Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

Foreign Sec Raab now 19% second favourite in the next Cabinet exit betting – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited August 2021 in General
imageForeign Sec Raab now 19% second favourite in the next Cabinet exit betting – politicalbetting.com

As I indicated in my post yesterday I thought that Raab would survive as Foreign Sec following the revelation that he did not make phone calls to his Afghan opposite number in order to protect the Afghan interpreters at the UK’s embassy there.

Read the full story here

«1345678

Comments

  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    test
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    The stories of planes taking off from Kabul with practically no one on them are awful in the circumstances. We need to do all we can to get those we owe out to safety but we also need to be honest enough to admit we will not completely succeed.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    DavidL said:

    The stories of planes taking off from Kabul with practically no one on them are awful in the circumstances. We need to do all we can to get those we owe out to safety but we also need to be honest enough to admit we will not completely succeed.

    Suez crisis:
    Israel: 172 killed 817 wounded 1 captured
    United Kingdom: 16 killed 96 wounded
    France: 10 killed 33 wounded

    Kabul crisis:
    US ?
    UK ?
    Denmark?
    Germany?
    Spain ?
    France ?
    Belgium ?
    Italy ?
    Netherlands ?
    Norway ?
    Sweden ?
    Turkey ?
    Ukraine ?
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,704
    Do politicians learn nothing. A few months ago we had Starmer posing with wallpaper which was stupid, this is just as bad.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Is this totally closed (from 2019):

    According to publicly available court documents, the woman received a sum “in consideration for the confidentiality obligations” she agreed with Raab and Davis.

    BuzzFeed News reported on Tuesday that Raab is refusing to lift the confidentiality provisions. He strongly denies any allegations of bullying.

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/maria-miller-dominic-raab-nda

    Money for keeping your gob shut? Why?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Taz said:

    Do politicians learn nothing. A few months ago we had Starmer posing with wallpaper which was stupid, this is just as bad.

    30 most cringeworthy politician photo ops (scroll down a bit for slide show)

    https://www.google.se/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-carrie-symonds-photo-staged-lbc-interview-tory-leadership-a8973386.html?

  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Taz said:

    Do politicians learn nothing. A few months ago we had Starmer posing with wallpaper which was stupid, this is just as bad.

    Could’ve been worse.

    image

    Is that HYUFD’s baldy heid poking out?
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,704

    Taz said:

    Do politicians learn nothing. A few months ago we had Starmer posing with wallpaper which was stupid, this is just as bad.

    Could’ve been worse.

    image

    Is that HYUFD’s baldy heid poking out?
    We could probably dedicate the next week to badly judged political photo opportunities and not run out of material.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    DavidL said:

    The stories of planes taking off from Kabul with practically no one on them are awful in the circumstances. We need to do all we can to get those we owe out to safety but we also need to be honest enough to admit we will not completely succeed.

    It’s not efficient but there is lots of traffic. Better to take off with some people (and I suspect a lot of stuff) on board a d get another empty plane there.

    Even better to have every seat filled but not clear it is worth delaying a flight to fill an extra seat
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    A Whitehall source… told the Guardian Raab “refused to be contacted on basically anything” for more than a week, and instead directed that “everything had to go to Goldsmith”. They added that Raab’s team had told civil servants “there was an incredibly high bar to getting him to look at anything while on holiday”.

    A separate diplomatic source also said… Raab had not spoken to any of the key UK ambassadors in the region, such as in Pakistan or Uzbekistan, or regional ambassadors in London before the weekend – even to offer moral support – and commented: “You don’t need a team of staff to do that, you just need to be a decent human being to say, ‘How are you doing? It’s going to be a tough few weeks, how can I help?’” The source added: “He has completely missed the boat on everything.”

    One Tory MP said Raab’s position was untenable and that “not coming home was his biggest mistake” – he reportedly only arrived in the UK in the early hours of Monday morning, a position supported by some other backbenchers.

    Other Tory MPs said Raab had been “lacklustre” and that he still had “big questions to answer about what he knew when”. One said they worried Raab’s actions played into Labour’s criticism of ministers’ incompetence, saying this was beginning to register with voters.

    Margaret Beckett, who was foreign secretary under Tony Blair, said it was unheard of for a foreign secretary to refuse to make a call. “… if it is the case that the Foreign Office were asking the foreign secretary to intervene with the Afghan foreign minister, then it is one of the most extraordinary things I have ever heard, that on behalf of people to whom we owe a debt of honour, he thought it could be delegated to a junior minister,” she said.

    Another critic was Maj Gen Charlie Herbert, who undertook three tours of Afghanistan and was senior Nato adviser in Kabul.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/19/dominic-raab-faces-pressure-from-opposition-and-tory-mps-to-resign
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    Taz said:

    Do politicians learn nothing. A few months ago we had Starmer posing with wallpaper which was stupid, this is just as bad.

    30 most cringeworthy politician photo ops (scroll down a bit for slide show)

    https://www.google.se/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-carrie-symonds-photo-staged-lbc-interview-tory-leadership-a8973386.html?

    The one of that fat fuck Johnson struggling to get out of a Ginetta F400 is lolsome. The car itself is cringe enough without Johnson.


  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Charles said:

    DavidL said:

    The stories of planes taking off from Kabul with practically no one on them are awful in the circumstances. We need to do all we can to get those we owe out to safety but we also need to be honest enough to admit we will not completely succeed.

    It’s not efficient but there is lots of traffic. Better to take off with some people (and I suspect a lot of stuff) on board a d get another empty plane there.

    Even better to have every seat filled but not clear it is worth delaying a flight to fill an extra seat
    https://news.sky.com/story/amp/afghanistan-ex-royal-marine-paul-pen-farthing-sees-wife-leave-kabul-on-almost-empty-plane-12385659
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Dura_Ace said:

    Taz said:

    Do politicians learn nothing. A few months ago we had Starmer posing with wallpaper which was stupid, this is just as bad.

    30 most cringeworthy politician photo ops (scroll down a bit for slide show)

    https://www.google.se/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-carrie-symonds-photo-staged-lbc-interview-tory-leadership-a8973386.html?

    The one of that fat fuck Johnson struggling to get out of a Ginetta F400 is lolsome. The car itself is cringe enough without Johnson.


