UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[Blair]

The lesson that both the Labour left learnt with Corbyn & the Labour Right learned under Starmer is that you stay in the party and wait for events.

The problems facing the left is that a small number of party members are leaving the party; although a lot of the very online people often who threaten to quit either don't leave or were never actually party members.

There's some hilarous talk of Lavery launching a leadership challenge but even the SCG isn't that stupid.

This sacking, as the Paul Waugh article says is slightly similar to when Owen Smith was sacked for openly defying Labour Party Policy (not for the content but rather the reaction) I remember the right & remain wing of the party had a collective breakdown over it but I was baffled- it's clear you serve in the Shadow Cabinet at the pleasure of the leader & you have to be trusted. Smith's actions were a lot more flagrant & he was begging to be sacked but a lot of people are treating this as if she has lost the whip.

For me the fundamental question is this- as a represenative of the Labour Leadership on the Frontbench was she correct to retweet an article that was A.) Factually inaccurate (as both Peake & Amensty International have now admitted) B.) Criticising her own Leader (When the comment in question was reposted by CP above the most daming line was cut out- which was Peake saying that people who rejoin Labour because of Starmer should hang their head in shame)

Again for me it's about judgement; if you're tweeting stuff without reading the article then you're sloppy & if you can't see the whiff of anti-semitism in this then you've got a blindspot- we know that Long-Bailey has a historic weakness on anti-semitism & frankly it is worrying that after she got so politically burned for this when she ran for leader that she has not learnt.

The thing no-one is discussing is that this is yet another reason why politicians should not tweet; almost every outbound communication generally gets vetted, approved and signed off by staff or the party.

In terms of the opposition there seems to be two strands; one claims it is not anti-semitic at all. Some of the people saying this are the same people who supported Chris Williamson, who supported Jackie Walker, who claimed that there was no anti-semitism in Labour & then pivoted to claiming there was a little bit & then pivoted to claim there was and it was covered up by the right of the party. If you don't think Labour has a historic failure to tackle anti-semitism then you're not going to see anything wrong with this

The second group seem to think it was a mistake but that she should have been censured. This has happened in the past, including to those on the frontbench. There's some claims that she refused to take down the tweet & apologise fully; and RLB claims that the half-apology was agreed by LOTO- as with most things happening quickly there is probably truth in both claims but if she refused to apologise fully thinking that she wouldn't get sacked...

The left of the party seem to be cranking up the machine over this; the e-petition has 8,000 signatures & Momentum are data gathering from it but frankly as someone said this morning a tad harshly it's a surpise if the left of the party are foolish to burn their capital for Long-Bailey again- who is one of the reasons why we have Starmer.

[Blair]

The one thing that is forgotten is that in 2019 Labour were attacked a lot more strongly over their economic argument; specifically issues around tax.

To take one example in both 2017 & 2019 Labour had a very sensible policy to increase the tax you pay on dividends (its taxed at a historically lower rate & some people go out of their way to earn via this way). This was done to allow Labour to claim we wouldn't increase income tax while still raising £- but in 2019 we were attacked ruthlessly for raising taxes on grannies & on small businesses. I know from the campaign that this had cut through.

The economic argument was a lot more botched in 2019 but we also faced a much sharper conservative attack machine; the thing I think that is laregly forgotten about 2017 is that the Tories were either AWOL or chasing other weaker targets (a lot more money was spend in 2017 on IRA ads than 2019)

I think it's perfectly fair to say that the 2017 manifesto had popular policies. Although I'm questionable of the instinctive use of polling to back this up; to take an example almost all the political tories in my family (retired, home owning brexiteers etc) believe the energy companies should be broken up; they agree with that but they don't agree with Labours method of fixing it (rasising & spending £££)

And of course you have the issue of trust & competence; people either thought we would were lying about doing it or they thought we were too incompetent to carry it out. It's also falling into the same trap of Labour in the 1980s & the Tories in the 2000s where both kept saying 'but the policies are popular' without noticing just how screwed the brand is.

[Blair]

(a lot more money was spend in 2017 on IRA ads than 2019)

Even so, anecdotal accounts suggest that "Corbyn IRA bad" stuff was heard much more on the fabled doorstep - especially from Labour deserters in "red wall" areas - last year.

Yes & something that even Long-Bailey hinted at was the need for the party to absolutely banish this image. I think the issue cut through with a very specific type of voter; while the tories hoped it would have a much bigger national effect.

