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

[chrisp65]

12 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

That's the one. Fwiw the president of the airport (!) has now said 'categorically' Johnson wasn't there, and that the staff confused him for Tony Blair, who was there. This is brilliant, because I'm not sure who it's more insulting for. 

Well Johnson has killed far less people, but he’s still in play, so only time will tell.

[OutByEaster?]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Stop the War Coalition (led by Corbyn at the time) said that NATO was the aggressor and Russia's actions were defensive.

Which is correct.

 

[OutByEaster?]

Following on from something in the virus thread and Boris Johnson's poor me plea at having to survive on £150k a week and a couple fo handouts from generous friends in the mediterranean, I wondered - how is Dominic Cummings paid, and how much?

 

[Davkaus]

2 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Following on from something in the virus thread and Boris Johnson's poor me plea at having to survive on £150k a week and a couple fo handouts from generous friends in the mediterranean, I wondered - how is Dominic Cummings paid, and how much?

 

SPADs are paid by the government rather than their party. As of the last report, Cummings is on 95-100k

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/854554/Annual_Report_on_Special_Advisers.pdf

 

With the combined salaries of the PM's personal SPADs stretching in the the millions, you'd think he'd be able to tell his arse from his elbow. He might need an anatomy specialist appointing.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Davkaus

[snowychap]

16 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

Following on from something in the virus thread and Boris Johnson's poor me plea at having to survive on £150k a week and a couple fo handouts from generous friends in the mediterranean, I wondered - how is Dominic Cummings paid, and how much?

 

Official salary or how much is he actually making?

[OutByEaster?]

6 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Official salary or how much is he actually making?

Well, indeed. I would imagine he'd pay the government £95-100k a year in order to get into the position that lets him make money!

 

[Davkaus]

I'm not sure I'd have accepted 100k in exchange for having to go out in to the rose garden and blatantly talk bollocks on every national TV channel, tbh. You can't put a price on your dignity. 

[ml1dch]

7 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

You can't put a price on your dignity. 

Isn't that handed back the moment you stand for any sort of office for the Conservative Party?

[Xela]

1 hour ago, Davkaus said:

You can't put a price on your dignity. 

I can, and I have quite often! 

[chrisp65]

 

 

 

[snowychap]

 

[Davkaus]

I think we're all very lucky how often time has been saved from having to go through a laborious, transparent and documented procurement process by someone in or around the cabinet knowing a guy. 

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/ex-vote-leave-campaign-director-wins-covid-gov-work-the-guardian-revealed-1-6826420

Quote

 

Fourth firm with links to Dominic Cummings awarded £640,000 in government work without an open tender process

A PR firm with links to Dominic Cummings has been awarded £640,000 in government contracts without having to compete for them in an open tender process.

Hanbury Strategy, which was co-founded by ex-Vote Leave director Paul Stephenson won two government contracts to research “public attitudes and behaviours in relation to” the pandemic, The Guardian has revealed.

The Cabinet Office and Treasury contracts were handed out under emergency regulations that permit the government to hire firms for urgent works without having to undergo a competitive tendering process, which is standard procurement protocol.

The Cabinet Office also failed to publicise the contract within the mandatory 30-day period. It hired Hanbury on March 16, shortly before lockdown, and finalised a contract on June 30, a freedom of information request by the paper uncovered.

Stephensen worked alongside Dominic Cummings as the director of communications for the 2016 Vote Leave campaign. He founded Hanbury with Ameet Gill, a former strategist for David Cameron in Downing Street.

That makes Hanbury the fourth firm with connections to the Tory party to ascertain government contracts without having to compete for them.

Topman Guerin, which worked on the Tory Party’s 2019 digital campaign strategy, was handed £3 million to work on coronavirus messaging.

Research and consultancy firm Public First, owned by two long-term associates of Dominic Cummings and Michael Gove, were given nearly £1 million in work during the pandemic while Faculty, an artificial intelligence firm hired by Cummings to work on the Vote Leave campaign, was awarded up to £3 million in contracts over two years.

 

 

[StefanAVFC]

errrr

[Davkaus]

He's not wrong. It's comedy genius.

 

 

[blandy]

20 hours ago, darrenm said:

I'm not sure what's wrong with any of this:

http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/video/1078-stop-the-war-protests-against-iran-and-syria-intervention-

Quote

Who is the aggressor? The obvious answer seems to be that it is Russia, but that is far from the whole picture. At the end of the Cold War, as agreed with the western powers, Russia disbanded the Warsaw Pact, its military alliance. But the United States and NATO broke their word to Russia, by adding most of Eastern Europe and the Balkan states to their own military alliance, and by building military bases along Russia's southern border

All of the things detailed there seem to be factual and aren't siding with Russia (or Putin) but instead are trying to provide balance.

