Westminstenders: The Tory Party Spectacular

[RedToothBrush]

A row over parliamentary language and conduct and how MPs are afraid of extremists has over shadowed talk of Brexit.

Cummings has said if you don't want to leave without a deal, vote for a deal.

Yet there isn't a Johnson approved one in front of the Commons and the EU are utterly despairing of Johnson's blank non papers and his full on Trump bullshit.

Then there's the threats to the rule of law.

Apparently there are five known suggestions to bypass the Benn Act and refuse to ask for an extension.
See Twitter Thread Here

This weekend sees the start of the Tory Party Conference. With a parliamentary vote to block a recess, its rather scuppered plans for the rest of the conference. Johnson's planned speech at the conference clashes with PMQ so he may well not attend the Commons.

Expect the conference to be.... Er... Inflammatory...

I was an Army officer in NI, I also was a firearms commander in the Police.

Commander ? If that was your rank in the Met ... depending when ....

That does give me a certain insight into how these things can happen .... but I fully accept that bystanders like to add their POV.

I'm not a bystander. Thankfully I wasn't there that day. But I am a member of the public who now knows the police in the UK can get away with murder. If not in a legal sense, certainly a linguistic one. As I said, I'm not an anarchist. But I'm also not a swivel-eyed loon, and generally cut through loony-tunes conspiracy theories for fun. So if I am harboring that belief, it's axiomatic less restrained folk are too. Which is not a great situation in general.

Reasoned response. DGR.

None of the links I used mentioned murder.

It's clear that there were murders in all of those attacks.

Look where we've gone!

Menezes was murdered. Kratos was an illegal operation and all those responsible for its formulation and implimentation were guilty. Which is probably why they got away with it, because it went so high, all the way to both Blairs.

There is nothing remotely funny about this Basil. Nothing.

My point precisely.

If he’d stuck with after dinner speaking and the odd stint on HIGNFY we would be in a better place.

Instead ‘celebrity’ has somehow leapt ahead of competence in the requirements of PM.

re Jean Charles de Menezes:

That was a cockup, not conspiracy

There was a proper enquiry and we know what led up to this
Due to a communications failure, the police officer thought he was shooting a dangerous and armed terrorist
If that had been the case, he would have been justified legally

Neither he nor any other police officer decided to kill another 13 people or injure dozens more

re Bloody Sunday:
That was a massacre

Several Paras shot unarmed demonstrators, which they would have known is illegaö

re Ballymurphy:
That was a massacre

Several Paras went in and shot unarmed people at random, who weren't any threat.
They even murdered a Catholic priest, waving a white flag, who was attending to a wounded victim

They again knew that shooting unarmed people like that is illegal
It is only tinpot dictatorships that murder priests attending to the wounded or dying.

There was no proper enquiry at the time
No explanation why soldiers thought they should murder unarmed civilians and break the Geneva convention

Instead, successive UK govts have obstructed and delayed prosecutions for either massacre

They could have defused the anger right from the beginning, but instead they allowed these unpunished murders to galvanise support and recruitment for the IRA

The Irish people I know, even those who totally oppose the IRA, believe only covering up a conspiracy by senior officers can explain this coverup over so many decades
Other British soldiers have been prosecuted & convicted over the years; even for shooting joyriders - btw I consider those convictions unreasonable & unfair.

Back from seeing puppy

Also thinking the lack of military control in those instances is similar to where we are with the admission that many of our police have not been vetted, as I mentioned earlier, and are now to be provided with tasers which have proven to be deadly and oft used on under 16's. It's not a vast stretch to see what could possibly go wrong esp while the govt (or at least MP's on Politics Live) is encouraging people to riot...thanks Priti Patel for that gem.

www.rte.ie/news/2018/1224/1018963-gibraltar-milltown-funeral-1988/

This is my last post on this. It was a shocking series of events that culminated in nearly causing all out civil war in the UK.

Learn by your mistakes, don't ever choose to emulate them.

One of us on here (can't remember who) said that they saw the preparations for that zip wire stunt - and that getting "stuck" was very definitely a pre-planned stunt by BJ.

Part of the "lovable buffoon" () persona of a dangerous man, for whom all publicity is good publicity

He has given up on the facade of being a buffoon and is now simply dangerous - and quite happy to be such, while still following the same strategy of seeking publicity, no matter the cost to public safety (indeed deliberately at the cost of public safety ) , with his contained and sustained use of the word surrender and other inflammatory words

The only reason the officer who shot Menezes had to believe he was armed was the voice in his ear. The evidence of his eyes was clear that there was no huge backpack full of breakfast cereal as used by the 7/7 and 21/7 bombers. There was no evidence that anyone had gained access to any 'real' explosives, and the Israeli protocols on which Kratos was supposedly based would never have allowed a shooting where a bomb had not been visually identified.

Gibralar was a different matter, with soldiers rather than cops and good intel that the suspects had remote control timers.

Gibraltar killings were imo justified

They were a known IRA Active Service Unit, intending to plant a bomb
The SAS thought they were in the process of doing so and the terrorists' actions were consistent with that.

