I wouldn’t have watched it even if I was at home, but apparently Piers Morgan isn’t letting it go (according to a colleague who is working from home!).

I think this is the link:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/tv/gmbs-piers-morgan-takes-down-18341168

Yep, having someone like Piers on the case is not always a bad thing as he is well known for “not letting it lie”

I couldn’t help thinking watching him this morning that the outcome may have been different if he’d have been on last week

Gov lawyers have tried and failed to get Cummings name removed as a respondent in the tribunal for the sacking of Sajid Javid’s SPAD last year.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/01/government-fails-to-distance-dominic-cummings-from-sex-discrimination-case-boris-johnson

That’s it, keep the drip feed of stories. Hopefully some of the more morally sound in the conservative party will start applying pressure from within.

I think it’s much better for the opposition to keep Cummings around. If he resigns he’ll be gone and forgotten in a week, better to have him tied round the Tories’ necks to remind people of who they are.

I think it’s much better for the opposition to keep Cummings around. If he resigns he’ll be gone and forgotten in a week, better to have him tied round the Tories’ necks to remind people of who they are.

I have to say that I agree with that. He’s now the living embodiment of shameless entitlement and establishment exceptionalism. They’re certainly not going to be able to play their usual trick that they’re against ‘The Elite’, now its glaringly obvious to even the hardest of thinking that they ARE ‘The Elite’.

In March, as Magic Grandad bowed out, the Tories had a 26 point poll lead. Polling on Sunday now has that down to 4, and Joris Bohnsons personal ratings are (unsurprisingly) in freefall.

I think labour has played it clever and just kept pretty quiet and let Boris keep digging. I can’t wait to see the first PMQ’s after the parliamentary recess. Starmer should have a field day.

In other news; TJ will be settling his bet when his favourite mail-order pastry place has resumed their mail orders. Yummy! 😀

Seeing Cummings sacked would have been a lovely piece of schadenfreudde. Watching him stay is proving to be even more delicious. He is the gift that keeps on giving.

I wonder if there will be any new developments in tomorrow’s press?

Just got this response from my MP…

Thank you for contacting Amanda Solloway, MP for Derby North.

There are strict parliamentary protocols that stipulate that MPs can only engage with their own constituents in correspondence of this nature. In order to ensure that both high standards are maintained, and you receive an adequate response, can you please provide me with your postal address to ensure that you are a Derby North constituent.

Is this common, my paranoia thinks they want my address to red flag 😉

Common and normal Al

At least you had a direct reply, my bell end of a representative just put a statement on his website backing Cummings (no surprise as it was Rees mogg).

My one responded that members of the government shouldn’t be subject to judgement by social media.

I had to point out that he is NOT a member of the government.

****.

Zero reply from my so called MP….. Gove

zippykona
Subscriber
My one responded that members of the government shouldn’t be subject to judgement by social media.

He is absolutely spot on. He should be judged by our own fine upstanding, honest government for a fair and balanced view. 😏

If any of you live in Calder Valley, at least your MP tried even if he was ignored
https://twitter.com/PeterStefanovi2/status/1267807244382605314

I got asked to send my address and post code.

Mine (Tracy Crouch) replied personally and agreed with me but said she wouldn’t resign as she is a back bencher(i didn’t ask her to). She said she wasn’t into a lynch mob style of demanding his resignation as it was most unbecoming!! She did say she complained to her whip most vociferously though.

Thats funny, Tracey Crouch is also my MP and I was emailed a reply with a link to her Facebook page which had a statement that sat on the fence.

Mine (Edward ‘yes-man’ Argar the ‘serial candidate’) posted me a long but obviously cut and paste reply.

As if he needs principles, he’s in a safe seat that he has no connection to whatsoever. His only concern so far, I suspect, has been slurping the correct anuses to get there in the first place.

I’m in your neighbouring constituency, with Helen Grant as MP- she’s not making any comment.

Well i didn’t vote for her anyway, and i won’t be in the future. Seems Douglass Ross was the only one with a spine

Taken from the Johnson thread, probably bullshit from the bullshitter but raises all sorts of questions. I think the bit about weakening Cummings’ influence is just a sound bite.

So who, exactly, has been in charge and ‘direct control’ til now? https://t.co/tc0m2knLpX

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) June 2, 2020

Talking of ‘Yes-Man’ Argar…

He was just ripped a new one on R4 when he did the old tricks of either just answering a totally different question to the one actually asked and/or trotting out the party line whatever.

My initial thought was that it was no wonder he couldn’t reply to my emails either promptly or properly because he was too busy fluffing himself for his big interview.

But then I thought, what actual prep would be necessary? No need to research around to be able to answer questions when you have no intention of actually doing so.

****.

Glad to see the Tories are offering up their big hitters for a grilling on the Today programme. Sorry, ‘grilling’

I have a Tory MP, a Brexy, that I have never had much time for previously. And have fallen out with in previous email exchanges.

I got a clearly personal email back.
And he’s called for Cummings removal.
I doubt we’re ever going to agree on a huge range of things (I’m metropolitan, educated, affluent, centre-left type, hill-Walker and mountain-biker, he’s a Brexy, Tory, farmer), but praise where it’s due.

