UK Politics Thread

[Pannonian]

A "FRAT house" atmosphere in Boris Johnson's flat and laxness around security led to restrictions on where top-secret papers could be viewed, it has been claimed.

Highly classified material was left lying around in 11 Downing Street where it could be read by any visitor, reported The Times.

Sue Gray, who is investigating lockdown parties held in Downing Street, found that some of Carrie Johnson’s friends had access to a Pin code giving access to the private flat above 11 Downing Street, according to claims being made in Whitehall.

Then top adviser Dominic Cummings is said to have found “STRAP” material lying around the flat in early 2020 – highly classified documents which only named individuals can view often requiring security clearance above Top Secret.

The papers can easily be spotted as they are printed on pink paper, and were also allegedly found at the upstairs quarters in Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country house.

Cummings and Johnson’s principal private secretary Martin Reynolds responded by having Johnson sign sensitive papers in his office before they were returned to a safe location.

One source told The Times that Johnson’s ministerial box with crucial documents was left outside his flat’s door on Saturdays, “often” from the morning until evening.

Another described the scene in 11 Downing Street where Carrie entertained friends as “a frat house”.

A former No 10 official said: “Cummings was dismayed that very highly classified STRAP material was not kept in the PM’s box but was lying around the flat, and upstairs in Chequers, in such a way that Carrie could see it and potentially her journalist friends and other guests when they were invited to the flat and Chequers. There had been a series of leaks of national security issues.”

A spokesman for No 10 did not say whether the extra security measures around the papers were still in place.

He said: “We do not comment on security matters.”

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19...nson-revealed/

Wouldn't this be grounds for summary sacking in any other job, let alone the job with supposedly the highest security rating in the country?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Wouldn't this be grounds for summary sacking in any other job, let alone the job with supposedly the highest security rating in the country?

One of my wife's favorite complaints. Private sector folk working with classified information can end up fired or even jailed for failing to secure classified materials. Our leadership cadres, by contrast, get to read globs of it and even leak some of it to the press and seldom if ever receive even a reprimand.

More equal pigs and all that....

[Pannonian]

One of my wife's favorite complaints. Private sector folk working with classified information can end up fired or even jailed for failing to secure classified materials. Our leadership cadres, by contrast, get to read globs of it and even leak some of it to the press and seldom if ever receive even a reprimand.

More equal pigs and all that....

The problem is no one even knows if it's been leaked. At least a leak is by definition controlled. The classified materials were left lying in the open while his wife's friends had access to areas where the materials had been lying in the open. Under this PM, state secrets have been a buffet, where you help yourself.

It should be noted that, when Johnson was foreign secretary under May, the security services warned May not to give her foreign secretary the usual access to secure information, as he couldn't be trusted.

[Montmorency]

Which, unfortunately, proves my point. People are upset because someone government mandated broke lockdown measures and of course, the ugly optics of enforcing harsh measures and then not following them. Which is entirely understandable and a very fair point.

Why is it such an uproar, particularly now? To an outsider that is subscribed to a dozen paying international news outlets, the constant bombardment of stories about the drunken booze parties is bizarre. There's a bazillion other important issues that deserve an uproar, such as the breakdown of relations with the EU, bad trade relations, shortages of medical equipment, fuel shortages when you had to bring the Army in, wealth disparity, acrimonious political divide, Scotland threatening to break away, Ireland talking again of Troubles... issues which have a huge impact in both societal level and personal level.

That deserves an uproar, a constant one even, these are heavy heavy issues which both sides should care about.

And yet... we're talking about a booze party. And the fact that they sent for more wine. Which many other people have done, breaking the rules as well. Endless scores of politicians have broken rules and very few have been in the constant news over a party like this.

Please, I am all open to hearing ideas and opinions, because to me - as an outsider, but one who is glued to international & national politics 24/7 and who even works in politics in a way - it is odd. I feel like I'm not fully understand.ing

There's a kernel of truth to it.

every time i hear about UK current events it's incomprehensibly bonkers. it's always like "Secretary of Finance Lord Billy Frumpton is under fire for allegedly eating toffee"

But I would expect the long strand of reporting on general Conservative malgovernance, also passim, played a role in sensitizing the British public. It would be one thing for a government's approval to crash over wounded decorum, but it's never just one thing.

My knowledge of the world suggests that discrete events can't linger in polled public memory for long however, and two years is a very long time.


On the subject of British institutions, perhaps this is accountable to my terrible ignorance of British history, but I would ask to be updated on the concrete record of the Lords and monarch acting as government ombudsmen without being ombudsmen.

