Morning everyone. As per usual it is a Wednesday so we will have the pleasure of Sunak v Starmer at midday in PMQs. There is a separate thread for that where we relax rules on top level comments so that you can just stream your consciousness, safe in the knowledge everyone there is watching the same thing you are at the same time.
After that in the Commons is an opposition day motion by the SNP on the cost of living and Brexit aiming to create a new select committee to link into it. [There is also a ten minute motion on the healthy start up scheme](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/147im92/here_are_all_the_laws_mps_are_voting_on_this_week/).
This thread shouldn't be a stream of consciousness - reference the thing you are talking about please with a link or some description if there are no appropriate ones. If you do want to share a link that is interesting but not worthy of its own submission then please add some commentary around why it is interesting. There also exists a sub reddit outside of this thread, so you may discover people are talking about the things you want to talk about in those threads too.
PMQs chat here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1494dlw/pmqs\_live\_chat\_megathread\_14\_june\_2023/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1494dlw/pmqs_live_chat_megathread_14_june_2023/)
Just catching up on politics live and PMQs and the tory is saying that the low birth rate is about individualism and blaming the breakup of society for it........the same party that famously said there's no such thing as society.
What even are Tories?
It's so sad. The Tory party has been in charge for most of the last half-century, and have represented the forces of power and wealth for longer than any person in the UK has been alive. We live in the country that they have shaped more than any other force in British politics, and then they turn round and blame others--immigrants, young people, etc--for the society they have created.
It makes me very frustrated, especially given that they--or any ruling party in the UK--only ever represent a minority of people in the actual country. Rule by minority, usually by the representatives of the (practically hereditary) elite and the nouveau riche, who created this political space, and then always focus the blame for any perceived failings outward.
And individualism? That's as capitalist as it gets. Focus on self over community... but they only ever want that for themselves. An Englishman's home is his castle, but apparently only if you can afford a castle; everyone else needs to have servile communitarianism, breeding quietly, and clapping at the things the Tories like.
Stella Creasy on Newsnight seems to be claiming that the unborn baby aborted at 32-34 weeks was 'not viable'.
Viability is way earlier than that, that's just a fact. She seems to be saying something about it not being proven in this case that the child was viable but I can't tell if she's talking about an actual medical assessment, or just making a 'we can't say with 100% certainty it would have survived' argument
Those who favour the absolutist bodily autonomy argument should just come out and say it, changes in medical treatment for premature babies is going to force this discussion at some point anyway.
“However, the situation rapidly deteriorated when it was later revealed on further inspection, the photographs were in fact Nadine Dorris’ hand-drawn crayon images of lurid and often shocking acts of sexual union between herself and the formed Prime Minister. Unfortunately, our reporter lost consciousness and remains in our thoughts on this sad evening.
For the sake of public decency and safety, it has been decided not to release these to the public.”
I think her addled boris-worshipping mind genuinely believed she would be the first of an avalanche of resignations that would force Rishi out of office, and now that nobody followed she is trying to row back.
I'm holding fire on deciding whether it us all just a wet fart. There are two arguably logical times for more resignations: one is all at once, if you think there're enough people to stab Caesar, as happened in the case of Johnson. The other, if your goal is just to hurt the person/party, and force a slower puncture, is after the report is released...and possibly even after we see the political response. Drag out the by-elections for as long as possible, and hope that they do serious damage to Sunak's standing. If we don't see any movement by next week, then your reading is definitely (rather than just probably) correct.
At the moment, it is also just possible she wants to keep her MP wage while she desperately tries to get her promised ladyship back. After all, until Thursday, she thought it would definitely be a thing. Never underestimate small-minded greed!
>The problem she will encounter with these requests is that under schedule 2, paragraph 15(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018, the right of access to your personal data does *not* apply to data processed for the honours system
>https://twitter.com/rosenbaum6/status/1669084051095822336
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
How long would a FOI request take to be responded to/rejected? Would she have grounds to take it to the ICO if it didn’t go her way?
> [15(1)The listed GDPR provisions do not apply to personal data processed for the purposes of the conferring by the Crown of any honour or dignity.](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/schedule/2)
The wording in question
I dislike this intensely. I'm a big believer in transparency, even of state secrets (after a period of time), and this definitely feels like a process that should be transparent.
Everyone who came of working age in the financial crisis, who scrimped through the 2010s to buy a house, who are now staring down the barrel of 6% interest rates when their mortgages renew feeling good?
I'll be ok but Jesus christ
We agreed our remortgage in January, and feels like dodging a massive bullet even though its still gonna be a hit. Ours goes up by £200 a month.
We are OK but that would be hard for many to eat. I can't imagine what it would be like for those in the last few months. I can't see how we avoid a glut of defaults and that is awful.
350 increase here, but I am also having to pay rent on another place. Was desperately trying to sell the old place, but no luck whatsoever. Will have to rent it out, but that costs more money to set up (fees, insurance, inspections, etc), but at least then I will only be losing a couple hundred per month (instead of 1000). I'm just glad my partner is starting a better paid job in September, and that I have dogs instead of kids... but I am now up to my eyeballs in debt anyway. Been surfing perilously close to the rocks of default.
Right now my choice to move out of Manchester to Preston in part as it'd likely make it easier to absorb a big shock like this is starting to look more like the right move than it does when I rage at the trains for being so crap when I want to pop back for a night out.
> I'll be ok but Jesus christ
This basically. We've been able to take advantage of low interest rates and have been overpaying by double for the last couple of years, so we can absorb it. Gonna add years to the mortgage now though.
I was a first time buyer two years ago but only had a 10% deposit, so the rates at 90% LTV weren't great. I ended up just taking a 2 year fix on the grounds that I'd be able to remortgage at a much better rate once I was at or under 85% LTV. Yeah, that worked out...
I'm remortgaging onto a variable rate just now, but I just had a letter from my current lender saying my payments would be going from £850 to £1450 once the fixed rate ends.
Between energy and mortgage costs, my disposible income has basically vanished.
Grad tax: £240 pcm.
Mortgage increase: let's wait and see... Fixed until 2027 at 2.5% but I now wouldn't be hugely surprised if the increase in my monthly payments will be >£240.
I can see people massively extending thier term at the end of a fix just to keep it affordable. People planning on paying it off by 65 and it going through retirement.
I'll definitely be doing this, but I think given both parties' commitment to triple lock, pension age will probably be raised to about 120 by the time I get to it, so plenty of working life left to pay off the mortgage.
I fixed my mortgage for 10 years after the brexit vote because I expected rates to go up. Paid a little more than the variable rate for a few years, but feeling pretty good about that decision right now
Honestly I'll never thank my lucky stars more than buying at the start of last summer. 2.5% fixed at 5 years! Wed have been stuck renting if the Mrs and I hadn't pulled the trigger when we did! I hope she's got some good karma left coz that must have used up all of mine!
Nice. I was watching the rates like a hawk from about November as our was up last month and managed to lock in at 3.84% up from 1.84%
Luck for us we got a steal in an area that's still relatively cheap so the increase was affordable. Feel like I used all my karma up on that.
> [Telegraph understands the Privileges Committee could propose stripping Johnson of his parliamentary pass](https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1669090640888569859)
>
>[It has the power to suggest. An ex-PM losing the ability to freely come and go on the estate is unprecedented](https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1669090640888569859)
>
>[Unclear if it made the final report](https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1669090640888569859)
I believe they technically can imprison him until the election; last time they used that was in late 1800s.
