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.

And now have a crush on Jason Isaacs but only when he's being a Russian general speaking in a broad yorkshire accent

"eeeyyy oooop, Red Armys here ..."

(I liked the medals swinging )

I must admit when his character entered and threw off his greatcoat my ovaries may have twitched
😮😁😂❤

Sam Coates Times‏*@SamCoatesTimes*

No10 want the Michael Fallon resignation to be the first and last. But multiple sources say that No10 fear more may yet go for the cabinet

I don't recall Trump coming straight out like that for the Vegas murders. No clampdown on guns mentioned.

Didn't say they have to get much tougher, much smarter and much less politically correct on the easily availability of guns.

Laura Kuenssberg‏*@bbclaurak*

Hear tonight fresh allegations about Fallon's behaviour were raised with No 10 this afternoon - Downing Street won't comment at all

Laura K states the bleeding obvious.

LH I can just remember as a child Profumo being whispered about mysteriously by the adults, which of course inflamed my incorrigible curiosity.
Hence that is the scandal I think of, every time, as a yardstick
Ah, we had real sex scandals in my day, not this namby-pamby rubbish

Tories are generally the party of scandal, despite the social conservatism of their members
< that looks odd, now I've posted it >

I expect the worst scandals to come from the worst Tory bible-thumpers, as in the USA
with the exception of heathen Bojo: I really expect an entire army of ugly skeletons to fall out of his walk-in closet.

@SamCoatesTimes
Michael Fallon set the bar today quite low.
Will all other cabinet ministers who cannot swear there isn’t more to come also have to resign?

Interesting times today.

And I see our recurrrently visiting friend of the sabre-sharp wit is back on the Brexit threads.

"Disgraced former Defence Secretary"

I know it's confusing as the contenders accumulate, but let's agree now to reserve that title for Werrity-sniffer Fox

From that Telegraph article

On Wednesday night a senior MP demanded answers from Facebookk^ on whether Russians were using the social network to cause discord in Scotland.

As a Indy supporting Scot, I'd say that the Russians don't need to use Facebook: Westminster is doing a fantastic job for us!

Thanks LH great.

There's something about Robert Peston I really like. Especially after reading this 'letter to his Dad'.

behindthepaywallblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/28/robert-peston-i-dont-appear-to-be-living-in-the-same-britain-as-much-of-the-rest-of-the-country/

Tory MP Michael Fabricant
He of "I’m wrongly on the sexual abuse list. Parliament needs proper oversight"

“inappropriate behaviour with a male journalist in a taxi. I racked my brains to try to figure out when or what this was all about."

He just threatened to sue Twitter user for accusing him of threatening to punch a woman in the throat
... BUT has forgotten that he had to apologise in June 2014 for tweeting he would punch Yasmin Ali-Brown in the throat:

"I could never appear on a discussion prog with @y_alibhai I would either end up with a brain haemorrhage or by punching her in the throat."

Has he forgotten anything else ?

http://evolvepolitics.com/tory-mp-says-hes-never-threatened-to-punch-a-woman-after-apologising-for-threatening-to-punch-a-woman/

Peston does seem like a nice fellow Hester

@J_amesp

1. Russia did run disinformation, and supported the far-right as they always have. But it’s always obfuscated and it’s mostly info related.

2. It’s unlikely there’s going to be a smoking gun of cash coming to Banks from the Kremlin. More likely we’ll just have foreign donors. 3. Because there is a pervasive misunderstanding of point 1, it’s likely to cause problems because there may never be a tangible “boom”. 4. As long as people get that, and understand fully what’s coming out of America, all good. If they expect suitcases of Rubles, sad times.

Ultimately, it's still down to us, to find out and sort out.

Sean Jones‏*@seanjonesqc*
Ladies and Gentlemen (but principally Gentlemen) there follows a Public Service Thread ...
As sexual harassment scandals fill the airwaves the traditional definitional question emerges: but what IS sexual harassment?
There is a legal definition. You’ll find it section 26(2) of the Equality Act 2010. Let me break it down ...
First, there has to be conduct of a “sexual nature”. What counts?Check out Para 7.13 of the Code of Practice on Employment (2011) ...
“verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct including unwelcome sexual advances, touching, forms of sexual assault, sexual jokes ...
displaying pornographic photographs or drawings or sending emails with material of a sexual nature” ...
So could it cover feeling a journalist’s knees under the table? Oh yes, absolutely.
Second, the conduct must be ”unwanted” conduct. If the journo is happy to have her knees touched, it’s not harassment.
But there’s more, the conduct must have the purpose OR the effect of:
1. Violating the victim’s dignity; or
2. creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them ..
Note, purpose OR effect. So if you are trying to violate their dignity you don’t need to succeed to be in trouble.
Equally, if you create a hostile environment you don’t escape merely because that was not your purpose.
When considering whether the conduct has had one of the two effects mentioned above, the tribunal must look at 3 things:
1. the victim’s perception;
2. the other circs of the case; and
3. whether it is reasonable for the conduct to have the effect.
So if someone is irrationally over-sensitive that will not count but it's the victim’s perception and not the harasser’s that counts
So, for instance, the fact that you can’t see why a journo would object to having their knee squeezed is not important.
If it is something a reasonable person could find intimidating or degrading, for eg, that may well do
Also, victim’s perceptions may reasonably differ, so the fact that one finds it trivial does not mean all will.
The standard is not that of the hardiest victim. /end

Interesting...