    His face is all beetroot. Does Eton not teach decorum?
  • The Return of ‘America Held Hostage’
    Some 15,000 U.S. citizens and residents are behind Taliban lines. There’s no easy way to get them out.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-american-withdrawal-kabul-taliban-afghanistan-evacuate-iran-hostage-crisis-carter-11629303110
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    The Return of ‘America Held Hostage’
    Some 15,000 U.S. citizens and residents are behind Taliban lines. There’s no easy way to get them out.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-american-withdrawal-kabul-taliban-afghanistan-evacuate-iran-hostage-crisis-carter-11629303110

    WH2024

    Dem winner 8/11
    Rep winner 5/4
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    Pretending that a key phone call had been made, when it hadn’t, just to protect a minister is pretty poor show, even by this lot’s risible standards….
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    IanB2 said:


    Pretending that a key phone call had been made, when it hadn’t, just to protect a minister is pretty poor show, even by this lot’s risible standards….

    It’s not just the incompetence, it’s the plain laziness. These slackers couldn’t hold down a job in a fast food restaurant.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Raab is still 16/1 to be next Con leader. Surely that’s an obvious lay?

    Mind you, that wager might be locked up for years.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Con Maj drifting, now 6/5
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Charles said:

    DavidL said:

    The stories of planes taking off from Kabul with practically no one on them are awful in the circumstances. We need to do all we can to get those we owe out to safety but we also need to be honest enough to admit we will not completely succeed.

    It’s not efficient but there is lots of traffic. Better to take off with some people (and I suspect a lot of stuff) on board a d get another empty plane there.

    Even better to have every seat filled but not clear it is worth delaying a flight to fill an extra seat
    https://news.sky.com/story/amp/afghanistan-ex-royal-marine-paul-pen-farthing-sees-wife-leave-kabul-on-almost-empty-plane-12385659
    He does like the publicity, doesn’t he?

    What was in the plane’s belly?

    Would have been better to delay the flight or to allow another plane to take its place?

    You are behaving like one of those people who doesn’t understand the complexity of managing freight and passengers on the same railway network
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    IanB2 said:


    Pretending that a key phone call had been made, when it hadn’t, just to protect a minister is pretty poor show, even by this lot’s risible standards….

    Well technically he said it had been delegated - sophistry rather than lying…
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    In other news…..

    In a book to be published next Tuesday, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, British health experts at the time are described as being “oddly pessimistic about their capacity to defeat the virus”, rejecting measures such as a ban on mass gatherings.

    “We thought they were out of their minds. We told them it would be an absolutely devastating approach to deal with the pandemic,” one US official told the authors, Thomas Wright, a foreign affairs expert at the Brookings Institution, and Colin Kahl, who is now under secretary of defence for policy. “We thought they were nuts and they thought we were nuts. It turns out, in the end, we were a little more right than they were.”


    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/19/us-trump-johnson-herd-immunity-aftershocks-book
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    IanB2 said:

    In other news…..

    In a book to be published next Tuesday, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, British health experts at the time are described as being “oddly pessimistic about their capacity to defeat the virus”, rejecting measures such as a ban on mass gatherings.

    “We thought they were out of their minds. We told them it would be an absolutely devastating approach to deal with the pandemic,” one US official told the authors, Thomas Wright, a foreign affairs expert at the Brookings Institution, and Colin Kahl, who is now under secretary of defence for policy. “We thought they were nuts and they thought we were nuts. It turns out, in the end, we were a little more right than they were.”


    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/19/us-trump-johnson-herd-immunity-aftershocks-book

    That quote is specifically about Cheltenham… I thought the analysis showed it didn’t have much effect?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,757
    If Gavin Williamson and Nick Gibb are still in post, why would Raab and Goldsmith be in any danger?
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Raab really should go. But how can the PM sack him if he won’t pick up the phone?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    Charles said:



    What was in the plane’s belly?

    Nothing. That's a 99 Sqn C-17 with 15 seats on each 463L pallet position. It has one cargo deck and that's it.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287

    Con Maj drifting, now 6/5

    Con Maj drifting, now 6/5

    Risible
  • IanB2 said:


    Pretending that a key phone call had been made, when it hadn’t, just to protect a minister is pretty poor show, even by this lot’s risible standards….

    Remember that Johnson openly lies. Not only about minor stuff, but claims to have sacked Hancock having publicly refused to do so. So of course Raab is having a go! Yes we know for a fact that he is a lazy twunt who didn't make a phone call. But look, a photo of him making a phone call!

    So anyone calling for Her Majesty's First Secretary of State to resign is a remoaning communist or something. HYUFD will be along in a minute with an opinion poll to show that Raab is being backed by Tory voters and that is why Scottish independence is dead.
  • boulay said:

    Ms Cyclefree. I apologise for my somewhat clumsy knee jerk response to your comment last night. I should not have made it personal in any way however I am finding myself more and more annoyed in life how people will criticise others who are in incredibly difficult roles doing what they are doing with a lot more insight into the situation than the public (and this is true in private life too) and cast aspersions on their character or ability.

    It was a tired reaction which hadn’t been thought through fully and I was trying to defend someone who is not a moron but who said something with some merit that could have been phrased differently.

    Whilst I am fed up with everyone being an “expert” on everything these days and get angry with politicians and others saying “you shouldn’t have done/said that” when they would likely have had to do the same I should not have made the point I made and how I made it and especially in light of your own history which inevitably will give you reason to be more agitated to certain events. So again I apologise for the personal and also for my own inarticulate comment - I must be a budding Nick Carter myself....

    Fair play - well said and I am sure we all feel for @Cyclefree following her comments on the personal tribulations she and her family have experienced

    I would also concur that there are far too many keyboard warriors who opine on issues as if they were knowledgeable when in fact it is just political posturing and in the same circumstances they would make the same if not worse errors
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    Con Maj drifting, now 6/5

    Con Maj drifting, now 6/5

    Risible
    Why is it risible to post the change in odds of a political event on a political betting site. He is doing what it says on the can. Just bizarre.
  • Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    Can you imagine the family and spousal pressure he would have been under not to spoil it?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    Well it just shows how out of touch the Tory cabinet is. Claiming to be on the side of the Red Wall and spending more than the average income on a weeks holiday, while voting against a rise in universal credit or feeding kids in the holidays.

