Could anything else so succinctly demonstrate the power that Parliament has to hold the government to account – or rather the lack of it?
Commons Speaker Lyndsay Hoyle suspended a sitting of the House of Commons on Thursday (December 8) after discovering that Michael Gove had failed to deliver a full copy of a ministerial statement on the opening of a new coal mine, either to him or to Opposition parties.
This meant the Speaker was unable to select the MPs who would question the minister on the decision, because nobody had the information needed to inform such questions.
This is a breach of the Ministerial Code and by rights, Gove should have resigned.
But, as Maximilien Robespierre observes in the video below, he’s not going to resign.
He won’t be punished by prime minister Rishi Sunak.
And the Commons sitting was suspended for just five minutes.
Pathetic. Toothless. Pointless.
Here’s the clip:
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Time and time again, Tory ministers have been told that their statements to the House of Commons have to be made in a very particular way, which is:
not after announcing what they’re doing to the media first, and
not without giving Opposition parties full access to the contents of their speech.
But Michael Gove – who has been in government on and off since 2010 and therefore should know better – broke those rules yet again, and this time Commons Speaker Lyndsay Hoyle had had enough.
He suspended the sitting of the Commons – firstly for five minutes and then for a longer period, in order to investigate Gove’s reasons for failing to supply more than a brief summary of his long speech before he delivered it and to provide Opposition parties with a chance to absorb what he had said and formulate questions on it.
Was Gove trying to avoid letting his fellow MPs have the chance to ask pertinent questions?
Or is he just incompetent?
As always, it’s hard to separate idiocy from intent with this lot.
The whole saga was captured on video, so you can watch it for yourself:
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The triple lock ensuring that pensions rise by the highest of 2.5 per cent, average earnings, or inflation is in danger of being dropped by Rishi Sunak’s new Tory government.
It seems the new prime minister, whose personal wealth is greater than that of the King, is not keen to allow pensioners’ payments to rise in line with the cost of living; inflation currently stands at a 40-year high of 10.1 per cent, due to the failures of previous Tory administrations.
His press secretary has merely claimed that Sunak has a record of being “compassionate for the most vulnerable”. This Writer is not convinced that such a claim holds water.
It seems clear that the pensions triple lock – which was a Tory idea, let’s not forget – was never intended to allow payment increases of the kind being demanded now.
It was a lie intended to dupe senior citizens into thinking the Tories support them and therefore into voting Conservative at elections.
It was dropped during the Covid-19 crisis because wages, having fallen, then rose by eight per cent and Sunak refused to pay. That was a special case, though, because the triple lock did not take account of falls in wages; the rise in fact only returned wages to where they were before.
This is not a special case. The cost of living has increased enormously and richer-than-the-King Sunak is indicating that he wants pensioners to be unable to afford to pay their bills any more.
Oh – and Sunak won’t commit to raising state benefits in line with prices, either.
The decisions on these issues will come on November 17, in Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s winter Budget that is replacing a statement that was due on Monday. Hunt has been given more than two weeks’ grace to find a way to make the situation work for pensioners and those on benefits.
Do you honestly think he’ll bother?
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Jeremy Hunt: there is no urgency at all about his plan to restore the UK economy to its former glory. [image from last week when he dismantled Liz Truss’s economic plan. How long will it be until someone else has to do the same to his own?]
You didn’t really think Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt were really going to make any announcement on the economy on October 31, did you?
I know the Tory leadership contest was said to be happening within a week so the statement could be made on Monday, but it seems clear now that this was just an excuse to rush Rishi Sunak into office without a proper election.
There doesn’t seem to have been an intention to bring any certainty to the lives of the UK’s more-than-68-million-strong population with any urgency at all.
What did you expect from Rishi Sunak – the MP who is richer than the King?
Jeremy Hunt has tried to sweeten the pill by saying the report, now to take place on November 17, will be a full Autumn Statement – a Budget. So he’s lazy. Rather than give an initial briefing on what the government will do – and getting on with it – then providing a full Budget, he’s combining the two and making us wait.
Pathetic.
Weak.
Treacherous.
In a statement to Parliament, Hunt said he has discussed his delay with the governor of the Bank of England, who “understands the reasons” for doing so. That’s not a declaration of support!
Hunt admitted there has been market turbulence, even in the last 24 hours: “The question is how you deal with that turbulence” and it is crucial to make sure decisions “stand the test of time”.
But a delay means market turbulence will continue. The BBC is reporting that the Pound is holding on to gains made in recent days, trading at $1.15 and a bit – just two cents up from when Liz Truss resigned last week.
