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.

I was sort of thinking about the three word alliterative sentences data that TheyWorkForYou use, Red - ie throwing something that should be random into the mix in order to see whether it throws up anything interesting and to remind us about the risks of drawing conclusions from incomplete information

though there is surely a metaphor to be developed about a proclivity for water sports and pissing away the UK's future

placematting.

Quietly, this just happened:
@cliodiaspora
How can someone with “a British passport or other evidence of residency” be on a UK illegal immigrant blacklist? It makes no sense.

Because no one will question it if its about illegal immigrants cos they are just bad and if you get stopped then obviously you are bad too.

woman - because they may have obtained citizenship through fraud and / or have had their citizenship revoked. Ie they have a passport in their possession still but they should have had it removed.

This is a significant step, though, from requiring banks to perform basic immigration checks that the person using their services is in the country legally. There are so many things that can (and, no doubt, will) go wrong here.

Nifty shift of criminal liability to 3rd parties, i.e. banks for enforcing racist and legally dubious policies too.

And with the random 'justice' of the HO any British passport holder could find themselves in this position.
Any one.

Or someone with the same name and DoB as someone who is actually on the list.

And how long before a bank employee decides to check whether that bloke down the road - you know, the one with the brown skin and foreign name - is on the list

You mean like how Crosscheck works in the US only for banks Olennas?

What do you mean, Red? (I thought Crosscheck was a check (sic) guarantee system....)

Peregrina and I think LH at least are old enough to remember the "family values" that John Major wished to return to when he took over from Thatcher.

Of course his MPs promptly showed they were living by very different values and the press delighted in finding examples
Major didn't even follow those principles himself, Edwina Currie - really ?

If this was started by the Ultras, trying to nobble the soft Leavers / Remainers, then it's going to backfire by destroying Tory MPs - who may get fed up, quit and cause by-elections

It's like setting off a nuke among your own troops

However, the Ultras in the media especially are exceptionally thick.

The Tory / right in the past, have often e.g. in the Major years, tried to claim the moral high-ground in such matters
However, it seems they think only their opponents' shit stink and are stupid enough to be baffled when their own shit blows back in their faces.

I don't understand the news item on the BBC news about dairy farms now selling to China, which says it is easier just to deal with one country. Also about selling to Qatar. And that this is because of Brexit.

We're. Still. In. The. EU.

The news item acknowledges that a trade deal would still need to be done.

So what was stopping them before?

(paywall) Some of the latest allegations about MPs’ behaviour contained in the Westminster dossier

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/some-of-the-latest-allegations-about-mps-behaviour-contained-in-the-westminster-dossier-7jg7gq8ml

xxxxxxxxxxxx— handsy at parties, touched a female without asking.
Impregnated former researcher and made her have abortion + had other female researchers.
Inappropriate with women, including interviews + paid a female to be quiet.
Sexual relations with SpAd and inappropriate with very young women after interviewing them.
Sexual relations with member of his private office.
Non-disclosure agreement between him and xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx’s researcher.
Inappropriate with female and male staff + xxxxxxxxxx
Odd sexual ponchants [sic] and sexual with fellow MP xxxxxxxxxx — a drunk.
Handsy with women.
Sexual relations with xxxxxxxxxx’s researcher xxxxxxxxxx and others.
Inappropriate with male researchers + xxxxxxxxxx .
Inappropriate with female researchers.
Inappropriate with male researchers — long history.
Nicknamed xxxxxxxxxx — handsy with females.
Impregnated xxxxxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxx’s office manager).
Made unwanted advances on a female (verbally) — harassed them to go on dates.
Perpetually intoxicated and very inappropriate with women.
Inappropriate with female researchers + handsy in taxis.
Inappropriate with male researchers and heavy drinker + touched xxxxxxxxxxxx.
Inappropriate with male journalist in a taxi.
Takes his xxxxxxx xxxxxx to the cinema and to private rooms at xxxxxxxx.
Inappropriate with female researchers and xxxxxxxxxxxx + xxxxxxxxxxxx.
Inappropriate with female researchers + uses prostitutes for odd sexual acts.
Fornicated with male researchers whilst backbench MP + sexual relations with xxxxxxxxxxx.
Inappropriate with male researchers.
Inappropriate with female private office staff.
Inappropriate with female researchers and journalists + asked to take 3 female aides on holiday.
Inappropriate with male MPs after and pre-divorce.
Made unwanted advances on a female — wanted to date one and was very insistent.
Inappropriate with females.
Asked female researcher to do odd things (xxxxxxxxxxxx).
Affair with female researcher who was married to xxxxxxxxxx.
Video exists of three males urinating on him.
Injunction for inappropriate behaviour with a woman.
Inappropriate with female researchers (historic).
Known to have used male prostitutes.
Workplace relationship with xxxxxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxx) — inappropriate in workplace?
Affair — well documented. Indicative of character?
Likes to have intercourse with men who are wearing women’s xxxxxxxxxx(xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx).
Relationship with researcher (consensual).
Warned by whips about his inappropriate advances on young female researchers.
Made unwanted physical advances on a female.

