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#Ministerial Code
lost-carcosa · 1 year
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tweetingukpolitics · 1 year
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eaglesnick · 1 year
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101 Things You Should Know About the UK Tory Government
Thing 13
Melvyn Stride is Rishi Sunak’s new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Like many in Sunak’s government he has been accused of breaking the Ministerial Code, in his particular case by a cross-party inquiry who maintained he had misled Parliament regarding IR35 reforms. He was never disciplined.
DWP is responsible for the administration of the State Pension and working age benefits system, providing support to:
·                       people of working age
·                       employers
·                       pensioners
·                       families and children
·                       disabled people
 Strides parliamentary voting record holds little cheer for any of these five groups, especially poor pensioners. 
 The Guardian (17.03.22) reported that, “One in five pensioners - more than 2 million people- are living in relative poverty, in the UK, an increase of more than 200,000 in the past year alone.”
Stride has generally voted AGAINST welfare benefits in line with prices. He has almost always voted FOR a reduction in welfare spending. He has consistently voted AGAINST spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people. He has voted consistently FOR reducing housing benefit for those in social housing deemed to have a spare bedroom. Even worse news for pensioners is this statement by Stride when Chair of the Treasury Committee:
"Over the last decade, the pensions triple lock has successfully protected the incomes of older people, who often have limited opportunities to increase their earnings. However, the ‘triple lock’ is unsustainable in its current form. A potential almost double-digit percentage rise is unrealistic and unfair, with knock-on effects for the public finances.”
(Voting record of Stride gratefully taken from Voting record - Mel Stride MP, Central Devon - TheyWorkForYou)
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ceevee5 · 2 years
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“The code states that ministers who discuss official business at a “social occasion” while not in the presence of civil servants must report the content of discussions to their department as soon as possible.”
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Another point is Boris Johnson changed the ministerial code to say that rulebreakers didn't have to resign which is >:/ incredibly fucked up to say the least. It's not satire what this says (granted it is from the Guardian which is more left-wing but eh).
u can't break the law when u make the law - boris johnson, probably
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the-busy-ghost · 2 years
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Ah fuck she’s back
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hauntingblue · 1 year
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You guys!!! My university is doing this really fun thing where it's impossible to have a normal uni year!!! It's so cool and fun
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Clownfall: Endgame
I am calling it that in the full knowledge that batshit things may yet happen, but listen. Listen. We have a year left before the general election. I am hedging my bets and assuming all that comes in that year will be Tory manoeuvring ahead of that. Let's all hope for a nice quiet year in which everything can fall neatly under that banner, that won't ruin this naming convention.
Previous Reading
Important Terminology - Required Reading
What is a Whip?
How do Whips work?
Shadow Cabinet
Front Benchers, Back Benchers and the Cabinet
What do we need to call an early General Election?
The Adventures of Big Dog the Clown - Suggested Reading
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Elanor’s Guide to Liz Truss - Suggested Reading
Character-based prequel
The Premiership of Liz Truss
The Next Steps - Suggested Reading
The post-Truss contenders
Bye Matt
BoJo Resigns as MP
Alright, that's probably everything. Just nice to have it all in one place, innit? If you would like a nice soothing soundtrack to your reading, here's my recommendation. On with the show!
Clownfall: Endgame
Wednesday
So, let's start with charismatic and charming Home Secretary Suella Braverman! You may remember her from such hits as "Quitting before she could be fired after breaking the law only to be rehired by Sunak almost immediately and without consequence to appease the right wing nutjobs in the party", and "Claiming Pakistani men have a culture that makes them work in abuse rings to target vulnerable white English girls" (I should add that, if you are unfamiliar with Suella Braverman, regardless of what that quote implies, she is not, in fact, white); recently she made the news because she announced that being homeless is a "lifestyle choice". So true, Suella! They could give it up any time they wanted. They could, for example, get together and break in and steal your fucking house.
But in particular, here we're focussing on her recent stance towards the multiple huge pro-Palestine marches that have been taking place in London. So far she has indicated that she wants people who wave Palestinian flags to be arrested, so that's very measured and rational of her; but, last Wednesday (Nov 8th), she decided to write a lil opinion piece in the Times all about how mean and biased and liberal the police are. This is an absolutely fascinating assertion to I suspect literally anyone who has ever been involved with the police. But no! Quoth Suella, aggressive right-wing protesters are "rightly met with a stern response", while "pro-Palestinian mobs" are "largely ignored".
