Big Brother: do you really want the government to censor what you can see on the social media – or anywhere else on the internet?
“There is a war for your attention. Don’t give it to the wrong people.”
Those aren’t my words and, to be honest, I’m paraphrasing. They weren’t even spoken about the Russell Brand affair, which – in This Writer’s opinion – adds veracity to them.
You’ll be aware – who isn’t? – that Russell Brand has been accused of sex crimes, and the mainstream media have subsequently decided – without trial – that he’s guilty.
Now we learn that the chairperson of the House of Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport committee, the Tory MP Dame Caroline Dinenage, has been writing to social media platforms, asking them to cut off any supply of funds to Brand.
To Dr Theo Bertram, TikTok’s Director of Government Relations, Europe, she wrote:
“While we recognise that TikTok is not the creator of the content published by Mr Brand, and his content may be within the community guidelines set out by the platform, we are concerned that he may be able to profit from his content on the platform.
“We would be grateful if you could confirm whether Mr Brand is able to monetise his TikTok posts, including his videos relating to the serious accusations against him, and what the platform is doing to ensure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potentially illegal behaviour.”
Here’s a copy of the letter, along with a response from ‘Viva Frei’ on ‘X’. Do you think the respondent makes good points?
The British government is now asking TikTok if @rustyrockets is able to monetize his content on that platform.
This was never about Russell Brand.
This was a political pretext so governments across the world can coordinate with social media companies to acquire total control… pic.twitter.com/emcy0AE3j7
“Acquire total control over dissenting voices on the internet”?
As one of those voices, This Writer might want to have a say about that!
To Chris Pavlovski, chief executive of Brand’s main platform, Rumble, the Culture, Media and Sport committee chair wrote:
“We would like to know whether Rumble intends to join YouTube in suspending Mr Brand’s ability to earn money on the platform.”
Mr Pavlovski’s response was not limited to MPs, though. Outraged, he has made it public. Reading it, you may agree with his points:
“Today we received an extremely disturbing letter from a committee chair in the UK Parliament.
“YouTube announced that, based solely on these media accusations, it was barring Mr Brand from monetizing his video content. Rumble stands for very different values. We have devoted ourselves to the vital cause of defending a free internet – meaning an internet where no one arbitrarily decides which ideas can or cannot be heard, or which citizens may or may not be entitled to a platform.
“We regard it as deeply inappropriate and dangerous that the UK Parliament would attempt to control who is allowed to speak on our platform or to earn a living from doing so. Singling out an individual and demanding his ban is even more disturbing given the absence of any connection between the allegations and his content on Rumble. We don’t agree with the behaviour of many Rumble creators, but we refuse to penalize them for actions that have nothing to do with our platform.
“Although it may be politically and socially easier for Rumble to join a cancel culture mob, doing so would be a violation of our company’s values and mission. We emphatically reject the UK Parliament’s demands.”
Here’s the response, plus the letter from the CMS committee:
As I mention above, This Site is one of the “dissenting voices” on the internet over which it seems the UK’s Tory government is trying to gain control – and by “control”, I think we all know I’m referring to censorship; restricting or blotting out altogether the ability of members of the general public to see content that I post to the social media.
I’m concerned that this censorship is already taking place.
Vox Political began at the very end of 2011, with just 11 readers on its first day. By March 2020, in a single day, the site was read 178,888 times. And then – with no change in content, or the way it was supplied – readership started slipping off. Yesterday (September 24), I had around 1,700 hits.
You may want to suggest that the mood of the public has changed and people don’t want to plough through hundreds of words on a screen any more.
But that doesn’t explain the multiplicity of responses, whenever I ask Facebook who has seen my links to articles published on any particular day, saying they haven’t. Many respond by saying my query is the first post they’ve seen in weeks or months.
It seems to me that Facebook (and possibly Twitter/X) have already implemented policies to restrict or silence the voices of people whose political beliefs differ from… someone.
Is it Facebook/X executives censoring their platforms, or the Tory government?
And should they not publish notices warning us that their platforms are politically biased, if this is what they are doing?
The big question, of course, is: how can we get an honest answer out of any of these people?
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Who would have thought that this cartoon could be re-used? Now, as when he was Health Secretary, Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has doctors on the rack. He’s not going to pay them the 35% cost-of-living increase he owes them – but he and his colleagues have been happy to take a 42% rise for themselves.
Take a look at the clip below, in which Steve Brine MP, Tory chair of the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, says junior doctors do not deserve the 35 per cent pay increase that would be required to give them parity with their pay in 2010:
Jackie Long, "180 days since Steve Barclay spoke to NHS Consultants, and 140 days since he spoke to Junior Doctors, about pay. If there are no talks about pay the strikes keep going"
Conservative MPs have been worse than useless to the UK since 2010.
They have plunged the country into five times the debt it had in 2005, with nothing to show for it but a crashing economy and nose-diving public services, including a National Health Service that is constantly on the verge of collapse due to intrusive privatisation and over-demand due to the effects of all the Tories’ other policies.
Junior doctors, working within that crashing health service even as it crumbles around them, are far more valuable – for the obvious reason: They are genuine life savers.
But it is the Tory MPs who hold the purse strings.