It's interesting that the person charged with repairing this damage is Conor McGinn; whose father is a Sinn Fein councillor but who is firmly from the old right of the party.

[Blair]

That clip for me is a reminder that most people do not know that Keir Starmer was the director of public prosecutions (and most people don't know what that role is) & the 2-3 years of being leader of the opposition is about defining & setting a public perception.

From a policy viewpoint it's a headbanging quality stupidity  to even go near that policy- in that it distracts from a very valid argument that the police have to do too much because of austerity. Almost everyone in the Labour Party agrees that factors like Housing, Mental Health care, work security & so forth impact crime rates; but we also know that communities have suffered from police cuts & police cuts have made it harder to investigate hate crime, sexual assaults & other serious crimes.

There's certainly a whole host of organisational reform issues around the police & race (use of Section 60 powers to stop & search for one) but I don't see how defunding them isn't just a blunt & crude tool.

Besides Labours most successful campaign & messages are around police cuts. I'm not even here to do my 'oh this is about distancing from Corbyn' because this is the exact same stance we had in 2019 & 2017; it's hilarous how much praise & sh**t Starmer gets for saying the exact same thing as Jeremy but just with a different tone.

[Blair]

I do wonder if myself & the Labour Party discourse/forever war would benefit from no twitter. I don't even use my account anymore- but even searching just brings up people like myself (who've had the exact same opinion on every political issue since 2016!)

[Blair]

This is something that the Government probably would have lost a vote on; I think it's an issue where there was offical advice from the security services which contrasted the political advice; Theresa May in no surpise picked the security advice, where as Boris won't.

[Blair]

Where does Dr "Disgraced Former Defence Secretary" Liam Fox get so much political capital from in order to get such big "contact book" gigs and now a last minute WTO Director-General candidacy? This guy is a proven crook...

Ex cabinet ministers who stay in the commons tend to fall into two camps; vengeful obsessives & CV padders. The other choice was Peter Mandelson, who is a lot more qualified but equally ugh...

There's a remarkable number of perks that the Government can give out to people like Fox merely to keep him on side.

[Blair]

It's funny as during my political lifetime I've never know G*lloway as a scottish politican; this is full circle really.

To his credit & I can't believe I'm saying this but he was hilarous at getting under the skin of nationalists in 2014 in only the way that he can- he's a character which to sound cliche is really from a bygone age of British Politics.

[Blair]

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2020/jul/13/english-councils-poised-cuts-services-job-losses-loss-commercial-income

In other news many local councils are now ed. Obviously, much of this drive to acquire commercial property on the back of borrowing is due to cuts in central government grants over the last decade, but I imagine there have been some stupid acquisitions along the way. Fortunately all debt (at least for England and Wales, as far as I’m aware) is owed to a public entity (the PWLB) and not to banks/bondholders, as would be the case in the States, so hopefully some arrangements can be made there.

Some people where warning about this pre-covid- I think the National Audit Office where warning a lot of councils where relying on assumed profits to present a much more rosy picture re finances.

I don't know if it's a huge difference but I always assumed there was a scale with this; some councils did it on a few sites where as the richer ones in the South-East went a bit crazy with it & started buying up vast sites for supermarkets in places like Wales- which in itself is a worrying trend re local space.

[Blair]

Chris Grayling has lost his bid to become the next chair of the Intelligience and Security Committee.

He was offered this plum job in exchange for keeping quiet & was rightly seen as a lackey for No.10 on a committee which is usually extremely non-political & vital in overseeing MI5 & MI6 (there's a fascinating comparison in oversight of the CIA & MI6)

He lost to the Conservative MP Julian Lewis, who is himself a character. But he is at least qualified & independently minded.

This is notable because the Russia report is expected to come out & because No.10 spent the last 3 months trying to find suitable backbenchers to put on here who they could trust would vote for Grayling; a serious blow for the Whips Office & No.10

[Blair]

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1283451638607380481

[Blair]

It's now quite worrying to read the Tories might try and force a vote to remove him from the committee; it was reported this was not possible because of the committee having seperate legislative standing... but I'm not an expert.

I'm not actually sure there would be the votes for this; unless they do it on the last day before recess when they hope to cash in on MPs not physically being in Westminster. MPs are always the most likely to rebel on issues like these...