I can't think of any theoretical mechanism of how that would operate - the purifying aura of the essential nobleness of the aristocracy? My understanding of the universal process in societal proscription of corruption is that changes in law and culture must combine with the establishment of explicit anti-corruption authorities to oversee government and taxation, a process unsurprisingly familiar to Britain.

The connection to Lords or monarch remains unclear to me, whereas you have on the record such cases as the slave-interested Lords leaning into their conflict of interest to strike down dozens of parliamentary campaigns to curtail British slavery over half a century.

What would the Lords or Queen be doing about Tories stealing government money had they more, unspecified, authority? By default the norm is, if one enjoys vulgar cynicism, them all being in on it, but again assuming the interest to act as Special Individuals, what is the mechanism by which the Lords or the Queen would act against malfeasance? The Queen has self-preservation as an imperative, but neither have good government.

Was there ever a past mechanism, no-longer-extant, that could be imputed to the British system?

It should be more than the enormous power of persuasion the House lof Lords currently attributes to itself.

Holding government to account
Members scrutinise the work of the government during question time and debates in the chamber, where government ministers must respond. In the 2016-17 session, members held the government to account with 7,380 oral and written questions and 154 debates on topical issues and public policy ranging from the role of libraries and independent bookshops to the impact of Brexit on the NHS and social care. The public is welcome to visit and sit in the galleries overlooking the chamber during business.

What has the Lords changed?
Making a difference in recent years, the House of Lords has persuaded the government to make policy changes on a diverse range of issues. These include:

delaying cuts to tax credits until protections for low paid workers are in place
relocating unaccompanied refugee children from Europe to the UK
safeguards for immigration-related detention of vulnerable people, particularly pregnant women
electronic voting for industrial action ballots
protecting landlord and tenant money in a client money protection scheme for property agents
banning smoking in cars that carry children
ensuring that children with special educational needs are afforded the same legal protection in academies as in other mainstream schools.

On the other hand, the fact that the public gets to expose, probably avert or diminish, many episodes of ongoing corruption feels preferable to a system in which nothing rises to the surface unless it happens to impinge on someone else's racket and thereby violate the elite Omerta. Even Israel somehow managed to evict an authoritarian goon and is finishing up the fraud, bribery, etc. trial against him, and the Israeli electorate and parliament are at least as diseased as any.

The stability and success of political systems is well-known to be built on citizen-built and secured public institutions, and the impulse to succor in the bosom of technocratic/aristocratic 'virtue' is more likely a failure state, not a solution.



Ultimately the best defense against corruption or other antisocial behavior in the public realm is for it not to happen in the first place.

[Pannonian]

There's a kernel of truth to it.




But I would expect the long strand of reporting on general Conservative malgovernance, also passim, played a role in sensitizing the British public. It would be one thing for a government's approval to crash over wounded decorum, but it's never just one thing.

My knowledge of the world suggests that discrete events can't linger in polled public memory for long however, and two years is a very long time.


On the subject of British institutions, perhaps this is accountable to my terrible ignorance of British history, but I would ask to be updated on the concrete record of the Lords and monarch acting as government ombudsmen without being ombudsmen.

I can't think of any theoretical mechanism of how that would operate - the purifying aura of the essential nobleness of the aristocracy? My understanding of the universal process in societal proscription of corruption is that changes in law and culture must combine with the establishment of explicit anti-corruption authorities to oversee government and taxation, a process unsurprisingly familiar to Britain.

The connection to Lords or monarch remains unclear to me, whereas you have on the record such cases as the slave-interested Lords leaning into their conflict of interest to strike down dozens of parliamentary campaigns to curtail British slavery over half a century.

What would the Lords or Queen be doing about Tories stealing government money had they more, unspecified, authority? By default the norm is, if one enjoys vulgar cynicism, them all being in on it, but again assuming the interest to act as Special Individuals, what is the mechanism by which the Lords or the Queen would act against malfeasance? The Queen has self-preservation as an imperative, but neither have good government.

Was there ever a past mechanism, no-longer-extant, that could be imputed to the British system?

It should be more than the enormous power of persuasion the House lof Lords currently attributes to itself.





On the other hand, the fact that the public gets to expose, probably avert or diminish, many episodes of ongoing corruption feels preferable to a system in which nothing rises to the surface unless it happens to impinge on someone else's racket and thereby violate the elite Omerta. Even Israel somehow managed to evict an authoritarian goon and is finishing up the fraud, bribery, etc. trial against him, and the Israeli electorate and parliament are at least as diseased as any.