All the things in there are not factual. There’s some truth in it, but mostly it is opinion from a perspective, or factually incorrect. Russia did not “disband the Warsaw Pact as agreed with Western powers”. Russia didn’t need “agreement from the west”. The nation members disbanded it, because they were no longer communist states, but had become democracies over the previous couple of decades and they declared themselves liberated from the heritage of the past. It is true however that Russia was told during the reunification of Germany that NATO wouldn’t build bases in (former) East Germany. But the other nations turning into free democratic nations and wanting to join NATO as protection from their former controlling superpower. - Russia mostly didn’t like it, hated it, and was paranoid about it and continues to be so, in part rightly so. Fear of democracy for Putin and Russia is real, opposition has to be crushed, or they are dead meat. External examples of the people overthrowing their communist rulers and successfully becoming thriving democracies is an example perceived as existential threat to Russia. Ukraine therefore, from the Russian perspective, as with Crimea, had to be kept under the umbrella.

The balance provided is not genuine balance, it’s taking sides, which (in the free world) is fine. It’s fine too to hold a poor view of the USA, or NATO, or whoever. STW certainly do. It’s just that they are specifically anti western and remarkably short sighted, blind even, when it comes to Russian behaviour. Corbyn, Milne etc. likewise, to the point of being ridiculous.

[Xann]

21 hours ago, bickster said:

Dave, you need to do some research

Follow the money Bicks.

No one with interests in shifting and hiding snide money wanted Corbyn in charge of the global finance launderette that is the City of London.

Putin got the PM he wanted. The one in his pocket, whose party is propped up by Russian money.

[HanoiVillan]

51 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

 

45 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

There's a reason she's never had a meaningful role in government despite being an MP for over 5 years now, and these tweets are a good demonstration.

The single most telling line in her Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Jenkyns) is 'On 30 July 2019, Jenkyns suffered from a concussion and whiplash after swinging on her chair during a meeting.'

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, Xann said:

Follow the money Bicks.

No one with interests in shifting and hiding snide money wanted Corbyn in charge of the global finance launderette that is the City of London.

Putin got the PM he wanted. The one in his pocket, whose party is propped up by Russian money.

Following the money only takes you to one side. of course the Tory / Big Business side doesn't want Corbyn in charge, that's their agenda not Putin's

You need to realise what Putin's aim is. Putin's aim is to destabilise the West. He doesn't care what each side gets up to, he want's NATO and the EU broken up. Ultimately he want's the US moving away from Europe

The Left, the Loony Tory Right and even Farage are all doing his bidding whilst working away at their own agendas.

It's all going rather swimmingly for Putin.

[Xann]

Just now, bickster said:

Following the money only takes you to one side. of course the Tory / Big Business side doesn't want Corbyn in charge, that's their agenda not Putin's

You need to realise what Putin's aim is. Putin's aim is to destabilise the West. He doesn't care what each side gets up to, he want's NATO and the EU broken up. Ultimately he want's the US moving away from Europe

The Left, the Loony Tory Right and even Farage are all doing his bidding whilst working away at their own agendas.

It's all going rather swimmingly for Putin.

It's double bubble for Putin, Bicks.

He wants us away from our NATO allies, but he also wants the Cayman Islands status quo to continue.

Quote

 

How City of London suits joined the Moscow gold rush

In the wake of the Salisbury nerve agent attack, MPs investigating how Russian president Vladimir Putin and allies have been “hiding and laundering their corrupt assets in London” concluded it was still “business as usual”.Given the boast that London’s pre-eminence as a financial centre is based on the rule of law, how did the capital become a magnet for so much dirty money, sustaining corrupt regimes in Moscow and beyond? Part of the answer lies in the network of pukka professionals that for nearly three decades has helped oligarchs and kleptocrats keep the funny money flowing out of the former Soviet Union and into London. While perhaps meeting their own inadequate standards, every step of the way the accountants and lawyers who have long presented themselves as the best of the west have signed off the pillaging of the east...

 

Private Eye

How does Putin achieve this? Aid Trump, fund Brexit and the Tories.

And that's where we are. With no small help from the likes of tax swervers Murdoch, the brothers Barclay and the Viscount Rothermere of course.

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, Xann said:

And that's where we are. With no small help from the likes of tax swervers Murdoch, the brothers Barclay and the Viscount Rothermere of course.

And Corbyn, Milne, Murray, Pilger....

I agree with everything else