WTF is happening in the UK?

[FD2]

FD2, and the opposition?

Apart from our politicians being professional politicians the majority have no actual experience of being leaders or in control of departments. When elected, by definition, a new leader has a mere handful from whom to select.

I think the age (perhaps a highish minimum age might imbue them with a little wisdom) and real work experience (as opposed to professional politicking) qualifications of the men and women who put themselves up for election as MPs need to be examined, as well as the whole business of second jobs and 'moonlighting' - which the boys in blue seem to be leading the House in at the moment. They didn't get the message about the public being sick of their antics after the expenses scandal and they seem to have forgotten it now. The opposition have an easier job of criticising without responsibility but they don't seem to be making much of a fist of it do they?

Bunter has only himself to blame for the deep mess his party is in at present - maybe it's time for the men in grey suits to get busy.

[Boac]

From The Independent:

"Some 17 landlord MPs – 15 Conservatives and two Labour – have put their housing costs on expenses while earning more than £10,000 a year each renting out their own properties in recent years.

Former attorney general Sir Geoffrey Cox sparked outrage after it emerged that he was claiming £1,900 a month for his taxpayer-funded flat while claiming a rental income from a home elsewhere in London.

An investigation by The Independent shows five current ministers have also claimed for rent while letting out homes in the capital, including international trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, defence secretary Ben Wallace, Foreign Office minister James Cleverly, prisons minister Victoria Atkins and junior Treasury minister John Glen."

Quite honestly I am surprised it is only 17, and question whether all the others are fit to hold office if they have missed this trick.

[Pontius Navigator]

Probably rose tinted spectacles but if my youth I gained the impression that Labour were working class men selected from their peers, and the other parties from the upper classes and old money.
The one knew what was wrong in the labour market and knew how to run the country.
Second jobs were real jobs as Parliament sat at night. Salaries were incidental with private incomes or union subsidiaries.
What I did notice was that an MPs basic salary was equivalent to that of a sqn ldr. Not a bad comparison as junior executives.

[Boac]

More background to our Circus Clown's visit to Hexham hospital - the hospital say he was told 3 times he should wear a mask. They should have called security and slung the bugger out (with media coverage, of course).

Thus Raab was lying when he said "Mr Johnson had followed ‘all the protocols and procedures’ while he was on the premises." There's a surprise.

How much would a 'contract' on Bojo cost?

[Woody]

This has just appeared elsewhere and obviously I’m biased, but he does have a point.

[Boac]

It appears that 41 MPs (of several parties) are still using public money to pay family members for 'work' because this employment, which was outlawed in 2017, is still allowed where the employment started before.

[om15]

Is Mr Klopp from around here? Has he discounted our system of democracy I wonder, it has served us for many centuries, but I admit that it isn't without problems.

Democracy has given us Claudia Webb, Diane Abbott, that red headed socialist horror and two Scotch SNPs that got rat arsed on an official trip to Gibraltar, so it isn't perfect, but as Sir Winston Churchill said, it is better that the alternative.
Nigel Farage doesn't lead anything, he merely voices his opinions, which do chime with many, but he isn't a politician.

Is Mr Klopp an EU person by any chance?

[G-CPTN]

Jürgen_Klopp

[Woody]

Nigel Farage is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party from 2019 to 2021.

I think failed politician covers it

[Undried Plum]

Very far from "failed".

He went into politics with one ambition: to lead Britain out of the EU.

He succeeded.

[Woody]

He got beaten by a bloke dressed up in a dolphin costume in one of his seven failures to become an MP.

[Pontius Navigator]

I would vote for him, a disrupter like Cummings but with more style

[om15]

From an article written in the Telegraph today by Tim Stanley,

The public is sold this bill on the grounds that healthcare needs funds, and this is one area where the Government is happy to follow the polls. But more money won’t prevent the annual NHS winter crisis or the waiting-list nightmare. When you mix in the possibility of energy shortages, we are going to spend a miserable New Year paying more cash for worse services, all the while that actors and bankers (a dangerous axis of beauty and brains) insist it’s for our own good. One gets the impression that economic policy is being dictated more by schoolchildren than the parents who clothe, feed and educate them.

Boris needs to get back to what the adults want. Not all them: the country is divided (quite a few seem to actively dislike it), and the PM will never speak for everyone. But the 44 per cent who voted Tory two years ago are likely to want to see activists who block roads moved on; illegal immigration ended; woke confronted; a green strategy that helps consumers rather than harms them; and a reduction in taxes.

Hitherto, Boris has coasted on charisma buoyed by Brexit, lockdown solidarity and general joy at the vaccine roll out. But these issues are passing. What one is left with is a small record, big u-turns, accusations of cronyism and the same cultural elitism that Brexit was supposed to exorcise. If the public does get tired of Boris personally, a majority built on so little is bound to collapse.

[om15]

Thanks G-CAPT, another Jerry that thinks he knows best about Great Britain then.
You have to hand to the Huns, they never give up on interfering in other countries politics do they.

[Woody]

OM 15 using the Boris method of using distraction tactics to ignore the problems of his own party

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... l#comments

[om15]

Not at all, I am disgusted by the greed, dishonesty and avarice of many MPs, most of whom are in the Conservative Party.
That doesn't blind me to the evils and perils of socialism.

[Pontius Navigator]

NatWest is trialling a 2022 branch uniform that would give employees the option of adding their preferred pronoun, such as she/her, he/him or they/them, on to name badges made of bamboo.

So the bank teller, assuming you can find a bank, will have a he/she/it badge. What's wrong with Ms Smith or Mr Jones (as self identified)? If I had a badge that said 'She' it brings to mind the retort of my youth 'who's she, the cat's mother'?

Maybe I will wear one too with simply 'Sir'.

[Boac]

With a sense of timing, Jennifer Arcuri's 'diaries' have apparently been 'released' for publication https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... in-my-love

In one Twiiter response, om's present to us was described as "the sleazy, nauseating, sordid, sex-obsessed, lying oaf who is, shamefully, our Prime Minister."

I don't think I can better that.

[Pontius Navigator]

I did think he would have been gone by Christmas but I think Covid scorched that as no one wanted the poisoned chalice. Who could replace him? Are there moved afoot? Is Liz Truss manoeuvring?

[Undried Plum]

and the opposition?

SNP Ian Blackhead is the leading pig with regard to personal greed. Last year he racked up a cool quarter of a million on his HoC expense account.

This year he is 'phasing-down' his involvement with the multi-Billion investment racket and hedge fund firms which he runs.

OPM is his stock-in-trade.