    Raab is a waste of space when at the office, he is no more useless on holiday. As if a phone call would have made any difference? He might as well have another cocktail by the pool.

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    edited August 2021
    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    As the comments below the tweet indicate, he can afford it being rich irrespective of his salary. The bigger question concerns his competence, commitment and judgment.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,757
    IanB2 said:

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    As the comments below the tweet indicate, he can afford it being rich irrespective of his salary. The bigger question concerns his competence, commitment and judgment.
    Really? Did anyone think he had those things?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    Its really hard to believe that there were insufficient loons in the SNP to fill their posts but they have decided to import some extra fruity ones anyway: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-58272209

    The idea of Patrick Harvie being in charge of anything more serious than getting dressed in the morning is just mind blowing.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    edited August 2021

    The Return of ‘America Held Hostage’
    Some 15,000 U.S. citizens and residents are behind Taliban lines. There’s no easy way to get them out.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-american-withdrawal-kabul-taliban-afghanistan-evacuate-iran-hostage-crisis-carter-11629303110

    This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.

    And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.

    Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.

    One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    DavidL said:

    Its really hard to believe that there were insufficient loons in the SNP to fill their posts but they have decided to import some extra fruity ones anyway: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-58272209

    The idea of Patrick Harvie being in charge of anything more serious than getting dressed in the morning is just mind blowing.

    So the Holyrood front bench is as pisspoor as the Westminster ones?

    No surprises there!
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 4,922
    DavidL said:

    Its really hard to believe that there were insufficient loons in the SNP to fill their posts but they have decided to import some extra fruity ones anyway: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-58272209

    The idea of Patrick Harvie being in charge of anything more serious than getting dressed in the morning is just mind blowing.

    To be fair, the matching of waistcoat, tie and glasses does show that he can do that with some aplomb.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    IanB2 said:

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    As the comments below the tweet indicate, he can afford it being rich irrespective of his salary. The bigger question concerns his competence, commitment and judgment.
    Thank goodness that our government can still kick out against that Metropolitan elite, from their comfortable £6,000 pound a night villas, complete with Instagramable pool breakfast experience.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,586

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    I am sure he has been saving for years and this was the holiday of a lifetime. By analysing the sums it looks like a figure one might spend on a prestige car over five years. Do people pay for holidays on the "never, never"?

    If it is legit, good for him. Nonetheless it doesn't detract from the no-show phonecall.
  • DavidL said:

    Its really hard to believe that there were insufficient loons in the SNP to fill their posts but they have decided to import some extra fruity ones anyway: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-58272209

    The idea of Patrick Harvie being in charge of anything more serious than getting dressed in the morning is just mind blowing.

    Indeed. Think how much better Scotland would be with Douglas Ross and his lot running the show.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    I agree with you, but then I looked him up. His parents were refugees with average jobs, he didn't work in particularly high paying jobs and he didn't appear to marry money so could be a valid question, although generally I don't think it's any of my business.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,346
    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    As the comments below the tweet indicate, he can afford it being rich irrespective of his salary. The bigger question concerns his competence, commitment and judgment.
    Thank goodness that our government can still kick out against that Metropolitan elite, from their comfortable £6,000 pound a night villas, complete with Instagramable pool breakfast experience.
    Its funny when one of the richest people on PB moans about someone else's wealth.
  • Just to clarify, am I right in saying the defence of Raab is now, "Yeah, the lazy, heartless f***er couldn't be arsed with any of it when he was on holiday, despite being told to by senior officials. But he's so impotent anyway that the point is moot"?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Exclusive:

    Ministers and officials have been told that the last evacuation flight could leave Kabul airport in just 5 days time

    Plans for an ‘orderly withdrawal’ mean the last flight could go on August 24

    Govt source emphasises no decision made


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/some-wont-make-it-out-admits-minister-amid-evacuation-chaos-dvfvtdd32
  • Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    Here is the problem. Despite PB Clown Apologists saying "none of our business" and "he can afford it", consider how it looks to normals. Raaaaaaab is under growing pressure from the Hate mail, made worse by the FCO releasing that photo.The din is growing, and now we have the colour commentary - his holiday cost £40,000.

    People can understand the idea of not wanting to break off a holiday. Upsetting the rest of the family. The need for a break, the money, etc etc etc. But when the holiday costs 40 large, that is different because who spends that on a holiday?

    All of the basic sympathy in my last paragraph gone in an instant. Raaaaaaaab is now an aloof toff spending stupid money on a holiday to stick it to the plebs how much better he is than us. This is going to get worse and worse. Until he has to deploy the get out of the sack card,

    Tell Boris that he couldn't make the call as he was accidentally stuck in a fridge on live TV.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,586
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    Well it just shows how out of touch the Tory cabinet is. Claiming to be on the side of the Red Wall and spending more than the average income on a weeks holiday, while voting against a rise in universal credit or feeding kids in the holidays.

    Raab is a waste of space when at the office, he is no more useless on holiday. As if a phone call would have made any difference? He might as well have another cocktail by the pool.

    He is probably right that the phonecall was a waste of time. The fact that he appears to feel he is too important to make it looks dreadful.

    I have this mental image of Rik Mayall as Raab remonstrating that he is far too important to be troubled on his holiday. "Let a minion make the call!"
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    'Can somebody come in here and take this bloody Chinese flag away!? Nobody will fall for stock photos of me 'hard at work' if they can tell they were taken months earlier, you dummies!' https://twitter.com/PeterMannionMP/status/1428434619888701440/photo/1
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,002
    edited August 2021

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    I am sure he has been saving for years and this was the holiday of a lifetime. By analysing the sums it looks like a figure one might spend on a prestige car over five years. Do people pay for holidays on the "never, never"?

