NPR

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 10:45 pm

I like neeps wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 8:50 pm https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a204 ... b91401d126

This is quite incredible. Shamima Begum was trafficked to Syria by a Canadian intelligence double agent and everyone then covered it up!

Iran-Contra did it for me; after the revelations in it, nothing ever seemed incredible anymore, it was just wondering about how much cognitive dissonance people were capable of, without their heads exploding, & how far people could disappear up their own rectums to justify the most unjustifiable.

There are a lot of sociopaths out there, & they often end up in positions of significant power.

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 7:28 am Express reporting that Boris is "proud of what we did". Oh really?

Don’t fall for the revisionism – Boris Johnson was a catastrophe for Britain
In three years he almost destroyed the country. Could the Conservatives really be mad or desperate enough to give this man another chance to finish the job?

A week to go, and the most destructive, divisive and dishonest prime minister in modern British history will finally be gone. Or will he?

Already the revisionism is well under way. Boris Johnson triggered it the day he announced his resignation on the steps of No 10, referring to his “incredible mandate” from the British people and the treachery of the Westminster “herd” who had deposed him.

Nadine Dorries, Jacob Rees-Mogg and other Johnson sycophants followed his lead, claiming he had been the victim of an undemocratic coup. The right-wing tabloids took up the theme. A recent YouGov poll showed Conservative Party members still prefer Johnson to either of his would-be successors. Nearly 9,000 have signed a petition demanding a vote on whether he should have been forced to resign. The Sunday Times reports that many voters are now suffering “seller’s remorse”. Rory Stewart, the former Conservative minister, warns in a Guardian interview that Johnson will be like Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, “hovering around, hoping for a populist return”.

Johnson is a supremely artful crafter of mendacious narratives. As the Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent in the early 1990s, he did as much as anyone to create the potent myth about lonely Britain fighting a desperate rearguard action against a scheming European Union bent on destroying our traditional way of life (the truth is that we were a big powerful member state with many allies). In 2019 he succeeded brilliantly in portraying himself as a champion of the Brexit-voting masses defending the “will of the people” against the wicked “metropolitan elite”.

Now he will sit on the backbenches – posing as the country’s unjustly deposed leader, biding his time as Liz Truss’s premiership is destroyed by the dire consequences of his own misgovernment, once again evading the blame and using his undoubted charisma to hog the limelight. As Stewart says, this is “dangerous” stuff and “we need to remind people why he left… What he did was deeply, deeply shameful.”

Let me seek to oblige, lest the nation does indeed succumb to collective amnesia. Just a few weeks ago Johnson became the first British prime minister forced to resign in disgrace, after more than 40 members of his own government and scores of Tory backbenchers demanded he step down. His approval rating in the country as a whole was a staggering minus 48. His party had lost three seats in by-elections. He was universally reviled and ridiculed, and with good reason: his three years in power have been catastrophic for Britain.

https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/20 ... or-britain - spoilered the rest to avoid massive wall of text

Spoiler

Show

Yes, Johnson won a “stonking” majority in 2019, but he was running against a cartoon caricature of the loony left in Jeremy Corbyn.

Yes, he “got Brexit done”, but only by betraying Northern Ireland, sundering the United Kingdom and gravely damaging our relations with Europe and the US. His promised trade deal with the US has never transpired, incidentally. Nor has his “bonfire of red tape”.

Yes, he has robustly and rightly supported Ukraine following Putin’s invasion. And yes, he gambled with taxpayers’ money to develop a Covid vaccine – and won. But he reacted lamentably slowly to the pandemic, allowed it to spread to care homes, squandered tens of billions of pounds on useless or fraudulent PPE contracts and still presided over 202,000 Covid-related deaths.

He promised that post-Brexit Britain would “take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth” and emerge with its “cloak flowing” – but on his watch it has succumbed to the highest inflation in 40 years, the sharpest fall in living standards since records began in the 1950s, the heaviest tax burden since the 1940s and record debt.

He promised “levelling up” which is a laudable aim, but under his leadership the gap between rich and poor, north and south, blue- and white-collar workers, has actually widened dramatically. According to YouGov, more than two thirds of voters now regard the Conservatives as “not close” or “not close at all” to the working class.

It is hard to think of a single public service that has not deteriorated sharply during Johnson’s rule. He promised 40 new hospitals and an additional £350 million a week for the NHS, but the health service is now perilously close to collapse – as is the judicial system. He promised to solve the social care crisis “once and for all”, but it is more acute than ever. He promised to “make your streets safer”, but the police now solve barely 4 per cent of thefts and 7 per cent of burglaries. He promised to make Britain the “cleanest, greenest” country in the world, but our rivers and seas grow rank with untreated sewage. He promised to “take back control” of our borders, but asylum seekers arrive in ever greater numbers.

