Tory Sleaze, Tories Vote to Rip Up Ethics Committee
Tory Sleaze is back, Did it ever go Away? Remember this list? This was, if my memory serves, a list put together by the Tory whips so that their members could be “pursuaded” to vote the right way. Some interesting names on the list. Foreign secretaries (past and present), Transport Minister, Ex Home Secetary, etc. etc. The great and the good of the Tory party, well the great, well, the pompous and dodgy. That was Tory Sleaze in 2017, This is Tory Sleaze in 2021 Owen Paterson, broke lobbying rules, not once, but 14 times. Yet, he has been saved by his Tory mates. They have voted to abolish the rules! You could not make it up, or perhaps you could. Rotten to the core. Did we really expect anything else from Johnson’s party? (Owen means “noble”, noble by name but not by nature) Common decency would suggest that Paterson should have been cut loose, if for no other reason that this comes hard on the heals of Cameron’s exposure of his greed, but no, the Tories have circled the wagons to protect one of their own. An absolute disgrace.
Politics – General Election 2015 – The Leaders’ Debates, Now We Know Why Cameron Was Scared
General Election 2015 – Cameron Was Right to be Scared David Cameron and Ed Milliband were interviewed this week on the same night by Paxman. On the night the studio audience said that Cameron had won. However, a strange thing has happened in the couple of days since. The viewing public has decided that Milliband won! For months the two main parties have been neck and neck, each on about 34%. The Sunday Times commissioned a poll by YouGov. It showed that the Labour party is now 4% ahead of Cameron’s Tories! There are more facets to the poll, and none of them make good reading for Cameron. While he is still ahead in the who would make the better Prime Minister stakes, Milliband is coming up. More worrying for Cameron is that when asked who is most in touch with real people, Cameron is not second behind Milliband. Cameron is third behind both Milliband and Farage! Milliband is seen as more trustworthy, genuine and in touch than Cameron. Of course, one poll does not mean that the general election 2015 is decided. At present it suggests that Labour would get 314 seats, the Tories 251, SNP 48, and the Lib Dems 16. Not an overall majority, but enough to start working with to construct a government. Anything could happen, including votes for the SNP handing the government to Cameron. Thinking about the polling. It seems that those questioned were people who actually watched the programmes. What you have to ask is what their voting patterns have been in the past. For example, if they were all Tory voters you would tend to think that they would favour Cameron and the reverse if they were all Labour voters. AS far as I can tell the sampling was balanced, more or less. What really matters is what the wider public get from the coverage. The first day after the interviews the coverage was all positive for Cameron, the following days less so. Certainly, the coverage today, Sunday, is quite dreadful for Cameron. Even the Tory supporters are getting in on the act. Writing for “The Conservative Woman” blog Beatrice Timpson is scathing about Cameron’s preformance. Read it here. Not a happy woman.
Politics – UKIP From Soap Opera to Farce
UKIP Descends into Farce A week is a long time in politics,that is what Harold Wilson said, it is even longer for UKIP! Where to start? The communities spokesman for Ukip has defected to the conservative Party. Amjad Bashir, who represents Yorkshire and the Humber, met with David Cameron on Friday and has defected to The Conservatives. The Boy Cameron is delighted. Farage less so. UKIP responded by suspending Bashir as soon as the rumours started. They accuse home of financial and employment irregularities. That is a well worn track for UKIP. They did the same to Neil Hamilton. Needless to say, both men deny any wrongdoing. A spokeman for UKIP said that a file has been forwarded to the police. “The UK Independence Party has a zero-tolerance policy and takes the matters at hand extremely seriously. “The allegations against Mr Bashir are of a grave nature and we will be forwarding our evidence obtained so far to the police. Ukip will not tolerate anyone abusing their positions in the party, as we have a firm commitment to differing ourselves from the existing political classes. As a result, Mr Bashir’s involvement with the party was suspended today with immediate effect pending further investigations.” When speaking to a fringe meeting at the Conservative conference Boris Johnson said would-be defectors (Tory to UKIP) were the kind of people who might inflict “barely credible” injuries on themselves by “vacuum cleaner abuse”. I imagine Farage is harbouring similar thoughts about Bashir. What else s going on in that bizarre world that is UKIP? Lynton Yates was the PPC for UKIP in Charnwood. Yates defected from the Conservative party to UKIP after being a Conservative councilor for 12 years before defecting. I do not know how close he feels to his vacuum cleaner. Yates’ offense? he released a leaflet that saying that those on benefits “could really catch a bus” he added that that banning them from driving and owning a car would “likely remove six million cars from the road”. He also said that cyclists should “go back to the pavements”. (Great news for people in wheelchairs, visually impaired pedestrians, and parents with children and toddlers). Suspending him just because he said some strange and unhinged things seems a bit odd for UKIP, after all, most of them say strange and bizarre things none more so than UKIP party secretary Matthew Richardson. At the week end he was reported as saying that Ukip should represent ‘bigots’ and labelling the NHS a ‘waste of money’. Now, Richardson has not been suspended he has been defended by Farage. Strange party. Surely There is not More? But there is! Farage told the BBC’s Sunday Politics that, if Labour won the election on a non-referendum manifesto and Ukip failed to get any MPs into parliament, he would resign within 12 hours. “I would have failed,” he said. “I would have spent years trying to achieve this goal. I got into politics not because I wanted a career in politics, far from it, I did it because I genuinely don’t think that this European entanglement is right for our country.” Now, this is not the first time that Farage has threatened, or promised depending on your point of view, to resign as UKIP’s leader. However, he may be serious this time, although it hard to tell. In the wake of him saying that the possible replacements are beginning to show their heads above the parapets. One being touted is UKIP’s immigration spokesman, Steven Woolfe, has confirmed that he would be interested in leading the party. Well thought of Woolfe is articulate and his pronouncements on immigration are much less radical than Farage let alone that far, far right wing elements that Richardson said that they should represent. What on earth is he doing in UKIP you may well ask. Remember that he disagreed with Farage’s defense of the word “chinky” by Kerry Smith saying “We have no room for racists and homophobes in our party. “All working class people don’t say those sorts of words, that’s absolutely clear,” he said. “One thing to say with Nigel is he tries to see the good in people all the time. On this particular issue, I think we will have a difference of opinion of how we deal with it, Nigel even accepted that he [Smith] couldn’t stand as a candidate.” Who else wants the mantel? Paul Nuttall (great name) is UKIP deputy leader and he seems up for it. Nuttall, as we all know was NOT Bungle from Rainbow a childrens’ TV programme from the 70s………………..
Phil’s British Heart Foundation Donation – you know it makes sense
