Current Affairs

[Mervyn and Trish]

The clue is in "former" Tory Chairman. No axe to grind then.

[Ray B]

Again the numbers boat people arriving from France has already past last year's total, and now numbers something like 38000, that's this year alone.
The cost of putting them up in hotels would go a long way to help the NHS or help with the 10% pension rise. But no, we have inspectors checking on the conditions of the accommodation to make sure they are comfortable while a lot of families in the UK are going daily hand to mouth trying to survive..
Add to the figures the money paid to France to try and stop them, the cost must be mind boggling.

[david63]

Does anyone know how many documents she is alleged to have leaked?

Does anyone know what level of security these alleged leaked documents had?

Does anyone know who these alleged leaked documents were leaked to?

My slight knowledge of government secure systems is that it is extremely difficult to move a top secret/highly classified document out of the secure system onto a "normal" computer system therefore I would make a guess that these alleged leaked documents were not classified - maybe confidential.

Why if she has been doing this for a while, as some are saying, did she suddenly last week decide to go public and resign? The normal course of action would have been to refer herself to the standards committee in the first place.

I still maintain that she was either encouraged by others to resign with such a scathing resignation letter or she was so disillusioned that she felt that she had no other option - especially when it has been reported that when resigning she had a 90 minute shouting match with Truss!

[Mervyn and Trish]

Re asylum seekers: there seem to be long delays in processing. We need to sort that out to get those with a legitimate claim settled and those without removed ffast.

[david63]

The cost of putting them up in hotels

I have read recently that it is in the region of £7 million a day

[Ray B]

David, there are 12.5 million pensioners in the U K. It doesn't take much to do the maths.

[barney]

Braverman still in the headlines this morning.

Former Conservative Chair Jake Berry has been on Talk TV saying that she breached the Ministerial Code several times.

She seems to have form for leaks. Ed Daley has said that her Westminster nickname is Leaky Sue,

She’s responsible for our national security, yet it seems she’s somewhat of a security risk herself.

She didn’t even have the decency to answer Yvette Cooper’s Urgent Question about this yesterday in Parliament

Sunak seems to have dropped a real clanger by reinstating her

The PM should call Jake Berry into his office today and demand the specifics.
If Berry genuinely has evidence, he won’t mind doing this.
If proven, Braverman should immediately lose her job.
If unproven, Berry should immediately have the whip withdrawn.
There should be no room for tittle tattle in government.

[barney]

Again the numbers boat people arriving from France has already past last year's total, and now numbers something like 38000, that's this year alone.
The cost of putting them up in hotels would go a long way to help the NHS or help with the 10% pension rise. But no, we have inspectors checking on the conditions of the accommodation to make sure they are comfortable while a lot of families in the UK are going daily hand to mouth trying to survive..
Add to the figures the money paid to France to try and stop them, the cost must be mind boggling.

My old stomping ground in Kent is suffering badly.
Reported today that an Albanian man walked into a lady’s house and asked to use the phone.
The reception centre was built for 1,000 with maximum capacity for 1,600. There are currently 3,000 there and nobody has a solution.
The report says that the staff are insufficiently qualified but the company that run it say that there are not enough qualified people to recruit.
It’s simply overwhelmed.
The authorities can’t put them into housing because there isn’t any housing to put them in to.
They are using hotels but apparently that’s also now unacceptable.
So, there is literally nowhere to put them.
It’s easy to complain about how they are treated but nobody has a solution, other than saying ‘somebody’ should do something.

[Onelife]

What we need to get into our heads around is that these people are illegally entering our country… once we are all agreed on that we need to stick two fingers up to Article 8 of the Human rights convention (until such time that the human rights convention can can come up with a solution that facilitates legal entry for asylum seekers into different countries).

Yes’, I’m being very flippant, some would say heartless but we will rue the day that we allow our country to be used as the dumping ground of Europe and beyond. We are watching our country being abused by bennift seeking economic migrants who will contribute nowt until we have found accommodation schools, health care, social care etc, etc which could take years, then after that period most of them will still need help through a bennift system, a system that can’t cope with its own benefit seekers let alone adding to it.

We can **** around as much as we like trying to appease all the do-gooder charities and a government paralysed by its own human rights agreements... what we need to do is send a clear message out that the UK has a no tolerance policy of illegal immigration and the only way we are going to achieve that is to send them back by whatever means possible.

[Gill W]

The clue is in "former" Tory Chairman. No axe to grind then.