They could have refused the recommended pay rises that have been offered to them since 2010 but they haven’t. They have taken the money. They have also taken huge wodges of cash in donations from businesspeople, along with the advice of those donors on what to do. You can form your own conclusion about the value of that advice to the majority of us.
And while taking all that filthy lucre – a higher proportional increase than the amount the junior doctors have lost over the same period of time – the Tories have told junior doctors that they do not deserve a pay rise equal to the increase in the cost of living.
No wonder medical professionals are quitting the NHS as fast as they can.
There is a word for MPs like Mr Brine. It begins with a ‘C’ – but it sure isn’t ‘Conservative’.
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Chris “Pincher by name…” has resigned as an MP after losing his appeal against suspension for groping two men in a club.
His decision parallels one by Boris Johnson earlier this year – the former prime minister who was pitched out of that job after being found to have dishonestly claimed he did not know about Pincher’s misbehaviours.
Johnson had been found to have broken Parliamentary rules over the Partygate scandal and resigned in a fit of petulance, rather than suffer the indignity of his then-constituents petitioning for a by-election to get rid of him.
Pincher will also avoid the further embarrassment of a recall petition – but it seems that is the only parallel between his resignation and that of the PM his sexual shenanigans brought down.
According to the BBC, he said he came to the decision after talking with his family and staff:
He said: “I do not want my constituents to be put to further uncertainty, and so in consequence I have made arrangements to resign and leave the Commons.”
It is set to be the ninth by-election since Rishi Sunak became prime minister.
Good for Pincher; at least he has managed to do one thing in the right way.
Of course, the announcement make it possible for me to repeat the saga of how Pincher brought Johnson down – partly because many of you probably didn’t get to see it when I published it earlier this week… but mostly because I enjoy it:
Initially, he was best-known as the one who hid behind other Tories in order to shout abuse at then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn during Prime Minister’s Questions:
But on July 1, 2022, he resigned as a Tory whip after it was alleged that he groped two other men at the private Carlton Club.
In his resignation letter to Johnson, he said he “drank far too much” and “embarrassed myself and other people”.
But the apparent double sexual assault was not investigated by the Conservative Party, nor were the police, apparently, contacted.
New claims against Pincher stacked up in the following days. The BBC listed them in the following way:
The Sunday Times reported Mr Pincher had placed his hand on the inner leg of a male Tory MP in a bar in Parliament in 2017.
The newspaper reported Mr Pincher also made unwanted advances towards a different male Tory MP in 2018 while in his parliamentary office, and towards a Tory activist in Tamworth around July 2019.
The Mail on Sunday carried allegations he had made advances against an individual a decade ago, and that a female Tory staffer had tried to prevent his advances towards a young man at a Conservative Party conference.
The Independent carried allegations from an unnamed male Conservative MP that Mr Pincher groped him on two separate occasions in December 2021 and June this year.
The Sunday Times reported that the MP involved in the alleged incident in 2018 contacted No 10 before Mr Pincher was made a whip in February, passing on details of what he said had happened to him and voicing his concerns about him being appointed to the role.
Former Johnson aide Dominic Cummings was said to have claimed that the then-prime minister referred to him as “Pincher by name, pincher by nature”. But Johnson himself was said to have considered the matter closed after Pincher resigned as deputy chief whip.
This raised concerns about unequal treatment of MPs who are accused of inappropriate behaviour (or, in this case, sexual crimes). Pincher was subsequently reported to Parliament’s independent behaviour watchdog and an inquiry began.
The controversy – and Boris Johnson’s failure to act in a timely way – led to renewed speculation over his fitness to continue as the UK’s political leader. This intensified after it was stated that he had indeed known of Pincher’s behaviour before appointing him to the Tory whips’ office:
Boris Johnson was made aware of a formal complaint about Chris Pincher’s “inappropriate behaviour” while Mr Pincher was a Foreign Office minister from 2019-20, BBC News can reveal.
It triggered a disciplinary process that confirmed the MP’s misconduct. Mr Pincher apologised after the process concluded, BBC News has been told.
BBC News understands the PM and the foreign secretary at the time – Dominic Raab – knew about the issue.
The Prime Minister’s office claimed that “no official complaints [about Pincher] were ever made”.
McDonald of Salford, a crossbench peer who was formerly (as Simon McDonald) Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, blew that – and subsequent li(n)es out of the water.
In a letter to Kathryn Stone, then-Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, he stated: “This is not true. In the summer of 2019, shortly after he was appointed minister of state at the Foreign Office, a group of officials complained to me about Mr Pincher’s behaviour. I discussed the matter with the relevant official at the Cabinet Office. (In substance, the allegations were similar to those made about his behaviour at the Carlton Club.) An investigation upheld the complaint; Mr Pincher apologised and promised not to repeat the inappropriate behaviour. There was no repetition at the FCO before he left seven months later.”
The letter added that a BBC website report stated: “Downing Street has said Boris Johnson was not aware of any specific allegations when he appointed Mr Pincher deputy chief whip in February,” then added: “By 4 July, the BBC website reflected a change in No 10’s line: ‘The prime minister’s official spokesman said Mr Johnson knew of “allegations that were either resolved or did not progress to a formal complaint”, adding that “it was deemed not appropriate to stop an appointment simply because of unsubstantiated allegations”.’
