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.

‏ @J_amesp
5. Washington DC is GMT-5, so he’s tweeting 7am through 7pm for the US.

1. His peak tweeting is 12-3 UK and 7-10 US. Sounds alright doesn’t it?
2. But this is 2-5pm Moscow time.
3. Now, this may not sound a lot, but recent analysis shows that Moscow troll activity peaks between 1 and 5.
4. Which, incidentally, coincides with the 7-10 period US time:

10. Weird old coincidence, for a man so focused on Catalonia, which is GMT+1. That’s a fucker, isn’t it? 11. What I hadn’t been able to understand was how the Russian botnet was getting so much mileage out of Assange’s off Eu time tweeting... 12. ..nor how that had gained such a lot of traction with the international audience. Even working it out like this Assange confirms the deniable arm of Russian disinformation 13. But now it makes sense. The timing was orchestrated too. To make the most out of the campaign by aligning Assange to both RU and US time

Co ordinated tweeting from Assange with RU and US time.
I don't understand the ins and outs, lala , just seems fishy, alongside so much else.( last night's twitter and British media stuff about brexit, catalonia etc, Irish twitter accounts) Why is he still here?

Crabb's majority is 314.

The Tracey Ullman show is quite good at the moment. Love her Merkel and Sturgeon.

May racing in late and out of breath to a Brexit meeting in Brussels with a plastic bag full of post it like notes for preparation.

Where is political satire? Spitting Image would have such rich pickings.

Could there be more sleaze? Would they give a limited number of names to scare the shit out of the unnamed?

Yes and yes.

It could be nothing to do with cleaning up parliament from dubious practices. It could be to intimate and black mail others.

Scalps of back benchers and 'disposable ministers' consistent with this.

It could be to be a reimposing of power.

Calleach1, I liked the virtual teenager too

Jess Philips @ jessphilips
If these men just get away with it, claim bantz and say it's light hearted humour, we will once again know they can do whatever the hell they like to us.

Trump, Assange, Bannon, Farage… bound together in an unholy alliance
Carole Cadwalladr
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/28/trump-assange-bannon-farage-bound-together-in-unholy-alliance

Or it could be an attempt to whip up some more anti-EU / anti-ECHR feeling. [About some prisoners getting the vote.]

The Express will definitely do so, probably the Mail, but maybe less likely the Torygraph. It could become useful for those Tories imprisoned for modest periods for various crimes.

I am also captain cynical when it comes to these MP assault claims coming up just at this moment. The fact is everyone knows this stuff happens everywhere. I have never worked in a place where I have not had some form of unwanted attention or assault either from people I work with or customers. If I hear one more male MP go on the radio making shocked noises and talking about "how shocking it is these terrible things may be happening in the house of commons" I will be sending them an invoice for a new radio after I chuck my current one out the window in rage.

This is clearly being used now as a way of attacking opponents in their own and other parties. It is so transparent and grubby I am disgusted by the whole thing. This culture of sexual assault needs to be recognised as endemic and dealt with appropriately across the bored, not used as a cheap smear tactic when things get desperate.

The only thing cheering me up is the the law of unintended consequences, which is suspect may come and bite a few people on their backside. As someone else up thread has pointed out it is amazing how often people are brought down by something unexpected. I am also a big fan of the term "foiled by their own petard", which I am hopeful I will get to use to describe some of the right wingers currently using women's suffering for their own gain.

I may be a bit ragey about this right now.

.

I did enjoy the Tracy Ullman Show. I think her Merkel is fantastic but personally don't think her Sturgeon is very good - but that's maybe because I've met her many times (including last night, when she strong-armed me into buying some raffle tickets even though dh and I had forgotten to bring money: "I know you're good for it and anyway I know where you live" ) and we didn't even win anything

shameless place mat king

Placemat. Thanks RTB.

Bloomberg Brexit @ Brexit
EU has offered more Brexit talks before December but Britain hasn't responded, sources say

www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2017-10-27/u-k-stalling-on-new-brexit-talks-as-clock-ticks-down-to-summit
The U.K. Is Stalling on New Brexit Talks

EU is said to have offered two or three rounds of negotiations
No date has been agreed for restart: U.K. Brexit Secretary

Place marking

My MP is the chap on the front of the DM today. Local response is mostly dirty sniggers at the moment - it will be interested to see if the tide turns at all. He was a Remainer in a Brexit constituency though - I'm interested in the idea that this is part of a conspiracy against Tory wets.
Obv needed the behaviour first though In order to have the weapon against him. Powerful men seem to think themselves untouchable.

