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 welshhoppo wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Yet if some police hadn’t wrongfully revealed these things Damian Green’s deception would never have been uncovered. Sometimes you have to break a few rules to publicly expose frauds and liars. Otherwise they can hide and their allies sweep it under the carpet so that they are never held to account.

That's the start of a slippery slope that only ends in 1984.

You need to do this things officially and clear. Breaking eggs and omlettes have no place with the police.

The system shouldn’t enable coverups that require police to break rules and leak things. I wonder if Cameron and May knew about what he was using his computers for? The public and his constituents have a right to know if he is doing his job properly as they’re voting him into public office. This isn’t a 1984 slippery slope, if the system we have allows people to cover up impropriety to remain in public office then it needs exposing even if rules need breaking. The rules are a problem here. Had it not been revealed, Damian Green would have continued to keep this buried to maintain his image, the public have a right to know what their leaders are doing when representing them in order they make informed votes.

Even if the public do know what their MPs are up too, it's no guarantee that they'll give a damn.

Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem MP for the Orkneys, was more or less branded a liar by a High Court Judge, for his role in the French gate affair. Very serious words.

His lies led to an investigation that cost the taxpayer £1 million.

And yet, he was voted back in at the last election, and has the nerve to appear on TV and talk about credibility.

A very despicable character...

Maybe his constituents were really keen to stay in the EU.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I think people are missing the point here: if the police are doing this to MPs and Government ministers, then what chance has Joe Public got when dealing with the Police?

The police had no business raiding Green's office, and Labour should have been brought to book for it, and they also tried to stich up Andrew Mitchell.

Now, I don't give two hoots for Tory MPs, but I do care very strongly about the Rule of Law.

After last week's rape trial debacle, the Police are in serious need of a hard slap from the government.

I think we have to be careful here. It's easy to pick out bad points and then state it must all be bad. In reality there are thousands of cases that never get flagged as an issue. There are always going to be some issues that's unavoidable.

It is easy for the Tories to cry *fowl* (because they are party full of Turkeys) now because it is one of their MPs, yet, for example, they've consistently delayed implementing schemes to control the press after the phone tapping debacle (which would among some things have affected the same papers that support the Tories).

The police cannot control an individual, if they decide to copy or keep investigation documents on the side then there's not much you can do other than strip search every police officer before and after work. If an ex-employee decides to release information there is not much the company/police can do about it (other than the threat of prosecution) and in reality if you go heavy handed on this you just get anonymous leaks anyway.

On the other hand why did DG lie? He's always protested his innocence. He had no reason to lie. He could have quite easily said "Yes they did find porn on my laptop but have no idea how it got there, but I did lend it to Putin to look up our security details the day before"

My question is how much May actually knew. Given they are best buddies, are we saying that he never even mentioned it to her (despite being in charge of the home office)? That seems slightly perplexing.

The police are obliged to investigate charges, they cannot make a decision whether it is politically motivated.

It's important that we don't only see the negatives whilst ignoring the positives.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Maybe his constituents were really keen to stay in the EU.

For sure, Orkney is very pro-EU, but also hostile to Scottish Indy.

Which probably explains why the pro-EU, SNP candidate, who was also a local woman born and bred in Orkney (something that doesn't happen often in that part of the world) , lost out to a non-Orcadian liar, who's only redeeming feature for his supporters is that he's a Unionist.

It's a strange world.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I think people are missing the point here: if the police are doing this to MPs and Government ministers, then what chance has Joe Public got when dealing with the Police?

The police had no business raiding Green's office, and Labour should have been brought to book for it, and they also tried to stich up Andrew Mitchell.

Now, I don't give two hoots for Tory MPs, but I do care very strongly about the Rule of Law.

After last week's rape trial debacle, the Police are in serious need of a hard slap from the government.

I think we have to be careful here. It's easy to pick out bad points and then state it must all be bad. In reality there are thousands of cases that never get flagged as an issue. There are always going to be some issues that's unavoidable.

It is easy for the Tories to cry *fowl* now because it is one of their MPs, yet they've consistently delayed implementing schemes to control the press after the phone tapping debacle (which would among some things have affected the same papers that support the Tories).

The police cannot control an individual, if they decide to copy or keep investigation documents on the side then there's not much you can do other than strip search every police officer before and after work. If an ex-employee decides to release information there is not much the company/police can do about it (other than the threat of prosecution) and in reality if you go heavy handed on this you just get anonymous leaks anyway.

The police are obliged to investigate charges, they cannot make a decision whether it is politically motivated.

It's important that we don't only see the negatives whilst ignoring the positives.