    If it is legit, good for him. Nonetheless it doesn't detract from the no-show phonecall.
    Some years ago I took all my family for two weeks holiday in Villa in Tuscany and paid for everything

    It was financed out of my investments and had nothing to do with my annual income

    The idea you have to be poor to be a politician is nonsense as is the idea Raab's missed phone call had any effect on the chaos in Kabul

    However, Raab is not the most inspiring of politicians and if it is true he went on holiday and made it clear he was not to be disturbed, then as Foreign Secretary that is absurd and no doubt in time he will be moved out of his role

    Though with Boris who knows when as he still has Williamson, Patel and Jenrick in his cabinet
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 4,922
    kjh said:

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    I agree with you, but then I looked him up. His parents were refugees with average jobs, he didn't work in particularly high paying jobs and he didn't appear to marry money so could be a valid question, although generally I don't think it's any of my business.
    I've no interest in defending Raab, but doesn't he also get a ministerial salary on top of his MP's salary? So, his actual salary would be around £150k? Still £40k would be a big chunk of that.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    In other news:

    Former Sheffield Hallam MP Jared O'Mara has been charged with seven counts of fraud. South Yorkshire Police said the charges related to a number of alleged fraudulent expenses claims.

    Mr O'Mara, 39, is charged alongside former aide Gareth Arnold, who faces six counts of fraud, and a third man, John Woodliff, who faces a single charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act. They will appear before magistrates in Sheffield on 24 September.

    The offences are said to have occurred between October 2018 and February 2020. The force said the charges brought against Mr O'Mara, of Walker Close, Sheffield, related to expenses claims submitted to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

    "The charge relates to an allegation he made fraudulent invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority jointly with Gareth Arnold, who is also charged with six counts of the same offence."
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,042
    moonshine said:

    The Return of ‘America Held Hostage’
    Some 15,000 U.S. citizens and residents are behind Taliban lines. There’s no easy way to get them out.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-american-withdrawal-kabul-taliban-afghanistan-evacuate-iran-hostage-crisis-carter-11629303110

    This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.

    And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.

    Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.

    One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
    Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.

    Very depressing.

    Hope I am wrong.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    I am sure he has been saving for years and this was the holiday of a lifetime. By analysing the sums it looks like a figure one might spend on a prestige car over five years. Do people pay for holidays on the "never, never"?

    If it is legit, good for him. Nonetheless it doesn't detract from the no-show phonecall.
    It does perhaps help explain a certain extra reluctance to spoil the experience by actually doing his job?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    As the comments below the tweet indicate, he can afford it being rich irrespective of his salary. The bigger question concerns his competence, commitment and judgment.
    Thank goodness that our government can still kick out against that Metropolitan elite, from their comfortable £6,000 pound a night villas, complete with Instagramable pool breakfast experience.
    Its funny when one of the richest people on PB moans about someone else's wealth.
    Not really the point being made, and is there a vanilla option I haven't discovered for learning posters net worth?
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435

    Predictions:
    1. The din for Raab's head will become deafening
    2. Johnson will publicly back him
    3. Raab will resign
    4. Johnson will say he was right to sack him
    5. The Tory vote share will recover

    Yes its stupid. But you get what you vote for. And right now in England people like being openly lied to. As Johnson did when he claimed to have sacked Hancock who resigned after Johnson backed him.

    Ah probably true, but what will the Tory backbenchers (esp the old school) do.....succession planning could be building already.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,002
    edited August 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    Exclusive:

    Ministers and officials have been told that the last evacuation flight could leave Kabul airport in just 5 days time

    Plans for an ‘orderly withdrawal’ mean the last flight could go on August 24

    Govt source emphasises no decision made


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/some-wont-make-it-out-admits-minister-amid-evacuation-chaos-dvfvtdd32

    That contradicts Biden yesterday who said in his press conference that he expects the US presence will go beyond the 31st August and that it will be extended as necessary

    Indeed, I suspect Biden will find it very difficult in the next few weeks just to fly out of Kabul with his troops leaving 15,000 US citizens behind

    It was also admitted US jets are overflying Kabul in close protection

  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 4,922
    IanB2 said:

    In other news:

    Former Sheffield Hallam MP Jared O'Mara has been charged with seven counts of fraud. South Yorkshire Police said the charges related to a number of alleged fraudulent expenses claims.

    Mr O'Mara, 39, is charged alongside former aide Gareth Arnold, who faces six counts of fraud, and a third man, John Woodliff, who faces a single charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act. They will appear before magistrates in Sheffield on 24 September.

    The offences are said to have occurred between October 2018 and February 2020. The force said the charges brought against Mr O'Mara, of Walker Close, Sheffield, related to expenses claims submitted to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

    "The charge relates to an allegation he made fraudulent invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority jointly with Gareth Arnold, who is also charged with six counts of the same offence."

    What a miserable specimen he was all round. Really reflects badly on Labour's processes for selecting candidates.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,586
    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    Can you imagine the family and spousal pressure he would have been under not to spoil it?
    I have always been on the Raab side of "if it can wait, don't bother me on holiday, the wife will otherwise not be best pleased". I would suggest this might be one of those times where (irrespective of the futily of the subsequent refused call) it couldn't wait.

    No excuses. Should he fall? That is up to Johnson.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    DavidL said:

    I find Raab dull, wooden and boring but it is worth bearing in mind that it is not that long since he was thought to have done a good job when Boris was off with Covid.

    I also think that it is important that politicians have some sort of normal in their lives and are able to spend time with their families. People who are willing to expose themselves in the way politicians have to are weird enough in the first place and we do not want to encourage them to get any weirder. It really doesn't say much for the FO if it cannot operate without the FS for a week when other ministers are available.

    The backlash he is suffering is a consequence of this being an undoubted humiliation both in the total failure of the mission and the way in which the outcome was dumped on us by the US without consultation. That is fair enough, this has been a disastrous episode, but the focus on the trivia of this call and his week off is typical of the way that our politics is distorted.

    The idea that this phone call to an Aghan government totally focused on finding the first plane out, ideally with some loot, would have made any difference whatsoever is risible. Where there were failures is to assess the situation on the ground, realise that things could collapse quickly, making contingency plans for that scenario and getting all non essential personnel out of the country. We dragged our feet on the interpreters for far too long and now it is beyond our power. This is a significant failure of government but we focus on the trivia.

    £5,000/night plus on a holiday is hardly normal.

    The point is that the missing phone call is a symptom of an FS intent on enjoying his luxury holiday and not focused on the tragic crisis unfolding overseas on his watch.
  • DavidL said:

    I find Raab dull, wooden and boring but it is worth bearing in mind that it is not that long since he was thought to have done a good job when Boris was off with Covid.