It has become almost impossibly hard to get ambulances, GP appointments, passports or driving licences. Travelling has become a nightmare. Our railway workers, postal workers, barristers and dockers are on strike, with doctors, teachers and civil servants threatening to follow suit. For millions of Britons basics like gas and electricity are rapidly becoming unaffordable.

Much of the above can be attributed to Covid and the Ukraine war, of course, but Britain’s moral decline over the past three years is almost entirely Johnson’s responsibility.

The man who promised to “restore trust in democracy” is the first prime minister in living memory who has actively stoked social division for political gain; the first to receive a sanction for breaking the law while in office; the first to lose not one, but two, ethical advisers; the first to put his personal ambition before the good of the country, and to make his government’s raison d’être a policy (Brexit) which he surely knows to be deeply damaging to the national interest. Through Brexit he also unleashed the worst instincts of many people in Britain – their latent xenophobia, jingoism and arrogance.

The charge sheet continues. Johnson has knowingly breached international and domestic law. He has trashed the ministerial code. He has routinely lied to parliament and the country. He has regularly rewarded cronies with jobs, peerages and lucrative contracts. He has sought to restrict the right to vote and protest, and to neuter any institution that he could not control. He betrayed millions of vulnerable Afghans through “Global” Britain’s shameful withdrawal. Equally shamefully, he has approved the deportation of desperate asylum seekers to one of Africa’s nastiest regimes.

He is guilty of sins of omission as well as commission. He has governed through hollow promises, empty rhetoric and naked gimmickry while neglecting the hard graft of government. He has failed to prepare Britain for future crises – be they pandemics, energy shortages or rampant inflation. For the last six weeks he has gone almost entirely awol.

In his final Prime Minister’s Question Johnson declared: “Mission largely accomplished.” If he was referring to the destruction of Britain, he was quite right. Would the Conservatives really be mad, or desperate, enough to give this man another chance to finish the job?

WHILE the Conservative Party indulges itself with a mammoth election bore lasting an extraordinary eight weeks – a process that any sane organisation could have arranged over perhaps three weeks in this digital age – Britain faces its greatest crisis, I would argue, since the Second World War. The crisis is not just energy and cost of living, self-inflicted as that is. It is far, far more.

The challenge is economic, cultural, institutional, societal and constitutional. In essence it is becoming existential and will be resolvable only with leadership showing philosophical compass, honesty, integrity and sheer determination.

A quiet and successful nation is built on personal liberty, family and community. A good society is built on creativity, hard work and perseverance.

petej wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 9:56 am I read articles like the one in conservative women and it is devoid of content. It is the same bullshit as written in any number of columns in the telegraph and mail dressed up in more serious langauge. When did the conservative movement abandon numbers or perhaps when did conservatives forget what the word means. How can they talk about printing money but never about taxation and tax avoidance.

A quiet and successful nation is built on personal liberty, family and community. A good society is built on creativity, hard work and perseverance.

The very frameworks most under attack by our "conservative" gov. Hard work is far less important than your parents wealth in the UK. A lack of energy policy isn't due to a woke agenda but incompetence. We have low unemployment so people are working.

EnergiseR2 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 9:01 pm

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 4:57 pm Don't know if I should laugh or cry at how true this is

You misestimate her

EnergiseR2 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 9:38 pm

C69 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 31, 2022 9:36 pm Didn't she do great trade deals with Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso

I think she said she was surprised Niger got away with being called that

Unboxed, the arts festival widely dubbed the “festival of Brexit” has seen just 238,000 visitors, against its organizers’ initial “stretch target” of 66 million. This is despite the festival costing £120 million — more than four times the cost of the celebrations to mark the queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The gory details come in an investigation by the House magazine.

Online magazine Tortoise, which is seeking judicial review, branded the process of picking a new Tory leader “undemocratic”, as it effectively places the choice of a PM in the hands of a few thousand individuals who are unrepresentative of the country as a whole.

In order to highlight concerns over the nature of the contest, the magazine successfully enrolled a pet tortoise named Archie, two foreign nationals, and the late former prime minister Margaret Thatcher – under her maiden name Margaret Roberts – as Tory members.

All received invitations to attend leadership hustings, though they are not entitled to vote for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak as they have not been party members for the required three months.

