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Hard to believe anyone could have done worse imho.

In terms of bullying, i completely agree with you when both sides are equal. However, definition of a bullying is where two adults/kids are not equal. In the case of patel, she is the employer, a position of power. Her behaviour should be beneath that of an ordinary employer, much less a great office of state. There are plenty of legal processes to use if she feels her people were not up to the job.

Bojo's failure to fire her shows how weak he really is, not to mention the absolute moral bankruptcy of it. Its an embarrassment to the nation and another piece of evidence, if more were.needed, of their utter unsuitibility to govern.

Only one phrase is appropriate and it's one we all know very well...

Bloody disgrace.

Compare and contrast:

Corbyn appears to have always treated people with courtesy and respect, even when they screamed abuse at him. Might cover a multitude of sins, but all he's actually accused of is failing to instantly repair a poor complaints system, when as party leader he's not meant to interfere. Kind of a catch-22.

For this he's suspended from the party, and Starmer appears intent on chucking him out (even though that means he's now the leader interfering with the disciplinary process).

Patel shouts, screams and swears at staff, but her party leader ignores the report and backs her to the hilt.

Kind of proves a point Pope made somewhere, that the right succeed by being thoroughly nasty while the left are handicapped by trying to be decent human beings.
 
And decent human beings brings me back to 'The apartment'.

A light comedy that includes a suicide attempt, that punches you in the gut several times, that rips your heart out and tramples on it before stuffing it back in your chest. A film as cynical as you could wish for and as tender as thistledown. I was in tears as soon as Shirley MacLaine's character started baring her soul.

Billy Wilder, a Polish Jew, went to Hollywood in 1933 as a screenwriter. Back home, his mother, grandmother and stepfather were killed in the Holocaust. His films often contain characters faced with extreme moral dilemmas, and I wonder if that reflects some survivor guilt.

But that line - 'Be a mensch!' is a universal motto, with no tribalism or bitterness.

It's also delivered to a character who's not to blame, but who has to pretend to be responsible for a woman's suicide attempt. Partly to protect others, and partly to protect his own career prospects. No easy black/white answers here.

That's why I'd say Billy Wilder is a genius. And why I suspect the people who went to great lengths to damn Corbyn as an anti-semite probably deserve to burn in hell.
 
Compare and contrast:

Corbyn appears to have always treated people with courtesy and respect, even when they screamed abuse at him. Might cover a multitude of sins, but all he's actually accused of is failing to instantly repair a poor complaints system, when as party leader he's not meant to interfere. Kind of a catch-22.

For this he's suspended from the party, and Starmer appears intent on chucking him out (even though that means he's now the leader interfering with the disciplinary process).

Patel shouts, screams and swears at staff, but her party leader ignores the report and backs her to the hilt.

Kind of proves a point Pope made somewhere, that the right succeed by being thoroughly nasty while the left are handicapped by trying to be decent human beings.
Corbyn could get proper shirty as soon as he was asked a question he didn't like. Let's not pretend he's a saint. He was also prone to just putting off decisions rather than being decisive.

The Patel episode is diluted somewhat by being just another episode in the gutter of Johnson's government. Nothing will ever sink as low as the Cummings affair, in which most Tory ministers (not, to be fair, Patel) sold their souls to Johnson for jobs and loyality when they fucked up (ahem, RH member for Newark...)

The reality is, voters knew Johnson would be like this. They voted for him with all the lying, cronyism, gaslighting and corruption priced in. He gets away with it because a) ultimately there is little voters can do about it and b) many people knew they were voting for this and still chose Johnson over Corbyn.
 
Corbyn could get proper shirty as soon as he was asked a question he didn't like. Let's not pretend he's a saint. He was also prone to just putting off decisions rather than being decisive.

The Patel episode is diluted somewhat by being just another episode in the gutter of Johnson's government. Nothing will ever sink as low as the Cummings affair, in which most Tory ministers (not, to be fair, Patel) sold their souls to Johnson for jobs and loyality when they fucked up (ahem, RH member for Newark...)

The reality is, voters knew Johnson would be like this. They voted for him with all the lying, cronyism, gaslighting and corruption priced in. He gets away with it because a) ultimately there is little voters can do about it and b) many people knew they were voting for this and still chose Johnson over Corbyn.

I'm sure you're right about Corbyn, but my focus is on the EHRC report, which seems to have blamed him for not dealing with allegations of antisemitism quickly enough. It said that this was all about FB posts shared and tweets retweeted. No mention of actual antisemitic comments aimed at actual people (nor any evidence of social media activity disparaging Jews in general).

So hard to see how or why he should have intervened to speed things up - and he wasn't meant to, anyway, and was criticised by the EHRC for doing so...he can't win. Starmer (for perfectly understandable political reasons) treats him as if he'd given a Nazi salute. When Corbyn's reinstated, Starmer does exactly what the EHRC forbade, and interferes. Bad move.

