Was Dom Cummings present at that meeting? If so, is he going to self isolate by using his free time to tour the country and visit all his remaining friends?
He's got friends???
Why wouldn't he have? Just because you don't like him doesn't mean nobody does.
Why wouldn't he? Because he's a prize bellend who throws colleagues under the bus if he can benefit from it, has a very loose association with the concept of truth telling, and treats both laws and people with contempt.
Many people have a ... transactional... attitude to friendship. It will be interesting to see how many 'friends' Mr Cummings still has, now he no longer has the ear of Our Glorious Leader.
who throws colleagues under the bus if he can benefit from it
People are often different at work than they are in their personal relationships. And politics is very much a "throw someone under the bus for personal benefit" sort of workplace, though it's hardly alone in that regard.
has a very loose association with the concept of truth telling
Spin is part and parcel of politics, and has been forever.
and treats both laws and people with contempt.
If you're referring to breaking the lockdown then he's hardly alone in that, he's just got a higher profile that means it's newsworthy when he does it. In terms of endangering others he's well below all the student house parties that caused infection rates to skyrocket in the last couple of months. Would you condemn those students in such language, or suggest that their obvious contempt for laws and other people means they're probably incapable of real friendship?
It's not 'just' my opinion. It's the opinion, backed up by actual facts, of a great many people who've had the misfortune to encounter the man. Whereas your opinion is literally just your opinion arrived at because you admire the way he turns up, breaks things and then saunters away unscathed to the next high-paying job.
There's a certain nihilistic joy to that, for sure, but people who behave like that are indeed prize bellends, as would you also be if you did the same.
Indeed it's not - @Doc Tor responded far better than I could have done to your reply to my question.
Nothing that I've read about Mr. Cummings would make me wish to be one of his friends, even if his bellendery doesn't extend beyond the end of the working day.
Whereas your opinion is literally just your opinion arrived at because you admire the way he turns up, breaks things and then saunters away unscathed to the next high-paying job.
I don’t admire him at all, nor am I in any way sad that he’s gone. I just detest this “I think he’s a bad person therefore nobody else in the entire world could ever possibly be his friend” bullshit.
Nothing that I've read about Mr. Cummings would make me wish to be on e of his friends, even if his bellendery doesn't extend beyond the end of the working day.
Fine. But that doesn’t mean everybody else in the entire country would feel the same way.
Whereas your opinion is literally just your opinion arrived at because you admire the way he turns up, breaks things and then saunters away unscathed to the next high-paying job.
I don’t admire him at all, nor am I in any way sad that he’s gone. I just detest this “I think he’s a bad person therefore nobody else in the entire world could ever possibly be his friend” bullshit.
Detest away. If he were a better person, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
I may be jumping the gun slightly here as we still await the official announcements but two things are being reported:
1) The official enquiry into Rt Hon Priti Patel's behaviour found that she broke the ministerial code.
2) Johnson will do nothing.
I just want to emphasise three important points here; firstly civil service complaints about a minister are stunningly rare. Secondly a finding of ministerial misconduct is unusual because the threshold for such a finding is very high. And thirdly, a breach of the ministerial code is absolutely grounds for resignation. Full stop. No exceptions.
The problem is that Mr Johnson has neither courage nor any moral authority. My point being that this is yet another example of how totally unsuited to leadership Johnson is. To be fair, it's a trait he shares with his two immediate predecessors; they both boasted of 'tough decisions' whilst only ever taking on soft targets.
The more worrying thing for me is my lack of anger at this point. As with Trump, we are conditioned to expecting this kind of thing. It saddens me that the political price of such is now so low. That is how democracy dies.
The problem is that Mr Johnson has neither courage nor any moral authority. My point being that this is yet another example of how totally unsuited to leadership Johnson is. To be fair, it's a trait he shares with his two immediate predecessors; they both boasted of 'tough decisions' whilst only ever taking on soft targets.
This is reasonable explanation for lots of things connected with this administration, but I don't think it is quite accurate here.
