Even if Boris’s No 10 apartment refurbishment is funded by a charity a large slice of it will effect
Even if Boris’s No 10 apartment refurbishment is funded by a charity a large slice of it will effectively be at a cost to the public purse – politicalbetting.com
The Mail is reporting this morning that Boris is planning to setup a special charity to pay for what it describes as a lavish refurbishment of the apartment where the PM and his finance live in Downing Street. The Mail goes on:
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And Boris has got away with the tens of thousands of Covid deaths that the media had tried to lay at his door. Because....soft furnishings.
But frankly I am too busy today to work it all out.
tl/dr? There is a case for the public purse to pay for some upkeep and redecoration of No.10 or it would still be wattle and daub. In conjunction with heritage organisations, perhaps.
But a charity? Sounds very shady. Are we sure that's what has happened?
What mankind can do is develop vaccines and along with Israel the UK is first and one of the best in the world for that.
So let's all talk about wallpaper that is not being billed to taxpayers. 🙄
Shame I have left that Party but still.
'K'nell, we haven't finished with the last one yet!
In time there will be a public enquiry about all this and it may well find that actions taken caused further deaths.
Now, I am more a fan of the "heat of battle" theory of coping with such events but we must all wait for that enquiry before we can say with any certainty whatsoever that he "doesn't have any deaths at his door". Or that he does, for that matter.
I must be one of the few PBers to have visited both Numbers 10 and 11, they are just way too small for a family to live in (and don't even get me started on the number of mice and rats I saw.)
There's a reason why PMs and Chancellors head off to Chequers and Dorneywood as often as possible.
We really need to move them out of Downing Street and somewhere more appropriate.
Plus why can't the current incumbents spend their own cash, they get a £30K a year allowance and can top that up with their own personal funds as the Camerons and Osbornes did. I understand Sunak is worth a few quid.
I do believe that Blair did look at copying the White House funding raising model but it was flagged up as a massive conflict of interests/ethics issue.
Whilst it is fine to donate to a political party, those donations do not wangle their way to the house the PM lives in.
As an aside, I want to be Foreign Secretary and live in Chevening full time.
https://twitter.com/BrunoBrussels/status/1366657069458325505?s=20
I'm sure none of them have ever used or laughed at say Nicola Sturgeon being called Janette Krankie.
Are you some kind of magician, by the way? I see that you have zero posts, notwithstanding the above. Also a total of 20 likes on 0 posts. That's highly impressive, your average per post is... infinite
There is an interesting political element here - hidden behind the wallpaper. Not that I expect the press to get their scrapers out....
Yet I do struggle to get angry about it.
Am I morally deficient somehow?
They always said you were a Man of Kent. Or something.
Life in the kleptocracy...
With the benefit of hindsight we can see a number of things we would now do differently, and in many cases at the time there were a lot of people calling for what now appears to be the better decision, but in most cases there were those calling for the opposite.
I think it would be essential to have a major enquiry (inquiry?) into the government's response if only to learn what lessons we can, but it it is just designed to find fault then those who might end up being blamed will not be prepared to cooperate and we will not learn nearly as much as we might.
If that's your definition of dodgy then you have an extraordinarily low threshold for dodgy. I'll pass thanks.
Considering this charity was first introduced by LBJ its funny I've never heard about the scandal around this associated with LBJ before? I thought LBJ was disliked because of Vietnam, not because of wallpapers or magnolia. Learn something every day.
Anyone going after her will be out the door surely, just like Cummings, and quite right too. Anyone attacking my wife would not be on my good books so I expect the same from Johnson.
Gove is definitely a schemer but you need to pick your battles. Picking a battle with the 'first lady' is suicide so he's an idiot if he's doing that.
Besides, everyone knows that there's no point redecorating when you've just had a baby. Mark my words, it'll need redoing faster than you can say "Darling, how many times have I asked you to keep the Sharpies out of Wilfed's reach?"
Last week as I was applauding Boris's performance, other PBers debated whether he looked 80 or just 70 years old. If Boris does hope to make serious money on the American lecture circuit, he must keep a rheumy eye on the calendar.
Theresa May outdoes Boris Johnson with £1m from speech fees
... The former prime minister earned £136,000 last month [September] for delivering a speech in Seoul on global responses to the coronavirus pandemic. It takes her total for after-dinner talks so far this year to more than £1 million.
The fee means that the MP for Maidenhead appears to have surpassed Boris Johnson for after-dinner earning power.
Before becoming prime minister in July [2019], Mr Johnson was paid £123,000 to fly to India and address a publishing company in the New Delhi quarter of Connaught Place.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/theresa-may-outdoes-boris-johnson-with-1m-from-speech-fees-8cvwnhvxd (£££)
Once this is over, the coals will be raked over with justifiable attention.
And the Government was happy to spend £30k doing the work - the fact everything has to be unique is Boris and Carrie's problem no-one elses.
