The banker loving, baby-eating Tory party thread (regenerated)

[bickster]

20 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'm not sure that it's that they didn't have the confidence that they'd win, I suspect it's more to do with misgivings over the longer term effect on them that their victory would have.

 

In what sense? What could be done to them in revenge for this? Can we expect this revenge to be exacted at some point now that the media have actually forced Sunak to sack Zahawi?

They didn't have complete confidence that they'd win, because all they had as evidence were whistleblower accounts and nothing definite / official that what they believed had happenned actually did occur. WIth hindsight we now know they'd have won because any judge would have instructed HMRC to release to the court the actions that had been taken or were being considered at the time etc but back then, no one could have had that confidence

[OutByEaster?]

26 minutes ago, bickster said:

In what sense? What could be done to them in revenge for this? Can we expect this revenge to be exacted at some point now that the media have actually forced Sunak to sack Zahawi?

They'd have had to write stories instead of being fed them, they'd have lost access to ministers and government and been cut out of the loop.

I think it's easy for newspapers to print the truth, but hard for a single newspaper - pretty much all of the UK press is embedded journalism nowadays.

 

[bickster]

23 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

They'd have had to write stories instead of being fed them

How many stories do you think the Tory Party feed to the Guardian and the Independent? Do you honestly think they'll stop feeding stories to the Times and The Scum? In the latter two cases, they are more likely to do as they are told

 

26 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

- pretty much all of the UK press is embedded journalism nowadays.

It really isn't, there are still very good investigative journalists working in the media today. Whether that be TV or Print. There is a lot of embedded journalism, in the political realm it is, however, nowhere near saturated with it. You really are doing a disservice to the likes of George Monbiot, Carole Cadwaladr, Nick Davies, Jonathan Calvert, Heather Brook, Paul Lewis, David Leigh..... It's a fairly big list tbh

[blandy]

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

pretty much all of the UK press is embedded journalism nowadays

Nowhere near the truth, IMO. Even the likes of the Tory supporting press have written about or found out and published government scandal stuff. The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Times have all laid into individual or collective Tory MPs for "scandals". PPE, VIP lanes, Expenses, Dodgy Lobbying, bullying, all kinds of stuff.

Sure the seemingly endless stuff taken from Twitter or whatever is a shame and of course all the parties plant stuff via their favourite rags, but "embedded" journalism - nah.

[ml1dch]

23 minutes ago, blandy said:

Nowhere near the truth, IMO. Even the likes of the Tory supporting press have written about or found out and published government scandal stuff. The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Times have all laid into individual or collective Tory MPs for "scandals". PPE, VIP lanes, Expenses, Dodgy Lobbying, bullying, all kinds of stuff.

Sure the seemingly endless stuff taken from Twitter or whatever is a shame and of course all the parties plant stuff via their favourite rags, but "embedded" journalism - nah.

I fully agree - but it depends a bit on one's worldview. 

There will be plenty of people (Corbyn disciples, Galloway-following Russia apologists, Brexit ultras, anti-vaccine nutters) who feel excluded by everything that mainstream journalism publishes, from The Express on side to The Guardian on the other and therefore lumps it in as "all the same".

Not saying that OBE falls into any of those categories. More of a general observation. 

Edited January 29, 2023 by ml1dch

[TreeVillan]

It's probably obvious to some, but I'm politically right leaning. However this current Tory party is a complete shambles. It now turns out that Rishi may have been using Covid and his powers to make himself and his already ridiculously rich wife even richer. **** em all. 

[ml1dch]

2 minutes ago, TreeVillan said:

However this current Tory party is a complete shambles. 

They have been since at least 2017. This is probably the best they've been in half a decade. 

[KentVillan]

13 minutes ago, TreeVillan said:

It's probably obvious to some, but I'm politically right leaning. However this current Tory party is a complete shambles. It now turns out that Rishi may have been using Covid and his powers to make himself and his already ridiculously rich wife even richer. **** em all. 

What’s this referring to?

[KentVillan]

Someone mentioned Hunt’s Silicon Valley thing earlier.

The problem is it’ll just be another cash handout to grifters touting the latest hype technologies.

I saw the Chief Exec of *PENSIONBEE* speaking in her capacity as an *AI* leader. **** off!

The last thing we need is every business under the Sun finding ways of presenting themselves as AI innovators… it’ll be another crypto / clean tech/ greenwash wasteful mess of subsidies and VC bullshit.

Govt needs to focus on the bigger picture problems with the economy, not fiddle with things that are beyond their understanding or competence.

