Tag Archives: standards

Was Hunt’s Budget really ‘upbeat’? Living standards remain worst since records began

 Jeremy Hunt: is his smile just another example of ‘Duper’s Delight’ – the grin politicians wear when they know they’re lying to us, as exemplified so often by Boris Johnson?

Living standards in the UK are still facing their biggest fall since records began in the 1950s – after Jeremy Hunt’s supposedly upbeat Budget.

Amid lower growth predictions than in November when we were facing recession, the Office for Budget Responsibility has said damage caused by rising energy prices and the Covid-19 pandemic could take years to reverse.

House prices will fall an estimated ten per cent by 2025, as rising bills and taxes take a toll on people’s incomes. That is expected to trigger a 20 per cent slump in property transactions, said the OBR.

The tax burden is predicted to hit a post-war high of almost 38 per cent of GDP by 2027/28. And households’ disposable income will fall six per cent over two years.

That is below the seven per cent forecast in November, but represents the largest plunge since records began in 1956-57.

This is no different from the prediction made by the Institute for Fiscal Studies boss Paul Johnson after the then-designated Spring Statement of exactly a year ago. Check out the video for the proof:

So there you have it.

The best that can be said about Hunt’s Budget is that even if it does help the economy, it will help only the very rich.

The rest of us won’t be any better-off at all.

Source: UK faces biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s


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Panellists get lively on Politics Live

There was something fractious in the air on the BBC’s Politics Live TV show.

Panellists Kit Malthouse, Jim McMahan, Jacqui Smith and (especially?) Isabel Oakeshott went at each other, hammer and tongs (or the genteel BBC equivalent) on subjects ranging from Rishi Sunak’s new ‘Windsor Framework’ for Northern Ireland, migrant Channel crossings, the salad shortage and – ironically – standards of behaviour in public life:

The words were strong but if you watch the video clip through, you’ll actually hear some worthwhile comments on the issues of the day.


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Tory Bridgen facing Commons suspension over lobbying – but is the penalty strong enough?

Suspension threat: Andrew Bridgen.

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen may be suspended from the House of Commons for five days after he failed to declare a financial interest in a firm while writing to ministers about it.

The Commons Standards Committee found that Bridgen had breached lobbying rules “on multiple occasions and in multiple ways” – and that he had also made an “unacceptable attack on the integrity” of Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone.

A BBC report stated:

The committee said Mr Bridgen had called the integrity of Ms Stone into question on the basis of “wholly unsubstantiated and false allegations, and attempted to improperly influence the House’s standards processes”.

According to the BBC (again),

It was recommended he be suspended for three days for this – in addition to two days for three breaches of the code of conduct, including failing to declare a relevant interest in emails to ministers.

The committee said Mr Bridgen should have told ministers and officials he received a donation and a funded visit to Ghana from the Cheshire-based firm Mere Plantations, and had a £12,000 contract to be an adviser.

Bridgen appealed against the decision, but a panel has dismissed this, saying the proposed penalty was appropriate. MPs will vote on whether to uphold the recommended five-day suspension.

It seems Bridgen had had questioned whether his reputation as an outspoken critic of then-prime minister Boris Johnson could have influenced Ms Stone’s findings:

He wrote to her saying: “I was distressed to hear on a number of occasions an unsubstantiated rumour that your contract as Parliamentary Standards Commissioner is due to end in the coming months and that there are advanced plans to offer you a peerage, potentially as soon as the Prime Minister’s resignation honours list.

“There is also some suggestion amongst colleagues that those plans are dependent upon arriving at the ‘right’ outcomes when conducting parliamentary standards investigations.

“Clearly my own travails with Number 10 and the former PM have been well documented and obviously a small part of me is naturally concerned to hear such rumours.

“More importantly however you are rightfully renowned for your integrity and decency and no doubt such rumours are only designed to harm your reputation.”

The committee said Mr Bridgen’s email “appears to be an attempt to place wholly inappropriate pressure on the commissioner” which is “completely unacceptable behaviour”.

In his appeal, it seems Bridgen criticised the investigation as “flawed”, arguing that it had not fully considered the motivations of the person who had made the initial complaint.

He also said he had been carrying out the duties of a constituency MP.