“The original No 10 line is not true and the modification is still not accurate. Mr Johnson was briefed in person about the initiation and outcome of the investigation. There was a ‘formal complaint’. Allegations were ‘resolved’ only in the sense that the investigation was completed; Mr Pincher was not exonerated. To characterise the allegations as ‘unsubstantiated’ is therefore wrong.
“I am aware that [it] is unusual to write to you and simultaneously publicise the letter. I am conscious of the duty owed to the target of an investigation but I act out of my duty towards the victims. Mr Pincher deceived me and others in 2019. He cannot be allowed to use the confidentiality of the process three years ago to pursue his predatory behaviour in other contexts.”
He didn’t say Boris Johnson had been lying in his letter, but in a subsequent interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he might as well have: “I think they need to come clean. I think that the language is ambiguous, the sort of telling the truth and crossing your fingers at the same time and hoping that people are not too forensic in their subsequent questioning and I think that is not working.”
The peer’s revelations triggered a slew of new accusations against Boris Johnson and his administration.
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “The prime minister knew about the seriousness of these complaints but decided to promote this man to a senior position in government anyway. He refused to act and then lied about what he knew.”
It became apparent that Downing Street had not even provided the government’s spokesperson-of-the-day with the facts, when Dominic Raab tried, on the Today programme, to push the line that Boris Johnson had not been briefed about disciplinary action against Pincher.
Himself a former foreign secretary, Raab said he had spoken with Johnson over the last 24 hours and had been assured that the prime minister had not been briefed.
Then Lord McDonald appeared on the same programme and categorically stated that Johnson had been told everything at the time.
So Raab’s story changed by the time he got to LBC radio: “There was a review, an investigation if you like … to decide whether a formal disciplinary action or an investigation and process was warranted.
“The review, conducted under the auspices of Sir Simon – now Lord – McDonald was that disciplinary action was not warranted. That doesn’t mean that inappropriate behaviour didn’t take place. We were clear that what happened was inappropriate, but we resolved it without going for a formal disciplinary process.”
Raab said he told Pincher “in no uncertain terms” that his conduct had been unacceptable.
So Raab was saying that the complaint against Pincher had been upheld, but that did not mean he was guilty – even though Raab himself had told the MP that his conduct had been unacceptable.
Does that make any sense to you?
It didn’t make sense to Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain, who grilled Raab over his misuse of language:
They called for a change to the rules of the 1922 Committee to allow another confidence vote to take place against him.
Later that day – July 5 – Johnson’s Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, quit – along with several junior ministers who were Parliamentary aides to Cabinet ministers: Jonathan Gullis, Saqib Bhatti, Nicola Richards, and Virginia Crosbie.
Tory vice-chair Bim Afolami was also out – he quit on TalkTV’s The News Desk show:
Andrew Murrison resigned as Johnson’s trade emissary to Morocco, as did Theodora Clarke, trade emissary to Kenya.
Ms Clarke said in her resignation letter: “To learn that you chose to elevate a colleague to a position of pastoral care for MPs, whilst in full knowledge of his own wrongdoing, shows a severe lack of judgement and care for your Parliamentary party.
“I was shocked to see colleagues defending the Government with assurances that have turned out to be false. This is not the way that any responsible Government should act.”
Attorney General Alex Chalk threw in the towel late that evening. His resignation letter stated: “To be in government is to accept the duty to argue for difficult or even unpopular policy positions where that serves the broader national interest. But it cannot extend to defending the indefensible.
“The cumulative effect of the Owen Paterson debacle, Partygate and now the handling of the former Deputy Chief Whip’s resignation, is that public confidence in the ability of Number 10 to uphold the standards of candour expected of a British Government has irretrievably broken down. I regret that I share that judgement.”
Then came a flurry of resignations, intended to fit in before Prime Minister’s Questions.
First to go on the morning of July 6 was another Parliamentary Private Secretary, Laura Trott. Her resignation letter, posted on her Facebook account, said trust in politics was of the “upmost [sic] importance”, adding “but sadly in recent months this has been lost”.
Next was Children’s Minister Will Quince, who said he was left with “no choice” after 10 Downing Street sent him out to defend Johnson with “inaccurate” lines. He said: “I accepted and repeated assurances on Monday (July 4) to the media which have now been found to be inaccurate.”
In media interviews, Quince had said he had been given assurances that Johnson had not been aware of complaints against Chris Pincher. It later emerged this was not true.
Robin Walker, Minister for School Standards, quit saying the government has been “overshadowed by mistakes and questions about integrity”.
Lee Anderson, the Red Wall Tory who was ridiculed for saying it was possible to cook nutritious meals for 30p, quit at around 10.30am. On the Pinchergate lies, he stated: “I cannot look myself in the mirror and accept this… Integrity should always come first and sadly this has not been the case over the past few days.”
Also quitting were Treasury Minister John Glen and another PPS, Felicity Buchan.
Oh – and Justice Minister Victoria Atkins.
And key backbencher Robert Halfon also announced that he had lost confidence in Johnson. In a letter, he said he was “previously against any leadership change… during Covid, a cost-of-living crisis and the war in Ukraine. However, after the events of the past few days and the resignation of Cabinet members, I feel that the public have been misled about the appointment of the former deputy chief whip [Chris Pincher].
