Tories engulfed in sleaze crisis after U-turn and Owen Paterson resignation

Conservative MPs react with fury at ‘own goal’ after PM ditches bid to shield former minister from lobbying claims

Owen Paterson, whose case led to an attempt to overhaul parliament’s anti-sleaze regime. Boris Johnson was engulfed in a sleaze crisis following a humiliating government U-turn that saw veteran Tory MP Owen Paterson resign from parliament after Downing Street ditched a bid to shield him from lobbying claims.

The appalling behaviour has been going on in one form or another for years but we seemed to have reached some sort of crescendo- or just a local peak of overpowering self-interest and abuse.

So Johnson rallies the MPs to vote down a punishment to meted out to his ‘friend ‘ or just Brexit comrade- possibly to weaken the system of accountability in preparation for his next investigation?

Hence the cartoon:

In less than 24 hours there was a U-turn and Patterson was cast off to the wilderness. No loss there as his behaviour of lobbying for money and using Parliamentary resources for that, was clearly corrupt, no matter what the Tory MPs, ministers, colleagues were saying.

Good turn of words to paint the picture:

“Downing Street has clearly treated parliament as a populist assembly, a lapdog to executive power. That 250 Tory MPs on Wednesday night, after damning dozens of ordinary MPs such as Keith Vaz and Ian Paisley for unethical behaviour, could obey Johnson’s orders to bail out his friend is, if anything, more awful than Johnson’s own decision.“

Much talk at the moment about the persistent and increasing level of cases in UK. So much higher than other western European countries.

However, from the government point of view this is not a problem. But to emphasise how serious this is they are apparently ‘checking the data hourly’- LOL.

So the message is that no action is needed and all is ok.

Until it is not presumably when the penny drops that the health service is dealing with so many Covid cases that the backlog of work from the last 2 years is not being dealt with or someone finally acknowledges that the deaths and ill health are not acceptable.

Then we will be told, in months to come, that all action was taken at the right time without delay, and that ‘ the science was followed’. Let’s hope the facts are clear when the questions are finally asked.

An agreement was made yesterday. I have not yet read any detail. However, no matter the deal, each side was always likely to claim  events had turned out how they expected. So an expected response claiming a victory:

A few of cartoons to describe the current situation.

The Torygraph (maybe less so the Borisograph) takes on the anti- social controls perspective to the pandemic response. It is all too much to have social restrictions when I presume there are pubs that need costumers to spend money. The commentators libertarian perspective is that the controls are undemocratic, possible unBritish(or is that now unEnglish), and that the response is killing the economy (that is the money side not concern about the people side. It is seen as an either/or and not that if the pandemic is raging then people will be sick/ not at work/ and not keen to socialise anyway.

With the recent focus on money with the mini Budget announcement, apparently austerity is not back – unless you are a low paid public sector worker of course or if you were a beneficiary of overseas aid. Moral compass and soft power out of the window.

I like the ‘Chum Aid” reference, as lots written about contracts and jobs for friends in the pandemic response. Known as corruption otherwise.

The issues grow and nil looks good.

At 23-00 today the UK leaves the EU- after all this anst, anger and division. All of which is likely to continue. As many have said this is the end of the beginning, there is much to decide and clarify from now and there is again a time pressure to have many major decisions made by the end of the year- the transition period. There is a major decision point in June I believe which is to decide if an extension of the transition period is wanted and to apply. Already BJ has said there will not be one. As before the UK is boxing itself into a corner regarding the timetable, which result in pressure and more so on the UK side I expect. It would seem that this lesson has not been learned from the last 3 years of negotiations.

The newspapers have big editions today. Brexiters should be happy. I expect they will not be in future when things do not turn out swimmingly. They will look for someone else to blame.

A taste of the headlines, very positive in the Torygraph and how they beat the ‘establishment’. Enough to make you laugh:

Not exactly the result I wanted or indeed I think will be fruitful. Brexit will now happen as I am sure the negotiated withdrawal agreement will pass by the January 31 deadline. The format of the future after that is unclear and within the hands of Johnson. He will no longer be beholden to the DUP or the European Research Group cabal so maybe there will be something more integrated with the EU. Who knows as Johnson is a slippery character who has no problem with changing his mind when it suits his purpose.

A big loss for Labour which has already been met with ‘it was all to do with Brexit’ ( and not Corbyn or his project) versus ‘Corbyn is toxic and he must go’. Plenty of infighting to come and to be drawn out for a long time.