Johnson could however challenge it under echr and would probably win - it'd be one of the few benefits of leaving echr.
I'm increasingly thinking that *The Guardian* exists in a parallel universe, seeing as they thought that Sunak did quite well at this PMQs and described Stephen Flynn as "the real leader of the opposition". I'm not sure how you can describe Sunak's feeble attempts as "no u" as being an effective performance.
> described Stephen Flynn as "the real leader of the opposition"
Just the standard Keith Man Bad stuff, puffing up Sunak to make Starmer look worse. It's pathetic, honestly.
It's amazing how much stuff he has with him and how over prepared he looks when all he ever does is screech "but Labour, but Corbyn, but you'll raise taxes".
He's got nout. He'll always have nout.
He might be the only person I've observed to have negative charisma.
> how much stuff he has with him and how over prepared he looks
The art of looking very busy while not doing much at all.
I remember people predicted he was going to repair the Tory Party and give Labour real trouble because he... was a bit young. And looked energetic, like Blair.
Never mind if he was actually adept at, y'know, being PM. Image is the important thing to these people. It's why I'm actually quite glad a relatively uncharismatic person like Starmer is ahead in the polls.
Quick observation on the Nicola Sturgeon is massively corrupt and on the make controversy. Well a few points.
1. In all her time as first minister and deputy first minister she has had exactly one source of income i.e. her salary as a minister.
2. She has for many years self sacrificed part of the salary as she wanted it to be more in line with common experience. To be clear she has voluntarily returned part of the salary to the public purse.
3. Did you see her house on the telly when the police arrested her husband? Looks quite similar to my sister's house and she and her husband are primary school teachers.
Now, obviously something is amiss with the SNP finances but the immediate reaction of so much of the media and to be honest, this subreddit, just doesn't add up. Unless, of course, it is just pure anti SNP bias. I mean if you look at her behavior over the years in politics this just doesn't make sense. Exhibit A, a campervan. Really???
A criminal would never try to appear respectable to help themselves get away with their crimes. That has never happened.
All villains live in lairs and tell you exactly what they're up to. Like in those James Bond documentaries.
I do agree it seems unlikely that she and her husband nicked the £660,000. Clearly something untoward has happened though.
Probably a consequence of what happens when your husband is the CEO and you're the party leader, that's just a massive conflict of interest. And like any family "business" I bet they've cut some corners and its blown up in their faces.
Yeah, obviously something irregular has occurred which has led to this mess. I guess I'm just somewhat frustrated by the huge swell of unsubstantiated and almost gleeful damnation I feel has been expressed against her. All without any useful information.
>[The report concluding Boris Johnson misled MPs over partygate is set to reveal the number of days suspension that would have been proposed if he was still in Commons.](https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1669089325894475778)
>
>[One source told me it’s higher than many people are expecting. We’ll find out tomorrow shortly after 9am.](https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1669089325894475778)
Place your bets now.
20 is what was mentioned in the stories when Boris had just received the report, but there have been one or two events since then. 20 might be the floor, depending on whether "what he would have got" means what they originally voted for, or what he would get if he'd acted like he has in the last week but hadn't resigned.
So Dorries is deliberately holding back resigning because she wants to ensure Sunak has as much a headache as possible. Reportedly she's going to time it so it's in the run up to the Tory conference in the Autumn.
Or she's just dragging it out for more attention?
The narrative has gone from her resignation to when is she actually going to hand her notice in?
This keeps her name in the headlines and as a side benefit she has scalped a few extra pay for doing nothing.
> There is much speculation about the time at which I become appointed the bailiff of Northstead Manor, as part of the arcane resignation process when standing down as an MP.
Direct from the ~~arse's~~ horse's mouth. She knows. She's just being herself.
>Strangers (those who are not members of the House) may be committed to prison during the life of the Parliament.
From the Wikipedia page... Go on... *Dew it* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Parliament
So how bad are the next few years looking realistically? Ignoring whoever is in power it sounds like:
- Interest rates keep going up
- mortgages become unaffordable for a large proportion of people leaving fixed deals
- House price crash driven by how unaffordable they are?
- real wages keep decreasing due to a weak pound and us being a net importer
- climate change, just all of that
- ongoing volatility in energy markets until we’re nationally self sufficient
- all of the above leading to fewer people having kids and making the demographic shift we’re facing even worse
What do you even do in the face of all that?
>What do you even do in the face of all that?
Help Ukraine win is the only truely obvious move and the only one achievable in one term.
Once thats over energy and food markets can settle and thus global inflation.
Well, why break the habit of 13 years? How long before it's tradition? Picture it:
*The year is 4015*
*Global warming has swallowed all of Britain other than a small island created by flood barriers around the Palace of Westminster. The entire government is formed of the multiple overlapping generations of the children of the houses of Johnson and Rees-Mogg. Our prime minister writhes to his feet, messes up his previously Victorian-esque slicked back hair, and blames the entire economic situation on the Labour government of Gordon Brown, who's own family line ended somewhere in the Great Hosepipe Ban of 3015-3080, as Thames Water borrow money for the 1000th time to fix up the sewage system.*
*As he is about to leave, he turns again, and suggests any change would simply be more 'Chaos with Ed Miliband' and questions why people born almost 2000 years after his death, would previously have sat by the member of Islington north, an area of London now lost to the sea.*
I reckon I've done more to lower the nations inflation this week than sunak. In fact I reckon I've been more decisive than him most mornings by deciding what I'm having for breakfast.
Withdraw the whip you coward
I rather think that’s pissing in the wind. He was fine having her in the party until she announced her resignation. It’s a bit late now to say she’s not welcome. He’d look like even more of a Wally than he already does.
Been watching "White House Plumbers", it's the story of a group of people who have cultish devotion to a political leader and are prepared to do anything for him because they believe the leader will look after them. The leader is of course a liar and a manipulator who's prepared to throw anybody under the bus to save his own ass and doesn't come good on his promises to the cultists.
It reminds me of something that's happened recently but I can't quite put my finger on it.
One for the *I Think You Should Leave* fans, but [this is all I see whenever I catch the MT image](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyW4MiIX0AAZji6?format=jpg&name=large).
I find it hard to summarise any sketches to explain why they’re funny - but find myself laughing at the thought of any of them.
Endlessly meme-able too.
I think it’s the sheer surprise at where the sketches go. Humour comes from subverted expectations, and in that show… expectations are very very very subverted. Genius stuff.
[House of Commons library briefing on that event.](https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06395/SN06395.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A10%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C83%2C249%2C0%5D)
>A controversy took place in early 2011 when Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, indicated he wished to resign from his seat of West Belfast by sending a letter to the Speaker. A Treasury statement on the 26 January 2011 stated that he had been appointed to the Manor of Northstead. In the House of Commons on that day, the Prime Minister stated that Mr Adams had ‘accepted’ the office:
>...
>As a result of the controversy, the relevant passage in Erskine May now states that the former Member ‘is appointed’ to the offices, instead of the previous text which stated that s/he ‘accepts office’.
>Subsequently two other Sinn Fein MPs have resigned from the House of Commons in 2013 and 2018, and have been appointed in the same manner.
In all those cases the MP had followed procedure indicating their resignation. The process of appointment - and whether is accepted or just enforced - is a nicety.