And, she claims, the march on Saturday isn’t simply a cry for help for Gaza, but an "assertion of primacy by certain groups - particularly Islamists - of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland".
Imagine how well all that went down.
Thursday
You are underestimating how that went down, because it emerges that Suella deVille did not, in fact, get any form of validated sign-off or permission from Number 10 before squirting her ill-informed liquid horseshit all over the front desk of the Times news room, and that, Tumblrs, you'll be surprised to learn, is actually quite an important and compulsory part of criticising the police when you are the Home Secretary. Like, there is a Ministerial Code about this. It is very clear. It is in Article 8.2, Tumblrs. Thou Shalt Have Permission From Number 10 Before Making Media Interventions.
“The content was not agreed with Number 10,” a spokesperson for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters, referring to the prime minister’s Downing Street office. The ministerial code is clear that any ministerial media interventions need approval from No 10.
-AlJazeera
And the Tories are furious! The bloodbath forms quickly and loudly and the hounds start baying! Clown noses are flying everywhere! The factions are drawn! Because even now, there are Tories too stupid to understand that whether you agree with someone or not they still have to follow the rules! Also the other parties realise they can offer some actual opposition here, given that Suella has essentially dragged a barrel into the middle of the House of Commons dressed in a fish costume, handed around a set of loaded rifles, and then crawled inside to wait. The result is that the calls for her resignation are both deafening and pleasingly cross-party.
"(This is a) dangerous attempt to undermine respect for police", says Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper. "(It's) irresponsible," says London mayor Sadiq Khan. "The PM's weakness when it comes to standing up to Suella is the most shocking thing in all this," claims a senior Labour source.
They're wrong, of course. The most shocking thing is Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey realising he can actually appear in the paper if he plays this right and so surfaces to attempt some politics. "(Sunak) must finally act with integrity by sacking his out-of-control home secretary!" he declares, frightening many MPs who had forgotten he was even in the room with them.
Meanwhile, several Tories approach the BBC anonymously.
"The home secretary's awfulness is now a reflection on the prime minister. Keeping her in post is damaging him," says one. Another straight-up describes her as "unhinged". Another claims the comparison with Northern Ireland is "wholly offensive and ignorant", and really, all of this is permanently triggering that "Heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a great point" reaction image.
Saturday
Hey, speaking of reaction images, look, Labour has a go:
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Well. They tried.
BUT! Do you want to know the INTERESTING bit??!
Enter: Nadine Dorries! Mad shrieking pink harpy who spends her days maintaining a BoJo shrine in her bedroom! Always the most hinged of politicians, let's see what she has to say.
Former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries claimed Ms Braverman was trying to get sacked to give her a platform of martyrdom in service of the right-wing. "The competition is on now for who is going to be the leader of the opposition," Ms Dorries told the BBC.
???!??!?
PERTINENT POLITICAL OBSERVATION FROM DORRIES?!?!?? The most shocking part of this whole affair. Remember that time she yelled at a journalist during an interview about Boris Johnson's latest scandal when he asked her how Johnson was feeling about the whole thing and inadvertently implied they were having an affair when No One Asked? God, wonders never cease. She's even acknowledging the Tories can't win the next GE, look. I'd say this is growth, except I am 100% positive she's just being catty about BlowJo being fired again.
Anyway, the real Saturday issue: it's Armistice Day, and there's a pro-Palestine march planned.
Now, to give context, Armistice Day has a creepy level of patriotic state-worship attached to it in the UK. Some time in October everyone on telly suddenly starts wearing a poppy, and if you don't you get hanged, drawn and quartered by (a) the British press, and then (b) a baying mob outside your living room. You most be performatively sad. You must perform reverence and hero worship and say things like "Never again" all while whole-heartedly supporting current wars. You must talk about "our brave boys", and share the works of dead poets from the trenches, and then completely fail to absorb any of their lessons. If anyone tries to wear the white poppy to distance themselves from the current political appropriation while still commemorating the millions of conscripted casualties, you accuse them of being "woke" and pissing on the worthy dead of WW1. It's a whole thing, and politicians love using it as an excuse to point fingers and mock each other for being insufficiently patriotic if they wear the wrong tie to the ceremonies, or choose to walk with actual veterans rather than a head of the current army, or any number of other things. And then on November the 12th they'll order a drone strike or something.
So, off the bat, you can see how a pro-Palestine rally on the same day was likely to be seen as provocative to some.