“The parties at Number 10 Downing Street were bad enough but the appointment of this individual and the untruthful statement about what was known is unacceptable to me.”
Also withdrawing support were Chris Skidmore and Tom Hunt.
Later that day, “Levelling-Up” secretary Michael Gove publicly called for Boris Johnson to give up and go gracefully, and a delegation of Cabinet ministers attended 10 Downing Street to beg him to see sense. So Johnson sacked Gove.
This triggered a new wave of Cabinet resignations. Key among them was Michelle Donelan, who was only appointed as Education Secretary two days previously, after Nadhim Zahawi was promoted to become Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Zahawi himself appeared to have been moving to slip a knife into his boss’s back – because he was urging Johnson to quit by 8.45.
Also out was Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis, while the total number of resignations from the government climbed towards 50.
By lunchtime on July 7, Johnson finally gave in to the inevitable and resigned as prime minister.
All that, just because he could not admit making a bad decision about one of his MPs.
And now that MP is following in Johnson’s footsteps, triggering a by-election that is likely to erode the Tory landslide of 2019 even further.
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Departing MPs will get bigger payouts for winding up their offices, with the sum doubling to £17,300, the UK parliament expenses watchdog has announced.
MPs who lose their seats or choose not to stand will be paid for four months after leaving office to enable them to wind up their casework and other duties – doubling from the current period of eight weeks.
MPs who lose their seats also qualify for “loss of office payments” – at twice the rate of statutory redundancy pay – and the winding-up payments come on top of this.
They have to demonstrate that they are using their time to work on winding up their offices. MPs’ staff can also qualify for such payments. Ministers get different severance payments for loss of office, with a cabinet minister receiving £16,876.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) made the change after reviewing arrangements for payments following the next election… prompted by the boundary changes and end of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act in 2022.
Some doubt the sincerity of IPSA’s behaviour:
Call me cynical, but it seems awfully convenient that 300 Tory MPs are about to lose their seats and only now the rules change so that MPs losing their seats get 4 months severance pay.
A backhander to Sunak’s MPs to keep them in line before the next GE?
The hundreds of Tory MPs who will lose their seats at the next election will continue to get paid for four months afterwards. Rather better treatment than the 800 P&O Ferries seafarers illegally sacked by the company at no notice last year.
So as more than 40 currently serving Tory MPs prepare to step down at the next election, all of a sudden MPs stepping down are entitled to compensation, no longer just those that lose their seat, but also that they need this to be doubled! Could this all be more Tory if they… pic.twitter.com/KfqIlokdgX
I’d say IPSA has just delivered proof that it is not fit for purpose.
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Falling energy prices are not being passed on to customers and the government is doing nothing. Why?
Tory energy security minister Grant Shapps was grilled over the government’s failure to support cash-strapped households, by Martin Lewis on ITV’s Good Morning Britain. His answers were revealing:
'Most lower to middle users will pay more this winter than they did last winter which was horrendous. Will there be any support this winter?'@MartinSLewis questions Grant Shapps MP over what help will be available for energy bills this winter pic.twitter.com/ujucMEQyfg
So: we will receive no more money to help with energy bills, even though the energy companies are charging us far more than the cost of the energy itself. The government is supporting these firms as they rip us off.
Shapps’s comments about standing charges are also useful. He said these charges are for “all of the network costs, the maintenance costs and the things which happen before you get the live supply of energy to the household”. He said these costs were “not for nothing”.
This Writer certainly hopes that is true.
But let’s have a look at another privatised utility that forces you to pay standing charges: water. If standing charges on water are said to be for the same purpose as for energy – network costs, maintenance etc – then the water companies are guilty of fraud because we have learned that none of our money is being spent on infrastructure (maintenance). The pipe system still dates back to the Victorian era and some of it is made of lead, which is poison.
The water firms also borrow heavily to cover day-to-day costs. That leaves me asking what the standing charge supports. Is it just feeding into the profits of shareholders? If so, then these firms are lying to us about its purpose and should be prosecuted, forced to return that money to us and the charge abolished.
In fairness, I have read that the charge is for the cost of reading meters and sending out bills – but with smart meters installed that tell firms what you’ve used without anyone having to come to your home, and with the facility for people to receive bills by a new-fangled device called email, those costs now must be very low compared with times in even the recent past. Why are the standing charges not being reduced, then?
Taking the subject back to energy, if standing charges on water are a rip-off, how do we know that the energy firms aren’t also charging us far more than is reasonable?
Answer: we don’t.
One rule for them: MPs get up to £16,305 per year for up to three children, but restrict your child benefit to two kids and £2,080
Wait…
MPs already earning £80k plus expenses A YEAR and having their food, rent and bills subsidised by the taxpayer ALSO get state financial support for THREE KIDS?!
These same entitled MPs are capping benefits for the very poorest to TWO KIDS
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza 🏳️🌈 (@TheMendozaWoman) July 19, 2023
Yes indeed.
Current salary for a backbench MP is around £84-5,000. They get expenses to pay for food, rent and bills (on the second homes they need in London, if I recall correctly), and they also receive £5,435 per year to pay bills related to their children, for a maximum of three children. That’s around £104.23 per week, per child, up to £312.69 – let’s round it up to £312.70.