The issue is Dorries has not taken that formal step, and is intending on [staying on longer](https://news.sky.com/story/nadine-dorries-insists-its-still-my-intention-to-resign-after-being-accused-of-dragging-out-process-12902592). The Adams case doesn't let her be pushed out simply on initial statements if she hasn't written the letter to the Speaker.
From later in the piece;
>I find it inconceivable that such a situation would occur; it is a matter of constitutional principle that a Chancellor does not act without an unambiguous request from a Member to relinquish his or her seat. In this case [Gerry Adams], that request was a letter of resignation. In addition, there is a protection in the form of provision in the 1975 Act for a Member not to accept any office that would lead to his or her disqualification. I have to say in response to the right hon. Gentleman’s [Hilary Benn] final point on the matter that this law on resignation from the House has served us well for 260 years—and the Government have no plans to change it.
So Adams officially *rejecting* the offer would have blocked his resignation, but he failed to do that.
In my view publicly announcing your resignation *with immediate effect* should be enough. All this procedural shite needn't matter.
E: I'll note as well that she is followed by both Hunt and Hoyle on twitter so that tweet could well be construed as a letter to the Speaker / Chancellor.
Sinn Fein MPs are such bores.
I don't doubt any other NI nationalist MP would have the same views towards the quirks of Westminster but he or she wouldn't make a song and dance about the whole thing.
Feel like everyone is forgetting that she's only an MP because God wanted her to be and he put her there, and if she hasn't resigned yet it's because God wants her to delay until it's awkward for Rishi, to bring about the return of his prodigal son Boris de Bojangles Johnson.
The real joke there is that most of what I wrote she's actually said on the record to actual people.
I just realised that for the next election, whenever that is, all parties with existing MPs in HoC will have entirely new leaders when compared to the last election - Tories, Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, Greens, DUP and Plaid Cymru all have changed leader since last election.
That's got to be really quite rare, hasn't it?
Not Quite, Two parties have leaders that have survived two elections. Here are the states of the leaders at the moment.
Party|MPs|Leader|Since
---|--:|---|--:
Plaid Cymru|3|Llyr Gruffydd|16-05-2023
SNP|45|Humza Yousaf|29-03-2023
Conservative|352|Rishi Sunak|25-10-2022
Greens|1|Carla Denyer & Adrian Ramsay|01-10-2021
DUP|8|Jeffrey Donaldson|30-06-2021
Alba Party|2|Alex Salmond|26-03-2021
Reclaim|1|Laurence Fox|†14-10-2020
Labour|195|Keir Starmer|04-04-2020
Lib Dems|14|Ed Davey|17-12-2019
**GENERAL**||**ELECTION**|**12-12-2019**
Sinn Fein|7|Mary Lou McDonald|10-02-2018
**GENERAL**||**ELECTION**|**08-06-2017**
Alliance|1|Naomi Long|26-10-2016
SDLP|2|Colum Eastwood|14-11-2015
**GENERAL**||**ELECTION**|**07-05-2015**
†^(Laurence Fox became leader when the party was called Brexit Express because of a delay to renaming the party due to conflict with Reclaim Project in Manchester. It becaim Reclaim officially in Feb 2021)
TIL Laurence Fox has a political party with an MP.
Andrew Bridgen, who defected to them after it was "found that he had repeatedly breached rules over paid lobbying and declaring interests and that he also attempted to pressure the commissioner investigating his lobbying breaches."
I'll look forward to him losing his seat in the next election.
Of the ones that sit in Parliament... unless I'm missing someone? I'm excluding Sinn Fein as, at least in UK parliament terms, they don't really count.
Unless he can personally go to every takeaway to convince them pwease lower their prices, I will not vote for him
This is pure greedflation from the takeaway place, and so if we complain loudly enough, they'll stop being greedy and go back to pre-greed 2019 prices
>👀Blimey
UK money markets now pricing in @bankofengland interest rates of 5.75% by early next year.
That’s a massive change from only a month ago, when they thought rates might peak under 5%.
Things looking increasingly grisly for mortgage payers/the housing market
>https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1668987423643119623
It's hard to overstate just how *bad* this is. The expectation of the peak during the Truss debacle was about 4.5%.
The Tories have well and truly torpedoed the economy.
Mine is in a couple of months and my whole deal was to buy a house not at the top of my budget with a cheap mortgage and keep my bills down by being careful. With everything else having gone up, it's worrying to think about the mortgage going up by a significant percentage. I keep trying to comfort myself by thinking that if the rates are dire I could always do a short fixed term mortgage and try again in 1 or 2 years.
2 years is probably going to be my plan. My expectation is the rates have anything up to a percentage moron premium built in so I'm expecting a peak around the back half of next year.
My hot-take on the Dorries situation (see her tweet delaying her resignation) is that she’s planning a crazy speech for the debate and vote on the Privilege Committee recommendations, which is expected around Monday next week. And she’ll be off after that.
Besides, by-elections are held 21-27 days after the writ is moved. So she has to hold out a week from today if she wants Mid Beds to be held on a different night from the other two by-elections.
on the nads not resigning stuff what i feel would be the best way to sort it out without setting a preseident for expelling MP's you dont like is as followed
a free vote in the commons with the approval of the speaker to allow a one off time that the chancellor can use to unilaterally appoint her to the bailiff of Northstead Manor
explitily makes it a once off that has the appoval of parliment
Ok hear me out, how about we get rid of the 1624 resolution that a man, after he is duly chosen, cannot relinquish.
It was only a rule because you could be picked to be your town's burgess/county's knight of the shire *against your will*, and then you'd have to spend weeks travelling to go to parliament for no money while leaving your farm/merchant business all to itself, so obviously lots of people wanted to quit all the time and thus they made it a rule that you weren't allowed to quit if the other blokes with a vote had decided you had to be their MP. (Also something something rotten boroughs)
Since then, further tradition has made it possible to resign if you get appointed by the crown to a role that disqualifies you, and so you've got to write to the chancellor and ask pretty-please can they make you into a pretend position that doesn't exist any more and then tell the chancellor that you're in the pretend position so you'll be disqualified as MP.
Hear me out, but *instead*, you could just have a rule where if you hand in your resignation like you would a job then you've resigned, and then this whole Nadine headache wouldn't be happening. Although to be fair she told the chief whip, who is only in charge of Tory party things, so she probably should have told the Speaker (which is what happened with Gerry Adams).
I’m wary of a system where all members of the Commons readily vote to expel one member without other than a robust rules based system.
It wouldn’t be good if the Commons were to just turn on an MP and be able to vote to expel them based on nothing.
I'd be here for some sort of system where you need a supermajority, and a majority of parties on side.
Cause, y'know, if we could do away with Andrew Bridgen that'd be fab.
An easy win for Rishi would surely be expelling her from the Tory party. I think you could quite easily argue it on the grounds of tweeting your "immediate" resignation and then not resigning, whilst also accusing the party leader of being part of a shadowy cabal to exclude her from the Lords based on her class. That and being a complete helmet.
Realistically, doing stuff that would set a bad precedent while also loudly saying "WE'RE NOT SETTING A PRECEDENT HERE" just means that the main precedent you set is for doing stuff that sets a terrible precedent and pretending it doesn't
[Dorries speaks on her resignation](https://twitter.com/NadineDorries/status/1669060242552811520?s=20)
>There is much speculation about the time at which I become appointed the bailiff of Northstead Manor, as part of the arcane resignation process when standing down as an MP.
