overreach - still around 20%. The NI deal has given Sunak a useful personal boost and his party a small nudge, which is probably in the midrange of what PBers predicted.
Too early to say. We've only had two polls since, and neither is from a firm with a pre-2019 track record.
Taking polls at face value is unwise, the more important result is the trend and especially post WF and the spring budget and other events
I think the bleating from the Johnson camp is ridiculous. I do think it was an odd appointment that wasn’t the best tactical move by Starmer, but I don’t think it’s going to cause much if any damage to him.
Trying to push that the principle of appointment is wrong doesn't work since there are myriad examples of civil servants working for Tories too.
Trying to push this particular example is wrong doesn't really work because if its claimed her work was dodgy it contradicts themselves at the time and means it needs redoing, not ignoring.
I responded first post after the news broke on here and felt it was unwise on her part to move across so soon, but that's small beer stuff. Despite joking people aren't stupid, and arguing the innocence of Boris on this basis is not going to fly.
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
There's a couple of other, minor side issues here.
*) Labour are potentially making themselves a hostage to fortune. If there were contacts between Labour and Gray during the inquiry, it could be insinuated that a deal had been done.
*) It sends a message: get the 'right' result in an inquiry, and the side might hire you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). I'm unconvinced that's a good thing, especially after the Shami Chakrabarti scandal.
Which leads to a question; if Gray had cleared Johnson, would she still have been hired by Labour?
IMV Labour were perfectly right in offering the job; I'm unsure Gray was wise to accept it.
Did Gray get the "right" result? IIRC her report was a bit of a damp squib - she refused to even look at some of the allegations, presented a load of uncontested facts about the partying and basically said that what happened wasn't great. To put it another way, which parts of her report do Tories now think were factually inaccurate or suggestive of anti-Tory bias?
I don't know. But if you're going to say that sort of thing, did Beergate get the 'right' result?
Obvious point - but there is no way Starmer hired this woman just to make life difficult for the Tories.
Chief of staff is probably in his top 5 of most important decisions, he will want someone excellent to do the job with deep govt experience. Remember he has never even been a minister.
It seems to me that he hired her for competence and the fact she’s very experienced? Is there really any more to it than that?
He is taking the job seriously, that can only be a good thing.
Yes - far better to hire someone with experience and a long track record in the civil service if you intend to actually get things done.*
Weird that I don’t remember JRM complaining about a right-wing stitch up when David Frost stopped being a civil servant advising the government and became a Tory minister in the Lords instead. But maybe that’s different.
Stating that the Elgin Marbles belong in London is a bit like saying the Crown Jewels belong in Athens!
The British Museum = Biggest Stolen Goods Warehouse in the World!
I think that's Boris's point. If the BM (or any museum for that matter) obliges itself to 'give everything back', it's not a museum, it's a room.
Indeed, loan exhibits abroad but if every major museum only displayed objects from the country it was located in there wouldn't be a lot of exhibits left in them
The Parthenon still exists, so the Marbles belong there.
All the places that all the exhibits in all the museums in the world came from still exist.
Not in the respect Sunil is talking about. The Elgin Marbles are literally fixtures ripped off the walls of an ancient building that is still there.
In most cases, the item is either by its nature moveable, or the context in which it was displayed either gone or massively changed.
It's objectively ludicrous - even if one attaches no blame to Elgin personally and thinks it all legal etc - that the Marbles are in Bloomsbury rather than an ancient building which they were literally part of and which (I'll repeat) is still effing there.
There's another side to this that I find interesting, and that's the soft power of artefacts.
A few years back, my son was fascinated by terracotta warriors and Easter Island heads. He was a bit too young to take him up to the Liverpool terracotta warrior exhibition in 2018, but last year we went to a tiny (but brilliant) 'fake' Terracotta Warrior exhibition in Dorchester, of all places, which he loved. (There's a fake Tutankhamun exhibition just up the road as well).
This isn't relevant to the marbles, but I wonder if having exhibits around the world actually helps the original country? Does have an Easter Island head in the BM create more knowledge and interest about/in Easter Island? Do all the exhibits of Ancient Egypt in local museums, of dusty mummies and strange inscriptions, actually create generations of people who are interested in Egypt and its history, and therefore more likely to travel there?
Would the world be richer if every ancient artefact was in its original place, or poorer? (Leaving aside issues if where an 'original' place is)?
This is not an argument for musuems keeping foreign artefacts: the same sort of effect may be achieved by travelling exhibitions. But I reckon there's a massive soft power in it - especially for small places like Easter Island.
A fun fact about the terracotta warriors is that most are still buried. When the first ones were unearthed they were all painted but exposure to light quickly made the colours fade away. They are now waiting for the appropriate preservation technology to be developed before digging out any more.
Actually, I think it's a bit more complex than that. From what I've seen (and I've watched many, many hours of documentaries with him...) they're still digging out statues from a pit at a time, but at a slow cadence.
