UK Politics VII - Going down on Downing Street

[Chaldanya]

OMFG, Min, what have you created?? :D

N

[Chaldanya]

the board is so horrified it created a double post!

[mormont]

link:

In his book, A Journey, Mr Blair recalls bumping into Charles after his first meeting with the deputy PM.

"Does he ever do that thing with you?" asked the Prince.

"When he's sitting opposite you, he slides down the seat with his legs apart, his crotch pointing a little menacingly, and balances his teacup and saucer on his tummy.

"It's very odd. I've never seen someone do that before. What do you think it means?"

[MinDonner]

Can't we raid the US politics thread and do this over there instead? I'm sure they'd appreciate the break from guns and mosques...

[Chaldanya]

"It's very odd. I've never seen someone do that before. What do you think it means?"

:lmao: :lmao: :lmao:

It just keeps getting better and better.

N

[Lummel]

I can top that: John Prescott. Prince Charles. Pelvic thrust.

Yes. So the only remaining question is does a homeopathic quantity of Prescott's semen inflame or supress the Prince's concerns over contemporary architecture?

Crispin Blunt was also less well known than Hague. Blunt getting divorced seems callous to me - as if it was just a cover and nothing else, no companionship, no friendship just the wife as accessory, someone to reassure the local party members.

Hague gifting the special advisor job to his young friend seems odd - but isn't still the case that there are no restrictions on the employment of special advisors?

[Usotsuki]

The primary requirements for employment as a Special Adviser are the trust of the minister and a willingness to knife your minister's colleagues in the back, or even occasionally in the front, without asking for overtime.

I hadn't realised quite how unpopular William Hague was within his own party - the bountiful crop of "leading conservatives" prepared to question his judgement is actually in danger of making me like the man, baseball cap be damned.

[mormont]

I'm not sure being criticised by Norman Tebbit and John Redwood shows that you're unpopular in the Conservative party... and being criticised by Max Clifford is a positive boon to your image, surely?

p.s. it's the visuals that really tell the story here, for me. How could anyone look at those pictures and not go away convinced that both men are thoroughgoing heterosexuals?

[Usotsuki]

I was convinced - those sunglasses scream "straight" to me :P

[The Wolf Maid]

:lol:

[Lummel]

I cannot help but be a huge fan of The Tories. They are so much better than The Republicans.

I don't know. Your republicans can go hiking the appalachian trail, rambling the pennine way just isn't the same.

[macaroni]

Is 'rambling the pennine way' an euphemism?

[Hereward]

It is now.

[Galactus]

This thread is so much more amusing than the american one :P

Although I should note that when the christian-democrat party leader here as accused of being a closeted homosexual by a filk singer, most of his party started laughing.

Make of that what you will.

[Daeric]

Either way if they are going to be rambling along the pennines can they keep it to the Lancs side, they'll be getting too close to me if they do it on the Yorkshire side.

[mormont]

Another magnificently loony Parliamentary expenses story:

Minister hired private detectives to find expenses whistleblower.

A justice minister has said he paid private detectives to investigate his colleagues because he was upset about "malicious" newspaper stories. Tory Jonathan Djanogly said he felt his private life had been invaded during last year's expenses scandal, but conceded he may have over-reacted.

The report was gathered for the MP for Huntingdon when he was shadow solicitor general at the height of the expenses scandal in July 2009.

The Daily Telegraph said the report showed the MP instructed the firm to conduct "discreet inquiries under the pretext of writing a newspaper article" to establish the views of people including a former council leader. Mr Djanogly said he had wanted to find the source of the stories.

The report apparently turned up some criticism of Mr Djanogly locally, finding a Facebook protest group entitled Ditch Djanogly and quoting a local Conservative who suggested Mr Djanogly's wife had little interest in the local Conservative association "which does not go down well in a traditional Tory constituency like Huntingdon".

Other quotes in the report suggest he was thought a "wet fish" who "sits on the fence on every issue" and should be deselected.

Ouch. I love how the private detective 'detected' a public Facebook group. That's some top investigative work right there.

Edit: more good stuff here

"I am sorry if some people judge that I made a mistake. With hindsight I can see that I may have over-reacted, but I was being subjected to very malicious, anonymous attacks on my family," he said, adding that he paid for the cost of the investigation and did not claim it back on parliamentary expenses.

:lol:

[Lyanna Stark]

Wait, how does he equal journalists digging out details of his expenses as an MP with "very malicious, anonymous attacks on my family"? Am I just being really thick here? :o

I love how he had to state that he didn't claim it back on expenses as well....

[MinDonner]

I also love how he spent all that money just to find out that everyone thinks he's just a bit crap really... though it would have been awesome if the main consensus had been "he's a paranoid spendthrift"...

[ljkeane]

I like it when politicians say they're sorry about other people's opinion of their actions but don't actually apologise for what they did. No lack of integrity there.

[Slick Mongoose]

A scandal that doesn't involve sex? In this thread? :stunned: