General British politics discussion thread

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118118688#Comment_118118688

Patterson is not the victim here (not that you said he was of course), he's the perpetrator and he's been shown clearly to be the corrupt individual that he is. His word is less than dirt IMO.

Retr0gamer

Patterson blaming the commission on his wife's suicide is sickening. It's like blaming the divorce proceeding on why your wife is leaving after you got caught riding her sister.

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118118688#Comment_118118688

I think I know what this is referring to and they are being entirely disingenuous here. As Johnson was speaking, there was some murmuring from opposition benches, not mocking someone's tragic death from suicide as they are absurdly claiming, but in dismay at Johnson (and others) using that tragedy in such cynical fashion to deflect from the real issue which was corruption. Pretty desperate stuff from the likes of Quentin Letts and others still shilling for their chum for all their worth.

Mr.Nice Guy

They must have been really rattled by the reaction to do such a screeching u-turn. I hope the electorate won't let them off the hook. The next opinion polls will be interesting.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118116549#Comment_118116549

Interesting take. I notice you didn't respond to my question yesterday on this.

.how do you feel now after rushing to an early defence this morning.

It's with much joy for me when I see the Tories scrambling around to back peddle stuff they said less than 24 hours before. They arent a serious political party. They are a rag tag bunch of seriously inept very privately educated individuals with very poor educational outcome. Corruption is rampant throughout the party. They are more akin to something you'd see come out of a former Soviet country. It's amusing seeing anyone defend this. It's indefensible you can't be a serious conservative voter and be happy with this governance. And using the pandemic as an excuse. Give over.

pjcb

did they actually reverse the amendment?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118121156#Comment_118121156

Not yet. But they are expected to table a motion to do so next week.

[On edit: I'm not sure whether or how Paterson's resignation from Parliament might impact on this, but I think the U-turn will go ahead. The gist of the amendment was to pause the proceedings against Paterson while a committee was appointed to revise the process. Even if the proceedings against Paterson are now irrelevant - and I'm not sure about that - I presume it's still the case that the opposition parties would boycott the committee, and the Tories would be mad at this point to U-turn the U-turn and go back to the idea of appointing a one-party committee to revise the process for policing MPs' ethical standards.]

cml387

I note with interest that it the Daily Mail was bitter in its front page condemnation of the goverment, and one can speculate that it was a big factor in Boris engaging the reverse-ferret maneuver.

Not the first time the Mail has had a go at Boris, since the change of editorship.

Joe_ Public

In his statement to the house yesterday during order of business, Rees Mogg clarified they were still proceeding with the review and would be bringing proposals at a later date. The subsequent resignation of Paterson has no material effect on that as they claim the two aren't linked. So the amendment still very much stands and no full u turn has, as yet, taken place.

That said, any new proposals have to be on a cross party basis so if opposition parties simply refuse to play ball, i don't believe there's much the government can do about it. Where that leaves the whole process and the current status of the standards committee, I'm not very sure tbh. Does it simply proceed with its business until such a time a new or "reformed" body is established? The government is playing with a very weak hand right now, that much is certain at least.

pjcb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118121244#Comment_118121244

so at the moment Boris Johnson has got exactly what he wanted, a new appeal system, to undermine the commissioner.

breezy1985

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed the Rt Hon Owen William Paterson to be Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.”

There is no official process for an MP to stand down from the Commons and the parliament website says that “unless they die or are expelled they must become disqualified if they wish to retire before the end of a parliament”.

However they can be made ineligible to be an MP under the law by taking one of two offices of profit under the Crown – Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds, or Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.

The unpaid roles have no responsibilities and the Manor of Northstead, a former medieval estate in North Yorkshire, has been redeveloped and forms part of Scarborough. However, the process allows MPs to resign within the law.

Would you listen to this antiquated waffle. The UK really needs to cop on and develop parliamentary procedure for the 21st century

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118122130#Comment_118122130

Well, no, he hasn't got it yet.

He still intends to seek it, but the mechanism by which he hopes to get it is a parliamentary committee, and the opposition parties are still saying they won't participate. On the numbers, if the Tory parliamentary party is sufficiently cowed, he could still whip them all to vote for a one-party committee, then whip them again to vote for the report of the committee to be implemented as the new appeal system. But the political cost of doing that would be huge, given the corner he has painted himself into; the resultant appeal system would lack all credibility or legitimacy; and the Tory party's reputation as the party of sleaze would be strongly reinforced.

It's not clear, to put it no higher, that this would be "exactly what he wanted". It's also at least possible that being required to swallow and support all this would be a step too far even for the current Tory parliamentary part. There must be a degree of humiliattion that even they will revolt at. So it's not just that it would be unwise for Johnson to do this; it might actually be impossible for him to do it.

More likely, the Tories are keeping the possibility open because (a) they are trying to save a bit of face, and intend to bury it more quietly in due course, or (b) they intend to talk to the opposition and try and modify the proposal so that the opposition will play ball - meaning that Johnson ends up with an appeal system on terms acceptable to the opposition, which is not "exactly what he wanted".

20silkcut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118122144#Comment_118122144

This was a role once occupied by Gerry adams

pjcb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118122212#Comment_118122212

so he hasn't got what he wanted because that bill that the amendment was added to hasn't been fully passed and enacted, but currently he is in position to get exactly what he wanted because he hasn't actually u-turned yet.