The thing they're not tackling is the mausoleum's tomb. And that thing's truly gargantuan. It was written that it had a recreation of a city in it, with rivers of mercury. Which was widely disbelieved, until some analysis of soil from the site showed high levels of mercury...
Pretty remarkable. Feels like there should be a lot more very careful work on that whole site than is the case.
Unrelatedly, When I was there they hadn't even touched up the English language signs to be entirely correct, which felt like a tiny easy detail to get right on such a major attraction.
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
There's a couple of other, minor side issues here.
*) Labour are potentially making themselves a hostage to fortune. If there were contacts between Labour and Gray during the inquiry, it could be insinuated that a deal had been done.
*) It sends a message: get the 'right' result in an inquiry, and the side might hire you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). I'm unconvinced that's a good thing, especially after the Shami Chakrabarti scandal.
Which leads to a question; if Gray had cleared Johnson, would she still have been hired by Labour?
IMV Labour were perfectly right in offering the job; I'm unsure Gray was wise to accept it.
Did Gray get the "right" result? IIRC her report was a bit of a damp squib - she refused to even look at some of the allegations, presented a load of uncontested facts about the partying and basically said that what happened wasn't great. To put it another way, which parts of her report do Tories now think were factually inaccurate or suggestive of anti-Tory bias?
I don't know. But if you're going to say that sort of thing, did Beergate get the 'right' result?
That was the wrong result because Labour wasn’t found guilty. That was a stitch up from the Tories and the Mail. They managed to get the Police to open an investigation. Corrupt.
I think the bleating from the Johnson camp is ridiculous. I do think it was an odd appointment that wasn’t the best tactical move by Starmer, but I don’t think it’s going to cause much if any damage to him.
Trying to push that the principle of appointment is wrong doesn't work since there are myriad examples of civil servants working for Tories too.
Trying to push this particular example is wrong doesn't really work because if its claimed her work was dodgy it contradicts themselves at the time and means it needs redoing, not ignoring.
I responded first post after the news broke on here and felt it was unwise on her part to move across so soon, but that's small beer stuff. Despite joking people aren't stupid, and arguing the innocence of Boris on this basis is not going to fly.
It's not an immediate risk, but it does raise the possibility of a future attack if he does something dubious in office and people bring up "remember when he rewarded Sue Gray with a job for bringing down a Prime Minister?"
Lots of people believe in "no smoke without fire", unfortunately, so a politician only gets so many chances to do things that are perfectly legitimate but seem slightly off. Maybe she's good enough at her new job that she's worth using one of those lives.
Stating that the Elgin Marbles belong in London is a bit like saying the Crown Jewels belong in Athens!
The British Museum = Biggest Stolen Goods Warehouse in the World!
I think that's Boris's point. If the BM (or any museum for that matter) obliges itself to 'give everything back', it's not a museum, it's a room.
Indeed, loan exhibits abroad but if every major museum only displayed objects from the country it was located in there wouldn't be a lot of exhibits left in them
The Parthenon still exists, so the Marbles belong there.
All the places that all the exhibits in all the museums in the world came from still exist.
Not in the respect Sunil is talking about. The Elgin Marbles are literally fixtures ripped off the walls of an ancient building that is still there.
In most cases, the item is either by its nature moveable, or the context in which it was displayed either gone or massively changed.
It's objectively ludicrous - even if one attaches no blame to Elgin personally and thinks it all legal etc - that the Marbles are in Bloomsbury rather than an ancient building which they were literally part of and which (I'll repeat) is still effing there.
There's another side to this that I find interesting, and that's the soft power of artefacts.
A few years back, my son was fascinated by terracotta warriors and Easter Island heads. He was a bit too young to take him up to the Liverpool terracotta warrior exhibition in 2018, but last year we went to a tiny (but brilliant) 'fake' Terracotta Warrior exhibition in Dorchester, of all places, which he loved. (There's a fake Tutankhamun exhibition just up the road as well).
This isn't relevant to the marbles, but I wonder if having exhibits around the world actually helps the original country? Does have an Easter Island head in the BM create more knowledge and interest about/in Easter Island? Do all the exhibits of Ancient Egypt in local museums, of dusty mummies and strange inscriptions, actually create generations of people who are interested in Egypt and its history, and therefore more likely to travel there?
Would the world be richer if every ancient artefact was in its original place, or poorer? (Leaving aside issues if where an 'original' place is)?
This is not an argument for musuems keeping foreign artefacts: the same sort of effect may be achieved by travelling exhibitions. But I reckon there's a massive soft power in it - especially for small places like Easter Island.
A fun fact about the terracotta warriors is that most are still buried. When the first ones were unearthed they were all painted but exposure to light quickly made the colours fade away. They are now waiting for the appropriate preservation technology to be developed before digging out any more.
Actually, I think it's a bit more complex than that. From what I've seen (and I've watched many, many hours of documentaries with him...) they're still digging out statues from a pit at a time, but at a slow cadence.