Understandable mistake and one of the dangers that IRA bombers let themselves in for when they decide to go on a bombing mission

Totally different to murdering unarmed civilians at random, including a Catholic priest

DGR
I am flattered at your personal interest in my career.
In the Police I was a qualified Firearms Commander for spontaneous incidents requiring the deployment of firearms officers.
My job was to command the firearms officers at the scene, and to resolve the incident.
In parlance; I was Silver control, Gold control being a senior officer located at HQ. I held the rank of Inspector, not Commander.

And to bring it back to Brexit and riots, the shooting of Mark Duggan was entirely justified. Nasty little piece of work thought he was being clever by throwing the gun away so he could not even be done for possession, but the act of lifting the gun and holding it out of the window was enough to get him very properly shot.

His disgusting family have remained resolutely shifty and dishonest throughout. The climate of suspicion they were able to exploit in provoking the 2010 riots is a legacy of previous deplorable Met Police behaviour.

Also forgot to say on BBC Kent on our return journey Lembit Opik had a 'discussion' on Brexit (no idea what the initial question he posed was as replies were so varied there appeared no other common thread) and he read out a message from a listener asking "If Boris had been going to Revoke, would Gina Millar have questioned it?" to which he replied "Well I assume not, as that is exactly what she wants, isn't it?". Felt like bashing my head on the steering wheel. People still haven't grasped what is legal and illegal in all of this. On R4 there was at least a sensible man saying all journo's should stop using the word "surrender" as it is fueling what Cummings wants, as he managed to do all through the ref. They duly reported on The Benn Bill in their news segment, thankfully.

"If Boris had been going to Revoke, would Gina Millar have questioned it?" to which he replied "Well I assume not, as that is exactly what she wants, isn't it?". Felt like bashing my head on the steering wheel. People still haven't grasped what is legal and illegal in all of this.

And even if there were something unlawful about a PM revoking, while understandably Gina Miller would not have been first in line to challenge it, you can bet that there would have been plenty of others who would. She has exercised her freedom as a citizen to take a matter to the courts, and one of the great things about this country is that others have that same freedom (although I appreciate you need some financial backing to really be able to progress).

Yep, I agree about Duggan too

My standard is whether a soldier or police officer can reasonably think they or the public are in imminent danger of serious harm

That standard is obviously different for known terrorists or other violent criminals than it is for random civilians and a priest

BUT
where a mistake involves bad judgement or incompetence, then careers shouldn't continue as if nothing happened

That's my opinion re re Jean Charles de Menezes::

Cressida Dick should never have received any more promotions, let alone the plum Met job
She should have planned better and made sure she was in control
The buck for cockups & confusion stops at the top: Gold Control

.

"If Boris had been going to Revoke, would Gina Millar have questioned it?

Well iirc, there was a Leaver who also brought the case with Miller

However, the whole point of their case is that Invoking should require a Parliamentary vote because it took away existing rights of British citizens & residents

Revoking just keeps things as they are, including all rights, so there would have to be some other grounds for bringing a case.

There is no right whatsoever to have a (legally advisory only) referendum decision carried out
Parliament is sovereign and can even retrospectively repeal any bill making a referendum binding

• and that could happen after a PV too

If a GNU calls a "legally binding" PV, but BJ wins a GE before the PV happens,
then he can either call off the PV or let it happen and then reject a large Remain victory,
just by repealing the bill, if he has the MPs to do so,

Menezes reminds me of KAL 007, where the Soviet fighter pilot was trained not to value the evidence of his own eyes and a dirty great 747 all lit up, and instead was told by a controller in Moscow down the line that this was a US spy plane and he should shoot it down.

And on NI: Some killings by the security forces were unlawful. All killings by the paramilitaries were criminal and without the first shred of justification under any laws of warfare.

Can anyone spot the hypocrisy in this?

We must never forget the lessons of history.

And we must keep the flame of freedom alive in the darkest corners of the bleakest jails.

For those struggling for the basic liberties we take for granted…

The right you jealously guard – here, this week – to debate, to have your say, to hold your politicians to account.

So, we won’t look the other way, when the people of Hong Kong are beaten indiscriminately on commuter trains for exercising the right to peaceful protest.

We won’t stand idly by whilst journalists are jailed or beaten up for criticising the despotic regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.

And we will never rest until all those bearing UK nationality, detained on a cruel whim in Iran, are free to re-join their loved ones at home.

Spoken by Dominic Raab just now

Manchester protest is impressive if the rain in town is anything like what its been out my way!

And we will never rest until all those bearing UK nationality, detained on a cruel whim in Iran, are free to re-join their loved ones at home.

Richard Ratcliffe says, Well whoopie-doo.

.... and we'll protect our right to make billions in arm sales to Saudi Arabia,

who apart from brutally torturing and murdering dssidents in their own country,
are committing crimes against humanity in Yemen, mass murder on an industrial scale

and we'll never rest until that incompetent Foreign Secretary who caused Nazanin's sentence to be increased is barred from holding any future public office

We shall buy an A to Z with clear maps showing how important Dover is.

And Gove now..

Gove says getting Brexit done will allow the Tories to focus on “what matters”, like the NHS, education and crime. He goes on:

These are the people’s priorities.

They are our priorities.

That is why we are the real people’s party

This is Gove who has been part of a party that has underfunded schools for the last 10 years.