Tag Archives: Michael Fabricant

Tory MPs try to condemn Partygate investigation as a witch hunt

Boris Johnson: regarding his honesty, public opinion tends to go against him, as this graphic shows.

Isn’t it scandalous that some Conservative MPs are trying to use their position and influence to pre-judge an investigation into whether Boris Johnson misled Parliament?

According to the BBC,

allies of the outgoing PM dismissed the investigation by the Commons Privileges Committee as a “witch hunt” and “rigged”.

The inquiry will examine whether he obstructed Parliament by telling it that pandemic rules had been followed [when in fact more than a dozen rule-breaking parties are known to have happened, with many more suspected].

The probe could lead to Mr Johnson facing a by-election to remain an MP, if it leads to his suspension from the Commons for more than 10 days.

Apparently the comments started flying after the committee said it would not have to prove that Johnson deliberately misled MPs to show he committed a “contempt of Parliament” by obstructing its work.

Johnson loyalist and Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said the “Machiavellian” inquiry was “the means to a by-election” and called on Tory MPs to “have no part in it”.

Environment Minister Lord Goldsmith, whom Mr Johnson made a peer in December 2019, said the inquiry was “clearly rigged” and an “obscene abuse of power”.

Backbench Tory MP Michael Fabricant also accused the committee of wanting to “get rid of Boris Johnson” and “changing the rules”.

In response,

one of the Tory MPs on the committee, Sir Bernard Jenkin, said the committee had a “duty” to carry out the inquiry and accused Ms Dorries of waging a “terrorist campaign to try and discredit the committee”.

So now, in a move to halt this internecine fighting within the Tory Party, chief whip Chris Heaton-Harris has demanded decorum:

“May I urge caution against any further comments in the media about the Privileges Committee and especially its Clerk and Members,” wrote Mr Heaton-Harris, who is in charge of party discipline.

“Invariably these comments will be misinterpreted by those who do not wish to help us.”

Johnson has denied deliberately misleading MPs. The committee – with a majority of Conservative MPs – has said it has not “prejudged” any aspect of its inquiry, and the parliamentary officials advising it are politically impartial.

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‘Growing witch hunt mentality’ complaint by Tory MP who looks increasingly like a hunted witch

Michael Fabricant.

Is “witch hunt” being used as a “safe phrase” by Conservatives when discussing the sexual harassment scandal currently engulfing the minority Tory government?

Michael Fabricant spoke out about the situation earlier, but does this sound convincing to you?

Many commenters think not:

https://twitter.com/IanPounder1/status/925285240213557248

Is Mr Fabricant listed on the sexual harassment spreadsheet that is currently causing such a stir in Westminster? This Writer really couldn’t say, but – as the document is now available on the social media – I don’t have to. Anybody with an interest can look it up for themselves.

But his outburst does clarify this:

Drawing attention to claims that a witch hunt is happening can make a person look like a hunted witch.

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Thornberry resignation – engineered by the right-wing press?

Emily Thornberry and the image she tweeted [Image: BBC].

Emily Thornberry and the image she tweeted [Image: BBC].

Here’s an alternative view on the resignation of Labour’s now-former shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry. You’ll recall that she unfortunately tweeted a shot of a house festooned with St George flags, with a white van parked outside, accompanied by an off-colour comment (or at least, one that could be interpreted in such a way). The right-wing media jumped on it and Ed Miliband asked her to resign.

Vox Political took the view that her resignation was in the best interests of the Labour Party, especially as her background did not suggest a person who was particularly well-disposed towards the working classes.

Then Peter Bowman posted the following on the Vox Political Facebook page, and in the interests of fairness it is getting an airing here as well. See what you think of his interpretation:

“I really don’t know where to begin. I am so exasperated with this nation’s press, radio and TV media. Emily Thornberry’s tweet was an error, and as leader of our party, Ed had no choice to do what he did.

“Or should I put it like this: ‘Damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t’?

“The Sun started this Tory-biased media ball rolling. The Sun could say in a similar vein, as it did some years ago, ‘It’s The Sun Wot did It’. As for these Tory-leaning media being representatives of the conscious beliefs of Britain’s working classes, well, that is too funny to even contemplate.