Tortoise took the decision to take legal action after the Conservatives refused to provide information about the number of members entitled to vote for Boris Johnson’s successor, or their demographic make-up, or what measures the party takes to verify the identity of those voting in order to prevent infiltration attempts.

I like neeps wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 11:30 am

Woman are going to have to hold in their babies now? Seems an interesting move.

The energy crisis is hitting UK household budgets harder than any country in western Europe, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund. The difference between the cost burden on poor and rich households is also far more unequal in the UK compared with other countries.
The reason is the UK’s heavy reliance on gas to heat homes and produce electricity at a time when Russia’s war in Ukraine has sent gas prices soaring. In addition, the UK has the least energy efficient homes in western Europe.

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 10:43 am

Online magazine Tortoise, which is seeking judicial review, branded the process of picking a new Tory leader “undemocratic”, as it effectively places the choice of a PM in the hands of a few thousand individuals who are unrepresentative of the country as a whole.

In order to highlight concerns over the nature of the contest, the magazine successfully enrolled a pet tortoise named Archie, two foreign nationals, and the late former prime minister Margaret Thatcher – under her maiden name Margaret Roberts – as Tory members.

All received invitations to attend leadership hustings, though they are not entitled to vote for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak as they have not been party members for the required three months.

Tortoise took the decision to take legal action after the Conservatives refused to provide information about the number of members entitled to vote for Boris Johnson’s successor, or their demographic make-up, or what measures the party takes to verify the identity of those voting in order to prevent infiltration attempts.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/l ... f80ca6f7fe

SaintK wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 11:46 am ............and another first place for us.

The energy crisis is hitting UK household budgets harder than any country in western Europe, according to analysis by the International Monetary Fund. The difference between the cost burden on poor and rich households is also far more unequal in the UK compared with other countries.
The reason is the UK’s heavy reliance on gas to heat homes and produce electricity at a time when Russia’s war in Ukraine has sent gas prices soaring. In addition, the UK has the least energy efficient homes in western Europe.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/202 ... nds-imf

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 2:37 pm Quality advice, I'm sure we can expect more of these helpful gems from JRM as well once he gets in post.

petej wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 3:41 pm

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 2:37 pm Quality advice, I'm sure we can expect more of these helpful gems from JRM as well once he gets in post.

I assumed jrm getting a role in the cabinet was a joke.

GogLais wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 12:25 pm

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 10:43 am

Online magazine Tortoise, which is seeking judicial review, branded the process of picking a new Tory leader “undemocratic”, as it effectively places the choice of a PM in the hands of a few thousand individuals who are unrepresentative of the country as a whole.

In order to highlight concerns over the nature of the contest, the magazine successfully enrolled a pet tortoise named Archie, two foreign nationals, and the late former prime minister Margaret Thatcher – under her maiden name Margaret Roberts – as Tory members.

All received invitations to attend leadership hustings, though they are not entitled to vote for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak as they have not been party members for the required three months.

Tortoise took the decision to take legal action after the Conservatives refused to provide information about the number of members entitled to vote for Boris Johnson’s successor, or their demographic make-up, or what measures the party takes to verify the identity of those voting in order to prevent infiltration attempts.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/l ... f80ca6f7fe

Too lazy to check - anyone know how prime ministerial countries like Oz or NZ deal with this?

Appointments

In June 2020, the President handed the Seal of Office to Taoiseach Micheál Martin In June 2020, the President handed the Seal of Office to Taoiseach Micheál Martin

The President appoints the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) on the nomination of Dáil Éireann; and the other members of the Government on the nomination of the Taoiseach, after Dáil approval.

Other office holders appointed by the President, on the advice of the Government, include Judges, the Attorney General, the Comptroller and Auditor General, and Commissioned officers of the Defence Forces.

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 5:25 pm

GogLais wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 12:25 pm

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Thu Sep 01, 2022 10:43 am

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/l ... f80ca6f7fe

Too lazy to check - anyone know how prime ministerial countries like Oz or NZ deal with this?

You don't have to look quite that far afield

Appointments

In June 2020, the President handed the Seal of Office to Taoiseach Micheál Martin In June 2020, the President handed the Seal of Office to Taoiseach Micheál Martin

The President appoints the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) on the nomination of Dáil Éireann; and the other members of the Government on the nomination of the Taoiseach, after Dáil approval.

Other office holders appointed by the President, on the advice of the Government, include Judges, the Attorney General, the Comptroller and Auditor General, and Commissioned officers of the Defence Forces.

We currently have a Coalition Government, & the two largest Parties in it have rotated the role of Taoiseach, between them, as part of the deal they did to form a Government.

