She was fired for lying to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister asked her a direct question. Mrs Patel looked into her heart, and decided it would be easier to lie.
Maybe I'm an idiot, but shouldn't that disqualify you from any ministerial post?
Not if the PM was also fired for telling lies...
What lie did the PM tell...
Boris Johnson was fired from The Times for lying, wasn't he?
Boris Johnson worked for The Times when he was PM?
Boris Johnson, who is Prime Minister, was previously fired from a job for lying.
Better?
Better.
Everyone has a past. Big difference between past mistakes [in this case wasn't it nearly 3 decades ago?] and malfeasance in office.
15 years ago:
"I have not had an affair with Petronella. It is complete balderdash. It is an inverted pyramid of piffle. It is all completely untrue and ludicrous conjecture. I am amazed people can write this drivel." - Boris, 2004.
21 years ago:
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."
- POTUS, 1998
That might even be true for old definitions of sexual relations as acts that can lead to babies, but in any case, it surely doomed Clinton's chances of becoming prime minister. The other interesting thing to remember is that the impeachment of Clinton started out looking at financial corruption but when no evidence was found, those dastardly Republicans switched to investigating his cigars.
It is worrying that hyper-partisanship like that has started to creep into our politics.
I'd like to see some detailed polling about how Boris Johnson is regarded by older women. My anecdotal experience is that even fervent Leavers in that group are not impressed.
Depends. You haven't been waiting in a hall or dinner at which there are plenty of older women, just before Boris was due to walk in. They just about restrained themselves from whipping off their undergarments.
Of course, those women have pre-selected themselves. If they loathed Boris they would not be there to throw their knickers granny-pants at him.
Oi!! Granny pants are very useful things. We cannot have everything going south when we garden.
The No Deal diehards like Baker and Francois are basically Brexit Party anyway, even refusing to vote for the Withdrawal Agreement at MV3 thus resulting in us still being in the EU.
Much like the diehard Remainers like Greening and Grieve who voted against both the Withdrawal Agreement and No Deal and are basically LDs who want to stop Brexit
I agree about SB and MF being BXP, but JG and DG being remainers doesn't make them 'basically Lib Dems'
I might have gotten confused in all the euphoria, but wasn't Boris elected on a mandate of negotiating his own withdrawal agreement? If so, why are Baker and co. telling him that anything other than No Deal would be betrayal? Were they not paying attention?
Because Labour's profligate spending meant tough choices were necessary.
In 2010 for every £4 of spending, £1 was borrowed.
Now for every £34 of spending, £1 was borrowed.
How do you suppose we as a nation could have fixed Labour's mess without some cuts from 2010?
The global financial crisis was not Labour's mess and the answer to your question is through economic growth, which is the natural state of the economy, rather than flatlining the recovery inherited from Labour.
Leaving that to one side, it is idle to pretend you could cut tens of thousands of boats, tommies and coppers without reducing our capacity to protect Rolex-wearers and oil tankers. Of course, crime adds to GDP so there is that!
Recessions come and go, what causes them varies but the economic cycle of boom and bust is a fact of life. Which is why Keynesian spending theories that have been around for well over half a century by the time of the financial crisis is that you borrow in the bad times, save in the good times.
However Gordon Brown's hubris and arrogance led him to proclaim he and "ended boom and bust" before presiding over the biggest post-war bust of them all.
What made our financial situation so dreadful is not the fact the crisis happened, but Brown's decisions leading up to the crisis, including spending over half a decade in the run up to the crisis maxing out our deficit consistently at well over 2% of GDP. Despite inheriting and previously having a pretty balanced budget.
The previous recession the Tories faced at the end of the 80s/early 90s had been entered with the UK running a small surplus. That allowed the government to have Keynesian spending increases during the downturn without blowing the budget. By maxing out the Treasuries Credit Card during the good times, we were bankrupted essentially when the crisis hit. That is 100% Brown's fault.
Had he not hubristically thought he had eliminated boom and bust, had he saved for a rainy day and the next bust after over a decade and a half without one, we would have coped fine. It is entirely and solely his fault.
The No Deal diehards like Baker and Francois are basically Brexit Party anyway, even refusing to vote for the Withdrawal Agreement at MV3 thus resulting in us still being in the EU.
Much like the diehard Remainers like Greening and Grieve who voted against both the Withdrawal Agreement and No Deal and are basically LDs who want to stop Brexit
I agree about SB and MF being BXP, but JG and DG being remainers doesn't make them 'basically Lib Dems'
PS if "economic growth" is the solution @DecrepitJohnL why did Brown not have a balanced budget in any of the years prior to the recession while we were growing?