“I just by chance caught a part of an LBC (London Broadcasting Company) radio interview with Conservative MP Michael Fabricant, who also had a twitter incident in his past. He reminded the host, Julia Hartley-Brewer, that Ms Thornberry came from a council house background – therefore how can she be classed as part of the Islington Set by the Tory Press? Thank you Mr Fabricant.

“Even with this, the host asked callers to ring in if they thought that Labour has become the ‘wine and couscous set’.

“On Sky News there is a strand called ‘Stand up and be counted’, in which two opposing young party activists give their opinions against each other. The UKIP rep, though young, was aggressive, rude and did not allow the young Labour rep time to counter his arguments, which were, to say the least, absurd. He suggested that it was Labour who were the racist party and did not understand working class Britain.

“The Labour rep had to remind him that it was Farage who had an Oxford education and was a stock broker – and his new MPs could not be called working class.

“And the Mail on Sunday (November 23, 2014) maps out where Labour’s leadership resides in North London, on top of which, a top Tory is now saying, ‘Shut the doors, Britain is full of immigrants’.

“If anybody despises working class Britain, it’s the Tory leaning press and media.

“This nation, by the way, is made up of immigrants – going back to The Angles, Saxons and Celts; then the Romans, the French and Vikings.

“Ed and Labour have a fight on their hands with all this propaganda weighed against us. We must not fall for these right-wing Tory and UKIP traps. Ed and Labour have to win in 2015.

“If they don’t it will be a Zero Future for all of Britain’s citizens for the next five years – except the Top five per cent, that is – and that is a very frightening prospect, to be sure.”

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Michael Fabricant wants to increase our chances of acquiring blood-borne infections. Why?

Misinformed: Michael Fabricant wants to lift a ban on gay men giving blood - but seems seriously misinformed about the subject. [Image: Evening Standard.]

Misinformed: Michael Fabricant wants to lift a ban on gay men giving blood – but seems seriously misinformed about the subject. [Image: Evening Standard.]

Perhaps he has been flailing around for a campaigning subject, what with all the good ones being in opposition to the Conservatives.

Perhaps he thinks pushing otherwise-healthy people into an already-overstretched National Health Service will be a good advert for privatisation. It’s crazy, but it’s a possibility.

There can be few other reasons for Michael Fabricant’s weak bid to poison UK blood supplies by allowing people who may not know they are infected to donate.

He reckons a ban on sexually promiscuous gay men should be lifted as straight men who behave in the same manner do not suffer the same discrimination, which is insane.

There are several things wrong with this. Firstly, he is misrepresenting the issue.

The ban does not affect only sexually promiscuous gay men – it affects any man who has had sex with another man, with or without a condom. This clearly discriminates against gay men who are in a monogamous relationship in which both partners are free of infection. They should not be covered by the ban.

Sexually promiscuous gay men, however, should.

Secondly, the ban was put in place – unless the memory cheats – because blood supplies donated by gay men were discovered to be infected with HIV. Anybody can see that a ban on anything that could spread HIV is entirely sensible and should only be lifted if technology has moved on enough for doctors to spot infected blood immediately or screen out the infection in blood that has been donated.

It has been suggested that this has happened and the time period of the ban should be reduced to the period it takes for screening tests to be effective. This seems reasonable, as long as a prospective donor can show that they have been through the screening process. Professor John Forsyth of the government’s Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs has made it clear that the situation is under constant review.

So Fabricant should be calling for a reduction in the ban – not its outright removal.

Thirdly: In fact, Fabricant himself skimmed over the responsible approach to the issue, which is that “neither straight people nor gay people who have had unsafe sex should give blood.” He added, “within 12 months,” but we could probably reduce that according to when it is possible to screen for infection, as suggested above.

Perhaps that would result in too few people volunteering to give any blood at all. You can’t blame them for that – Fabricant’s Tories have forced hard times on the masses.

Who can blame them for turning to a bit of good old-fashioned earthy sex to cheer themselves up?