Baffling to do this all over a chairmanship of a committee. The biggest takeaway is that it's now possible to claim that all MPs, not just those on the payroll, are bound to vote in line with the whips in Select Committee elctions... we use to at least let them be free contests!

Of course, Julian Lewis has past form with political espionage and skulduggery, so his outwitting the government whips on this one isn’t unexpected.

Does he- what's he done before?

[Blair]

It's baffling though why so much energy is being wasted on this position.

It's not as if there's a massive split within the party about intelligience issues & the committee is already relatively constrained by the PM.

The Russia Report isn't likely to be groundbreaking based on what's been briefed. There will be little new news in terms of the Tory Party.

The funny thing is that yes it was a joke to give it to Grayling but they're burning a lot of bridges on something that makes very little difference regardless of who is chair; it's just another way of scaring the new Tory MPs & weakening the scrunity of Prime Minister Rayner in 2027

[Blair]

It would be interesting as you'd have an extremely credible argument for the writ to be delayed; it's not safe currently to carry out elections & both parties would hate it.

My best guess is that this goes through the new all singing & dancing complaints process & he's forced to apologise & go on some sort of training; this also isn't exactly new information for those who read Guido either but it's digusting. Baffling of course how he hasn't lost the whip.

Labour would be favoured in a by-election; Dave Hanson losing was one of the bigger shocks & Welsh Labour are very well organised.

[Blair]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-53472289

I suspect we may have a candidate for first by-election of the new parliament

Yes, there were a few rather rum coves swept into parliament on the back of the Tories good performance in Wales at the last election.

Meanwhile, the long awaited (longer awaited than the arrival of the Messiah probably) Russia report by the Intelligence and Security Committee has been published... and it’s basically a a bland summation of things that everybody with a vague interest in Russia knew about already (with the caveat that, as an ISC report, it has been heavily redacted). Nonetheless many of the usual suspects are trying to make a feast out of this very thin gruel.

http://isc.independent.gov.uk/committee-reports

Not actually sure why the government bothered to hold back its publication for so long.

I skimmed it this morning & there wasn't anything that shocking; beyond the reports about how slow MI5 are to pick up on Russian intelligience work in London.

This of course is the natural extension of politicians spending 20 years telling them they need to stop the next 9/11; and frankly the number of recent cases show they're not exactly on top of that.

The most concerning part of this for me wasn't Brexit but rather the influence culture & money laundering that exists across London; this has been an open & discussed secret and I imagine hands from all sides would be burnt if anything was done to examine this.

[Blair]

It would be interesting as you'd have an extremely credible argument for the writ to be delayed; it's not safe currently to carry out elections & both parties would hate it.

My best guess is that this goes through the new all singing & dancing complaints process & he's forced to apologise & go on some sort of training; this also isn't exactly new information for those who read Guido either but it's digusting. Baffling of course how he hasn't lost the whip.

Labour would be favoured in a by-election; Dave Hanson losing was one of the bigger shocks & Welsh Labour are very well organised.

Well the default position for Tories/government under Johnson seems to be "brazen it out no matter how damning the actual evidence", so I'm not getting my hopes up about anything happening. Unless even more stuff comes out, perhaps......

Honestly with such a large majority it's almost worth less hassle to the party whips...

[Blair]

Well the obvious issue for me is the relucance to fix our electoral laws; it's been clear since 2015 that there needs to be regulation of online political content.

It was baffling that during an election every word in print we put out had to be itemised with a clear watermark of our election agent & address while whatever went on facebook had no requirement at all; but equally could still count as speech under election laws (e.g breaching the 1983 act & causing an election to be void)

MPs have been banging on for months about the need for the Government to fix this; but Brexit & Covid & a complete lack of digital knowledge means we will not fix it until there is a scandal. If a foreign Government wanted to influence an election they could have done it through spending millions on facebook adverts outside of an election period.

There were numerous cases of random 20 year olds running thousands of pounds of random digital ads against MPs during the Brexit votes; we always boast about not allowling TV advertising like the Americans but at least there you have a vague idea of who is behind it even if it is 'Doctors for patient freedom'

Rather than an MI5 inquiry we'd never actually see I'd much rather we have an new election act; especially as the stuff related to national campaign spending irrc still hasn't been fixed after the fiasco of the battle bus.

