I mean, at least they’re consistent and seemingly happy to be open about how they take care of their own without an ounce of morality, and are willing to break laws, then try to change those laws. Or just hand out get out of jail free cards.
Unfortunately, its not really dying on a hill, more standing at your castle walls whilst the poor throw rotten veg at them. They’re not about to be ousted, and will distract with something else no doubt in the coming weeks.
It’s a completely understandable and logical course of action if your approach to governing, and even to life, is that rules don’t apply to you and are there to be bent to your will, and also if you are completely used to no accountability to your actions.
I suspect there is some shit heading in Johnson’s direction, as this was quite transparently an attempt to take out Kathryn Stone.
Labour have played this really well. Need to keep going.
Not sure yet to be honest. I didn’t see Starmer on Andrew Marr yesterday though. Today’s debate was secured by the Lib Dems I think. And of course Boris wont be there.
Funny how he always sends out his minions when there’s some potential stick flying about.
I saw the Cabinet Secretary on the weekend. He was in good spirits. Made me wonder if he’d handed in his resignation!
Thirty MPs who earn cash on the side for paid advocacy.
Tories - 28
Lib Dem’s - 1
Labour - 1
They’re all the same though, right? Right?
Johnson not at today’s debate because he’s visiting a hospital in Newcastle. He’s actually conveniently going by train.
Couldn’t make it up.
Couldn’t the hospital pay for a private jet for him? Bloody cheap skates…
I think it’s about food. If there’s a meal to be had he’d fly, like he did last week. We all know that hospital food is awful.
Well no, they’re not. It was a Labour manifesto pledge in 2015 that none of its MPs would hold paid directorships or consultancies. It’s almost surprising to see any on the list. Also, of course, companies are more likely to pay for MPs to consult if their party is actually in government.
As the article notes, it is not suggested that any of those listed have engaged in wrongdoing. Unlike the 5 Labour MPs who have been imprisoned over the last 20 years for stealing from the public purse…
No Conservative MPs have been imprisoned for expenses fraud.
They’re not all the same 
If my son stole from a shop and I patted him on the back and raised his allowance, he’d probably do it again.
This government has been all of corrupt, inept and dangerous, and they’ve managed to increase their vote share pretty significantly in that time. The public have made this behaviour acceptable.
It’s hard to even lay the blame of a morally bankrupt leader and party. Johnson in particular is just doing what he was born to do.
Its why I somewhat lean towards Cummings explanation. Its not about Paterson, its about the more widespread corruption that includes Johnson himself.
But incredibly predictably so. This was warned about by lots of professors who were ignored when the British people voted for Brexit. This is only natural. The main objective of the EU is to protect the integrity of their union, quite obviously I would say. If it would try to make disputes with the UK easy for the UK after it left the Union, it would be totally bonkers when it comes to geopolitics. And this is now geopolitics thanks to the UK.
I don’t really get why anyone is surprised or even incensed about his. It is 100 percent the logical destination of voting for Brexit. The Campaign Leave promises of easy living and easy deals were always a total and complete sham and everyone ought to have known that really.
And of course, then you have the exceptionally hostile torpedoing of a submarine deal with Australia worth gargantuan sums of money, which Borris boasted of being a part of (he really shouldn’t have, despite the domestic propaganda value). What on earth do the British expect ? That France will take such gargantuan losses without even trying to strike back. They will seek to retaliate for the submarine deal for a long time yet. I don’t think most people really understand how angry France are on that matter.
Socialist!
yep. I think people were happy to give him a free run at “getting Brexit done”. This has crossed that imaginary line that people feel they’re being robbed. The story is easy for everyone to understand, even those that never pay attention to politics at all.
The submarine thing hasn’t even scratched the surface here in most peoples world but someone taking £500k for favours hits hard.
I’m still baffled at people’s thoughts on the pandemic though. How he’s hardly been scratched on that is just odd.
Anyway the f***wit was happy to parade round a hospital yesterday without a mask.
protecting their own again?
I genuinely don’t understand the argument for why the public should bear the cost for making these changes. Doesn’t that make it a transfer of wealth from the public purse to private benefit, presumably substantially at the expense of a significant number of renters?
Other than the obvious difference of the mortality risk, this doesn’t strike me as that different from the wave of poorly built condos we had in North America (Vancouver was particularly bad), where people bought overpriced, shoddily built condominiums that needed major overhaul within 5-10 years. Somehow, in that private transaction, people felt governments should be taking responsibility - but when the resulting improved property was more valuable, it should of course remain entirely unencumbered and private.
I think the moral obligation falls differently to the legal obligation, although there will be some cross over.
The most compelling argument is that the existence of faulty cladding is ultimately a failure of proper regulatory oversight. That certainly falls at the feet of government. The second most compelling argument is that without government funding these remedial works they simply will not happen - tenants cannot afford the expenditure. The priority is ensuring that homes are made safe and government funding is the quickest way to make that happen.
In doing so, it doesn’t necessarily absolve the defaulting parties of liability though. The government can always then take action itself to recover as much of these costs from the companies in default as possible. This really should not be left for tenants to do themselves, even collectively.
As for the betterment argument - these buildings have significantly fallen in value due to the cladding issues being revealed. In fact, you can’t even sell them. All the government would be doing would be ensuring the buildings were actually compliant, and this simply restores the value that was previously assumed.
Just seems to scream ‘moral hazard’ to me, though I can see an argument for centralizing the effort to chase after the liabilities in the situation.
In general, I find the UK property market a complete mess. So many perverse situations, and shockingly weak contractual forms.
Did you see the story the other day about some bloke finding that his house had been stolen? 