The fact is he consistently overspent for years and then when the recession hit that blew the finances apart.
The No Deal diehards like Baker and Francois are basically Brexit Party anyway, even refusing to vote for the Withdrawal Agreement at MV3 thus resulting in us still being in the EU.
Much like the diehard Remainers like Greening and Grieve who voted against both the Withdrawal Agreement and No Deal and are basically LDs who want to stop Brexit
I agree about SB and MF being BXP, but JG and DG being remainers doesn't make them 'basically Lib Dems'
Greening is, Grieve isn't.
Given the 2019 LDs are simply the "bollocks to Brexit" party, Grieve is.
I'd like to see some detailed polling about how Boris Johnson is regarded by older women. My anecdotal experience is that even fervent Leavers in that group are not impressed.
Define "Older" ...
Being on the wrong side of 50 my detailed assessment is that I believe he lacks a spine (reportedly run away from too many awkward situations), his pronouncements on race and colour convince me that he is anything but tolerant and if he has a plan we are yet to hear it rather than the vague objectives that he blusters about.
Executive summary: I cannot think of a role he is fit for, but PM is not it. If he worked me I would fire him.
You’re far too soft. I’d never have hired him. He’d make a good subject for one of my investigations.
Well ... yes! I doubt he would ever pass the interview, but if I had inherited him he would be gone at the first opportunity.
I look at his cabinet and the list of non-entities he is packing it with - Raab, Leadsome, Patel, etc and the only upside I can see is pure entertainment along the lines of the Keystone Cops.
The attempts to extrapolate Parliamentary election outcomes from local election by elections is frankly daft and naive.We saw big LibDem successes at these 'pavement poltics' by elections for several months prior to the 2017 election - plus their win at the Richmond by election courtesy of Zac Goldsmith. How well did that work out for them?
I'm not sure anyone is extrapolating are they (other than in fun)? We all know about the LDs in by elections. But really what do you expect them to do when these results come in? Stuff is happening nationally with all the parties. The LDs were dead and buried and now they are revived. Whether it leads to anything is another matter. You are being a sourpuss if you can't let them have some joy with it.
The Brecon and Radnor parliamentary one next week will be interesting. I had it nailed-on as LD.. but if a Boris Bounce lets the (convicted) Tory hold on, that will be somewhat narrative-altering.
Agree. I think the Boris effect could cause quite a transfer from Brexit Party to Con and together they were more than LD in recent poll there. To maintain the momentum the LDs need to win this and ideally convincingly
I might have gotten confused in all the euphoria, but wasn't Boris elected on a mandate of negotiating his own withdrawal agreement? If so, why are Baker and co. telling him that anything other than No Deal would be betrayal? Were they not paying attention?
Perhaps they are half-wits. It would explain a lot....
I wonder who he thinks Boris is going to negotiate with? AIUI, the EU Team is disbanded. Gone. Exit stage left pursued by a Johnson
People keep saying this "EU team is disbanded" stuff but actually Barnier is still there and he said even yesterday that he remains available for talks with the UK through the summer.
If the talks hit a breakthrough, whether it be with Barnier or Varadkar, it won't take long to fill the formalities to get an amendment made. Though it does look like the EU may decide to see what the next General Election brings instead.
"Disbanded" = the constituent parts are broken up into individual bits. The people still exist but the team does not. I realise the EU is held in some disdain, but even you must concede that he EU does not disintegrate its personnel when their services are no longer required.
As for your remark about "it won't take long": you are right, it won't. But it won't take zero time either, as everybody has to agree. And I need to point out that we have only 98 days left.
PS if "economic growth" is the solution @DecrepitJohnL why did Brown not have a balanced budget in any of the years prior to the recession while we were growing?
The fact is he consistently overspent for years and then when the recession hit that blew the finances apart.
Brown did not overspend; Brown was the last Chancellor to run a surplus; a balanced budget is not necessarily a good thing anyway.
But deficit hawks should look away now if Boris actually means any of the spending commitments he has given, even without the effects of a possible crash-out Brexit.
At least in the 1930s we had begun to rearm, while we've continued to cut and pour immense resources into a pair of aircraft carriers that will be sod all use in a conflict with Russia.
One carrier. Not a pair. There will only ever be enough people and aircraft to generate a single air wing for carrier strike. The PoW is going to "focus" on rotary wing ops to replace Ocean (the Fireplace Salesman sold it to Brazil when nobody was looking) and will be the world's most expensive LHD.
