The Hung Like a Donkey General Election December 2019 Thread

[blandy]

The establishment - it's a broad term, but for me it includes politicians (EU and UK) local and national, senior media owners and execs, senior civil servant and military, heads of universities, financial companies, multi-national company UK leaders, CBI bods, Union leaders and so on. Farage as a former stockbroker, a long term politician, a party leader etc. is definitely "establishment". As are Johnson, Gove, Banks and all the other knobbers from the Leave campaign. People with access to money and influence able to affect the course of events.

Brexit being anti-establishment is like Keyser Söze.

[HanoiVillan]

19 minutes ago, avfcDJ said:

Pretty much up to the referendum, he was on record saying he was a believer in being in the EU.

Why did he change his mind a few months before the referendum?

It doesn't matter why he changed his mind. Who cares? It changes nothing at all.

Henry VIII spent most of his life a firm devotee of attending Catholic Mass, but that's not why he matters in the history books. 

[HanoiVillan]

13 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

It's absolutely the case.

Leave or Remain, doesn't matter to him. He is Pro-Boris.

Even still, he was vocally pro-EU until it became advantageous for him not to be.

. . . and decades before the quotes you highlight there, he was penning the articles, as Europe correspondent for the Telegraph, that helped give birth to the Tory anti-Europe movement. 

You said it yourself, he's an opportunist who does what's best for him. So stop worrying about what he 'really' thinks, and accept the facts that he led the campaign to leave and that he's going to be the nation's leader while we leave the EU. If that doesn't make him a leaver, then the term is completely meaningless.

[NurembergVillan]

1 hour ago, Awol said:

Oh they were guilty, alright. Guilty of winning a referendum against the establishment.

**** THE ESTABLISHMENT!

[bickster]

56 minutes ago, Awol said:

Fair enough. If we're talking about the small group of people who control or exert strong influence over the levers of power in UK, how should we describe them as a group?

PS. You can't have, 'The Tories'  

Exactly what they are in each circumstance. Creating catchall names for stuff that can't be defined helps no-one.

PS "This Conservative Administration" is clearly acceptable in the right circumstances

[OutByEaster?]

There's also more than one establishment - there's the US corporate establishment and their puppet government, there's the old European money establishment and their influence on banking, there's the new money establishment of fund controllers and tech gurus, there's the international establishments of Putin's cronies and China's money, there's loads of different establishments and no real reason for them to agree on everything.

In fact, you could define Brexit as a disagreement between a number of different establishments on the best way to milk the British people - it's not a people driven thing, it was always about different power groups wanting to move us in slightly different directions.

 

[peterms]

 

[HanoiVillan]

3 minutes ago, peterms said:

 

It's actually worse than that. He appears to have resigned for the election period, but then been reappointed/reappointed himself (not sure which) to give advice on handling the floods, and then resigned again. In other words, he appears to be deciding at 9am each morning whether he's a government advisor or not. 

[chrisp65]

Cummings and goings.

[cyrusr]

 

27 minutes ago, peterms said:

 

To be fair, according to this guidance they need to resign in order to undertake any campaigning, which he clearly is by transforming from his human form into his bat form. Specifically it states: 

Quote

1. Special Advisers who wish to take part in the general election campaign or help in a party headquarters or research unit during such a campaign must first resign their appointments.

2. Special Advisers who resign and leave the department, will no longer have preferential access to papers and officials. Any request for advice from a former Special Adviser will be treated in the same way as requests from other members of the public.

3. On resigning, Special Advisers should return all departmental property e.g. mobile phones, remote access and other IT equipment. These can be returned to the individual should they be re-appointed. Special Advisers may leave a voicemail message or out of office reply on departmental IT with forwarding contact details.

4. Special Advisers receive severance pay on resignation, or when their appointment is terminated. Severance pay for Special Advisers is taxable and will be paid as a lump sum. The amount an individual is entitled to will be determined by their length of service as set out in the Model Contract for Special Advisers. Special Advisers are required to agree that if they are reappointed, they will repay any amount above that which they would have been paid in salary had they remained in post. Any excess severance must be repaid in a lump sum to their employing departments.

5. If the Prime Minister agrees exceptionally that a Special Adviser should remain in post during the election period, their appointment will be automatically terminated the day after polling day. In those cases, Special Advisers may continue to give advice on government business to their Ministers as before. They must continue to adhere to the requirements of 12 the Special Adviser Code and may not take any public part in the campaign. Guidance Note A is also relevant in relation to the commissioning of briefing.

