UK Politics: National shortage of incompetence pads

[A Horse Named Stranger]

9 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

We can only judge the quality of the lies once we know the outcome. Maybe they’re exactly as plausible as necessary. What if the story runs out of steam once there’s no more information to be gleaned, nobody resigns, everyone gradually forgets about it, Dom gets back to his day job of winning elections, and the Tories win again in 2024. Tell me that isn’t an entirely likely scenario.

You're confusing two things.

The quality of the lie (which by any objective standard is ludicrously poor), and his chances of getting away with it. Like I said, this whole driving 30 minutes to a beauty spot with your wife and kid, to check whether your eyesight is good enough to drive, is not a good/credible lie by any stretch of imagination. It's just  a fuck you, there's nothing you can do about it. That him and Boris are detached from any real life consequences of their actions, is another story.

So yeah, I think, the two clowns have a good chance to get out of it unscathed. But that's not because it was a credible story. It's because their base doesn't care.

[DaveSumm]

2 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

You're confusing two things.

The quality of the lie (which by any objective standard is ludicrously poor), and his chances of getting away with it. Like I said, this whole driving 30 minutes to a beauty spot with your wife and kid, to check whether your eyesight is good enough to drive, is not a good/credible lie by any stretch of imagination. It's just  a fuck you, there's nothing you can do about it. That him and Boris are detached from any real life consequences of their actions, is another story.

So yeah, I think, the two clowns have a good chance to get out of it unscathed. But that's not because it was a credible story. It's because their base doesn't care.

Well the lie needs to not get him sacked, which so far it’s done. So it’s as good a quality as it needed to be. Also, I’d invite anyone to come up with a better one. 

[Rorshach]

I genuinely think it's a sad state of affairs, and problematic for democracy, when someone can tell a blindingly obvious lie, which implicates that the teller of the lie has engaged in unlawful practices and endangered other people, and expects that this should have no implication on his job.

Why a problem for democracy, you ask? Well, it isn't always talked about, and I would argue not lived up to as much as it should, but a politician is basically a servant. (S)he is elected to take care of our common property, our system, our way and standard of living - this is done for us and is supposedly advantageous for us. To do so, politicians are given the mandate of making laws. That the laws govern us, and that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law are the cornerstones of our society. 

Someone advising the PM, and (reportedly) being the advisor, who proceeds to break that contract - wilfully, arrogantly and without regrets - has at the same time said - implicitly - that the underpinnings of society aren't all that important, they do not apply to him. 

But they do. And, for him to have a job, for there to be politicians for him to advise, they have to apply. That he can't see this ...

He may be good at winning elections. However, he doesn't understand what his role is, and as such shouldn't be anywhere near governing. He simply isn't fit. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

35 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Well the lie needs to not get him sacked, which so far it’s done. So it’s as good a quality as it needed to be. Also, I’d invite anyone to come up with a better one. 

My argument is, that him staying on the job is independent of the lie. He could've also just gone on stage to say: yeah, so what?

Personally, I find the quality of the lie really offensive. If you bother to make a lie, you should at least put some effort into it.

But that's where we are right now. They (UK and US administration) are simply no Henry Kissingers. You knew he was lying like other people breath, but he at least put a real effort into his lies. Trump/Bannon and Johnson/Cummings, they don't even bother, that their lies don't add up, and don't make the slightest bit sense, or can be disproved rather easily.

And yes, this is rather depressing from a democratic point of view.

[mormont]

37 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So yeah, I think, the two clowns have a good chance to get out of it unscathed. But that's not because it was a credible story. It's because their base doesn't care.

The entire problem they're having is that their base apparently do care. Tory MPs are hearing about this from their constituents. That's why they have been unable to move on.

[Soylent Brown]

I guess there are plenty of Tories out there who aren't unconscionable chuckleheads, but sadly exceedingly few are ours.

[polishgenius]

56 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Personally, I find the quality of the lie really offensive. If you bother to make a lie, you should at least put some effort into it.