"Some" included Sunak! He didn’t (publicly at least) ask the police to ban the protest, but did call on organisers to call it off, claiming the choice of date was “provocative and disrespectful”, because as I say, a march calling for the ceasefire of a genocide is super disrespectful to every sad dead poet in a trench who dreamed of a ceasefire so they could live, or something.
But the inevitable therefore happens, which is that far-right activists agree that it's disrespectful, and so decide to violently target the march to show their respect for the idea of peace on Armistice Day, or something.
Here's the planned route by the organisers:
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Note, though, that the Armistice ceremony happens at the Cenotaph - visibly nowhere near the march. These two events actually wouldn't have overlapped, if it weren't for far-right protestors deliberately linking them to stop them being disrespectfully linked, or something.
And that's exactly what happened. From the Guardian:
Perhaps the most striking incident, though, was when far-right protesters charged past police who sought to hold them back from the Cenotaph. In this video, a man shouts “this is fucking our country” in celebration. Whereas the pro-Palestine march had been excluded from the area as a precaution, the far right was not; by overwhelming the police, they supposedly sought to defend the site from an enemy that simply wasn’t there.
(that's quite a good article of the whole thing, actually, I recommend giving it a read.)
Crucially to the clown show, though, several politicians and others accused Suella deVille of emboldening the far-right, which... well, several of the far-right protestors straight up said was the case on the day, so hard to disagree, really.
Rumours of a reshuffle in Whitehall circumnavigate the land so fast the truth gets sucked into a tornado and is declared MIA.  Here's the thing! I've covered a few Cabinet reshuffles by now, Tumblrs, you know the drill. Reshuffles are always deniable until they actually happen – so if, say, a reshuffle was going to happen on Monday 13 November 2023, there’d be no need to publicise it in advance. That way, if things change and politics happen, you don't need to retract anything :)
Because, remember: reshuffles are always controversial.  Yes, some people get demoted, and those people will often kick off, and some people who don't deserve it get promoted, and lots of people kick off.  But the big thing is that a lot more people get overlooked for promotion.
His most ardent supporters would say that Rishi Sunak is a cautious man (if you'll allow me a moment to express my own view on the matter, Tumblrs, if you'll forgive this crumb of personal opinion amongst my otherwise impeccable journalling of greatest integrity, I once did a teambuilding task with my students where they had to build the best possible bridge out of uncooked spaghetti and pieces of marshmallow, and I personally would liken the structural integrity of his spine to the losing team's entry), and reshuffles will spread a lot of disappointment to Tory MPs who lose – or fail to gain – a cabinet position.
So, all in all... regardless of Suella's idiocy...
There's no guarantee of a reshuffle. Rumours are just that - whether they prove to be true or not remains to be seen.
Week Commencing Monday 13th November, 2023
New week, new challenges! And it's going to be a big week this week. On Wednesday (tomorrow, at time of writing), three big things are going to be announced, and these announcements will colour everything else this week:
One.  The Supreme Court decide whether the government will be allowed to enact their plan to send some migrants claiming asylum in the UK to Rwanda, a signature Braverman plan that human rights campaigners (including many in Rwanda) have been trying to block for ages.
It’s a massive deal anyway – a flagship government idea that’s been bogged down in the court, and we’ll finally have an answer one way or another.  For what it’s worth, the Tories aren’t confident about winning it, either.  The optimists among them reckon it’s a 50/50 chance, the pessimists reckon it’s 70/30 against, so it's iffy at best.
But here's the thing!
Plenty of Tories have always disliked Suella.  Others could handle the odd outburst she has, but can’t stomach the sheer number of them lately - the Lib Dem non-entity man was absolutely right that she is rapidly growing out of control and just does not know when to shut the entire fuck up.
Which means! If the Supreme Court allows the Rwanda plan, Braverman could become emboldened, like a far-right protest injuring police officers to defend the cenotaph from people who are nowhere near it and have no interest in it.  Do we want an emboldened Braverman?? Well; no, obviously. I also don't want dysentery, or rotten meat, or a serial killer in my neighbourhood. But it's a question even Tories are asking themselves, which is notable.
Plus, even if the court allows it, there will still be months of planning, and lawyers might still prevent the plans in the long run...  But psychologically, the issue is this: the government wants this win, but probably doesn’t benefit from Braverman feeling victorious.