All that matters is that someone can count on enough votes in the Dáil, in support of them forming a Government, & then the President rubber stamps it.

In Ireland, all that would have been required would be a vote of the entire Parliament in support of whom the Tories had elected their new Leader, & if they got a majority, that would have been that !

A cabinet minister and a top Number 10 aide serve at the heart of Boris Johnson's government despite allegations of sexual misconduct, a Sky News investigation can reveal.
Sky News has published testimony from two women who give detailed, first-hand accounts of what they claim happened to them when one was assaulted and the other groped by political figures who are both now in senior roles.

The prime minister's official jet was used for a "boozy jolly" by civil servants, according to a report.
Sky News understands a number of officials joined the 91-minute journey over the UK - and that it took place with "usual catering for a flight".
The Sun newspaper claims that during the 700-mile trip - which reportedly cost £50,000 - a "fancy meal with a selection of alcoholic drinks" was served.

A major Tory donor has pleaded not guilty to charges including bribery in Puerto Rico.
Julio Martin Herrera Velutini is accused of promising to help a former governor of the US territory to get re-elected if she dismissed an official investigating a bank he owned there.
Mr Herrera has donated more than £500,000 to the Conservative Party through his London-based firm Britannia Financial Group Limited since 2019.

Cabinet Office is to publish legal advice criticising a parliamentary inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled MPs over Partygate.

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 9:47 am

Cabinet Office is to publish legal advice criticising a parliamentary inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled MPs over Partygate.

Naturally the Heil and Excess claiming this proves that the inquiry is "anti-democratic" and a "witchhunt"

Writer and journalist Harry Mount, the author of The Wit And Wisdom Of Boris Johnson, will take up the role on the House of Lords Appointments Commission from 11 September.
Johnson confirmed the appointment just days before he steps down as Prime Minister, PA Media reported. The body is responsible for vetting all nominations to the Lords.
This will include Johnson’s requests for peerages to be granted as part of the Prime Minister’s resignation honours.
Oxford educated Mr Mount is the editor of The Oldie magazine and a contributor to various titles including the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and the Spectator.

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 9:47 am

Cabinet Office is to publish legal advice criticising a parliamentary inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled MPs over Partygate.

Naturally the Heil and Excess claiming this proves that the inquiry is "anti-democratic" and a "witchhunt"

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 12:31 pm

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 9:47 am

Cabinet Office is to publish legal advice criticising a parliamentary inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled MPs over Partygate.

Naturally the Heil and Excess claiming this proves that the inquiry is "anti-democratic" and a "witchhunt"

Lord Pannick QC, who has form, he wrote a legal opinion for beloved entrepreneur and noted taxpayer Philip Green to challenge the Parliamentary enquiry into BHS.

However, in counterbalance he also represented Gina Miller twice in her judicial reviews, so he's definitely able to set his personal principles aside for the client.

But all this really is is another in the long list of the Tory Party and Johnson in particular throwing shit to try and either escape scrutiny or delegitimise unfavourable findings in the eyes of the public.

Johnson is a fucking blight on politics, public life and basic human decency.

Writing of him in a school report in April 1982, he said: “Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies . . . Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility (and surprised at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School for next half): I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.”

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 12:31 pm

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 9:47 am

Cabinet Office is to publish legal advice criticising a parliamentary inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled MPs over Partygate.

Naturally the Heil and Excess claiming this proves that the inquiry is "anti-democratic" and a "witchhunt"

Lord Pannick QC, who has form, he wrote a legal opinion for beloved entrepreneur and noted taxpayer Philip Green to challenge the Parliamentary enquiry into BHS.

However, in counterbalance he also represented Gina Miller twice in her judicial reviews, so he's definitely able to set his personal principles aside for the client.

But all this really is is another in the long list of the Tory Party and Johnson in particular throwing shit to try and either escape scrutiny or delegitimise unfavourable findings in the eyes of the public.

Johnson is a fucking blight on politics, public life and basic human decency.

sturginho wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 4:18 pm Still better than the UK where we get a daily helping of bullshit to swallow

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... rm-insects

Fiore said he and his team concocted a formula that combines locally farmed mopane worms with cereals and fruits that do not need to be imported – a significant benefit as the war in Ukraine and the strong US dollar make foreign-grown foods increasingly inaccessible.

Although unwilling to disclose his recipe before the publication of the study’s data, Fiore did say his insect-based porridge contained grains including sorghum and millets. He said he was sure the dish was palatable, with his research team having conducted consumer taste tests in Scotland, a country long associated with porridge.