[ml1dch]

Incidentally, the "Mick Lynch for tax stuff but not a c***"" that everyone now loves Dan Neidle, covers the useless press stuff well over a dozen or so tweets here.

Most of the print press get a shout out, and everyone from The Guardian to The Sun had a role to play in ending the political career of this particular toerag. 

[bickster]

8 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

What’s this referring to?

I believe the story goes something like this

Moderna made a huge profit during Covid, Sunaks hedge fund owns a large amount of shares in Moderna. Moderna's second vaccine (the booster one) was known to be less effective than its iinitial one, yet HM Gov still bought millions of doses and that made Sunak Richer

It's something like that anyway that the likes of Carol Vordeman are pushing out of the Twitty socials

[KentVillan]

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

I believe the story goes something like this

Moderna made a huge profit during Covid, Sunaks hedge fund owns a large amount of shares in Moderna. Moderna's second vaccine (the booster one) was known to be less effective than its iinitial one, yet HM Gov still bought millions of doses and that made Sunak Richer

It's something like that anyway that the likes of Carol Vordeman are pushing out of the Twitty socials

Ok so almost certainly bollocks then

[chrisp65]

I think the only difference between the current tories and the last lot, is one of scale.

You look back at the 90’s tories and they were bogged down by scandal and sleaze. The reason Labour got in was that the tories appeared to just be drowning in perpetual scandal. But back then, they were shagging one secretary, accepting one bribe from Saudi Arabia, renting out their flat to one sex worker, buying one house in Westminster with a fraudulent right to buy application.

It all looks like such small beer now, people sacked or resigning over such small scale theft, fraud, and abuse.

The current crop are committing the same crimes, they’ve just industrialised the scale of theft and fraud.

John Major’s ‘back to basics’ campaign was an attempt to reign in the scandals. It only taunted the newspapers in to publishing more things they already new about more shaggers and conmen.

Same old tories, always cheating.

[ml1dch]

8 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Ok so almost certainly bollocks then

One hundred percent nonsense.

But if we're levelling the disinformation playing field I'm pretty comfortable with the Facebook crowd having a bit of "Sunak created Covid to buy his California beach house" to help offset everything else.

Edited January 29, 2023 by ml1dch

[KentVillan]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

I think the only difference between the current tories and the last lot, is one of scale.

You look back at the 90’s tories and they were bogged down by scandal and sleaze. The reason Labour got in was that the tories appeared to just be drowning in perpetual scandal. But back then, they were shagging one secretary, accepting one bribe from Saudi Arabia, renting out their flat to one sex worker, buying one house in Westminster with a fraudulent right to buy application.

It all looks like such small beer now, people sacked or resigning over such small scale theft, fraud, and abuse.

The current crop are committing the same crimes, they’ve just industrialised the scale of theft and fraud.

John Major’s ‘back to basics’ campaign was an attempt to reign in the scandals. It only taunted the newspapers in to publishing more things they already new about more shaggers and conmen.

Same old tories, always cheating.

I’ve been thinking about this a fair bit recently, because in a previous life I worked in a very corrupt country on political stuff and it always struck me that their number one problem ahead of everything else (Islamism, race relations, public services, etc etc) was that everyone in or around the ruling party was bent, and it just screwed up everything.

It has always been one of the strengths of Northern Europe that it isn’t very corrupt.

But I wonder how much it is that the new lot are significantly more corrupt, or that it’s always been there, but severely underreported. (I mean I do think Boris is unusually corrupt by British standards, but there have always been people like Jonathan Aitken, Jeffrey Archer, Keith Vaz, and the like.)

Clearly you don’t routinely have to bribe police or govt workers here to get things done, so that low level corruption that is the norm in much of the world is less of a problem here… but at the top level, we’ve always had the Channel Islands, the overseas territories, the arms industry, and the dodgier corners of the City, and politicians making extra cash on the side for questionable “consulting” roles. Maybe we’ve always been corrupt?

Also, as much as the Tories have tended to be much worse for it, whenever Labour have been in power, there have been corruption scandals too, because there’s always someone willing to do something for some extra pocket money or a cushty job after politics.

I think it’s something that has to be tackled with proper leadership outside party politics. A national anti-corruption agency, more funding for investigating corruption and serious & organised crime, better protections for whistleblowers, jury-free trials for complex white collar crimes, etc.

It’s one of the areas where I think Starmer could really excel, given his background, and it would surely be very popular, as the main loser from corruption is the taxpayer.