Note: This article has been revised after several commenters informed this blog of gaps in Fabricant’s information and of technological advances. VP is grateful to them.

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MP Michael Fabricant: Just Another Violent Man

[Image: Evening Standard.]

[Image: Evening Standard.]

Here’s an extract from Louise Pennington’s blog on Conservative major player Michael Fabricant’s threat to punch Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in the throat.

I discovered this story on Facebook, where an Evening Standard piece described Fabricant as a “maverick”. My response – “Is that how we’re describing people who threaten violence to women these days?” – should make my position clear.

Here’s Ms Pennington:

“Michael Fabricant is just another violent man who knows perfectly well that threatening a woman with physical violence won’t result in any punishment to him since violence against women is “just a joke”. And, we won’t hold him accountable for such an abusive statement because, hey, he “apologised”.

“Let’s be very clear here: Fabricant didn’t just say something silly or ‘off the cuff’. He made a very clear threat which doesn’t need to be followed with actual physical violence. Fabricant knows perfectly well that he doesn’t need to actually intend to carry through the threat; he knows that he can count on several millennia of male violence against women that has silenced women for the threat to be real. This way Fabricant can ‘pretend’ it’s a joke and not something he’d actually do.”

She goes on to suggest that men say things like this because “they actually believe that violence against women isn’t a real crime”  and adds that those of us who take a different view will be “calling out Fabricant right now. They wouldn’t just be asking for an apology. They would be demanding he be suspended from his party pending a formal review and Fabricant undertaking mandatory training on violence against women via either a national or local specialist service such as Women’s Aid or Ending Victimisation and Abuse.”

She say a few other things in her article, so please visit her site and enjoy it there.

Then come back and let us have your opinion. I’d really like to see what you think.

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Ask not for whom the clock ticks, David Cameron

D'oh! David Cameron realises he has just described as problems all the conditions he is trying to create in the UK, after his speech to the United Nations. This photograph used because I couldn't find one of him sticking his own foot in his mouth.

Here are a couple of items on the Guardian website that are worth putting side-by-side:

John O’Farrell, Labour’s losing candidate in the Eastleigh by-election, has written about how uncomfortable it was to be subjected to the “two-minute hate” on the social media – and David Cameron has been given a two-month warning by members of his party.

If he doesn’t revive their fortunes in the budget or the May local government elections, he could be out on his ear.

“And not a moment too soon!” I hear you cry, as the One Nation that Ed Miliband wants to build.

Apparently it will take 46 letters to Graham Brady, the chairman of the Conservative Party’s backbench 1922 committee, to trigger a leadership contest.

Already, according to tweets by Tory vice-chairman Michael Fabricant, there are rumblings from the lower ranks. “The Conservative voice is muffled and not crisp,” he tweeted. “It does not clearly project Conservative core policies or principles.”

Those of us who follow developments in social security legislation would probably agree, adding that they seem more like Nazi core policies (I make this point for a twofold purpose – firstly because it’s accurate; secondly because it really riles right-wingers who think Coalition benefits policy is a good idea). The trouble with that is, we can be sure as mustard that Mr Fabricant would urge a move to the right.

What is more right-wing than a Nazi?

Don’t bother trying to answer that – Mr Fabricant is likely to be about as significant to future Tory policy as a snowflake is to the temperature on the sun. He has undermined the Tory plan to play down the significance of being beaten by UKIP and the comedy Prime Minister’s insistence that he will not leave (what he seems to think is) the centre ground.

Of course, the budget is not Gideon George Osborne’s strong suit – let’s face it, the economy isn’t his strong suit and he’s supposed to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer – so the immediate future isn’t looking good for Call-Me-(Please)-Dave. Mr 0 was scraping the barrel with the pasty tax last year, and after his ideologically-based economic tinkering forced the nation into the longest depression in decades, it seems unlikely he will have anything revolutionary to pull from that famous red briefcase.

That leaves the local elections in May. Mid-term local elections – and, as the Tories told us within the past 24 hours, sitting governments rarely do well during mid-term elections.

Tick, tock, Tory boy.