Westministenders: The Truth Isn't A Made Up Concept

[RedToothBrush]

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Not George Orwell but often attributed to him. But a powerful statement with resonance nonetheless

Going way back in this thread, to DGR's point about the 1922 Committee realising they are perhaps no longer as important as they thought they were, and the capture of the Conservative Party being wide and deep ...

... it's been an observation on here for a long time that there was a capture of the Conservative Party.

Is it possible that a lot of the Conservative Party didn't realise this?

Is it possible that many didn't know? And are waking up to this now?

I assumed they knew - the sacking of all those non-Brexit MPs must surely have told them? - and had resigned themselves to going along with the new regime.

I mean, surely they knew?

Guidance is here squid

www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-test-and-trace-how-it-works

As for weather, I think May is often the best month of the year (have had so many kids sports days cancelled in June), but my garden is certainly looking droopy and my south facing front lawn is scorched.

I think the 1922 committee along with the ERG have limited hold over our Dear Leader. He's delivered on Brexit, is fudging his way through Coronavirus and is holed up in his Downing Street bubble sitting pretty for the rest of this year.
If only those pesky public citizens would learn to behave he'd be as happy as a pig in !

There has been a lot of entryism in some local associations from Faragites, wth precious litlle other new membership for a party increasingly seen as toxic by the young.

Central Office has also been taken over by Thatcher's (political) Children with their transatlantic connections, and they provide the wonks who often get parachted into safe seats.

But this red wall takeover has seen a large crop of local candidates for local people, and it will be interesting to see how they go in what for many of them will be their one and only term as MP.

Is it possible that a lot of the Conservative Party didn't realise this?
Is it possible that many didn't know? And are waking up to this now?

I think that is very, very true. But in the past if so, they could kid themselves that it was still the best way to vote because 'What about Corbyn?' Now that piece of whataboutery no longer applies.

But this red wall takeover has seen a large crop of local candidates for local people, and it will be interesting to see how they go in what for many of them will be their one and only term as MP.

Mind you, I do think in a lot of those seats that Labour got complacent. I sincerely hope for these new Red Wall MPs it is their only term, unless they buck up their ideas, and start working for their constituents, instead of parroting a party line.

Is it possible that a lot of the Conservative Party didn't realise this? Is it possible that many didn't know? And are waking up to this now?

The way of revolutions is you don't realise they've happened until the heads are on the spikes.

Speaking of revolutionaries, it's amusing in a grim way to see Trump trying to condemn exactly the revolutionary behaviour that created the US in the first place. A nation forged in revolution can never really shake off it's shadows. Which is why Boris and chums must be breathing a sigh of relief that Britain never had one.

It's such a shame to see what's happened to the big "modernising gov IT" surge that started back in 2010. There were some talented people leading that - just the fact that they managed to get all the departments using a single, accessible website with its own component library (like a grown up organisation) instead of commissioning Deloitte to make their their own, individual ones took a herculean effort. Most of those people are back in the private sector now. Unsurprisingly. (It wasn't the low government money that they left, it was the brick wall of refusing to change.)

Even doteveryone has just announced they're shutting down - it feels like the end of an era in terms of responsible tech.

It's like Cummings' view of the tech community as a bunch of money-driven, sociopathic techno-determinists is the new "gov tech" that's in fashion. Which is a shame, as for a short window it looked like there could be a public sector tech that provided an alternative to the 'suck up public data and monetise it" model taking over the private sector.

I never thought I'd say I missed David Cameron's influence on my industry, but right now I feel like lighting a bloody candle.

I assumed they knew - the sacking of all those non-Brexit MPs must surely have told them? - and had resigned themselves to going along with the new regime.

I mean, surely they knew?

I am not sure actually. I think a lot of them reacted to the issue right in front of them. They were told there was a 'mutiny'. Theye were used to people just following the person at the head of the party, esp wheh things are tough (like they were around that time).
One thing that has been consistent is the lack of a vision. People are so focused on what is right there that they don't see the forest. They are so arrogant that they don't even think it is possible for someone, esp someone like them, to take over/act inappropriately/act unethically.
Yiu need to remember that for many of the conservatives (incl in the population), the non brexiters MPs were the ones who were unethical and unacceptable in their behaviours. Because they refused to act 'on the will of the people'

It's such a shame to see what's happened to the big "modernising gov IT" surge that started back in 2010.

What really happened to it, was it should have started in 1990.

I was appalled but not at all surprised by my MP's response. It's exactly as I'd expected. Admission of wrongdoing but completely glossed over because it's One Of Them doing the wrong. Cowards, the lot of them.

I might respond, not sure yet. If I do, I will point out that in any other organisation employees must adhere to a code of conduct. If they break it, they face disciplinary action. DC has broken his, several times over. What action is Number 10 taking to reprimand or discipline him?

One thing that has been consistent is the lack of a vision

I think that's unfair. I am sure a lot of very sincere people of all political persuasions are genuinely working towards a fairer society etc etc.

The main problem is communicating that vision over or through a media lens that is focussed entirely on what's best for the 1%.

Like many of my age - and given what I studied - I genuinely thought that something like the internet (the speed of adoption of which took me by surprise) with an egalitarian access to knowledge and learning would advance humanity. Instead, the meme a friend shared says it all ...