Whats worse?

Breaking the ministerial code, or someone whistle blowing about it ?

It always seems like the whistleblower is the one in the wrong !

Why do I get the impression that you are really enjoying this Gill?

I’m actually really fed up. Sunak said the right things on Monday, and I was hoping it was a turning point. But it’s same old, same old. Which is rather depressing

[Manoverboard]

There's whistle blowing for divulging State secrets but there again there's whistle blowing for stealing a few paper clips ... the level of disclosure in this instance has yet to be revealed.

[Mervyn and Trish]

The clue is in "former" Tory Chairman. No axe to grind then.

It always seems like the whistleblower is the one in the wrong !

Actually it always seems to be anyone in a Tory Cabinet.

It's time for critics of the government to grow up, accept the Tories were elected by a massive majority, there is not going to be a General Election any time soon, they have a huge agenda to deal with, and to stop bickering like infants in the playground. PMQs was just typical. A chance to quiz the PM on actually policies and wasted by Sir Hindsight yet again to score cheap political points.

[oldbluefox]

Considering the allegations Jake Berry has made why were these problems not reported at the time to the security services who would investigate and take the necessary action?
It seems pretty simple to me unless, of course he has an axe to grind.
If he knew of irregularities and did not report then he is culpable. If he did report and the security services found no case to answer or the misdemeanours were inconsequential then he should shut up.

[Onelife]

I agree Sir Merv, Starmer needs to change tack from his usual soundbites of …” Why is it” and “The people won’t forgive” into something that gives the impression that his party has something constructive to say about the country’s situation... or it will be him who is next for the chop.

[Gill W]

It would also help if the PM actually answered questions

[Mervyn and Trish]

It would help if they asked sensible ones

[Onelife]

It would also help if the PM actually answered questions

Unfurtunatly politicians have created an environment where an answer is always returned with an accusation, which is why PM’s are reluctant to entertain the questions.

[Mervyn and Trish]

Politics has become utterly toxic. We are in a tough place. I believe Rishi Sunak is an honest man who will do his best to sort it out. The rally in the Pound and fall in government borrowing rates suggests the money market gamblers believe he has a chance. I am thoroughly sick of the political game playing among his opponents in the opposition, his own party, the media and social media. But some would rather to do that and would relish his failure.

[towny44]

It would also help if the PM actually answered questions

When the opposition question is to blame the govt for all the economic woes, claiming the govt have trashed the economy, when the major causes are due to covid and Putins war causing massive inflation and energy prices off the scale. Clearly Sir Keir assumes his supporters are thick and do not understand what is driving inflation. Then the question is really not worth answering.

[david63]

I do like Piers Morgan

Prince Privacy will hurl his latest torrent of malevolent money-making muck at the Royal Family just in time to ruin his father’s coronation as King. Charles should strip this petulant, selfish, greedy, hypocritical brat of all his remaining royal titles/status ASAP

[Stephen]

Like Jeremy Clarkson, he tells it like it is.

[Onelife]

I do like Piers Morgan

Prince Privacy will hurl his latest torrent of malevolent money-making muck at the Royal Family just in time to ruin his father’s coronation as King. Charles should strip this petulant, selfish, greedy, hypocritical brat of all his remaining royal titles/status ASAP

He’s probably saving the one about Meghan beating the babysitter and house cleaner with a stick till just before the release date

[Onelife]

I thought Gillian Keegan came across really well on QT last night…which is more than can be said for David Lammy who in my opinion was way out of order in the way he spoke to her.

Gillian was articulate and calm in dealing with the barrage of accusations he was throwing at her….another good appointment to the cabinet…me thinks!

[Gill W]

Here we go, latest news incoming.

It’s being reported that Liz Truss’s phone was hacked this summer by Russian spies and this was covered up by then PM Johnson and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case.

If true, let’s see how this plays out. If Sunak is genuine about accountability, there’ll have to be a sacking or two here.

[Onelife]

Here we go, latest news incoming.

It’s being reported that Liz Truss’s phone was hacked this summer by Russian spies and this was covered up by then PM Johnson and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case.

If true, let’s see how this plays out. If Sunak is genuine about accountability, there’ll have to be a sacking or two here.

Hi Gill, if this is true you would hardly expect Johnson or anybody else within government to admit to a phone hacking incident, especially involving Russians…I’m sure these kinds of things get dealt with internally…unless leaked of course.