Questions Of The Day (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

Again that's two reasons. There is no correlation between competence and sexual activity. Look at me, I hardly get a sniff nowadays.

[Wile E. Coyote]

The Bojo regime will never last. I can't see how the whips can continue to function. How the hell can you get MPs through the lobbies if you can't threaten to expose their indiscretions. Whatever they have done, Bojo has already done it. Democracy is over.

[Mick Harper]

Thank God. All that chopping and changing. Newsnight, unaccountably Newsearlyevening, was interesting about the changing mores. They all agreed they were, drastically, but were more mixed on whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. Though Hancock has trespassed on our tolerance on about seven different optics and really shouldn't have a prayer whatever your own pet peeves. He probably spoke unkindly to the Downing Street gateman on his way home too. Personally I think two other factors should be factored in

1. It is now Labour who uphold family values. The Left is always a-sexual -- treating it all as bourgeois individualism getting in the way of the Perfectibility of Man -- but just lately they seem to have become positively Victorian. Try to imagine new drama/novels/manifestos that are not about blacks, women, immigrants, the poor but about real people. Just saying it like that tells you everything you need to know.

2. Boris Johnson has clearly learned from previous scandals and has decided, as policy, always to ride out the storm. It has proved to be a great success so far (not excluding himself). Tory talking heads were reduced to 'Hancock must resign if the Prime Minister won't sack him." An interesting thought. Stepping down for the sake of the party/the government/the country/the world without having to be told to.

Did you spot one telling detail? The 'other woman' said à propos Hancock, "We were both working on Oxford Radio, me doing the news, him doing the sport. As I said to him, 'You're not good enough to do the news.'" She added a giggle but I think she will find Matt is going to insist she'll have to go.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Social distancing Stasi V the Buzzcocks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Af7ayYIJ9w

[Mick Harper]

I entirely accept that it is sometimes necessary for an individual to take the fall for society's ills in order to start changing those ills but for Chauvin to get twenty-two years is a pretty shocking fall. It is difficult to think of anyone anywhere getting twenty-two years for a) not being aware he was doing anything wrong b) doing his job as he thought necessary at the time c) doing what all his peers were doing generally and d) not being stopped from doing it by his peers present in particular.

Apart from all those Pakistanis in northern mill towns being weighed off for twenty-five years for hanging out with pliant English (white) girls.

[Mick Harper]

So Hancock went after all. Though not before making a formal apology to camera which managed to strike every wrong note in the PR bible. He'll go far in this government.

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

You can argue that Hancock only has himself to blame, as spokesman for the government's overzealous approach to curtailing freedom in the name of Public Health but if it is true he was filmed ass fondling by a CCTV camera installed in his office without his knowledge, and this was then leaked, then the real issue is a creeping secret state, not the hypocrisy of Hancock.

[Mick Harper]

Yes, this has provoked some consternation but I would have thought the more important a priori question is: "Who in their right mind allows offices of senior personnel to be filmed in real time so that two security guards in the basement can watch you scratching your balls etc?"

But it also raises the question, "Do senior personnel know they are being filmed in real time, and if so are they really likely to give their secretary one doggy style across the desk unless they are right perves who enjoy being watched, and her of course, assuming she has given informed consent, and not forgetting in this day and age it could be the senior person who is a woman and the secretary a man, or indeed several other possible gender combinations?"

[Wile E. Coyote]

I can empathise with Matt, as for Gina, she has shown an incredible lack of taste, so surely she had to go.

[Mick Harper]

Did Hancock declare it in the Register of Members' Interests? He did not have to when Gina was appointed without remuneration but did -- and he did -- when she was put on the payroll for fifteen gees. However, that was when Gina was an official in the ministry, paid by the ministry. If she was providing Hancock, but not the ministry, with what the tax code calls 'benefits in kind' during office hours then Hancock should have declared that separately and it would be a breach of the ministerial code if he did not. Though, following the Pritti Patel precedent, that is not in itself a resigning matter so I don't know why I'm even bringing it up. Honestly this kind of Justice Cocklecarrot attitude is simply not appropriate when dealing with such grave constitutional questions.

[Mick Harper]

Members are allowed to hire their wives so would it have made any difference if Matt had been married to Gina? I think not but this may require a ruling from the Committee on Standards.

[Mick Harper]

It is good to see Sajid back (we had to hide him while Trump was president). Although I have not the slightest doubt he is a lying Tory scumbag chancer who is even now practising his devilish Kama Sutrian wiles on English roses while 'in office', you can't help liking him.

[Boreades]

[Mick Harper]

What is known in the business as The Australian Solution. Members should note that Nauru is not an 'out of sight, out of mind' solution, it is a 'discourage migrants making for Australia in the first place but in a way that doesn't hold Australia up to world obloquy' solution.