Junior appointments are often a good way of gauging the view on a particular minister, and in Patel's case there has been a clear attempt to shore up her operational shortcomings by giving her competent undersecretaries. She's in post because she embodies the 'tough on immigration' stance that the government wants to signal, and Johnson is also aware that she is very popular with a certain section of the conservative base. Bluntly, newspaper stories about bullying civil servants are more of an asset than a handicap to the image of an authoritarian home secretary.
Alas @alienfromzog I'm sure you're right on (2) that Johnson will do nothing. We know that from Cummings's trips to Durham and Barnard Castle.
It isn't though because Johnson is weak and won't take tough decisions. He "has neither courage nor any moral authority" because he has no moral integrity and doesn't care. In Johnson's moral universe, he can do what he likes, and s*d everyone else. He assumes he can get away with it because he's always got away with everything. People have always given him a rein they don't give to others, 'Oh it's just Boris'.
He's also surrounded himself by people who are even more lightweight fairy heads than he is, and so they won't stop him.
For reference, Ministers are governed by the Ministerial Code. The most recent iteration with the Forward from Mr Johnson says this:
1.2 Ministers should be professional in all their dealings and treat all those with whom they come into contact with consideration and respect. Working relationships, including with civil servants, ministerial and parliamentary colleagues and parliamentary staff should be proper and appropriate. Harassing, bullying or other inappropriate or discriminating behaviour wherever it takes place is not consistent with the Ministerial Code and will not be tolerated.
Just agreeing with chrisstiles, that Patel is seen as an asset by right wingers. If you peruse Twitter, it's full of "patriots" egging her on, both with cracking the whip over civil servants and keeping foreigners out.
… and Boris Johnson's adviser on the ministerial code has resigned. There’s not much point in being an adviser if your advice is just going to be rejected.
The latest news reports Johnson has declared the matter closed. He rejects the findings of the review and doesn't believe Patel broke the ministerial code. So once again, in the face of evidence and enquiry, Johnson puts cronies over country. It seems he has learnt nothing over BarnardsGate. I don't know how valuable the Permanent Secretary to the Home Office was? But again Civil Service are being sacrificed, effectively, for the sake of maintaining Boris's chums in office. The man clearly lives in a bubble of delusion, inspired either by the fear of not having his favourite 'yes-sir/no-sir' people around him, or by his own ego. Sigh.
The thing that concerns me, as with Mr Trump, is the new precedent. Over and over, Mr Johnson has chosen to tread a new path with regards to avoiding scrutiny. This is just another example. It’s concerning because previously in political culture, certain behaviours were expected, and there were consequences (usually resignations) if someone acted outside of them.
For many areas of politics, there wasn’t a rule book, because there didn’t need to be. Now that Johnson has normalised breaking those social contracts, he legitimises others doing the same and worse in the future.
It really does make you wonder why Johnson bothers with advisers and enquiries, when he patently has no intention of taking a blind bit of notice of what they say, and he knows that when he "rejects" their findings, they'll roll over and resign.
He really is turning into a dictator, and I hope with every fibre of my being that the electorate will remember that when the time comes.
I find myself filled with nostalgia for the days when using your position as Home Secretary to fast-track a visa application for your girlfriend's nanny was a hanging - er, that is, resigning - offence.
The thing that concerns me, as with Mr Trump, is the new precedent. Over and over, Mr Johnson has chosen to tread a new path with regards to avoiding scrutiny. This is just another example. It’s concerning because previously in political culture, certain behaviours were expected, and there were consequences (usually resignations) if someone acted outside of them.
For many areas of politics, there wasn’t a rule book, because there didn’t need to be. Now that Johnson has normalised breaking those social contracts, he legitimises others doing the same and worse in the future.
At the risk of becoming Purgatorial, Barack Obama discusses this concept with respect to Trump specifically in this BBC interview.