The thing they're not tackling is the mausoleum's tomb. And that thing's truly gargantuan. It was written that it had a recreation of a city in it, with rivers of mercury. Which was widely disbelieved, until some analysis of soil from the site showed high levels of mercury...
Pretty remarkable. Feels like there should be a lot more very careful work on that whole site than is the case.
Unrelatedly, When I was there they hadn't even touched up the English language signs to be entirely correct, which felt like a tiny easy detail to get right on such a major attraction.
I do ponder an interesting fact about the terracotta warriors: they were discovered in 1974, whilst the cultural revolution was still ongoing, but waning. Given that a few years earlier China had considered destroying the Great Wall of China - and indeed, hundreds of kilometres of it were destroyed.
If the terracotta warriors had been found a decade earlier, they might well have just destroyed the entire site.
(As an aside, apart from the touristy parts, the Great Wall is apparently not well cared for. Then again, neither was Hadrian's Wall before 200 years ago. But we didn't see Hadrian's Wall as a symbol of our kingdom back then.)
According to The Times, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from allies of Boris Johnson to block the appointment of a senior civil servant as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The absolutely worst thing Rishi could do is block the appointment.
He can't, anyway. At most he can advise a longer delay. And an excessive delay would be contested.
Good morning
Yes - the BBC said the same just now
I understand the cabinet office have seized her phone and are securing documents, as she has been present at many cabinet meetings
There is no doubt the Johnson supporters, including the mail with their over the top front page, are going to use this to undermine the case against him no matter how much the appointment is defended
Not sure the timing of this was politically sensible, as it would have made sense to do this after the privileges committee report
I'm not sure that Labour will be too upset if Boris Johnson lives to fight another day. Right now he is a bigger threat to Sunak than to Starmer. And if the Tories want us all to talk about Partygate again, that sounds great, be my guest!
To be honest I expected a response along those lines, but Johnson is over and Sunak will take the party into GE 24
This move will muddy the water and if Starmer had a good political antenna he would have done this after the privileges report
I would like Johnson to disappear from public life - as I have said on here repeatedly I think he is a congenital liar and lacks the moral character to have any political role. It's up to others on here to reflect on how they have helped to further his career. But he is the Tory party's problem now. If they can't flush the turd that is a sign of their disunity and the PM's lack of authority within his party. It's not Labour's job to help them dispatch Johnson. Labour have hired a highly competent public-spirited ex official to help them to prepare for government. If it causes the Tories some additional discomfort, great. They deserve it.
I don't know if you were aware but Johnson was addressing a conference yesterday when he said to the audience
'Put up your hand for Brexit'
He and the host did but nobody else followed
That is so funny !!!!!
Yes I saw that - he asked the audience to raise their hands if they thought Brexit was a good idea. Only a handful did.
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
There's a couple of other, minor side issues here.
*) Labour are potentially making themselves a hostage to fortune. If there were contacts between Labour and Gray during the inquiry, it could be insinuated that a deal had been done.
*) It sends a message: get the 'right' result in an inquiry, and the side might hire you (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). I'm unconvinced that's a good thing, especially after the Shami Chakrabarti scandal.
Which leads to a question; if Gray had cleared Johnson, would she still have been hired by Labour?
IMV Labour were perfectly right in offering the job; I'm unsure Gray was wise to accept it.
Did Gray get the "right" result? IIRC her report was a bit of a damp squib - she refused to even look at some of the allegations, presented a load of uncontested facts about the partying and basically said that what happened wasn't great. To put it another way, which parts of her report do Tories now think were factually inaccurate or suggestive of anti-Tory bias?
I don't know. But if you're going to say that sort of thing, did Beergate get the 'right' result?
That was the wrong result because Labour wasn’t found guilty. That was a stitch up from the Tories and the Mail. They managed to get the Police to open an investigation. Corrupt.
I know we won't agree on this, but it really wasn't.
Remember, even Starmer couldn't say whether he had broken the rules or not, and he's a massively big-brained lawyer. That's not a sign of a stitch-up.
Besides, Shami Chakrabati waves 'hi'. One of Labour's issue is that they have form with this.
I think the bleating from the Johnson camp is ridiculous. I do think it was an odd appointment that wasn’t the best tactical move by Starmer, but I don’t think it’s going to cause much if any damage to him.
Trying to push that the principle of appointment is wrong doesn't work since there are myriad examples of civil servants working for Tories too.
Trying to push this particular example is wrong doesn't really work because if its claimed her work was dodgy it contradicts themselves at the time and means it needs redoing, not ignoring.
I responded first post after the news broke on here and felt it was unwise on her part to move across so soon, but that's small beer stuff. Despite joking people aren't stupid, and arguing the innocence of Boris on this basis is not going to fly.
It's not an immediate risk, but it does raise the possibility of a future attack if he does something dubious in office and people bring up "remember when he rewarded Sue Gray with a job for bringing down a Prime Minister?"
Lots of people believe in "no smoke without fire", unfortunately, so a politician only gets so many chances to do things that are perfectly legitimate but seem slightly off. Maybe she's good enough at her new job that she's worth using one of those lives.