 

There's a chance the lie is meant to be offensively obvious. The lie about the trip to Durham, which is clearly obvious and when rules were definitely broken, distracts from the fact that (1) he went back to work after being in contact with his sick wife, and (2) and this is probably the really important part, drove from London, where there were lots of coronavirus cases, to the North-East, where there were not, and then took his son to hospital. The entire point of the travel lockdown was that if you do get sick, you're keeping it to the same areas you got it from, and not trekking the virus across the country to new hotspots. It doesn't matter whether taking his son to hospital was, in that moment, justified, because he should not have been in the north.

But we aren't talking about that because the Barnard Castle trip was so brazen.

[Rorshach]

Speaking of which, isn't @Hereward a Tory, or Tory light?

Though stepping into this muck isn't something I would like to do, and I do not remember him as a BoJo-Tory.

[Soylent Brown]

I mentally included Hereward in amongst our few!

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

My argument is, that him staying on the job is independent of the lie. He could've also just gone on stage to say: yeah, so what?

Personally, I find the quality of the lie really offensive. If you bother to make a lie, you should at least put some effort into it.

If he’d have said “yea, so what” things would be worse. So he’s limiting how bad the situation is for him. And again, if I were tasked with coming up with a lie as to why someone went to a castle in a lockdown, I honestly don’t think I’d do any better (because it’s so blatantly obvious he just didn’t give a shit).

[Which Tyler]

Anyone remember that time about oh - three weeks, and half a lifetime ago? We were all aghast that America was having to send Doctors out there telling people not to drink bleach to protect against coronavirus?

Welp - we're now sending opticians out there to say that driving 60 miles with your kid in the car is not an evidence-based approach to testing visual acuity!

[Derfel Cadarn]

Fuck me!

Hancock announced thr government will ‘look at’ fines given to those who breached lockdown for ‘childcare’ reasons. The lengths this government is going to to protect an advisor 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52803180

[Rorshach]

Isn't that a little weak? I mean, they have already decided that childcare reasons override common sense and guidelines - so they don't need to look at the cases. 

Just waive them all. That's at least consistent with their current policy, even though it goes against the policy in place at the time. 

[Hereward]

3 hours ago, Rorshach said:

Speaking of which, isn't @Hereward a Tory, or Tory light?

Though stepping into this muck isn't something I would like to do, and I do not remember him as a BoJo-Tory.

I’ve avoided this thread for many years, but the notification overcame my reluctance. Am I a Tory? No. At least, I haven’t voted for them since 2016 and abhor what they have become. But instinctively, emotionally and tribally, I probably always will be. 
 

PS Thanks to Soylent Brown for the compliment!

[Rorshach]

5 minutes ago, Hereward said:

I’ve avoided this thread for many years, but the notification overcame my reluctance. Am I a Tory? No. At least, I haven’t voted for them since 2016 and abhor what they have become. But instinctively, emotionally and tribally, I probably always will be. 
 

PS Thanks to Soylent Brown for the compliment!

Apologies for mentioning you. I should have gone with my impulses and not done so. 

My recollection of you was Tory-leaning, but in a quite different enviroment, so I couldn't envision you as a supporter of current government. 

Sorry for dragging you here.

[Derfel Cadarn]

15 minutes ago, Rorshach said:

Apologies for mentioning you. I should have gone with my impulses and not done so. 

My recollection of you was Tory-leaning, but in a quite different enviroment, so I couldn't envision you as a supporter of current government. 

Sorry for dragging you here.

Not so many years ago, there wasn’t a massive difference between labour (bit left of centre) and the Tories (bit right of centre) for a time. Obviously no longer.

My issue with Hancock’s announcement is they would have left the fines as is, but are effecticely binning them based purely on one of their own being caught breaking that restriction.

[Hereward]

No problem, Rorshach! Now, I’m here I feel compelled to say unpopular things and then leave for a few more years!