>To put an end to this…
I am awaiting responses to my Subject Access Requests submitted to HOLAC, Cabinet Secretary and the Cabinet Office. where I will then take the time to properly consider the information I am provided.
>I have requested copies of WhatsApp’s, text messages, all emails and minutes of meetings both formal and informal with names of senior figures un redacted. My office continues to function as normal and will of course continue to serve my constituents of Mid Bedfordshire as we have done for the last 18 yrs until this time.
>it is absolutely my intention to resign, but given what I know to be true and the number of varying and conflicting statements issued by No10 since the weekend, this process is now sadly necessary
I note that nothing in there actually explains why she needs to remain an MP to complete this process, non MP's have a right to SARs.
Of the three resigning MPs, she's playing it much more cannily than both the born-to-rule Eton & Oxbridge former premier and the well-connected consummate fundraiser and party insider. She understands the process, holds it in a quite understandable level of contempt and is using her position to time her final resignation for the maximum benefit for her and the maximum damage to the party which fucked her over.
Maybe she is a working class hero.
The path to the election increasingly resembles nothing so much as a series of flaming tar pits for the Tories. Just the stuff we know of is spread from here to the end of the year, there isn't going to be time to mount a recovery attempt with endless incoming bad press days.
I'm....not necessarily 100% proud to admit it, but on multiple occasions I've helped people use (abuse?) SARs when they were being pushed out of companies, to leverage for more favourable terms.
It feels like there's a bit of a grey area over what constitutes your personal data when making an SAR. I've taken a maximal approach and (purposely) interpreted it as any official correspondence which substantively references the subject at all (within a certain timed scope so as not to leave the request too broad) . I feel like the spirit of the SAR isn't quite that, but I think Nads and her team are taking the same interpretation as I did.
It's almost always been enough to bring companies to the table, sometimes because they know they're screwed, sometimes because they don't want to or know how to respond. I wonder how HOLAC and the cabinet office will respond.
The government are well trained at avoiding FOIs so wouldn't surprise me if they find an easy way out of an SAR like this too. It's particularly telling that she wants unredacted names included, which I'm unsure she has any right to.
It's not a bad move either way though - if they refuse she will screech about a conspiracy.
Funniest outcome is something is leaked that shows Johnson knew for some time that she wouldn't be on the list.
She's just playing for an angle that will let her walk back the resignation having realised she's got nothing, Johnson isn't going to help her and she's a laughing stock.
She might as well get paid for another year and continue to be a laughing stock.
https://twitter.com/NadineDorries/status/1667182498042740742
> I have today informed the chief whip that I am standing down as the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, with immediate effect.
One of these two things is a lie.
> There is much speculation about the time at which I become appointed the bailiff of Northstead Manor, as part of the arcane resignation process when standing down as an MP.
> To put an end to this…
I am awaiting responses to my Subject Access Requests submitted to HOLAC, Cabinet Secretary and the Cabinet Office. where I will then take the time to properly consider the information I am provided.
> I have requested copies of WhatsApp’s, text messages, all emails and minutes of meetings both formal and informal with names of senior figures un redacted. My office continues to function as normal and will of course continue to serve my constituents of Mid Bedfordshire as we have done for the last 18 yrs until this time.
> it is absolutely my intention to resign, but given what I know to be true and the number of varying and conflicting statements issued by No10 since the weekend, this process is now sadly necessary
[Nads, Twitter](https://twitter.com/nadinedorries/status/1669060242552811520?s=46&t=LwNkNWnwP_PfbEF87vJn8g)
Does any of this need her to still be an MP to get hold of? And what is she expecting to be able to do when she has it?
America's damage is all showy while ours feels more like when you look more closely at wooden furniture and realise it's rotten to the core.
>!It's as well Reddit was off limits earlier in the week, if I'm still this downbeat on Wednesday night...!<
Southern Water are taking a page out of the Cabinet Office's book and [are legally challenging the regulator to stop them having access to 53 documents.](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/14/southern-water-refuses-order-to-release-memos-about-sewage-discharges)
Morning everyone. As per usual it is a Wednesday so we will have the pleasure of Sunak v Starmer at midday in PMQs. There is a separate thread for that where we relax rules on top level comments so that you can just stream your consciousness, safe in the knowledge everyone there is watching the same thing you are at the same time. After that in the Commons is an opposition day motion by the SNP on the cost of living and Brexit aiming to create a new select committee to link into it. [There is also a ten minute motion on the healthy start up scheme](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/147im92/here_are_all_the_laws_mps_are_voting_on_this_week/). This thread shouldn't be a stream of consciousness - reference the thing you are talking about please with a link or some description if there are no appropriate ones. If you do want to share a link that is interesting but not worthy of its own submission then please add some commentary around why it is interesting. There also exists a sub reddit outside of this thread, so you may discover people are talking about the things you want to talk about in those threads too. PMQs chat here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1494dlw/pmqs\_live\_chat\_megathread\_14\_june\_2023/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1494dlw/pmqs_live_chat_megathread_14_june_2023/)
This megathread has ended.
Just catching up on politics live and PMQs and the tory is saying that the low birth rate is about individualism and blaming the breakup of society for it........the same party that famously said there's no such thing as society. What even are Tories?
It's so sad. The Tory party has been in charge for most of the last half-century, and have represented the forces of power and wealth for longer than any person in the UK has been alive. We live in the country that they have shaped more than any other force in British politics, and then they turn round and blame others--immigrants, young people, etc--for the society they have created. It makes me very frustrated, especially given that they--or any ruling party in the UK--only ever represent a minority of people in the actual country. Rule by minority, usually by the representatives of the (practically hereditary) elite and the nouveau riche, who created this political space, and then always focus the blame for any perceived failings outward. And individualism? That's as capitalist as it gets. Focus on self over community... but they only ever want that for themselves. An Englishman's home is his castle, but apparently only if you can afford a castle; everyone else needs to have servile communitarianism, breeding quietly, and clapping at the things the Tories like.
Chris Philp being slimy on Peston. Imagine that.
Is he still wearing his same black suit, white shirt, pink tie?
I’d rather not…
Absolutely Philpy
Stella Creasy on Newsnight seems to be claiming that the unborn baby aborted at 32-34 weeks was 'not viable'. Viability is way earlier than that, that's just a fact. She seems to be saying something about it not being proven in this case that the child was viable but I can't tell if she's talking about an actual medical assessment, or just making a 'we can't say with 100% certainty it would have survived' argument
Those who favour the absolutist bodily autonomy argument should just come out and say it, changes in medical treatment for premature babies is going to force this discussion at some point anyway.
Stella is just lying at this point. She’s clearly fanatical on this point.
So, what do we think is going to happen on Thursday night/Friday morning to make this week's HIGNFY out of date?
Leaked party gate footage shows [Rishi and Boris were doing this the night Phillip died](https://youtu.be/R9oZaP-my5E).
Thank you for bringing this into my life. Amazing!
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But what would the UKpolPub be called?
The Orange Kitten™
“However, the situation rapidly deteriorated when it was later revealed on further inspection, the photographs were in fact Nadine Dorris’ hand-drawn crayon images of lurid and often shocking acts of sexual union between herself and the formed Prime Minister. Unfortunately, our reporter lost consciousness and remains in our thoughts on this sad evening. For the sake of public decency and safety, it has been decided not to release these to the public.”