I think you get a reset when you become PM, so it's probably fine. In any case that's a problem for future Keir to worry about, and he's going to have bigger problems.
I think the bleating from the Johnson camp is ridiculous. I do think it was an odd appointment that wasn’t the best tactical move by Starmer, but I don’t think it’s going to cause much if any damage to him.
Trying to push that the principle of appointment is wrong doesn't work since there are myriad examples of civil servants working for Tories too.
Trying to push this particular example is wrong doesn't really work because if its claimed her work was dodgy it contradicts themselves at the time and means it needs redoing, not ignoring.
I responded first post after the news broke on here and felt it was unwise on her part to move across so soon, but that's small beer stuff. Despite joking people aren't stupid, and arguing the innocence of Boris on this basis is not going to fly.
It's not an immediate risk, but it does raise the possibility of a future attack if he does something dubious in office and people bring up "remember when he rewarded Sue Gray with a job for bringing down a Prime Minister?"
Lots of people believe in "no smoke without fire", unfortunately, so a politician only gets so many chances to do things that are perfectly legitimate but seem slightly off. Maybe she's good enough at her new job that she's worth using one of those lives.
The far greater risk would be getting into government without enough people who understand how to get things done in office.
I know it's easy, very easy, to make fun of or ignore Tom Harwood, since he is a bit ridiculous. But I have to confess despite the tone he takes I tend to agree with him when it comes to development matters.
“I don’t think there’s a single form of energy production in this country that a politician, or across the board politicians, have supported. We live in a country now where every single politician, every single political party, from each direction, find reasons to say no. To stop development. To stop growth. To stop our own home-grown energy. Frankly, I don’t care if it’s shale gas, if it’s fracking, if it’s wind, if it’s solar, if it’s nuclear, if it’s oil, if it’s gas. I don’t care, just build it!”
@Jossiasjessop it won't let me quote you for some reason.
The evidence came from a person who just so happened to be walking past a private window, who happened to have a direct line to the Mail.
The Police investigated Starmer twice and found he had no case to answer, twice. They did that because of pressure.
Even despite being found innocent, people claimed he was still guilty. The whole thing was corrupt in my view. We do disagree, yes.
You do remember that Sir Keir wanted to lock us down harder and for longer than the government did? In this case, holding him to a higher standard than "the letter of the law" is, if not entirely legitimate, totally understandable.
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
Someone formerly in a role where impartiality is key goes to a role where partiality is key.
Correctness aside, Starmer knows exactly what he is doing. Tory reactions are in line with his expectation I suspect. And an old sore is reopened.
According to The Times, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from allies of Boris Johnson to block the appointment of a senior civil servant as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The absolutely worst thing Rishi could do is block the appointment.
He can't, anyway. At most he can advise a longer delay. And an excessive delay would be contested.
Good morning
Yes - the BBC said the same just now
I understand the cabinet office have seized her phone and are securing documents, as she has been present at many cabinet meetings
There is no doubt the Johnson supporters, including the mail with their over the top front page, are going to use this to undermine the case against him no matter how much the appointment is defended
Not sure the timing of this was politically sensible, as it would have made sense to do this after the privileges committee report
I'm not sure that Labour will be too upset if Boris Johnson lives to fight another day. Right now he is a bigger threat to Sunak than to Starmer. And if the Tories want us all to talk about Partygate again, that sounds great, be my guest!
To be honest I expected a response along those lines, but Johnson is over and Sunak will take the party into GE 24
This move will muddy the water and if Starmer had a good political antenna he would have done this after the privileges report
I would like Johnson to disappear from public life - as I have said on here repeatedly I think he is a congenital liar and lacks the moral character to have any political role. It's up to others on here to reflect on how they have helped to further his career. But he is the Tory party's problem now. If they can't flush the turd that is a sign of their disunity and the PM's lack of authority within his party. It's not Labour's job to help them dispatch Johnson. Labour have hired a highly competent public-spirited ex official to help them to prepare for government. If it causes the Tories some additional discomfort, great. They deserve it.
I don't know if you were aware but Johnson was addressing a conference yesterday when he said to the audience
'Put up your hand for Brexit'
He and the host did but nobody else followed
That is so funny !!!!!
Yes I saw that - he asked the audience to raise their hands if they thought Brexit was a good idea. Only a handful did.
It's not funny, it's tragic.
And the bigger tragedy? There are some people who want to make it as irreversible as possible.
I can understand people backing Brexit when the dinnae ken. To seek to impose it on future generations when they ken the noo, that's another matter.
I think the bleating from the Johnson camp is ridiculous. I do think it was an odd appointment that wasn’t the best tactical move by Starmer, but I don’t think it’s going to cause much if any damage to him.
Trying to push that the principle of appointment is wrong doesn't work since there are myriad examples of civil servants working for Tories too.
Trying to push this particular example is wrong doesn't really work because if its claimed her work was dodgy it contradicts themselves at the time and means it needs redoing, not ignoring.