Rhubarb & Custard wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 3:18 pm

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 12:31 pm

tabascoboy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 9:47 am

Naturally the Heil and Excess claiming this proves that the inquiry is "anti-democratic" and a "witchhunt"

Lord Pannick QC, who has form, he wrote a legal opinion for beloved entrepreneur and noted taxpayer Philip Green to challenge the Parliamentary enquiry into BHS.

However, in counterbalance he also represented Gina Miller twice in her judicial reviews, so he's definitely able to set his personal principles aside for the client.

But all this really is is another in the long list of the Tory Party and Johnson in particular throwing shit to try and either escape scrutiny or delegitimise unfavourable findings in the eyes of the public.

Johnson is a fucking blight on politics, public life and basic human decency.

Pannick has offered an opinion, the Privileges committee progressing the issue received a legal opinion which stands at odds with the Pannick position. And both positions should be considered apart from whether one happens to like Boris and whether on the matter at hand one thinks he intentionally lied and lied and lied or you're clinically insane and think Boris has some sort of defence

How much a legal position even matters for what isn't a legal process I don't know. Parliament has retained the right to treat such situations seemingly as political considerations, i.e. it's a parliamentary process and not a court one

Myself I think he's a rancid liar and you wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire, I'm not sure if they can do much when I think the standard isn't did he lie and more did he hinder parliament. Given I think he wouldn't know the truth anymore than know his children I'd be hard pressed to consider parliament was hindered by his obvious BS

The Opinion is not strong.

Indeed, it relies entirely on the “but for” device, which can be one of the deftest rhetorical tactics for any advocate.

The colour of a thing would be black, but for it being white.

The object would be cheese, but for it being chalk.

And here:

“But for Parliamentary privilege, a court hearing a judicial review application brought by Mr Johnson would declare the Committee’s Report to be unlawful.”

There are a few points to make about this Opinion.

To begin with, the inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled the House of Commons is a matter for Parliament and not the courts.

And Parliament is in charge of its own procedures which, as a matter of basic constitutional principle (and the Bill of Rights), cannot be gainsaid by the courts.

So to say “but for” this being a parliamentary matter it would have this judicial consequence is to disregard perhaps the most fundamental part of our constitutional arrangements.

fishfoodie wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 7:29 pm Well I hope you UK taxpayers are happy with what the Tories got with your £129,700 !

JM2K6 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 5:43 pm

Rhubarb & Custard wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 3:18 pm

Hal Jordan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 02, 2022 12:31 pm

Lord Pannick QC, who has form, he wrote a legal opinion for beloved entrepreneur and noted taxpayer Philip Green to challenge the Parliamentary enquiry into BHS.

However, in counterbalance he also represented Gina Miller twice in her judicial reviews, so he's definitely able to set his personal principles aside for the client.

But all this really is is another in the long list of the Tory Party and Johnson in particular throwing shit to try and either escape scrutiny or delegitimise unfavourable findings in the eyes of the public.

Johnson is a fucking blight on politics, public life and basic human decency.

Pannick has offered an opinion, the Privileges committee progressing the issue received a legal opinion which stands at odds with the Pannick position. And both positions should be considered apart from whether one happens to like Boris and whether on the matter at hand one thinks he intentionally lied and lied and lied or you're clinically insane and think Boris has some sort of defence

How much a legal position even matters for what isn't a legal process I don't know. Parliament has retained the right to treat such situations seemingly as political considerations, i.e. it's a parliamentary process and not a court one

Myself I think he's a rancid liar and you wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire, I'm not sure if they can do much when I think the standard isn't did he lie and more did he hinder parliament. Given I think he wouldn't know the truth anymore than know his children I'd be hard pressed to consider parliament was hindered by his obvious BS

https://davidallengreen.com/2022/09/the ... arliament/

The Opinion is not strong.

Indeed, it relies entirely on the “but for” device, which can be one of the deftest rhetorical tactics for any advocate.

The colour of a thing would be black, but for it being white.

The object would be cheese, but for it being chalk.

And here:

“But for Parliamentary privilege, a court hearing a judicial review application brought by Mr Johnson would declare the Committee’s Report to be unlawful.”

There are a few points to make about this Opinion.

To begin with, the inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled the House of Commons is a matter for Parliament and not the courts.

And Parliament is in charge of its own procedures which, as a matter of basic constitutional principle (and the Bill of Rights), cannot be gainsaid by the courts.

So to say “but for” this being a parliamentary matter it would have this judicial consequence is to disregard perhaps the most fundamental part of our constitutional arrangements.