    I also think that it is important that politicians have some sort of normal in their lives and are able to spend time with their families. People who are willing to expose themselves in the way politicians have to are weird enough in the first place and we do not want to encourage them to get any weirder. It really doesn't say much for the FO if it cannot operate without the FS for a week when other ministers are available.

    The backlash he is suffering is a consequence of this being an undoubted humiliation both in the total failure of the mission and the way in which the outcome was dumped on us by the US without consultation. That is fair enough, this has been a disastrous episode, but the focus on the trivia of this call and his week off is typical of the way that our politics is distorted.

    The idea that this phone call to an Aghan government totally focused on finding the first plane out, ideally with some loot, would have made any difference whatsoever is risible. Where there were failures is to assess the situation on the ground, realise that things could collapse quickly, making contingency plans for that scenario and getting all non essential personnel out of the country. We dragged our feet on the interpreters for far too long and now it is beyond our power. This is a significant failure of government but we focus on the trivia.

    Good to read a mature and sensible post on this
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    DavidL said:

    I find Raab dull, wooden and boring but it is worth bearing in mind that it is not that long since he was thought to have done a good job when Boris was off with Covid.

    I also think that it is important that politicians have some sort of normal in their lives and are able to spend time with their families. People who are willing to expose themselves in the way politicians have to are weird enough in the first place and we do not want to encourage them to get any weirder. It really doesn't say much for the FO if it cannot operate without the FS for a week when other ministers are available.

    The backlash he is suffering is a consequence of this being an undoubted humiliation both in the total failure of the mission and the way in which the outcome was dumped on us by the US without consultation. That is fair enough, this has been a disastrous episode, but the focus on the trivia of this call and his week off is typical of the way that our politics is distorted.

    The idea that this phone call to an Aghan government totally focused on finding the first plane out, ideally with some loot, would have made any difference whatsoever is risible. Where there were failures is to assess the situation on the ground, realise that things could collapse quickly, making contingency plans for that scenario and getting all non essential personnel out of the country. We dragged our feet on the interpreters for far too long and now it is beyond our power. This is a significant failure of government but we focus on the trivia.

    I’d agree with all of that. Unfortunately, people want someone to blame, the Mail has it in for him because Geordie Greig hates the Brexiteers and the story does show remarkable tone deafness on Raman’s part
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    edited August 2021

    IanB2 said:

    In other news:

    Former Sheffield Hallam MP Jared O'Mara has been charged with seven counts of fraud. South Yorkshire Police said the charges related to a number of alleged fraudulent expenses claims.

    Mr O'Mara, 39, is charged alongside former aide Gareth Arnold, who faces six counts of fraud, and a third man, John Woodliff, who faces a single charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act. They will appear before magistrates in Sheffield on 24 September.

    The offences are said to have occurred between October 2018 and February 2020. The force said the charges brought against Mr O'Mara, of Walker Close, Sheffield, related to expenses claims submitted to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

    "The charge relates to an allegation he made fraudulent invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority jointly with Gareth Arnold, who is also charged with six counts of the same offence."

    What a miserable specimen he was all round. Really reflects badly on Labour's processes for selecting candidates.
    Especially as somewhere like Sheffield must be awash with Labour councillor and trade union worthies with proven track records who would have been willing to give the high-profile task of taking on Clegg a go.

    Also note the dates - he left Parliament in 2019 (indeed in practice years earlier) yet was still making claims in Feb 2020
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    moonshine said:

    The Return of ‘America Held Hostage’
    Some 15,000 U.S. citizens and residents are behind Taliban lines. There’s no easy way to get them out.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-american-withdrawal-kabul-taliban-afghanistan-evacuate-iran-hostage-crisis-carter-11629303110

    This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.

    And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.

    Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.

    One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
    Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.

    Very depressing.

    Hope I am wrong.
    Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,042
    President Biden, facing intense criticism over the chaotic push to get Americans and Afghan allies out of Afghanistan, will speak about the evacuation effort on Friday afternoon.

    The remarks, planned for 1 p.m.,

    NYTimes
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    Just to clarify, am I right in saying the defence of Raab is now, "Yeah, the lazy, heartless f***er couldn't be arsed with any of it when he was on holiday, despite being told to by senior officials. But he's so impotent anyway that the point is moot"?

    That appears to be the case, based upon this thread so far
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    kjh said:

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    I agree with you, but then I looked him up. His parents were refugees with average jobs, he didn't work in particularly high paying jobs and he didn't appear to marry money so could be a valid question, although generally I don't think it's any of my business.
    I've no interest in defending Raab, but doesn't he also get a ministerial salary on top of his MP's salary? So, his actual salary would be around £150k? Still £40k would be a big chunk of that.
    Yes and his wife would have a good salary also. I think the original tweet was flawed but still I think we need to be open about the funds of those that govern us and that does seem a punchy holiday which stupidly will raise such questions, particularly even in E&W.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454

    moonshine said:

    The Return of ‘America Held Hostage’
    Some 15,000 U.S. citizens and residents are behind Taliban lines. There’s no easy way to get them out.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-american-withdrawal-kabul-taliban-afghanistan-evacuate-iran-hostage-crisis-carter-11629303110

    This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.

    And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.

    Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.

    One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
    Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.

    Very depressing.

    Hope I am wrong.
    Not as depressing as my visions of Trump declaring himself President for life shortly after.......
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 4,922
    MrEd said:

    DavidL said:

    I find Raab dull, wooden and boring but it is worth bearing in mind that it is not that long since he was thought to have done a good job when Boris was off with Covid.

    I also think that it is important that politicians have some sort of normal in their lives and are able to spend time with their families. People who are willing to expose themselves in the way politicians have to are weird enough in the first place and we do not want to encourage them to get any weirder. It really doesn't say much for the FO if it cannot operate without the FS for a week when other ministers are available.

    The backlash he is suffering is a consequence of this being an undoubted humiliation both in the total failure of the mission and the way in which the outcome was dumped on us by the US without consultation. That is fair enough, this has been a disastrous episode, but the focus on the trivia of this call and his week off is typical of the way that our politics is distorted.

    The idea that this phone call to an Aghan government totally focused on finding the first plane out, ideally with some loot, would have made any difference whatsoever is risible. Where there were failures is to assess the situation on the ground, realise that things could collapse quickly, making contingency plans for that scenario and getting all non essential personnel out of the country. We dragged our feet on the interpreters for far too long and now it is beyond our power. This is a significant failure of government but we focus on the trivia.

