UK Politics - Bluff and Bluster

[Which Tyler]

So, whilst trying to look strong against Putin, we set out a raft of sanctions, that stops short of addressing long-standing problems with Russian money-laundering in London; going from hard-line in our threats, to weak-arse in our actions. Mostly whilst criticising Germany for being fairly weak in their threats, only to see them being (comparatively) hard-line in their actions.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/johnson-s-meagre-sanctions-against-russia-leave-even-tories-embarrassed-1.4809474

Meanwhile, we still refuse to release a less-heavily redacted Russia Report, and refuse to enact the un-redacted actions it suggests.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/mps-attack-boris-johnson-failing-tackle-russia-london-laundromat-1477047

 

In completely unrelated news, whilst sanctioning some Russian Oligarchs, those with financial links to the conservative party are mysteriously absent, so long as they can find a British National intermediary (whilst remembering that for the last decade or so, we've been selling British Nationality for about £2M a pop to Russian Oligarchs).
https://bylinetimes.com/2022/02/22/boris-johnson-refuses-to-extend-russian-money-clampdown-to-conservative-donors/

 

Oh yes, and when asked to correct the record after saying provably untruthfull things in parliament (in all probability a genuine mistake), he runs away instead.

ETA: In fairness, his spokesman has since said that he will correct the record today

[Spockydog]

8 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

So, whilst trying to look strong against Putin, we set out a raft of sanctions, that stops short of addressing long-standing problems with Russian money-laundering in London; going from hard-line in our threats, to weak-arse in our actions.

Let's not forget that our PM is the very same man who used spycraft techniques to give his Special Branch close protection officer the slip in order to travel, alone, to Italy, where he attended a bunga bunga party held by a 'former' KGB agent. He did this when he was Foreign Secretary. You'd think this would have been a big scandal. Imagine if it was Corbyn, or John Profumo, that had done this.

Oh, and the Americans also believe Johnson has been kompromised by the Russians.

 

[Fragile Bird]

I just finished reading le Carre’s Agent Running in the Field, his penultimate book, and it makes me wonder how much his contacts were feeding him about was going on behind the scenes. A good read!

[Derfel Cadarn]

The end of le Carre’s The Secret Pilgrim (written not long after the break up of the USSR) has an interesting speech by Smiley in which he questions of Russia’s relations with the weat will change

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Let's not forget that our PM is the very same man who used spycraft techniques to give his Special Branch close protection officer the slip in order to travel, alone, to Italy, where he attended a bunga bunga party held by a 'former' KGB agent. He did this when he was Foreign Secretary. You'd think this would have been a big scandal. Imagine if it was Corbyn, or John Profumo, that had done this.

Oh, and the Americans also believe Johnson has been compromised by the Russians.

 

Idiots who love to dip the wick, such as Trump and Johnson, are so easy to compromise. I suppose you could look on the bright side and realize they are just as venal and stupid to their new masters.

[mormont]

The UK minister for safe and legal immigration speaks on the Ukrainian refugee question:

He pulled out his phone, read that tweet, sat and typed these words and then hit reply. It's a marvel his intestines didn't leap up his throat and throttle his brain.

[Raja]

Of course he's the minister for safe & legal immigration.

These people have no morals

[mormont]

‘Fleeing a war, death and destruction? No problem. Just fill out this form and we’ll have you picking produce in a freezing field in February in no time.’

[polishgenius]

Gross.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

And you thought Partygate and the police enquiry would kill him off. 

[dog-days]

At any other time this would be quite big news in the UK. Now, of course, and for good reason, it's going to disappear without making a splash. Still - Waterstones has bought Blackwell's. They (well, their incredibly enormous hedge fund owners) already own Foyles and Barnes and Noble. 

I remember being pleasantly surprised in Germany (ten years ago) by how there were still big bookshops there owned by different companies — largely, I think, due to the fixed price of books. It was so different to the UK. Now I live in a city of 250 000  people or so. There's one small independent bookshop at the posh end of town, and there's Waterstones, and that's it. 

[mormont]

I have a little (a very little) knowledge of how badly Blackwell's were struggling and honestly, they probably could either have sold up or gone out of business. Making money by selling books is extremely difficult these days.

[Spockydog]

Fuck Matt Hancock. Seriously, the sooner this spoon-faced wanker's political career gets hit by a bus, the better.

I’m begging you, Hancock and the Home Front heroes: just sit this one out

Quote

 

Let me begin this column – loosely themed Men of the Home Front – by observing that only Matt Hancock could have the misfortune to relaunch his political career at this precise moment. Yesterday the former health secretary made news landfall with an appearance on a podcast hosted by someone from Dragons’ Den, in which he discussed the prevailing issue of our time: Matt Hancock’s romantic life.

Donning the polo neck of contrition – last seen on Dapper Laughs for a Newsnight appearance in 2014 – Hancock explained he had had to break his own coronavirus guidance because he “fell in love”. Of the female aide in question, he explained: “We spent a lot of time together, ironically trying to get me to communicate in a more emotionally intelligent way.” Thank you, Alanis – although, it actually HAS ended up being quite ironic. All that incredible work on his emotional intelligence and Matt still ends up saying it out loud on a day otherwise dominated by grotesque pictures of war and human carnage from Ukraine.

Then again, perhaps Matt has quite accidentally performed a valuable public service. He has selflessly redeployed as a pressure valve, providing a useful outlet for all the adult Brits who have been just itching for a chance to stride on to this or that platform and utter the words: “FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T YOU KNOW THERE’S A WAR ON?”

