Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Not too difficult when you work with them and do it during office hours. Why do you think so many politicians end up marrying their secretaries? Or alternatively, for those who don’t want to stray (but have “needs”), why so many employ their wives. The latter being something often not considered (as reasonable explanation/mitigation) when the latest outrage surfaces about use of expenses on employing family members.
“Why is your wife on the payroll?” “So we can have a sex life”
The problem with the wife who has known you since way before you were king of the world is that she sees through your facade.
She knows your fears and your insecurities. She knows that, deep down inside, you are not the Master of the Universe you purport to be. And some people don’t like to be reminded of that.
The biggest problem in politicians marriages is the physical separation, with one life in the constituency and another in Westminster or Holyrood, the latter accompanied by young male and female groupies. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.
Support for Scottish independence has slipped in recent months, according to a poll that suggests Yes voters would fall short of a majority if a referendum were held tomorrow.
The findings of a Panelbase poll carried out for The Sunday Times indicates that, excluding “don’t knows”, 48 per cent would back independence, down four points since April when support for breaking up the Union stood at 52 per cent. Support for the Union in today’s poll is 52 per cent, up four points.
Canny Scottish electorate - keep Westminster on their toes by returning SNP administrations, keep Holyrood on its toes by prevaricating over independence. They have both where they want them.
Am I alone in feeling, like some EU people once thought of the U.K, “these people should just bugger off, they are just too disruptive to the rest of us”? I think if there was a U.K. wide vote on ending the union, it would be over.
The problem with the wife who has known you since way before you were king of the world is that she sees through your facade.
She knows your fears and your insecurities. She knows that, deep down inside, you are not the Master of the Universe you purport to be. And some people don’t like to be reminded of that.
The biggest problem in politicians marriages is the physical separation, with one life in the constituency and another in Westminster or Holyrood, the latter accompanied by young male and female groupies. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.
A surprising number of people seem to view MP's, such as Robin Cook, the Mellorphant Man, Piers Marchant, or Matt Hancock, as sex gods.
Hard to know when the next Tory leadership election will take place and in what circumstances it occurs.
But I was very unimpressed with Javid at the last contest. I expected him to shine and when it came to it he just didn’t.
Agreed. Plus he flourished at Deutsche Bank which is always a red flag
I’ve heard more than one first hand account and “flourished” is not quite the word they used, though the story is no doubt complex. To those that think him a boring person with no creativity, that is not the story I was told. I heard he was quite the risk taker and very creative indeed in interpreting his mandate as widely as possible, with quite considerable success. But there were long term roosting chickens. Which in fairness happened to most of the market.
Anyway we should all wish him well. He’s going to need to be highly creative and do things which upset socialists and fiscal prudes alike if he’s got any chance of clearing the backlog. One unambiguously good thing about his appointment is his reinstatement to Cabinet. Most of that lot have no real world experience sitting on important committees reviewing complex trade-offs.
The problem with the wife who has known you since way before you were king of the world is that she sees through your facade.
She knows your fears and your insecurities. She knows that, deep down inside, you are not the Master of the Universe you purport to be. And some people don’t like to be reminded of that.
The biggest problem in politicians marriages is the physical separation, with one life in the constituency and another in Westminster or Holyrood, the latter accompanied by young male and female groupies. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.
There are plenty of other jobs where people work long hours, are separated etc. Having an affair may well be understandable. But it is always a choice.
Lord, I've tried, the best I can I've asked everybody in Kazakhstan But I still don't understand Bob Wilson, anchorman.
I've been to Kent, Gwent, Senegal I've even been to ask Jim Rosenthal I found him on his knees at the wailing wall, crying Bob Wilson anchorman.
Well I marvel at the things we find beneath the ground, And that man can go faster than the speed of sound, But I still can't get my head around Bob Wilson, anchorman.
I'm cold and I'm hungry and I'm in Dundalk, I've got no bus fare; I've got to walk, It's raining soup and I've got a fork, Where be my campervan?
I'd like to meet Stevenson the engineer, I'd like to meet Faraday and buy him a beer, I'd love to meet the man who had the bright idea: Bob Wilson, anchorman.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
“A concerned member of the public …. Realised the sensitivity… contacted the BBC”
How about contacting the MoD?
They... They lost the docs. I don't think they can be trusted with them.
The member of the public who found the docs would probably have been considerably financially 'advantaged' if they'd gone to a newspaper, rather than the Beeb.
Lord, I've tried, the best I can I've asked everybody in Kazakhstan But I still don't understand Bob Wilson, anchorman.
I've been to Kent, Gwent, Senegal I've even been to ask Jim Rosenthal I found him on his knees at the wailing wall, crying Bob Wilson anchorman.
Well I marvel at the things we find beneath the ground, And that man can go faster than the speed of sound, But I still can't get my head around Bob Wilson, anchorman.
I'm cold and I'm hungry and I'm in Dundalk, I've got no bus fare; I've got to walk, It's raining soup and I've got a fork, Where be my campervan?
I'd like to meet Stevenson the engineer, I'd like to meet Faraday and buy him a beer, I'd love to meet the man who had the bright idea: Bob Wilson, anchorman.
The problem with the wife who has known you since way before you were king of the world is that she sees through your facade.
She knows your fears and your insecurities. She knows that, deep down inside, you are not the Master of the Universe you purport to be. And some people don’t like to be reminded of that.
The biggest problem in politicians marriages is the physical separation, with one life in the constituency and another in Westminster or Holyrood, the latter accompanied by young male and female groupies. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.
There are plenty of other jobs where people work long hours, are separated etc. Having an affair may well be understandable. But it is always a choice.
Fundamentally, an affair is two things: (1) It is cowardly, as the person was not able to end their present relationship before starting another, and, (2) It is dishonest, as it requires deception of someone who should be able to trust you absolutely.
I cannot say that I have never been cowardly or dishonest, but I hope never to that extent.
One of PB’s finest has noted on Twitter that it is exceedingly unlikely the affair between Hancock and Pina Colada started in “May” if he has moved in with her.
“A concerned member of the public …. Realised the sensitivity… contacted the BBC”
How about contacting the MoD?
Because, if my experience of the civil service is anything to go by, bugger all will happen as a consequence to resolve the issue, whereas by contacting the BBC it hits the news and action is taken to find out what happened to stop it happening again.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
Hard to know when the next Tory leadership election will take place and in what circumstances it occurs.
But I was very unimpressed with Javid at the last contest. I expected him to shine and when it came to it he just didn’t.
Yeah, I think he’s overrated, too.
Still, he has to be in with a decent shot at the leadership given how well liked he is on the backbenches.
A bit empty in my view. But then he's an ex-Deutsche Bank banker so my view is a bit skewed. Such people featured quite regularly in my list of people needing investigation.
Still, he's probably politically in a strong position now. Odd that Boris didn't promote Zawahi or Argar. They'd have owed him. Javid doesn't.
Promote those two and you create a further vacancy. That then needs filling. Which means more confusion.
Better to stick to one simple change given a couple of candidates were available.
Much the same logic that led Thatcher to make Pym foreign Secretary, despite hating his guts, when Carrington resigned.
Fair point.
But Thatcher appointed lots of people to senior posts whom she didn't much like and who didn't necessarily share her views.
Whereas Boris got rid of all his rivals and any MP who opposed him. He's been pretty ruthless. So I wonder whether he is now a little bit weakened.
Thatcher got rid of Pym as soon as she could. The day after the 1983 General Election, in fact.
