The fall of the Tory party

Sure :-)

Apologies all.

https://youtu.be/bprjHYY90lo?si=sCpGqzt2gXeAJ7re

sauntering off while whistlinghumming a little tune.

(I need to Google if there is a Curb version of this)

Seriously, what a pathetic embarrassment this guy is:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/nov/27/greek-pm-slams-rishi-sunak-for-cancelling-planned-meeting-at-no-10

But we haven't finished looking at them yet.

Give at the COVID enquiry stating that Johnson preferred “gladiatorial decision making “ (Gove’s actual words) - they just can’t resist sounding like completely pretentious twats, can they.

Wouldn't mind seeing a few of them thrown to the lions, tbf.

That said, I don't even know what Gove means by that. Shouting matches? Thumbs up/thumbs down?

I always thought it was one of those things that come up in international pr/diplomacy meetings.

"Hi how are you, can we have our stolen marbles back?"

"No"

"Ok, well now I've done my pr duty there, let's talk about migration and the climate crisis"

Not to belittle any of these issues but they validly get raised whenever heads of state meet, much like Gibraltar, Falklands, empire, looting, Egyptian mummies, Benin bronzes, reparations etc ..

I assume it means an adversarial process rather than a collaborative approach, like our courts operate.

As Grumpy Git says, adversarial rather than inquisitorial, vouched in Roman Empire terms to try to make it sound classy rather than yhe reality of two men shouting the odds at each other

It smacks of petulance and amateurishness on Sunak's part. Even if he did think that topic was off limits, surely our PM should be able to a) either be the bigger man and simply ignore what he (almost certainly wrongly) perceived as provocation or b) discuss the issue sensibly in person like a serious politician.

But then very little he and his party do surprises me any more. I think I'd find a sudden outbreak of competence, decorum and decency the most shocking thing, actually. You know, the outdated stuff like respect for the law, at least trying to govern in people's best interests, not stoking division, etc.

It kind of boggles the mind why this is a decision for the government in the first place. I’d have expected the British Museum to be an independent organisation who could decide what they want to do with their shit, but it’s required by law (The 1963 British Museum Act) not to part with any items in its collection.

It smacks of petulance and amateurishness on Sunak's part

Yeah it’s very much this, it been Greeces position for 50 years, it’s not a supri. It’s also Sunak desperate to do the opposite of Starmer in the hope of finding a wedge issue. Apparently sunak was also pissed off that starmer meet the Greek pm first.

Listening to Keegan today you would think (a) why does she pronounce Elgin with a soft g and (b) doesn’t Parliament have a secret super power up its sleeve, also known as the power to legislate and (c) why was the new power to make ex gratia payments, designed specifically with the BM in mind, pulled at the last minute from the implementation plan for the Charities Act 2022?

Petulance, amateurishness, venality, selfishness, self interest, cowardice, unfitness for office; craven, inept, ignorance, arrogance, entitlement, stupidity; wilfully distressing, artless, gaslighting deflection of responsibility and disrespect
It can’t be easy, the bar being so high for all the qualifications required to do the Cabinet roles, to be fair
We should cut them a little slack tbh

Also the Tories on Radio4 (variously. I know. I should head out of the Clubhouse and tee off)) on why the Torygraph shouldn’t be sold to Foreign Interests
Bald men fighting over combs

I resent that metaphor!

I have yet to hear the same Tories bleating about media owned by that famously entirely English person, Murdoch.

Interestingly, spillchuck just suggested 'Mugdock', I was tempted to leave it.

why was the new power to make ex gratia payments, designed specifically with the BM in mind, pulled at the last minute from the implementation plan for the Charities Act 2022?

Ooh, I don’t know about this, can you elaborate?

Apologies, no slight intended

Tories bleating about media owned by famously entitled

FTFY

See Marina Hyde’s wonderful take down of them also in the Graniad (yesterday I think?)

The Law Commission’s eleventh programme of law reform had been looking at technical issues about the amendment of Royal Charters and of the governing documents of charities set up by legislation, and the project’s scope was then widened to pick up a number of issues identified by Lord Hodgson’s review of the operation of the 2006 Charities Act. One of the topics they explored was whether there should be a relaxation of the rules about charities and ex gratia payments (i.e. payments or the forgoing of payments or the transfer of assets where there is a compelling moral obligation but no legal power) so that charities should be able to make such payments in some cases without the approval of the Charity Commission being required. Someone had identified the situation that the BM had been in some years back where they had been willing to deaccession something but the 1963 Act did not allow it. So the Law Commission proposed that charities established by Act of Parliament (like the BM) should not be prevented from making such payments because of anything in their legislation. And so the Charities Act 2022 was passed with a section in it that would have trumped the prohibition in the 1963 Act if the trustees of the BM felt a moral obligation to return a cultural artefact to its “home”. The irony is that the government department that is responsible for the charity legislation is none other than the DCMS which is also the principal regulator and funder of the BM, and yet the relevant people in the department had clearly not spoken to each other about what the Charities Act was going to do. The result was that the relevant sections of the Charities Act 2022 were pulled from the implementation plan and may never be brought into force, despite their being an expression of the will of the people. That’s the short version.

Liz Truss in "I've drunk the meth laced cool aid" shocker.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/27/liz-truss-republican-president-election-2024

Greek press nail it

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"This is the only way to answer the insuslt of the mouse-faced prime minister of england and mouthpiece of Goldman Sachs, Rishi Sunak, to the greatness of the ancient Greek culture.

"mouse-faced" is a) a great insult and b) absolutely spot on.

“Prime minister of England” is a great burn

It's undoubtedly not intended to be. Most people in Europe don't understand the structure of the UK and often just say 'England' when they mean the UK, e.g. in Germany, where "England" usually means 'UK', because "Vereinigtes Königreich" (United Kingdom) is hard to say and no-one says "VK" (/fow-kah/). I have no doubt that it's similar in Greek. (The French have it easier because «Royaume-Uni» is easy to say and idiomatic.)