But the Independent Expert Panel, that had been asked to consider his appeal, concluded that the motivations of the complainant were “completely irrelevant” and that an exemption for an MPs constituency duties did not apply in his case.

Its members added that sanctions “could properly and fairly have been more severe”.

Then why weren’t they?

There are three fairly serious misdemeanours here:

  • he failed to follow lobbying rules (on multiple occasions, we’re told);
  • he tried to exert pressure on the Standards Commissioner by attacking her integrity; and
  • he tried to claim the investigation was part of a personal attack by whoever made the complaint about him.

So this is not just about lobbying, and possibly benefiting financially from such activities; it’s also about bullying and deflecting blame.

If a five-day suspension is the worst sanction that the Parliamentary standards system can impose, then perhaps there should be legislation to formally criminalise this behaviour, with jurisdiction on any punishment handed over to the courts?

Or would this simply give the police another opportunity to kowtow to the Conservatives?

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Eddie Dempsey explains why UK living standards are so low – and rinses Truss’s cabinet

Eddie Dempsey.

The assistant general secretary of the RMT union dropped a salvo of truth bombs in his speech at the Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow last week.

Profits are high because wages are low – and wages are low because the market says so.

And who is “the market”? According to Mr Dempsey, it is people titled “CEO”.

He made the point that, without working people, the bosses taking all the money would have no wealth – but without them, the UK could be a country fit to live in.

And he pointed out that, with shareholders taking hundreds of billions of pounds worth of profit out of the UK, it is not credible to say there is not enough money available to give working people a living wage.

The only reason wages don’t rise is because profits would then come down, and the greedy CEOs who run “the market” would rather feather their nests than safeguard the people who make their money for them.

It’s a hell of a speech:

Mr Dempsey went on to absolutely humiliate Liz Truss and her new market-ruled cabinet in this interview, when he admitted: “I’ve no idea who any of them are”:

Based on this evidence, it is easy to see why unions like the RMT are enjoying a huge surge in popularity.

While Labour stagnates under Keir Starmer, people like Mr Dempsey are standing up for the hard-working people of the UK – and helping us to stand up for ourselves.

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Watchdog chief says public need reassurance that standards are being maintained

Lord Evans of Weardale: the standards committee chair is a former chief of MI5.

Boris Johnson’s rewrite of the Ministerial Code is leaving the public with questions to answer about whether standards are being eroded, according to a watchdog chief.

Lord Evans of Weardale, chairman of the independent Committee on Standards in Public Life, questioned Johnson’s decision to relax the rules so ministers no longer have to resign over minor breaches of the Ministerial Code, while refusing to allow investigations to happen independently.

Instead, ethics advisor Lord Geidt must still seek the prime minister’s consent before investigating – and Johnson may veto any such investigation.

Lord Evans said the change, while an improvement on the previous position, meant the adviser was still not “sufficiently independent”.

Lord Evans said:

“I think you’ve got to raise questions when you see the outcome of the police investigations and the Sue Gray report, and one or two of the other issues that have come up – I was outspoken myself in regard to the Owen Paterson business.

“So, there has been a lot of public disquiet about standards over the last six months.

“It’s one of those things that comes up from time to time and it’s really important to reassure people that we want to continue to maintain decent standards in this country.”

He continued:

“In terms of public confidence, I think independent investigation of breaches is critical.

“And that’s why we recommended both that there should be independent right to initiate investigations and also that, you know, when it’s a very minor breach, it might be more sensible to say, well, you don’t have to resign but there are other penalties.

“Our concern is that the Government chose to accept the range of penalties but did not accept fully the recommendation for independent investigation and determination of the facts.”

And he said it is up to Lord Geidt to decide his next move after Johnson insisted his police fine over a Covid rule-busting birthday bash did not constitute a breach of the ministerial code (because he had rewritten the Code to ensure that it did not).

The standards watchdog chief told the Today programme:

“He’s made his position very clear, that he felt in his report that was published this week that it was important that the Prime Minister should recognise that the partygate allegations and the outcome of that do have implications for the application of the ministerial code.

“Of course, the Prime Minister has subsequently written to him explaining why he believed that he didn’t breach the ministerial code in that regard.

“So, obviously, Lord Geidt will be giving consideration to what has been said. But obviously that’s a decision for him, to make up his mind on where he goes with this next.”