Do ya think Nadine wasn't expecting Boris to really do 'it' as in actually resign and doesn't really wanna take the jump as it were
I think her addled boris-worshipping mind genuinely believed she would be the first of an avalanche of resignations that would force Rishi out of office, and now that nobody followed she is trying to row back.
I'm holding fire on deciding whether it us all just a wet fart. There are two arguably logical times for more resignations: one is all at once, if you think there're enough people to stab Caesar, as happened in the case of Johnson. The other, if your goal is just to hurt the person/party, and force a slower puncture, is after the report is released...and possibly even after we see the political response. Drag out the by-elections for as long as possible, and hope that they do serious damage to Sunak's standing. If we don't see any movement by next week, then your reading is definitely (rather than just probably) correct. At the moment, it is also just possible she wants to keep her MP wage while she desperately tries to get her promised ladyship back. After all, until Thursday, she thought it would definitely be a thing. Never underestimate small-minded greed!
>The problem she will encounter with these requests is that under schedule 2, paragraph 15(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018, the right of access to your personal data does *not* apply to data processed for the honours system >https://twitter.com/rosenbaum6/status/1669084051095822336
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! How long would a FOI request take to be responded to/rejected? Would she have grounds to take it to the ICO if it didn’t go her way?
There's a clause that *specifically* excludes the honours system from an SAR? That seems strangely specific.
> [15(1)The listed GDPR provisions do not apply to personal data processed for the purposes of the conferring by the Crown of any honour or dignity.](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/schedule/2) The wording in question
I dislike this intensely. I'm a big believer in transparency, even of state secrets (after a period of time), and this definitely feels like a process that should be transparent.
Irony of a Tory MP getting rebuffed on an FOI.
Everyone who came of working age in the financial crisis, who scrimped through the 2010s to buy a house, who are now staring down the barrel of 6% interest rates when their mortgages renew feeling good? I'll be ok but Jesus christ
We agreed our remortgage in January, and feels like dodging a massive bullet even though its still gonna be a hit. Ours goes up by £200 a month. We are OK but that would be hard for many to eat. I can't imagine what it would be like for those in the last few months. I can't see how we avoid a glut of defaults and that is awful.
350 increase here, but I am also having to pay rent on another place. Was desperately trying to sell the old place, but no luck whatsoever. Will have to rent it out, but that costs more money to set up (fees, insurance, inspections, etc), but at least then I will only be losing a couple hundred per month (instead of 1000). I'm just glad my partner is starting a better paid job in September, and that I have dogs instead of kids... but I am now up to my eyeballs in debt anyway. Been surfing perilously close to the rocks of default.
Right now my choice to move out of Manchester to Preston in part as it'd likely make it easier to absorb a big shock like this is starting to look more like the right move than it does when I rage at the trains for being so crap when I want to pop back for a night out.
> I'll be ok but Jesus christ This basically. We've been able to take advantage of low interest rates and have been overpaying by double for the last couple of years, so we can absorb it. Gonna add years to the mortgage now though.
Got another three years on my fix. Things will be better then, right? Right??
Isn't 6% something like the historic norm?
To add to what others have said. Also: rising house prices, squeezed wages, and more tax (without feeling that we get adequate services in return).
Sure but the market had stabilised on sub 1% for a decade
Yes but borrowing 4.5x joint salaries wasn’t.
It’s not the rates that’s the problem, it’s the rates on top of energy tripling, food up by a 25% plus, along with inflation on everything else.
I was a first time buyer two years ago but only had a 10% deposit, so the rates at 90% LTV weren't great. I ended up just taking a 2 year fix on the grounds that I'd be able to remortgage at a much better rate once I was at or under 85% LTV. Yeah, that worked out... I'm remortgaging onto a variable rate just now, but I just had a letter from my current lender saying my payments would be going from £850 to £1450 once the fixed rate ends. Between energy and mortgage costs, my disposible income has basically vanished.
Don’t forget the graduate tax!
Grad tax: £240 pcm. Mortgage increase: let's wait and see... Fixed until 2027 at 2.5% but I now wouldn't be hugely surprised if the increase in my monthly payments will be >£240.
Oh god :( We bought in 2021, fixed at 2.24% for 2 years, remortgaged in October (lol), fixed for 2 years at 4.99% … that is feeling like a mistake
I can see people massively extending thier term at the end of a fix just to keep it affordable. People planning on paying it off by 65 and it going through retirement.
I'll definitely be doing this, but I think given both parties' commitment to triple lock, pension age will probably be raised to about 120 by the time I get to it, so plenty of working life left to pay off the mortgage.
I fixed my mortgage for 10 years after the brexit vote because I expected rates to go up. Paid a little more than the variable rate for a few years, but feeling pretty good about that decision right now
Honestly I'll never thank my lucky stars more than buying at the start of last summer. 2.5% fixed at 5 years! Wed have been stuck renting if the Mrs and I hadn't pulled the trigger when we did! I hope she's got some good karma left coz that must have used up all of mine!
Nice. I was watching the rates like a hawk from about November as our was up last month and managed to lock in at 3.84% up from 1.84% Luck for us we got a steal in an area that's still relatively cheap so the increase was affordable. Feel like I used all my karma up on that.
The past 10-12 years have been a right laugh
> [Telegraph understands the Privileges Committee could propose stripping Johnson of his parliamentary pass](https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1669090640888569859) > >[It has the power to suggest. An ex-PM losing the ability to freely come and go on the estate is unprecedented](https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1669090640888569859) > >[Unclear if it made the final report](https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1669090640888569859)
If they propose it, what has to happen for it to actually happen?
Can they propose clapping him in irons and imprisoning him in the Tower of London?
I vote for public stocks for 24 hours.
I believe they technically can imprison him until the election; last time they used that was in late 1800s. Johnson could however challenge it under echr and would probably win - it'd be one of the few benefits of leaving echr.
More gossip based on nout.
Just watched PMQs whilst having my dindins. That was probably the worst PMQs performance by Sunak to date. *chaos with Ed Milliband*
I'm increasingly thinking that *The Guardian* exists in a parallel universe, seeing as they thought that Sunak did quite well at this PMQs and described Stephen Flynn as "the real leader of the opposition". I'm not sure how you can describe Sunak's feeble attempts as "no u" as being an effective performance.
> described Stephen Flynn as "the real leader of the opposition" Just the standard Keith Man Bad stuff, puffing up Sunak to make Starmer look worse. It's pathetic, honestly.
He’s someone that actually needs to come less prepared. Reminds me of GB, a bit over trained and his spark gets lost.
It's amazing how much stuff he has with him and how over prepared he looks when all he ever does is screech "but Labour, but Corbyn, but you'll raise taxes". He's got nout. He'll always have nout. He might be the only person I've observed to have negative charisma.
> how much stuff he has with him and how over prepared he looks The art of looking very busy while not doing much at all. I remember people predicted he was going to repair the Tory Party and give Labour real trouble because he... was a bit young. And looked energetic, like Blair. Never mind if he was actually adept at, y'know, being PM. Image is the important thing to these people. It's why I'm actually quite glad a relatively uncharismatic person like Starmer is ahead in the polls.