Two.  We’ll get inflation figures.  The government promised to halve inflation, and it seems likely they’ve managed this.  Expect them to massively celebrate this, to distract from the promises they haven’t kept e.g. waiting lists in England, competent governance, etc.
Three.  Voting on a ceasefire in Israel seems likely for Wednesday.  It’s the SNP’s idea, and it won’t affect government policy (they won’t support a ceasefire – they claim it’ll empower Hamas).
But it’s a big deal for Labour, even more so than the Tories.  A Shadow minister has already resigned over the war.  A bunch of frontbenchers want a ceasefire, but that isn’t Keir Starmer’s policy, a man who is calling for the colours of the Israel flag to be shown at sports matches to show that "we stand in solidarity with Israel", because you can really count on Starmer to fuck up everything he touches.  So what do they do?  Abstain?  Claim they had a prior commitment??  We might see more resignations, basically.  Big day for Starmer.
So! With all that in mind...
Monday
8.43am
Oh look. Timestamps are back. I wonder if that suggests anything?
Suella Braverman is sacked as Home Secretary.
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But! Sunak is accused of waiting too long! Which he demonstrably did!
He should have made the decision after the illegal article that she shouldn't have written and triggered a far-right rally on fucking Armistice Day.  Instead, remember that 'cautious' descriptor I talked about?? He waited until the tide had turned against her completely, and now looks like he (a) was too much of a useless wimp to fire her until he was sure people would still like him and pat his dick and tell him he's a Good PM, and (b) only fired her because he caved in to that appalling lefty liberal cabal that somehow these days includes the Metropolitan Police of all fucking people, and she'd have been able to stay otherwise.
Shout out to the best comment from Reddit:
u/nowonmai666: Doesn't she normally get sacked on a Friday so she can have the weekend off before being reappointed?
Anyway, that's the big risk now: Braverman’s supporters can claim she was only fired because Sunak caved in to the left.
8.56am
Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns claims Sunak only sacked Braverman because he caved in to the left.
9.00am
Neil O'Brian, Pharmacy Minister, quits to live out his stated dream of being a back-bencher with less power.
*sus*
9.09am
Nick Gibb, Schools Minister, quits to live out his stated dream of being more diplomatic, or something.
*sus*
9.42am
The Lib Dems decide to build on the success of their leader getting to be on telly for his one comment on Thursday and call for a general election.  Says Ed Davey: “It was the Prime Minister’s sheer cowardice that kept her in the job even for this long. We are witnessing a broken party and a broken government, both of which are breaking this country.”
Good job! They're having such a good few days.
Anyway remember the Tories don’t have to have a general election until December 2024, though, thanks to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (2011), which was passed by the coalition government of Tories and, um, Lib Dems.  In which Ed Davey served for three years.
Hmm.
9.43am 
James Cleverly (remember him?) returns to the Cabinet and is appointed Home Secretary. The party attempts to appear trendy by experimenting with emojis:
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This appointment is probably because Tory strategists wanted him in a domestic role to help the party’s chances in the next election; as Surprising Political Pundit Nadine Dorries told us, of all fucking people, the race is now on to lead the opposition.
But hey, this is not likely to lead to any more changes -
10.03am
FORMER PRIME MINISTER, BREXIT-TRIGGERER AND PIG-FUCKER DAVID CAMERON BECOMES FOREIGN SECRETARY
!!!!!!!!!!!!
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And look! Another emoji! They're so hip!
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(Side note... the balls on this one are astounding, actually. The UK political system has been in chaos ever since Cameron, and he was the first domino. This is not a well-loved former hero that will be greeted warmly by the unwashed masses.)
Awkward though, since just last month Sunak claimed that we’d lived through “30 years of a political system that incentivizes the easy decision, not the right one.”  It would be a terrible shame if a journalist was to ask David Cameron whether he agreed with the Prime Minister on that, given that Cameron’s job is to support the Prime Minister now.
Especially since Cameron took to Twitter last month to explicitly criticise Sunak for breaking the Tory promise to deliver High Speed 2.
(Cameron tweeted this criticism last month.  Labour MP Angela Rayner however promptly retweets it now lol suck a dick Dave, but try a human one this time)
Also, fun fact, Cameron has just come out of a large-scale lobbying and corruption scandal. Given the state of Sunak, though, that's actually probably what got him the job.
BUT!!! Here's an even funner fact: the man is not an MP. He left politics after he accidentally triggered Brexit and then it came out he'd once face fucked a dead pig's head while it was held on the lap of another Tory; he's been living it up in the lucrative world of after-dinner speaking, as these people do.