His ‘landslides don’t make successful governments’ remark is usually blamed, but in fact two days after his appointment he said to a group of friends ‘that woman’s a corporal, not a cavalry officer.’
And she got to hear about it...
My impression is that his very poor performance after he took over from Carrington in the Falklands War also had a lot to do with that. Thatcher never forgave him for promoting what she regarded as a complete surrender to the Argentines.
The problem with the wife who has known you since way before you were king of the world is that she sees through your facade.
She knows your fears and your insecurities. She knows that, deep down inside, you are not the Master of the Universe you purport to be. And some people don’t like to be reminded of that.
The biggest problem in politicians marriages is the physical separation, with one life in the constituency and another in Westminster or Holyrood, the latter accompanied by young male and female groupies. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.
There are plenty of other jobs where people work long hours, are separated etc. Having an affair may well be understandable. But it is always a choice.
I think the issue is that the consequences for politicians are pretty much all personal. In most areas of working life it would be an instant sacking offence (if conducted with work colleagues - especially where one is subordinate to the other). So that in itself makes it more likely.
And the point about the "where do you find the time issue?" - it's a lot easier if the affair is at work, rather than after work.
"Please could you come and take a dictation of a letter Miss Smith"
The problem with the wife who has known you since way before you were king of the world is that she sees through your facade.
She knows your fears and your insecurities. She knows that, deep down inside, you are not the Master of the Universe you purport to be. And some people don’t like to be reminded of that.
The biggest problem in politicians marriages is the physical separation, with one life in the constituency and another in Westminster or Holyrood, the latter accompanied by young male and female groupies. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.
There are plenty of other jobs where people work long hours, are separated etc. Having an affair may well be understandable. But it is always a choice.
I think the issue is that the consequences for politicians are pretty much all personal. In most areas of working life it would be an instant sacking offence (if conducted with work colleagues - especially where one is subordinate to the other). So that in itself makes it more likely.
And the point about the "where do you find the time issue?" - it's a lot easier if the affair is at work, rather than after work.
"Please could you come and take a dictation of a letter Miss Smith"
I’m not sure I agree about it being an instant sacking offence in most areas of working life. Which part? Having a relationship? Or an affair? Many marriages start at work. Sure there are rules about declaring relationships etc, but I’m not sure I’d get sacked at the uni if I had an affair with a colleague. Kicked out of my house yes...
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
Was there not a Thomas Knox novel where that was the key to the whole plot? Or am I misremembering?
The problem with the wife who has known you since way before you were king of the world is that she sees through your facade.
She knows your fears and your insecurities. She knows that, deep down inside, you are not the Master of the Universe you purport to be. And some people don’t like to be reminded of that.
The biggest problem in politicians marriages is the physical separation, with one life in the constituency and another in Westminster or Holyrood, the latter accompanied by young male and female groupies. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.
There are plenty of other jobs where people work long hours, are separated etc. Having an affair may well be understandable. But it is always a choice.
Sure, many of my colleagues also work in geographically distinct locations only seeing each other at weekends, and often not that due to rotas and large regional rotations. Hospital trusts are not unknown, though I think rarer than they used to be.
I suspect that Vines is correct that the egotism of politicians is a predisposing factor too.
Honestly he should have been sacked for that, he should have been waving £50 notes.
Then there's this.
A Tokyo judge on Wednesday handed a former Deutsche Bank salesman a suspended prison sentence for bribing a pension fund official with dinners and golf outings, and said more senior officials at the bank had “tacitly condoned” the practice.
If I was a Tory (which thank the Lord I'm not sir....) I wouldn't be worried about deckchairs on the Titanic but the monster of a loose cannon that's bouncing all over the ship.
Boris Johnson doesn't appear to have any idea what he signed up to when he entered his Faustian pact making him Prime Minister and Dominic Cummings the most powerful man in the land.
They call him Rasputin but that doesn't do him justice. To sell Brexit to 52% of a population against the forces of government parliament academia business and the media makes him a genius that not even the greatest minds could match.
This is not a person any sane man would cross. This is Anton Chigurth in No Country for Old Men. A man who gets his man.
Good luck Boris.
The man's not a wizard. I dont like his style one bit, but just as with the reaction to the Barnard castle stuff theres a trend of treating him like some all powerful operatic villain.
He's a policy wonk. He had significant influence and is now very driven in his aim of damaging Boris as theres clearly hurt feelings in play, but let's not ho overboard to his significance.
Just when you thought it was a free for all up pops Herbie Hancock to remind us that in the background there there might be an inconsolable wife and children.
With Mrs H suffering long covid having contacted it from Mr H who contacted it from God knows where there is hare running that might be hard to stop.
It's not difficult to imagine a media free for all looking for footage of ministers in offices squeezing bottoms not belonging to their wives. All it needs is a green light from the public
Moral mores can shift fast and if they do we can only wish the Prime Minister the best of luck
The problem with the wife who has known you since way before you were king of the world is that she sees through your facade.
She knows your fears and your insecurities. She knows that, deep down inside, you are not the Master of the Universe you purport to be. And some people don’t like to be reminded of that.
The biggest problem in politicians marriages is the physical separation, with one life in the constituency and another in Westminster or Holyrood, the latter accompanied by young male and female groupies. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.
There are plenty of other jobs where people work long hours, are separated etc. Having an affair may well be understandable. But it is always a choice.
Sure, many of my colleagues also work in geographically distinct locations only seeing each other at weekends, and often not that due to rotas and large regional rotations. Hospital trusts are not unknown, though I think rarer than they used to be.
I suspect that Vines is correct that the egotism of politicians is a predisposing factor too.
Hard to know when the next Tory leadership election will take place and in what circumstances it occurs.
But I was very unimpressed with Javid at the last contest. I expected him to shine and when it came to it he just didn’t.
Yeah, I think he’s overrated, too.
Still, he has to be in with a decent shot at the leadership given how well liked he is on the backbenches.
A bit empty in my view. But then he's an ex-Deutsche Bank banker so my view is a bit skewed. Such people featured quite regularly in my list of people needing investigation.
Still, he's probably politically in a strong position now. Odd that Boris didn't promote Zawahi or Argar. They'd have owed him. Javid doesn't.
Promote those two and you create a further vacancy. That then needs filling. Which means more confusion.
Better to stick to one simple change given a couple of candidates were available.
Much the same logic that led Thatcher to make Pym foreign Secretary, despite hating his guts, when Carrington resigned.
Fair point.
But Thatcher appointed lots of people to senior posts whom she didn't much like and who didn't necessarily share her views.
Whereas Boris got rid of all his rivals and any MP who opposed him. He's been pretty ruthless. So I wonder whether he is now a little bit weakened.
Thatcher got rid of Pym as soon as she could. The day after the 1983 General Election, in fact.
His ‘landslides don’t make successful governments’ remark is usually blamed, but in fact two days after his appointment he said to a group of friends ‘that woman’s a corporal, not a cavalry officer.’
And she got to hear about it...
My impression is that his very poor performance after he took over from Carrington in the Falklands War also had a lot to do with that. Thatcher never forgave him for promoting what she regarded as a complete surrender to the Argentines.
I don't think that Mrs T was anti-snob. She rated Alan Clark for example, who was a famous snob.