The Trump/Johnson parallels are multiple and important. Trump won in 2016 with populist lies and governed by trying to evade any accountability. Johnson won Brexit in 2016 and the GE in 2019 and continues to govern by trying to evade any accountability...
And here I was, hoping Johnson &co would take note of what happened (is happening) to Trump and behave just a little better. Alas no! Oh well, back to reading psalms with lots of cursing of such people. Not that I want to dash out the brains of their little ones against the rocks (and thus be blessed), but .... what can one do with these people?
Without wanting to discuss the merits of that link here (for which there is a thread in Purgatory already) you might wish to compare the fallout from the two separate situations.
Without wanting to discuss the merits of that link here (for which there is a thread in Purgatory already) you might wish to compare the fallout from the two separate situations.
I don't think that parallel works very well but that might be my own biases speaking... however, and this is very much at the heart of this thread, Mr Corbyn has no official role other than constituency MP* whereas Mr Johnson is the Prime fucking Minister (pun intended) and thus his actions have profound effects and consequences.
Was Corbyn's response to the report wise or appropriate? No.** but what effect does that have? Probably none really, depending on internal Labour Party politics but I continue to despair on that front...
Was Johnson's response wise or appropriate? No. And like his unlawful prorogation of Parliament, his shameful lies and incompetence on Brexit and his shameful lies and incompetence in dealing with Covid-19, his choices and actions have massive effects for essentially the whole UK population.
Moreover the consequence-free environment that enables Johnson is the real shocker; in the same way that the real issue for the USA is not Trump but the Trump enablers. An interesting contrast to look at is between Diane Abbott and Boris Johnson. I have complex thoughts about Abbott but compare how her missteps in verbal communication are reported and the reportage of very similar gibberish uttered by our Prime Minister...
AFZ
* My pedantry demands that I state he remains a member of the Privy Council which is an official role and an important one but there are so many Privy councillors that an individual is only really important when all others are unavailable...
** Corbyn undermined the leadership here and stoked the fires. I will probably post more on the other thread but their remains a big gap between what he said and what was reported. He still should have not said it though.
The difference is that Corbyn was obviously correct in what he said, if unwise to say it. You can't come away from a situation where the Chief Rabbi claimed Labour was an "existential threat" to British Jews without concluding that there was a degree of exaggeration about the extent of anti-semitism in the party.
I wasn’t really thinking of his response to the chief rabbi, more of his statement that he did not accept parts of the EHRC report.
It seems to me the analogy is more like Corbyn:Starmer::Patel:Johnson - but Corbyn got kicked out on his ass, didn’t he? So inconvenient conclusions not exactly discarded in that case.
Not by Starmer, no. But ISTM that it is fair to draw a parallel between Boris Johnson’s rejection of the report on Patel, and Jeremy Corbyn’s non-acceptance of ‘parts of’ the EHRC report, and to note that
the conclusions of any independent body will be discarded as soon as they mildly inconvenience
has recently been shown thereby to be not solely the preserve of the right.
And apart from anything else, he called for the recommendations of the report to be implemented -- though as Dave W points out above, he's not in the position to enact that.
Just heard on the news, but I missed who said it. Certainly worth repeating. In the context of coronavirus response, but could apply to Brexit ... so I've picked this as a general thread for the common denominator (our 'esteemed' leader).
"The rhetoric is Battle of Britain. The reality is Dad's Army".
Just heard on the news, but I missed who said it. Certainly worth repeating. In the context of coronavirus response, but could apply to Brexit ... so I've picked this as a general thread for the common denominator (our 'esteemed' leader).
"The rhetoric is Battle of Britain. The reality is Dad's Army".
Just heard on the news, but I missed who said it. Certainly worth repeating. In the context of coronavirus response, but could apply to Brexit ... so I've picked this as a general thread for the common denominator (our 'esteemed' leader).
"The rhetoric is Battle of Britain. The reality is Dad's Army".
It was Simon Uttley, headteacher of Blessed Hugh Faringdon School in Reading.