@molioni
We’re responding to an act of war with a system of civil fines...

Banks can expect £20 000 fine or 1year jail at the very most.

Laura Perrins‏*@LPerrins* (Co-Editor of Conservative Woman)
After sky turned down loads of media requests because I just can’t be bothered 2 defend the useless Tories anymore. This will only get worse

There's something about Robert Peston I really like.

He's not John Humphreys?

Yes Red!

And Peston just seems normal / decent:

'...These three themes, the long-term neglect of depressed places and people, worsening inequality, and the perceived unfairness of financial globalisation, have brought us directly to where we are today. We are a divided country – in fact in the West, we are divided countries – at a crossroads, where hate and mistrust are more prevalent and more mainstream than at any time that I can recall, and with respective populations uncertain whether they can still rally and unite around a single flag and a set of basic, civilised values. Dad, we would not be in such a mess if your voice, and others like yours, warning that you can’t allow millions of people to be left behind and then expect them to feel grateful, had been heeded.'

behindthepaywallblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/28/robert-peston-i-dont-appear-to-be-living-in-the-same-britain-as-much-of-the-rest-of-the-country/

Final thought for today as it seems to have quietened down (in the UK until the morning at least.)

All those ministers who didn't read the Brexit Impact Reports are now going to have to read them in great detail in order to redact them.

Tomorrow:

Promotions and reshuffle. Finding out how expensive Damian Green's lawyer must be. Noticing how some of those Cabinet Ministers on the list are very, very question. Its almost as if someone had finally managed to silence them.

And Interest Rates and the Bank of England.

Mistigri - I wouldn't lump in very dogmatic Catholics with fundamentalist protestants. RCs are not wholly caught up with the bible the way protestant fundamentalists are. Catholicism is prima scriptura, not sole scriptura. It embraces a variety of sources of divine revelation, with the bible as interpreted by the papacy first among many, not alone and in accord with one's own conscience as is the case with protestant denominations. I suspect the reliance on the bible alone and the sense of imperative response to it may be a feature of fundamentalism that lent itself to the Brexit vote.

Obv RCs have no issue with the idea of Rome either, and rhetoric that equates 'the whore of Babylon' with Rome and the Bishop of Rome with the antichrist (and by implication all things originating in Rome and Europe in general) would wash off like water from a duck's back. It is also the case for many Irish RCs in the UK (incl NI of course) that if the DUP is for something, then there must be a rat somewhere and therefore voting the other way is a good idea.

www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2016/06/ulster-evangelicals-brexit
Using the eschatological parts of the Bible to denounce pan-European institutions is a long-standing trope in Ulster Protestant rhetoric. It was a recurring theme in the sermons of Ian Paisley, the preacher-politician who dominated Ulster Protestant politics for decades before striking a peace deal with his declared adversaries. He often alluded to Revelations chapter 17, which describes a depraved woman, the whore of Babylon, sitting upon a horrific, multi-headed, multi-horned scarlet-coloured beast. In Paisley's imagery, the Catholic church was the whore, and the European Union was the beast. Such language is heard in ultra-Protestant circles elsewhere in the world, but Northern Ireland is probably the only place where it has come anywhere close to the political mainstream.

Followers of Paisley drew support for this belief from the fact that images of a woman riding a bull feature in sculptures and murals around Brussels and Strasbourg, and on one of the euro coins minted in Greece. These images actually depict Europa, the Phoenician woman who in Greek mythology was abducted by Zeus: the god took the form of a bull in order to impregnate her and conceive King Minos. You may well ask whether the rape of a young lady by a bull-like creature is an edifying symbol for a multi-national enterprise. But this is a pagan image, not a Christian one. And pedants will point out that Zeus took the form of a white bull, not a scarlet one.

Ian Paisley, formerly of the Protestant Unionist Party, was the founder of the DUP in 1971.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-36091022
The editor of the Irish Catholic newspaper, Michael Kelly, said he did not think many people would look up the verse and read it.

"I have to confirm some protestants' worse suspicions about Catholicism, when I first saw the verse, I had to go to my bible and look it up," he said.

"I think trying to bring religion into it is probably quite bizarre because I really don't think that it's a debate that the bible has anything much to say about.

"What the bible has to say about it, how the European Union should be run, how our country should be run and that should be run along just lines and I think that can be done whether the United Kingdom stays within the European Union or not."

irishcatholic.com/category/news/ if anyone is curious about the Irish Catholic.

And having said that, I suspect Jacob Rees-Mogg's heart on sleeve, religiously-inspired conservatism is part of his disguise, his schtick, if you will. I don't think he is representative of RC opinion in the UK on Brexit or much else either.

I like Robert Preston too. His current series on R4 is very interesting atm.