The stability and success of political systems is well-known to be built on citizen-built and secured public institutions, and the impulse to succor in the bosom of technocratic/aristocratic 'virtue' is more likely a failure state, not a solution.



Ultimately the best defense against corruption or other antisocial behavior in the public realm is for it not to happen in the first place.

The Lords aren't the aristocracy. They used to be, until they were cleared out under Blair. There are some left, but not many, and chiefly those who are motivated to be involved in politics. The Lords is overwhelmingly appointees by the Commons government.

The recent record, ie. under the Tory government since 2010, sees the Lords as nearly always on the progressive side of the government. While we have a Trumpian government in the Commons, the Lords is politically somewhere around the Democrats/liberal Republicans.

As for what mechanism the Lords has for ensuring good governance: a belief in good government. I've bemoaned how the Tories jettison custom and abuse the system. The Lords still believes in responsibility and holding the country together. The One Nationers are still there, finding more common cause with the opposition than they do the Commons government.

[Pannonian]

Is there any good reason why Johnson is refusing to commit to publishing the full report? Other than because he can, that is.

[Pannonian]

Hah! The PM previously refused to answer questions because the report was undergoing, now refuses to answer because there is an ongoing police investigation. The civil servant is not allowed to write too much in her report because there is an ongoing investigation. And the police have promised that the investigation won't take more than a year.

It must be nice for a PM not to have to answer questions because he can hide behind his mates. Do we even need checks and balances any more?

[spmetla]

Assuming he does resign at some point who would be the likely Tory nominee for PM? I assume that there won't be demand for fresh elections just now.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co...boris-22877621

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is the current favourite to be the next prime minister, and has been for some time now.

Earlier this month, a poll of Conservative members suggested nearly half believe Mr Sunak would make a better leader.

The YouGov poll of 1,005 Tory members for Sky News suggested 46 per cent believe the chancellor would be a better leader and could win more seats at the next general election.

After the PM issued his apology for attending the No 10 garden party, Mr Sunak's hours of silence were seen by some as a suggestion that he was not fully behind the prime minister.

What do you folks think of this guy? As an American I've got zero clue as to who he is.

[rory_20_uk]

Dear old Rishi is a man with a brilliant career in Finance for many years and he's done a decent job in the Treasury. His wife's family is worth hundreds of millions.

I think he'd be a much better PM. But then I think a random person in the UK would probably be a better PM. It took a man such as Corbyn to propel Boris to high office.

My only concern is that he hasn't proved himself outside of Finance, that he is where he would excel and he would almost be "wasted" as PM. But which politician doesn't want the top job if they could grab it? He might not have proved himself, but he seems erudite, affable and a positive step in the right direction.

I still think on balance I'd rather have Sir Kier though.

[Pannonian]

Is libel applicable in Parliament? Johnson has made an allegation which factcheckers have established is baseless, which relevant sources have called a disgrace to Parliament and the office of PM, and which Johnson's own advisors asked him not to make. So the PM is guilty of lying to Parliament, hypocrisy in setting rules that he doesn't follow himself, and now libel as well. Does his office protect him from everything?

[Montmorency]

The Lords aren't the aristocracy. They used to be, until they were cleared out under Blair. There are some left, but not many, and chiefly those who are motivated to be involved in politics. The Lords is overwhelmingly appointees by the Commons government.

The recent record, ie. under the Tory government since 2010, sees the Lords as nearly always on the progressive side of the government. While we have a Trumpian government in the Commons, the Lords is politically somewhere around the Democrats/liberal Republicans.

As for what mechanism the Lords has for ensuring good governance: a belief in good government. I've bemoaned how the Tories jettison custom and abuse the system. The Lords still believes in responsibility and holding the country together. The One Nationers are still there, finding more common cause with the opposition than they do the Commons government.

My commentary regarded the yearning toward aristocratic governance. I didn't say that the Lords are nobility. But speaking of them, what is your expectation for the future of the House of Lords in mitigating Conservative government? What if the members come to act differently than you prefer? And what role does or should your new Supreme Court have in all this going forward?

Hah! The PM previously refused to answer questions because the report was undergoing, now refuses to answer because there is an ongoing police investigation. The civil servant is not allowed to write too much in her report because there is an ongoing investigation. And the police have promised that the investigation won't take more than a year.

It must be nice for a PM not to have to answer questions because he can hide behind his mates. Do we even need checks and balances any more?

The report can't be revealed because it's being audited by the IRS.