I don't know what makes Hugh Faringdon (who??) blessed ... but their head teacher has a good turn of phrase. Thanks for acknowledging the origin of it.
According to Wikipedia he was the last Abbot of Reading Abbey at the dissolution of the monasteries, Faringdon was accused of high treason and executed. He was declared a martyr and beatified by the Catholic Church in 1895.
Captain Mainwaring, for all his pomposity, had qualities of leadership, and a good deal of courage.
Whereas Our Lord Protector...
(I know Captain M was fictional. If only BoJo was...but you couldn't make him up)
Indeed. Main-wearing (as Hodges would say) also did not lack courage. He is someone who whilst deeply annoying due to his own insecurities would stand beside you I'm the trenches.
Also, while Mainwaring was very concerned to avoid public embarrassment over his platoon's or his own mistakes and ineptitude, our leader panders only to the right-wing press, bigots and brexiters and doesn't care what the majority think.
No - he's too clever (and not in a good way) - I'd nominate Williamson or Jenrick.
The trouble with trying to match them up with the Dad's Army chaps is that they were all decent old gentlemen with the good of the country at heart, which is the exact opposite of the current Cabinet.
Comments
Why wouldn't he have? Just because you don't like him doesn't mean nobody does.
Obviously solid fit for No 10, but otherwise, no.
That's just your opinion.
People are often different at work than they are in their personal relationships. And politics is very much a "throw someone under the bus for personal benefit" sort of workplace, though it's hardly alone in that regard.
Spin is part and parcel of politics, and has been forever.
If you're referring to breaking the lockdown then he's hardly alone in that, he's just got a higher profile that means it's newsworthy when he does it. In terms of endangering others he's well below all the student house parties that caused infection rates to skyrocket in the last couple of months. Would you condemn those students in such language, or suggest that their obvious contempt for laws and other people means they're probably incapable of real friendship?
He had a loose association with truth telling outside his career in politics.
O I know - one of the *spudhead spads* mentioned in the Grauniad today...
That's what they said about Goebbels. Always much loved for his karaoke version of 'I am what I am' at the office Christmas party...
It's not 'just' my opinion. It's the opinion, backed up by actual facts, of a great many people who've had the misfortune to encounter the man. Whereas your opinion is literally just your opinion arrived at because you admire the way he turns up, breaks things and then saunters away unscathed to the next high-paying job.
There's a certain nihilistic joy to that, for sure, but people who behave like that are indeed prize bellends, as would you also be if you did the same.
Nothing that I've read about Mr. Cummings would make me wish to be one of his friends, even if his bellendery doesn't extend beyond the end of the working day.
I don’t admire him at all, nor am I in any way sad that he’s gone. I just detest this “I think he’s a bad person therefore nobody else in the entire world could ever possibly be his friend” bullshit.
Fine. But that doesn’t mean everybody else in the entire country would feel the same way.
Detest away. If he were a better person, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
1) The official enquiry into Rt Hon Priti Patel's behaviour found that she broke the ministerial code.
2) Johnson will do nothing.
I just want to emphasise three important points here; firstly civil service complaints about a minister are stunningly rare. Secondly a finding of ministerial misconduct is unusual because the threshold for such a finding is very high. And thirdly, a breach of the ministerial code is absolutely grounds for resignation. Full stop. No exceptions.
The problem is that Mr Johnson has neither courage nor any moral authority. My point being that this is yet another example of how totally unsuited to leadership Johnson is. To be fair, it's a trait he shares with his two immediate predecessors; they both boasted of 'tough decisions' whilst only ever taking on soft targets.
The more worrying thing for me is my lack of anger at this point. As with Trump, we are conditioned to expecting this kind of thing. It saddens me that the political price of such is now so low. That is how democracy dies.
AFZ
This is reasonable explanation for lots of things connected with this administration, but I don't think it is quite accurate here.
