UK Politics: Testing, testing, one two free

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

We don't need to wait - already confirmed.

 

 

To which the Met supposedly responded 'wait what? Yes you can publish the whole thing'.
 

 

[Spockydog]

 

 

[mormont]

There are so many aspects to this that are absolutely damning and should be fatal to Johnson without even needing to get into whether any laws were broken. Not the least of which is that he has repeatedly stood in front of Parliament and the press to answer questions about parties that happened in Number 10 and deliberately concealed the fact that he knew of other parties that hadn't come to light yet. He's had chance after chance to come clean and has chosen, every time, to hope that he can get away with it (even when it's already clear he can't). 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, mormont said:

There are so many aspects to this that are absolutely damning and should be fatal to Johnson without even needing to get into whether any laws were broken. Not the least of which is that he has repeatedly stood in front of Parliament and the press to answer questions about parties that happened in Number 10 and deliberately concealed the fact that he knew of other parties that hadn't come to light yet. He's had chance after chance to come clean and has chosen, every time, to hope that he can get away with it (even when it's already clear he can't). 

This is why I mentioned immunity to shame before. If one is willing to just eat it and move on there's not much you can do to force them out absent elections.

[Which Tyler]

27 minutes ago, mormont said:

There are so many aspects to this that are absolutely damning and should be fatal to Johnson without even needing to get into whether any laws were broken. Not the least of which is that he has repeatedly stood in front of Parliament and the press to answer questions about parties that happened in Number 10 and deliberately concealed the fact that he knew of other parties that hadn't come to light yet. He's had chance after chance to come clean and has chosen, every time, to hope that he can get away with it (even when it's already clear he can't). 

"It's not the original offence, it's the cover-up"


Again, and again, and again - but so far, even that's leaving him in #10

[Spockydog]

53 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

This is why I mentioned immunity to shame before. If one is willing to just eat it and move on there's not much you can do to force them out absent elections.

This is why we need a new political order. When there is no longer any honour amongst these people, we need laws to protect us from their corrupt, mendacious ways. 

Take David Davis for example, the man who last week attempted to claim some kind of moral high ground when he told Johnson, 'For the love of God, go.'

In the runup to Brexit, this cunt stood up in the House and said the following, regarding Brexit sector-by-sector impact assessments: 

05 Sep 2016: “My officials, supported by officials across Government, are carrying out programme of sectoral analysis and regulatory analysis, which will identify the key factors for some 50 sectors of British business.”

20 Oct 2016: “We currently have in place an assessment of 51 sectors of the economy. We are looking at those one by one, but the aim at the end is that this will inform the negotiating approach so that no one gets hurt.”

14 Dec 2016 (To the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union): “We are in the midst of carrying out about 57 sets of analyses, each of which has implications for individual parts of 85% of the economy… everything except sectors that are not affected by international trade.”

17 Jan 2017 (to the House): “We have paid an enormous amount of attention to business, finance, manufacturing, aviation, energy and so on—every single sector; 51 different sectors—to get the best possible deal that suits all of them. We will continue to do so.”

 02 Feb 2017: “We continue to analyse the impact of our exit across the breadth of the UK economy, covering more than 50 sectors—I think it was 58 at the last count—to shape our negotiating position.”

Then, after all that, on the 16th of December 2017, he walked into a Parliamentary Brexit Select Committee hearing and said, regarding the sectoral analyses:

“There is no systematic impact assessment.”

Now I'm not sure I can think of a more serious case of politicians lying than this. Despite what some cretins might think, Brexit has been and will continue to be an absolute clusterfuck for the businesses and people of this nation. And they knew it. They conducted their impact assessments and when the findings did not suit their agenda, they buried them. And then they lied. They continued to lie. And even though everyone knew they were lying, because of some archaic, bullshit, non-existent code of honour, nobody was allowed to even say they were lying. And we, the public, were powerless to do anything about it.

The law should be changed. Politicians caught deliberately lying to the House should be treated no differently from people caught lying to the courts. Bring them up on charges of perjury, or whatever the political equivalent might be.

But of course that will never happen.

 

[Maltaran]

4 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

And not before time

 

 

Not that it should be led by the Met, who provide security to the parties and are beholden to government for favours and honours - almost as if providing security for these parties makes people think they might be complicit.

 

 

3 hours ago, A wilding said:

Frankly, this feels like an attempt to kick the can a bit further down the road, using their tame police commissioner in Patel's pocket. Let us wait and see if this is used as an excuse not to publish the "summary of the findings" of the Sue Gray report that they were otherwise going to be forced to disgorge sometime this week.

I wonder what would happen if the two objectives of protecting the government’s reputation and protecting the Met’s reputation come into conflict here? Would they take the hit to protect Johnson or would they turn around and dump all the blame on him and say “we were just doing what the PM told us to do”

[A Horse Named Stranger]

40 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

"It's not the original offence, it's the cover-up"


Again, and again, and again - but so far, even that's leaving him in #10

In this case it's really not the cover up. It's the original defense. You could see the alternative, when I joked about you lot just being jelly the PM has friends and coworkers, who care enough for him to throw him a birthday party. 