    I’d agree with all of that. Unfortunately, people want someone to blame, the Mail has it in for him because Geordie Greig hates the Brexiteers and the story does show remarkable tone deafness on Raman’s part
    I think David's point is that there is something to blame here - a serious failure of contingency planning, which is likely to cost the lives of interpreters who worked for this country. And if we are looking for someone to blame for that, Raab would be an obvious starting point.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    moonshine said:

    The Return of ‘America Held Hostage’
    Some 15,000 U.S. citizens and residents are behind Taliban lines. There’s no easy way to get them out.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-american-withdrawal-kabul-taliban-afghanistan-evacuate-iran-hostage-crisis-carter-11629303110

    This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.

    And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.

    Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.

    One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
    “The media under direction”? My oh my, @Moonshine, you will have people like Northern_Al claiming you are a conspiracy theorist.
  • DavidL said:

    I find Raab dull, wooden and boring but it is worth bearing in mind that it is not that long since he was thought to have done a good job when Boris was off with Covid.

    I also think that it is important that politicians have some sort of normal in their lives and are able to spend time with their families. People who are willing to expose themselves in the way politicians have to are weird enough in the first place and we do not want to encourage them to get any weirder. It really doesn't say much for the FO if it cannot operate without the FS for a week when other ministers are available.

    The backlash he is suffering is a consequence of this being an undoubted humiliation both in the total failure of the mission and the way in which the outcome was dumped on us by the US without consultation. That is fair enough, this has been a disastrous episode, but the focus on the trivia of this call and his week off is typical of the way that our politics is distorted.

    The idea that this phone call to an Aghan government totally focused on finding the first plane out, ideally with some loot, would have made any difference whatsoever is risible. Where there were failures is to assess the situation on the ground, realise that things could collapse quickly, making contingency plans for that scenario and getting all non essential personnel out of the country. We dragged our feet on the interpreters for far too long and now it is beyond our power. This is a significant failure of government but we focus on the trivia.

    You're dealing with the real world not twatter world.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083
    kjh said:

    kjh said:

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    I agree with you, but then I looked him up. His parents were refugees with average jobs, he didn't work in particularly high paying jobs and he didn't appear to marry money so could be a valid question, although generally I don't think it's any of my business.
    I've no interest in defending Raab, but doesn't he also get a ministerial salary on top of his MP's salary? So, his actual salary would be around £150k? Still £40k would be a big chunk of that.
    Yes and his wife would have a good salary also. I think the original tweet was flawed but still I think we need to be open about the funds of those that govern us and that does seem a punchy holiday which stupidly will raise such questions, particularly even in E&W.
    Many people have cancelled at least one holiday over the past eighteen months, which does leave funds for a special one this time. Indeed there has been media coverage of 'ordinary people' planning special trips next year; so buy shares in luxury travel companies?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,757
    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    Its really hard to believe that there were insufficient loons in the SNP to fill their posts but they have decided to import some extra fruity ones anyway: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-58272209

    The idea of Patrick Harvie being in charge of anything more serious than getting dressed in the morning is just mind blowing.

    So the Holyrood front bench is as pisspoor as the Westminster ones?

    No surprises there!
    Holyrood seems to exist to make Westminster look good. Its not easy to make a complete buffoon like Gavin Williamson look competent but John Swinney is up for the challenge.
    And as for Humza Yousaf...
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,586

    DavidL said:

    I find Raab dull, wooden and boring but it is worth bearing in mind that it is not that long since he was thought to have done a good job when Boris was off with Covid.

    I also think that it is important that politicians have some sort of normal in their lives and are able to spend time with their families. People who are willing to expose themselves in the way politicians have to are weird enough in the first place and we do not want to encourage them to get any weirder. It really doesn't say much for the FO if it cannot operate without the FS for a week when other ministers are available.

    The backlash he is suffering is a consequence of this being an undoubted humiliation both in the total failure of the mission and the way in which the outcome was dumped on us by the US without consultation. That is fair enough, this has been a disastrous episode, but the focus on the trivia of this call and his week off is typical of the way that our politics is distorted.

    The idea that this phone call to an Aghan government totally focused on finding the first plane out, ideally with some loot, would have made any difference whatsoever is risible. Where there were failures is to assess the situation on the ground, realise that things could collapse quickly, making contingency plans for that scenario and getting all non essential personnel out of the country. We dragged our feet on the interpreters for far too long and now it is beyond our power. This is a significant failure of government but we focus on the trivia.

    Good to read a mature and sensible post on this
    Nonetheless, one that totally misses the point. Namely Raab's phonecall failure is symptomatic of many other recent Foreign Office failures in relation to Afghanistan.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Conor McGinn, shadow security minister on government being “blindsided” by Taliban advance says

    “Where have they been for the past 18 months? We knew this day was coming”. Says the foreign secretary had numerous G7 and NATO meetings in which would have been discussed.

    https://twitter.com/tamcohen/status/1428615934097379333
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    This is pretty extraordinary:

    @larisamlbrown reveals this morning that *just 10* FCDO and Border Force staff are in Kabul processing visa applications

    They only arrived on Tuesday night

    For several days only foreign office official/ diplomat at airport was the ambassador

    https://twitter.com/larisamlbrown/status/1428478067526225923
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,042
    What would the last king of Afghanistan have said about this week. Friedman imagines...



    "Let me tell you, Mr. Friedman, more than 70 percent of Afghanistan’s population is under 25 years old. Most of them know nothing about the Taliban and have never heard of Mullah Omar — just like all those 20-somethings in Iran who have never heard of the shah and give Iran’s Islamic rulers grief every day. They have been raised in a different Afghanistan, in a different age, and they will not easily give up the freedoms they enjoyed these past 20 years, even if the country was a mess.

    Tribes in this part of the world, Mr. Friedman, have a saying: Me and my brother against my cousin. Me and my brother and my cousin against the outsider."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/opinion/afghanistan-us-taliban.html
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    MrEd said:

    moonshine said:

    The Return of ‘America Held Hostage’
    Some 15,000 U.S. citizens and residents are behind Taliban lines. There’s no easy way to get them out.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-american-withdrawal-kabul-taliban-afghanistan-evacuate-iran-hostage-crisis-carter-11629303110

    This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.