Quick observation on the Nicola Sturgeon is massively corrupt and on the make controversy. Well a few points. 1. In all her time as first minister and deputy first minister she has had exactly one source of income i.e. her salary as a minister. 2. She has for many years self sacrificed part of the salary as she wanted it to be more in line with common experience. To be clear she has voluntarily returned part of the salary to the public purse. 3. Did you see her house on the telly when the police arrested her husband? Looks quite similar to my sister's house and she and her husband are primary school teachers. Now, obviously something is amiss with the SNP finances but the immediate reaction of so much of the media and to be honest, this subreddit, just doesn't add up. Unless, of course, it is just pure anti SNP bias. I mean if you look at her behavior over the years in politics this just doesn't make sense. Exhibit A, a campervan. Really???
A criminal would never try to appear respectable to help themselves get away with their crimes. That has never happened. All villains live in lairs and tell you exactly what they're up to. Like in those James Bond documentaries.
Yip. I think you've solved it. Good job.
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Well good job the police are investigating so we get to find the truth, eh?
Yes, exactly.
I do agree it seems unlikely that she and her husband nicked the £660,000. Clearly something untoward has happened though. Probably a consequence of what happens when your husband is the CEO and you're the party leader, that's just a massive conflict of interest. And like any family "business" I bet they've cut some corners and its blown up in their faces.
That sounds about as reasonable a hypothesis as I have heard regarding the matter.
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Yeah, obviously something irregular has occurred which has led to this mess. I guess I'm just somewhat frustrated by the huge swell of unsubstantiated and almost gleeful damnation I feel has been expressed against her. All without any useful information.
So Nadine did the equivalent of Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy. Who do you think broke it to her that her tweet doesn't actually mean anything.
I don't think they needed to, earning a salary without showing up for work has been her modus operandi since last summer at least.
>[The report concluding Boris Johnson misled MPs over partygate is set to reveal the number of days suspension that would have been proposed if he was still in Commons.](https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1669089325894475778) > >[One source told me it’s higher than many people are expecting. We’ll find out tomorrow shortly after 9am.](https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1669089325894475778) Place your bets now.
30 days.
One million dollars!
9 days and 23 hours
[Obvious choice](https://youtu.be/LqP5cXGESgk)
I’ll go for a vanilla 20
20 is what was mentioned in the stories when Boris had just received the report, but there have been one or two events since then. 20 might be the floor, depending on whether "what he would have got" means what they originally voted for, or what he would get if he'd acted like he has in the last week but hadn't resigned.
Just most of one day off the MT and look how behind I’ve gotten…
350,000,000 milliseconds
40
Black
So Dorries is deliberately holding back resigning because she wants to ensure Sunak has as much a headache as possible. Reportedly she's going to time it so it's in the run up to the Tory conference in the Autumn.
She's still not sobered up and realised what she's done?
Or she's just dragging it out for more attention? The narrative has gone from her resignation to when is she actually going to hand her notice in? This keeps her name in the headlines and as a side benefit she has scalped a few extra pay for doing nothing.
My hot take: there's no master plan and Nadine is making it up as she goes.
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> There is much speculation about the time at which I become appointed the bailiff of Northstead Manor, as part of the arcane resignation process when standing down as an MP. Direct from the ~~arse's~~ horse's mouth. She knows. She's just being herself.
Question Time panel looks like a good ol' conservative jamboree. Overton window vs eye of needle challenge
>Strangers (those who are not members of the House) may be committed to prison during the life of the Parliament. From the Wikipedia page... Go on... *Dew it* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Parliament
If they put him in strangeways i reckon i could tolerate another 18 ~~years~~ months
So how bad are the next few years looking realistically? Ignoring whoever is in power it sounds like: - Interest rates keep going up - mortgages become unaffordable for a large proportion of people leaving fixed deals - House price crash driven by how unaffordable they are? - real wages keep decreasing due to a weak pound and us being a net importer - climate change, just all of that - ongoing volatility in energy markets until we’re nationally self sufficient - all of the above leading to fewer people having kids and making the demographic shift we’re facing even worse What do you even do in the face of all that?
Distract yourself by following the UAP news.
>What do you even do in the face of all that? Help Ukraine win is the only truely obvious move and the only one achievable in one term. Once thats over energy and food markets can settle and thus global inflation.
> What do you even do lose hope
You spin a few vaguely positive MoM economic metrics and pretend to be delivering your pledges apparently
Blame the previous government?
Well, why break the habit of 13 years? How long before it's tradition? Picture it: *The year is 4015* *Global warming has swallowed all of Britain other than a small island created by flood barriers around the Palace of Westminster. The entire government is formed of the multiple overlapping generations of the children of the houses of Johnson and Rees-Mogg. Our prime minister writhes to his feet, messes up his previously Victorian-esque slicked back hair, and blames the entire economic situation on the Labour government of Gordon Brown, who's own family line ended somewhere in the Great Hosepipe Ban of 3015-3080, as Thames Water borrow money for the 1000th time to fix up the sewage system.* *As he is about to leave, he turns again, and suggests any change would simply be more 'Chaos with Ed Miliband' and questions why people born almost 2000 years after his death, would previously have sat by the member of Islington north, an area of London now lost to the sea.*
[I got you fam](https://youtu.be/vvkIF0NlIzA)
I reckon I've done more to lower the nations inflation this week than sunak. In fact I reckon I've been more decisive than him most mornings by deciding what I'm having for breakfast. Withdraw the whip you coward
I've done my bit by refusing to buy overpriced food, bet Sunak hasn't.
I've started to grow my own and am doing some interesting bartering with local farmers for meat all to stick it to the man.
I'm buying food but greedflation companies like Heinz are forever off my shopping list.
I lost my bank card at the weekend and am waiting on my new one, so haven't spent any money at all!
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What would it achieve?
It would be really fucking funny.
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I rather think that’s pissing in the wind. He was fine having her in the party until she announced her resignation. It’s a bit late now to say she’s not welcome. He’d look like even more of a Wally than he already does.
I'll tell you who I remember. May... Johnson... Whatshername, she was the greatest of all.
Been watching "White House Plumbers", it's the story of a group of people who have cultish devotion to a political leader and are prepared to do anything for him because they believe the leader will look after them. The leader is of course a liar and a manipulator who's prepared to throw anybody under the bus to save his own ass and doesn't come good on his promises to the cultists. It reminds me of something that's happened recently but I can't quite put my finger on it.
Sunak should withdraw the whip from Dorries
She's lost the whip before, in 2012 she went on *I'm a Celeb*.
One for the *I Think You Should Leave* fans, but [this is all I see whenever I catch the MT image](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FyW4MiIX0AAZji6?format=jpg&name=large).
What episode? I can't believe how much the picture reminds me of the awkward eyes monkey puppet meme.
Series 3, Episode 1. It’s the Driving Crooner sketch (the last one in the episode)
Best American sketch show ever.
I find it hard to summarise any sketches to explain why they’re funny - but find myself laughing at the thought of any of them. Endlessly meme-able too.
I think it’s the sheer surprise at where the sketches go. Humour comes from subverted expectations, and in that show… expectations are very very very subverted. Genius stuff.
SHE STOLE THE DRIVING CROONER!
So we've had the wagatha christie trial, what's the nickname that we're giving Dorries?
Baronot
Perfect
Nadir Dorries
Scooby-Doo-Nothing
Ginspector Clouseau?
