Owen Paterson

[Stranger Mouse]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... SApp_Other

Paterson is actually trying to blame the investigation for his wife taking her own life which is staggering.

I note the Telegraph headline is that another pro Brexit MP is a victim of a flawed and unjust system but I’m afraid I was laughing so much I didn’t read beyond that.

[bjn]

He gets a 30 day holiday. Such a harsh punishment.

[Lew Dolby]

He is, FSM help us, our MP. He is and always has been a complete waste of oxygen. Spends more time with his right-wing mates in the US than in the constituency.

And he runs questionable funding through his "think tank" so the funders aren't declared to Parliament. Could be any foreign criminals you care to name.

[jdc]

He is, FSM help us, our MP. He is and always has been a complete waste of oxygen. Spends more time with his right-wing mates in the US than in the constituency.

And he runs questionable funding through his "think tank" so the funders aren't declared to Parliament. Could be any foreign criminals you care to name.

you can organise a recall vote now though. Good luck.

[Tessa K]

He gets a 30 day holiday. Such a harsh punishment.

With or without pay, I wonder.

[plodder]

He gets a 30 day holiday. Such a harsh punishment.

With or without pay, I wonder.

pay from who?

I’d imagine his sidelines will keep ticking over nicely. Guys like him aren’t bothered about the £60k salary or whatever it is.

[Tessa K]

He gets a 30 day holiday. Such a harsh punishment.

With or without pay, I wonder.

pay from who?

I’d imagine his sidelines will keep ticking over nicely. Guys like him aren’t bothered about the £60k salary or whatever it is.

I meant his actual MP salary. As you point out, it's not his sole source of income but there would be a symbolic effect as suspension without pay is generally considered more serious.

[Lew Dolby]

you can organise a recall vote now though. Good luck.

Unfortunately, it's not up to the individual constituent. He has to be suspended (this is probs why he's fighting suspension) and parliament appoints a petitions officer (usually the returning officer in the constit) who organises places to sign for a six week period. If it reaches 10% of voters, he loses the seat and there's a by-election.

[Lew Dolby]

Pro-corruption party votes to protect rule-breaker.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... sleaze-row

Who'd a'thunk it ??!!???

[Troubled Joe]

I don't know why this bothers me as much as it does.

Its nothing I didn't know already.

It's nothing I didn't expect.

I know that the people of this country and the rules by which they should be governed are held in contempt by those who should uphold them.

There's nothing new here.

Why has it annoyed me so much?

[Stranger Mouse]

I don't know why this bothers me as much as it does.

Its nothing I didn't know already.

It's nothing I didn't expect.

I know that the people of this country and the rules by which they should be governed are held in contempt by those who should uphold them.

There's nothing new here.

Why has it annoyed me so much?

Because they aren’t even bothering to hide it anymore? Which makes you wonder what they ARE hiding

[monkey]

I don't know why this bothers me as much as it does.

Its nothing I didn't know already.

It's nothing I didn't expect.

I know that the people of this country and the rules by which they should be governed are held in contempt by those who should uphold them.

There's nothing new here.

Why has it annoyed me so much?

Because other people aren't as annoyed as they should be?

[sheldrake]

I don't know why this bothers me as much as it does.

Its nothing I didn't know already.

It's nothing I didn't expect.

I know that the people of this country and the rules by which they should be governed are held in contempt by those who should uphold them.

There's nothing new here.

Why has it annoyed me so much?

Because it's not that long ago that people who did things like this would firstly go through a phase of pretending they hadn't, and then slink away to a directorship of a chain of gardening centres, or become a UKIP candidate. There was at least some furtive sense of having being caught doing something shameful and bad even though we all knew they were only sorry about being caught.

Paterson has taken things into a new phase by openly saying he was completely unashamed and would do it all over again.

[Grumble]

The conservatives have seen the success of Trump in being completely brazen about bad behaviour and think it will work for them too.

I’m glad to say my Tory MP voted against the government.

[Little waster]

I don't know why this bothers me as much as it does.

Its nothing I didn't know already.

It's nothing I didn't expect.

I know that the people of this country and the rules by which they should be governed are held in contempt by those who should uphold them.

There's nothing new here.

Why has it annoyed me so much?

What annoys me is it such a sh.t hill for the Tories to choose to die on.

You could have sort of understood it if it was a near-hung Parliament and the loss of Paterson meant a temporary loss of majority or awkward by-election threatening to bring down the Government. But it isn’t.

Even in the worst case scenarios the Tories would still have a massive majority and would be probable favourites to win the by-election anyway so they could, for once, have taken the moral high ground and made an example of Paterson but they just can’t help themselves.