Pyms problem was being of the old One Nation, declinist strand of Toryism.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Yes and no. You're typically working a 12-hour day, 6-7 days a week, in the sense that there's always another meeting that sounds interesting and today's bundle of 100 letters and emails to deal with, to say nothing of any active part - speeches, committee participation etc. But there is literally nobody who is interested in what you're doing at a particular time, unless there's a vote. So if you're so inclined, you could easily fit in some varied activity (when I was engaged and my fiancee looked in I'm glad there wasn't a camera in my office). And there's something in the weird idea that even backbenchers seem to have some allure for their presumed power (ha!) - I had a couple of approaches which I didn't follow up and I'm really no sex god.
Most MPs are essentially quite nerdy, either by temperament (it's such an interesting job to get into) or because they've always got an eye on their majorities. But there are 650 of them, and some are driven by self-belief and enjoyment of opportunism. And of course some genuinely fall in love with the people they work with.
Sorry I gave you a chronic illness, I'm leaving you.
I agree he’s a shit for the way he treated his wife and kids, but that’s a trifle unfair!
My money is on the affair having gone on for years. The ‘started in May’ line is just a desperate attempt to head off concerns around the appointment.
The affair itself, distasteful as these things are, isn’t a resigning offence.
Hiring your mistress to your office, without declaring the relationship, that’s much more serious.
The personal email address is serious too, even though there’s a long history of ministers doing this. A sackable offence at pretty much any company.
The procurement stuff, I’m willing to give him more leeway than most, have been in situations at work before where the order was to throw the rules in the bin during an emergency, and ask everyone you know, call in any favours you may have, to do what needs doing. The PPE situation in March 2020 was definitely that.
That said, it’s still possible to be caught taking the piss, for example by inserting unnecessary people into supply chains, so it does need to be properly investigated. Any payments to the mistress certainly need looking at carefully.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Except of course with the nanny, which did feature in the mid-life crisis of one of my cousins.
Can’t believe no one is exploring the whole “Coladangelo is Bob Wilson’s niece” angle to this story
I’ve been trying to verify if this is true or someone’s idea of a joke.
The Sunday Times say it is true.
It now appears that the glamorous friend Hancock met on Oxygen radio, where she read the news and he the sport, became more than a colleague. It may have been a longstanding infatuation. Friends say Hancock was at the radio station for about “seven minutes” and that he appeared to have got what he wanted after befriending Coladangelo, who is the niece of Bob Wilson, the former Arsenal goalkeeper and presenter of the BBC’s Football Focus.
Over the years Hancock’s and Coladangelo’s families have become close: in December 2019, they attended several Christmas parties, including one where Hancock was pictured grinning next to Coladangelo’s husband.
Support for Scottish independence has slipped in recent months, according to a poll that suggests Yes voters would fall short of a majority if a referendum were held tomorrow.
The findings of a Panelbase poll carried out for The Sunday Times indicates that, excluding “don’t knows”, 48 per cent would back independence, down four points since April when support for breaking up the Union stood at 52 per cent. Support for the Union in today’s poll is 52 per cent, up four points.
Canny Scottish electorate - keep Westminster on their toes by returning SNP administrations, keep Holyrood on its toes by prevaricating over independence. They have both where they want them.
I do wonder if the pandemic will have caused a small but significant group of 'waverers' on Independence to reassess the benefits of the UK as opposed to a flirtation with the alternative. Perhaps moving beyond the personalities and looking more at the underlying benefits of UK versus Indy. The reality that throughout the whole pandemic there really have been no independent course adopted by devolved administrations - it's mostly been "rule of 6 versus rule of 5+3 children stuff". Scotland has generally done a bit better perhaps more because it is a bit more remote, less of an international hub, and has slightly different demographics.
On the big issues everyone has been pretty much in lockstep. The criticisms in the English inquiry (over PPE, Care Homes, speed of action etc etc) will probably largely mirror the criticisms in any Scottish inquiry. Possibly there will be a whole area where there are additional criticisms in England (about spending and procurement - but then Scotland didn't have the freedom to spend money willy nilly)
How does someone in Scotland view Hancock? No doubt extremely negatively, like most UK/"westminster" politicians. But then most of the criticisms, and the reason he had to go are not Scottish related. Whereas he did have a part in delivering the vaccine. What are Scottish views of the vaccines? A (grudgingly accepted) UK success story? I don't know. But whilst the merits of EU vs UK vaccines in England were probably largely dominated by Brexit views, where do Scots stand on it? It's quite existential for the Indy question.
Enough rambling... I'm sure malc disagrees with any point i might or might not have been arguing
The problem with the wife who has known you since way before you were king of the world is that she sees through your facade.
She knows your fears and your insecurities. She knows that, deep down inside, you are not the Master of the Universe you purport to be. And some people don’t like to be reminded of that.
The biggest problem in politicians marriages is the physical separation, with one life in the constituency and another in Westminster or Holyrood, the latter accompanied by young male and female groupies. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.
There are plenty of other jobs where people work long hours, are separated etc. Having an affair may well be understandable. But it is always a choice.
Sure, many of my colleagues also work in geographically distinct locations only seeing each other at weekends, and often not that due to rotas and large regional rotations. Hospital trusts are not unknown, though I think rarer than they used to be.
I suspect that Vines is correct that the egotism of politicians is a predisposing factor too.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
The steamy bit is guaranteed on the Met in summer. And the affair could be platonic. Vide Brief Encounter.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
Was there not a Thomas Knox novel where that was the key to the whole plot? Or am I misremembering?
No idea. Never had the time to read one of these novels. Are they any good?
There was a TV series where a couple met on the commute (a train journey) and ended up having an affair. All seemed a bit improbable to me. For one thing they got seats and always ended up in the same carriage.
Sorry I gave you a chronic illness, I'm leaving you.
I agree he’s a shit for the way he treated his wife and kids, but that’s a trifle unfair!
My money is on the affair having gone on for years. The ‘started in May’ line is just a desperate attempt to head off concerns around the appointment.
The affair itself, distasteful as these things are, isn’t a resigning offence.
Hiring your mistress to your office, without declaring the relationship, that’s much more serious.
The personal email address is serious too, even though there’s a long history of ministers doing this. A sackable offence at pretty much any company.
The procurement stuff, I’m willing to give him more leeway than most, have been in situations at work before where the order was to throw the rules in the bin during an emergency, and ask everyone you know, call in any favours you may have, to do what needs doing. The PPE situation in March 2020 was definitely that.
That said, it’s still possible to be caught taking the piss, for example by inserting unnecessary people into supply chains, so it does need to be properly investigated. Any payments to the mistress certainly need looking at carefully.
The issue of NEDs at Health needs full investigation now. As I understand these are non-execs to the health department not personal aides in comms to the minister. But, judging by the sea of photos of her at Hancock's side for months, Ms Coladangelo was basically his comms SPAD. e.g. walking down with him to interviews at BBC Breakfast.
The Tory Party has already had two leaders from an ethnic minority - in 1868 and 2003.
The Liberals and Labour have one each - 1931 and 2010.
I think you mean the first *non-white* leader which is not quite the same thing.
Earlier than that, surely. Lloyd George was Welsh in any meaningful sense, and spoke English as a second language.
And just look at Herfast in 1066-ish. The Normans were an ethnic minority all right. Cnut's Danes, too. Romans being too assorted to qualify (certainluy their army was, all those auxiliaries from the Netherlands, Rhineland, Syria, etc.)
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
The steamy bit is guaranteed on the Met in summer. And the affair could be platonic. Vide Brief Encounter.