    And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.

    Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.

    One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
    “The media under direction”? My oh my, @Moonshine, you will have people like Northern_Al claiming you are a conspiracy theorist.
    You are aware of the D Notice mechanism right?
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,009
    DavidL said:

    I find Raab dull, wooden and boring but it is worth bearing in mind that it is not that long since he was thought to have done a good job when Boris was off with Covid.

    I also think that it is important that politicians have some sort of normal in their lives and are able to spend time with their families. People who are willing to expose themselves in the way politicians have to are weird enough in the first place and we do not want to encourage them to get any weirder. It really doesn't say much for the FO if it cannot operate without the FS for a week when other ministers are available.

    The backlash he is suffering is a consequence of this being an undoubted humiliation both in the total failure of the mission and the way in which the outcome was dumped on us by the US without consultation. That is fair enough, this has been a disastrous episode, but the focus on the trivia of this call and his week off is typical of the way that our politics is distorted.

    The idea that this phone call to an Aghan government totally focused on finding the first plane out, ideally with some loot, would have made any difference whatsoever is risible. Where there were failures is to assess the situation on the ground, realise that things could collapse quickly, making contingency plans for that scenario and getting all non essential personnel out of the country. We dragged our feet on the interpreters for far too long and now it is beyond our power. This is a significant failure of government but we focus on the trivia.

    Wow.

    Surely it's Somebody's Law of the Internet that there's nothing so bad that somebody won't defend it online.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,042

    moonshine said:

    The Return of ‘America Held Hostage’
    Some 15,000 U.S. citizens and residents are behind Taliban lines. There’s no easy way to get them out.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-american-withdrawal-kabul-taliban-afghanistan-evacuate-iran-hostage-crisis-carter-11629303110

    This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.

    And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.

    Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.

    One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
    Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.

    Very depressing.

    Hope I am wrong.
    Not as depressing as my visions of Trump declaring himself President for life shortly after.......
    Indeed. Frankly, an attempt at a third term by some kind of coup is a given with Trump. Unless nature intervenes.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    I am sure he has been saving for years and this was the holiday of a lifetime. By analysing the sums it looks like a figure one might spend on a prestige car over five years. Do people pay for holidays on the "never, never"?

    If it is legit, good for him. Nonetheless it doesn't detract from the no-show phonecall.
    Some years ago I took all my family for two weeks holiday in Villa in Tuscany and paid for everything

    It was financed out of my investments and had nothing to do with my annual income

    The idea you have to be poor to be a politician is nonsense as is the idea Raab's missed phone call had any effect on the chaos in Kabul

    However, Raab is not the most inspiring of politicians and if it is true he went on holiday and made it clear he was not to be disturbed, then as Foreign Secretary that is absurd and no doubt in time he will be moved out of his role

    Though with Boris who knows when as he still has Williamson, Patel and Jenrick in his cabinet
    Only in Tory land does not spending £40,000 on a weeks holiday equal being poor.

  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,748
    edited August 2021
    DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    Can you imagine the family and spousal pressure he would have been under not to spoil it?
    The idea that a holiday would be spoiled by the absence of the Raabot is one to conjure with.

    In other news, ye cannae have a party withoot Mikey Gove.
  • What would the last king of Afghanistan have said about this week. Friedman imagines...



    "Let me tell you, Mr. Friedman, more than 70 percent of Afghanistan’s population is under 25 years old. Most of them know nothing about the Taliban and have never heard of Mullah Omar — just like all those 20-somethings in Iran who have never heard of the shah and give Iran’s Islamic rulers grief every day. They have been raised in a different Afghanistan, in a different age, and they will not easily give up the freedoms they enjoyed these past 20 years, even if the country was a mess.

    Tribes in this part of the world, Mr. Friedman, have a saying: Me and my brother against my cousin. Me and my brother and my cousin against the outsider."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/opinion/afghanistan-us-taliban.html

    How many fought against the Taliban when they had the chance ?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,042
    MrEd said:

    moonshine said:

    The Return of ‘America Held Hostage’
    Some 15,000 U.S. citizens and residents are behind Taliban lines. There’s no easy way to get them out.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-american-withdrawal-kabul-taliban-afghanistan-evacuate-iran-hostage-crisis-carter-11629303110

    This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.

    And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.

    Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.

    One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
    Increasingly, I see a Trump 2nd presidency looming.

    Very depressing.

    Hope I am wrong.
    Too early to say and a lot of things could happen but I do think a GOP majority in both Houses is looking more nailed on for 2022 (Adam Laxalt announcing his Senate run in Nevada is a plus for the GOP and I think Sununu will run in NH). What that could mean is impeachment hearings against Biden for the way he handled the Afghanistan exit.
    I can see Biden turning out to be right about Afghanistan but blamed by voters for leaving in such a mess and not recovering.
  • DavidL said:

    Foxy said:

    How the other half live. No wonder Raab didn't want to abandon his holiday. His week in Crete cot more than half his salary, presuming he paid himself:

    https://twitter.com/manda_m0/status/1428054565631451143?s=19

    An MP's salary is £81,932

    The cost of Raabs holiday £40,000!

    Dominic Raab spent half his yearly salary on a one week holiday?!

    Who really paid for it???? https://t.co/eeGYlWHxqW

    I am not defending Raab but what has his salary to do with paying for a holiday

    I do not know but surely Raab is wealthy enough to pay for his holiday from his savings
    Can you imagine the family and spousal pressure he would have been under not to spoil it?
    I have always been on the Raab side of "if it can wait, don't bother me on holiday, the wife will otherwise not be best pleased". I would suggest this might be one of those times where (irrespective of the futily of the subsequent refused call) it couldn't wait.

    No excuses. Should he fall? That is up to Johnson.
    I have also been of that mindset. However when you get into leadership positions there are some things that can't be delegated and cannot wait because you are on holiday. That is why you have the job with the big responsibility and the salary to go with it. Holiday or not when the ceiling is falling in you need to participate!
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,083

    DavidL said:

    I find Raab dull, wooden and boring but it is worth bearing in mind that it is not that long since he was thought to have done a good job when Boris was off with Covid.

