Westministenders: The Return of Parliamentary Sleaze?

[RedToothBrush]

Brexit is quietly going round and round in ever decreasing circles.

The story is that the European parliament will not agree to a transition period beyond 1st January 2020.

The third minister responsible for getting the Repel Bill through the Lords has quit. There are now nearly 400 amendments. It is scheduled for 6 days parliamentary time in the Commons from this coming week. With another 2 possible the following week. Rather bravely AFTER the budget. Bored with May, CVs are being submitted for the position of Chancellor.

Interest Rates are looking likely to rise next week too with the message being 'this is as good as it gets'.

Another team of MPs has gone to the EU to see if they can check up on May and her team. This is unlikely to work as Nicola Sturgeon came across a brick wall.

And then there are the many many distractions from it all.

Catalonia has declared independence, which will consume EU time and energy.

There are rumours that the first prosecution in Trump Russia will be Monday (Guess who is currently in the US. Yep, the gurning one). And there are increasing muttering about Russia over here, with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg being called to respond to a Select Committee investigation into Fake News.

And then there's the sleaze. Jared O'Mara seems to be the first in the queue. There are rumours more will be outed in several parties. Suggestions include May's right hand man Damien Green who was previously named in 2008. And the Tory Whips have a 'sleaze list' which suggests they know whats going on, but have done nothing.

This morning we have Gove making ill advised jokes about Weinstein in this political climate. With Neil Kinnock laughing heartily in response.

Anything that happens will be political to discredit opponents not because there is a change of attitude towards the treatment of women. We know this, because of who is leading the charge on this. The skeletons are being dusted off out the cupboard rather than exposed for the first time in dramatic fashion.

Things, could take a very unexpected turn against this background.

Don't bet against it.

Violet...not at all! I'm a bit of a social media luddite

Meant to type, I would have thought some would be mortified.

Lurking - there are ways and ways of having this information, though, aren't there? Putting it all into an Excel spreadsheet with no apparent distinction between potentially criminal acts and sexual quirks is, well, naive is probably not the right word but it does kinda seem like something that an enthusiastic recent PPE grad might do rather than someone who know how this information is going to be used and the consequences of it becoming public

Violet - I refer you to the Rt Hon Keith Vaz for the lesson on how to brazen things out (cocaine use and rent boys, FFS!)

Profumo at least had the decency to resign and then spent the rest of his life working in the East End. I think he more than atoned for his lies - none of the current crop seem to even know what a lie is.

You're totally right OlennasWimple

Haven't quite caught up yet, but finally David Davis has admitted that Brexit withdrawal agreement with EU will 'probably favour the union' financially.

No shit Sherlock...

Its almost like someone in a position of authority who is worried thought, "if I throw the kitchen sink at this, it might take the heat off me and failing that if i'm going to go down, I'm going to take everyone with me too".

Best thing on the list is how it says that x and y both had relations with z. But z does not appear on the list. They instead appear as if they were somehow the wronged party.

They instead appear as if they were somehow the wronged party.
Vote winner this one.

.

Robert Peston on FB

It has been another profoundly upsetting day in the unfolding scandal of sexual harassment and abuse in parliament and political parties.

Most shocking was the disclosure by the former member of Labour's ruling National Executive Committee, Bex Bailey, that in 2011 she was raped at a Labour event by someone in the party - and that when she summoned up the courage to tell a senior colleague, she was urged to keep quiet.

"I was told that if I did [report the alleged crime] it might damage me" she told Carolyn Quinn of the BBC.

Which is probably proof, if such were needed, that sexual abuse is a taint on the political system, and not on any one political party.

Separately my colleague at ITV News Paul Brand has interviewed a woman who was sexually assaulted by an MP while on a work trip - and that when she told the parliamentary authorities nothing was done.

The woman does not want to be named. But you can see her upsetting testimony on ITV's Evening News and News at Ten.

So if anyone thought that there was an unwarranted moral panic about abuse and harassment by MPs, such has presumably now been disproved.

That said, the frenzy of trying to find the perpetrators of the abuses is causing distress to women who tell me they should never have been put on a notorious spreadsheet, compiled by Tory researchers, that details alleged inappropriate behaviour by MPs and ministers (most of whom are men).