As I recall, the doctor in Brief Encounter moved to South Africa when the affair was exposed after he was caught using a friend's flat for a non platonic meeting. I think though that emotional, unconsummated affairs are fairly common, and often as damaging as physical ones.
He chose the snog at a time when it was illegal to hug someone from another household at the funeral of a relative. “It’s blatant hypocrisy,” says a former Tory cabinet minister, speaking to me before the health secretary finally quit. “Number 10 is defending the indefensible.” The charge carries more sting because Mr Hancock was an unforgiving scourge of other rule-breakers. No one was more fast or furious to condemn the “extraordinary” behaviour of Professor Neil Ferguson when he was caught with a lover.
When the scandal broke, the calculation between him and Number 10 was that he could brazen out fury about such flagrant double standards, but that began to unravel as the inboxes of Conservative MPs filled up with voters expressing their rage. His refusal to do the right thing and resign instantly says a lot about his shamelessness. Mr Johnson’s unwillingness to remove him straight away speaks to the character of the prime minister. Few previous premiers have been flawless exemplars of ethical purity, but they did prefer people to think that they attached importance to the integrity of their ministers.
Trying to explain why the health secretary was still in his job on Friday evening, one senior Tory told me: “Boris had to forgive Hancock because of his own behaviour.”
The prime minister’s initial assumption was his default one about scandals: media storms will blow themselves out and most of the public have as little interest in integrity in government as he does. So the ethics invigilator can judge Priti Patel guilty of breaching the ministerial code on bullying civil servants and she remains as home secretary. Robert Jenrick can be found to have expedited an unlawful planning decision that saved a Tory donor a lot in tax and continue in cabinet. Gavin Williamson can be a serial incompetent and still draw a ministerial salary. Under the same twisted doctrine of non-accountability, the prime minister’s first instinct was that Mr Hancock could cling on as health secretary.
He may have gone now, but the slowness of his departure leaves the continuing impression that Boris Johnson’s government thinks there is one rule for us and no rules for them.
Hard to know when the next Tory leadership election will take place and in what circumstances it occurs.
But I was very unimpressed with Javid at the last contest. I expected him to shine and when it came to it he just didn’t.
Yeah, I think he’s overrated, too.
Still, he has to be in with a decent shot at the leadership given how well liked he is on the backbenches.
A bit empty in my view. But then he's an ex-Deutsche Bank banker so my view is a bit skewed. Such people featured quite regularly in my list of people needing investigation.
Still, he's probably politically in a strong position now. Odd that Boris didn't promote Zawahi or Argar. They'd have owed him. Javid doesn't.
Promote those two and you create a further vacancy. That then needs filling. Which means more confusion.
Better to stick to one simple change given a couple of candidates were available.
Much the same logic that led Thatcher to make Pym foreign Secretary, despite hating his guts, when Carrington resigned.
Fair point.
But Thatcher appointed lots of people to senior posts whom she didn't much like and who didn't necessarily share her views.
Whereas Boris got rid of all his rivals and any MP who opposed him. He's been pretty ruthless. So I wonder whether he is now a little bit weakened.
Thatcher got rid of Pym as soon as she could. The day after the 1983 General Election, in fact.
His ‘landslides don’t make successful governments’ remark is usually blamed, but in fact two days after his appointment he said to a group of friends ‘that woman’s a corporal, not a cavalry officer.’
And she got to hear about it...
My impression is that his very poor performance after he took over from Carrington in the Falklands War also had a lot to do with that. Thatcher never forgave him for promoting what she regarded as a complete surrender to the Argentines.
I don't think that Mrs T was anti-snob. She rated Alan Clark for example, who was a famous snob.
Pyms problem was being of the old One Nation, declinist strand of Toryism.
She never rated Alan Clark enough to give him anything other than junior Minister roles, much to his annoyance.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
The steamy bit is guaranteed on the Met in summer. And the affair could be platonic. Vide Brief Encounter.
Steamy? One of the great virtues of the Met Line in summer, as opposed to the Central Line, is its air-conditioning ...
Don't be too hard on adulterers, these things happen, even if you don't mean them to.
Funny thing, my female friends are forgiving on men who cheat because men are disgusting creatures who think with their todgers, they absolutely hate women who cheat knowing he has a wife/girlfriend. A new circle of hell is required for those women who also know he has children with his wife/girlfriend.
Being named co-respondent in divorce proceedings, that's fun, especially when you didn't do anything.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
The steamy bit is guaranteed on the Met in summer. And the affair could be platonic. Vide Brief Encounter.
Steamy? One of the great virtues of the Met Line in summer, as opposed to the Central Line, is its air-conditioning ...
Ah - I stand corrected. On checking, they did indeed start wheeling them on in 2010.
Sorry I gave you a chronic illness, I'm leaving you.
I agree he’s a shit for the way he treated his wife and kids, but that’s a trifle unfair!
That’s the problem with being a shit. You get blamed for anything and everything, however unfairly. Pile on!
I provoked faux outrage last night suggesting that the man doesn't give a fuck about his kids or anyone who isn't him. From the ST piece "He had to wake up their youngest child to tell them that he was moving out".
Their youngest is 8. Mine has just turned 10. I cannot imagine putting them or me in a situation where I'm shaking her awake to tell her that I am leaving her and mummy and the other sibs in the middle of the night because I've been a dumb shit and my "nobody will ever know" tryst is all over the front pages of the newspapers.
I am not that bothered about the affair. People do daft (I haven't but I'm not being a prude). This wasn't daft, this was mindblowingly dumb. How on earth did he think that his "nobody will ever know" affair at work at the department whilst Health Secretary in the midst of a pandemic he personally was in charge of fixing would not get out and end like this.
So for all the people out there who haven't had sex with their bf/gf and haven't seen their loved ones at all or hugged them, for the people who had close friends and relatives die and not be able to do the basics like go to the funeral and console each other. For the Queen. Sat all alone at the funeral of her husband of decades. They obeyed the rules, he didn't. HIS rules. So don't give me this faux outrage bullshit. He thought of himself and himself only.
Top result over Hancock. Lying hypocrite has gone and good riddance. Seems from Sunday Times report that a combination of a flood of letters and emails to MPs and Hancock's own friends put enough pressure on him to walk the plank.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
Was there not a Thomas Knox novel where that was the key to the whole plot? Or am I misremembering?
No idea. Never had the time to read one of these novels. Are they any good?
There was a TV series where a couple met on the commute (a train journey) and ended up having an affair. All seemed a bit improbable to me. For one thing they got seats and always ended up in the same carriage.
The problem with the wife who has known you since way before you were king of the world is that she sees through your facade.
She knows your fears and your insecurities. She knows that, deep down inside, you are not the Master of the Universe you purport to be. And some people don’t like to be reminded of that.
The biggest problem in politicians marriages is the physical separation, with one life in the constituency and another in Westminster or Holyrood, the latter accompanied by young male and female groupies. I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.
There are plenty of other jobs where people work long hours, are separated etc. Having an affair may well be understandable. But it is always a choice.
Sure, many of my colleagues also work in geographically distinct locations only seeing each other at weekends, and often not that due to rotas and large regional rotations. Hospital trusts are not unknown, though I think rarer than they used to be.
I suspect that Vines is correct that the egotism of politicians is a predisposing factor too.
Trusts or trysts? Autocorrect?
Yes 🙄
Hancock thought it was considered best practice to have his affairs in a blind tryst.