Despite the general loathing expressed here towards all things Tory, in its saner moments, the party, and parties like it, perform a genuinely valuable service. (The fact it no longer does has much to do with my boyhood idol.) So, with the certain knowledge of having the following picked apart like it’s a dissertation, here goes!

Roughly 35-40% of most populations are instinctively reactionary, nostalgic, tend towards deference to authority and have an instinctive preference for retribution/punishment over understanding/rehabilitation, A sane party that attracts such voters while ameliorating and often downright ignoring those instincts is a Godsend to a stable democracy. Gradual acceptance and adoption of changing societal and economic change is a good thing, and can provide a valuable brake on the wilder and less successful forms of radicalism. The party never used to be ideological, it had principles, but not unchanging policy preferences. 
 

Sadly, those days are gone, and they’re probably never coming back. The best example of the Tory Party in its traditional mindset and function is, strangely, now led by Angela Merkel. 

[Rorshach]

I should probably also clarify a couple of things, just for clarity.

1) I am Norwegian. Which probably quite a few already knew, but it does mean I'm an outsider to UK. I think that's important to know, as I will be wrong from time to time simply because of my outsider status. 

2) I tend to think that conservatism in itself is good, at least as an opposition (and sometimes as a position as well). Looking from the outside in, from a country with roughtly 1/9th of your population, but with nine parties represented in our parliament, the two-party system in the UK looks strange. Our conservatives have somewhere around 15-20% of the electorate, which I think is enough  

Of course, our more-to-the-right economically conservative and at-least-some-racist-members party occupies a position slightly more to the right of the conservatives again, but we then run into the question of what conservatism is, and which left-right-axis best reperesents it..

3) In Norway, I'm regarded by quite a few as a lunatic, being a member of the Green Party. Mostly from the right wing of conservatives, and the partly-racists, but also from others. Problem there is that the Greens are a new party (relativly), and the way I see the party (viewing politics through a new lens) and how others see it (one-issue party, ignorant of whatever other issues may be important) are far apart. 

Still, I came to the Greens from a middle-of-the-road socially liberal, otherwise moderate party. I sometimes find myself leaning left, but almost as often I tend to lean more right - thinking that the left leaves too little room for the individual, while recognizing the need for all-encompassing rules from time to time.

4) I start writing texts like this while I'm too tired, I have no idea if I make any sense at all, and I reject all critisism ahead of time owing to my need to check my eyesight on the road. I just need a driver's license first.

[A wilding]

And just one more Cummings WTF, which I will leave here without comment.

In his press conference yesterday he made a claim about his expert pandemic knowledge, apparently to make the point that he knows best about what rules he should have followed, or possibly as an argument that he is indispensable. He said, "only last year I wrote explicitly about the danger of coronaviruses".

Someone has checked his blog. It does indeed have a single reference to the dangers of coronavirus in it in an entry from March 2019. However the Wayback Machine shows that this reference was not there originally, but was inserted in the second half of April 2020, sometime after Cummings got back from Durham.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52808059

[Werthead]

2 hours ago, A wilding said:

And just one more Cummings WTF, which I will leave here without comment.

In his press conference yesterday he made a claim about his expert pandemic knowledge, apparently to make the point that he knows best about what rules he should have followed, or possibly as an argument that he is indispensable. He said, "only last year I wrote explicitly about the danger of coronaviruses".

Someone has checked his blog. It does indeed have a single reference to the dangers of coronavirus in it in an entry from March 2019. However the Wayback Machine shows that this reference was not there originally, but was inserted in the second half of April 2020, sometime after Cummings got back from Durham.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52808059

Alastair Campbell was on the BBC earlier apparently being interviewed mid-aneurysm because, as far as I can gather from the point he was trying to make mid-explosion, was that he and Mandelson got shitcanned for - in his view - far less than Cummings has gotten away with, with far fewer people willing to fall on their swords for them. Which is certainly a take. Although I suspect Campbell didn't have as much dirt on Blair as Cummings does on BoJo.