I responded first post after the news broke on here and felt it was unwise on her part to move across so soon, but that's small beer stuff. Despite joking people aren't stupid, and arguing the innocence of Boris on this basis is not going to fly.
It's not an immediate risk, but it does raise the possibility of a future attack if he does something dubious in office and people bring up "remember when he rewarded Sue Gray with a job for bringing down a Prime Minister?"
Lots of people believe in "no smoke without fire", unfortunately, so a politician only gets so many chances to do things that are perfectly legitimate but seem slightly off. Maybe she's good enough at her new job that she's worth using one of those lives.
The far greater risk would be getting into government without enough people who understand how to get things done in office.
Not a problem if you don't have any things that you want to get done.
According to The Times, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from allies of Boris Johnson to block the appointment of a senior civil servant as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The absolutely worst thing Rishi could do is block the appointment.
He can't, anyway. At most he can advise a longer delay. And an excessive delay would be contested.
Good morning
Yes - the BBC said the same just now
I understand the cabinet office have seized her phone and are securing documents, as she has been present at many cabinet meetings
There is no doubt the Johnson supporters, including the mail with their over the top front page, are going to use this to undermine the case against him no matter how much the appointment is defended
Not sure the timing of this was politically sensible, as it would have made sense to do this after the privileges committee report
I'm not sure that Labour will be too upset if Boris Johnson lives to fight another day. Right now he is a bigger threat to Sunak than to Starmer. And if the Tories want us all to talk about Partygate again, that sounds great, be my guest!
To be honest I expected a response along those lines, but Johnson is over and Sunak will take the party into GE 24
This move will muddy the water and if Starmer had a good political antenna he would have done this after the privileges report
I would like Johnson to disappear from public life - as I have said on here repeatedly I think he is a congenital liar and lacks the moral character to have any political role. It's up to others on here to reflect on how they have helped to further his career. But he is the Tory party's problem now. If they can't flush the turd that is a sign of their disunity and the PM's lack of authority within his party. It's not Labour's job to help them dispatch Johnson. Labour have hired a highly competent public-spirited ex official to help them to prepare for government. If it causes the Tories some additional discomfort, great. They deserve it.
I don't know if you were aware but Johnson was addressing a conference yesterday when he said to the audience
'Put up your hand for Brexit'
He and the host did but nobody else followed
That is so funny !!!!!
Yes I saw that - he asked the audience to raise their hands if they thought Brexit was a good idea. Only a handful did.
It's not funny, it's tragic.
And the bigger tragedy? There are some people who want to make it as irreversible as possible.
I can understand people backing Brexit when the dinnae ken. To seek to impose it on future generations when they ken the noo, that's another matter.
In the sense of going back to the status we had before, it is already irreversible. In the sense of rejoining at all, it can't be irreversible.
Love today's Daily Heil front page. The evil Starmer forced Number 10 aides to bring suitcases of wine into Downing Street so that they could have another kareoke party. Who knew?
Supposedly the attack line on Starmer has been Keith! The donkey man so boring that you'd fall asleep if you spoke to him. Now suddenly he is Blofeld, a man with huge power and agents everywhere, dastardly pulling the strings and setting up conspiracies.
Keith Donkey brought down Corbyn with a manufactured conspiracy, now apparently he also brought down Johnson with an entirely different conspiracy which reached into the heart of the government machine during lock down. Imagine what he will do to the EU and Biden etc when he is elected PM? Blackmailing the UN for £100,000,000,000,000,000 or else he will fire the Crust-o-Matic Doomsday Earthquake machine he's had Ben Houchen build on Teesside.
@mikeysmith Your occasional reminder that Sue Gray only did the Partygate inquiry because Simon Case had to pull out because he'd been accused of having one of the bloody parties in his office.
She was appointed to the probe by - that's right folks - Boris Johnson.
And she didn't investigate many incidents, such as the ABBA party. So ideal for when a whitewash is needed.
She didn't investigate ABBA because she was too busy doing the hypnosis sessions on Ben Houchen. Big Ben thinks he is removing money and control from local councils and handing both it and public money to his friends in an every week in Private Eye corruption probe scandal. But no - Keith Donkey has had him brainwashed and he is building the Death Machine at Teesworks which PM Starmer will use to blackmail the UN.
It sounds incredible. But it more convincing than the Daily Mail front page!
I have absolutely no issue with Sue Gray going to work for Labour, have no issue with her investigations as everyone can see there were parties and it’s disingenuous for any Tory to claim that Boris was hard done by.
My problem is that Labour should probably have not announced this until after the Standards committee had rogered Boris as I fear that Boris and his outriders will use this to muddy the waters and allow another stab in the back story to build when it was starting to look that he was fading into the background and that Standards would be the stake in his heart.
If it helps Boris then Labour have made an error in timing if not the actual act.
