Tag Archives: Baker

Can Brexiteer Steve Baker be trusted on Rishi Sunak’s new Northern Ireland deal?

Northern Ireland: what will Rishi Sunak’s replacement for the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol of Brexit achieve?

Arch-Brexiteer Steve Baker seems very happy about whatever deal Rishi Sunak has secured with the European Union over the movement of goods into and through Northern Ireland:

But can his word be trusted?

He’s got a particular viewpoint, very strongly asserted over the last eight years, more or less.

The Democratic Unionist Party, which is refusing to take its place in the Northern Irish Assembly at Stormont until a deal is struck that it supports, may feel differently. It is currently the second-largest party in that assembly and may wish to continue finding fault because the longer it stays out, the less time Sinn Fein – the largest party – will have as nominal leaders (NI is ruled under a power-sharing agreement but appearances seem to mean a lot to the DUP).

And Boris Johnson is lurking in the background in Westminster. He’s likely to be stirring up dissent against anything Rishi Sunak does because he wants to be prime minister again. And there are a lot of Tory MPs who reckon they owe him a debt for getting them into their Parliamentary seats.

Finally, there’s a question of democracy. The deal is likely to be debated in Parliament, but will there be a vote on it? If not, then can it really be heralded as the panacea Baker claims it is?

Why shouldn’t there be a vote? Is Sunak’s deal really that shaky?

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Steve Baker calls for Guru-Murthy sacking after accepting apology. What a c… (STRONG LANGUAGE)

Steve Baker: what a- well, I think the description is now best described as rhyming slang for his Tory colleague Jeremy Hunt.

Tory MP Steve Baker has said he hopes Channel 4 sacks journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy after telling him he “appreciates” an apology for being called something very rude, live on air.

The incident occurred after what Guru-Murthy called a “very robust” interview on events in Westminster yesterday.

Suella Braverman resigned as home secretary, chief whip Wendy Morton and her deputy Craig Whittaker reportedly threatened to quit, and it was alleged that Tory MPs were bullied into supporting the government in a vote on fracking that was seen as a mark of confidence in Liz Truss’s government.

After the interview concluded, this happened:

Obviously it shouldn’t have but it did – and Guru-Murthy later reported in a tweet that he had “reached out” to Baker to apologise.

Baker then accepted the apology: “I appreciate you apologising. Thank you,” he wrote.

But Baker then told John Pienaar on Times Radio that he hoped Channel 4 would sack Guru-Murthy.

He said: “If it’s in breach of his code of conduct, I do hope they sack him – it would be a service to the public.”

Accepting an apology for a transgression and then demanding further action over it is exactly the behaviour of the kind of person Guru-Murthy had described, in his description of the MP.

So there it is. Steve Baker – what a … “Jeremy Hunt”.

Source: Krishnan Guru-Murthy apologises for calling Steve Baker ‘a c***’ during livestream | The Independent

Tory MP Baker caught making false claims about the economy

Caught out: Steve Baker.

This is not a good look for a government that is desperately trying to recover its reputation for financial responsibility.

On the BBC’s Any Questions, Steve Baker claimed that the harm done to the UK’s economy by Kwasi Kwarteng’s ‘fiscal event’ has been reversed.

But Kate Andrews, of the shady right-wing think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, put him straight, pointing out that the cost of borrowing has skyrocketed, making it much harder to achieve some of the government’s stated aims.

The big question is, was this result part of Kwarteng and Truss’s strategy?

We all believe – don’t we? – that they want to pursue a “Starve the Beast” policy that demands the ending of public services because “we can’t afford it”. If the cost of investment has increased hugely, then this excuse becomes much more plausible.

So it seems the Truss government is deliberately engineering an end to public services while trying to lay the blame elsewhere. Don’t be fooled.

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Tory #SteveBaker reckons #BorisJohnson is facing #checkmate over #Partygate

Steve Baker.

Boris Johnson’s position must be precarious indeed if arch-Brexiter Steve Baker is saying he’s had his day.

Baker, interviewed by the BBC’s Nick Robinson, admitted that Johnson wasn’t elected for his grasp of “tedious rules”, but… well, see/hear it for yourself:

It’s possible that this MP’s words are motivated by his own issues with Johnson’s Covid-19 strategy.

But Johnson is (prematurely, perhaps) scrapping health protection measures (Baker would call them restrictions) related to the Omicron wave of Covid-19. As a staunch opponent of Covid-related protections that hinder the economy, Baker might be expected to get behind his prime minister in support, and not to stab him in the back.

But the crux of the matter is Johnson’s persistent breaking of his own Covid-19 rules. Perhaps this has offended Baker’s sense of fair play (if a Tory can be said to have such a thing): the rest of us have been having to abide by rules that Baker didn’t think were necessary, yet Johnson seemed clearly to have decided to ignore them, even before he read them out to us.