Tim Walker‏*@ThatTimWalker*

Tory MP tells me: ‘Releasing Brexit impact reports would only cause distress. Like watching Air Crash Investigation while on a plane.’

FFS

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/speaker-john-bercow-s-aide-sadie-smith-had-warned-of-need-to-protect-staff-rk03sfd2r

A close aide to the Speaker warned about the need to protect vulnerable political staff from their MP bosses more than four years ago.
....
“the real problem lies with the personal power that MPs have over their staff”.
< why is this more than any other job ? >

She warned that it was something that needed to be “addressed urgently” because if staff have a problem with their employer “we have nowhere to go”.

(paywall) Revealed: The nine Tory MPs named on the Westminster sex dossier

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/31/tory-minister-mp-accused-paying-women-keep-quiet/

A Tory Minister and an MP have been accused of paying women to be silent in a so-called ‘dirty dossier’ being shared by party staff, as the full list of claims against Tory MPs is laid bare.

The Minister is said to have asked a woman to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and the MP is alleged to have “paid a female to be quiet”.

It comes amid a growing sexual harassment scandal at Westminster, with some 40 Conservative MPs being named in the ‘dossier’.

In the list obtained by The Telegraph, seven Cabinet ministers, eight former ministers and 15 other members of the Government are named.

Of the MPs named in the list, 25 are alleged to have behaved inappropriately.
However the other 15 MPs are named over consensual relationships or personal sexual preferences, with no suggestion of harassment.

< Daft examples

Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, who is named because of a “workplace relationship” with her boyfriend Kwasi Kwarteng, the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Chancellor Philip Hammond.
Both are single and have never denied they are dating..*

Jake Berry, a minister in the Department for Communities and Local Government, was named on the list because he “impregnated Alice Robinson”, who is Boris Johnson’s office manager,
even though they are a couple who live together and posed for pictures for their local newspaper when their son was born. >

The item on the BBC news which confused me

A pint of view: What do farmers think about Brexit?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41684652

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/deputy-pm-damian-green-investigated-over-sleaze-claim-jhzmdz22h
Deputy PM Damian Green investigated over sleaze claim

Theresa May's deputy has been dragged into the Westminister scandal after being accused of making inappropriate advances towards a Tory activist three decades his junior.

Damian Green, the first secretary of state, was referred to the cabinet secretary by Downing Street last night after Kate Maltby, a critic and academic involved in Conservative politics revealed the test message and described a meeting between them in a bar where they discussed her career as well as sexual affairs within parliament.

He told her that his "wife was very understanding" and put "a fleeting hand against my knee - so brief, it was almost deniable", Ms Maltby 31, writes in the Times today. The encounter with Mr Green left her "angry" she said.