It seems Lord Evans is suggesting his fellow peer should protest the prime minister’s conduct in some way.

And why not? One does not prove oneself innocent of rule-breaking by re-writing the rules – nor does one demonstrate one’s own high ethical standards by refusing to allow independent investigation of one’s behaviour.

Source: Public need reassurance on Government standards, says ex-MI5 chief

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Tories fall out: Heseltine lays into Sunak’s Spring Statement

Michael Heseltine at Downing Street in 2017 when he was sacked from his advisory roles for rebelling against the government in a Brexit vote in the House of Lords.

Don’t you just love it when Conservatives start arguing amongst themselves?

It tends to indicate that their government doesn’t have much life left in it.

Rishi Sunak’s spring statement has been labelled “cloud cuckoo land” by the former Conservative deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine.

Asked on LBC radio by presenter Andrew Marr for his thoughts on the chancellor’s spring statement, which did not land with “universal enthusiasm”, Lord Heseltine replied: “No and nor can it, it’s cloud cuckoo land.

“As the chancellor has said that public finances are in a difficult situation, the debt is rising and inflation is likely to force up interests are so, all this talk about tax cuts and cutting public expenditure and all this sort of thing is simply not real in the present circumstances.

He added: “What is needed is a strategic plan to battle our way through by increasing the scale of the economy and economic activity and more productive investment. But there are no plans expect in a limited number of places.”

“The one thing that I’m as sure as I can be from any experience I have is that the next twelve months with the cost of living rises and the reduction in living standards is going to be, very, very difficult for the government. “

Let’s hope so – as the architects of our difficulties, they deserve to suffer much more than we will.

Source: Rishi Sunak’s spring statement labelled ‘cloud cuckoo land’ by Lord Heseltine

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Spring Statement signals huge fall in UK living standards – especially if you’re on benefits

Despair: the indifference of the Conservative government that UK voters put into office by a landslide means that – unless you’re a millionaire like them – you are going to struggle to survive over the next few years. Does voting Tory still seem a good idea?

UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak has let voters down badly.

His failure to do anything meaningful to tackle the cost of living crisis, coupled with inflation and high taxation, mean people are facing the biggest fall in living standards since records began in 1956. Worst-hit will be people on benefits, for whom Sunak offered absolutely nothing at all.

Watch Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies as he lays out the bad news:

I’m not going to suggest that any Vox Political reader was stupid enough to vote Tory. But somebody is bound to find this article and consider responding along the lines that the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn “and we’d all be in a terrible state with him in charge!”

But this is quite clearly nonsense. Corbyn was never allowed to be in charge and so any such claims are just childish speculation.

We know why he wasn’t allowed to be in charge:

You were told he was an anti-Semite, and that was a lie.

You were told he wanted to dismantle the UK’s armed forces, and that was a lie too.

You were told he was a friend of Vladimir Putin, and that was also a lie. The friends of Vladimir Putin are currently sitting in Downing Street pretending to be his enemies.

In broader terms, the Tories won because you were told that Brexit would be good for you and voting Tory was the only way to “Get Brexit Done”. That was the biggest lie of all; Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster for the people – and the economy – of the United Kingdom.

As your Tory friends struggle to make ends meet over the coming years and months, please don’t hesitate to remind them of the facts that they ignored because they preferred the convenient lies.

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Is this the reason #DowningStreet #police aren’t being grilled about all those parties?

Take a look at this image:

For those who can’t see well or read from images, the text states: “This is Bas Javid. He’s the brother of Sajid Javid the Health Minister. He’s also the Assistant Commissioner for Professional Standards. In case you’re wondering why the police aren’t investigating the conduct of police officers at Number 10.”

It is indeed an image of Sajid Javid’s brother Basit, who is indeed an Assistant Commissioner at the Metropolitan Police.

He was promoted to the role while Sajid Javid was Home Secretary. Feel free to come to your own opinion about whether the appointment was entirely based on his own merits.

I would also encourage you to draw your own conclusion as to whether this close relative of a member of Boris Johnson’s Cabinet may have been influenced to veto any investigation into the conduct of Metropolitan Police officers guarding Downing Street at the times of the 13 parties alleged to have taken place there between May 2020 and April 2021.