If you have three children, you won’t receive any child benefit for one of them. You then get £24 per week for the eldest and £15.90 for the second child: £39.90 per week or around £2,080 per year.
Your MP thinks this is fair – even those in the Labour Party who should be demanding equality for everybody (possibly with a few exceptions).
This is why we need to think very carefully about who we allow into Parliament and what they should be elected to do.
Meanwhile, Substitute Tory (formerly Labour) Rachel Reeves can’t see how a UK government can fund free school meals for children who need them, so members of the public have been offering helpful suggestions:
"Whats you opinion on free schol meals for children?"
Rachel Reeves: "Its one of those things I just can't see where the moneys going to come from"
Raising Capital Gains Tax to the same level as earned income would raise over £15bn/year. pic.twitter.com/A3dwcBUuBD
Howard Beckett pointed out: “In Norway the sovereign fund stands at over $1.3trillion. Norway tax[es] fossil fuel Corporate giants at 78 per cent.”
She could also reverse some of the massive tax cuts that the Tories have handed to the richest members of UK society since 2010. There are plenty of ways to fund a better future.
One can only conclude that Pamela Fitzpatrick is right: “Reeves really cannot see where the moneys going to come from because she simply does not have the skills, talent or vision for the role she is in.”
There is a lighter side to this – if you have a certain sense of humour:
So am I. And they're followed by Starverites and the shadow cabinet consists of the Starvation Army 🤣
— Just an observer Tory Party Agent apparently (@meatfreemeals1) July 18, 2023
Keir Starmer was ‘consciously dishonest’ when he campaigned for the Labour leadership. Shouldn’t he be given the boot?
Keir today admitted "changing the party"—purging the left & its policies—was premeditated. He "strongly believed" it was the "first thing we had to do" "at speed."
So by his own account, his mantra when running for leader—“Don’t trash the last 4 years"—was consciously dishonest. pic.twitter.com/JM5cBfkcCl
We may conclude from the information available to us that when Keir Starmer was telling Labour Party members that he would respect and continue the policies of his immediate forerunner Jeremy Corbyn, he was actually planning to throw away all the popular policies that Mr Corbyn had formed, as soon as possible.
He lied in order to be elected.
That is not acceptable.
He should be removed.
He won’t be – because Labour disciplinary procedures are a bad joke at the expense of rank-and-file party members. But voters should – and will – remember his betrayal, and the cynical, calculated way in which he planned it.
Defence spending rises by nearly one-third of what it was in 2019 – while all other spending falls. Why?
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has announced that the UK government will spend £50 billion on “defence”, for the first time in its history – more than £12 billion more than in 2019.
Jeremy Corbyn asked him about his priorities:
Today, the UK government announced that the military budget will grow to £50 billion, at a time when every other department is under huge financial pressure.
I asked the Defence Secretary what he is doing to bring about a more peaceful world. pic.twitter.com/feRjvDgNG4
In response, Wallace said: “I am not out looking for war. We are all out here trying to defend our nation by avoiding war, but we do not avoid war by not investing in deterrence. Sometimes we have to invest in hard power, to complement soft power. We do not want to use it and we do not go looking for it. I know the right hon. Gentleman mixes with some people who always think this is about warmongering; it is not. But if countries are not taken seriously by their adversaries, that is one of the quickest ways to provoke a war.”
So he wants to avoid wars by rattling the sabre. This Writer isn’t sure that works – and I am encouraged to doubt him by his own prediction that the UK will be at war within seven years.
Mr Corbyn’s question was an opportunity for him to explain how his spending plan would prevent the UK from being at war within seven years. He did not answer that question.
What are these Tories planning to drag the rest of us into?
£500 million public money bribe to get Jaguar Land Rover owner to build electric car battery factory in Somerset
The Tory government is paying £500 million towards the creation of a £4 billion factory by Jaguar Land Rover owner Tata, building batteries for electric cars.
Simon Jack: UK-taxpayers are giving £500 million to Jaguar Land Rover owners Tata.
In a cost of living crisis, we will pay them to build a factory and they will keep the profits. pic.twitter.com/7usedG4GEj
Where is the money coming from to bribe Jaguar Landrover to build their battery plant in the UK? Whose budget did it come from @RishiSunak@Jeremy_Hunt?
As migrant-housing barge arrives in Portland: how was the contract awarded and was it carried out corruptly?
Two tweets on this:
Just been watching that ghastly barge arrive in Portland. Apparently the govt have had it altered to ‘accommodate’ 500 people instead of the 240 it was designed for. Talk about cramming them in! Its like a battery hen unit for humans. Disgusting. Shame on this bigoted Tory govt. pic.twitter.com/8vhm6cs5TK
Is the illegal Tory “VIP lane” still operating, then?
Why is the government repeating consultation on wet wipe ban? Is it looking for a different response?
"Government to begin plastic wet wipe ban consultation soon, says water minister."
Please help I'm getting really confused. Has govt not consulted on a wet wipe ban at least 2 if not 3 times already and said they were going to ban them before U turning?https://t.co/z3ZC99Kkjq
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Under a cloud: considering the number of MPs who work long hours on multiple secondary jobs, it’s a wonder any of them ever have time to set foot in this place at all.
Once again Rishi Sunak is undermined by the behaviour of his own MPs.