I think there are two things here -
- Nothing illegal, no standards broken, not dubious. In fact completely inside all laws, rules, guidelines. - Bad optics
Someone formerly in a role where impartiality is key goes to a role where partiality is key.
Correctness aside, Starmer knows exactly what he is doing. Tory reactions are in line with his expectation I suspect. And an old sore is reopened.
@Jossiasjessop it won't let me quote you for some reason.
The evidence came from a person who just so happened to be walking past a private window, who happened to have a direct line to the Mail.
The Police investigated Starmer twice and found he had no case to answer, twice. They did that because of pressure.
Even despite being found innocent, people claimed he was still guilty. The whole thing was corrupt in my view. We do disagree, yes.
Where the evidence came from is essentially irrelevant: unless you're claiming the event didn't take place?
As I said, Starmer himself couldn't say whether it had been legal or not. And epidemiologically it was a terrible thing to do - and Starmer consistently wanted us plebs locked down more strongly.
According to The Times, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from allies of Boris Johnson to block the appointment of a senior civil servant as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.
The absolutely worst thing Rishi could do is block the appointment.
He can't, anyway. At most he can advise a longer delay. And an excessive delay would be contested.
Good morning
Yes - the BBC said the same just now
I understand the cabinet office have seized her phone and are securing documents, as she has been present at many cabinet meetings
There is no doubt the Johnson supporters, including the mail with their over the top front page, are going to use this to undermine the case against him no matter how much the appointment is defended
Not sure the timing of this was politically sensible, as it would have made sense to do this after the privileges committee report
I'm not sure that Labour will be too upset if Boris Johnson lives to fight another day. Right now he is a bigger threat to Sunak than to Starmer. And if the Tories want us all to talk about Partygate again, that sounds great, be my guest!
To be honest I expected a response along those lines, but Johnson is over and Sunak will take the party into GE 24
This move will muddy the water and if Starmer had a good political antenna he would have done this after the privileges report
I would like Johnson to disappear from public life - as I have said on here repeatedly I think he is a congenital liar and lacks the moral character to have any political role. It's up to others on here to reflect on how they have helped to further his career. But he is the Tory party's problem now. If they can't flush the turd that is a sign of their disunity and the PM's lack of authority within his party. It's not Labour's job to help them dispatch Johnson. Labour have hired a highly competent public-spirited ex official to help them to prepare for government. If it causes the Tories some additional discomfort, great. They deserve it.
I don't know if you were aware but Johnson was addressing a conference yesterday when he said to the audience
'Put up your hand for Brexit'
He and the host did but nobody else followed
That is so funny !!!!!
Yes I saw that - he asked the audience to raise their hands if they thought Brexit was a good idea. Only a handful did.
It's not funny, it's tragic.
And the bigger tragedy? There are some people who want to make it as irreversible as possible.
I can understand people backing Brexit when the dinnae ken. To seek to impose it on future generations when they ken the noo, that's another matter.
In the sense of going back to the status we had before, it is already irreversible. In the sense of rejoining at all, it can't be irreversible.
You are, of course, right. And that's something we're going to have to live with. But there have been people here over the last few days telling themselves that Windsor and CPTPP are going to make Brexit so secure that there's no point talking about any reversal any more. And for some, that the irrerversibility is a feature, not a bug.
(And no, nothing is totally irreversible, but many things are so hard to reverse that it's not realistic to do so. Entropy, dear Driver. Entropy.)
there have been people here over the last few days telling themselves that Windsor and CPTPP are going to make Brexit so secure that there's no point talking about any reversal any more.
And it's interesting that one person NOT claiming that is BoZo...
Stating that the Elgin Marbles belong in London is a bit like saying the Crown Jewels belong in Athens!
The British Museum = Biggest Stolen Goods Warehouse in the World!
I think that's Boris's point. If the BM (or any museum for that matter) obliges itself to 'give everything back', it's not a museum, it's a room.
Indeed, loan exhibits abroad but if every major museum only displayed objects from the country it was located in there wouldn't be a lot of exhibits left in them
The Parthenon still exists, so the Marbles belong there.
All the places that all the exhibits in all the museums in the world came from still exist.
Not in the respect Sunil is talking about. The Elgin Marbles are literally fixtures ripped off the walls of an ancient building that is still there.
In most cases, the item is either by its nature moveable, or the context in which it was displayed either gone or massively changed.
It's objectively ludicrous - even if one attaches no blame to Elgin personally and thinks it all legal etc - that the Marbles are in Bloomsbury rather than an ancient building which they were literally part of and which (I'll repeat) is still effing there.
There's another side to this that I find interesting, and that's the soft power of artefacts.
A few years back, my son was fascinated by terracotta warriors and Easter Island heads. He was a bit too young to take him up to the Liverpool terracotta warrior exhibition in 2018, but last year we went to a tiny (but brilliant) 'fake' Terracotta Warrior exhibition in Dorchester, of all places, which he loved. (There's a fake Tutankhamun exhibition just up the road as well).
