don’t hold an inquiry unless they can be sure of the outcome
But jokes aside it’s a sorry state when no one has any confidence that it will be performed with any integrity, rigour or sense of justice.
1 Like
I’d quite like the Conservatives to release the report into racism within the Conservative party that they’ve been sitting on for the last few months.
What are the chances it gets released on the day of the funeral for the Duke of Edinburgh?
1 Like
Burying a news story on a huge news day? You cynic you, who’d do that???
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1358985/Sept-11-a-good-day-to-bury-bad-news.html
1 Like
You jest but Yes Minister was frighteningly close to the truth according to a relative of mine who was in the cabinet. The idea of “never hold a public enquiry unless you know in advance what the outcome will be” is well known. She wasn’t a blue either (explains why most of my family hate me 
)
UK exports to EU rebound after January’s slump
Trade between the UK and EU partially recovered in February, after a steep drop in January following Brexit.
Official figures show exports to the EU jumped 46.6%, although that followed January’s 42% slump as firms struggled with new trade rules.
Imports from the EU, too, picked up, albeit by a weaker 7.3%, after a January fall of 29.7%.
Other figures from the Office for National Statistics showed the UK economy grew by 0.4% in February.
However, the ONS said the economy was still 7.8% smaller than a year earlier, before the impact of the pandemic.
Covid restrictions remained in place to varying degrees across all four nations of the UK during January and February.
“The economy showed some improvement in February after the large falls seen at the start of the year but remains around 8% below its pre-pandemic level,” an ONS spokesperson said.
“Exports to the EU recovered significantly from their January fall, though still remain below 2020 levels. However, imports from the EU are yet to significantly rebound, with a number of issues hampering trade.”
Sarah Hewin, from Standard Chartered Bank, told the BBC’s Today programme the outlook for the UK economy was improving.
"Confidence does seem to be picking up as vaccinations spreading. We know households have built up their savings in many cases during lockdown. As lockdown restrictions are eased people are going to be able to go out and spend those savings and that will be a big boost to the economy.
“As we saw from the scenes yesterday people are keen to get out and spend when they can. There will be more opportunities for travelling and going on holiday and spending in restaurants and pubs will see people spending to go out and enjoy themselves.”
1 Like
1 Like
This is one of the worst abuses I’ve seen in relation to the Home Secretary and that itself is damning on so many fronts.
She’s got to go.
3 Likes
She should have gone four scandals ago. I suspect she’ll see this one out as well.
3 Likes
Yep, that’s one of the fronts on which it’s damning!
2 Likes
Are there more competent people (MP etc.) than the members of the present cabinet? I mean are these ministers the best the Tories got or the cabinet can actually be improved?
They purged those who were not yes men. Those in cabinet are there because of idealism rather than talent. There remains a few good MPs but the tend to be at the fringes of the party.
3 Likes
14 months on…
5 Likes
Agreed. Some ministerial posts are taken up by those in the House of Lords and some who failed to get re election were given peerages. Frost and Morgan for example I think may be serving Ministers yet not MPs. So, even if all their mps were poor quality (which as you say they are not) there is a wider pool to pull from if they so wished
2 Likes
When you look at everything that is going on, you would hope that there are better options.
Sadly though, you don’t really see too many that could be considered as better options. Not worse either, just a different sort of shite most likely
Could this possibly be the most inept, bent, incompetent government of all time?? I’ve always hated the tories, but at least I could admit that some of them were formidable politicians. Some of the ministers of previous tory cabinets, the hesletines, lawsons, lamonts, even major ffs, there was some integrity and some ‘real’ politicking done. This current bunch are no better than a criminal gang, making it up as they go.
6 Likes
There are one or two who are extremely competent but it is very apparent to me that there are senior positions in the cabinet that are occupied by fucking numpties.
Here are the list of ministers loosely ordered by seniority:
Prime Minister - Johnson
Chancellor - Sunak
Home Secretary - Patel
Foreign Secretary - Raab
Cabinet Office - Gove
Justice Secretary - Buckland
Defence Secretary - Wallace
Health Secretary - Hancock
COP26 President - Sharma
Business Secretary - Kwarteng
International Trade - Truss
Work and Pensions - Coffey
Education - Williamson
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - Eustice
Housing, Communities and Local Government - Robert Jenrick
Transport - Schapps
Northern Ireland - Lewis
Scotland - Jack
Wales - Hart
Leader of the House of Lords - Baroness Evans
Culture Media and Sport - Dowden
Brexit - Frost
No Portfolio - Milling
Truss should be nowhere near the cabinet. The kompromat she must have to keep getting top jobs must be fucking eye-watering.
Patel should be fired about five times over and never allowed a ministerial position again.
Raab is a decent enough fellow but also a vacant fuckwit.
Hancock is a decent enough fellow and committed to his brief but he’s also a plonker. Put it this way, he’d be played by Nicholas Lyndhurst if ever anyone thought him important enough to portray on TV.
Gove is an extremely bright, capable, diligent…machiavellian scheming bastard. But he is very competent.
Jenrick - meh. Buckland - meh. Williamson - easy patsy but also, meh. Wallace - competent, knows his brief, otherwise meh.
Sunak - so far so good. One to watch.
Sharma - competent, effective, good communicator. Fairly bright.
Kwarteng - don’t know much about him. Not heard anything negative and seems to be doing a fairly good job.
But there are a number of MPs who I rate who are not ministers. Alex Chalk (one of my locall MPs), George Freeman, Bob Neill, Tom Tugendhat…
Oh, nearly forgot because she’s on maternity leave, but Suella Braverman is appalling. She ought to have resigned for her frankly embarrassingly incompetent and legally illiterate submissions made to the Court of Appeal at the end of last year.
4 Likes
Yeah, I mean, who would want anything to be based on meritocracy? Cruddas says it as if it’s a dirty word.
1 Like