In the week he insisted that a below-inflation, six per cent pay rise for junior doctors (meaning it is a real-terms pay cut) is not negotiable, the obscenely inflated amounts his fellow Tories (and a couple of others) earn from secondary employment have been revealed.
And some MPs are saying they need the extra cash from these second jobs because they can’t make ends meet otherwise.
Their MP salaries put these people among the highest-paid in the UK and they still reckon they can’t live without having more. They cannot justify this while pushing down pay for public sector workers including the junior doctors.
Here’s Sunak, follow by commentary that puts him right in his place by the great Peter Stefanovic:
The pay imposition means that, depending on their experience, junior doctors will receive a raise of between £3,000 and £3,700 per year (rising to £32,300 and £43,900 respectively).
If that seems like a lot, bear in mind that these are highly-skilled jobs for which they spend many years in training.
MPs, on the other hand, are unskilled; you don’t need any training for the job – you just need to persuade people to elect you.
Then you receive £86,584 a year as your basic wage (this is the figure as of April 2023), rising to £167,391 (as far as I can tell) if you are prime minister Rishi Sunak.
This puts him in the top one per cent of earners – and all MPs in the top two per cent.
And still they want more.
Sky News has published an exhaustive list of MPs’ earnings from second jobs, and it is a catalogue of greed, with those who have held ministerial jobs among the top earners. Now why would that be…?
MPs with second jobs have an average wage of £233 per hour, Sky News can reveal.
The typical rate for MPs is 17 times the national average – and over 22 higher than the minimum hourly wage.
Indeed. According to the pay deal Sunak is determined to impose, junior doctors will get just £14 per hour, which is only slightly better than the absolute minimum wage.
The highest hourly rate for a current MP goes to Liz Truss, who got £15,770 per hour.
Ms Truss’s most lucrative work since leaving Number 10 has been a speech in Taiwan. She was paid at a rate of £20,000 per hour – nearly 1,500 times the UK average hourly wage – for her insights into global diplomacy.
Even higher than Ms Truss is Boris Johnson, who resigned as an MP last month. His hourly rate comes in at £21,822, but having left parliament, he is free to work without having to publicly record his earnings.
The leaderboard of the MPs with the 20 highest hourly rates in this parliament reveals a clear pattern: 18 have government experience, suggesting a ministerial background is valued by some employers.
Or it means employers have been paying them in order to influence their decision as ministers?
Here’s Sky‘s Sam Coates explaining it:
The average hourly wage for an MP's second job is £233, which is over 17x the average rate for a member of the UK public.
Top is Boris Johnson (Conservative) – now an ex-MP after one Partygate scandal too many. He worked 117 hours outside Parliament and earned £2.5 million. That’s £21,800 per hour.
Then:
Liz Truss (Conservative): 12 hours, £189,200, £15,700 per hour.
Alok Sharma (Conservative): four hours, £20,000, £5,000 per hour.
Theresa May (Conservative): 622 hours – that’s nearly 12 solid working weeks! £2.7 million, £4,400 per hour.
Fiona Bruce (not the broadcaster)(Conservative): 245 hours, £733,100, £2,900 per hour.
Sajid Javid (Conservative): 174 hours, £412,300, £2,300 per hour.
Julian Smith (Conservative): 67 hours, £147,800, £2,100 per hour.
Greg Clark (Conservative): 14 hours, £17,770, £1,200 per hour.
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party): 31 hours, £38,120, £1,200 per hour.
Michael Gove (Conservative): three hours, £3,100, £1000 per hour.
The next 10 are all Conservatives, most notably including Sir Geoffrey Cox at 12 (2,560 hours, £2.4 million, £960 per hour). This means he worked nearly 49 weeks solidly for other employers than Parliament. Has he actually turned up to represent his constituents at all? Even if he has, how can he be expected to have done a good job, working full-time for other employers?
And Jacob Rees-Mogg is at 18 (123 hours, £92,910, £750 per hour).
Some MPs are saying they need multiple jobs because the current salary isn’t enough for them. One can only agree with Richard Burgon:
"We hear of some MPs briefing newspapers that they're going to stand down if they can't have second jobs because £82,000 a year isn't enough. I say to those MPs, good riddance, go! Our democracy does not need you"@RichardBurgon in 2021. 👏👏pic.twitter.com/udguuY1c2E
Nor does our democracy need Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey, who earns almost as much in a week as many of us do in a year, and wants employers to push your wages through the floor. Here’s Jon Trickett:
The Governor of the Bank of England earns £11.5k a week.
Yet he calls for pay restraint for middle and lower income earners.
Yes it is. “Do as I say – take home rapidly-decreasing remuneration for the grinding hours of hard work that you do, while I spend increasingly less time in the job where I’m supposed to represent your best interests so I can moonlight for the big corps and earn 17 times as much as you.”
Put like that, do you think you’re getting value for money from your Tory MP?
I don’t.
Note this also:
I remember when the argument was we have to pay MPs a better salary to get the best people. Clearly that hasn’t worked crisis after crisis and MPs now earning an avg £233ph telling people on £10.42 they are greedy for wanting a pay rise.