Gosh. Catch me if I swoon.
It’s nothing. The Tories have deliberately – let’s not forget – presided over possibly the greatest devaluing of the UK economy in the history of our nation.
And now Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak have announced that they can’t be bothered to do anything about it for more than half a month.
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Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves laid into the new Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt and his new austerity programme that will not help the UK in any way at all.
But this was just part of her attack; the main thrust was what should have been a sideswipe, in which she laid bare the fact of Liz Truss’s premiership – she is a prime minister who is in office, but not in power.
See for yourself. This Writer doesn’t like Reeves at all – but you can’t deny her words here:
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New Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has made a statement reversing almost all the economic measures announced by the previous Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng.
Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis reacts to his words:
What do you think? How will this affect you – or have you not considered this?
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This change won’t be reflected in prices for a little while, but it should be by April. If prices don’t come down, then the government will need to take action to compel the energy firms to rein in their greed.
That will be fun to watch!
Other measures are expected to u-turn on more of the measures in previous Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s ‘fiscal event’ in September.
But how is he going to fill the £70+ billion hole in the public finances that was created by Kwarteng?
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Kwasi Kwarteng says he wants to boost economic growth with a seismic series of policies – but will he simply tip the nation into enormous, unmanageable debt instead?
And, if Liz Truss is expecting to lose a future election, are the Tories planning to use this against a possible future Labour government, as they have with any number of false accusations in the past?
Here’s what Kwarteng has announced, according to the BBC:
– The basic rate of income tax will be cut by 1p to 19p from April 2023
– The 45p tax rate for top earners over £150,000 will be abolished, also from April next year
– The level at which house-buyers begin to pay stamp duty is doubled from £125,000 to £250,000
– First-time buyers will pay no stamp duty on homes worth £450,000, up from £300,000
– Planned rise on corporation tax from 19% to 25% is scrapped
– A 1.25% rise in National Insurance to be reversed from 6 Novemnber
– Cap on bankers’ bonuses, which limited rewards to twice the salary level, is axed
– Cost of subsidising both domestic and business energy bills will cost £60bn for the next six months
-Strike action: unions will be required to put offers to members during pay talks
– UK to introduce sales tax-free shopping for overseas visitors
“Money Saving Expert” Martin Lewis was among the first to raise concerns, describing the Chancellor’s statement as “staggering”.
He tweeted: “That really was quite a staggering statement from a Conservative party government
“Huge new borrowing at the same time as cutting taxes.
“It’s all aimed at growing the economy. I really hope it works. I really worry what happens if it doesn’t.”
If it doesn’t, the UK will be plunged into a huge amount of debt because it will not be able to support the amount of borrowing Kwarteng is proposing.
Campaigners and charities have described the mini-budget measures as a ‘hammer blow’ to the poor.
Becca Lyon, head of child poverty at Save the Children, said:
The prime minister said she would deliver on the cost-of-living crisis. Instead, the UK government has delivered tax cuts to help the richest and a hammer-blow to low-income families.
The chancellor has prioritised bankers’ bonuses over helping vulnerable children through the cost-of-living crisis, whose hard-working parents face impossible choices.
Today’s announcements overwhelmingly benefit the country’s wealthiest households, meanwhile almost four million children risk going cold and hungry this winter.
Alison Garnham, chief executive at the Child Poverty Action Group, said:
Today was a vital opportunity to provide reassurance and support to those who need it the most – but instead the Government risks a collision with reality, and the four million kids currently living in poverty in the UK will be forced to pay the price.
Imran Hussain, director of policy and campaigner at Action for Children, said:
If the new chancellor has money to spend on tax cuts for those who are relatively better off, then he has the money to spend throwing a lifeline to low-income families who are desperately struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. Many now face a bleak Christmas.
Whilst the energy price guarantee will help offset the near apocalyptic rises that had been predicted, it doesn’t address the mounting pressures families face with food, fuel, housing and other costs that continue to climb.
And Mark Russell, chief executive at the Children’s Society, said:
Changes to the tax system right now are barking up the wrong tree … We need to see far more direct support for families bearing the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis.
Still, what can you expect from a Chancellor who was seen muttering to himself and grinning like a drug-addled fool at the Queen’s funeral on Monday?
I was 20 years in the rock n roll business & I know high when I see it.
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Boris Johnson has accepted the inevitable and resigned as Conservative Party leader, although he intends to remain UK Prime Minister until October.
His speech indicated a huge amount of ill-feeling toward the “herd” of Tory MPs, and the “Darwinian” system, that forced his departure:
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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.
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