UK Politics - Bluff and Bluster

[Heartofice]

Nah , think that sounds about right 

[mormont]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Ok just to sum up.

No relevant employment laws have been changed as a result of Brexit, Mormont can’t find anything solid to connect employment practices to Brexit outside of vague ‘suggestions’, and Rippounet has been telling students misinformation for years about Brexit and EU law. 
 

Thanks guys.

Well, I can't comment on Rip.

But to sum up from my point of view, HoI is at a complete loss to explain why P&O have adopted a radically different approach in the EU and the UK, apparently feeling empowered to break employment law in the latter jurisdiction but not the former. He seems to consider this an insignificant aside, rather than the key issue in this case.

I guess, if you have no answers to these questions, demanding that other people provide them is one approach. I've at least made a stab at an explanation, and whether you consider that 'solid' or not, it's more substantial than offering nothing at all. 

ETA: let me put it another way. If you're interested in discussing why P&O have inflicted this appalling damage on 800 families, why they believe they can get away with it in the UK but not the EU, what can be done to better protect UK workers, the root causes of the issues in the political and economic culture our government promotes and so on, that's a substantial discussion and I'll be happy to talk about it with anyone.

If you're just trying to 'win' the discussion by saying 'aha! you can't directly link this to Brexit!', that's just a rhetorical point-scoring exercise and I'm not really willing to engage with that.

[Heartofice]

Well you have inferred that the reason they have fired Uk workers but not French ones was Brexit related in your original post. If that was not your intention then fine,  but given the context and what you said I’d say it was fair to deduce that is what you meant.

You still haven’t landed on any reason why Brexit has anything to do with it, other than UK employment laws might be different to French ones , which you concede has been a long running difference, not Brexit related. Which actually I agree with.

 I provided information on French laws, which flies in the face of your comment that I have ‘no answers to this question.’  It might well be that French laws are closer to UK ones, in which case P&O will be deemed to be acting illegally. 
 

The whole point is that the same old people happily point fingers at Brexit , whilst not having any facts to back up their lovely emotional reaction.

[Werthead]

 

[Spockydog]

[Spockydog]

35 minutes ago, Werthead said:

 

The evidence is mounting that Johnson is actively working for the Russians.

[Spockydog]

LEBEDEV: The KGB Spy Who Helped Put Putin in the Kremlin

Quote

 

...in 2012, it was Alexander Lebedev’s turn to be sex-kompromatted. He said he had been compromised by “a group of criminals and corrupt state officials with links to law enforcement… The tape was used to try to destroy my family. It failed.”

Alexander Lebedev then edited the sex tape and put on his own gloss on it, showing the world that he would not be blackmailed – and that he knows how to edit kompromat. But is this the kind of person you’d expect to be a close friend of the UK Prime Minister? 

The hard truth is that this sex kompromat doesn’t happen to the people in the Kremlin’s favour. Ten years on, just before the war, Alexander Lebedev was doing well and his businesses based in Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea were thriving. Somehow Alexander Lebedev has got himself back into the Kremlin’s grace. How could that be? 

Jacopo Iacoboni may have the answer to that question. He’s an Italian investigative journalist for La Stampa and he got his hands on a report for the Italian Parliament’s intelligence oversight committee on Alexander Lebedev. Iacoboni told me: “One of our sources in Italian intelligence literally says, ‘You never quit from the KGB. You are, you are a dead man if you try to quit the KGB.’” 

The Italian intelligence report was not intended for publication, and its information may not be wholly reliable. But it suggests that Alexander Lebedev’s departure from the KGB was “not quite clear”. The report also observes that Boris Johnson met Alexander Lebedev at parties at his Palazzo Terranova mansion in Umbria thrown by Evgeny – parties with “X-rated content”.

The investigative reporter Jim Cusick first broke the story of the bunga-bunga parties in Umbria for openDemocracy. He told me: “When people ask what happens there? It’s probably easier if you answer by saying what doesn’t happen there. Somebody said, it’s like a country party where the rules that normally apply don’t apply. How far does the Bacchanalia go, how far how much is how much of normal decorum is just thrown to the side? Imagine a party without rules and maybe you’ll get there.” 

Sir Andrew Wood, former British ambassador to Moscow and the diplomat who gave a copy of the Steele report on Trump’s shenanigans in Russia to the late Senator John McCain, told me before the war: “Putin requires more obedience from his oligarchs than even before. They are not independent actors.”