These are the kind of people we need in Parliament. But Keir Starmer is doing his best to purge Labour of its left wing in order to make it into his dream: a Substitute Tory Party (STP). The SNP is incapable of forming a government because it would never have enough MPs. And the Green Party is habitually ignored by voters who think they have to support Labour or the Tories because their choice is the only one they think can keep the other one out.
Without better representation, the situation described by Robert Peston below will worsen:
We are a rich country. This from @ONS is so shocking:
“around 1 in 20 (5%) of adults reported that in the past two weeks they had ran out of food and had been unable to afford more, this proportion appeared higher among groups including; those receiving support from charities…
Finally: the information provided in this article is vital for anybody in the UK who has a vote. It tells you what you need to know in order to make an informed decision when you come to vote. But I can predict that only around 200 people will read it.
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This is how Sunak, Bailey and the other greedy fatcats keep you down:
By making sure you don’t know how to impose change.
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Not so much fun now, is it? Whether or not this image means what the Partygate Inquiry concluded, it has helped pitch Boris Johnson out of Parliament. Will their reaction to that inquiry have the same effect on large numbers of Conservative MPs?
The measure of an MP is in how they respond when faced with difficult decisions.
By that standard, it seems most of the current crop of Tories are worse than useless.
It seems a significant number of them will not be willing either to support or oppose the findings and recommendation of the Partygate Inquiry’s report on Boris Johnson – for fear of upsetting various sections of their voter base.
The rationalisations are ridiculous.
Apparently, some are afraid that Johnson’s supporters will turn away from them if they support the report’s findings. But the report itself is extremely thorough and answers any criticisms of its methodology, meaning that its conclusions are as safe as they could possibly be. Anybody who still thinks that Boris Johnson is a pillar of integrity should therefore be considered wrong.
The job of an MP faced with voters who insist that Johnson has been mistreated is to explain that the inquiry was carried out to an extremely high standard and arguments against its findings are just wishful thinking.
And how do these MPs know what the majority of their voters are thinking, anyway? It isn’t even 24 hours since the report was published. Anything said by members of the public before that is now irrelevant; we have all seen opinion polls showing how the mood of voters fluctuates over time – and that they are especially shaped by major events.
Some MPs are upset at what they consider the harshness of the proposed punishments against Mr Johnson. But anyone who reads it will see that he brought these punishments on himself. Originally the sanction was to be a 10-day suspension from Parliament. This was extended to 80 days because of the extremely strong – and public – response that he made after he had received advance notice of the report’s findings. This was itself a serious contempt of Parliament.
Considering the facts of the matter, one is led toward the conclusion that these MPs are not so much concerned about what other people think of Johnson and the report’s findings – they simply don’t want to be part of any final decision on it.
Cowards, one and all. And that seems to include their second-choice prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who “hasn’t yet had time to fully consider the report”, according to the BBC, and has thus managed to avoid commenting on it.
This Writer is heartened to read in that same article the belief of Tory MP Tim Loughton – one of the few who have dared to put their heads over the parapet – that the result’s recommendations will “go through very easily next week”.
We’ll see.
And with a general election looming ever-nearer, the choices these Tories make will be sure to affect not just Boris Johnson’s political future, but their own.
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Nigel Adams, MP for Selby and Ainsty, has stood down but did not say why.
Mr Adams, a Cabinet Office minister without portfolio under Mr Johnson’s government, had previously announced he would not be standing at the next general election – but has now brought that decision forward.
In a tweet announcing he was going immediately he said Selby Conservatives had selected a new parliamentary candidate on Friday.
It means there will be another by-election. That’s three the Tories have to manage since the beginning of Friday, including Johnson, Nadine Dorries, and now Mr Adams, who is said to have been a Johnson ally.
The Conservatives can ill afford to waste time, money and effort on by-elections when they’re struggling with the economy, the cost of living, and public opinion.
And who knows how many more resignations there will have been by Monday morning?
Tantrum: Boris Johnson’s resignation letter makes him look like a petulant child. Where’s Nanny to tell him to take his medicine?
It was probably the best thing he could think of doing.
After receiving notification from the Commons Privileges Committee of its decision in the Partygate Inquiry, and realising that he was going to be suspended for the 10-day period required to trigger a recall petition and possible by-election in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency, Boris Johnson decided to pre-empt it and resign immediately.
This gave him the opportunity to attack the decision, the committee that made it, and anybody else he felt like in what comes across as nothing less than an epistolary tantrum.
“The Privileges Committee… are determined to use the proceedings against me to drive me out of Parliament,” he wrote. “They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons.”
Of course, that would be a very hard thing to do, if Johnson himself wasn’t willing to admit it – and he clearly isn’t. Committee members would have had to weigh up what Johnson had said he knew, against what could be concluded from his actions at the times of the parties in Downing Street, his comments at those events, and his behaviour in Parliament thereafter.
Clearly they have decided that it is unreasonable to believe he did not know that they were parties when he attended them and when he discussed them in the Commons chamber. That is all the committee members needed to do.
In that light, much of the rest of Johnson’s letter comes across as the sulking of a spoilt boy who hasn’t been allowed to have his own way.
Also in that light, though, his comments about the Privileges Committee and its individual members may be taken very seriously indeed.
To say, “Their purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts. This is the very definition of a kangaroo court,” is to call into question the honesty and integrity of the committee’s members – his then-fellow MPs. He has no right to do that.