...

Be it online or in real life, the alarm bells toll most heavily when you get the feeling that the person in question finds war – or rather their idea of it – somehow exhilarating. Perhaps it was always like this, and it’s just easier to see now half the world posts their inner monologue. But there seems to be such a fine line between virility and virality. Was the second world war saddled with politicians like Michael Fabricant, who yesterday announced that RAF Brize Norton, which is in Oxfordshire, “is indeed the frontline”?

Because really, it isn’t. That’s not the war. War is the bloodied woman in Mariupol holding a pink bobble hat, frozen in the camera’s gaze as a shrapnel-filled small girl dies in the ambulance behind her. War is some hatchet-faced Kremlin general informing military families that the government will pay them 11,000 roubles for their dead sons. That’s £80 quid now, less tomorrow. War is people who this time a week ago were out in Kyiv’s shops, now making molotov cocktails with their children. And yes, war can elevate the most ordinary people to do the most extraordinary things. We want heroes, we need heroes – and Volodymyr Zelenskiy and so many Ukrainians have given us them. What we have less need of is performances on the home front. Chaps, with the best will in the world, this one really isn’t about you.

 

 

[Which Tyler]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukraine-security-priti-patel-refugees-b2025808.html

So...

Priti Patel, who has previously been sacked for compromising national security... Not a security risk.
Boris Johnson, who plays tennis with Russian Oligarchs, and evades his security details to party with a for er KGB agent... Not a security risk.
Tory party in general, who suck at the teet of Russian money, and suppress reports into Russian interfering with British elections... Not a security risk.

 

Kier Starmer, barrister, former head of the Crown Prosecution Service... Security risk.

[Spockydog]

At PMQs, Boris Johnson again did nothing to disprove the notion that he is in Putin's pocket by basically ignoring every question regarding his appalling lack of action against the London oligarchs.

Shameful.

 

 

[Spockydog]

From the Guardian on Johnson's lack of action against the oligarchs:

Quote

 

On Ukrainian refugees, Johnson at least at an answer. When questioned by Keir Starmer on sanctions, and in particular on the government’s failure to impose sanctions yet on named oligarchs, Johnson was floundering badly because he did not have credible answers at all.

To illustrate the point here (from PA Media) are Starmer’s first three questions. He started with this:

We must stand up to Putin and those who prop up his regime. Roman Abramovich is the owner of Chelsea Football Club and various other high-value assets in the United Kingdom. He’s a person of interest to the Home Office because of his links to the Russian state and his public association with corrupt activity and practices. Last week, the prime minister said that Abramovich is facing sanctions. He later corrected the record to say that he isn’t. Well, why on earth isn’t he?

Johnson said it would not be “appropriate” to comment on individuals cases at this point - before saying that later the government would publish “a full list of all those associated with the Putin regime”.

Starmer’s next question was about another oligarch.

Last week, Putin summoned to the Kremlin the cronies who prop up his regime, they dip their hands in the blood of Putin’s war. Among them was Igor Shuvalov, Putin’s former deputy prime minister. Shuvalov owns two flats, not five minutes walk from this house. They’re worth over £11m. He is on the EU sanctions list, but he’s not on the UK sanctions list. When will the prime minister sort this out?

Johnson dodged this one too, saying he was “proud of what we have done already”.

Starmer then asked about Shuvalov again.

We only know which oligarch lurks beneath [the shell company that owns Shuvalov’s flats] because of the information obtained and disclosed by Alexei Navalny. Navalny, of course, was poisoned by the Russian state and he now sits in a Putin jail. Transparency is essential to rooting out corruption. It should be built into our law but it’s not. And I’m ashamed that we only know about Shuvalov’s Westminster flats because a dissident risked his life. Is the prime minister?

In reply, Johnson claimed the UK was “doing everything that we can to expose ill-gotten Russian loot”. But this boast is untrue - as Chris Bryant illustrated when he returned to the government’s failure to sanction prominent Russians. Starmer did not directly raise the large sums given to the Conservative party by Russian linked donors over the years, but another Labour MP, Bill Esterson did - perhaps a sign that Labour MPs are coodinating their questions with the frontbench?

If so, it’s working, because collectively Starmer and his colleagues built a strong case against the government. (A Tory MP, Bob Seely - a leading Commons hawk on Russia - also chipped in, compounding the PM’s embarrassment.) Journalists have been writing about Tory links with wealthy Russians for years, but it has been hard to prove that ministers are in the pocket of pro-Kremlin oligarchs. That’s because a) it is never quite clear how close to Vladimir Putin these donors are (although they tend not be be fierce Putin critics - because those are the Russians who end up dying in the UK in mysterious circumstances); and b) it is not obvious what they are getting for their money (favours for Putin, or protection from Putin?).

But the impression remains that there is something murky going on, and Johnson’s inability today to explain why sanctions are not being pursued more vigorously won’t have helped.

 

The British Press needs to shine an urgent light on this. He is clearly kompromized and needs to be removed as a matter of urgency. Having said that, it's likely the owners of our media are probably just as kompromized. 

[Zorral]

So ... will the UK provide sanctuary and security for Putin when Russia expels him?

[Which Tyler]

We do have a rather lengthy history of putting up ex-dictators.

Especially if they asset stripped their country before leaving

[Spockydog]

10 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

The Tories have a rather lengthy history of putting up ex-dictators.

Especially if they asset stripped their country before leaving

FTFY. 

[Hereward]

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