Cyclefree and Cyclefree's daughter is more likely to see my money than Boris's charity is.
A decade isn't that unusual an interval for renovations is it? If this reduces the bill to taxpayers I'm all for it.
We spend £30,000 on Downing Street renovations, lets spend it on a teacher instead.
She's the current PM's current lady friend. And if she wants to blow a load of cash beyond an annual £30k allowance that's fine. The taxpayer shouldn't pick up the bill because she's a spendaholic.
We need some kind of learning repository for these types of situations - perish the thought another virus/lockdown one, but general crises. If people think they are going to be blamed then we will not get as much useable info as we might have.
Then again it's the classic warlord conundrum - do you grant amnesty and hence encourage people to lay down their arms; or not and not!
Completely agreed that she shouldn't bill it to the taxpayers. If others want to pay for it though I couldn't care less what others do with their money. I won't be donating to this charity but if others want to that's on them. Works for the Americans.
I can't recall seeing CNN or others complaining about scandals about this stateside. If they have I've missed it, otherwise seems much ado about nothing.
According to Salmond, there is a conspiracy against him within the SNP which culminated in 9 women making entirely false and malicious allegations against him to the police and on the witness stand. These women, and the SNP/government bigwigs, were supposedly motivated by the desire to have Salmond carted away to prison and thus out of the way politically.
As I do not for a minute believe this central allegation, I am not really interested in the heat and the light generated from it. You may want it to be serious for the SNP for political reasons, but wanting something doesn't always make it fact. Especially when the second part of your narrative is that as the SNP are crooks you have to vote Tory to get them out. Because the idea that people vote Tory to remove the stench of corruption and cronyism is laughable.
I do seem to have adopted a somewhat ghostly presence here.. Side effect of the Pfizer?!
If this reduces the bills to the nation then the nation benefits. Like the National Trust.
Its a pissweak benefit for me, but then I wouldn't donate to the National Trust either. Others do, that's on them.
The BBC of March 4th 1998 reported "Opposition MPs, newspapers and DIY stores have joined forces to attack the Lord Chancellor after he described spending £650,000 of public money on decorating his flat as a "noble cause".
In fact, adjusting for inflation using the BoE calculator, that is £1,169,716.78 in today's coin.
Let's see if PNN can beat Derry Irvine's £1,169,716.78.
As always, Blair's government did it baddest. Even wallpaper.
I mean this is a bit of the why does the PM fly by PJ/first class thing. Because he is the PM. Because it's No.10 - an iconic building, etc...
As with the SNP fandango the reality is that not enough people care for it to be a political issue. Hence both parties' respective poll ratings.
What piece of insight about Covid could Theresa possibly offer that is worth £136k to South Korea?
If the Charity Commission approves it, like the US equivalent charity or National Trust, then it is what it is. If they don't then so be it.
You can’t, however, end up beholden to donors for that work. The only way I could see it half working would be if the flat was handed over to something like the National Trust and it was impossible for you to know who paid. But since you couldn’t really allow public access, that’s a none starter.
Basically, you’re living above the shop in central London. There will be mice.
Would it be possible to set up a charity but keep the donors to it anonymous? Would that help smooth concerns?
Also could a proposed charity potentially cover all such accomodations, like the Lord Chancellor's £165k wallpaper etc
What we have here appears to be a couple who want to spend a fortune they don't have making a lifestyle statement that someone else may then have to live with.
For Boris, too, is mortal.
At market rates, a Theresa May speech is surely worth more like £1.36.
I haven't followed it in that much detail so I have considered the likelihood that 9 people could be persuaded to open themselves up to such deep legal shit if they were caught doing something that not only doesn't benefit them personally but is also of questionable political benefit to the SNP.
As a wise man once said, grow up.
And LBJ is a particularly unfortunate example given his rampant financial corruption.
That would make...Philip and Theresa the Tsar and Tsarina...and lil Amber Rudd the Anastasia.
Or something.
There is a lot more to this but then you admit you have not done the detail
You have elevated tastes.
https://www.scottishparliament.tv/
https://twitter.com/bopanc/status/1366692039820247040?s=20
As a result, I believe, Korean Airlines aircrew, certainly those in conceivably 'risky' situations, use English.
Anonymous donors in your scenario would be much much worse.
We need as much transparency as possible on who is giving money to improve the PM's house.
Conversely everyone I know older than 60 has had nothing more than a sore arm for a day with either vaccine. If this reaction is typical for younger recipients, then if the government is smart, they'll find a way to give something else to the Clean Living Gen Z crowd. Or not only will take-up of Dose 2 seriously lag Dose 1, they'll put back the general vaccine cause for years.
I mean Brenda's got plenty of residences, she won't miss one.
Not that convinced about the "2 small for a family to live in" assertion. No 11 is a four bedroom flat for a family of one couple plus one sproglet. That sounds not ungenerous. Unless I have forgotten about some sproglets.
If there must be a charity, then the remit needs to be such as to exclude the personal flat.