[Blair]

In hilarous news the Government have re-imposed quarantines for those returning from Spain; and it appears the Transport Secretary (who is in charge of this; god knows why it isn't an FCO issue?) is in spain himself.

[Blair]

The documents were put on reddit months before iirc; If the security services were so worried they should and did have the channels to at least warn Labour about them- but as I said above the Russia report made clear MI5/MI6 were asleep at the wheel.

There’s an ongoing criminal investigation into the actual leak. The document was just a prop though.

Re Brexit polling I’d ignore it; all Brexit polling is bollocks and the issue has radicalised and melted many minds

[Blair]

In non-covid news the new Honours list is as always hilarously awful; although it's one of those things which is always the 'worst ever'.

Lots of people were up in arms about Philip May getting a knighthood; but the real shock was the onwer of the Standard getting a peerage after the reports just last week....

[Blair]

Yikes. Get your clipboards out lads.

[Blair]

One of the problems is that as our test and trace system isn't working properly, we don't have a good idea of where spread is occurring. But anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that the primary avenue of transmission is via workplaces, much more than via social venues. If we had been slightly less keen on trying to racialise the lockdown in Leicester and had paid slightly more attention to the predominant local industries in these areas, that might have given a hint. Incidentally, these are also industries that have a significant presence in Greater Manchester, East Lancashire and West Yorkshire.

that's interesting: the ST article by Tim Shipman says that they have data showing that household visits and social visits where the main two reasons- yet the article says that stopping these were also the first two and most straight forward levers they had; so  knows how accurate it is.

[Blair]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-53632949

A woman who told police she was raped by a former Conservative minister complained about his behaviour to a senior party figure four months ago.

It is understood that Tory chief whip Mark Spencer spoke with the complainant in April, but Mr Spencer insists she did not make any allegation of serious sexual assault.

The party said it will not suspend the MP while investigations are ongoing.

The MP, in his 50s, was arrested on Saturday and has since been bailed.

The Metropolitan Police said the allegations related to four separate incidents claimed to have taken place between July 2019 and January 2020.

The Sunday Times reported that the allegations against the former minister had been made by an ex-parliamentary employee.

A spokesman for the chief whip said that he took all accusations of harassment and abuse extremely seriously and had strongly encouraged anybody who has approached him to contact the appropriate authorities.

Depending on who this ends up being, could this be enough to bring down Boris Johnson's Government? Surely someone in the Conservative Party could give him a leadership challenge over this?

No chance to be blunt!

At worse (or best...) it will lead to the Chief Whip being sacked; a move that was already on the cards after a series of high profile u-turns & cock ups in the commons.

[Blair]

A Conservative MP - reported to be a former minister and in his fifties - has been arrested on multiple charges of rape. Still in custody, name not released yet.

Quite probably won't be for legal reasons - i.e. it could identify the victim in this case. That's a criminal offence with a potential for an unlimited fine.

From what I've read it's because of a recent High Court ruling about naming suspects before they've been charged.

On the subject of the whip I think it's perfectly possible to suspend the whip without telling us who they suspended it from! Like all of things it's just usual practice to inform the House & public when it happens...

[Blair]

The thing for me that makes this different to the u-turn over free school meals & the NHS surcharge is that this was coming for months; the Education Select Committee warned about this & other MPs, Schools and heads have written about this- this wasn't a problem that suddenly emerged.

It was clear however last tuesday that it was a disaster & the stories coming out on Thursday & Friday should have got No.10s ears perking up; which is why Williamson's strong 'there's no u-turn' was actually rather shocking & convinced me there wouldn't be one.

However once you had 20+ Tory MPs going on the radio, including some who weren't the usual suspects, it was pretty clear that the issue was toxic.

Williamson offered to resign & he should have; this isn't something you can blame on civil servants. He simply wasn't on top of his brief for the most important set piece event that he's had for months... this is what happens when you put people who are awful ministers in important jobs.

He only got the education job because it didn't require a security clearance (as he was sacked for allegedly leaking classified news from the NSC) & he needed to be 'rewarded' for helping Boris win the backing of MPs in the leadership race; the same reason why Grant Shapps, who was a middling & below average junior minister under cameron, became transport secretary. Every first cabinet has people given plum jobs as rewards & they're often sh**t at it.

His vanity is also pretty hilarous; he was pictured & filmed drinking out of a mug for some sort of surly frontpage apology spread; when I read he was a student politician it all made sense...