This isn't relevant to the marbles, but I wonder if having exhibits around the world actually helps the original country? Does have an Easter Island head in the BM create more knowledge and interest about/in Easter Island? Do all the exhibits of Ancient Egypt in local museums, of dusty mummies and strange inscriptions, actually create generations of people who are interested in Egypt and its history, and therefore more likely to travel there?
Would the world be richer if every ancient artefact was in its original place, or poorer? (Leaving aside issues if where an 'original' place is)?
This is not an argument for musuems keeping foreign artefacts: the same sort of effect may be achieved by travelling exhibitions. But I reckon there's a massive soft power in it - especially for small places like Easter Island.
A fun fact about the terracotta warriors is that most are still buried. When the first ones were unearthed they were all painted but exposure to light quickly made the colours fade away. They are now waiting for the appropriate preservation technology to be developed before digging out any more.
IIRC most ancient statues in Rome, Greece etc were painted. The white marble we associate with the classics era is totally false.
Or have I got that wrong?
I've seen a few documentaries on that - and looks to be true (not sure if it was every statue mind). I've often wondered if all the trade that went on with India influenced in either direction or if it was just common across the ancient world. But when you look at Indian temples you have to wonder what Rome or Athens may have actually looked like!
I would like Johnson to disappear from public life - as I have said on here repeatedly I think he is a congenital liar and lacks the moral character to have any political role. It's up to others on here to reflect on how they have helped to further his career. But he is the Tory party's problem now. If they can't flush the turd that is a sign of their disunity and the PM's lack of authority within his party. It's not Labour's job to help them dispatch Johnson. Labour have hired a highly competent public-spirited ex official to help them to prepare for government. If it causes the Tories some additional discomfort, great. They deserve it.
Is it not a fact that Keir Starmer lied about his policy commitments when he ran for the Labour leadership?
A *cost* of $1250/Kg is tearing up the launch industry already
The space launch industry is divided into
1) SpaceX doesn’t exist. Their prices are fake. See ESA 2) Due to politics we can’t build a fully reusable launcher to compete so we aim to be the other option for US Government contracts. See ULA. 3) Copy Falcon 9 - see some renders from Europe, China on the web 4) Ignore - much of the micro launcher industry 5) we have a plan to be even cheaper - see Stoke Space
A *cost* of $1250/Kg is tearing up the launch industry already
The space launch industry is divided into
1) SpaceX doesn’t exist. Their prices are fake. See ESA 2) Due to politics we can’t build a fully reusable launcher to compete so we aim to be the other option for US Government contracts. See ULA. 3) Copy Falcon 9 - see some renders from Europe, China on the web 4) Ignore - much of the micro launcher industry 5) we have a plan to be even cheaper - see Stoke Space
A bit late to this, but I think that's a very biased, and incorrect, view of things.
Comments
If they don't trust her report, it ought to be a relatively simple matter to verify the facts.
There have been some cases, over the years, which were unpleasant. Civil servant X selected private firm Y for contract. Contract turns into a long running disaster for government, money spinner for Y. Civil Servant then gets big job at Y.
There have also been reverse cases.
So the idea came up of blocking civil servants from going to some jobs for a period of time.
The counter argument, which has some validity, is that ex civil servants have valuable knowledge on how to work with government - without that knowledge, doing contracts is a lot harder.
Like many things, it is impossible to produce a simple set of rules that cover all cases. Humans, eh?
Rishi wanted to be basking in the warm glow of his genuine achievement. That story has been rather overtaken by events.
(I suspect the timing is driven more by government-in-waiting aspects than political optics. Let's say six months gardening leave is reasonable, that takes us to September and we really are in the GE run-up.)
The idea of replacing them with judges comes up from time to time. This would require a fuckton of judges. Which would mean a massive number of 6 figure jobs for lawyers…
This move will muddy the water and if Starmer had a good political antenna he would have done this after the privileges report
If even 'sensible' MPs or government ministers start playing along - "I'm sure it's fine but I understand the concerns, it raises questions" - then we can probably regard that as a sign they think the party's support will tank if Boris is punished, and they see this as a way out.
No let’s talk about a job given to somebody I’ve never heard of
re the recent US Government comments saying its increasingly likely Covid came from a lab leak, seems to me this a fairly blatant hint to the Chinese that, supply weapons to the Russians and we are going to be telling the world you are responsible for the leak and have been lying out of your ass.
Not so much Big Dog as an albatross.
This is a bubble story and Sunak's visit to France next week, the budget a few days later, the 10.1% increase in pensions, benefits, and minimum wage, with the possible resolution of the nurses dispute and continuing fuel support are far more likely to be noticed by the voters
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Plenty of civil servants have served as Chief of Staff to a PM / LotO. Dan Rosenfield did so to Johnson himself.
https://twitter.com/davidherdson/status/1631591795757809664
Tories oddly silent about Dan Rosenfield?
Mike's suggestion that polls might show the lead down to single figures seems to have been overreach - still around 20%. The NI deal has given Sunak a useful personal boost and his party a small nudge, which is probably in the midrange of what PBers predicted.
