Thread 22. Sunak: Taxes, Truth and Tories

[pointythings]

The previous thread filled up fast, so here's another one with a reasonably topical title!

Maybe the will pay for it with the money thet get from fining beggars

Suella Braverman plans to announce new fines of up to £1000 for begging.

Which vulnerable group will they go after next.

How do you fine a beggar? Drag them to the closest cashpoint?

The whole fining beggars thing has been tried before, and has failed before. This is just the government's next official squirrel.

It's all about the headlines

How do you fine a homeless person with no income? What are they going to do when they don’t pay? Throw them in jail I guess where they’ll be warm and get three meals a day - what a brilliant deterrent. They really are complete fuckwits.

There are whole squads of squirrels being sent out at the moment. Makes me wonder what is going on elsewhere.

I noted that Sunak rowed back on Braverman's promise of flights to Rwanda before the summer. What an absolute sham she is. But I suppose that gives Braverman's supporters something to get exercised about.

Cleverly's constituency

Braintree council, which has one of the two RAF bases the government wants to use for asylum seekers, will apply for an interim High Court injunction to stop it

Jay Rayner summing things up for me -

"Listening to the new Tory Govt policy announcements, each more desperate than the last, I think it's fair to say we have reached the 'Cones Hotline' stage of this administration."

twitter.com/jayrayner1/status/1640988817829101569?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

Sunak didn't declare that his wife owns shares in a private childcare agency that benefited from the Budget

twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1641007467092901891?s=20

The barges squirrel explained

https://twitter.com/lizziedearden/status/1640997431574769668?s=20

Here follows a story about how the government influences media coverage

At 10am yesterday, journalists were sent a watchdog report finding the UK spent £3.5bn of aid money - 1/3 entire budget - on refugees and asylum seekers already here in 2022

The report was damning from start to finish. It said Home Office’s "failure to tackle the asylum processing backlog" was taking money away from crises abroad that themselves drive international migration

It said govt was not properly overseeing lucrative private hotel contracts

cont.

Oh my goodness that thread is illuminating in more ways than one.

Embargo critical report, frantically thrash around for a dead cat policy, send Raab/Cleverly/Jenrick out to ramp up media headlines - then quietly bin new policy, shred critical report and repeat.
No wonder nothing ever improves.

"This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level."

So Sunaks wife has shares in a childcare agency, and taxpayers are now going to be giving more money to childcare agencies in the form of vouchers.

Yep I see integrity in every part of that. It must be lovely to be accountable for helping yourself to the countries money in a professional way, it's fantastic that the countries money is going to where it's needed the most.

Interesting that this has popped up -

"Ken Clarke's memoir says that as Justice Secretary in 2010, he was pressed by the Sun editor to buy prison ships, as the paper wanted to campaign on that issue
theguardian.com/politics/2017/…"

twitter.com/sundersays/status/1640972505971138560?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

EXCLUSIVE: Home Office rejected plan to put migrants on ships/barges last year because it could be MORE expensive than using hotels

— Leaked docs show costs of £100,000s-an-HOUR to moor ships

— Officials warned it could surpass the £7m-a-day for hotels

twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1641028436373172225?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

It's Betty Boothroyd's funeral today.

Therefore it is Rayner v Raab on PMQs

The only plausible way to address safety concerns would be to use holiday cruise ships, but ministers rejected this option after concluding the optics would be worse than using five-star hotels

Optics, never mind it being llegal under laws on arbitrary detention

Raynor is under Raabs skin. Talk about showing your colours, he's making those bullying allegations look more likely by the second!

He's a joke. Surely this is a parade, wtf?

I'm not watching, but I almost feel sorry for Raab, I can just imagine how much he has been taken apart.

Raynes is asking about rape statistics. He's saying the conviction rate has gone up so they are doing well. Ignoring the other statistics.
He's so full of shit. He's just said "the rapes are coming down".

ah the COVID and strikes excuse......

Victims wait for 3 years but he is boasting they reduced it by 10 days.

'strikes excuse'

Backlog of cases as April 2022 before barristers & court staff strike action - 60,000.

Not at all linked to the 25% leaving the profession since 2017.

It's excuse after excuse. It's really highlighting how dense he is.

It always terrifies me how completely bereft of any intellect both Raab and Cleverly are.

They can't even claim hindsight with Raab, his comments in 2018 about Dover port made it obvious,