I mean, one rule for you plebs another one for us. It's really hard to spin it. The timing with the Royal Funeral and the Queen not wanting to ease restriction for the occasion (she has more sense than BoJo, what a surprise) basically put an end to any hope whatsoever to spin it. Johnson end came by revolting parties, just not the Tory one.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

48 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

This is why we need a new political order. When there is no longer any honour amongst these people, we need laws to protect us from their corrupt, mendacious ways. 

Take David Davis for example, the man who last week attempted to claim some kind of moral high ground when he told Johnson, 'For the love of God, go.'

In the runup to Brexit, this cunt stood up in the House and said the following, regarding Brexit sector-by-sector impact assessments: 

05 Sep 2016: “My officials, supported by officials across Government, are carrying out programme of sectoral analysis and regulatory analysis, which will identify the key factors for some 50 sectors of British business.”

20 Oct 2016: “We currently have in place an assessment of 51 sectors of the economy. We are looking at those one by one, but the aim at the end is that this will inform the negotiating approach so that no one gets hurt.”

14 Dec 2016 (To the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union): “We are in the midst of carrying out about 57 sets of analyses, each of which has implications for individual parts of 85% of the economy… everything except sectors that are not affected by international trade.”

17 Jan 2017 (to the House): “We have paid an enormous amount of attention to business, finance, manufacturing, aviation, energy and so on—every single sector; 51 different sectors—to get the best possible deal that suits all of them. We will continue to do so.”

 02 Feb 2017: “We continue to analyse the impact of our exit across the breadth of the UK economy, covering more than 50 sectors—I think it was 58 at the last count—to shape our negotiating position.”

Then, after all that, on the 16th of December 2017, he walked into a Parliamentary Brexit Select Committee hearing and said, regarding the sectoral analyses:

“There is no systematic impact assessment.”

Now I'm not sure I can think of a more serious case of politicians lying than this. Despite what some cretins might think, Brexit has been and will continue to be an absolute clusterfuck for the businesses and people of this nation. And they knew it. They conducted their impact assessments and when the findings did not suit their agenda, they buried them. And then they lied. They continued to lie. And even though everyone knew they were lying, because of some archaic, bullshit, non-existent code of honour, nobody was allowed to even say they were lying. And we, the public, were powerless to do anything about it.

The law should be changed. Politicians caught deliberately lying to the House should be treated no differently from people caught lying to the courts. Bring them up on charges of perjury, or whatever the political equivalent might be.

But of course that will never happen.

 

This just gets to something we all know, that typically there’s an inverse relationship between power and accountability across every sector of our lives. I’m not sure how you change that given most people can’t be bothered to fix even the smallest of problems if it means they’ll have to be inconvenienced.

[Raja]

Really tough to listen to but this is what a overstretched system looks like - you need to consider instances like this when people talk about the NHS not being 'overwhelmed', whatever the fuck that means.

 

[Liffguard]

46 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

This just gets to something we all know, that typically there’s an inverse relationship between power and accountability across every sector of our lives. I’m not sure how you change that given most people can’t be bothered to fix even the smallest of problems if it means they’ll have to be inconvenienced.

It's entirely unlikely to come about within my lifetime, but as time goes on I find myself leaning more and more towards supporting sortition. I think it's possibly the only way of avoiding the problem that anyone who would seek power should not under any circumstances be allowed to hold it. And therefore you hopefully mitigate the problem of the upper reaches of power being so thoroughly dominated by shameless psychopaths.

Eh, I can dream.

[Spockydog]

 

 

[Which Tyler]

 

[Spockydog]

 

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

1 hour ago, Raja said:

Really tough to listen to but this is what a overstretched system looks like - you need to consider instances like this when people talk about the NHS not being 'overwhelmed', whatever the fuck that means.

 

Really though to listen too indeed.

People who say that simply don't care about other people.

I do think that they tend to believe the lies they tell. But after two years of this I firmly believe that most of them are actually completely incapable of feeling empathy for anyone outside of a very small group(if at all).

Giving such people the benefit of doubt will only harm our societies further imo.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

So even the 4chan-defense (Pics or it didn't happen), seems to fail as there are apparently images of those parties with Johnson in it. 

So that should be it. 

[Spockydog]

Unless those pics show him clearly pissed, doing the conga, with his cock out and a double-ended dildo hanging from his arse, then no, I doubt that will be it. 

[BigFatCoward]

16 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Unless those pics show him clearly pissed, doing the conga, with his cock out and a double-ended dildo hanging from his arse, then no, I doubt that will be it. 

So 50/50 then? 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Liffguard said:

It's entirely unlikely to come about within my lifetime, but as time goes on I find myself leaning more and more towards supporting sortition. I think it's possibly the only way of avoiding the problem that anyone who would seek power should not under any circumstances be allowed to hold it. And therefore you hopefully mitigate the problem of the upper reaches of power being so thoroughly dominated by shameless psychopaths.

Eh, I can dream.

It’s an interesting idea, but I think it just introduces new problems. Real change is only going to come when citizens demanding more of themselves. Our elected officials are a reflection of who we are and what we’re willing to accept. Not a pretty picture at the moment in either of our countries.

[Derfel Cadarn]

18 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Unless those pics show him clearly pissed, doing the conga, with his cock out and a double-ended dildo hanging from his arse, then no, I doubt that will be it. 

According to Sky News, there are pics of him sittinf next to wine bottles