Off Topic News & Current affairs

I've been trying to work out why the Met investigating means that the Sue Gray report gets delayed, as it makes no sense to me. Seems I'm not the only one!

From the Evening Standard:

Barrister Rupert Myers said: “The Met has absolutely no power or authority to prevent the publication of the Sue Gray report in full. If they’re worried about their investigation, they should get on with their investigation.”

Human rights barrister Adam Wagner added: “How would a factual civil service report about events the police is investigating ‘prejudice’ their investigation?

“Arguably all of this would have been avoided if police had done the sensible thing and begun investigating in December when the allegations emerged. Now we are in public accountability limbo and there is a messy dynamic between the internal Gray report and police investigation.”

However Barrister Andrew Keogh suggested the force could be probing more serious issues, including withholding or deleting evidence. “Everyone is assuming that the Met is only investigating ‘Cake Gate’, he tweeted.

“What recent history tells us is that mobile phone loss and data deletion across the Westminster estate appears to be a lot higher than the national average....Perhaps there is a more serious issue.”

 

I would agree that destroying evidence would likely be more serious than what the evidence itself points to, assuming the offences in question are breaking lockdown rules - which should lead to nothing worse than on-the-spot fines, and ultimately a Magistrates' Court appearance if those fines are not paid.

In the scramble to cover No.10 arses from punishment for relatively minor (if intensely embarrassing) offences be leading some people to dig themselves into a much deeper hole?

Trying to evade a stain on your reputation like a lockdown rule-breach fine is an understandable motivation for deleting some files or losing a laptop or two.
And I would guess that kind of thing has been going on ever since Sue Gray began her inquiry.
The police do take a very dim view of it though under normal circumstances.

What a sorry mess.

 

Anybody wondering whether the Labour Party are any closer to being trusted with governing the country, have a look at this;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-60188577

Sir Keir Starmer - sort out the nasty wing of your party.
Nobody's going to believe you represent a 'broad church' with this kind of stuff going on.
You need the middle ground -and this ain't it.

 

News that Boris has hinted the redacted parts of Sue Gray's report may never be published.

What??
A report into possible offences where the maximum punishment is a fixed penalty fine?

 

Just saw that. For the moment, the report has been redacted due to a police investigation. The person leading the investigation is Helen Ball, the Met Police Assistant Commisioner for Professionalism. She was appointed to the post by Cressida Dick, who, surprise surprise, is her partner. Doesn't seem too professional to be promoting your partner into a post for overseeing the professionalsim of the Met, and frankly, the whole thing still reeks of ongoing cover up. And the current incumbent of Number 10 is refusing to confirm whether an investigation into parties at number 10 will be fully released. Fully transparent as a brick wall then.

I see Labour, while calling for Boris to resign, have pointed out that for the Labour party, it would be better if he stayed. When you are facing a PM resembling a Stegosaurus who has wandered into a tar pit, you can see the logic of that. And he's off to Eastern Europe to try and, well, talk to someone about Ukraine. Putin is going to be pretty dumbfounded when the PM of the UK starts wittering on about Peppa Pig World.

 

You Scots are a bit uppity! Fancy Ian Blackford accusing the Prime Minister of being a liar! Should earn him a few votes north of the border

 

I was waiting for him to mention Peppa Pig World this afternoon in the Commons

Seriously though,
It's pointless anybody waiting for Boris Johnson to behave with any integrity, honesty or decency, because he lacks all those qualities.
He will never resign, even if the Met whack him personally with several fixed penalty fines (which they won't).
And if his back benchers won't vote him out, we'll just have to wait until the 2024 General Election.

Nothing Bojo does now will surprise me, or even be worthy of serious comment, between now and 2024.
He is, in essence (though not in pure racist nastiness) the British Donald Trump.
Trump supporters don't care how vile he is, they just want him to win so they'll get what they want.
Similarly, I think remaining Boris supporters don't care how much of a liar and a bungler he is, as long as he gets things done the way they want.
That was my reason for supporting him in 2019. He got done what I (and other leave voters) wanted.
But his behaviour during the Pandemic is too much for me to stomach.

If the USA re-elects Trump as President in 2024 they deserve him. And they can all go to Hell with him.
If the UK re-elects Boris Johnson in 2024 then we will deserve him, and everything that happens to us thereafter.
Should that happen, I'll never say a bad word about him again.

 

The 'update' on the Sue Gray report was a farce.
Redacted fragments of the full report. Shorn of all details - even of events Cressida Dick's partner is not investigating.

Public trust in No.10 and the Met police has been gravely damaged.
With every twist and turn of his sleazy saga a stitch-up becomes more and more likely the only plausible explanation.
Sue Gray must be beginning to twig that she's been done up like a kipper.

 

OK, enough of boozy parties for now.
The police will take months finishing their enquiries.

Back to things that are affecting people's everyday lives right now...

• Food prices up around 50% on average (not 5%)
• Fuel prices going up and up at the pumps regardless of the oil price
• A gambling addiction epidemic
• Gas & electric bills about to double
• Record levels of evictions
• An epidemic of mental illness
• 6 million on NHS waiting lists
• Big tax rise about to kick in

Do you get all that Boris? And can you fix it?

 

As Harold McMillan said when asked what he feared most in politics,
"Events, dear boy, events".

 

I read elsewhere there are also big queue's to get in and out of the port of Dover.

Brexit eh! Who'd have thunk it?

 

Blame Macron, simples!

 

Off with his head!!

 

Never a truer word was spoken in jest.
I didn't include Dover & other import/export woes in my list of things for Boris to fix, because they aren't his fault.

But I think the things I did include should be enough to keep him busy for a while, when he gets back from Ukraine.

 

I don't think he's going now.

 

Interesting.
He was going to talk on the telephone to Putin the other day, but I understand that never happened either.
Has something been distracting him from important affairs of state?

 

It seems the identities of anybody found to have broken lockdown Rules at No.10 or in Whitehall may be withheld...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60218870

The police say they will not identify individual offenders.
And apparently that information is not available by default.

It is becoming ever more difficult not to conclude that the Prime Minister, No.10 and the Cabinet office are above the law.
Cressida Dick, her partner and the Met police are not in fact investigating them, they are protecting them.

 

Just Boris being Boris.

 

Dear Boris

Can you fix it for me not to have to pay twice as much for my food shopping for the rest of this year?

Love, Lardy
Age 54 and three quarters

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60215994