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

[Rds1983]

 

[HanoiVillan]

EDIT: Though I much dislike the polisher, gonna wait to see if there's more to this one.

Edited April 18, 2021 by HanoiVillan

[cheltenham_villa]

22 hours ago, blandy said:

It's another one where the actual offence and the fuss are about 2 different things. He broke the rules - he should have declared his interest at the time he was given it. But he didn't.

Then the Welsh Labour Gov't awarded his (family's) company a contract. That bit is not a story, but it's made out like it is.

But a company in which he had an undeclared interest was in the running for English contracts, and that's yet another Tory sleaze story.

But it's made out like he  used his influence/power to award his own family's company some contracts. Which he didn't.

The trouble is the tories are at it. Whether it's Johnson and his tart getting 120 odd grand worth of travel, Hancock and his mate from the pub getting PPE contracts without competitive tender, the Housing minister saving Done Richard Desmond 60 million, unlawfully, Patel, Liam Fox, loads of 'em. They are rotten.

I dont see it as any different to the unions influence over labour and I dont mean that in a labour vs conservative way. Individuals or groups with money and power find ways to influence the outcome of politics and how the country is run.

It's a sad reality.

A labour run government would be most likely awarding contracts to the people that had put them in power. 

[blandy]

16 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said:

I dont see it as any different to the unions influence over labour and I dont mean that in a labour vs conservative way. Individuals or groups with money and power find ways to influence the outcome of politics and how the country is run.

It’s true the Unions have influence on Labour. It’s open, public, legal, and democratic- the union members choose whether their individual contributions to Labour are made or not. All parties have to declare who their donors are (above a small threshold). I’m not sure how you see that as the same as the Minister for Health part owning a private company that operates in the health industry and not declaring it?  Firstly it’s a clear breach of the ethical code he is supposed to abide by and secondly there’s potential for severe dodginess. To me they’re entirely different branches of things.

[blandy]

On 16/04/2021 at 19:06, Xela said:

How do I become a tory MP?

Where did you go to school, old boy? And University - Oxford or Cambridge?  Now let me shake your hand....oh, so you’re not part of the brotherhood. I see. Are you very wealthy?  We do let a small percentage of oiks in, of course, but I’m afraid the post of idiotic pompous blowhard is currently oversubscribed. Keep an eye on Mark Francois’s career, there may be a vacancy there...tootle pip.

[Xela]

8 hours ago, Rds1983 said:

 

Thats the best thing i've seen on the internet this year!  

[bickster]

20 minutes ago, blandy said:

Keep an eye on Mark Francois’s career, there may be a vacancy there...tootle pip.

Doubt it, the charges were dropped before Xmas. He'll be doing his Lazarus act soon enough

[blandy]

13 minutes ago, bickster said:

Doubt it, the charges were dropped before Xmas. He'll be doing his Lazarus act soon enough

Indeed so, if they were even against him, which we don't know (for any lawyers reading). He's nevertheless basically still not re-appeared, so I wonder if there's some reason for that?

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

Indeed so, if they were even against him, which we don't know (for any lawyers reading). He's nevertheless basically still not re-appeared, so I wonder if there's some reason for that?

It's not just him though, a whole bunch of them have been very quiet. Even a lot of the cabinet are hardly ever seen or heard from. It's a rarity if anyone other than Johnson, Hancock or Sunak say anything, even Patel and Javed have said little recently. Rees-Mogg and Gove are invisible. Backbench loudmouths like Fabricant and Daniel Braincell who normally find an exscuse for a headline have not come up with any wheeze of late.

[MessiWillSignForVilla]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

It's not just him though, a whole bunch of them have been very quiet. Even a lot of the cabinet are hardly ever seen or heard from. It's a rarity if anyone other than Johnson, Hancock or Sunak say anything, even Patel and Javed have said little recently. Rees-Mogg and Gove are invisible. Backbench loudmouths like Fabricant and Daniel Braincell who normally find an exscuse for a headline have not come up with any wheeze of late.