[OutByEaster?]

12 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Ok so almost certainly bollocks then

It was in the mainstream press a couple of years ago, but went quiet as he launched his leadership bid, about the same time he became superman on the BBC.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/17/rishi-sunak-refuses-to-say-if-he-will-profit-from-moderna-covid-vaccine

Quote

 

Rishi Sunak refuses to say if he will profit from Moderna Covid vaccine

Chancellor’s former hedge fund invested heavily in Moderna, which had 94.5% trial success

Rishi Sunak was a founding partner of Theleme Partners, which is registered in the Cayman Islands, and left the firm in 2013. Photograph: James Shaw/Rex/Shutterstock

The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has refused to disclose whether he will profit from a surge in the share price of the Covid-19 vaccine manufacturer Moderna, one of the biggest investments held by the hedge fund he co-founded before entering parliament.

 

 

[chrisp65]

13 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

But I wonder how much it is that the new lot are significantly more corrupt, or that it’s always been there, but severely underreported. (I mean I do think Boris is unusually corrupt by British standards, but there have always been people like Jonathan Aitken, Jeffrey Archer, Keith Vaz, and the like.)

 

For what its worth, I think its always been there, to some degree, but there was some greater level of deference from people. There was less likelihood of a whistle blower, less ability for someone to forensically check back through records at companies house. For all the white noise of social media it has played a part in keeping stories in the light and stopping tax cheats like Zahawi just riding it out until next weekend’s papers had a new story and he was in the clear. 

But I do also think it has accelerated and increased in scale and the setting of the bar for resignation has shifted greatly because of people like Johnson.

[ml1dch]

15 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

John Major’s ‘back to basics’ campaign was an attempt to reign in the scandals. It only taunted the newspapers in to publishing more things they already new about more shaggers and conmen.

There was an interesting interview with former Lib Dem MP Mark Oaten in The Spectator yesterday on that point - his sex scandal happened at the same time as Tory MP Greg Barker, there wasn't really any difference between the stories ("married man is actually a bit gay"). 

But because Mark Oaten's was happening in the context of Charles Kennedy's drink problems and Simon Hughes' sexuality it was a continuing part of a narrative that was being written. So one story is interesting and the other isn't.

So I think it's partly what you say - but also more basically - "right now, people are reading about and talking about this stuff so what else can we print about it to keep the stories going?"

 

[KentVillan]

27 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

It was in the mainstream press a couple of years ago, but went quiet as he launched his leadership bid, about the same time he became superman on the BBC.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/17/rishi-sunak-refuses-to-say-if-he-will-profit-from-moderna-covid-vaccine

 

Sure, but the claim is that he deliberately promoted the Moderna vaccine for personal profit, not that he still has equity in a hedge fund which invested in it.

Moderna has full authorisation across EU/UK, North America, Australia, etc.

Quote

 

Size of COVID-19 vaccine contracts between countries and manufacturers as of March 2021(in million doses)

Characteristic	AstraZeneca/Oxford	Novavax	Biontech/Pfizer	Gamaleya	Moderna	Johnson & Johnson
India	1,000	1,000	-	200	-	-
European Union	300	-	500	-	310	200
United States	300	110	300	-	300	100
Covax	300	-	-	-	-	-
United Kingdom	100	60	40	-	17	30

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1195885/covid-19-vaccines-by-contract-size/

This is from March 2021. The UK's Moderna contract doesn't look unusual compared with US and EU. 7% of ours was Moderna vs 24% of EU's and 27% of US's.

It's a non-story.

[KentVillan]

16 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

There was an interesting interview with former Lib Dem MP Mark Oaten in The Spectator yesterday on that point - his sex scandal happened at the same time as Tory MP Greg Barker, there wasn't really any difference between the stories ("married man is actually a bit gay"). 

But because Mark Oaten's was happening in the context of Charles Kennedy's drink problems and Simon Hughes' sexuality it was a continuing part of a narrative that was being written. So one story is interesting and the other isn't.

So I think it's partly what you say - but also more basically - "right now, people are reading about and talking about this stuff so what else can we print about it to keep the stories going?"

Well also, Mark Oaten was a more senior figure in his own party (Shadow Home Affairs spokesman), and he had been paying for sex, whereas Barker had no frontbench brief, and was having an affair with a man.

It still shouldn't have been a big deal, but it was a more obviously tabloid friendly story.

And the Lib Dems are massive hypocrites who will happily get rid of someone for stuff like this if they think it'll damage their chances of winning a byelection somewhere.