I only hope the realisation the Tories are a bunch of amoral, corrupt, venal c.nts might sink in beyond the converted but as the crumbling of the Red Wall proves we live in absurd times.

I fully expect Johnson’s popularity to rise because of this and new polling to show Johnson individually and the Tories in general now enjoy a 50 percentile point lead over Labour on the question “who do you most trust not to change the law to get their crooked mates out of the sh.t even when their name rhymes with Schmowen Schmaterson”*.



*A question Labour traditionally has held a small but stable lead on since the question began being routinely asked after the famous 1964 scandal involving disgraced Tory backbencher Rowan Hatterson.

[Troubled Joe]

I don't know why this bothers me as much as it does.

Its nothing I didn't know already.

It's nothing I didn't expect.

I know that the people of this country and the rules by which they should be governed are held in contempt by those who should uphold them.

There's nothing new here.

Why has it annoyed me so much?

What annoys me is it such a sh.t hill for the Tories to choose to die on.

You could have sort of understood it if it was a near-hung Parliament and the loss of Paterson meant a temporary loss of majority or awkward by-election threatening to bring down the Government. But it isn’t.

Even in the worst case scenarios the Tories would still have a massive majority and would be probable favourites to win the by-election anyway so they could, for once, have taken the moral high ground and made an example of Paterson but they just can’t help themselves.

I only hope the realisation the Tories are a bunch of amoral, corrupt, venal c.nts might sink in beyond the converted but as the crumbling of the Red Wall proves we live in absurd times.

I fully expect Johnson’s popularity to rise because of this and new polling to show Johnson individually and the Tories in general now enjoy a 50 percentile point lead over Labour on the question “who do you most trust not to change the law to get their crooked mates out of the sh.t even when their name rhymes with Schmowen Schmaterson”*.



*A question Labour traditionally has held a small but stable lead on since the question began being routinely asked after the famous 1964 scandal involving disgraced Tory backbencher Rowan Hatterson.

It might just be the cumulative effect/tipping point. The rules for isolating don’t apply to Johnson or Sunak. The rules on bullying don’t apply to Patel. The rules on COVID don’t apply to Cummings; it’s only natural that the rules on lobbying don’t apply to Patterson.

Edit: oh, and wallpapering his f.cking flat too.

[Gfamily]

Typical poisonous approach by the Daily Hate - attacking 'a venal political class' and not the venal political party,

[purplehaze]

Agree Gfamily

It's Tory MPs - not all, 18 did the decent thing (for once).

There is a distinction.

[PeteB]

Isn't it just a display of naked power "We can do anything we want and you can't do anything about it" - designed to demoralise / daunt their political / legal / press opponents

[WFJ]

Typical poisonous approach by the Daily Hate - attacking 'a venal political class' and not the venal political party,

While I agree with what you say, the Daily Mail not taking the Tory line on this is the one heartening thing I have seen. The Torygraph have it as a smaller front page story written from the viewpoint of the crook, and the Sun and Express have ignored it.

[Gfamily]

Typical poisonous approach by the Daily Hate - attacking 'a venal political class' and not the venal political party,

While I agree with what you say, the Daily Mail not taking the Tory line on this is the one heartening thing I have seen. The Torygraph have it as a smaller front page story written from the viewpoint of the crook, and the Sun and Express have ignored it.

No, the Mail is making it worse, by playing the 'they're all as bad as each other' card. It's fundamentally anti-democratic

[Troubled Joe]

Typical poisonous approach by the Daily Hate - attacking 'a venal political class' and not the venal political party,

Yes and no - anything like this will reflect worse on the party in power than the opposition; it’s obviously disingenuous in the extreme but better than ignoring it or going the “Hero MP escapes socialist kangaroo court stitch up” route

[Troubled Joe]

Not sure my reply isn’t showing there but here we go….

Yes and no - anything like this will reflect worse on the party in power than the opposition; it’s obviously disingenuous in the extreme but better than ignoring it or going the “Hero MP escapes socialist kangaroo court stitch up” route

[TimW]

What annoys me is it such a sh.t hill for the Tories to choose to die on.

It could even make you think that some of them must need the system trashed quick before it's their turn.

[Gfamily]

Not sure my reply isn’t showing there but here we go….

Yes and no - anything like this will reflect worse on the party in power than the opposition; it’s obviously disingenuous in the extreme but better than ignoring it or going the “Hero MP escapes socialist kangaroo court stitch up” route

You'd responded inside WFJ's quote.

My point is that for a paper to align itself with a party is a feature of our press, and that's up to them - but for a paper to align with a point of view that parliamentary democracy is the problem, then that is seriously dangerous.