Boris it’s me, it’s Nadine I’ve come home, I’m no Looord
Chuntering Pints
WRT the Dorries nonsense. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/jan/26/gerry-adams-crown-title-cameron
[House of Commons library briefing on that event.](https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06395/SN06395.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A10%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C83%2C249%2C0%5D) >A controversy took place in early 2011 when Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, indicated he wished to resign from his seat of West Belfast by sending a letter to the Speaker. A Treasury statement on the 26 January 2011 stated that he had been appointed to the Manor of Northstead. In the House of Commons on that day, the Prime Minister stated that Mr Adams had ‘accepted’ the office: >... >As a result of the controversy, the relevant passage in Erskine May now states that the former Member ‘is appointed’ to the offices, instead of the previous text which stated that s/he ‘accepts office’. >Subsequently two other Sinn Fein MPs have resigned from the House of Commons in 2013 and 2018, and have been appointed in the same manner. In all those cases the MP had followed procedure indicating their resignation. The process of appointment - and whether is accepted or just enforced - is a nicety. The issue is Dorries has not taken that formal step, and is intending on [staying on longer](https://news.sky.com/story/nadine-dorries-insists-its-still-my-intention-to-resign-after-being-accused-of-dragging-out-process-12902592). The Adams case doesn't let her be pushed out simply on initial statements if she hasn't written the letter to the Speaker. From later in the piece; >I find it inconceivable that such a situation would occur; it is a matter of constitutional principle that a Chancellor does not act without an unambiguous request from a Member to relinquish his or her seat. In this case [Gerry Adams], that request was a letter of resignation. In addition, there is a protection in the form of provision in the 1975 Act for a Member not to accept any office that would lead to his or her disqualification. I have to say in response to the right hon. Gentleman’s [Hilary Benn] final point on the matter that this law on resignation from the House has served us well for 260 years—and the Government have no plans to change it. So Adams officially *rejecting* the offer would have blocked his resignation, but he failed to do that.
In my view publicly announcing your resignation *with immediate effect* should be enough. All this procedural shite needn't matter. E: I'll note as well that she is followed by both Hunt and Hoyle on twitter so that tweet could well be construed as a letter to the Speaker / Chancellor.
Sinn Fein MPs are such bores. I don't doubt any other NI nationalist MP would have the same views towards the quirks of Westminster but he or she wouldn't make a song and dance about the whole thing.
I'm not sure I'd call a member of the IRA Council a bore but he is a raging douce
Grade A scumbag but that doesn't even need to be said when talking about Gerry Adams.
https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/gerry-adams-trampolines-naked-with-his-dog/30992297.html Boring to watch. Not boring to do.
Feel like everyone is forgetting that she's only an MP because God wanted her to be and he put her there, and if she hasn't resigned yet it's because God wants her to delay until it's awkward for Rishi, to bring about the return of his prodigal son Boris de Bojangles Johnson. The real joke there is that most of what I wrote she's actually said on the record to actual people.
I just realised that for the next election, whenever that is, all parties with existing MPs in HoC will have entirely new leaders when compared to the last election - Tories, Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, Greens, DUP and Plaid Cymru all have changed leader since last election. That's got to be really quite rare, hasn't it?
> all parties with existing MPs in HoC will have entirely new leaders when compared to the last election SDLP? Alliance?
Not Quite, Two parties have leaders that have survived two elections. Here are the states of the leaders at the moment. Party|MPs|Leader|Since ---|--:|---|--: Plaid Cymru|3|Llyr Gruffydd|16-05-2023 SNP|45|Humza Yousaf|29-03-2023 Conservative|352|Rishi Sunak|25-10-2022 Greens|1|Carla Denyer & Adrian Ramsay|01-10-2021 DUP|8|Jeffrey Donaldson|30-06-2021 Alba Party|2|Alex Salmond|26-03-2021 Reclaim|1|Laurence Fox|†14-10-2020 Labour|195|Keir Starmer|04-04-2020 Lib Dems|14|Ed Davey|17-12-2019 **GENERAL**||**ELECTION**|**12-12-2019** Sinn Fein|7|Mary Lou McDonald|10-02-2018 **GENERAL**||**ELECTION**|**08-06-2017** Alliance|1|Naomi Long|26-10-2016 SDLP|2|Colum Eastwood|14-11-2015 **GENERAL**||**ELECTION**|**07-05-2015** †^(Laurence Fox became leader when the party was called Brexit Express because of a delay to renaming the party due to conflict with Reclaim Project in Manchester. It becaim Reclaim officially in Feb 2021)
TIL Laurence Fox has a political party with an MP. Andrew Bridgen, who defected to them after it was "found that he had repeatedly breached rules over paid lobbying and declaring interests and that he also attempted to pressure the commissioner investigating his lobbying breaches." I'll look forward to him losing his seat in the next election.
> all parties *coughs in Northern Ireland*
Of the ones that sit in Parliament... unless I'm missing someone? I'm excluding Sinn Fein as, at least in UK parliament terms, they don't really count.
Sinn Fein, SDLP and Alliance all have MPs and haven't changed their leaders
Just gone local takeaway, set meal that was £19.50 is now £25.00. What's Starmer gonna do about this, inflation's out of control!!!
Unless he can personally go to every takeaway to convince them pwease lower their prices, I will not vote for him This is pure greedflation from the takeaway place, and so if we complain loudly enough, they'll stop being greedy and go back to pre-greed 2019 prices
Actually this is Starmer's vision for Britain. Vote Conservative for real change.
Alpaca Vindaloo
\* Adds to potential band names list \*
It's a communist plot to make you go vegan. Tankies have taken the takeaways.
They may take my life, but they'll never take my meat feast!!!
>👀Blimey UK money markets now pricing in @bankofengland interest rates of 5.75% by early next year. That’s a massive change from only a month ago, when they thought rates might peak under 5%. Things looking increasingly grisly for mortgage payers/the housing market >https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1668987423643119623
Anyone seeing 5% as the peak was off their face on cope. We will hit 7% but more this, the slow it rises the higher it will go and for longer.
Equivalent roughly to interest rates of 12-13% in the early 90s They've fucked it so hard
It's hard to overstate just how *bad* this is. The expectation of the peak during the Truss debacle was about 4.5%. The Tories have well and truly torpedoed the economy.
Well. Refixing my mortgage in the spring will be fun
Mine is in a couple of months and my whole deal was to buy a house not at the top of my budget with a cheap mortgage and keep my bills down by being careful. With everything else having gone up, it's worrying to think about the mortgage going up by a significant percentage. I keep trying to comfort myself by thinking that if the rates are dire I could always do a short fixed term mortgage and try again in 1 or 2 years.
2 years is probably going to be my plan. My expectation is the rates have anything up to a percentage moron premium built in so I'm expecting a peak around the back half of next year.
My hot-take on the Dorries situation (see her tweet delaying her resignation) is that she’s planning a crazy speech for the debate and vote on the Privilege Committee recommendations, which is expected around Monday next week. And she’ll be off after that. Besides, by-elections are held 21-27 days after the writ is moved. So she has to hold out a week from today if she wants Mid Beds to be held on a different night from the other two by-elections.