Patel, on the other hand, faced specific, concrete charges of bullying. The report tried to minimise them but still found her guilty. BJ exonerated her.
 
I'm sure you're right about Corbyn, but my focus is on the EHRC report, which seems to have blamed him for not dealing with allegations of antisemitism quickly enough. It said that this was all about FB posts shared and tweets retweeted. No mention of actual antisemitic comments aimed at actual people (nor any evidence of social media activity disparaging Jews in general).

So hard to see how or why he should have intervened to speed things up - and he wasn't meant to, anyway, and was criticised by the EHRC for doing so...he can't win. Starmer (for perfectly understandable political reasons) treats him as if he'd given a Nazi salute. When Corbyn's reinstated, Starmer does exactly what the EHRC forbade, and interferes. Bad move.

Patel, on the other hand, faced specific, concrete charges of bullying. The report tried to minimise them but still found her guilty. BJ exonerated her.
Yes, which is a weakness in ministerial scrutiny. Unbelievably, the PM is the ultimate arbiter of whether a minister has broken the ministerial code. It's hard to determine quite when the PM was invested with such presidential power.

Therefore it is encumbant on a PM to be honest and willing to do the right thing, regardless of it's convenience to them. Clearly a problem with the current PM.

We would need either an honest Tory government (lol) or an honest labour one to put this right. So we probably need to put the past to bed, however that might need to be achieved.
 
Yes, which is a weakness in ministerial scrutiny. Unbelievably, the PM is the ultimate arbiter of whether a minister has broken the ministerial code. It's hard to determine quite when the PM was invested with such presidential power.

Therefore it is encumbant on a PM to be honest and willing to do the right thing, regardless of it's convenience to them. Clearly a problem with the current PM.

We would need either an honest Tory government (lol) or an honest labour one to put this right. So we probably need to put the past to bed, however that might need to be achieved.
Agreed.

Right now, I feel angry enough about the scapegoating of Corbyn to say 'Sod it, I'll vote Green next time' - and really, if they're the closest party to how I feel, I should do so.

But I hope Labour will still heal itself well enough to earn my vote, as a realistic alternative to the Tories.

I'm sure there are some quite nasty hard left types around, but I don't buy the narrative of 'The Left' as antisemitic. So I worry that Starmer will alienate a lot of good party members if he tries to punish Corbyn unduly.

I may even join the Labour party and try going to meetings. That would fill up my empty life...not convinced though.

My version of 'the personal is political' is 'what I do makes a difference', and I distrust all political dogma.
 
Agreed.

Right now, I feel angry enough about the scapegoating of Corbyn to say 'Sod it, I'll vote Green next time' - and really, if they're the closest party to how I feel, I should do so.

But I hope Labour will still heal itself well enough to earn my vote, as a realistic alternative to the Tories.

I'm sure there are some quite nasty hard left types around, but I don't buy the narrative of 'The Left' as antisemitic. So I worry that Starmer will alienate a lot of good party members if he tries to punish Corbyn unduly.

I may even join the Labour party and try going to meetings. That would fill up my empty life...not convinced though.

My version of 'the personal is political' is 'what I do makes a difference', and I distrust all political dogma.


The left is antisemitic trope is the same shite that the Far Right, some centrists, Trump, Brietbart, Conservatives, Republicans, Anti BLM etc cretins use with ANTIFA

It is a method to try and shut people down by blaming them of the very thing they are guilty of
 
Corbyn could get proper shirty as soon as he was asked a question he didn't like. Let's not pretend he's a saint. He was also prone to just putting off decisions rather than being decisive.

The Patel episode is diluted somewhat by being just another episode in the gutter of Johnson's government. Nothing will ever sink as low as the Cummings affair, in which most Tory ministers (not, to be fair, Patel) sold their souls to Johnson for jobs and loyality when they fucked up (ahem, RH member for Newark...)

The reality is, voters knew Johnson would be like this. They voted for him with all the lying, cronyism, gaslighting and corruption priced in. He gets away with it because a) ultimately there is little voters can do about it and b) many people knew they were voting for this and still chose Johnson over Corbyn.

Sad to say there is a good deal of truth there. But I'll tell u what, just as trump was not immune, neither is johnson. He gets away with it because of a and b but u missed c) they believe johnsons bullshit wont affect THEM

Obviously it takes some people longer than others to work out what is happening to them.and why. Once the yanks worked out large numbers of them were dying and losing their jobs the chickens came home to roost. I predict johnson will face the same- it was cool to vote nasty when the alternative was corbyn and u didnt believe it would affect u. Neither of things are true now.
 