So can you do that?? Can you hold a Cabinet position if no one at all has voted for you??
Yes, turns out.
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Don't be alarmed by that, though:
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But, convention holds that anyone who becomes a Cabinet member while not being an MP needs to be a Peer - that way, if they do bad and naughty things, they can't be held accountable by the House of Commons but they can be held accountable by the House of Lords. Only problem is, Hameron is not a lord...
10.13am
The reshuffle, bafflingly, continues. Jeremy Hunt will remain as chancellor.
For the first time since 2010, the top four positions in government – Prime Minister (Sunak), Chancellor of the Exchequer (Hunt), Home Secretary (Cleverly) and Foreign Secretary (Cameron) – are all held by men.
10.18am
Lots of people tweeting about the historic context of Cameron’s appointment.  Here’s my favourite:
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10.48am
David Cameron is given a life peerage, so his proper name now is Lord Piggledick.
10.52am
Health secretary Will Quince quits.  He wasn’t planning to stand for re-election anyway though, so this one is probably not a shock. But it's important that no one else resi-
11.04am
Decarbonisation minister Jesse Norman resigns.
...
...
...
Time for a
✨Conspiracy Theory✨
Between Quince and Norman – as well as Neil O’Brien and Nick Gibb – we’re seeing several mid-ranking ministers resign, despite being generally regarded as fairly competent.
It’s possible they were fired in private, and they’re publicly resigning to save face.  But here’s another theory.
MPs aren’t allowed to seek commercial employment for six months after resigning from the government.
So hypothetically, if you were going to lose your seat in a general election, you’d want to have resigned six months earlier so you can still get a job.
If that’s what these guys are doing, it suggests we’re on track for a May 2024 election...?
11.05am
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11.12am
Remember Cameron's financial scandal? Quick background here: David Cameron was specifically vice-chair of a £1bn China-UK investment fund.
So let’s see what throwback former leader Iain Duncan Smith thinks of Cameron’s return:
“I am astonished at this appointment. It seems to send a signal to China that we are pursuing business with them at all costs and any costs. Those who have been sanctioned now feel more abandoned than at any time. Those facing genocide and persecution will feel more abandoned than at any time.”
I cannot believe I am about to say this.
But.
I agree with Iain Duncan Smith *spits on floor*
11.50am
Former Tory deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine is asked to sum up the return of Cameron, and says it’s the “clearest signal that the sort of right wing lurch that we’ve seen and the anti-European movement that we’ve seen has been put to bed, and that will get a message across to people”.
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12.13pm
A Tory MP is worried that Cameron’s return will turn back the clock on Brexit and Johnson’s election.
“It is very alarming. I am predicting a softening on small boats, a softening on legal migration. I would not be surprised if the ban on conversion therapy returns.”
... Don’t threaten me with a good time.
Anyway, let’s see how the public actually sees Cameron compared with other PMs!
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Yeah, not sure people will mind if Cameron’s not Boris Johnson.
12.43pm
ITV political editor Robert Peston walks past a minister of state.  The minister’s on the phone, but takes a moment to heatedly shout at Peston, “The PM just sacked me!”
I guess some days are easier than others as a journalist
12.47pm
Therese Coffey resigns as environment secretary!!!!
*choirs of heavenly angels sing*
You'll remember her of course, Tumblrs - she was one of the thugs manhandling people into the 'right' voting lobbies to force their vote on the day of Liz Truss' fracking law. Rumour has it she still has the Whip handle in her ass.
A lot of people seem to be resigning today! But don't be fooled. In almost every case, it’ll be because they were told to resign.  They’ve been sacked, but they resign to save face. A last mercy from their benevolent leader.
My guess: Tessie here is terrible at media skills, so – get rid of her before she hurts general election chances. This, too, is a pattern.
12.52pm
Rachel Maclean sacked as Housing Minister! Fun fact, numbers fans: it took Doctor Who 33 years to make it to eight Doctors, but since the 2019 election, the Tories managed eight Housing Ministers in just under 4 years
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trololol
1.15pm
Jeremy Quin quits as Minister for the Cabinet Office.
1.37pm
Times Political Editor Steven Swinford reports that No 10 is struggling to find a new housing minister (owing to rumours the job is cursed). Several people have turned it down, including Jeremy Quin. It is incredible to me that they didn't line someone up before sacking the last guy.
