The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[bickster]

47 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Here is the dipshit's apology:

 

I think that's fair enough. It's honest. Expecting an MP to write a fully individual letter back to every constituent that writes in over the same issue is rather fanciful.

Across all parties, it's pretty much the same. They'll have standard responses for most things. The constituency secretary will get together all the letters,  insert the correct details, print them out and the MP will sign them. Rarely, the MP will write the letter themselves as it's over an issue he's involved with or cares about. But this is the standard approach and has been for decades

Usually an MPs postbag is full of letters from nutters and people complaining about animal cruelty, seriously they'd never answer them all if they didn't do this

He's also taking this on the chin as it's his constituency secretary that actually stuffed up. He'll have had a few hundred letters put his way to sign, even reading every one would be a bit impossible. Or in this instance, the secretary sent the email without deleting the relevant bits

[Stevo985]

7 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

Cummings has always been disliked by some , almost certainly those that wanted to remain or wanted Corbyn as PM ... if you think he’s contagious you should remind yourself of the result of the aforementioned votes.

Johnson is a man VT told us had no chance of becoming leader as the Tories hated him and then despite the proroguing and everything else , proceeded to claim a staggering election win

I don’t think VT should start celebrating their demise just yet .

I don't really disagree, but what I would say is I reckon a large part of the public wouldn't have known who Cummings was two weeks ago.

Everybody knows who he is now. 

So whilst he has always been disliked by "some" people, I'd say he's now disliked by a lot lot lot more people

[snowychap]

16 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

Cummings has always been disliked by some , almost certainly those that wanted to remain or wanted Corbyn as PM

Some people disliked him for far longer than that - back to the time he was a Spad for Gove, including when he, Gove and others were breaking the law by attempting to avoid FoI requests by corresponding through personal email accounts (2011, I think?),

For some more background and some relevant remarks to the current situation and to previous ones like the prorogation shenanigans (link) :

Quote

Even after I won a legal battle against Dominic Cummings, it became a test of strength from which he refused to retreat

...

Even facing a legal problem, like the one I posed, narrative-building and story-control was his approach. His team were told in private, from the start, that I was right on the facts. They could have owned up and admitted their mistake. It would be over in a day. But Dom doesn’t like losing.

...

Cummings could not back down from his position – even though it was doomed. The arguments they made in public did not match the submissions they made to the tribunal. In fact, their public arguments undercut their legal submissions.

Even so, Cummings escalated the fight. He used an official Conservative party Twitter account to draw attention to the issue and to attack me personally. He told other journalists that I was mentally ill. He sought to make it a story about a strange journalist fixated on technicalities, rather than a cabinet minister potentially committing a criminal offence. But I eventually won on the law and on the facts. I got an apology from the Conservative party’s head of press for his conduct.

The whole episode illustrated a broader issue, though: he hated being asked to follow a mere transparency law. He has a revolutionary suspicion of convention and existing institutions which can be healthy – but it tips over into a dislike of constraint.

...

He used to be endlessly irritated by EU legal requirements which insisted the Department for Education had to tender for large contracts. Why could ministers not just pick who they wanted to be public suppliers?

...

Britain is ill-equipped for such a character. His path to one of the most powerful positions in government has revealed that our public life has a lot of weak links – too reliant on convention and reputation, vulnerable to someone who can spin an alternative narrative.

...more

 

Edited May 31, 2020 by snowychap
spelling

[Brumstopdogs]

 

[chrisp65]

It’ll be something as stupid and inconsequential as payment of council tax that will end up being the undoing of one of these characters.

For all the denial of a pandemic and lies about ppe, the dead health workers, and breaking of quarantine whilst 40,000 die in a pandemic, it’ll be something like the lack of building regs certification that finally skewers one of them. 

Or leads to Johnson scrapping any requirement to pay tax or get planning approval. Right now, probably the latter as Dim can’t function without Dom.

 

 

 

[mjmooney]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

It’ll be something as stupid and inconsequential as payment of council tax that will end up being the undoing of one of these characters.

For all the denial of a pandemic and lies about ppe, the dead health workers, and breaking of quarantine whilst 40,000 die in a pandemic, it’ll be something like the lack of building regs certification that finally skewers one of them. 