Headline on page 11 of The Sunday Telegraph: " You Can't Find A Flintknapper Or A Pargeter These Days." Is that because Leon is currently away in Majorca?
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
Was there not a Thomas Knox novel where that was the key to the whole plot? Or am I misremembering?
No idea. Never had the time to read one of these novels. Are they any good?
There was a TV series where a couple met on the commute (a train journey) and ended up having an affair. All seemed a bit improbable to me. For one thing they got seats and always ended up in the same carriage.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
Was there not a Thomas Knox novel where that was the key to the whole plot? Or am I misremembering?
No idea. Never had the time to read one of these novels. Are they any good?
There was a TV series where a couple met on the commute (a train journey) and ended up having an affair. All seemed a bit improbable to me. For one thing they got seats and always ended up in the same carriage.
People are creatures of habit. When I was catching the train from Haymarket I often ended up waiting at the same point on the platform each morning, so ended up in the same carriage. Since it was the second station on the route I always found a seat too.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
Was there not a Thomas Knox novel where that was the key to the whole plot? Or am I misremembering?
No idea. Never had the time to read one of these novels. Are they any good?
There was a TV series where a couple met on the commute (a train journey) and ended up having an affair. All seemed a bit improbable to me. For one thing they got seats and always ended up in the same carriage.
Can’t believe no one is exploring the whole “Coladangelo is Bob Wilson’s niece” angle to this story
I’ve been trying to verify if this is true or someone’s idea of a joke.
The Sunday Times say it is true.
It now appears that the glamorous friend Hancock met on Oxygen radio, where she read the news and he the sport, became more than a colleague. It may have been a longstanding infatuation. Friends say Hancock was at the radio station for about “seven minutes” and that he appeared to have got what he wanted after befriending Coladangelo, who is the niece of Bob Wilson, the former Arsenal goalkeeper and presenter of the BBC’s Football Focus.
Over the years Hancock’s and Coladangelo’s families have become close: in December 2019, they attended several Christmas parties, including one where Hancock was pictured grinning next to Coladangelo’s husband.
One of PB’s finest has noted on Twitter that it is exceedingly unlikely the affair between Hancock and Pina Colada started in “May” if he has moved in with her.
Hmmm.
I wonder if Hancock’s aphrodisiacal qualities will survive now he’s a radioactive backbencher with a sudden dearth of invitations to absolutely anything?
One of PB’s finest has noted on Twitter that it is exceedingly unlikely the affair between Hancock and Pina Colada started in “May” if he has moved in with her.
Hmmm.
I wonder if Hancock’s aphrodisiacal qualities will survive now he’s a radioactive backbencher with a sudden dearth of invitations to absolutely anything?
It is actually notable that the U.K. has had a several Jewish heritage PMs or party leaders now.
Compare with the USA and its unending line of WASPs (bar Kennedy) until Obama.
Still only one Jewish PM. But several party leaders.
They are also still to have a female head of state or government; we have had two of the latter, while we have had female heads of state for more than half the time the US has existed.
Honestly he should have been sacked for that, he should have been waving £50 notes.
Then there's this.
A Tokyo judge on Wednesday handed a former Deutsche Bank salesman a suspended prison sentence for bribing a pension fund official with dinners and golf outings, and said more senior officials at the bank had “tacitly condoned” the practice.
I had the misfortune of attending Edson Mitchell’s notorious Christmas party (98?) in which young women were bussed in “to even up the gender balance”.
If I was a Tory (which thank the Lord I'm not sir....) I wouldn't be worried about deckchairs on the Titanic but the monster of a loose cannon that's bouncing all over the ship.
Boris Johnson doesn't appear to have any idea what he signed up to when he entered his Faustian pact making him Prime Minister and Dominic Cummings the most powerful man in the land.
They call him Rasputin but that doesn't do him justice. To sell Brexit to 52% of a population against the forces of government parliament academia business and the media makes him a genius that not even the greatest minds could match.
This is not a person any sane man would cross. This is Anton Chigurth in No Country for Old Men. A man who gets his man.
Good luck Boris.
The man's not a wizard. I dont like his style one bit, but just as with the reaction to the Barnard castle stuff theres a trend of treating him like some all powerful operatic villain.
He's a policy wonk. He had significant influence and is now very driven in his aim of damaging Boris as theres clearly hurt feelings in play, but let's not ho overboard to his significance.
He's not even much of a policy wonk. Even when Gove was at Education, Sam Freedman was much more significant in terms of policy, for good or ill.
Cummings is really every saloon bar bore who goes on about how "They should just do this. Bish bash, job's a goodun. Slash the red tape, grow the pie." Who rails against the rules and conventions, ignoring the fact that pretty much every rule was a response to stop a disaster happening again.
In short, an fool, albeit an educated one. But now he's on another destructive mission (for which he's very well skilled). And destructive men who don't care are dangerous, even if they're fools and untrusted.
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
Was there not a Thomas Knox novel where that was the key to the whole plot? Or am I misremembering?
No idea. Never had the time to read one of these novels. Are they any good?
There was a TV series where a couple met on the commute (a train journey) and ended up having an affair. All seemed a bit improbable to me. For one thing they got seats and always ended up in the same carriage.
People are creatures of habit. When I was catching the train from Haymarket I often ended up waiting at the same point on the platform each morning, so ended up in the same carriage. Since it was the second station on the route I always found a seat too.
Likewise my dad always got the same seat while commuting.
Then again he started at Amersham and ended at Liverpool Street and then Aldgate so it really wasn't that difficult to pull off.
He chose the snog at a time when it was illegal to hug someone from another household at the funeral of a relative. “It’s blatant hypocrisy,” says a former Tory cabinet minister, speaking to me before the health secretary finally quit. “Number 10 is defending the indefensible.” The charge carries more sting because Mr Hancock was an unforgiving scourge of other rule-breakers. No one was more fast or furious to condemn the “extraordinary” behaviour of Professor Neil Ferguson when he was caught with a lover.
When the scandal broke, the calculation between him and Number 10 was that he could brazen out fury about such flagrant double standards, but that began to unravel as the inboxes of Conservative MPs filled up with voters expressing their rage. His refusal to do the right thing and resign instantly says a lot about his shamelessness. Mr Johnson’s unwillingness to remove him straight away speaks to the character of the prime minister. Few previous premiers have been flawless exemplars of ethical purity, but they did prefer people to think that they attached importance to the integrity of their ministers.
Trying to explain why the health secretary was still in his job on Friday evening, one senior Tory told me: “Boris had to forgive Hancock because of his own behaviour.”
The prime minister’s initial assumption was his default one about scandals: media storms will blow themselves out and most of the public have as little interest in integrity in government as he does. So the ethics invigilator can judge Priti Patel guilty of breaching the ministerial code on bullying civil servants and she remains as home secretary. Robert Jenrick can be found to have expedited an unlawful planning decision that saved a Tory donor a lot in tax and continue in cabinet. Gavin Williamson can be a serial incompetent and still draw a ministerial salary. Under the same twisted doctrine of non-accountability, the prime minister’s first instinct was that Mr Hancock could cling on as health secretary.
He may have gone now, but the slowness of his departure leaves the continuing impression that Boris Johnson’s government thinks there is one rule for us and no rules for them.
Come now. That Mancock has done nothing that others in the cabinet (himself included!) have done and got away with is not the story. I have been assured by certain PB Tories for months that when you call out Bad Things like breaking the ministerial code, or bullying subordinates, or lying to parliament and the Queen, or taking undeclared bungs that none of these are stories because "we've got a majority of 80" and I'm just jealous or something.