Kemi Badenoch and Michael Gove are apparently unhappy that Rachel Maclean was removed from the role. I for one do not care about the opinions of Kemi Badenoch or Michael Gove.
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2.04pm
Health Secretary Steve Barclay becomes Environment Secretary.  This is effectively a demotion for him. It is our 5th Environment Secretary in four years. Chasing that Housing Minister record! It took 19 years for Doctor Who to have five Doctors
2.15pm
Richard Holden appointed new Conservative Party chairman.
A 2019-intake Tory MP, he led the charge against Sir Keir Starmer over Beergate, which did damage Starmer a bit (albeit not much, given that it turned out Starmer had complied with lockdown regs, and the accusation was nakedly to try and distract from Partygate).  So this appointment looks like more strategy to win the next election - someone not known enough to be hated, with what passes in the modern Tory party for a proven track record.
This could be a sign that the Tories intend to at least try to shore up the Red Wall votes? As unlikely as the Tories are to keep those seats.
That said, Holden’s seat disappears in a boundary change next election, sooooo … we'll see what they do there.
2.24pm
Victoria Atkins appointed Health Secretary, replacing Steve Barclay who’s moved to Environment Secretary. She's a relative unknown but also considered actually competent. Massive middle finger to Steve Barclay
2.37pm
Laura Trott (formerly in pensions) promoted to Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
2.42pm
Science minister George Freeman resigns.
3.18pm
YouGov conducts a snap poll: is the appointment of David Cameron as Foreign Secretary a good decision or a bad decision?
Good decision: 24%
Bad decision: 38%
Don't know: 38%
So that's going well
3.24pm
Greg Hands is made a business minister after losing the Tory chairman role.
John Glen moves from chief secretary to the Treasury to become the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General.
3.39pm
With Cameron being a Lord now, he’ll be based in the House of Lords rather than the Commons.  The most recent Cabinet Minister to be based in the Lords was former Brexit minister Lord Frost, who did weigh in on the matter:
“[T]hough I was not running a whole Department too. I don’t think it works well to have a lead Cabinet Minister answering questions and defending their Department solely in the Lords. The Lords is not a fully party political environment - nor should it be - and voters are owed proper political scrutiny. In our system, that can only happen in the Commons.”
I cannot believe I am about to say this.
But.
I agree with Lord Frost *spits on floor*
The SNP had already called this out, with MP Stephen Flynn claiming, “The UK is not a serious country.”
4.21pm
Conservative MP Lee Rowley appointed the 16th housing minister in the past 13 years. Even counting David Tennant twice, that's more than all the Doctors Who we've ever had, and that took almost 60 years.
5.16pm
Sky News’s Tamara Cohen reports that Sunak sacked Braverman by phone this morning!  Downing Street says there won’t be any exchange of letters between them - this is almost unheard of. Politics runs on paper trails! Everything happens through formal letters! By phone!
It means we’re denied insight into their differences.  But Cohen reckons we’re likely to hear from Braverman on Wednesday, as the Supreme Court rules on the Rwanda scheme.
6.03pm
Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns, former Education Minister, submits no-confidence letter in Rishi Sunak.
It's almost like, in the absence of Dorries, she's decided that someone needs to step up and have a tantrum and that someone might as well be her. It is, actually, an extremely funny letter, as these letters go. Normally they're written with a sort of furious earnestness wrapped in formal language. I presume that Andrea Jenkyns MP, former Education Minister, was aiming for something similar, and the first paragraph manages it. But by the end you sort of start to wonder if this was supposed to be a letter she wrote with her therapist to get her feelings out:
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My favourite line, when pulled in isolation, is "Yes Boris Johnson, the man who won the Conservative Party a massive majority, was unforgivable enough."
Yeah, Andrea babes. You're bang on there.
6.05pm
Esther McVey is appointed as Cabinet Office minister.  Not a full cabinet member, but she will attend cabinet meetings.
This is notable: unlike a lot of today’s appointments, she’s on the right of the party.  Her role will be to represent the government on TV and radio as much as possible, talking about gender/culture/British colonial history issues (i.e. she’s anti-woke and a screaming bigot).
In other words, with Braverman gone, McVey is an offering for the populist right of the party to try to appease them.
