The Absolute State Of It - It's The UK Politics Thread!

[Wrathbone]

She’s a wretch. I can’t believe they found someone who would make me reminisce about the compassionate, liberal days of Priti Patel.

[Raid]

The irony I suppose is that in making that statement she's proving her own point. If the product of so many instances of multi-culturalism is a genuinely awful human being, can we really call it a success? *

* Obviously I don't actually believe that.

[Wrathbone]

I've just caught the end of Penny Mordaunt's cringeworthy conference speech, which came across as her trying to channel Braveheart in front of an audience of people watching Bargain Hunt. She pushed her "stand up and fight" soundbyte so many times that I wanted to stand up and punch the screen.

Stand up and fight? Fight who? They've spent years beating the living snot out of everyone who can't afford a holiday home in the Cayman Islands, so presumably she means fight anyone who's attempting to hold the Conservatives to account. How about stand up and lead? Stand up and fund public services, maybe? I'd settle for stand up and fuck off.

A well-placed meteorite would resolve so many things today.

[Mantis]

They are really descending into absolute far right culture war madness with this conference aren't they.

I try to think on the bright side that most people don't pay enough attention to politics to really see just how deeply vile the current crop of Tories are, but it still is a bit depressing to see that 25% of people would still vote for them.

[Raid]

I keep thinking I should listen to these things just to keep myself aware of how they think, but I end up immediately turning them off as I just can't stand listening to them sing their own praises while they ignore the fact that they've been systematically destroying the country for the last decade and a half.

[Wrathbone]

I've had the covid inquiries on in the background the last couple of days. I'm under no illusions that any tangible justice will be dealt out, but watching the likes of Cummings and MacNamara squirm as their incompetence and callousness is laid bare before them is still worth watching. I doubt Cummings has enough humanity to actually be troubled by any of his actions, though, and MacNamara's still trying to play off partygate as semantics over what constitutes a party, despite the fact that she was fined for rocking up to one of them with a karaoke machine.

If anything, the evidence presented has shown that the government were (and are) far more useless than even my lowest estimations. And theoretically it could be January 2025 before the next election.

[Mantis]

Cummings has so little self awareness or humility to even recognise that he was part of the problem. He's still spouting the same old crap that it was basically everybody else's fault but his own on his own blog commentary. Any 'truth' that man tells is selectively done so to and try make himself look beyond reproach.

I doubt the enquiry is even going to touch on the matter of the enormous amount of dodgy PPE that we bought from China that was brokered by recently established companies run by friends of the Tory party with zero experience in healthcare all acting as intermediaries to pocket tidy contract fees. That element of the pandemic response was just pure robbery and people should be in jail for it.

[Raid]

Every time I think we've reached the bottom of the barrel with Suella Braverman, she comes out with a policy that makes me realise there's a cavern below the barrel and she's already thrown enough bodies down into it to let her safely make her way down the pile.
https://news.sky.com/story/suella-brave ... t-12999971

Ms Braverman added: "Nobody in Britain should be living in a tent on our streets. There are options for people who don't want to be sleeping rough, and the government is working with local authorities to strengthen wraparound support including treatment for those with drug and alcohol addiction.

"What I want to stop, and what the law abiding majority wants us to stop, is those who cause nuisance and distress to other people by pitching tents in public spaces, aggressively begging, stealing, taking drugs, littering, and blighting our communities."

A lifestyle choice! Temporary shelter is a fucking lifestyle choice!

You know what Suella? These homeless people have far too many jackets and gloves. The good, working public should know that homelessness is not the easy path to winter clothing, and ban them from wearing them. Maybe while you're at it, stop them from sheltering under things; tax-payers contribute so much more to society, and they've earned the right to shelter, not like these bastards with their tents and their hoods.

[eny]

A little insight into Peter Thiel, and why Palantir's involvement with NHS medical data is more than alarming...

[Snowy]

Every time I think we've reached the bottom of the barrel with Suella Braverman, she comes out with a policy that makes me realise there's a cavern below the barrel and she's already thrown enough bodies down into it to let her safely make her way down the pile.
https://news.sky.com/story/suella-brave ... t-12999971

Ms Braverman added: "Nobody in Britain should be living in a tent on our streets. There are options for people who don't want to be sleeping rough, and the government is working with local authorities to strengthen wraparound support including treatment for those with drug and alcohol addiction.

"What I want to stop, and what the law abiding majority wants us to stop, is those who cause nuisance and distress to other people by pitching tents in public spaces, aggressively begging, stealing, taking drugs, littering, and blighting our communities."

A lifestyle choice! Temporary shelter is a fucking lifestyle choice!

You know what Suella? These homeless people have far too many jackets and gloves. The good, working public should know that homelessness is not the easy path to winter clothing, and ban them from wearing them. Maybe while you're at it, stop them from sheltering under things; tax-payers contribute so much more to society, and they've earned the right to shelter, not like these bastards with their tents and their hoods.

Yeah I generally avoid Twitter like the plague, but that one did prompt me to respond...

[Wrathbone]

Let’s be clear about this: if tents for the homeless were banned from today and it was enforced, hundreds of people, possibly thousands, would die as a result this winter. She should be held responsible for all of them.

I’ve never encountered someone so cartoonishly vile in British politics.

[Snowy]

Not for the first time, I think James O'Brien has it nailed:

[Wrathbone]

I see our very own poke-in-a-pig, the austerity king David Cameron, has wormed his way back to the forefront as foreign secretary. Is his role going to be "international punching bag", given that he's chiefly responsible for allowing Brexit to happen? More likely it's to make the cabinet look like there's an actual grown up in the room, however deplorable he may be.

At least Braverman's finally out, with the rumourmill suggesting she forced it in some delusional move for a future leadership bid. Good riddance.

[Raid]

Further proof, if any were needed, that it's impossible to screw the country up so badly that you're never invited back to a Tory government. Also, has there ever been a more obvious death sentence than a Tory PM having "full confidence" in someone? It's less than a week since Sunak said it about Braverman, and he's now sacked her. I guess we'll see what further dregs Sunak's been able to scrape up to be the next Home Secretary.

What are we expecting from this James Cleverly person? A dangerously ironic surname, or off-the-scale cruelty to show that he's tough enough for the job? I never bother learning about most Tory ministers because they seldom stick around long enough to make it worthwhile.

[Wrathbone]

Some choice paragraphs from his Wikipedia page:

In November 2015 Cleverly was criticised for pushing through the closure of 10 fire stations in London after the death of an elderly man in Camden following delays in the arrival of fire crews. In response, Cleverly said: "It is impossible for them to say that with certainty."

In January 2016, the Labour Party proposed an amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill 2016[25] that would have required private landlords to make homes which they put up for rent "fit for human habitation". According to Parliament's register of interests, Cleverly was one of 72 Conservative MPs who voted against the amendment and who personally derived an income from renting out property. The Conservative Government had responded to the amendment by saying that they believed homes should be fit for human habitation but did not want to pass the new law that would explicitly require it.

In March 2016 Cleverly was asked to step down as patron of Advocacy for All, a charity supporting disadvantaged people in South East England. The charity felt he was no longer a suitable person for the role, given that he had voted to cut Employment and Support Allowance (the benefit paid to disabled people who are unable to work).

In October 2018 Cleverly defended Conservative London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey over potentially Islamophobic and Hinduphobic comments he had made in a pamphlet and suggested that black boys were drifting into crime as a result of learning more about faiths other than "their own Christian culture".

A Tory through and through, then.