Genie Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 3 minutes ago, Stevo985 said: So Sue Gray's report on the parties aren't allowed to reference the parties. It's gonna be a short report She’ll probably conclude that some of the parties aren’t parties, and there’s a couple of bits that might be and the Met are having a (very slow) look into them. Death by a thousand cuts, to the investigation rather than the PM unfortunately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 I hope the insider is holding stuff back, so when this report comes out and lists everything it investigated they ask the question what about these events? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Straggler Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 The cost of govt fraud Quote Theodore Agnew was the model of a modern Tory oligarch. A successful businessman, he made enough to dabble in the new politics. He did all the right things. He backed a chain of academy schools and joined a Conservative thinktank, Policy Exchange. He donated a dutiful £134,000 to the Tory party between 2007 and 2009. Part-owner of an AI consultancy called Faculty, Agnew set it to work for Johnson’s Vote Leave campaign. He received a knighthood, then a peerage, and was then offered a ministerial post in Boris Johnson’s government, at the time being advised by the former Vote Leave director, Dominic Cummings. Faculty won a fistful of government contracts worth almost £1m. All in all, Agnew could feature in an Armando Iannucci satire on Boris’s Britain. Then this week, Agnew went bang. Even he had had enough. In February 2020, he was given the Yes Minister title of “efficiency and transformation”, and in a speech on Monday in the House of Lords he was supposed to congratulate himself on his work. He had been one of the custodians of the £47bn of public money that had been dished out to private companies and banks in bounce-back loans between 2020 and 2021. However, of this sum, Agnew reckoned £17bn had been lost and at least £5bn of those losses were to fraud, or 1p on income tax. He clearly choked on the task asked of him. And then something unprecedented took place. A Johnson minister proceeded to tell the truth and resign on the spot. Agnew estimated that total fraud across the public sector now ran at £29bn a year, or about 5p on income tax. The bounce-back loan fraud is estimated to have cost a third of the annual revenue of the new national insurance levy of 1.25 per cent due in April. Not that I want to change the subject, but the idea that the Tories are the fiscally responsible party of business should be in tatters. I don't like the 5p on income tax measure, as 5p inherently sounds small. The money lost to corruption is staggering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 1 minute ago, Genie said: She’ll probably conclude that some of the parties aren’t parties, and there’s a couple of bits that might be and the Met are having a (very slow) look into them. Death by a thousand cuts, to the investigation rather than the PM unfortunately. Or people and the fourth estate will get bored of this and lurch to the next political crisis. Namely Russia invading Ukraine. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Straggler Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 You can really see why they were so keen to introduce new legislation that effectively makes protesting illegal. It's probably only a matter of time before some minister says "it's not like the public are marching in the streets over this", after making said marching against the law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mic09 Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 (edited) 30 minutes ago, Genie said: Death by a thousand cuts, to the investigation rather than the PM unfortunately. I really don't understand how anyone could be hopeful that this 'investigation' will show anything too damaging to the government. Labour seems to be pushing for it on all fronts. I am a cynic, and I do not believe that a Cabinet Office employee will have too bad of a go at the Cabinet head. Are Labour shooting themselves in the foot once the report releases a filtered and lite version of what really happened? Or is it just a case of making as much noise about the parties as possible? Edited January 28, 2022 by Mic09 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 7 minutes ago, Mic09 said: I really don't understand how anyone could be hopeful that this 'investigation' will show anything too damaging to the government. Labour seems to be pushing for it on all fronts. I am a cynic, and I do not believe that a Cabinet Office employee will have too bad of a go at the Cabinet head. Are Labour shooting themselves in the foot once the report releases a filtered and lite version of what really happened? Or is it just a case of making as much noise about the parties as possible? Why is it about Labour? And not about our elected government setting rules and breaking them, then lying about it? Why make it into a Labour vs Tory issue? It isn't. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mic09 Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 4 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said: Why is it about Labour? And not about our elected government setting rules and breaking them, then lying about it? Why make it into a Labour vs Tory issue? It isn't. I never meant to do that, you have jumped to a conclusion that I did not intend. No question the lying government took the piss. They are liars and should go from public life for good. I don't think we need to explain that. I'm questioning the report itself - do you think that Labour is shooting itself in the foot by openly campaigning for a release of a report that will likely be affected by the government itself? Or is it just a case of making as much noise about the parties as possible which might be a worthwhile strategy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 Just now, Mic09 said: I never meant to do that, you have jumped to a conclusion that I did not intend. No question the lying government took the piss. They are liars and should go from public life for good. I don't think we need to explain that. I'm questioning the report itself - do you think that Labour is shooting itself in the foot by openly campaigning for a release of a report that will likely be affected by the government itself? Or is it just a case of making as much noise about the parties as possible which might be a worthwhile strategy? I have no idea what your point is, sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mic09 Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 2 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said: I have no idea what your point is, sorry. No point - a question The report will, most likely, be a piss take, just like anything coming out of the cabinet. It now looks like it will be heavily redacted by not including certain information that Met will be investigating. I guess (no certainty, just my feeling) is that the report will not be too damning to the tories. Definitely won't do more damage than what has already been done. So I wonder, are Labour right in demanding for the report to be published? Is it a right political strategy considering the report is unlikely to be too damning to Boris? Or, once it is published, and shows nothing 'special', will they simply say this report was a joke from the start? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 37 minutes ago, Mic09 said: I really don't understand how anyone could be hopeful that this 'investigation' will show anything too damaging to the government. The risk is that not finishing him off (kw) whilst he’s on the ropes leads to a rise in support over time. It is likely that he and the Tories will continue to be caught out for their awful behaviour, but if not and the leaks dry up up, then they’ll have gotten away with things that would ordinarily see them fired and possibly arrested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted January 28, 2022 VT Supporter Share Posted January 28, 2022 The Ukraine crisis is Thatcher and Las Malvinas all over again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mic09 Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 4 minutes ago, Genie said: The risk is that not finishing him off (kw) whilst he’s on the ropes leads to a rise in support over time. It is likely that he and the Tories will continue to be caught out for their awful behaviour, but if not and the leaks dry up up, then they’ll have gotten away with things that would ordinarily see them fired and possibly arrested. Yeah sure, I just doubt the report will finish him off. I think it will be manipulated and easy going. I think too much hope is put into it, while I agree further punches should be thrown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 Took a few months off, relaxed, got himself right, and now he's back . . . and even worse than before: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: Took a few months off, relaxed, got himself right, and now he's back . . . and even worse than before: Who is paying this clown now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 Just now, Seat68 said: Who is paying this clown now? Good question . . . possiby no-one right now, this may be an investment in a lobbying gig later (Philip Hammond is nowadays some sort of cryto lobbyist IIRC). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 17 hours ago, NurembergVillan said: I reminded him of the billions wasted on PPE, contracts, track and trace etc and was met with the reply "True, but how bad could it have been if Labour were in charge?". You can see how nutball religion retains its popularity. Reality doesn't matter, or exist at all, if the only paper you're reading is the free Daily Mail from Waitrose. A nation of absolute mugs. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Silvers Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 11 minutes ago, Xann said: You can see how nutball religion retains its popularity. Reality doesn't matter, or exist at all, if the only paper you're reading is the free Daily Mail from Waitrose. A nation of absolute mugs. The thing that winds me up the most is that the people who swallow this bollocks are the ones telling people to “wake up” and calling them sheep. The irony is strong. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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