[Pannonian]

My commentary regarded the yearning toward aristocratic governance. I didn't say that the Lords are nobility. But speaking of them, what is your expectation for the future of the House of Lords in mitigating Conservative government? What if the members come to act differently than you prefer? And what role does or should your new Supreme Court have in all this going forward?

The report can't be revealed because it's being audited by the IRS.

The Lords won't be acting radically differently in the near to medium term because its members are there for life. There won't be a drastic turnover to change its character. So I can judge its future behaviour by its past behaviour. In the past decade, which will have involved the same people who will be involved in the future, it has been on the progressive and moderate side of the Tory government, and has pretty much always been on the side of dealing with factual argument, precedent, legality both domestically and internationally, and just about all I'd expect from good non-partisan governance.

During this period, the democratically elected Commons has been breaking agreements all over the place, lied to get into power, and with this particular PM, has been lying in Parliament as a matter of course.

And you want me to get all het up about the undemocratic Lords.

BTW, our wonderful media which has spawned our beloved democratically elected government called dissenting judges "Enemies of the People", a few months after one of our MPs was murdered whilst campaigning. IIRC a poster dismissed this headline as unrepresentative of the government. Some time after that dismissal, the government (under the current PM) employed the journalist as communications director. So that kind of political intimidation of the judiciary is approved of by this government. The question is not what kind of role I think the judiciary should have going forward. The question is what kind of role will the judiciary be allowed by the government going forward. Since the government has the authority of the people, whereas the judiciary only has the authority of the law.

[Furunculus]

Thought this was quite good:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/...tics-backfire/

Gosh, Boris Johnson is a lucky man. If only his opponents both inside and outside his party were more disciplined and less self-righteous, they would be much deadlier. Yesterday in Parliament, the Prime Minister benefited greatly from the double apparatus of civil service and police inquiries which his enemies had called for because they believed it would discredit him.

Sue Gray’s masterly report made disapproving noises – “serious failure”, the need for “significant learning”, “excessive consumption of alcohol” – but announced it could not go into any specifics “without detriment to the overall balance of the findings”. She just had to wait for the police, she said.

This made it easy for Boris to say he was very sorry without having to say what for, to accept Ms Gray’s report “in full”, when there was nothing full about it, and to get back to “the issues that matter to the British people” (a phrase beloved of politicians when in a tight spot).

So poor Sir Keir Starmer was trapped. He could not mount the sort of forensic attack for which his legal career prepared him, because the evidence is locked up by the police. He therefore attempted an assassination of Boris’s character. There are plenty of takers for that, of course. But when you attack a man for things you claim he has done “all his life” (Sir Keir’s words), you cease to persuade waverers and become merely insulting. As Tony Blair recalled after watching Mrs Thatcher survive an attack by Neil Kinnock in the great 1986 debate over the Westland crisis, “She thought the guillotine was going to come. Instead she got the reprieve.”

Whether Boris actually deserves the reprieve is a question which clearly still puzzles some of his colleagues; but yesterday he survived, and looked slightly stronger than before.

[Pannonian]

There you go. A right wing piece on how the government have locked up the process, and thinking how amusing it is rather than identifying it as an abuse of the system.

[Pannonian]

And the PM admits that what he said in the Commons to smear the Labour leader had no factual basis whatsoever, after several days of his spokesperson saying that he stood by what he said. Probably because he knows (and everyone else does), that if he said it outside Parliament, he'd have his butt sued off for libel. Still, it's done his job, and the right wing lunatic conspiracy theory is out in the mainstream.

Meanwhile, the leader of the SNP's Westminster contingent is kicked out of the Commons for calling the PM a liar (something which Johnson's previous employers have all known and sacked him for). Parliament's rules were designed when it was assumed that all members were gentlemen who may be mistaken, but would not knowingly lie. How does it deal with a PM and party who will knowingly lie whilst hiding behind Parliament's privileges, as long as it gets votes?

[Furunculus]

Boris's brain resigns over the slur:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...my-savile-slur

[Pannonian]

In Northern Ireland, the First Minister has resigned due to the UK government's failure on Brexit. Jeffery Donaldson says Boris Johnson promised him there would be a revised deal with Brussels in 3 short sharp weeks of negotiations. 4 months, and it was time to act.

Oh, and the bloke in charge of stats on UK crime has rebuked the PM for misleading use of stats in PMQs. Crime has not decreased as the PM claims, it has increased.

And the headcount is 4 so far tonight. The policy head says she resigned over his slur, but the current agreed line amongst Tory MPs (as someone screenshotted on Whatsapp) is that Johnson is being decisive in firing his aides.