1) Mrs Thatcher cut the navy. 2) Argentina (as had been predicted and as the government had been warned) invaded. 3) War. 4) Mrs Thatcher made yet more cuts to the navy so the armada could not be re-assembled. 5) John Nott walked out when challenged on this by Robin Day.
For all your sophistry, you do not seem to be challenging the facts of the cuts. It is Conservative governments that have decimated the armed forces. Putin would vote Tory.
Your point is that by cutting policemen it is all of a sudden the victims' fault that they are mugged/shot/burgled. And by cutting the Royal Navy, it was Thatcher's fault that Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands.
That would be quite funny if it wasn't so worrying.
No, my point is that it has been Conservative governments that cut the armed forces and the police. This is counterintuitive because the Tories are generally held to be strong on defence and law & order. The cuts later came home to roost.
Indeed. The army is now almost 1/3 smaller than it was in 2010.
No one said the Conservatives have been friends at a government level of HMF. But it is just as with the NHS and Labour - Lab could close every hospital and outsource primary care to Goldman Sachs and they would still be seen as defenders of the NHS. Cons likewise with defence.
Not being snarky but people have been saying that on HERE for days now. So what's the significance of someone on Twitter saying what's been said here repeatedly?
It is nice to know that somebody IRL is taking heed.
The No Deal diehards like Baker and Francois are basically Brexit Party anyway, even refusing to vote for the Withdrawal Agreement at MV3 thus resulting in us still being in the EU.
Much like the diehard Remainers like Greening and Grieve who voted against both the Withdrawal Agreement and No Deal and are basically LDs who want to stop Brexit
I agree about SB and MF being BXP, but JG and DG being remainers doesn't make them 'basically Lib Dems'
Greening is, Grieve isn't.
Given the 2019 LDs are simply the "bollocks to Brexit" party, Grieve is.
What nonsense. It just happens to be the most important issue currently (and sadly for the last few years).
You might as well say the Conservative party is the 'Bollocks to Remain' party.
I'd like to see some detailed polling about how Boris Johnson is regarded by older women. My anecdotal experience is that even fervent Leavers in that group are not impressed.
Depends. You haven't been waiting in a hall or dinner at which there are plenty of older women, just before Boris was due to walk in. They just about restrained themselves from whipping off their undergarments.
I obviously move in more decorous circles. His arrival has been noted on my facebook feed (which is studiously unpolitical most of the time). Almost all the comment has come from older women. None of it has been complimentary.
Sample:
"Oh God BORIS,! It's true what they say then, America sneezes and we get flu. Or the fool in this case, who'd vote for a man that can't find himself a decent barber. Oh that's right the USA."
This from a woman who has used the phrase "suck it up buttercup" about the referendum result.
So some appointments of Conservative BAME MPs to high office are tokenism and others aren't. Thank goodness you are able so acutely to distinguish which is which.
Javid is a former high flying banker who has previously held a great office of state. Patel is a former tobacco/alcohol lobbyist who recently was fired/resigned from cabinet in disgrace for conducting her own foreign policy and lying to the PM.
And is also a bonkers Brexiter which I believe was perhaps the more pertinent aspect to her CV.
I'm staggered she was welcomed back to Cabinet, let alone given one of the Offices of State. Forget the death penalty appearance on Question Time, as embarassing as it was, and remember why she was fired.
No, not for running a parallel foreign policy. (For that, she merely got ticked off.)
She was fired for lying to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister asked her a direct question. Mrs Patel looked into her heart, and decided it would be easier to lie.
Maybe I'm an idiot, but shouldn't that disqualify you from any ministerial post?
Of course but we were discussing why she is in, not why she should be out.
I'd like to see some detailed polling about how Boris Johnson is regarded by older women. My anecdotal experience is that even fervent Leavers in that group are not impressed.
Depends. You haven't been waiting in a hall or dinner at which there are plenty of older women, just before Boris was due to walk in. They just about restrained themselves from whipping off their undergarments.
I obviously move in more decorous circles. His arrival has been noted on my facebook feed (which is studiously unpolitical most of the time). Almost all the comment has come from older women. None of it has been complimentary.
Sample:
"Oh God BORIS,! It's true what they say then, America sneezes and we get flu. Or the fool in this case, who'd vote for a man that can't find himself a decent barber. Oh that's right the USA."
This from a woman who has used the phrase "suck it up buttercup" about the referendum result.
