The fall of the Tory party

He's had his 6 week suspension confirmed by MPs so he's going to face a recall petition so there going to be a byelection, the recall petition takes 6 weeks so a byelection will be early Feb at the latest.

I almost don't want there to be a GE as it'll be funnier watching them fritter away a massive majority bit by bit with corruption, bullying and sex crimes.

Rishi knows you feel that way and look, things are tough for everyone right now. He believes he's the right person for the job and has shown that with the tough decisions he made in the past. TM

The investigation into Scott Benton's lobbying is done and is likely to end in a long suspension too, so it could be another double header early next year.

And another one

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/26/conservative-mp-arrested-on-suspicion-of-rape-and-drugs-possession?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

If a footballer for example is arrested for rape their name is released even before being found guilty in court. Why do they not do the same for MPs?

My personal view is nobody should be named until found guilty in court. Seems there is a different set of rules for some though.

In the past, the speaker of the House of Commons would make it public when an MP had been arrested. This practice was ended in 2016 after MPs voted to give greater privacy to their colleagues when arrested.

Turkeys/Christmas.

If you’re planning on committing crimes and have the power to say that your arrests need to be private you’d be silly not to.

For me an arrest is good enough and the name should be out there, but there’s problems either way. I’m sure the name is out there, as I understand it the papers could name them if they wanted to, it’s clearly in the public interest.

The drugs element of the case is interesting, I guess it was just an added bonus in the process of the arrest and will be very black and white so we might find out soon.

Whoever they are, they haven’t (yet) been charged. I’d imagine they’ll be named if/when they are.

On a different subject, does anyone else remember the mid-90s, when the Tories had reached the peak of their arrogance and depravity, and the MP scandals were coming along like buses as the party doom-spiralled toward electoral oblivion?

… reached the previous peak…

FTFY

So the guardian wouldn’t name the police force for some reason, but the bbc have, Surrey.

And for no reason what so ever here’s a list of Tory MPs in Surrey.

Sir Paul Beresford MP. Conservative. Mole Valley.
Mr Crispin Blunt MP. Conservative. Reigate.
Claire Coutinho MP. Conservative. East Surrey.
Mr Michael Gove MP. Conservative. Surrey Heath.
Mr Chris Grayling MP. Conservative. ...
Mr Jeremy Hunt MP. Conservative. ...
Mr Kwasi Kwarteng MP. Conservative. ...
Jonathan Lord MP. Conservative.

Hmmmm.... Any of those have previous for drugs??....

Come on that would be too obvious!

I was wondering which one liked smoking Blunts.

Doesn't that just mean the incident too place in Surrey or that the complaint was made to them?

Of which

Mr Crispin Blunt MP. Conservative. Reigate.
Mr Chris Grayling MP. Conservative. ...
Jonathan Lord MP. Conservative.

Are in their 60s

But of course the area may be unrelated.

https://twitter.com/CrispinBlunt/status/1717585117932142922?t=ESFUmHcXvUVJo5zQpZ1Vsg&s=19

Blunt has confirmed it's him.

Yeah, but it was interesting that the guardian made a point of not name the police force. that to me would suggest it might narrow down the names of who it might because they have a connection to the area.

But just to be clear, it’s just a list of random names for no particular reason etc etc

Blunt has confirmed it's him

Fucking knew it.

It's in the name

I do love the part in the statement where he say the arrest was unnecessary, said Every criminal ever.

I was thinking about that today. David Mellor was the one that sticks in my mind. I don't think that sleaze era has been matched yet, but the current lot are more hopeless across the board than the 90s bunch. It's close.

I'm not sure an affair and some holidays in the 90s match the sexual assault, rape accusations and millions of PPE contacts to donors handed out now, it's just so normalised now and pushed out of the news by the next bullshit. Unfortunately the lessons they've learnt is to keep at it and no one will care by the next one, rather than not to do it at all.

just so normalised now

Yeah it's this, good point @snottyotter.

Yeah this will be forgotten as usual since there is so much shit happening sadly.