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6.15pm
Sunak tweets about the new cabinet, claiming they’ll make “the right decisions for our great country, not the easy ones.”  So it looks like that’s the new slogan, and we're pressing on with austerity
6.27pm
Tim Loughton, a Tory MP on the “One Nation” wing (i.e the David Cameron side) responds to Andrea Jenkyns’s letter of no-confidence by tweeting:
“Where can we submit a letter of no confidence in the Pantomime Dame?”
(It’s Andrea he’s publicly referring to as a pantomime dame there. A lil joke from the Tories for you)
6.31pm
Paul Scully sacked as minister for London. Didn't know that one was a position.
9.43pm
Sunak says that only a two-state solution will allow a new future for Israel/Palestine.  This is, um, not what the Prime Minister of Israel wants.  Who knows whether the Prime Minister of Israel will survive this crisis anyway – but these are big words from Sunak.  Cameron’s influence? Maybe? Interesting either way
10.03pm
And then - PLOT TWIST!!!
According to ITV political editor Robert Peston, a senior government source reveals that Cameron was approached on TUESDAY. 
Which means plans were underway to get rid of Braverman not only before the far-right violence on Saturday, but before her anti-police article on Wednesday.  It seems she lost her job not because of what she said about police after all; but because she claimed homelessness was a lifestyle choice.
Well well.
11.05pm
And the day finishes with Andrea Leadsom back in government (as Under Secretary of State for Health and Social Care) which nobody saw coming!  Pretty demeaning to the other 300 Tory MPs who could have been given this.
The final response from numerous Tories: they are feeling jilted and insulted because David Cameron being brought back when he's NOT EVEN AN MP, RISHI suggests that they themselves are not good enough to be in government.
No one tell them
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purpleweredragon · 1 year
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The Holocaust survivor introduced herself as someone forced to flee Belgium – the country where she was born – in 1943 and travel “across war-torn Europe and dangerous seas” before coming to the UK in 1947.
“Now, when I hear you using words against refugees like ‘swarms’ and an ‘invasion’, I am reminded of the language used to dehumanise and justify the murder of my family, and millions of others.
Why do you find the need to use that kind of language?”
Ms Braverman responded by saying she “won’t apologise for the language that I’ve used” to “demonstrate the scale of the problem” around immigration.
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tweetingukpolitics · 2 years
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eaglesnick · 1 year
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101 Things You Should Know About the UK Tory Governme
Thing 15
Eight days ago, Rishi Sunak made this pledge to the nation:
“This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level."
Well, a week is a long time in politics. Despite the ministerial code-breaking Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, being accused of blatantly breaching national security procedures, there is to be no investigation into her actions.  
“Civil Service chief won't investigate Braverman appointment amid doubt over her version of events” (Guardian: 27/10/22)
Equally disturbing is Braverman’s treatment of asylum seekers. As Home Secretary she is responsible for immigration and has promised to reduce net immigration down to “tens of thousands”. Leaving aside the fact that Boris Johnson gave over 3 million Hong Kong residents the right to come to the UK over a five-year period, thereby making this promise totally unrealistic, Braverman is fervently anti-immigration,
Braverman is on a mission.
“Suella Braverman says it is her ‘dream’ and ‘obsession’ to see a flight take asylum seekers to Rwanda”. (Guardian: 05/10/22)
Braverman’s right wing “obsession” with migrants has led to illegal over-crowding and detention at Manston Immigration centre where conditions are so bad outbreaks of scabies, diphtheria and a variety of infections caused by anti-biotic resistant bacteria have broken out.
Whatever one’s views on immigration, a civilised country should always treat people with a level of respect and human dignity that does not violate their human rights.  Illegally detaining men, women and children, exposing them to avoidable illnesses and diseases is anything but the action of a civilised country.
Where is the accountability and integrity promised by Sunak in the inhumane treatment of asylum seekers by his Home Secretary Braverman?
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ilexdiapason · 2 months
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[@theminecraftbee inspired this fic! hermitcraft season 10's south neighbourhood becoming werewolves for the bit, ft. ren's propensity to take it seriously, and being the only one who does]
It was Stress who started it.
"C'mon, it'll be fun! I've never been a wolf before!"
"Werewolf," Ren corrects, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose tetchily. "And it's not fun. It's a chronic condition that needs constant management and can lead to some serious carnage if it's not properly cared for."
"Ah, who cares about a bit'a carnage? It's, like, week two. People die, they'll come back, no harm done. And you're tellin' me you don't see the appeal in a pair'a teeth like that?"
"Not - not really?"
Stress huffs, good-natured, tilting her head and baring her neck. "Think about it!"