My wife, who is not very interested in politics and thought Theresa May was making the best of a bad situation, commented on our family whatsapp group that Boris was completely unsuitable as PM, not because of his political record but because of his attitude to women.
I am sure she is not alone in taking that view.
I think my mum would agree with that, judging from her recent comments
Polling subsamples suggest the Tories already had a female deficit under May
She was fired for lying to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister asked her a direct question. Mrs Patel looked into her heart, and decided it would be easier to lie.
Maybe I'm an idiot, but shouldn't that disqualify you from any ministerial post?
Not if the PM was also fired for telling lies...
That's a fair point.
We have at least two members of the four great offices of state who have been fired for lying. The President of the United States wouldn't know what truth was if it hit him with a stick.
We're fucked, aren't we?
Did you ever see that episode of "The West Wing" where Donna says something and Josh screams "YA THINK???!!!".
She was fired for lying to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister asked her a direct question. Mrs Patel looked into her heart, and decided it would be easier to lie.
Maybe I'm an idiot, but shouldn't that disqualify you from any ministerial post?
Not if the PM was also fired for telling lies...
What lie did the PM tell...
Boris Johnson was fired from The Times for lying, wasn't he?
And also from the shadow cabinet for lying to Howard over cheating on his then wife. So at least he's consistent in his utter dishonesty.
The No Deal diehards like Baker and Francois are basically Brexit Party anyway, even refusing to vote for the Withdrawal Agreement at MV3 thus resulting in us still being in the EU.
Much like the diehard Remainers like Greening and Grieve who voted against both the Withdrawal Agreement and No Deal and are basically LDs who want to stop Brexit
I agree about SB and MF being BXP, but JG and DG being remainers doesn't make them 'basically Lib Dems'
The No Deal diehards like Baker and Francois are basically Brexit Party anyway, even refusing to vote for the Withdrawal Agreement at MV3 thus resulting in us still being in the EU.
Much like the diehard Remainers like Greening and Grieve who voted against both the Withdrawal Agreement and No Deal and are basically LDs who want to stop Brexit
I agree about SB and MF being BXP, but JG and DG being remainers doesn't make them 'basically Lib Dems'
The attempts to extrapolate Parliamentary election outcomes from local election by elections is frankly daft and naive.We saw big LibDem successes at these 'pavement poltics' by elections for several months prior to the 2017 election - plus their win at the Richmond by election courtesy of Zac Goldsmith. How well did that work out for them?
They increased their number of seats by 50%. What was the percentage increase for Labour?
Both the Gloucester wards the Lib Dems won last night voted Leave.
Bloody hell
That rather confirms my view that the results owed a very great deal to 'pavement politics' - and very little to Brexit!
It may well do, but on the other hand people now realise what Brexit really means. This is why they are now coming over massively to the Lib Dems. They have had quite enough of the mendacity and deceitfulness of the Conservative leadership, and quite enough of the cowardness of the Labour leadership.
Comments
It is worrying that hyper-partisanship like that has started to creep into our politics.
However Gordon Brown's hubris and arrogance led him to proclaim he and "ended boom and bust" before presiding over the biggest post-war bust of them all.
What made our financial situation so dreadful is not the fact the crisis happened, but Brown's decisions leading up to the crisis, including spending over half a decade in the run up to the crisis maxing out our deficit consistently at well over 2% of GDP. Despite inheriting and previously having a pretty balanced budget.
The previous recession the Tories faced at the end of the 80s/early 90s had been entered with the UK running a small surplus. That allowed the government to have Keynesian spending increases during the downturn without blowing the budget. By maxing out the Treasuries Credit Card during the good times, we were bankrupted essentially when the crisis hit. That is 100% Brown's fault.
Had he not hubristically thought he had eliminated boom and bust, had he saved for a rainy day and the next bust after over a decade and a half without one, we would have coped fine. It is entirely and solely his fault.
Or a ****er...
The fact is he consistently overspent for years and then when the recession hit that blew the finances apart.
I look at his cabinet and the list of non-entities he is packing it with - Raab, Leadsome, Patel, etc and the only upside I can see is pure entertainment along the lines of the Keystone Cops.
As for your remark about "it won't take long": you are right, it won't. But it won't take zero time either, as everybody has to agree. And I need to point out that we have only 98 days left.
But deficit hawks should look away now if Boris actually means any of the spending commitments he has given, even without the effects of a possible crash-out Brexit.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/07/25/german-economy-free-fall-exhausted-draghi-loses-magic/
You might as well say the Conservative party is the 'Bollocks to Remain' party.
Oh I see your point!