So of course the PM saw nothing wrong - Mancock had an affair with a bit of stuff at work. Wayhay! Mancock had her given a "job" so he could do her on the quiet. When £107m contracts for PPE are handed out without tender to Tory patrons who have zero experience of PPE and not the companies actually in the trade, why would anyone care about public money paying her to shag him in the office? As for being a liar and a hypocrite, it only counts when you get sacked for it. And even then thats only showing your lad credentials. Sold out your country by having illicit meetings with a foreign power? Top stuff! Have a promotion and a branded bomber jacket.
And if you are really really outraged by all this, the best way to show your outrage is to vote for them anyway. That'll show them!
Don't be too hard on adulterers, these things happen, even if you don't mean them to.
Funny thing, my female friends are forgiving on men who cheat because men are disgusting creatures who think with their todgers, they absolutely hate women who cheat knowing he has a wife/girlfriend. A new circle of hell is required for those women who also know he has children with his wife/girlfriend.
Being named co-respondent in divorce proceedings, that's fun, especially when you didn't do anything.
For a woman a man who cheats is an opportunity; a woman who cheats is a threat.
Hard to know when the next Tory leadership election will take place and in what circumstances it occurs.
But I was very unimpressed with Javid at the last contest. I expected him to shine and when it came to it he just didn’t.
Agreed. Plus he flourished at Deutsche Bank which is always a red flag
I presume he is highly numerate. But he comes across as a bit thick.
How sweet. Believe that numeracy is needed to be a banker, especially a DB one ...... 😀
You do have a thing about DB, don't you.
To be fair, IIRC, your experience makes you feel justified.
Not just me. Ask @Charles. Or the regulators here.
'I'd rather hire Nick Leeson than an ex Deutsche Bank employee' is a mantra of some….
The only thing you need to know about them is that they were Trump’s bankers. The rest of their history need only be imagined (and you’ll likely be correct).
Honestly he should have been sacked for that, he should have been waving £50 notes.
Then there's this.
A Tokyo judge on Wednesday handed a former Deutsche Bank salesman a suspended prison sentence for bribing a pension fund official with dinners and golf outings, and said more senior officials at the bank had “tacitly condoned” the practice.
I had the misfortune of attending Edson Mitchell’s notorious Christmas party (98?) in which young women were bussed in “to even up the gender balance”.
Sorry I gave you a chronic illness, I'm leaving you.
I agree he’s a shit for the way he treated his wife and kids, but that’s a trifle unfair!
That’s the problem with being a shit. You get blamed for anything and everything, however unfairly. Pile on!
I provoked faux outrage last night suggesting that the man doesn't give a fuck about his kids or anyone who isn't him. From the ST piece "He had to wake up their youngest child to tell them that he was moving out".
Their youngest is 8. Mine has just turned 10. I cannot imagine putting them or me in a situation where I'm shaking her awake to tell her that I am leaving her and mummy and the other sibs in the middle of the night because I've been a dumb shit and my "nobody will ever know" tryst is all over the front pages of the newspapers.
I am not that bothered about the affair. People do daft (I haven't but I'm not being a prude). This wasn't daft, this was mindblowingly dumb. How on earth did he think that his "nobody will ever know" affair at work at the department whilst Health Secretary in the midst of a pandemic he personally was in charge of fixing would not get out and end like this.
So for all the people out there who haven't had sex with their bf/gf and haven't seen their loved ones at all or hugged them, for the people who had close friends and relatives die and not be able to do the basics like go to the funeral and console each other. For the Queen. Sat all alone at the funeral of her husband of decades. They obeyed the rules, he didn't. HIS rules. So don't give me this faux outrage bullshit. He thought of himself and himself only.
Would it have been better for the 8 year old to wake up in the morning and find Daddy & all his stuff gone without him saying goodbye?
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
Was there not a Thomas Knox novel where that was the key to the whole plot? Or am I misremembering?
No idea. Never had the time to read one of these novels. Are they any good?
There was a TV series where a couple met on the commute (a train journey) and ended up having an affair. All seemed a bit improbable to me. For one thing they got seats and always ended up in the same carriage.
Have you not seen ‘Falling in Love’ w de Niro & Meryl Streep? I don’t think they actually do anything physical they just fall in love. de Niro’s character’s wife saying ‘That makes it worse’ always stuck with me - whether I remember incorrectly or not!
Sorry I gave you a chronic illness, I'm leaving you.
I agree he’s a shit for the way he treated his wife and kids, but that’s a trifle unfair!
That’s the problem with being a shit. You get blamed for anything and everything, however unfairly. Pile on!
I provoked faux outrage last night suggesting that the man doesn't give a fuck about his kids or anyone who isn't him. From the ST piece "He had to wake up their youngest child to tell them that he was moving out".
Their youngest is 8. Mine has just turned 10. I cannot imagine putting them or me in a situation where I'm shaking her awake to tell her that I am leaving her and mummy and the other sibs in the middle of the night because I've been a dumb shit and my "nobody will ever know" tryst is all over the front pages of the newspapers.
I am not that bothered about the affair. People do daft (I haven't but I'm not being a prude). This wasn't daft, this was mindblowingly dumb. How on earth did he think that his "nobody will ever know" affair at work at the department whilst Health Secretary in the midst of a pandemic he personally was in charge of fixing would not get out and end like this.
So for all the people out there who haven't had sex with their bf/gf and haven't seen their loved ones at all or hugged them, for the people who had close friends and relatives die and not be able to do the basics like go to the funeral and console each other. For the Queen. Sat all alone at the funeral of her husband of decades. They obeyed the rules, he didn't. HIS rules. So don't give me this faux outrage bullshit. He thought of himself and himself only.
Would it have been better for the 8 year old to wake up in the morning and find Daddy & all his stuff gone without him saying goodbye?
Amazing how many PBers are willing to judge Hancock over the affair itself, and not for being a sweaty mountebank.
1 in 5 Brits have had an affair, there must be one or two on PB.
I do think the stress of the last year must have been immense and it is absolutely textbook that this can manifest in affairs.
This assumes the affair started recently, though.
Putting morality aside - I don't understand, logistically, how working parents of three children have an affair. Where do they find the time? And indeed the energy?
Yes but the job requires v long hours, travelling etc etc. So lots of slots in the diary to canoodle.
One presumes it is *easier* to find time as a politician to have an affair.
Nannies?
I have a nanny, and apart from allowing my wife and I to actually - you know, work full-time - it does not noticeably free up time for discreet liaisons.
Quite. When I was working full-time with 3 children and a nanny and a husband often away at planning inquiries, my only free time was the 40-minute commute to and from work when I read a book - having a steamy affair being really rather impossible on a crowded Metropolitan line tube train.
Was there not a Thomas Knox novel where that was the key to the whole plot? Or am I misremembering?
No idea. Never had the time to read one of these novels. Are they any good?
There was a TV series where a couple met on the commute (a train journey) and ended up having an affair. All seemed a bit improbable to me. For one thing they got seats and always ended up in the same carriage.
People are creatures of habit. When I was catching the train from Haymarket I often ended up waiting at the same point on the platform each morning, so ended up in the same carriage. Since it was the second station on the route I always found a seat too.
Likewise my dad always got the same seat while commuting.
Then again he started at Amersham and ended at Liverpool Street and then Aldgate so it really wasn't that difficult to pull off.
