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UK Politics - Caesar: Most senators didn’t stab me, so all good!


Derfel Cadarn

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7 hours ago, mormont said:

So more on Johnson and ethics:

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/boris-johnson-wanted-to-give-carrie-symonds-a-100000-downing-street-role/

It turns out that, allegedly, and surely to no one's surprise, Boris Johnson - while still married to Marina Wheeler, who had cancer at the time - was having an affair with Carrie Symonds. He then tried to appoint her as his chief of staff at the Foreign Office. The report claims this was blocked and he had to have it explained to him why this was not OK.

So far, so predictable. But then we find that the Mail turned down the story. The Times ran it in their print edition and online, before it suddenly disappeared from the online edition. Reporting on the story is thin - not a word on the BBC at present. But the story is credible, and the Times print version suggests that it checks out.

Allegedly Johnson has got a super-injunction which is why it’s been memory-holed

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4 hours ago, polishgenius said:


What are you talking about, Grant? It's your job, Grant!

“Militant unions”

when I hear that term I think of union members going to a factory managers house and threatening to burn it down with him in side it.

Not union members peacefully protesting.

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Yeah, but this is the preferred Tory approach to any problem: try to pin it on the Opposition. That's why, however much we might prefer to hear that Labour will do this or that about Brexit or NI or immigration, it's necessary for Labour to avoid giving answers - not because it has none but because any answer at all will be seized on by the government who will seek to make the subject, as they have above, why Labour can't be trusted on subject X. Y or Z. It's preferable to being held to account, something this government (as noted) wants to avoid at all costs.

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‘He comes over as weak’: Keir Starmer fails to convince Wakefield voters

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Conventional wisdom suggests Wakefield should be a slam-dunk for Labour: a byelection held when the prime minister’s approval ratings have scarcely been lower, triggered by the imprisonment of the sitting MP, Imran Ahmad Khan, for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.

And yet, time and again the Guardian heard Johnson described in Wakefield as “the best of a bad lot”, with scarcely any mention of Khan’s proven paedophilia. It is “deliberate Tory strategy” to paint all MPs as corrupt and self-serving, grumbled one Labour MP who has canvassed several times in the constituency: “They realise they are in a fix with Johnson, and so to get out of it, they paint him as unexceptionally bad, and tar us all with the same brush.”

Support worker Gary Firm, out enjoying the sunshine with a client on Friday, illustrated Labour’s problem. “I don’t believe in any of the politicians around at the minute,” he said. “I see Boris at the head and yeah, he’s made some mistakes. He’s been pretty dreadful in parts. But on the big picture, he’s done good stuff. So I’d support him.”

There is little love for Starmer in Wakefield, who made his third visit to the constituency on Saturday. “He’s a criticiser. He’s not an action person,” said Hall. Caroline Walker, an art teacher, was also unimpressed: “What is it they call him? Captain Hindsight. That’s him to a tee. [He should] come up with something that’s believable. But he doesn’t. He just has a go all the time.”

The idea of Johnson having got the “big calls” right is widespread. “I feel that Boris Johnson has handled Covid well. I feel like if someone else would was in his position, they might have not done as good as him,” said Ayesha Ahmed, an 18-year-old college student. She also approves of Johnson extending the right-to-buy council houses: “I think that’s really good, because paying rent adds up to more than a mortgage.”

Failing to win Wakefield will certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons.

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11 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I’m laughing because days after telling others to ‘take a day off’ you are again spamming this thread making it basically unreadable with endless posts and reposts from Twitter. Maybe just take some time away from the computer and Twitter.

I enjoy reading this stuff.

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16 hours ago, Maltaran said:

Allegedly Johnson has got a super-injunction which is why it’s been memory-holed

That's the suggestion. In fact, since this particular story is very clearly in the public interest, there's a theory that Carrie Johnson has a wider pre-existing injunction that this particular story may have fallen foul of. But that in itself would be a huge public interest issue. Nobody wants salacious or intrusive stories about a person who just happens to be married to the Prime Minister, but this is a genuine and serious story about the Prime Minister behaving corruptly when he was Foreign Secretary.

Anyway, the story's not going away:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/19/carrie-johnson-and-the-curious-case-of-the-vanishing-times-story

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1 hour ago, mormont said:

That's the suggestion. In fact, since this particular story is very clearly in the public interest, there's a theory that Carrie Johnson has a wider pre-existing injunction that this particular story may have fallen foul of. But that in itself would be a huge public interest issue. Nobody wants salacious or intrusive stories about a person who just happens to be married to the Prime Minister, but this is a genuine and serious story about the Prime Minister behaving corruptly when he was Foreign Secretary.

Anyway, the story's not going away:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/19/carrie-johnson-and-the-curious-case-of-the-vanishing-times-story

Ironically its the removal of a page 5 story on a sunny Sunday that has propelled it forwards.

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21 hours ago, polishgenius said:


What are you talking about, Grant? It's your job, Grant!

Grant’s wiki page. He’s literally a con man. Got more aliases than Jason Bourne.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Shapps

Oh and the Summer of Discontent…

Lawyers are going on strike too

https://twitter.com/barristersecret/status/1538806817395974145?s=21&t=TvoD6yOCvavMNhJrVc8iJw

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Number 10 refusing to comment on claims that, with millions awaiting their delayed NHS treatment, Boris Johnson skipped the waiting list to get his gak-addled sinuses sorted.

So I guess that means that he skipped the waiting list.

 

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On 6/19/2022 at 4:39 PM, Maltaran said:

Allegedly Johnson has got a super-injunction which is why it’s been memory-holed

If there was a super-injunction wouldn't that also stop the Guardian and BBC reporting on the Times' story and its disappearance?

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Unless I'm reading this wrong, the BBC have now also spoken to sources who confirm the story. They bury this in the article a bit but again, this story is not going to go away.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61869650

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Two sources told the BBC that Mr Johnson had floated the idea with members of his team that his now-wife could be employed as his chief-of-staff when he was foreign secretary - and said multiple aides had advised him against it.

 

23 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

No 10 have confirmed they asked for the story to be pulled, but not why.

ETA - that's the other thing. They haven't said why, but they have said there was no threat of legal action, and that Johnson's team were in touch both before and after publication.

Basically the Times published this story (on page 5: shouldn't it have been a front page story? It will be soon) and then they withdrew it purely because Johnson's team asked them. But more than that: first they asked and were ignored, then they asked again and the Times took the highly unusual step of withdrawing an already-published story from later editions.

This all strongly suggests two things:

- The story is true, or at least there's no prospect of either of the Johnsons successfully suing over it.

- Someone senior at the Times who was not involved initially was contacted after the first refusal to pull the story. They then made an extraordinary editorial intervention without any threat of being sued. Boris Johnson knows key editorial staff at the Times from his journalism days, by the way.

So well done to all involved for taking a story about corruption and turning it into two stories about corruption.

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Well, either that. Or somebody high up at The Time hierarchy really wants Johnson gone and spent some time on energy on thinking how they can achieve max impact.

I mean, on some level the reaction and news cycle was kinda predictable. If you want this story to be front page all over the UK within a few days, I couldn't come up with a much better way to do it. On the other hand, this story replaces the party gate and leadership talk for a few days on the media. Trumpian playbook of replacing on scandal with another to exhaust the public.

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