At the very least Theresa May should remove the whip. Crabb has admitted and apologised. Garnier has said he's got to take it on the chin, so again, not a denial but seems to admit.

Just like O'Mara had the Labour whip removed. Or are we going to see arguments about how this is not the same and not as bad?

May after all stood at the dispatch box saying how O'Mara should show women respect.

Can May afford to remove the whip from any MP in a minority government? She certainly can't afford a by election.

She's been stitched up by going after O'Mara first. She's painted in a corner.

And why are we not taking up the offer of those EU talks? I thought we were speeding up talks. That was what we were told at least. Why the stalling?

Katy Hayward @ hayward_katy
A most worrying thing abt this story is that Home Office letter implies Brexit means 'interference' to ECHR in UK.

amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/29/home-office-eu-citizens-leave-uk-avoid-destitution
Home Office letter tells EU citizen to ‘go home or go elsewhere’

The letter, dated 18 October and written by officials from the Home Office’s immigration section, tells a Romanian national in an immigration detention centre that his request for emergency accommodation has been rejected and he should consider another country. It states: “You could avoid becoming destitute by returning to Romania or another EU member state where you could enjoy access to all your ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights] without interference.”

Why focus on the EHCR in this letter in this way? Thats two hits on the ECHR in news stories in today's paper and does seriously make me wonder about the motivation behind the prisoner story because they KNOW its likely to provoke a backlash.

Phil BC @ philbc3
According to Isabel Oakeshott, some Westminster sexual harassment can be put down to "rather rubbish come ons" #Marr

Jennifer Williams @ jenwilliamsMEN
This debate on #Marr about sexual harassment is annoying me.
One person denying there’s a problem at Westminster. The other implying it’s really a Tory story not a Labour one.

Sums it up really. I believe today is the anniversary of pussygate.

www.ft.com/content/8f12afca-bb26-11e7-8c12-5661783e5589
Theresa May’s £1bn deal suspended as Northern Ireland talks falter
Budget to be imposed from London does not include money promised to DUP

A budget from Mr Brokenshire would bypass the Stormont assembly, which is not sitting due to the stand-off, and a draft does not include the £1bn funding package secured by Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, when she agreed to prop up Mrs May after the UK prime minister lost her parliamentary majority in June.

This budget would simply execute the fiscal programme settled in Belfast before the DUP/Conservative deal, said two people with knowledge of the plan.

I’m interested in the agenda about the Romanian national deportation story.

He doesn’t have a job as far as I can make out from the press reports so doesn’t have a treaty right to be here so actually should the government be supported in actually starting to enforce the restrictions on free movement properly?

But then pairing it as a breach of his echr rights? I can’t quite work out which ones would be engaged (family life would get be a reason to stay, but isn’t mentioned...) and the human rights act doesn’t quite work like this anyway. It all seems very very odd.

Mirror Politics‏*@MirrorPolitics*

Jeremy Hunt tells #Marr there will be a Cabinet Office investigation into whether Trade Minister Mark Garnier broke ministerial code

Politics to English translation:
We need an investigation to decide whether a man who acted like a sexist prick and admits it did anything wrong and whether this forces us to take our heads out of the sand enough to take action.

He doesn’t have a job as far as I can make out from the press reports so doesn’t have a treaty right to be here so actually should the government be supported in actually starting to enforce the restrictions on free movement properly?

I think you have completely misunderstood "treaty rights".

He may be looking for work, having worked in the past. He may already have completed 5 years in the UK and have a permanent right to remain. There are any number of reasons why a person of working age who is currently without work might still be exercising treaty rights (this is a good thing, because otherwise a substantial number of Britons that I know personally living in France would be eligible for deportation).

Removal under FOM provisions is limited to criminals whose presence in the UK is not conducive with the public interest. You don't get to kick out people who happen to be temporarily unemployed.

It's another squirrel isn't it though, as ECHR is distinct from EU membership?