If he rated anyone in the cabinet he would have them sacked! The cabinet have been chosen for a reason. Empty vessels that will do what they are told.
I think the other telling feature is that BoJo probably thinks the same...after Gove's behaviour in the past his trust in his colleagues amounts to the square root of fuck all...
Bojo and Dom....a kind of Butch and the kid......except uglier
Starmer doing much better in Wales and Scotland than in his home country:
Net favourability (Survation):
Wales +28 Scotland +23 England +16 NI -8
The Scottish splits are utterly horrific for the SCons: a poor 3rd and heading for wipeout. Again.
SLab will be tremendously encouraged by these polls.
Starmer's slightly po-faced and humourless demeanour would go down well in Wales and Scotland I imagine.
There was a tweet I saw yesterday that compared Starmer's demeanour to that of a teacher when he sees you've drawn a big cock and hairy balls on your exercise book
...which is pretty much what Farage and Johnson have contributed to pubic life.
Hundreds is not massive - and many of them will be from pre-existing partisan critics jumping on a passing media bandwagon.
It's large, unless things have changed over the last decade. I used to count it as significant if more than 20 people wrote/emailed on a national issue, especially if they were clearly individual - you could get 100 identical postcards from an NGO's supporters, but not personal communications. I think only Iraq preompted similar numbers, and that was partly because I'd asked for opinions (which, unhelpfully, were evenly divided).
Partisans tended not to bother to write, since they knew what I'd think of their one-sided spiel.
Talking this over with the in laws as well as my own folks, I think the reason I cant get angry about Cummings is that I wouldn't care even if he (and the same goes for the Scottish CMO, and Prince Charles, and the Queen) had just gone to his second home for lockdown because it was nicer. Ultimately I think people with second homes should have been allowed to go there if they wanted to, and the only reason this was not permitted was to blind us to the fact the virus puts a "stealth tax" on the poor and relief to the rich.
But that's life.
Of course. And they were allowed to go there. Or were not forbidden in law from going.
It's just that I can't get past the do as I say not as I do thing. There were only a few people involved in actually setting up the law and he was one of them.
Yes, that's what seems to bother people.
I was wondering what would be people's reaction if a couple with a young kid who lived on the 10th floor of a council block moved into one of their parents privately owned houses with a couple of spare rooms and a garden for lockdown?
People would not be too censorious about that imo. I certainly wouldn't.
In fairness, the police have to investigate any remotely serious allegation. It shouldn't be taken to imply proof or its absence.
Indeed. I think its reasonable to let a free and fair investigation settle the matter. If he gets convicted of any offence he should go, if he doesn't he should stay.
Convictions matter. Witch hunts don't.
Do you think anyone should have resigned over Cash-for-Honours out of interest?
It was murky but no convictions were there? No, I seem to recall from memory Blair was questioned by the Police but never charged and he never resigned.
The timing of Blair's departure was very much influenced by Cash-for-Honours. It's obviously not in his resignation letter, but yes it was a big part of him going that early in the term.
I'm genuinely interested in your approach to it - to be clear, you just think "no foul, no resignation, says nothing about the state of politics and the Labour Party in 2007, all a witch-hunt really as it turns out"?
It was murky and there was a foul in that money was returned etc, but yeah I don't think anyone had to resign over it. Had anyone been convicted they obviously would have had to.
You've not actually answered my question... which is your prerogative but, in case you missed it:
Do you personally think there should have been no resignations? And do you really yourself think, "no foul, no resignation, says nothing about the state of politics and the Labour Party in 2007, all a witch-hunt really as it turns out"?
I mean, it's the clear logic of your position, but seems extremely odd as a position to me.
Yeah I wasn't bothered by the lack of resignations at the time. There was a part of me hoping that the Police would find something on Blair, but they didn't so fair enough.
So you think actually, although it probably moved quite a lot of votes, it shouldn't have really because it was (in your words) a "witch hunt"? If Tony were here now, you'd express deep sympathy that he was damaged over a nothing?
And Jeremy Thorpe ditto, presumably? An innocent man, unfairly reviled and brought low over nothing whatsoever, thinks Philip?
It's a view, I suppose.
No. Whatever shapes votes is up to the voters. Politics is politics and anyone can vote for whatever they want.
Thorpe is before my time.
Thorpe tried to get a peerage after the scandal was over according to the book I have just read!
Repeatedly. ALL Liberal and Lib Dem leaders up to and including Clegg received letters (often plural).
It was Thorpe's position, until his dying day, that he had done nothing wrong, had been proved to have done nothing wrong, and deserved a peerage to show his rehabilitation (and ex-leaders do generally get one if they want one).
Presumably, based on his logic, Philip would've said "okay". I, as a Lib Dem and someone who has dined at Thorpe's home and found him great, engaging company, most certainly wouldn't.
I liked him personally, and sympathised to a degree with the instincts (ho-ho) of a man being hounded by a blackmailer at a time when homosexuality was far less accepted than today. But his permanent fall from grace was fully deserved. The court acquitted him but, even accepting he was not guilty of a criminal offence, his conduct was absymal. At the very least, he'd dealt with a threat from a former lover either by even more extreme threats or by turning a blind eye while others did things he'd rather not know about. One can forgive him personally, and let him get on with a life outside frontline politics following acquittal, but revive him politically? No way - it wasn't (we must accept based on the verdict) criminal conduct, but it was permanently disqualifying conduct (quite apart from the damage inflicted on colleagues who had no part in it at all).
That's why I don't understand Philip's position that conviction is the only circumstance in which Cummings (or apparently anyone else) should resign. It's crackers.
Comments
I think the other telling feature is that BoJo probably thinks the same...after Gove's behaviour in the past his trust in his colleagues amounts to the square root of fuck all...
Bojo and Dom....a kind of Butch and the kid......except uglier
Partisans tended not to bother to write, since they knew what I'd think of their one-sided spiel.
Such a sweet kind person you are!
It was Thorpe's position, until his dying day, that he had done nothing wrong, had been proved to have done nothing wrong, and deserved a peerage to show his rehabilitation (and ex-leaders do generally get one if they want one).
Presumably, based on his logic, Philip would've said "okay". I, as a Lib Dem and someone who has dined at Thorpe's home and found him great, engaging company, most certainly wouldn't.
I liked him personally, and sympathised to a degree with the instincts (ho-ho) of a man being hounded by a blackmailer at a time when homosexuality was far less accepted than today. But his permanent fall from grace was fully deserved. The court acquitted him but, even accepting he was not guilty of a criminal offence, his conduct was absymal. At the very least, he'd dealt with a threat from a former lover either by even more extreme threats or by turning a blind eye while others did things he'd rather not know about. One can forgive him personally, and let him get on with a life outside frontline politics following acquittal, but revive him politically? No way - it wasn't (we must accept based on the verdict) criminal conduct, but it was permanently disqualifying conduct (quite apart from the damage inflicted on colleagues who had no part in it at all).
That's why I don't understand Philip's position that conviction is the only circumstance in which Cummings (or apparently anyone else) should resign. It's crackers.