Strangely, I have been able to find no information on the Metropolitan Police website (so far) to indicate that Professional Standards is indeed Basit Javid’s responsibility. Odd, that. Other organisations make the responsibilities of their senior staff abundantly clear.

(UPDATE: Many thanks to Cathy – @NarcAware – on Twitter for providing this –

– which seems to clear up the matter.)

Of course we know already that Met Commissioner Cressida Dick was at Balliol College, Oxford, around the same time as Boris johnson.

There really does seem to be an interconnected network of people in the highest positions of power in the UK. Whether it really has led to the kind of corruption described in the image at the top of this article or not, the impression it gives could hardly be worse.

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#ReesMogg is facing #sleaze #investigation by watchdog he tried to scrap

Shifty: Jacob Rees-Mogg is facing an investigation into his business practices outside Parliament – by a Standards Commissioner he tried to have abolished. Now, why would he have wanted to do that?

Karma comes around quickly these days, doesn’t it?

Remember how Jacob Rees-Mogg tried to shut down Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone after she found Owen Paterson guilty of corruption?

Now Ms Stone is investigating claims that he took £6 million of loans from his company, Saliston Ltd, between 2018 and 2020 – and failed to make an “open and frank” disclosure of them in the register of members’ interests.

The details are here:

It’s highly suspicious, isn’t it?

Rees-Mogg tried to have the Standards Commissioner’s role abolished, and is now being investigated by the Standards Commissioner.

Was he corruptly acting on his own behalf, rather than (as he undoubtedly claimed) in the interests of justice?

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Jo Bird: another Jewish woman is expelled from Labour – and the timing is suspicious

Jo Bird: Bigoted witch-hunters in the Labour Party have finally succeeded in their campaign to have her kicked out of the party under false pretences – and just in time to influence her demand for enforcement action against the newspaper that smeared her (and me).

The Labour Party has expelled Cllr Jo Bird – and while she says she is delighted to be out of its “hostile environment”, the timing is extremely suspicious.

Cllr Bird was originally suspended by the Labour Party – for just nine days – after making a self-deprecating remark that their should be “Jew process” when considering allegations of anti-Semitism against party members.

She was suspended again when she was running for election to Labour’s ruling body, the NEC, early last year.

Much was made of this at the time, including by the Jewish Chronicle. Ms Bird complained to press regulator IPSO about inaccuracies in its article, and the eventual finding came back in her favour.

The decision is one of more than 30 IPSO decisions and court libel verdicts against that newspaper. Ms Bird and a group of other people – including This Writer – have formally requested that IPSO launch a “standards investigation” examining whether measures should be taken to compel the Jewish Chronicle to conform to the Editors’ Code, rather than publishing falsehoods.

IPSO;s board is now set to discuss the matter on December 8. It is against this background that Labour has, finally, expelled Cllr Bird – retrospectively, for actions involving proscribed organisations that were considered entirely respectable at the time she was involved with them:

The expulsion is the usual nonsense from Labour’s leadership – which, let’s not forget, is riddled with racism, of which this is just another example.

The party claims to oppose discrimination against Jews, yet here it is, discriminating against a Jewish member over something she could not have known would ever be considered unacceptable.

And the expulsion has happened in advance of the IPSO meeting on December 8, meaning board members may form a false impression that the principle figure responsible for the request against the Jewish Chronicle is an anti-Semite.

As it is, the board seems to be in opposition to any enforcement action against that rag, despite its long history of what could at best be described as inaccuracies.

See this article by Brian Cathcart for Byline Times for the details.

Apparently the “toughest regulator in the Western world” is so toothless that it meekly hopes a bit of training for the JC‘s editor, Stephen Pollard, will fix the problem.

Now Labour’s racist leadership has given this toothless regulator an opportunity to avoid doing its job, on a false pretext that the request comes from a dodgy source.

Let’s remember that, by publishing a stream of articles containing falsehoods about Labour members who have been accused of anti-Semitism, the JC has been helping Labour to expel innocent party members under false pretences.

Labour has an interest in defeating Ms Bird’s (and my) demand for a standards investigation into this unethical rag.

In other words: it’s corruption. The Tories don’t have a monopoly on foul play, you know.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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