One former MI6 officer reflected on the strange friendship between the Lebedevs, father and son: “it’s just not credible that the Lebedevs don’t do something for the Kremlin. If Boris goes to the Lebedevs’ palazzo in Italy and shags someone, there’s got to be a sporting chance that someone’s filming it… Imagine if Putin was knocking off a woman in a place in Moscow owned by a British businessman, then, in my old job, I would be on to that immediately, I would be all over it like a bad rash.” 

Boris Johnson may have put himself in a position where he could have been compromised.

We don’t know the full facts. But, if the former MI6 officer is correct, the Kremlin does.

 

 

[Which Tyler]

3 hours ago, Spockydog said:

The evidence is mounting that Johnson is actively working for the Russians.

Johnson "actively working" would be a first!

[Heartofice]

3 hours ago, Spockydog said:

The evidence is mounting that Johnson is actively working for the Russians.

What is the evidence of that, like actually? You keep posting Twitter threads but the worst thing they point to is that Boris got a peerage for his mate and went to a few parties. 
 

Like has been said before, that’s a BIG leap to ‘working for the Russians’. 

[polishgenius]

Fucking lol I was gonna do a mick-take post about how there's no reason to believe Boris is doing anything for the Russians because Lebedev isn't actually Putin but you only went and fucking got there first, but unironically. 

[Which Tyler]

 

[Spockydog]

Shameless cunt. 

[Heartofice]

14 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Fucking lol I was gonna do a mick-take post about how there's no reason to believe Boris is doing anything for the Russians because Lebedev isn't actually Putin but you only went and fucking got there first, but unironically. 

So like you genuinely believe Boris is a Russian agent. This is what you actually believe yeah?

[Zorral]

When there's so much funny money honey it drowns out national loyalties more often than not, among fools and crooks, ya.  Already, Russians completed buying London when blowjo was mayor, you betcha.  It is documented. 

[polishgenius]

5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

So like you genuinely believe Boris is a Russian agent. This is what you actually believe yeah?

I mean, if you mean 'Russian agent' in the James Bond sense then obviously fucking not, although it's typical of you to try that dishonest reduction to absurdity. If you mean 'he's either being given money by the Russians or having put pressure on him by the Russians to favour certain actions that, even if not directly working for the Russian state, achieve things that Russia prefers to see' then obviously fucking yes. 

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, Zorral said:

When there's so much funny money honey it drowns out national loyalties more often than not, among fools and crooks, ya.  Already, Russians completed buying London when blowjo was mayor, you betcha.  It is documented. 

Sure, but I just have slightly higher expectations of Polishgenius. So thanks for contributing 

[Heartofice]

Just now, polishgenius said:

I mean, if you mean 'Russian agent' in the James Bond sense then obviously fucking not, although it's typical of you to try that dishonest reduction to absurdity. If you mean 'he's either being given money by the Russians or having put pressure on him by the Russians to favour certain actions that, even if not directly working for the Russian state, achieve things that Russia prefers to see' then obviously fucking yes. 

I’m just trying to work out where you are drawing a line here, because Spockydog clearly believes Boris is a full on worker drone for Putin. 

[polishgenius]

I think spocky's exaggerating for drama's sake, but even if he's not: 'actively a drone for the Russians' is no more removed from the most likely truth of the evidence we have so far than your framing of it as 'got his mate a lordship and went to some parties'. 

[Spockydog]

I think Boris Johnson has been kompromised, yes. Why anyone would find that far fetched, given all we know about the man, is rather amusing.

Especially in light of stuff like this:

Legal action taken against PM over refusal to investigate Kremlin meddling

Quote

 

A cross-party group of MPs and peers including a former national security adviser are taking legal action against Boris Johnson over his government’s refusal to order an inquiry into Russian interference in UK elections.

The group filed a claim in the high court in an attempt to force the prime minister to carry out an independent investigation or public inquiry. It is the first legal action of its kind over alleged national security failures.

The move follows the publication in July of the Russia report by parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC). It found that the government and its intelligence services had failed to investigate Kremlin meddling in the 2016 EU referendum vote – a “hot potato”, as the ISC put it.

The ISC urged Downing Street to carry out a full inquiry and to put in place a legislative framework to prevent future interference by foreign states. No 10 turned down the request. 

 

People will see what they want to see. Or rather, they will ignore what they want to ignore.

And look, when certain people are still peddling the notion that Russian meddling and destabilizing of Western democracies is a myth, you really have to question the loyalties and motivations of those people.

 

[Zorral]

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, pockets money from crooks like a crook, bhob's yr uncle.