His comment, “It was naïve and trusting of me to think that these proceedings could be remotely useful or fair,” falls into the same category.
… as does his attack on individual committee members and opponents in the Tory Party: “Most members of the Committee – especially the chair – had already expressed deeply prejudicial remarks about my guilt before they had even seen the evidence… there are currently some Tory MPs who share that view… there is a witch hunt under way.”
Already leading Parliamentarians – foremost among them Chris Bryant, the former Privileges Committee chair who recused himself from proceedings after passing comment on Johnson’s behaviour – are saying action may justifiably be taken against Johnson over these ill-chosen words.
But Johnson may face reprisals from other quarters as well. His letter also attacked Sue Gray, who chaired Johnson’s own inquiry into Downing Street parties and who is now set to become Labour leader Keir Starmer’s designated Chief of Staff, along with her chief counsel, Daniel Stilitz KC.
The letter went on to attack the Conservative Party in general, along with Rishi Sunak’s government. Remember: this was a resignation letter – there was no call for any of this material (it amounts to nothing less than a rant) to be included.
And he claims multiple successes that are either not his to claim, or are not successes. The Elizabeth Line was approved by Tony Blair and it was former London Mayor Ken Livingstone who made sure it happened.
Lying right to the end. Johnson claims in his resignation letter to be the hero of the Elizabeth Line. The project was created under a Labour government and a Labour Mayor – Blair & Livingstone. https://t.co/wKLBGx9mVB
— Gyll King Post Skip Diplomacy (@GyllKing) June 9, 2023
Brexit has been a hugely costly failure for the vast majority of people in the UK. Johnson should not mention his conduct during the pandemic as it led to more than 200,000 unnecessary deaths. And while it is right that the UK should support Ukraine against invasion, did we really lead that support internationally?
Put it all together and Boris Johnson appears to have suffered some kind of breakdown. This letter seems, at best, deranged.
Does he honestly believe his statements? Well, yes he probably does – but that doesn’t make them true; it makes him unbalanced, as economist Richard Murphy argues in a Twitter thread today:
Johnson has gone, protesting his innocence to the end. To understand what has happened it it vital to understand one critical thing, which is that he is a pathological liar. He lies continuously and has not the slightest idea that he is. Nor does he recall doing so. A thread…
The Johnson phenomenon makes no sense unless it is simultaneously understood that he lied, was expedient, and straightforwardly misled but never once understood that he was doing so – because he could always convince himself he was telling the truth and then forget all he said.
In both cases, an untruth was said. It is just that Johnson did not recognise that. He had simply said or done what was required in the moment, and because it worked in that moment the truth of what was said was, to him, utterly inconsequential.
Instead, all he has is a self-belief that justifies, without scrutiny, everything he has ever said or done, whatever the truth of the claim that he might make about it.
Then again, there were definitely some in the Conservative Party who supported Johnson all the way. In the interests of balance, let’s hear from one:
A bad day for democracy. @BorisJohnson won a massive democratic mandate & bravely fought for brexit. Sad to see him go, with findings of a kangaroo court. May the dust settle & he one day return. Wolves be at bay, so he, Carrie & their wonderful family have peace. Thank you Boris pic.twitter.com/eujrsl9UL6
— Andrea Jenkyns MP 🇬🇧 (@andreajenkyns) June 9, 2023
If you’re wondering why Ms Jenkyns would say that, see this:
Andrea Jenkyns was Skills Minister for 3 months (yes that’s right) and she’s getting a Damehood! The only skills she’s ever possessed are behaving like a lout and being a toady bootlicking Boris Johnson fan. It’s like a sick joke. #ToriesCorruptToTheCorepic.twitter.com/SKy4YnRZ6A
— The Rt Hon Lady Matildamog (@Jc62Matildamog) June 9, 2023
One good thing about Johnson’s letter is that it means the Privileges Committee doesn’t have to wait two weeks before concluding the inquiry and publishing its report.
But that won’t be the end of the affair.
Many people – some of them in positions of considerable power and responsibility, will be taking this weekend to consider their response to Johnson’s rant.
He may find that his tirade has cost him not only his future in Parliament, but also any future at all.
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Nadine Dorries: is she soon to become Lady Dorries of window-licking trolls? [Image: The Prole Star.]
This seems an extremely mixed blessing.
At long last, Nadine Dorries is dragging her carcass out of the House of Commons – despite spending considerable effort telling us she wasn’t going to do anything of the sort until after the next general election.
It means there will be a by-election. Let’s hope the people of Mid Bedfordshire have the sense to give both the Conservatives and Labour a wake-up call and vote for somebody else. Will the Green Party be putting up a candidate?
Dorries is doing this, conspicuously, right before details of Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list are published, in which it was alleged (but she strenuously denied) that she might be ennobled.
That’s right – we might be facing the prospect of Lady “Window Licking Trolls” before the end of the month.
It was bad enough with Michelle Mone flouncing around the Lords in her vermine ermine. Who next – Esther bloody McVey?
They could all gather around the Woolsack, chanting, “When shall we three meet again – to persecute, swindle or just act vain?”
It’s bad enough that Rishi Sunak is so weak-willed he’s willing to accept Johnson’s choices of honours. They were always bound to elevate his vile cronies – and McVey is certainly among those.
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