Reminds me of the train scene in “A hard days night”
Sorry I gave you a chronic illness, I'm leaving you.
I agree he’s a shit for the way he treated his wife and kids, but that’s a trifle unfair!
That’s the problem with being a shit. You get blamed for anything and everything, however unfairly. Pile on!
I provoked faux outrage last night suggesting that the man doesn't give a fuck about his kids or anyone who isn't him. From the ST piece "He had to wake up their youngest child to tell them that he was moving out".
Their youngest is 8. Mine has just turned 10. I cannot imagine putting them or me in a situation where I'm shaking her awake to tell her that I am leaving her and mummy and the other sibs in the middle of the night because I've been a dumb shit and my "nobody will ever know" tryst is all over the front pages of the newspapers.
I am not that bothered about the affair. People do daft (I haven't but I'm not being a prude). This wasn't daft, this was mindblowingly dumb. How on earth did he think that his "nobody will ever know" affair at work at the department whilst Health Secretary in the midst of a pandemic he personally was in charge of fixing would not get out and end like this.
So for all the people out there who haven't had sex with their bf/gf and haven't seen their loved ones at all or hugged them, for the people who had close friends and relatives die and not be able to do the basics like go to the funeral and console each other. For the Queen. Sat all alone at the funeral of her husband of decades. They obeyed the rules, he didn't. HIS rules. So don't give me this faux outrage bullshit. He thought of himself and himself only.
I am left with the basic impression that he should be nowhere near public life in any capacity whatsoever.
Sorry I gave you a chronic illness, I'm leaving you.
I agree he’s a shit for the way he treated his wife and kids, but that’s a trifle unfair!
That’s the problem with being a shit. You get blamed for anything and everything, however unfairly. Pile on!
I provoked faux outrage last night suggesting that the man doesn't give a fuck about his kids or anyone who isn't him. From the ST piece "He had to wake up their youngest child to tell them that he was moving out".
Their youngest is 8. Mine has just turned 10. I cannot imagine putting them or me in a situation where I'm shaking her awake to tell her that I am leaving her and mummy and the other sibs in the middle of the night because I've been a dumb shit and my "nobody will ever know" tryst is all over the front pages of the newspapers.
I am not that bothered about the affair. People do daft (I haven't but I'm not being a prude). This wasn't daft, this was mindblowingly dumb. How on earth did he think that his "nobody will ever know" affair at work at the department whilst Health Secretary in the midst of a pandemic he personally was in charge of fixing would not get out and end like this.
So for all the people out there who haven't had sex with their bf/gf and haven't seen their loved ones at all or hugged them, for the people who had close friends and relatives die and not be able to do the basics like go to the funeral and console each other. For the Queen. Sat all alone at the funeral of her husband of decades. They obeyed the rules, he didn't. HIS rules. So don't give me this faux outrage bullshit. He thought of himself and himself only.
Would it have been better for the 8 year old to wake up in the morning and find Daddy & all his stuff gone without him saying goodbye?
As Daddy is away all week every week him not being there in the morning would hardly be a shock. Talk to her at the weekend. Or - radical idea - do your fucking job, obey your own fucking rules and don't end up splashed all over the front pages of the tabloids.
I don't care about the affair. I care about the raging hypocrisy. And then giggle slightly about the remaining fanbois who excuse it.
Comments
“Why is your wife on the payroll?” “So we can have a sex life”
Tells #Ridge Matt Hancock apologised: “He didn’t want his own situation…to distract from the important work that we’ve all got to focus on.”
https://twitter.com/SophiaSleigh/status/1409052595075825670
I think if there was a U.K. wide vote on ending the union, it would be over.
What a Sunday morning treat.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9728843/Matt-Hancocks-affair-footage-office-CCTV-reveals-GLEN-OWEN.html
https://twitter.com/Baddiel/status/1409052601920929793
Anyway we should all wish him well. He’s going to need to be highly creative and do things which upset socialists and fiscal prudes alike if he’s got any chance of clearing the backlog. One unambiguously good thing about his appointment is his reinstatement to Cabinet. Most of that lot have no real world experience sitting on important committees reviewing complex trade-offs.
The last one you were this mean about was...Boris.
To be fair, IIRC, your experience makes you feel justified.
I've asked everybody in Kazakhstan
But I still don't understand
Bob Wilson, anchorman.
I've been to Kent, Gwent, Senegal
I've even been to ask Jim Rosenthal
I found him on his knees at the wailing wall, crying
Bob Wilson anchorman.
Well I marvel at the things we find beneath the ground,
And that man can go faster than the speed of sound,
But I still can't get my head around
Bob Wilson, anchorman.
I'm cold and I'm hungry and I'm in Dundalk,
I've got no bus fare; I've got to walk,
It's raining soup and I've got a fork,
Where be my campervan?
I'd like to meet Stevenson the engineer,
I'd like to meet Faraday and buy him a beer,
I'd love to meet the man who had the bright idea:
Bob Wilson, anchorman.
😁
I cannot say that I have never been cowardly or dishonest, but I hope never to that extent.
Hmmm.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Towers-Deutsche-Donald-Destruction/dp/0008377189
Can’t believe no one is exploring the whole “Coladangelo is Bob Wilson’s niece” angle to this story
I’ve been trying to verify if this is true or someone’s idea of a joke.
And the point about the "where do you find the time issue?" - it's a lot easier if the affair is at work, rather than after work.
"Please could you come and take a dictation of a letter Miss Smith"
I suspect that Vines is correct that the egotism of politicians is a predisposing factor too.
Plus there was this disgraceful behaviour.
Banker suspended after Sunday Mirror challenges Deutsche Bank over £10 taunt to nurses and doctors
Banker taunts nurses and doctors marching below by waving £10 note...
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/banker-suspended-after-sunday-mirror-116013
Honestly he should have been sacked for that, he should have been waving £50 notes.
Then there's this.
A Tokyo judge on Wednesday handed a former Deutsche Bank salesman a suspended prison sentence for bribing a pension fund official with dinners and golf outings, and said more senior officials at the bank had “tacitly condoned” the practice.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-deutsche-securities-japan-idUKKBN0FL03Z20140716
Though this was a hatchet job, I've mentioned on here how important good suits are at work.
Deutsche MDs had £1.5k suits fitted while bank was firing staff
Two tailors photographed leaving Deutsche’s London headquarters on Monday were wrongly identified as fired employees
https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/deutsche-mds-had-1-5k-suits-fitted-while-bank-was-firing-staff-20190709
He's a policy wonk. He had significant influence and is now very driven in his aim of damaging Boris as theres clearly hurt feelings in play, but let's not ho overboard to his significance.
With Mrs H suffering long covid having contacted it from Mr H who contacted it from God knows where there is hare running that might be hard to stop.
It's not difficult to imagine a media free for all looking for footage of ministers in offices squeezing bottoms not belonging to their wives. All it needs is a green light from the public
Moral mores can shift fast and if they do we can only wish the Prime Minister the best of luck
Calling Jennifer Acuri!
Pyms problem was being of the old One Nation, declinist strand of Toryism.
Most MPs are essentially quite nerdy, either by temperament (it's such an interesting job to get into) or because they've always got an eye on their majorities. But there are 650 of them, and some are driven by self-belief and enjoyment of opportunism. And of course some genuinely fall in love with the people they work with.
Hiring your mistress to your office, without declaring the relationship, that’s much more serious.
The personal email address is serious too, even though there’s a long history of ministers doing this. A sackable offence at pretty much any company.