6. If there is no change of government following the election, a Special Adviser may be re-appointed. The Prime Minister’s approval will be required before any commitments are made, and a fresh letter of appointment issued, including for any advisers who have stayed in post

It is so he is not granted preferential treatment or papers so cannot use these within the campaign. He is also likely to be reappointed should the Conservatives win. I suspect that this is relatively common practice, it is just that Cummings is a very high profile adviser and therefore people have taken note.

Really not sure there is anything significant here to report TBH. 

[peterms]

11 minutes ago, cyrusr said:

Really not sure there is anything significant here to report TBH. 

Agree with your point about civil service rules, I think the point being made was that the media are reporting it, but 3 weeks after it happened, as though they were unaware.

[peterms]

New book on Labour and antisemitism, free download here.

Quote

We are approaching the 2019 general election in bizarre circumstances. From the climate crisis to homelessness, Brexit to the NHS, the stakes could scarcely be higher. Yet a story about the Labour Party that has no basis in fact and whose partisan motivations are transparent is playing a significant role in our national conversation and might even influence the result.

The ‘Labour antisemitism’ controversy is, in its profile and its protractedness, unprecedented in modern British politics. Its prominence may increase still further as polling day draws near, while other progressive campaigns abroad—notably supporters of Bernie Sanders in the United States—are beginning to be targeted with the same allegations.

This urgent Verso Report, edited by Jamie Stern-Weiner, brings together the most rigorous and penetrating analytical writings on the ‘Labour antisemitism’ affair. They provide between them a sober examination of the strange events that have warped British politics since 2015 and an informed basis for Labour as well as kindred movements to draw lessons for the future.

The eBook includes contributions from Norman G. Finkelstein, Jeremy Gilbert, Antony Lerman, David Rosenberg, Naomi Wayne, and Jewish Voice for Labour, as well as a selection of hitherto unpublished testimonies from Jewish members of the Labour Party.

 

[Sam-AVFC]

22 minutes ago, cyrusr said:

 

To be fair, according to this guidance they need to resign in order to undertake any campaigning, which he clearly is by transforming from his human form into his bat form. Specifically it states: 

It is so he is not granted preferential treatment or papers so cannot use these within the campaign. He is also likely to be reappointed should the Conservatives win. I suspect that this is relatively common practice, it is just that Cummings is a very high profile adviser and therefore people have taken note.

Really not sure there is anything significant here to report TBH. 

The problem is he is getting preferential treatment from the papers.

It's accepted that he is the "senior no. 10/government source" most of the time. I'm not sure how he can not be working for the government and is still being quoted as a government source by all the journos.

As well as this, LK has retweeted a link to his blog. Very weird move.

I think you're right that resigning is the norm and he wouldn't do anything he could get held to account for. He's far too smart for that. The problem is the journos making it so easy for him to play them and a lot of the public like a fiddle.

[cyrusr]

2 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

It's accepted that he is the "senior no. 10/government source" most of the time. I'm not sure how he can not be working for the government and is still being quoted as a government source by all the journos.

This does really bother me. If what he was saying was the truth and he could stand behind it, then he or the government should actually put his name to it. That they don't shows what credibility these statements have. The fact that the media go along with it without challenging it really undermines their ability to be impartial journalists. 

[peterms]

 

[HanoiVillan]

When you take anti-semitism and racism very very seriously as an issue:

Nancy Astor's record on anti-semitism and hating Catholics is, err . . .

[Sam-AVFC]

Apparently the ice sculptures of Farage and Johnson at the debate are actually happening.

Although I quite like this, it gives their supporters a chance to whip themselves into a fury about how 'unfairly' they're both treated...but I guess that assumes there is anything that would change the mind of people like that.

 

[TreeVillan]

Lol it's worse than r/Politics in here. 

Edited November 28, 2019 by TreeVillan

[Davkaus]

I'm trying to imagine the response if I didn't go to a work meeting, but sent along a more junior employee and my father. 

[snowychap]

1 hour ago, Sam-AVFC said:

Apparently the ice sculptures of Farage and Johnson at the debate are actually happening.

Are they going to get Matt Lucas to come on with a mop at the end?