Remember when we thought that giving everyone free access to knowledge and learning would eradicate stupidity ? Turns out we were wrong.

I was appalled but not at all surprised by my MP's response. It's exactly as I'd expected. Admission of wrongdoing but completely glossed over because it's One Of Them doing the wrong. Cowards, the lot of them.

All you can do is hold them to account when you cast your vote.

Assuming we last until 2024 (and I have some doubts) then there are kids born in 2006 who should help decide this.

Speaking of revolting colonials.

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/29/palace-letters-high-court-rules-queen-secret-correspondence-whitlam-dismissal-are-commonwealth-records

The historian Jenny Hocking has won a landmark high court case in her bid to secure sensitive correspondence between the Queen and former Australian governor general Sir John Kerr about the dismissal of Gough Whitlam.

The high court on Friday ruled that the commonwealth was wrong to withhold the so-called “palace letters”, a series of more than 200 exchanges between the Queen, her private secretary and Kerr, the then-governor general, in the lead-up to the 1975 dismissal of Whitlam, the then-Australian prime minister.

(contd)

Be curious what this means (or not) back here in jolly old Blighty where we remain subjects not citizens (as Cllr. Sheldon was at pains to remind us).

So it should really be SAB rather than CAB?

So it should really be SAB rather than CAB?

Pedantically, yes:

Subject is derived from the Latin words, sub and jacio, and means one who is under the power of another; but a citizen is an unit of a mass of free people, who, collectively, possess sovereignty. Subjects look up to a master, but citizens are so far equal, that none have hereditary rights superior to others

The Kerr-Whitlam Matter is a case of 'could happen here' if we had an interventionist monarch keen on, say, completely at random, crackpot environmentalism and cronyist interventions in planning disputes, who might view a govt. not of his liking much as George III did when the Whigs started eyeing the royal budget.

Alexa: Can I see metaphors for the UK's handling of coronavirus ?

Alexa finds a monkey on a zipwire and this story:

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-monkeys-escape-with-covid-19-samples-after-attacking-lab-assistant-11996752

A gang of monkeys attacked a laboratory assistant and escaped with a batch of coronavirus test samples, it has been reported.

(contd)

With an AI learning of that speed, Alexa will be overqualified to run the UK next week.

PMK.
I wrote to my MP, Downing St and the Conservative Party HQ on Tues.
No acknowledgment from any of them.
So, on Weds, I forwarded my own email to them again.
I now have an acknowledgment from my MP (a cabinet member) but nothing else yet.
My Y8 (state middle school, so effectively Y6, ie transition year) but have had no email from Middle School except re book token competition. Nothing from High school yet about my Y10 either.
It's such a shambles. I wont be downloading any App. Nowt to do with the Cummings debacle, I just don't trust the Govt with my info.
I think it is too soon to be opening up so widely and I think it is politically motivated. I think BJ instructing Whitty not to answer is a disgrace. If I won t'Lottery I'd be temped to leave the UK for good with Brexit on the horizon and all the gaslighting there will be about that :(

I am sure a lot of very sincere people of all political persuasions are genuinely working towards a fairer society etc etc.

This is what I don't understand. I know a number of people who are Tory voters, who would be horrified to give their backing to someone with Johnson's behaviour, if they knew them personally. Somehow with Johnson, they appear to have switched that critical part of their brains off.

This is what I don't understand. I know a number of people who are Tory voters, who would be horrified to give their backing to someone with Johnson's behaviour, if they knew them personally. Somehow with Johnson, they appear to have switched that critical part of their brains off.

because they've been "trained" to vote blue. Simple as that. The same training which makes people address letters to "Mr. HeadOfHousehold" by default. Or expect women to look after babies by default.

Thinking is hard. It must be. Otherwise more people would do it.

The problem with thinking, is it means you have to develop a conscience and a backbone (because generally they come as a matched pair). So it's generally much easier to outsource "thinking" to the experts, and just parrot "but Corbyn" (or whatever) when asked what you "think".

Present company generally and obviously excepted.

Dominic Cummings went to Durham School.

Durham School is the only school (that I'm aware of) who decided not to start the summer term in April and instead push it back to the 1st June and continue until early August.

One could almost surmise someone told them schools would be allowed to reopen on the 1st June.

Year 8s aren't going back oldlace. Despite representations from MPs everyone must do the same, so no transition provision for years 4 or 8 in three tier counties.

MagicalThinking
Durham School have backtracked on their summer holiday after utter outrage from parents.
They are running lessons like all the other fee paying schools at the moment.

I do hope somebody puts a tracker on his car so we can see what patterns his jouneys make

Thing is with the app lots of 70+ yr olds don't have modern phones or are they expected to be locked up forever?
Also my next door neighbors both 87 have just received a text message informing them they are no longer on the shielding list. Frantic calls to doctor ( who is livid) say there's no way they should be removed. They have prostrate and lukeamia cancers! Their parcel which they should have got yesterday never arrived so I nipped out to get some stuff for them just now as their voluntary shopper did not turn up either ( they were informed day before yesterday that they were no longer on shielded list). So before my neighbour knew others informed! Wtf is going on? Doctor said he never removed them NHS did? Anyone else had this?