It’s likely that this is the reason Baker denounced Johnson’s behaviour as “appalling”, saying the public were right to be “furious” and suggesting that the prime minister is facing “checkmate”.

The word from Downing Street is still to wait until Sue Gray reports on her inquiry. But she’s a Johnson employee, of course.

And with accusations that Johnson’s allies are blackmailing Tory MPs to withhold “no confidence” letters, will we really have to wait that long until he’s ousted?

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Shock for Tories as they learn austerity affects THEIR voters too

Steve Baker: the pro-austerity, pro-Brexit High Wycombe MP is claiming surprise that his constituents are starving, and trying to blame it on Covid-19 rather than the policies he wholeheartedly supported.

Tories like Steve Baker, whose High Wycombe constituency has been found to be suffering high levels of poverty-induced hunger, are trying to blame it on Covid-19.

This is not true.

And the falsehood should be pointed out to them.

Yes, the claim that “Mother” puts, below, is correct:

But High Wycome – and Buckinghamshire in general – were identified as suffering from these problems eight years ago. That’s long before anyone ever heard of Covid-19:

So it seems that Tom Bradley has the right idea:

It seems some Tories are using the revelation (in fact nothing of the kind, as the information has been available since 2013) to call for the loss of the ÂŁ20 Universal Credit “uplift” to be rethought.

Doubtless they will want more for their constituencies as well.

But can you see what this means, for austerity-loving economic incompetents like Rishi Sunak?

He’ll say the money will have to come from somewhere else, and will cut vital funding to constituencies that haven’t voted Tory. See if he doesn’t!

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Senior Tories including ‘Brexit Steve’ Baker demand continuation of Covid death spiral

The image above may not be the most sophisticated graphic This Site has ever published, but it is accurate all the same.

The Tory rabble who have been pushing for more deaths in a bid to keep the economy going and their paymasters in big business happy have been pressuring Boris Johnson for another early end to the restrictions he has (laughably) encouraged us all to call a lockdown.

The infection and death rates are back at pre-‘lockdown’ levels, they say, so he she start easing us all back into work at the beginning of March.

Shockingly, arch-Brexiteer Steve Baker, clearly believing he hasn’t done enough to wreck the nation, has been traipsing around the broadcast media today, claiming that we need to give Covid-19 a chance at a third wave, for the sake of the poorest in society.

“Think of the poor!” How disgusting.

As the infographic above points out, he couldn’t care less when he voted against letting the poor keep the Universal Credit uplift they need to get by.

In this light, he seems clearly revealed as the kind of opportunist who says whatever he thinks will get him what he wants.

And he isn’t the only one:

Lockdown-sceptic Tories have piled pressure on Boris Johnson, calling on him to commit to a timetable for lifting coronavirus restrictions with a complete end to controls by the end of April.

In a letter to the prime minister, the leaders of the Covid Recovery Group (CRG) said the “tremendous pace” of the vaccination rollout meant restrictions should begin easing from early March.

They said ministers must produce a cost-benefit analysis to justify any controls that remain in place after that date, with a “roadmap” stating when they would be removed.

The letter was organised by the CRG chair and deputy chair, Mark Harper and Steve Baker, and was said to have the backing of 63 Conservative MPs in all. However, scientists advising the government are warning that lifting restrictions too quickly risks another wave of the disease as big as the current one.

Of course, 63 Tory MPs in rebellion isn’t enough to bother Johnson – the Tory majority in Parliament is 80 – but it might be enough to rattle his cage, reminding him that he needs to keep his members happy.

He has already said he hopes to map out a “cautious” route out of lockdown on February 22 – next Monday.

The CRG people, led by Baker and Mark Harper, reckon they can dictate its pace – demanding that schools reopen by March 8 and hospitality businesses by Easter.

So we’ll be well on the way to another surge by Whitsun, then.

Source: Tory MPs tell Johnson to commit to lifting Covid restrictions by end of April | World news | The Guardian

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Tory heretic Baker says Church of England could lose official status for criticising Brexit

Steve Baker: what’s the line I’m looking for? “Before he demands the bishops remove the mote from their eye, he should remove the plank from his own”?

Perhaps Steve Baker should be excommunicated? His true religion appears to be Brexit, anyway.

After Church of England bishops spoke out in the House of Lords against Boris Johnson’s ridiculous ‘Australia-style’ (read: ‘no deal’) Brexit, the oily Baker slithered straight to The Times with his ridiculous suggestion.

The Times is behind a paywall, which limits the damage. I certainly won’t pay Rupert Murdoch any money just to see what he said… but then I don’t have to. Here’s what he said:

I don’t know why Tories say stupid things like this, though. It only lays them wide open to mockery and ridicule, viz.:

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