Could be right. Al Capone wasn't finally locked up for all the murders, robberies and mob rackets, but for tax evasion. 

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, mjmooney said:

Could be right. Al Capone wasn't finally locked up for all the murders, robberies and mob rackets, but for tax evasion. 

That’s my thinking.

Gangsters and murderers, tripped up by some admin..

That would be so tory 2020 I’d be amazed if it doesn’t come to pass.

Our man Dominic clearly sees himself as smart and superior and of a different order to the rest of us. But he’s clearly lacking an eye for detail, such as trying to backdate a blog. It’s a classic narrative arc. 

 

[snowychap]

 

Especially liked the suggestion here:

 

[HanoiVillan]

Their absurd twin fetishes for both in-person voting, and working in a crumbling death trap that ceased being fit-for-purpose several decades ago, annoy me even more than most of their policies (and to be fair, there are plenty of opposition politicians who are just as bad). Appointing 'the minister for the 18th century' or whatever he's known as as the guy responsible was always going to end in this absurdity. They should probably be thankful he isn't making them wear **** periwigs or something while they do it.

[chrisp65]

6 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Their absurd twin fetishes for both in-person voting, and working in a crumbling death trap that ceased being fit-for-purpose several decades ago, annoy me even more than most of their policies (and to be fair, there are plenty of opposition politicians who are just as bad). Appointing 'the minister for the 18th century' or whatever he's known as as the guy responsible was always going to end in this absurdity. They should probably be thankful he isn't making them wear **** periwigs or something while they do it.

His natural born common sense to ignore fire fighter advice and get out of a building doesn’t appear to extend as far as viruses.

[snowychap]

 

[cyrusr]

8 minutes ago, snowychap said:

 

The outdated and inept House of Lords 

I wish that if a majority of MPs stay away to show how inept the proposed system is, they would actually listen. Sadly I can see Tories simply block voting the system through. Until a significant portion of MPs catch the virus, this won't change and even then, given it seems a lot of the government have already caught it, they think they are immune and therefore its fine to carry on.

[choffer]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

Especially liked the suggestion here:

 

I'd imagine they're presuming that opposition members might think long and hard about their desire to go in and vote in those circumstances but they know that the majority of lapdog Tories will be whipped to attend and will duly do so.

[HanoiVillan]

18 minutes ago, choffer said:

I'd imagine they're presuming that opposition members might think long and hard about their desire to go in and vote in those circumstances but they know that the majority of lapdog Tories will be whipped to attend and will duly do so.

I mean, you should never underestimate their dirty underhand tactics, but they have an 80 seat majority. They absolutely do not need opposition MPs to find it hard to attend, and if anything the optics of it would be unfavourable for them.

[Davkaus]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

I mean, you should never underestimate their dirty underhand tactics, but they have an 80 seat majority. They absolutely do not need opposition MPs to find it hard to attend, and if anything the optics of it would be unfavourable for them.

I think you're right that they don't care about keeping the the opposition numbers down much. I think it's that they want Tories there able to shout and jeer over the opposition who do attend. Boris has been completely floundering when he's there basically on his own with Starmer. PMQ's has actually become a useful tool for showing up the PM, rather than a brief period of uncomfortable questions that can simply be jeered over every time Boris stumbles over his words and fails to answer a question.

 

[meregreen]

They want to turn the chamber into a juvenile playground again. Lots of shouting, guffawing and braying. Boris will have his playground gang to back him up again. 

[LondonLax]

I think it’s just Mogg and his obsession with tradition. Can’t change the way things have always been done just because of a health scare. 

[StefanAVFC]

I thought Brexit was done?

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, LondonLax said:

I think it’s just Mogg and his obsession with tradition. Can’t change the way things have always been done just because of a health scare. 

Nah, it'll be because they've worked out it's easier to get whatever it is they want to get through with people there.

I don't know how or why, but I would bet my bottom dollar that they think they're less likely to get their way with the house sitting virtually than with everyone there in person.

[StefanAVFC]

They're back to parroting party lines on Twitter