"That's vampires," says Ren, "you're thinking of vampires who bite necks. Werewolves don't have a designated spot to bite. Because, like I said, it's not supposed to be fun. You're not supposed to want it."
She sighs loudly and uprights herself. "Alright. Figure something else out, then, shall I?"
"Do what you will," he tells her.
And then...
Well, it's a very unfortunate coincidence, is what it is.
He doesn't mean to get as wrapped up in his Ministerial Administrative duties as he does. There's a lot of paperwork that Xisuma cheerfully shrugged off on him when he realised Ren was assuming an admin position willingly - inventory checks and server code assessments and Right To Host permits that all need to be thoroughly combed through before they can be signed off on. It's not the most interesting job in the world, but Ren's been dying for a bit of busywork for a little while now. Strange how a life full of nothing but card games and deadly dungeons can leave you pining for the simpler days.
But the evening stretches on, and the letters start to swim before his eyes a little, and it's all too easy to just let himself rest on top of the pile of papers for a second before he gets back into things, gently lit by the glow of the full moon...
Ren wakes up, as he does more often than he'd care to admit, entirely naked.
He's in the street. Or what will be the street once the roadworks have gone underway, which is currently a patch of grass like all the other patches of grass around him. His office is maybe fifty blocks eastward, his trousers are nowhere to be seen, and the sunlight is altogether far too bright for him to take in much more than that.
Once he stumbles back to the office with naught but a pair of paws for cover, he finds his sunglasses and his shirt, and he can start putting the pieces together. Namely that his upper body is quite thoroughly splashed with blood, his claws are also caked in red, and the vial of wolfsbane he was meant to take last night is sitting unopened on the floor amid a pile of shredded paperwork.
So. Erm.
Some explaining to be done, then.
His clothes were shredded by his transformation, but of course he's got spares on hand for emergencies exactly like these ones. Shame about his periwinkle tie; it's going to need a cold wash, a hot wash, and a good bit of stitching to get it back in pristine condition. Unless he could convince Xisuma to do a rollback, but he doubts it at this early point in the season where so many people are working through the night to get themselves set up. Mending will have to suffice.
He also finds his comm lying in the wreckage. The chat history is... illuminating.
<Iskall85> is that ren i see outside?
<Xisuma> Looks like
<Iskall85> oh dear
<Iskall85> oh dear oh dear
<Iskall85> everybody keep your doors locked unless you want to become a werewolf
<StressMonster101> ...
<Iskall85> stress???
<StressMonster101> well i was finkin about it?
<Iskall85> you're insane
<Iskall85> go on then. girl's night
<StressMonster101> false! you coming?
<falsesymmetry> to get infected with lycanthropy?
<falsesymmetry> yeah, alright
<ZombieCleo> did i hear girls night?
<Iskall85> i take it back. we're ALL insane
<falsesymmetry> wait, this won't kill me, will it?
<Iskall85> yes??? what do you think turning into a werewolf is
<falsesymmetry> oh, better not risk it then
<Iskall85> only on the hermitcraft server
<hypnotizd> do NOT start without me
Ren blinks, and blinks again, and checks his claws, as though he might be able to tell which of his friends' blood is under them.
Girl's night. They're all transformed into hideous creatures of the night just like him because they thought it would be fun. And here he stands uncognizant of any of it.
He's gonna need to call another meeting.
(At sundown, though. Today is a writeoff for the vast majority of the neighbourhood. Worse than any hangover, trust me.)
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in case anyone was wondering how Rishi Sunak is doing in his first week as prime minister, he has
re-appointed Suella Braverman, who resigned as home secretary last week after breaching the ministerial code, as home secretary, resulting in public outcry
announced he won't be attending the COP27 summit on climate change as he's "too busy with domestic matters", resulting in public outcry
released a promotional video which 1) is apparently in breach of civil service impartiality rules and 2) uses a song by notorious convicted child sex offender Gary Glitter, resulting in (you guessed it) public outcry
so...... yeah. about as well as expected lol
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afieldinengland · 2 months
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news from number ten (2000), dir. michael cockerell | alastair campbell's press briefings | servants of the people: the inside story of new labour, andrew rawnsley | campbell's diary entry for june 9th 2000 | malcolm tucker's ministerial briefings in the thick of it 2x02 | alastair campbell: new labour and the rise of the media class, peter oborne | campbell's diary entry for july 24th 2003 | the ministerial code, 1997
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