UK Politics Thread (Part 1)

seth meyers good job GIF by Late Night with Seth Meyers

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:rofl:

Four more small energy suppliers failing today. Really small though, not likely to be a major impact, but the time is coming soon when we find out who is at the table wearing no pants.

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Avoiding Alfredo Diaz GIF by Rooster Teeth

I’m trying to find more information / reports on this but the UK currently has a bizarre situation where there are 60,000 care home staff that are not vaccinated.

Our wonderful health secretary has issued an ultimatum that they must be vaccinated by next Tuesday or face losing their job. The care home sector is already under resourced. What happens next??

It’s a huge number though, and morally wrong.

My bet is that nearly all will get jabbed. For those that don’t, without legitimate exemption, will either be moved to non patient-facing roles in the homes where possible or potentially be offered non patient-facing roles in the NHS with qualified NHS staff being seconded back to the care homes. Where that can’t be done they’ll be made redundant.

I hope you’re right but even a small number that wont (and there will be some, because of Bill Gates nanobots) it only increases the pressure on a system that is pretty much broken already.

Part of me thinks Javid needs to back down but at the same time vaccination is crucial for these people.

I think we need to know how so many people in an occupation that saw the horror of Covid front and centre have turned against the solution? I suspect I know one reason but I couldn’t say whether that would cover a few or a majority.

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Surprise surprise - although it’s not really given the recent track record of the government at keeping their pals safe.

I’m struggling to understand this issue and what it means, so I’m waiting for the inevitable @Kopstar take and the multitudes of discussion to follow.

But on its face, it stinks. I’m not sure how they’re justifying this…

There was a 3 line whip on this i.e. you turn up and vote the way we want you to.

This is like changing the rules of a football match after losing it.

He had been caught allegedly taking cash for being lobbied - cash for favours basically.

The report is here - https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/290/committee-on-standards/news/158246/committee-on-standards-publish-report-on-the-conduct-of-rt-hon-owen-paterson-mp/

Main breaches (from the commissioner);

breached the rule prohibiting paid advocacy, set out in paragraph 11 of the 2015 MP’s Code of Conduct, in making three approaches to the Food Standards Agency relating to Randox

breached paragraph 13 of the 2015 MP’s Code of Conduct, on declarations of interest, by failing to declare his interest as a paid consultant to Lynn’s Country Foods in four emails to officials at the Food Standards Agency

breached paragraph 15 of the 2015 MP’s Code of Conduct, on use of parliamentary facilities, by using his parliamentary office on 16 occasions for business meetings with his clients…and in sending two letters, on 13 October 2016 and 16 January 2017, relating to his business interests, on House of Commons headed notepaper

Mr Paterson acknowledged that his use of headed notepaper for two letters relating to his business interests breached the rules of the House and apologised to the Commissioner and to the Committee for doing so. Mr Paterson maintained that he had not breached the Code in any other respect.

The Committee’s recommendation;

The Committee determined that Mr Paterson’s actions, in particular those relating to paid advocacy, constitute a serious breach of the rules.

The Committee found that Mr Paterson’s actions were an egregious case of paid advocacy, that he repeatedly used his privileged position to benefit two companies for whom he was a paid consultant, and that this has brought the House into disrepute.

In line with previous cases of a similar severity, the Committee recommends that Mr Paterson be suspended from the service of the House for 30 sitting days.

I myself don’t know the ins and outs of it, only picked the story up last night, had a scan of the main news articles, and the report, then a bit of twitter to see what the masses were saying on the matter.

Thanks @Noo_Noo and @rupzzz but what I really meant is what they’re doing to circumvent his suspension. I think his actions were pretty cut and dried…

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Eek.

I don’t know the details and you’re right that the optics definitely don’t look great. Trying to protect one of ‘their own’.

From what I understand one of the issues is that individual MPs are not allowed to call any witnesses nor do they have an avenue of appeal. If that’s right, then that is clearly contrary to natural justice so would make the procedure automatically unfair - regardless of political affiliation or subject matter.

As regards Paterson’s individual circumstances, I don’t know enough detail to say whether the findings against him are actually fair or not. However, it is not unreasonable to expect a fair hearing so I have no problem with seeking to improve the procedure itself to make it fairer. It just looks really bad that this move has come in response to the adverse findings against ‘one of their own’.

However, if the result comes from an unjust process, that taints the legitimacy of the result itself. Fix the process. Then bring proceedings against Paterson again. Don’t use the excuse that the process is broken as a way to get your mate off the hook.

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From my scan of the commissioners and committee’s report, Paterson was able to provide evidence/give his views on matters.

I know nothing of how these breaches are reported/judged and agree that if the hearing and outcomes are not fair, then it’s something to be resolved, however the timing of this is not so great - at a time where there’s already a lot of mistrust of the Governments actions towards their own (Patel and Hancock spring to mind).

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What? Not even beaten tortured or starved to death, disgraceful and completely unexpected. Don’t come back for a very long time! :rofl:

They were forced to eat ‘fois gras’. That’s a form of torture, ask the geese!

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Bloody glad the UK has banned it since leaving the EU.

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