Chief of staff is probably in his top 5 of most important decisions, he will want someone excellent to do the job with deep govt experience. Remember he has never even been a minister.
'Put up your hand for Brexit'
He and the host did but nobody else followed
That is so funny !!!!!
He is taking the job seriously, that can only be a good thing.
It's how Tory MPs react. And that will depend on how Tory Members react. Scare stories of deselections were circulating just last week for those insufficiently loyal to Boris. Inboxes will be filling up with what an outrage it is and our lad were stitched up.
Otherwise, Starmer obviously thinks Gray is a top appointment, he's probably right, and he won't give a flying fuck about the whinging as there's absolutely nothing wrong with what he's done.
This could be very bad. This is the O0506 highway, the road between Chasiv Yar and Bakhmut and the only paved road left in and out of Bakhmut. (Pic looks north with village of Khromove to the right.) There are still dirt roads for the military. But supplies and aid are disrupted.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1631589987337510913
Or have I got that wrong?
The thing they're not tackling is the mausoleum's tomb. And that thing's truly gargantuan. It was written that it had a recreation of a city in it, with rivers of mercury. Which was widely disbelieved, until some analysis of soil from the site showed high levels of mercury...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_of_the_First_Qin_Emperor
Trying to push this particular example is wrong doesn't really work because if its claimed her work was dodgy it contradicts themselves at the time and means it needs redoing, not ignoring.
I responded first post after the news broke on here and felt it was unwise on her part to move across so soon, but that's small beer stuff. Despite joking people aren't stupid, and arguing the innocence of Boris on this basis is not going to fly.
*Not sure he's proved that bit yet.
https://twitter.com/jonsopel/status/1631355770229911552
Unrelatedly, When I was there they hadn't even touched up the English language signs to be entirely correct, which felt like a tiny easy detail to get right on such a major attraction.
Lots of people believe in "no smoke without fire", unfortunately, so a politician only gets so many chances to do things that are perfectly legitimate but seem slightly off. Maybe she's good enough at her new job that she's worth using one of those lives.
If the terracotta warriors had been found a decade earlier, they might well have just destroyed the entire site.
(As an aside, apart from the touristy parts, the Great Wall is apparently not well cared for. Then again, neither was Hadrian's Wall before 200 years ago. But we didn't see Hadrian's Wall as a symbol of our kingdom back then.)
It's not funny, it's tragic.
Remember, even Starmer couldn't say whether he had broken the rules or not, and he's a massively big-brained lawyer. That's not a sign of a stitch-up.
Besides, Shami Chakrabati waves 'hi'. One of Labour's issue is that they have form with this.
But I have to be honest. I ate probably the worst ant of my life
The evidence came from a person who just so happened to be walking past a private window, who happened to have a direct line to the Mail.
The Police investigated Starmer twice and found he had no case to answer, twice. They did that because of pressure.
Even despite being found innocent, people claimed he was still guilty. The whole thing was corrupt in my view. We do disagree, yes.
https://spacenews.com/the-future-of-starship-includes-national-security-missions/
It’s called Ant and Speck.
“I don’t think there’s a single form of energy production in this country that a politician, or across the board politicians, have supported. We live in a country now where every single politician, every single political party, from each direction, find reasons to say no. To stop development. To stop growth. To stop our own home-grown energy. Frankly, I don’t care if it’s shale gas, if it’s fracking, if it’s wind, if it’s solar, if it’s nuclear, if it’s oil, if it’s gas. I don’t care, just build it!”
https://order-order.com/2023/03/03/watch-harwood-hits-out-at-politicians-power-generation-failure/
Someone formerly in a role where impartiality is key goes to a role where partiality is key.
Correctness aside, Starmer knows exactly what he is doing. Tory reactions are in line with his expectation I suspect. And an old sore is reopened.
I can understand people backing Brexit when the dinnae ken. To seek to impose it on future generations when they ken the noo, that's another matter.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/mar/03/morris-is-a-creature-of-its-own-a-dance-for-a-new-age-photo-essay
Don’t get me wrong. I love a nice ant as much as the next man, but this was a bit too “anty”
As I said, Starmer himself couldn't say whether it had been legal or not. And epidemiologically it was a terrible thing to do - and Starmer consistently wanted us plebs locked down more strongly.
(And no, nothing is totally irreversible, but many things are so hard to reverse that it's not realistic to do so. Entropy, dear Driver. Entropy.)
Because of their egos they cannot STFU and damage the Conservative Party every time they open their gobs.
The space launch industry is divided into
1) SpaceX doesn’t exist. Their prices are fake. See ESA
2) Due to politics we can’t build a fully reusable launcher to compete so we aim to be the other option for US Government contracts. See ULA.
3) Copy Falcon 9 - see some renders from Europe, China on the web
4) Ignore - much of the micro launcher industry
5) we have a plan to be even cheaper - see Stoke Space
But we should still get together to buy ULA.