Presumably they've been told to shut up for a while so that can't say anything that can **** up the positive momentum they have from the vaccinations

[bickster]

14 minutes ago, MessiWillSignForVilla said:

Presumably they've been told to shut up for a while so that can't say anything that can **** up the positive momentum they have from the vaccinations

To be perfectly honest, my perception is that its been going on a fair while with a lot of them, not so much Patel and Javid but the others have kept their heads down for a long while now

[cheltenham_villa]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

It’s true the Unions have influence on Labour. It’s open, public, legal, and democratic- the union members choose whether their individual contributions to Labour are made or not. All parties have to declare who their donors are (above a small threshold). I’m not sure how you see that as the same as the Minister for Health part owning a private company that operates in the health industry and not declaring it?  Firstly it’s a clear breach of the ethical code he is supposed to abide by and secondly there’s potential for severe dodginess. To me they’re entirely different branches of things.

I assume your experiences of unions are different to mine.

The point I attempted to make however was If labour were in power, their decisions, the awarding of contracts would all be heavily influenced by the unions that gave them power. This is how I see the conservatives operating today just with different paymasters. 

The point around around open, public, legal and democratic is subjective as these people are the law makers. As much as you seem to dislike it, it currently appears that the Minister of Health may have ticked all of the boxes much to your dismay.

I'm not here defending the tories, I think these contracts are disgusting. It's just something I've come to expect from politics and all of the parties involved.

[bickster]

11 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said:

The point around around open, public, legal and democratic is subjective as these people are the law makers. As much as you seem to dislike it, it currently appears that the Minister of Health may have ticked all of the boxes much to your dismay.

Being legal doesn't make it acceptable.

Anyhow, my understanding is that we wasn't a shareholder at the time the contract was awarded. He only became a shareholder when he was gifted his share after the contract. So that in itself probably isn't in the rules but it bloody well should be

[cheltenham_villa]

Just now, bickster said:

Being legal doesn't make it acceptable.

Anyhow, my understanding is that we wasn't a shareholder at the time the contract was awarded. He only became a shareholder when he was gifted his share after the contract. So that in itself probably isn't in the rules but it bloody well should be

Agree. I was following your statement that unions were public,  legal, etc. In my option that does not mean all of their actions are acceptable.

[bickster]

34 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said:

Agree. I was following your statement that unions were public,  legal, etc. In my option that does not mean all of their actions are acceptable.

My statement? Do I look like Iput gravy on battered cod?

[Stevo985]

54 minutes ago, cheltenham_villa said:

I assume your experiences of unions are different to mine.

The point I attempted to make however was If labour were in power, their decisions, the awarding of contracts would all be heavily influenced by the unions that gave them power. This is how I see the conservatives operating today just with different paymasters. 

The point around around open, public, legal and democratic is subjective as these people are the law makers. As much as you seem to dislike it, it currently appears that the Minister of Health may have ticked all of the boxes much to your dismay.

I'm not here defending the tories, I think these contracts are disgusting. It's just something I've come to expect from politics and all of the parties involved.

I think there’s a difference between being influenced by people who put you in power; and blatantly awarding hundreds of millions of pound contracts to your mates

[cheltenham_villa]

17 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

I think there’s a difference between being influenced by people who put you in power; and blatantly awarding hundreds of millions of pound contracts to your mates

I dont think it's that simple. Their are clearly some abuses of power but theirs a narrative now that all lobbying is wrong. It's not. It's how companies are able to share plans and opinions with politicians. 

For the tory party, their lobbyists may also be sponsors. Some of those sponsors will also own large companies who look to gain services from the government. When those services are awarded it doesnt always mean something bad has happened. It's sometimes just because two parties have similar goals.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, cheltenham_villa said:

For the tory party, their lobbyists may also be sponsors. Some of those sponsors will also own large companies who look to gain services from the government. When those services are awarded it doesnt always mean something bad has happened. It's sometimes just because two parties have similar goals.

Let's leave the political party out of it for a moment. Whoever is Government will obviously need to award contracts and so on. Now we know that the Tories are donated to in a big way by businesses. That's (sort of) fine - the businesses may percieve that a tory government is the best one for their prospects. The difficulty there comes if their donations (and the implicit possibility of those donations stopping under particular circumstances/ increasing under certain other circumstances  - and you can guess what I mean here - lead to essentially a form of bribery - we give you the Tory party money and you the Government give us contracts in return. That would be corrupt. What ought to happen is that contracts are put out to open tender against a range of criteria - cost, timescale, reputation, and other factors. Then anyone can bid for the work.