The procurement stuff, I’m willing to give him more leeway than most, have been in situations at work before where the order was to throw the rules in the bin during an emergency, and ask everyone you know, call in any favours you may have, to do what needs doing. The PPE situation in March 2020 was definitely that.
That said, it’s still possible to be caught taking the piss, for example by inserting unnecessary people into supply chains, so it does need to be properly investigated. Any payments to the mistress certainly need looking at carefully.
It now appears that the glamorous friend Hancock met on Oxygen radio, where she read the news and he the sport, became more than a colleague. It may have been a longstanding infatuation. Friends say Hancock was at the radio station for about “seven minutes” and that he appeared to have got what he wanted after befriending Coladangelo, who is the niece of Bob Wilson, the former Arsenal goalkeeper and presenter of the BBC’s Football Focus.
Over the years Hancock’s and Coladangelo’s families have become close: in December 2019, they attended several Christmas parties, including one where Hancock was pictured grinning next to Coladangelo’s husband.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/matt-hancock-puritan-in-chief-who-became-the-ex-minister-for-hypocrisy-mmd7w9xns
On the big issues everyone has been pretty much in lockstep. The criticisms in the English inquiry (over PPE, Care Homes, speed of action etc etc) will probably largely mirror the criticisms in any Scottish inquiry. Possibly there will be a whole area where there are additional criticisms in England (about spending and procurement - but then Scotland didn't have the freedom to spend money willy nilly)
How does someone in Scotland view Hancock? No doubt extremely negatively, like most UK/"westminster" politicians. But then most of the criticisms, and the reason he had to go are not Scottish related. Whereas he did have a part in delivering the vaccine. What are Scottish views of the vaccines? A (grudgingly accepted) UK success story? I don't know. But whilst the merits of EU vs UK vaccines in England were probably largely dominated by Brexit views, where do Scots stand on it? It's quite existential for the Indy question.
Enough rambling... I'm sure malc disagrees with any point i might or might not have been arguing
And Grant Shapp’s own *brother* went on to form Big Audio Dynamite with Jones.
Michael Green, on the other hand, has no known connection with the Clash.
There was a TV series where a couple met on the commute (a train journey) and ended up having an affair. All seemed a bit improbable to me. For one thing they got seats and always ended up in the same carriage.
Smells to me. Stinks in fact.
And just look at Herfast in 1066-ish. The Normans were an ethnic minority all right. Cnut's Danes, too. Romans being too assorted to qualify (certainluy their army was, all those auxiliaries from the Netherlands, Rhineland, Syria, etc.)
He chose the snog at a time when it was illegal to hug someone from another household at the funeral of a relative. “It’s blatant hypocrisy,” says a former Tory cabinet minister, speaking to me before the health secretary finally quit. “Number 10 is defending the indefensible.” The charge carries more sting because Mr Hancock was an unforgiving scourge of other rule-breakers. No one was more fast or furious to condemn the “extraordinary” behaviour of Professor Neil Ferguson when he was caught with a lover.
When the scandal broke, the calculation between him and Number 10 was that he could brazen out fury about such flagrant double standards, but that began to unravel as the inboxes of Conservative MPs filled up with voters expressing their rage. His refusal to do the right thing and resign instantly says a lot about his shamelessness. Mr Johnson’s unwillingness to remove him straight away speaks to the character of the prime minister. Few previous premiers have been flawless exemplars of ethical purity, but they did prefer people to think that they attached importance to the integrity of their ministers.
Trying to explain why the health secretary was still in his job on Friday evening, one senior Tory told me: “Boris had to forgive Hancock because of his own behaviour.”
The prime minister’s initial assumption was his default one about scandals: media storms will blow themselves out and most of the public have as little interest in integrity in government as he does. So the ethics invigilator can judge Priti Patel guilty of breaching the ministerial code on bullying civil servants and she remains as home secretary. Robert Jenrick can be found to have expedited an unlawful planning decision that saved a Tory donor a lot in tax and continue in cabinet. Gavin Williamson can be a serial incompetent and still draw a ministerial salary. Under the same twisted doctrine of non-accountability, the prime minister’s first instinct was that Mr Hancock could cling on as health secretary.
He may have gone now, but the slowness of his departure leaves the continuing impression that Boris Johnson’s government thinks there is one rule for us and no rules for them.
Don't be too hard on adulterers, these things happen, even if you don't mean them to.
Funny thing, my female friends are forgiving on men who cheat because men are disgusting creatures who think with their todgers, they absolutely hate women who cheat knowing he has a wife/girlfriend. A new circle of hell is required for those women who also know he has children with his wife/girlfriend.
Being named co-respondent in divorce proceedings, that's fun, especially when you didn't do anything.
Their youngest is 8. Mine has just turned 10. I cannot imagine putting them or me in a situation where I'm shaking her awake to tell her that I am leaving her and mummy and the other sibs in the middle of the night because I've been a dumb shit and my "nobody will ever know" tryst is all over the front pages of the newspapers.
I am not that bothered about the affair. People do daft (I haven't but I'm not being a prude). This wasn't daft, this was mindblowingly dumb. How on earth did he think that his "nobody will ever know" affair at work at the department whilst Health Secretary in the midst of a pandemic he personally was in charge of fixing would not get out and end like this.
So for all the people out there who haven't had sex with their bf/gf and haven't seen their loved ones at all or hugged them, for the people who had close friends and relatives die and not be able to do the basics like go to the funeral and console each other. For the Queen. Sat all alone at the funeral of her husband of decades. They obeyed the rules, he didn't. HIS rules. So don't give me this faux outrage bullshit. He thought of himself and himself only.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7.39
Though the hypocrisy of the Press over the Bashir interview was very apparent. Most would sell their souls, to cheat their way into such a scoop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jf06WlIwEs&ab_channel=rebelbiscuit
I can’t think of any redeeming features.
Ugh.
Cummings is really every saloon bar bore who goes on about how "They should just do this. Bish bash, job's a goodun. Slash the red tape, grow the pie." Who rails against the rules and conventions, ignoring the fact that pretty much every rule was a response to stop a disaster happening again.
In short, an fool, albeit an educated one. But now he's on another destructive mission (for which he's very well skilled). And destructive men who don't care are dangerous, even if they're fools and untrusted.
Then again he started at Amersham and ended at Liverpool Street and then Aldgate so it really wasn't that difficult to pull off.
So of course the PM saw nothing wrong - Mancock had an affair with a bit of stuff at work. Wayhay! Mancock had her given a "job" so he could do her on the quiet. When £107m contracts for PPE are handed out without tender to Tory patrons who have zero experience of PPE and not the companies actually in the trade, why would anyone care about public money paying her to shag him in the office? As for being a liar and a hypocrite, it only counts when you get sacked for it. And even then thats only showing your lad credentials. Sold out your country by having illicit meetings with a foreign power? Top stuff! Have a promotion and a branded bomber jacket.
And if you are really really outraged by all this, the best way to show your outrage is to vote for them anyway. That'll show them!
https://twitter.com/samcoatessky/status/1409055504253456394?s=21
Cummings was at least right about this.
I don't care about the affair. I care about the raging hypocrisy. And then giggle slightly about the remaining fanbois who excuse it.
A more positive report for Labour from B&S:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/27/chased-and-heckled-but-jo-coxs-sister-is-unbowed-in-election-fight
I still think we'll lose, but also that Galloway will not break 10%.
Who could it possibly be?