Sad to say there is a good deal of truth there. But I'll tell u what, just as trump was not immune, neither is johnson. He gets away with it because of a and b but u missed c) they believe johnsons bullshit wont affect THEM

Obviously it takes some people longer than others to work out what is happening to them.and why. Once the yanks worked out large numbers of them were dying and losing their jobs the chickens came home to roost. I predict johnson will face the same- it was cool to vote nasty when the alternative was corbyn and u didnt believe it would affect u. Neither of things are true now.
You've got an excellent point there.

Johnson knows that people will sooner or later feel betrayed by him, if they don't already.

But the Cummings strategy has been to manouvre people into an attitude of "politicians are all the same so it won't make any difference".

Mr Starmer has a big task ahead of him to shatter that attitude. If Mr Corbyn has to be sacrificed to get people to notice and put a clear separation between him and Johnson, then so be it.
 
Skwawkbox, in my experience, appears to be largely fake news, as Breitbart is.

Much to my surprise, on researching the Canary actually has a very high rating in terms of passing fact checks; I therefore I'm happy to withdraw my comments about that site's equivalency with alt right media. Ther eis no doubt that the far left has its own echo chambers just as the alt right does; it's just that my experience of far left echo chambers is that they spend far more time attacking people they consider to not be left enough than they do people on the right. Meanwhile, the right is pretty concentrated in its meme based attacks on the left.

There is no evidence of any forces working to remove Corbyn. Right wing media did not like him and did not want him in power because they felt he would seriously harm theirs (and everyone else's) interests. There is nothing clandestine or shadowy about that.

The forces that removed Theresa May as PM are far more sinister. And remember that Mr Corbyn was not removed from his position. Recent tradition is that a leader resigns if his MPs have no confidence in him or if they lose an election. Mr Corbyn defied both if those valuable conventions for his own ends and convenience. That he resigned after two election defeats, the latter a historically disastrous one, is neither a conspiracy nor a surprise. It was simply Mr Corbyn doing the right thing after trying literally everything else.

It has been like this for as long as I can remember.
I used to be in Socialist Alliance, we used to argue with Socialist Workers Party; this was at a time after 17 consecutive years of Tory governments.
Ahh, salad days.
 
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Yes, which is a weakness in ministerial scrutiny. Unbelievably, the PM is the ultimate arbiter of whether a minister has broken the ministerial code. It's hard to determine quite when the PM was invested with such presidential power.

Therefore it is encumbant on a PM to be honest and willing to do the right thing, regardless of it's convenience to them. Clearly a problem with the current PM.

We would need either an honest Tory government (lol) or an honest labour one to put this right. So we probably need to put the past to bed, however that might need to be achieved.

The Ministerial Code mirrors some of the constitutional rules and conventions set out in other documents, including the Cabinet Manual and Civil Service Code. As such, it is not legally binding, though there is increasing pressure for it to be.

A form of the code has existed since WW2, though it was only made public when it was published during the 'Cash for questions' malarkey by John Major in 1992. It was renamed the Ministerial Code under Tony Blair in 1997.
 
The Ministerial Code mirrors some of the constitutional rules and conventions set out in other documents, including the Cabinet Manual and Civil Service Code. As such, it is not legally binding, though there is increasing pressure for it to be.

A form of the code has existed since WW2, though it was only made public when it was published during the 'Cash for questions' malarkey by John Major in 1992. It was renamed the Ministerial Code under Tony Blair in 1997.
Cash for Questions. Such innocent times. I long for that kind of sleaze.
 
Cash for Questions. Such innocent times. I long for that kind of sleaze.

Great news about the Oxford vaccine.
Science is coming up with the goods again.

Was loving the negative spin this morning when it broke re: 70%.
The smallest of research would have shown the real story. Our press are awful sometimes.

The consequences of this story will be people misquoting 'only 70% efficacy' for a good time to come, unfortunately.

Sigh.
 
Great news about the Oxford vaccine.
Science is coming up with the goods again.

Was loving the negative spin this morning when it broke re: 70%.
The smallest of research would have shown the real story. Our press are awful sometimes.

The consequences of this story will be people misquoting 'only 70% efficacy' for a good time to come, unfortunately.

Sigh.

Pfizer as saying there's has 94% efficacy and Moderna are saying 90%.

Personally as someone who is not high risk, I'd like to give it a bit of time to see how these vaccines get on.
 
Excellent news all round.

Great for UK manufacturing and for the climate.
Who knew Brexit could be so progressive?

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ee-uk-manufacturers-bringing-it-all-back-home

Yes, fantastic news if you dont mind working 20 hours a day for £1.50 a hour:

"Signs of the trend have already emerged with online fashion site Asos making its new lower priced AsYou range at approved factories in Leicester."

You wont be able to move in North Evington for people queuing up for jobs.