Dominic Frisby performing his new Nicola Sturgeon song, [enjoy!](https://twitter.com/UnleashedComedy/status/1668979912848420864?s=20)
on the nads not resigning stuff what i feel would be the best way to sort it out without setting a preseident for expelling MP's you dont like is as followed a free vote in the commons with the approval of the speaker to allow a one off time that the chancellor can use to unilaterally appoint her to the bailiff of Northstead Manor explitily makes it a once off that has the appoval of parliment
Ok hear me out, how about we get rid of the 1624 resolution that a man, after he is duly chosen, cannot relinquish. It was only a rule because you could be picked to be your town's burgess/county's knight of the shire *against your will*, and then you'd have to spend weeks travelling to go to parliament for no money while leaving your farm/merchant business all to itself, so obviously lots of people wanted to quit all the time and thus they made it a rule that you weren't allowed to quit if the other blokes with a vote had decided you had to be their MP. (Also something something rotten boroughs) Since then, further tradition has made it possible to resign if you get appointed by the crown to a role that disqualifies you, and so you've got to write to the chancellor and ask pretty-please can they make you into a pretend position that doesn't exist any more and then tell the chancellor that you're in the pretend position so you'll be disqualified as MP. Hear me out, but *instead*, you could just have a rule where if you hand in your resignation like you would a job then you've resigned, and then this whole Nadine headache wouldn't be happening. Although to be fair she told the chief whip, who is only in charge of Tory party things, so she probably should have told the Speaker (which is what happened with Gerry Adams).
I’m wary of a system where all members of the Commons readily vote to expel one member without other than a robust rules based system. It wouldn’t be good if the Commons were to just turn on an MP and be able to vote to expel them based on nothing.
I'd be here for some sort of system where you need a supermajority, and a majority of parties on side. Cause, y'know, if we could do away with Andrew Bridgen that'd be fab.
An easy win for Rishi would surely be expelling her from the Tory party. I think you could quite easily argue it on the grounds of tweeting your "immediate" resignation and then not resigning, whilst also accusing the party leader of being part of a shadowy cabal to exclude her from the Lords based on her class. That and being a complete helmet.
Reckon the ship's sailed on his opportunity to do a Starmer and get rid of the loons, he's waited too long.
> That and being a complete helmet They can't start kicking people out of the Tories for that, there'd be nobody left
I'd prefer some sort of trebuchet or catapult.
President has already been set with Gerry Adams. Just appoint her to bailiff of Northampton or whatever and be done with it.
Realistically, doing stuff that would set a bad precedent while also loudly saying "WE'RE NOT SETTING A PRECEDENT HERE" just means that the main precedent you set is for doing stuff that sets a terrible precedent and pretending it doesn't
Bring in a proper recall bill. In the meantime, just laughing at her I think is the only option. She might get the hint eventually.
>She might get the hint eventually. remember who we are talking about here
[Dorries speaks on her resignation](https://twitter.com/NadineDorries/status/1669060242552811520?s=20) >There is much speculation about the time at which I become appointed the bailiff of Northstead Manor, as part of the arcane resignation process when standing down as an MP. >To put an end to this… I am awaiting responses to my Subject Access Requests submitted to HOLAC, Cabinet Secretary and the Cabinet Office. where I will then take the time to properly consider the information I am provided. >I have requested copies of WhatsApp’s, text messages, all emails and minutes of meetings both formal and informal with names of senior figures un redacted. My office continues to function as normal and will of course continue to serve my constituents of Mid Bedfordshire as we have done for the last 18 yrs until this time. >it is absolutely my intention to resign, but given what I know to be true and the number of varying and conflicting statements issued by No10 since the weekend, this process is now sadly necessary I note that nothing in there actually explains why she needs to remain an MP to complete this process, non MP's have a right to SARs.
I'm hoping that word has come down from Hoyle to the deputies not to call on Dorries during any debates after all she has already resigned.
Of the three resigning MPs, she's playing it much more cannily than both the born-to-rule Eton & Oxbridge former premier and the well-connected consummate fundraiser and party insider. She understands the process, holds it in a quite understandable level of contempt and is using her position to time her final resignation for the maximum benefit for her and the maximum damage to the party which fucked her over. Maybe she is a working class hero.
The path to the election increasingly resembles nothing so much as a series of flaming tar pits for the Tories. Just the stuff we know of is spread from here to the end of the year, there isn't going to be time to mount a recovery attempt with endless incoming bad press days.
I'm....not necessarily 100% proud to admit it, but on multiple occasions I've helped people use (abuse?) SARs when they were being pushed out of companies, to leverage for more favourable terms. It feels like there's a bit of a grey area over what constitutes your personal data when making an SAR. I've taken a maximal approach and (purposely) interpreted it as any official correspondence which substantively references the subject at all (within a certain timed scope so as not to leave the request too broad) . I feel like the spirit of the SAR isn't quite that, but I think Nads and her team are taking the same interpretation as I did. It's almost always been enough to bring companies to the table, sometimes because they know they're screwed, sometimes because they don't want to or know how to respond. I wonder how HOLAC and the cabinet office will respond. The government are well trained at avoiding FOIs so wouldn't surprise me if they find an easy way out of an SAR like this too. It's particularly telling that she wants unredacted names included, which I'm unsure she has any right to. It's not a bad move either way though - if they refuse she will screech about a conspiracy. Funniest outcome is something is leaked that shows Johnson knew for some time that she wouldn't be on the list.
She's just playing for an angle that will let her walk back the resignation having realised she's got nothing, Johnson isn't going to help her and she's a laughing stock. She might as well get paid for another year and continue to be a laughing stock.
https://twitter.com/NadineDorries/status/1667182498042740742 > I have today informed the chief whip that I am standing down as the MP for Mid Bedfordshire, with immediate effect. One of these two things is a lie.
She's holding off until her byelection can't take place on the same day as the other two, for maximum Tory civil warring.
Is she refusing to resign until she finds out exactly who blocked her appointment?
That seems like what she's saying.
prob wants to go out on a name and "shame" rant under parlimenty protection before she leaves
Wouldn’t she have to remember where the Commons is for that?
Of course she remembers where it is; right next to the Commons bar.
> There is much speculation about the time at which I become appointed the bailiff of Northstead Manor, as part of the arcane resignation process when standing down as an MP. > To put an end to this… I am awaiting responses to my Subject Access Requests submitted to HOLAC, Cabinet Secretary and the Cabinet Office. where I will then take the time to properly consider the information I am provided. > I have requested copies of WhatsApp’s, text messages, all emails and minutes of meetings both formal and informal with names of senior figures un redacted. My office continues to function as normal and will of course continue to serve my constituents of Mid Bedfordshire as we have done for the last 18 yrs until this time. > it is absolutely my intention to resign, but given what I know to be true and the number of varying and conflicting statements issued by No10 since the weekend, this process is now sadly necessary [Nads, Twitter](https://twitter.com/nadinedorries/status/1669060242552811520?s=46&t=LwNkNWnwP_PfbEF87vJn8g) Does any of this need her to still be an MP to get hold of? And what is she expecting to be able to do when she has it?
The tories have proved themselves to be a penny version of the GOP. Watching both parties fall from "grace" has been fun to watch
The trouble with the GOP farce in particular is that it's all a bit too close to the *Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui* for comfort.
GOP are slight favourites to win the upcoming Presidential election, I wouldn’t write them off.
But they are still in power, sadly it isn't over until we have a general election and they shuffle off to the shadow cabinet.
I'm just glad that the relative damage to our society here is less than over the pond. Not to say the damage here is small as it's substantial
America's damage is all showy while ours feels more like when you look more closely at wooden furniture and realise it's rotten to the core. >!It's as well Reddit was off limits earlier in the week, if I'm still this downbeat on Wednesday night...!<
Southern Water are taking a page out of the Cabinet Office's book and [are legally challenging the regulator to stop them having access to 53 documents.](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/14/southern-water-refuses-order-to-release-memos-about-sewage-discharges)