[Furunculus]

The policy head says she resigned over his slur, but the current agreed line amongst Tory MPs (as someone screenshotted on Whatsapp) is that Johnson is being decisive in firing his aides.

you don't fire the likes of Munira Mirza - she was the brains of the outfit.
the only sensible view is that she resigned, and did so for the reasons she stated in her resignation letter.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...owning-street/

"Mirza, Boris Johnson’s policy chief and, some would say, his political muse, co-wrote the Conservative Party manifesto that delivered a landslide win for Johnson (also killing the Corbynite dream of a socialist Britain) and shapes the Government decisions that dictate everything from your liberties to your taxes."

[rory_20_uk]

you don't fire the likes of Munira Mirza - she was the brains of the outfit.
the only sensible view is that she resigned, and did so for the reasons she stated in her resignation letter.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...owning-street/

If she's the brains she'd rather the narrative be she resigned over principle rather than was fired over attending a series of parties.

[Pannonian]

Apparently there is concrete evidence that there was a party at Downing Street and that the PM was actively participating, which makes his 8th December denial a case of knowingly lying to Parliament, with documentary evidence. Not just any old evidence either. Photos taken by his official photographer. Who the hell has an official photographer?

The chancellor was there too.

[Montmorency]

you don't fire the likes of Munira Mirza - she was the brains of the outfit.

Johnson fired his other brains, Dominic Cummings.

[Pannonian]

It's just occurred to me, watching the latest Jonathan Pie, that our Lords is mostly Commons appointees, while the leader of the elected Commons is the descendant of a Turkish aristocrat.

[Furunculus]

Johnson fired his other brains, Dominic Cummings.

i think we can all agree that Cummings is in a class all of his own.

brilliant, yes, but a loose cannon with no concept of discretion.

[Pannonian]

i think we can all agree that Cummings is in a class all of his own.

brilliant, yes, but a loose cannon with no concept of discretion.

Maybe not brilliant, but our PM is also known to be a loose cannon with no concept of discretion. The security services advised our then PM (Theresa May) not to give her foreign secretary the normal access to state secrets, as he couldn't be trusted.

[Pannonian]

Keir Starmer rescued by police after being mobbed by anti-vaxxers outside Parliament

Officers were forced to step in and take the Labour leader to safety as the crowd shouted abuse and false claims about Jimmy Savile

This is the kind of politics the PM has brought to the UK. Despite people urging him not to use that attack line because it was false. How long will Johnson remain PM?

[Pannonian]

The PM's new director of communications is a Huawei lobbyist, who's directly lobbied no.10 before for that company. Security clearance for that level normally takes weeks even when accelerated, but it's been waived for someone who works for a company that the security services deem a threat to the country.

Do people really hate the EU that much that they'd rather sell out the country to China than to have any kind of links with Europe?

[rory_20_uk]

The PM's new director of communications is a Huawei lobbyist, who's directly lobbied no.10 before for that company. Security clearance for that level normally takes weeks even when accelerated, but it's been waived for someone who works for a company that the security services deem a threat to the country.

Do people really hate the EU that much that they'd rather sell out the country to China than to have any kind of links with Europe?

The first paragraph - completely valid. Not exactly a new problem - and one that has not been addressed for decades. We celebrate the Queen being present for 70 years. But she was present for this entire time. Perhaps she might not have been able to stop the rot - but as things stand it appears she hasn't even tried.

Second paragraph - aaaaaand you're back.

[Pannonian]

Ian Paisley Jr: "Maybe the Conservative and Unionist Party is actually a nationalist party. An English nationalist Party."

Ian Paisley Jr, DUP MP, speaking on the lack of concern of the British PM for the divided Northern Ireland community.

[Furunculus]

Keir Starmer rescued by police after being mobbed by anti-vaxxers outside Parliament



This is the kind of politics the PM has brought to the UK. Despite people urging him not to use that attack line because it was false. How long will Johnson remain PM?

we can accept that it was a crass remark without needing to jump the shark in suggesting that he coordinated it with 'the fascist right', otherwise we'll have to blame Boris for the same thing happening to Gove'y last year:

https://twitter.com/PetroNicolaides/...14495979728897

[Pannonian]

we can accept that it was a crass remark without needing to jump the shark in suggesting that he coordinated it with 'the fascist right', otherwise we'll have to blame Boris for the same thing happening to Gove'y last year:

https://twitter.com/PetroNicolaides/...14495979728897

It's what insiders, including "Boris's Brain", said happened. Should we dismiss these primary sources?