    I also think that it is important that politicians have some sort of normal in their lives and are able to spend time with their families. People who are willing to expose themselves in the way politicians have to are weird enough in the first place and we do not want to encourage them to get any weirder. It really doesn't say much for the FO if it cannot operate without the FS for a week when other ministers are available.

    The backlash he is suffering is a consequence of this being an undoubted humiliation both in the total failure of the mission and the way in which the outcome was dumped on us by the US without consultation. That is fair enough, this has been a disastrous episode, but the focus on the trivia of this call and his week off is typical of the way that our politics is distorted.

    The idea that this phone call to an Aghan government totally focused on finding the first plane out, ideally with some loot, would have made any difference whatsoever is risible. Where there were failures is to assess the situation on the ground, realise that things could collapse quickly, making contingency plans for that scenario and getting all non essential personnel out of the country. We dragged our feet on the interpreters for far too long and now it is beyond our power. This is a significant failure of government but we focus on the trivia.

    Good to read a mature and sensible post on this
    Nonetheless, one that totally misses the point. Namely Raab's phonecall failure is symptomatic of many other recent Foreign Office failures in relation to Afghanistan.
    And who is to say that a phone call direct from the FS to the Afghan equivalent, who would have been able to give a first hand account on the spot (or indeed might be absent having already legged it from his office) might have brought home to Raab that the situation was deteriorating fast and might merit a little of his attention?
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,435
    moonshine said:

    MrEd said:

    moonshine said:

    The Return of ‘America Held Hostage’
    Some 15,000 U.S. citizens and residents are behind Taliban lines. There’s no easy way to get them out.

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-american-withdrawal-kabul-taliban-afghanistan-evacuate-iran-hostage-crisis-carter-11629303110

    This has been going over and over in my mind for days. Just think of all the attention in the 80s over Terry Waite, John McCarthy and Brian Keenan. Wikipedia tells me there were 104 Western hostages in Lebanon in total.

    And here we are with perhaps 3k Brits, 15k Americans and an unknown number of others from other Western countries, their lives in the hands of a regime far more barbaric and unpredictable than Hezbollah.

    Yokel tells that some security firms are advising clients to stay put for now. Stay put for what exactly? Personally I’d take my chances now than after 31 Aug when all bets are off to Taliban behaviour.

    One gets the feeling that the media are under direction not to report just how dire this situation really is. The US system is different of course but I reckon the chances of the British government falling over this are not inconsiderable, especially if it’s true that Macron and Merkel largely got their people out ahead of time.
    “The media under direction”? My oh my, @Moonshine, you will have people like Northern_Al claiming you are a conspiracy theorist.
    You are aware of the D Notice mechanism right?
    D notices are nowhere near as useful as they were...... twitter/social media/iphones and rolling international agencies (al jazeera etc) has almost killed its effectiveness.
  • Covid situation continuing to worsen in Bulgaria:

    https://coronavirus.bg/

    Multiply numbers by ten for UK equivalents.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    There are two key considerations here. One is how much revenue Scotland generates. GERS finds that, even taking into consideration a geographical share of oil and gas production, Scotland raised £382 less per person in revenue than the UK average. This is despite the Scottish Government being given the power to create a Scottish Rate of Income Tax and ministers using it to introduce a higher-rate band than the rest of the UK, so that top-rate payers are liable for 46 per cent in taxation. Handed a licence to print money, the Scottish Government has ended up bringing in less of it.

    https://stephendaisley.substack.com/p/the-union-is-more-than-a-dividend
  • Chris said:

    DavidL said:

    I find Raab dull, wooden and boring but it is worth bearing in mind that it is not that long since he was thought to have done a good job when Boris was off with Covid.

    I also think that it is important that politicians have some sort of normal in their lives and are able to spend time with their families. People who are willing to expose themselves in the way politicians have to are weird enough in the first place and we do not want to encourage them to get any weirder. It really doesn't say much for the FO if it cannot operate without the FS for a week when other ministers are available.

    The backlash he is suffering is a consequence of this being an undoubted humiliation both in the total failure of the mission and the way in which the outcome was dumped on us by the US without consultation. That is fair enough, this has been a disastrous episode, but the focus on the trivia of this call and his week off is typical of the way that our politics is distorted.

    The idea that this phone call to an Aghan government totally focused on finding the first plane out, ideally with some loot, would have made any difference whatsoever is risible. Where there were failures is to assess the situation on the ground, realise that things could collapse quickly, making contingency plans for that scenario and getting all non essential personnel out of the country. We dragged our feet on the interpreters for far too long and now it is beyond our power. This is a significant failure of government but we focus on the trivia.

    Wow.

    Surely it's Somebody's Law of the Internet that there's nothing so bad that somebody won't defend it online.
    So what would you have done ?
  • Scott_xP said:

    This is pretty extraordinary:

    @larisamlbrown reveals this morning that *just 10* FCDO and Border Force staff are in Kabul processing visa applications

    They only arrived on Tuesday night

    For several days only foreign office official/ diplomat at airport was the ambassador

    https://twitter.com/larisamlbrown/status/1428478067526225923

    It gets worse. They will likely have to sack the Ambassador for making Raab et al look bad.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    IanB2 said:

    In other news:

    Former Sheffield Hallam MP Jared O'Mara has been charged with seven counts of fraud. South Yorkshire Police said the charges related to a number of alleged fraudulent expenses claims.

    Mr O'Mara, 39, is charged alongside former aide Gareth Arnold, who faces six counts of fraud, and a third man, John Woodliff, who faces a single charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act. They will appear before magistrates in Sheffield on 24 September.

    The offences are said to have occurred between October 2018 and February 2020. The force said the charges brought against Mr O'Mara, of Walker Close, Sheffield, related to expenses claims submitted to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

    "The charge relates to an allegation he made fraudulent invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority jointly with Gareth Arnold, who is also charged with six counts of the same offence."

    The reason shit candidates like this get put forward is that the most able potential candidates to be our representatives think "not bloody likely..."

    That situation is not going to improve with those baying for Raab's head. Politics has become a play thing of (often ill-informed) gobshites on social media. Usually by those who don't put their name forward to the electorate (probably because they know they would have no chance of getting elected if they did...).
This discussion has been closed.