She did not contact Mr Green, 61, for a year afterward. At the end of May last year The Times published a light-hearted article by Ms Maltby about the history of corsets in which she posed in one. Mr Green who was not a minister at the time resumed contact, sending her a text which this newspaper has seen. He wrote: "Long time no see. But having admired you in a corset in my favourite tabloid I feel impelled to ask if you are free for a drink anytime?".

Ms Maltby ignore the message. Her next text to Mr Green was on July 17 last year, congratulating him on his appointment as work and pensions secretary. Mr Green said last night that "it is absolutely and completely untrue that I've ever made any sexual advances on Ms Maltby." He added that the "untrue allegations has come as complete shock and is deeply hurtful". He denied putting his hand on Ms Maltby's knee, making any kind of sexual advance and saying that his wife

continued on page 9.

1. Why has May referred it to anyone. She is the PM
2. This isn't the first thing of this nature Damian Green has been caught up in. There are allegations his email address was in the Ashley Madison hack and that he has previously been accused of being handsy in taxis. (Both in public domain - thanks to Guido).
3. You know exactly what is going to be said of Ms Maltby without saying it outloud.
4. There's text messages? And he's denying it
5. If Green goes, given the closeness of his relationship with May, its difficult to see how she might survive. Especially since she seems to have dodged the responsibility on this one again. That said most other Tories don't want to get dragged through the mud over sexual allegations so having a massive dossier against others, might well protect him (and May).

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-theresa-may-uk-eu-economy-damage-secret-studies-pressure-release-a8029991.html
Theresa May faces ‘binding vote’ to force release of 58 secret studies on Brexit's economic damage
Labour says 19th century parliamentary rules will preventthe Prime Minister ignoring a Commons defeat on the controversy

Pressure is building on Theresa May to release 58 secret studies into the economic damage from Brexit, as a binding votelooms in the Commons.
Labour believes it is found an ancient Parliamentary procedurethatcan force the Prime Minister to end her suppression of the findings.
It comes as the number of MPs demanding the release of the information reached 178. Campaigners have also threatened legal action.

www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h5114/rr

A few years ago liothyroinine was a branded medicine 'Tertroxin' and the cost was controlled through the Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme. The manufacturer removed the branding and marketed it as generic liothyronine. The price has increased from just over £13 for 100 tablets to £152-18 for 28 tablets. A price increase of over 4000%.

So it was first under Brand name Tertoxin and price controlled. Then taken and marketed as a generic, and underwent price hike.

The price hike was brought in by Concordia International and a company that it bought. Concordia has previously been exposed by an investigation in The Times for imposing big price rises for medicines.

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5034607/NHS-plans-stop-thyroid-pill-price-soars-5-000.html

Speciality generics company Concordia has confirmed that it is under investigation from the UK’s competition watchdog over the pricing of its medicines.

In June this year The Times newspaper revealed that Concordia was among a number of pharmaceutical companies exploiting a loophole in NHS pricing regulations, allowing them to raise prices on off-patent medicines by up to 12,500%.

One drug identified in the exposé was Concordia’s thyroid medication liothyronine 20mcg tablets. Its price is said to have risen from 16 pence a tablet to £9.22 ($11.26) in just a few years, adding hundreds of millions to the NHS medicines bill.

pharmaphorum.com/news/concordia-centre-drug-pricing-probe/

So Concordia are a speciality generics company. I wonder if the company they bought had been manufacturing the drug under the brand name and they then switched it to a generic. Whereupon the loophole in the NHS for off patent medicines allowed Concordia to raise the price of the subsequent generic. Maybe some other countries European countries don't have this loophole and that is why it is cheaper there. Or they get it from another manufacturer/supplier.

Member states retain the sovereignty to decide how to agree prices with pharma companies and reimburse them. The EU doesn't have competency in this area.

Probably obvious, but I'm just surmising about whys and wherefores of the price hike.