I got a clearly personal email back.
And he’s called for Cummings removal.
I doubt we’re ever going to agree on a huge range of things (I’m metropolitan, educated, affluent, centre-left type, hill-Walker and mountain-biker, he’s a Brexy, Tory, farmer), but praise where it’s due.

Maybe he actually gives a shit about his constituency, albeit in a misguided way?

Argar is someone who had decided politics is his career. If Labour had been in government for the last ten years he would have stood for them. He just parrots what his bosses want him to.

That R4 Argar interview did not go at all well. Is that the best of their media arsenal or are these minions acceptable little sacrifices whilst their boss is still sleeping it off in bed farting, getting a grip and having Churchillian thoughts.
To be fair, he did sound like a boy so we shouldn’t be too harsh.

Quite a relief to hear him really, I was convinced that Argar had been kidnapped and killed

I’m sure spaffa is being vigorously coached for this arvos PMQs as we speak. Or he’s writing some snappy zingers or soundbites on his forearm

I have a Tory MP, a Brexy, that I have never had much time for previously. And have fallen out with in previous email exchanges.

I got a clearly personal email back.
And he’s called for Cummings removal.

You have to remember that Cummings openly described ERG members as ‘useful idiots’ during the referendum campaign. This is just them trying to settle scores.

https://universalcreditsuffer.com/2020/06/02/durham-council-open-investigation-into-cummings-lockdown-cottage/

You have to remember that Cummings openly described ERG members as ‘useful idiots’ during the referendum campaign. This is just them trying to settle scores.

This. My MP is a Steve Baker enthusiast, so has been calling for Cummings to go from the start.

Lots of politics threads at the moment so I thought I’d post in this one.

I didn’t really follow politics until a few years ago when I started listening to R4 on my commute to and from work. This subsequently led to me taking an interest and even voting for the first time at 27 (shame on me I know) and in the few years I’ve been following events, they seem to be going from bad to worse and seem completely farcical at times. I am simultaneously fascinated and horrified by the way it all works.

So, my question to folks who have been following politics for far longer than me, has it always been like this? Will things pick up again? Will things get worse?

Either way PMQs will be interesting today.

No.
Possibly.
Possibly.

Social media in its current form is a big problem. It has provided an unregulated platform for politicos to spew all sorts of crap. A platform that many folks are both addicted to, and have made their only source of “news”. Toxic mix.

That R4 Argar interview did not go at all well. Is that the best of their media arsenal or are these minions acceptable little sacrifices whilst their boss is still sleeping it off in bed farting, getting a grip and having Churchillian thoughts.
To be fair, he did sound like a boy so we shouldn’t be too harsh.

He’s done well to dodge this ‘duty’ up until now.

He is a boy, he was born the day after me!

Social media in its current form is a big problem. It has provided an unregulated platform for politicos to spew all sorts of crap. A platform that many folks are both addicted to, and have made their only source of “news”. Toxic mix.

A million times this. I guess ‘we’ on here like to think we have a degree of awareness. Millions of people have been led into using FB notifications (which are obviously targeted to pander to certain existing prejudices) as their source of ‘news’.

We used to worry about the North Koreans employing brainwashing…

So, my question to folks who have been following politics for far longer than me, has it always been like this? Will things pick up again? Will things get worse?

Most folk will try to tell you years ago that politicians of previous generation were more public minded, had more integrity, were more honest, but that’s mostly horseshit.  You only have to look at a Hogarth or Gillray to understand that,  the only time in the modern era there has been much consensus was the 20 years or so post WW2, so to answer your questions

Yes.

What d’you mean by pick up? Get better? It’s interesting that in the Blair years, the common complaint was that the two main parties policies had just the merest hint of a difference between them, and folk complained about that as much as they about the “culture war” that we’re currently enjoying. so no, I don’t think it’ll get “better”, just different

Yes, undoubtedly. We’re running into a series of issues that previous generation(s) kicked down the road, disparity of wealth, industrial pollution, mass migration, climate change etc, that just need to be dealt with now, and our political structure are simply not set up well enough to deal with these monumental issues.

Social media in its current form is a big problem. It has provided an unregulated platform for politicos to spew all sorts of crap. A platform that many folks are both addicted to, and have made their only source of “news”. Toxic mix.

Maybe so, or maybe it has exposed the reality of the situation, that the established and embedded mwdia failed to reveal. Populism has gamed social media in many ways, but only because the establishment has left a moral vacuum for the populists to fill.

We have had 40+ years of lies that the elites were special, hard working geniuses that rewarding them benefited us all. Now it has been revealed that luck and opportunity is the major difference between success and failure. the “special ones” are actually of low intelligence, narcissistic, cowardly sociopaths who largely haven’t ever worked hard a day in their lives. Trunp and Bojo are normal for the city and wall street, they are not the outliers, educated beyond their intelligence, advanced because of family contacts, the old school tie and a few words of Latin, there is no meritocracy involved. They buy power and influence because they already have it.

What we need to now realise is that society works better together instead of leaning into the propaganda we have been brainwashed with all our lives, it is the majority that counts, that keeps it running and pushes us onward, not a few “special ones” (as proved by the shutdown). Working for the benefit of all was the success of the post war years, and the failure from Thatcherism onward. unfortunately they dismantled the mechanisms for unity and now we need to fight for its return.