Contracts going to Ministers families, mates,  and so on, without there being open tender for them is / gives the appearance of corruption. In an emergency (Covid) there may be some justification for awarding contracts via an accelerated process - @this company makes PPE, they're a UK company and they are expert at it  - give it to them. Fine.

Now with Labour, they're largely not donated to by Business, or to nowhere near the same extent. So the problem is far less likely to be an issue with them. But that's outside their control. Instead they are funded to a large extent by Union members each donating a pound a week (or less). Union members don't get contracts of government. Unions don't get contracts off government. There's still the issue of a Union potentially using it's donations to try and sway policy, but the Unions role is to protect and improve the terms and conditions and jobs of the people who pay their membership fees. If they don't those members leave the Union. It is a different kettle of fish. There are still bad Union leaders, who go beyond looking after their members and try and get party political stuff in to place, when it's outside their field.

Ministers of whichever government - they work for us. They should declare any interest and step away from contract awards where they have an interest. It's not only morally right to behave in that way, it's a parliamentary requirement. A number of tories have not done that. Donors have been given contracts, been given favours as a consequence of their donations. Not for the benefit of working people, not for the benefit of the nation, but for themselves. It's been done unlawfully, been found to be so and still this particular government has let them off. They are rotten.

[cheltenham_villa]

30 minutes ago, blandy said:

Let's leave the political party out of it for a moment. Whoever is Government will obviously need to award contracts and so on. Now we know that the Tories are donated to in a big way by businesses. That's (sort of) fine - the businesses may percieve that a tory government is the best one for their prospects. The difficulty there comes if their donations (and the implicit possibility of those donations stopping under particular circumstances/ increasing under certain other circumstances  - and you can guess what I mean here - lead to essentially a form of bribery - we give you the Tory party money and you the Government give us contracts in return. That would be corrupt. What ought to happen is that contracts are put out to open tender against a range of criteria - cost, timescale, reputation, and other factors. Then anyone can bid for the work.

Contracts going to Ministers families, mates,  and so on, without there being open tender for them is / gives the appearance of corruption. In an emergency (Covid) there may be some justification for awarding contracts via an accelerated process - @this company makes PPE, they're a UK company and they are expert at it  - give it to them. Fine.

Now with Labour, they're largely not donated to by Business, or to nowhere near the same extent. So the problem is far less likely to be an issue with them. But that's outside their control. Instead they are funded to a large extent by Union members each donating a pound a week (or less). Union members don't get contracts of government. Unions don't get contracts off government. There's still the issue of a Union potentially using it's donations to try and sway policy, but the Unions role is to protect and improve the terms and conditions and jobs of the people who pay their membership fees. If they don't those members leave the Union. It is a different kettle of fish. There are still bad Union leaders, who go beyond looking after their members and try and get party political stuff in to place, when it's outside their field.

Ministers of whichever government - they work for us. They should declare any interest and step away from contract awards where they have an interest. It's not only morally right to behave in that way, it's a parliamentary requirement. A number of tories have not done that. Donors have been given contracts, been given favours as a consequence of their donations. Not for the benefit of working people, not for the benefit of the nation, but for themselves. It's been done unlawfully, been found to be so and still this particular government has let them off. They are rotten.

It's very hard to determine whether this is a labour issue until they are the party in power or close to being. The only areas you can draw parallels are where they have mayoral representation and arguably the situation in liverpool doesnt paint a great light. 

I think their are 3 scenarios:

1. Awarding of contracts illegally. 

2. Awarding of contracts within the law where some moral questions exist.

3. Awarding of contracts, no problem.

I think the vast majority are in point 3. Some of 2 and 1 will exist but probably not as much as people like to think. 

I don't think the recent year has helped where we have seen a huge rise in investment in very short timescales without the governance to support the decision making. The scenarios will be exploited in the same way that fraudsters exploit the public.

[blandy]

2 hours ago, cheltenham_villa said:

It's very hard to determine whether this is a labour issue until they are the party in power or close to being.

I think I'd swing that round a bit. It's unique to this particular Tory government. Other governments of whichever party have not so brazenly broken the rules. You're right, probably, it will always go on to an extent, but the scale of it  - the whole dishonesty and so on with this specific lot is staggering.