Not impressed Starmer has appointed Smith and Alexander, old Blair gov members, as ministers. Both involved in expenses fiddling previously. Not a good start.
PPE profiteer goes offshore. The new government would gain support with a drive to recover money and prosecute any criminal activity. https://www.private-eye.co.uk/in-the-back "THE £1.4bn waste of public money on the single largest supply of PPE in the pandemic might be thought to warrant a little transparency. But it won't get any if the supplier of the kit, Full Support Healthcare Ltd, has anything to do with it. Lawyers for the company's boss, former nurse Sarah Stoute, insisted to the BBC her company was now owned through the secretive island of Jersey – concealing the profits it made on the mega-deal – "solely to maintain privacy for our clients and their family, especially given the repeated press intrusion". "So where was the "press intrusion" forcing the Channel Islands move? Er, not until some time afterwards. Over Christmas 2022, Stoute and her husband visited the beachfront home they had bought in Barbados in late 2021 when flush with their PPE windfall. (They also reportedly acquired a £6m British country house, a riding centre and a Bentley.) It was not exactly a discreet affair, and they were snapped rocking up to a restaurant on loud jet skis launched from a boat they had also bought. But when the Sun on Sunday published photos of them, the Stoutes immediately sought an injunction preventing them from being republished. They were unsuccessful, a judge noting a "demonstrative and performative element" of their jet-ski beach arrival."
This feels incredibly nitpicky compared to something like Sunak insanely reappointing Braveman and an odd couple of appointments to focus on. If my searching is correct about the two you mention then the former of those two made mistakes amounting to less than 1,500 and the latter was much higher but repaid the amounts and has a very minor ministerial position (not a Secretary of State). Did all the people involved in expenses reclaim the amounts? I’m sure the answer is no. I don’t know - in the scheme of things given the amount of ministers there are and some of the previous incumbents this feels a bit like desperately grasping for something to be unhappy about. And feel sure there has to be bigger issues among the higher profile positions. Are the lines of attack really that weak with regards to this cabinet? If so then contrary to what you said it’s actually a very good start (emphasis on “start” - lots of time to change) The left wing rabble rousers were trying to make their main attack line be the ditching of Emily Thornberry as Lord Chancellor - but that has been given to an experienced lawyer who is more independent of the Labour Party than a serving MP and for a role where it’s sold function is really to tell the government “no you can’t pass that law” - that is probably a good move all in all. I’d focus a little more on key positions with very slim majorities such a Streeting. Could present an issue in circa 4 years time if the sectarians are still complaining about Labour’s stance on an issue we can’t do anything about. These top jobs need continuity but that is putting several carts before the horses
The context made it obvious who you meant, but my point still stands, although I’ll delete “(all?)” it is “most” and includes Christians Im not excusing the behaviour of SOME people at this election, SOME of whom will be muslims, however most will have voted at this election like the rest of us and I understand that the majority still vote Labour
Apparently the Rwanda plans was killed after 6pm on a Friday. Which sort of feels like top trolling from Starmer
For most people religion is an afterthought. For those who come from religious communities, like Sikhs, Hindus or Jews, I have never seen any religious uproar - certainly none which threatened the lives of others in this country. Christians have caused a lot of problems in the past but it feels like there are about 8 of them left - and Anglicans that still exist all seem prett moderate. However, there is one other group for whom their holy book supersedes our laws, and who culturally treat women differently to men and who sneer at our permissiveness towards gay people. Yes there are moderates, but also a surprisingly large number of fundamentalists.
21 page pdf report from 2016 linked here which makes more sense of the clamour for brexshit. https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/tax-havens "Introduction For oligarchs, arms dealers, money launderers, kleptocrats and run-of-themill tax dodgers, British property is the investment of choice. But where is it and how is it owned? In 2015 Private Eye journalists Richard Brooks and Christian Eriksson set about untangling the great offshore corporate web that covers the country. The culmination of this work was the creation, with the help of software developer Anna Powell-Smith, of an easily searchable online map of properties in England and Wales owned by offshore companies. It reveals for the first time the extent of the British property interests of companies based in tax havens from Panama to Luxembourg, and from Liechtenstein to the South Pacific island of Niue. Most are held in this way for tax avoidance and often to conceal dubious wealth. Using Land Registry data released under Freedom of Information laws, and then linking around 100,000 land titles to specific addresses and geo-locations, the Eye has mapped all leasehold and freehold interests acquired by offshore companies between 2005 and 2014. We have also released a database of all properties acquired by offshore companies from 1999 to 2014, showing the address, the offshore corporate owners and in most cases the price paid. Using this and other information the Eye has published a series of exposés of the companies, arms dealers, oligarchs, money launderers and others who use offshore companies. This is a selection of those stories. Ian Hislop"
Our argument is therefore about numbers, your belief that there a dangerously large number, mine being that there is a significant but smaller number. I don’t know how we settle this? My concern is that the moderate majority get drawn into this and it feeds the islamophobes and creates conditions that feed more radicalisation We need to be talking more about what joins us and not what separates us and that takes community leaders from all factions EDIT: and us EDIT: Anglicans may be moderate, there are still other sexist and homophobic Christian factions
What if what separates us is coming from the other side and it is totally incompatible with our culture. I would argue that any religion that sees itself above local law has no place here. And drawing cartoons of Jesus, or any other religious leader, is part of the fundamental secularism which makes this country great.
Good to see that Laura Kuenssberg has finally worked out how to hold a government minister to account. I wonder what's changed...
We've had 14 years of government and media ramping up the divisive rhetoric; time to sling that in the bin I reckon. One of the things I hope to see from a Starmer government, is a change of tone. Political and religious extremism are best countered by tolerance, decency, and reason. Which are, after all, traditional British virtues.
The question I think, is not "Should we tolerate intolerance?" (we shouldn't), but how do we respond to it? Probably not by making sweeping generalisations about whole communities, I'd argue. By which I mean both marginalised and left behind British communities, and insular immigrant communities.