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118122511#Comment_118122511

Bottom line: he's made an absolute horlicks of it. His obvious motive setting out was to undermine the independence and integrity of the standards committee, and the commissioner in particular, but has succeeded more in further undermining his own already piteously low integrity as well as enraging a large section of his own mps, in pretty needless fashion you'd have to say. Above anything, I don't understand how Johnson, or the various factions pushing him, from mps to vested interests in the media, thought they could actually fly with this. Its mind boggling and just shows either how politically stupid or entitled they are, possibly even both. I'm not sure how exactly the process plays out from here, but that it does not end well for Johnson, and possibly one or two others as well, I am pretty certain about.

pjcb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118122718#Comment_118122718

he won the vote.

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118122820#Comment_118122820

Yes indeed, he "won" the vote and how sweet it must taste.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118122820#Comment_118122820

Wow well that's all of us put back in our boxes

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118122718#Comment_118122718

I mean if you think about it one way why wouldn't they think that they could get away with it?

• They got away with proroguing parliament.
• They got away with a calamitous handling of the Pandemic
• They got away with forcing through the hardest of Brexits that certainly wouldn't have won the referendum
• They got away with taking no action against Priti Patel after she had found to be a serial bully of her staff
• They got away with Johnson brazenly accepting benefits (holidays, redecorating) from donors and cronies

They did all these things and more and it didn't make any real dent to their polling. It's only natural for them to become cocky and believe that the normal rules of political gravity no longer applied to them. They over-reached and finally faced some pushback from at least some of their own press. Is it a turning point? Probably not. More likely that they know where the line is now and they'll keep inside it but still well outside the norms of what would have been acceptable only a decade ago.

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118123062#Comment_118123062

I definitely would be in broad agreement with you there. But one point I would make is that if you go back to those brexit wars, I think you can point to some obvious tactical gains behind their strategy: played to their hardcore brexit supporting base while simultaneously undermining some troublesome remainer tory mps etc. Similar with the whole prorogueing episode. As sleazy as it was, you can at least see the plan, the method to Cummings seeming madness. I don't see any of that here, and the same with the school dinners debacle last year. They are just mindlessly stupid decisions with no rhyme or reason to them and, yes, it's impossible to say it'll lead to a tipping point anytime soon but I still wouldn't go as far as saying they'll have gotten away with it either. I think it's all wreaking damage but the opposition has to work out how to make profit off the back of it. Data breaches and getting bogged down in needless internal purges is not the way forward imho.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118123283#Comment_118123283

I saw a clip from James O'Brien earlier where he made an adjacent point to this. His theory as to why this landed so hard for the Tories whereas they had gotten away with other things before was that in the past they were always able to fob people off with the excuse that "This is about getting Brexit done".

Now, that they are out and this was clearly not a Brexit issue that excuse does not work.

A Dub in Glasgo

Also Martin McGunness. The UK parliament would rather invent these procedures over reworking the laws and rules surrounding MPs... it is bizarre in the 21st century

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stewards_of_the_Manor_of_Northstead

Tell me how

I was listening to an old episode of the Brexitcast podcast today as it was downloaded to my phone. It was from the time of the Conservative party conference about 6 weeks ago.

In it, twice, Laura Keunnsberg made the point that the Tories want to reinforce the message that they are the party of Law and Order. It was particularly interesting what went on this week as they tried to not only save Owen Paterson but make the chair of the Standards committee which found him guilty of breaking the law to assess her own position (i.e. stand down).

Also notable that when tweeting about the Patterson affair earlier this week, Keunnsberg described it as a Westminster village affair, implying that it was a small story of little consequence. How wrong she was.

Seth Brundle

In fairness, Laura Keunnsberg is an absolute disgrace to her profession.

Tell me how

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118128790#Comment_118128790

I was a big fan of hers years ago but ever since Brexit, I think she's not far off the Fox News benchmark when it comes to impartiality. She gets absolutely ratioed in most of her tweets now, she must completely ignore them once she has sent them as it would be hard reading to go through the responses.

Joe_ Public

Kuennsberg and Peston, two of a kind, no government "source" they won't go toadying to just to be able to put up some mind bogglingly inane tweet. "Courtiers," to use the phrase coined by George Monbiot iirc. Quitting as bbc politics editor it was recently announced, moving to radio 4 breakfast i think.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118128840#Comment_118128840

If you rely on George Monbiot as your benchmark, then you will never find an impartial reporter to be fair.

im not a big fan of Kuennsberg, I do find her unnecessarily toady towards MPs, but the way people go on you’d think she was comical Ali.

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118130330#Comment_118130330

However long Cummings was using her as his primary source, whatever purpose it served for Kuennsberg, it wasn't the purpose of cutting or incisive journalism anyway. It did, of course, net her an exclusive interview and hour long tv show so she got her "payback." Whether it was actually Monbiot or not, I'm not even sure but not at all surprised you can't stand him, courtier rather than journalist is right on the money.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118130447#Comment_118130447

Do you have anything to back up any of these claims?

monbiot is a looney hate the establishment columnist. It is quite worrying that people don’t see him that way and actually think his rants are gospel. It is because of loopers like him that the opposition aren’t getting any messages across, for the same reason the villagers didn’t respond to the boy who kept crying wolf.

Joe_ Public

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118131083#Comment_118131083

I don't need to back them up. Cummings himself revealed that Kuennsberg was his chosen media outlet so it simply defies all reason to see many of her "government sources" exclusives as anything other than so blurring the line between journalist and unofficial no.10 mouthpiece as to be virtually meaningless. It's a heck of a deal more solid than your rather intemperate rant against George Monbiot anyway.