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Wednesday 3 November 2021

Tories To Normalise Corruption

As if the behaviour of North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson - found by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to have “egregiously breached paid advocacy rules for making three approaches to the Food Standards Agency and four approaches to the Department for International Development in relation to Randox and seven approaches to the Food Standards Agency relating to Lynn’s Country Foods” - were not bad enough, his pals in the Tory Party are now rallying round to get him let off a 30-day suspension.

Bang to rights. But his pals want him to be let off

You read that right. Paterson, whose behaviour is reminiscent of the “cash for questions” scandal that did for disgraced former Tory MP Mostyn Neil Hamilton, described by the late George Carmen QC as “on the make, and on the take”, has decided that it’s all so unfair on Himself Personally Now. Now his fellow Tories want sleaze to be normalised.

Brown envelopes stuffed with used notes? The corruption followed by perjury that did for the likes of Jonathan Aitken? The disgrace of Liam Fox? And talking of the disgraced former minister Liam Fox, he is one of those who has put their name to an amendment introduced by former failed leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom.

Corrupt press rather likes the idea of corruption No Shock Horror

Dan Bloom of the Mirror noted “This means Tory MPs will line up tomorrow to block the suspension of one of their own over 'egregious' breaches of Commons rules. 59 have signed it and the [Telegraph] reports Tory whips have told MPs to back it”. The Tel’s front page report is authored by Christopher “No” Hope of New Royal Yacht Compulsion infamy, and Camilla Tominey, who smeared the Duchess of Sussex with a fake terrorism “link”.

The amendment sets out the Tories’ favoured course of action: a Select Committee loaded in their favour and chaired by John Whittingdale. That’s the same John Whittingdale who claimed to have met two women on Match Dot Com who turned out to be sex workers, one of whom he brought along to a bash within the Palace of Westminster.


So who’s signed on to the Leadsom Amendment? There’s Bob “Permanently intoxicated and very inappropriate with women” Stewart, the disgraced Liam Fox, Lee “Facebook page a cesspool of racism” Anderson, Ben “Cultural Marxism” Bradley, Bob “the bigot” Blackman, Mark François (note cedilla under the c), the legendarily dishonest Iain Duncan Cough, wacko Desmond Swayne, and Dehenna “not really far right” Davison, for instance.

Shadow leader of the house Thangam Debbonaire has asserted that this would mean a return to the worst of early 1990s Tory sleaze. But she got that one wrong: in the early 90s, Tories actually did the right thing and resigned when caught. What is being proposed is to make sure no-one resigns, however egregious their corrupt behaviour.


As Henry Mance of the FT has put it, “Don’t like election rules? Weaken the Electoral Commission … don’t like impartial news reporting? Weaken the BBC … don’t like your mates being punished for breaking lobbying rules? Propose a ridiculous replacement system on the same day a Tory MP is due to be suspended”.

One can imagine updating that scene from The Italian Job: Mr Bridger orders Camp Freddie to obtain the services of a Tory MP. He protests “What if our Tory MP isn’t bent?” to which Mr Bridger responds “Freddie, everybody in the Parliamentary Conservative Party is bent”. Except that was funny, and what is now being done is not. Sleaze on steroids.


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14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where's the problem?

Greed is good.

Rigged law is good.

Undermining the NHS is good.

Looting national assets is good.

Bribery (aka "commission") is good.

Far right monopoly/oligarch ownership of corporate media (and all strategic economic activity) is good.

Deliberate impoverishment of a quarter (and increasing) of the population is good.

Lies and hypocrisy are good.

Mass murder wars on innocents are good.

Racism and xenophobia are good.

Ignoring Britain outside the M25 is good.

Demonising foreign leaders is good.

An unelected hereditary Ruritanian monarch as head of state is good.

An unelected second chamber of government is good.

Villification of decent and honest opposition (but not the present pack of bed wetters) is good.

Evil is good.


It's been intensifying that way since 1979. Now it's "normal". So stop whingeing, knuckle your forehead, watch soap opera TV and vile films, of shuffle into the zombie queue, and be thankful you aren't confined to Belmarsh or Guantanamo torture and concentration camps......yet.

AndyC said...

We can only hope that the overpowering stench of corruption that wafts around the Tory party and seeps into almost every nook and cranny of that odious cabal will help remind voters what the Tories really stand for.

Anonymous said...

Just watched Leadsom say something like, "We don't want the unelected removing the elected".

I wonder what she thought of unelected Lizzy Von Windsor's signature on the document that helped remove elected Gough Whitlam.

Meanwhile, a corrupt Parliament again rigs its processes in favour of rotten criminality. No wonder the lot of them are despised for the evil cowards they are.

Simon said...

Let him get away with it. 30 day suspension will mean sod all to him anyway. Eventually they'll push their luck too far and enough people might actually start waking up to what these bastards stand for and boot them out.

I write that in hope not expectation, that's how far we have sunk.

iMatt said...

One of the 'arguments' pushed by brexiters is that leaving the EU makes British politicians more accountable to the electorate.

I would love them to tell me and anyone else how Patterson's fellow Tory cohorts covering up for his dodgy antics and wishing to weaken parliamentary standards makes British politicians more accountable???

Anonymous said...

And now they vote to keep the guilty from justice.

It will stay that way while the political system is parti pris with corruption.

Make political corruption subject to criminal law, not rigged parliamentary "standards".

Until then this rotting facade will stand. Society decomposes behind it.

But what else to expect in the age of Murdoch/Rothermere/BBC/Sky/ITN and their goons.

Gulliver said...

I'm old enough to remember when the PM's most senior advisor broke lock down rules and enjoyed a 400 mile round trip to get his eyes tested and after a few days of political pundit hysteria we ended up with.. the guy keeping his job.

I'm also old enough to remember the catastrophic decision making and rank incompetence (mixed with far worse corruption than can be seen in this latest little local difficulty)that accidentally got 60,000 pensioners killed....twice in one year.

It is well within the press's power to nail this objectively corrupt government to the wall if they are prepared to sustain the scrutiny, but we'll be onto the next battle of the culture war by Friday.

Mr Larrington said...

Stone me! Even The Spectator thinks this is a Bad Thing: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/owen-paterson-s-defenders-are-treating-voters-with-contempt

Michael said...

But at least Corbyn didn’t get in.

Anonymous said...

Merely the latest symptom of a dying dystopian nation with a not-fit-for-purpose political system. It pollutes what remains of British democracy. Which is virtually dead anyway.

Every bit as bad as Bliar's corrupt stop of the bribery inquiry into the Al Yamamah weapons scam.

In reality it won't matter a shit. It's no more than a factions spat between blue, red and yellow tories.

Anonymous said...

Paterson says he'd do it all over again.

Which is why it WILL happen all over again. But in a different guise and with a different conman liar.

Unknown said...

But its all Corbyn's fault innit...if you believe the Tory friendly newspaper & Guido and not forgetting Starmer and his Blairite Tribute Act aka the occasional Labour Party.

Mr Larrington said...

"If a company wants a government contract. Is it better to have a friend in the cabinet, or just give a large donation to the Conservative Party or both?" - Jenny Jones in the Lords, yesterday.

Anonymous said...

Watch the hapless gimps who voted tory shrug and get ready to vote in the next gang of Eton/Oxbridge thieving conmen and women.

Then blame someone else for the inflicted horror of a corrupt society.... usually "illegal immigrants" or "dem Muslamics".