Junior appointments are often a good way of gauging the view on a particular minister, and in Patel's case there has been a clear attempt to shore up her operational shortcomings by giving her competent undersecretaries. She's in post because she embodies the 'tough on immigration' stance that the government wants to signal, and Johnson is also aware that she is very popular with a certain section of the conservative base. Bluntly, newspaper stories about bullying civil servants are more of an asset than a handicap to the image of an authoritarian home secretary.
It isn't though because Johnson is weak and won't take tough decisions. He "has neither courage nor any moral authority" because he has no moral integrity and doesn't care. In Johnson's moral universe, he can do what he likes, and s*d everyone else. He assumes he can get away with it because he's always got away with everything. People have always given him a rein they don't give to others, 'Oh it's just Boris'.
He's also surrounded himself by people who are even more lightweight fairy heads than he is, and so they won't stop him.
For reference, Ministers are governed by the Ministerial Code. The most recent iteration with the Forward from Mr Johnson says this:
*Hollow laugh* *sob*
AFZ
Yes, the conclusions of any independent body will be discarded as soon as they mildly inconvenience the right.
For many areas of politics, there wasn’t a rule book, because there didn’t need to be. Now that Johnson has normalised breaking those social contracts, he legitimises others doing the same and worse in the future.
He really is turning into a dictator, and I hope with every fibre of my being that the electorate will remember that when the time comes.
At the risk of becoming Purgatorial, Barack Obama discusses this concept with respect to Trump specifically in this BBC interview.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000q50g
The Trump/Johnson parallels are multiple and important. Trump won in 2016 with populist lies and governed by trying to evade any accountability. Johnson won Brexit in 2016 and the GE in 2019 and continues to govern by trying to evade any accountability...
Sadly, this feature of political life is not confined to inconvenience to the right.
Without wanting to discuss the merits of that link here (for which there is a thread in Purgatory already) you might wish to compare the fallout from the two separate situations.
There is a Keir Starmer thread, isn't there?
I don't think that parallel works very well but that might be my own biases speaking... however, and this is very much at the heart of this thread, Mr Corbyn has no official role other than constituency MP* whereas Mr Johnson is the Prime fucking Minister (pun intended) and thus his actions have profound effects and consequences.
Was Corbyn's response to the report wise or appropriate? No.** but what effect does that have? Probably none really, depending on internal Labour Party politics but I continue to despair on that front...
Was Johnson's response wise or appropriate? No. And like his unlawful prorogation of Parliament, his shameful lies and incompetence on Brexit and his shameful lies and incompetence in dealing with Covid-19, his choices and actions have massive effects for essentially the whole UK population.
Moreover the consequence-free environment that enables Johnson is the real shocker; in the same way that the real issue for the USA is not Trump but the Trump enablers. An interesting contrast to look at is between Diane Abbott and Boris Johnson. I have complex thoughts about Abbott but compare how her missteps in verbal communication are reported and the reportage of very similar gibberish uttered by our Prime Minister...
AFZ
* My pedantry demands that I state he remains a member of the Privy Council which is an official role and an important one but there are so many Privy councillors that an individual is only really important when all others are unavailable...
** Corbyn undermined the leadership here and stoked the fires. I will probably post more on the other thread but their remains a big gap between what he said and what was reported. He still should have not said it though.
The difference is that Corbyn was obviously correct in what he said, if unwise to say it. You can't come away from a situation where the Chief Rabbi claimed Labour was an "existential threat" to British Jews without concluding that there was a degree of exaggeration about the extent of anti-semitism in the party.
"The rhetoric is Battle of Britain. The reality is Dad's Army".
🤣 😭
Whereas Our Lord Protector...
(I know Captain M was fictional. If only BoJo was...but you couldn't make him up)
Indeed. Main-wearing (as Hodges would say) also did not lack courage. He is someone who whilst deeply annoying due to his own insecurities would stand beside you I'm the trenches.
The very opposite of Johnson.
Sunak is presumably Pike.
The trouble with trying to match them up with the Dad's Army chaps is that they were all decent old gentlemen with the good of the country at heart, which is the exact opposite of the current Cabinet.