I am persuaded that some women are on that list of supposed shame who should never have been there. They know that large numbers of their colleagues have seen the list - which is being widely circulated in Westminster - and that is stressful and humiliating.

But the last thing any of them want is to give wider currency to the claims by publicly denying them - and so they are forced to live with the stress and shame of being the objects of mean-spirited gossip, but being powerless to do anything about it.

This is a different kind of abuse.

Re the list, if an MP is described as perpetually intoxicated, surely they are unfit to be at work. In any other workplace someone would have Occupational Health ushering them out of the door.

I have a lot of time for Bex Bailey and hope she’s ok after all of this.

Just back from trick or treating, wine in hand!

Whilst only 3 women on the list, there's a definite change in tone as to what they did. A higher morality or lack of it attributed to them.

No massive surprises.

What gets me, is it seems that this is made out to be something unknown and new.

This is from April last year.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/bob-stewart-mp-dismisses-row-over-totty-slur-as-political-correctness_uk_570fe933e4b0ca84d5b58b3c
Bob Stewart MP Dismisses Row Over 'Totty' Slur As 'Political Correctness'

In which a female journalist complains about how she is treated by an MP who just can not understand what he has done wrong and thinks its totally fine.

The whips apparently dealt with the incident. The MP was forced to apologise but afterwards went on to moan about how he didn't believe in political correctness.

In any other workplace he would have had a proper disciplinary and his subsequent actions would also have merited a second disciplinary.

How many times do journalists and staff have to complain before its taken seriously? And not lumped together with consensual relationships.

The other parties are as bad, and there is a deafening silence from some quarters.

I remember that Red and Edwina fucking Currie being interviewed and saying she would have been flattered if it had happened to her.

It's infuriating. And in no way is this not an all party issue either, it would be idiocy think otherwise.

Which also makes me wonder, in the case of x and y both having relations with z but z not named. Is z not a Tory? Haven't seen z's name btw so genuine question.

Z is a Tory MP but Z is a man. Obviously his partners must have fornicated at him rather than with him

I doubt this is news to anyone on this thread, but MPs have now been warned that the current product safety system won’t survive Brexit:

“Leon Livermore, chief executive of the Trading Standards Institute, told MPs that council funding cuts had affected the work of local trading standards services, slashing the amount of “market surveillance” they were able to do. “The current product safety system is already under pressure and won’t survive Brexit – which will make trading standards officers’ work more complex – or further austerity cuts,” Livermore told MPs.”

From a Guardian article on tumble dryers: www.theguardian.com/money/2017/oct/31/hotpoint-indesit-whirlpool-tumble-dryers-fire-risk-uk-homes

I’m noticing more Brexit negatives as throwaway lines in articles that at first glance don’t seem to be linked to Brexit at all.

I’m torn - on the one hand the constant drip drip drip might finally sink in (and perhaps reach people who wouldn’t actively seek out Brexit news).

But that information deserves a headline and I find it very frustrating that a lot of the bad news is being buried.

Cathy Newman has written regularly about sexism at Westminster in recent years but has essentially been ignored, it would appear.

Going through Wikipedia, a significant number of those on the list have something on there in reference to their private life. Some of it trivial. Some actually quite disturbing and worrying. Some of them match the alleged incidents almost word for word. So quite why there is a big deal about why there names are on the list is beyond me.

Michael Fallon obviously thought that today was a good day to bury his personal (reasonably innocuous, in comparison) bad news

If I get time in the next few days, I might try to draw a list cross referencing people on the dossier, people implicated in the expenses scandal and people with previously known private life issues.

(And possibly Brexit views!)

The Brexit thing doesn't tell you anything Olennas. In part because of the stupid ones on the list which make it impossible to make anything of it.

There are a large number who were also implicated in the expenses scandal. There is one on the list who presence on the list is probably there in part due to how it relates to how they were caught in the expenses row.

But yes, I think you have a point there.

Thanks lala
Did some more digging and found out after you posted.

Most of this is not new news. My tinfoil hat suggests this is to hide or tone down something pretty big in sexual terms. Or that they're trying to destroy Guido' s reputation what a shame