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UK Politics: Statues of Limitations


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28 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

The only reason I can see for the delay is so they can say 'its part of a plan', rather than 'we have been forced to change our minds yet again because everyone can see what needs doing except us'.

Immediately countered by Gove's comments about not doing exactly that.


On that - why is it always Gove?

#Gove: "We don't need to make masks compulsory"
#Johnson: "We need to make masks compulsory"
#Everybody: "Which one of these statements is incorrect?" [i.e. a lie]
Gove: "..."

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15 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Can anyone give a single reason as what the benefits are of waiting 2 weeks? 

Do they need to pass new legislation? Of course, they could have started that process 2 weeks to bring it in now but that would require the government to know what it what it wanted to do more than a couple of days in advance.

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The Guardian seem desperate for big policy announcements from Labour!  Here's another Opinion piece asking what Keir Starmer stands for  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/14/labour-defeat-super-rich-conservatives-calling-higher-taxes-starmer

Most of the comments btl disagree with the article, realising that there is no point in Labour announcing anything yet, and being generally supportive of Starmer's leadership and approach.

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So from PMQs it's clear that Boris Johnson does not understand the concept of an Opposition party, or nuance, or anything, really.  He can't look Starmer in the eye.  And he hasn't read the report that is supposed to help prepare the government for a Covid spike this winter.  Useless.

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34 minutes ago, Denvek said:

Chris Grayling finally fails to fail upwards and fails to win the election for chairman of the Intelligence Select Committee.

I was just reading about that. It seems that the Government packed the committee with 5 loyal Tory MPs primarily to ensure Grayling's appointment only for one of those MPs to decide that actually he was going to vote for himself instead which the opposition members seem to have been happy to go along with, presumably on the basis that anyone who isn't Chris Grayling would be an improvement. Even by Grayling's standards it is an embarrassment, usually he waits until after he's appointed to a post before things go horribly wrong.

I wonder if this means we'll finally see the long-delayed Russia Report soon?

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The real question is why the fuck Chris Grayling was let anywhere within ten miles of this job. I know the Tories had scraped the bottom of the barrel, then removed the bottom of the barrel and are now two miles down burrowing towards the Earth's core in search of actual talent in the Parliamentary party, but this is another level of desperation.

Lewis is a pretty hardcore member of the ERG, one of Johnson's solid core of supporters. Pissing him off is probably not a good move, especially if you're still trying to bury things he has power over, and probably won't go down well with the ERG. Grayling is also in the ERG but not one of its most effective members.

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2 hours ago, Maltaran said:

Update, Julian Lewis has now been kicked out by the Tories for “conspiring with the opposition”, so their attempt to control the committee has completely failed.

Classic Dom.

That will keep him loyal! :D

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14 hours ago, Werthead said:

The real question is why the fuck Chris Grayling was let anywhere within ten miles of this job. I know the Tories had scraped the bottom of the barrel, then removed the bottom of the barrel and are now two miles down burrowing towards the Earth's core in search of actual talent in the Parliamentary party, but this is another level of desperation.

Lewis is a pretty hardcore member of the ERG, one of Johnson's solid core of supporters. Pissing him off is probably not a good move, especially if you're still trying to bury things he has power over, and probably won't go down well with the ERG. Grayling is also in the ERG but not one of its most effective members.

And the real point is that this was yet another attempt to bend the UK's unwritten constitution and further centralise power in Downing Street. The reason why Grayling was chosen was pretty obviously because he could be relied upon to do exactly what he was told.

Another question is as to wether this was just more control freakery, or whether it was mostly about trying to bury the intelligence report, which it seems will now be published next week. My guess is mostly the former, with the earlier suppression of the report being mostly a matter that it might have swayed a few votes against them in the last GE. But we will see if they now attempt some further last minute block on publishing it.

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Well it seems that the government is not going to make any last minute attempt to block the publication.

They have now come out with some pre-emptive spin to weaken its presumed revelations; Raab has said that they have known all along that the Russians were trying to interfere with democracy in the UK, but that they were actually doing so to try to help Labour.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53433523

 

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On 7/15/2020 at 11:12 PM, Werthead said:

Lewis is a pretty hardcore member of the ERG, one of Johnson's solid core of supporters. Pissing him off is probably not a good move, especially if you're still trying to bury things he has power over, and probably won't go down well with the ERG. Grayling is also in the ERG but not one of its most effective members.

Lewis does seem to have a history of rebelling for various reasons so seems an odd choice to include in the Tory delegation if they were trying to fix the election for Grayling. There were rumours that the Government could try to overturn the selection in a full vote of parliament but that would be risky since Lewis has a lot of friends on the Tory backbenches.

Although you would think they might be natural allies it does seem that there's a lot of mutual dislike between Dominic Cummings and some of the core ERG members, and this is likely to exacerbate that.

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The government are pondering a rescue package for English universities, and wow, even for the current shower it's so nakedly ideological and driven by grievances from their own time in student politics (decades ago) that it's shameless.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jul/16/english-universities-must-prove-commitment-to-free-speech-for-bailouts

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/900917/Higher_education_restructuring_regime.pdf

Cutting the pay of vice-chancellors doesn't sound awful, but frankly wouldn't be a condition in bailing out any other sector. The stuff about demanding that HE institutions give a platform to racists and bigots, though? And that universities should start to police what their student unions campaign on? Since existing leglisation already prevents SUs from spending money on anything that isn't directly to the benefit of their members, that can only be about further restrictions - not allowing SUs to kick up a fuss about disability accommodations, for example, or campus safety. And the cap on it all is the emphasis on courses that allow graduates to make big bucks, because that's the only purpose for higher education this government can recognise. Just a disaster for the sector, top to bottom.

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I see the lovely Mr Hancock has re-written history to suggest that the government did follow SAGE's advice to lockdown on the 16th.
Do they genuinely believe this double-think? or they forgotten that A] people have brains, B] Google exists, C] written records exist?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/07/16/best-argument-matt-hancocks-got-public-inquiry-will-horrorshow/

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Of all the things I can get worked up about, hackers trying to access vaccine information is not one of them, or am I missing something? They weren't trying to sabotage it, they were trying to steal it right?

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