Whatever you think of Green, and my opinion of him is rock bottom, the Police had no search warrant. The speaker should have told them to go hang, and Labour should have been shot down in flames for this politically motivated attack at the time. And as others have pointed out, the raid was given the nod by Jacqui Smith, who's own husband got into a certain amount of bother over porn. The irony.

And another thing, phone tapping by non-security people is already illegal. We don't need another law for it, just enforcement of the current law.

 r_squared wrote:
https://inews.co.uk/news/exclusive-uk-demands-secrecy-brexit-trade-talks-us/

Following on from my concerns about US bluster, now it seems that Liam Fox is attempting to ensure that UK/US trade deals are conducted in secret until 4 years after their completion. So comfortably into Labour's term of office.

That does not bode well at all for the NHS, amongst other things.

We should be very concerned indeed, the only reason for such secrecy would be because they know that the public would not accept what they are doing, and we absolutely should not just trust Liam Fox to not feth this up. We need to demand that parliament has oversight, if we can manage it for Brexit, we can manage it elsewhere.

Yeah this should be throwing up all sorts of red flags. Not only is Liam Fox the sort of person that should always be accompanied by a responsible adult, but the current US administration is run by an actual con man and his cronies.

It is absolutely shameful. A complete denial of our parliamentary system and democratic oversight.

The only possible reason for this secrecy is to allow The Powers That Be to prepare a savage shafting for the rest of us, and keep it secret until it is a fait accompli.

This must be resisted with full force.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Yet if some police hadn’t wrongfully revealed these things Damian Green’s deception would never have been uncovered. Sometimes you have to break a few rules to publicly expose frauds and liars. Otherwise they can hide and their allies sweep it under the carpet so that they are never held to account.

That's the start of a slippery slope that only ends in 1984.

You need to do this things officially and clear. Breaking eggs and omlettes have no place with the police.

The system shouldn’t enable coverups that require police to break rules and leak things. I wonder if Cameron and May knew about what he was using his computers for? The public and his constituents have a right to know if he is doing his job properly as they’re voting him into public office. This isn’t a 1984 slippery slope, if the system we have allows people to cover up impropriety to remain in public office then it needs exposing even if rules need breaking. The rules are a problem here. Had it not been revealed, Damian Green would have continued to keep this buried to maintain his image, the public have a right to know what their leaders are doing when representing them in order they make informed votes.

Then do it right. The end result is the same, but if the police have a tinkle that someone is breaking the law, they go investigate.

Watching porn on a work computer isn't against the law. Normally it's against company policy, so it's probably against some code of conduct, but it's also an in house job. If they don't want to sack him over it, that's their decision. It might bite them on the ass later on, but it isn't good for the police to be releasing personal information about someone doing something that is only morally unacceptable. That's not what the police are for. They investigate actual crimes, not moral ones.

In the case of DG.

The right result occurred, but in the wrong way.

I'll say it till I am blue in the face though. If any of you ever have the misfortune to be on the wrong side of a police investigation make sure you are lawyered up.

Normally I’d agree - in the case of a private company. But he’s an MP and without someone prepared to ‘leak’ it the party/government would conceal it from constituents and the public. There’s a clear public interest argument when he’s doing something inappropriate instead of the job he was elected for. In his case, the public have a right to know.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

It's important that we don't only see the negatives whilst ignoring the positives.

Whatever you think of Green, and my opinion of him is rock bottom, the Police had no search warrant. The speaker should have told them to go hang, and Labour should have been shot down in flames for this politically motivated attack at the time. And as others have pointed out, the raid was given the nod by Jacqui Smith, who's own husband got into a certain amount of bother over porn. The irony.

No they didn't have a warrant....however they were given written consent by the Serjeant at Arms to enter. If my understanding is correct it is the 'employers' decision as to whether the police can enter a premises not the individual that might be considered an issue. The Police therefore did follow the correct procedure. They did not need a warrant because they were given this written consent to enter (that the Serjeant didn't ask the Clerk of the House is a different issue).

And another thing, phone tapping by non-security people is already illegal. We don't need another law for it, just enforcement of the current law.

The point is though (and it's not just Tories) is that the government will create merry hell if something is done badly against them, but if it doesn't benefit them to take action in other cases it is put to one side and quietly forgotten about.

r_squared wrote:Just a couple of points. I appreciate the positivism, I think you and DINLT are kindred spirits in that regards, however just to make sure I'm clear...

The ECtHR (European Court of Human Rights) is not part of the EU and we will still be subject to that, I'm guessing you meant the ECJ (European Court of Justice)?

My understanding is that the government wants to withdraw from the ECHR, which they can't do while we're still a member of the EU as it's part of the requirements for EU membership. It's unclear whether or not they actually intend to replace it with a new sort of "bill of rights" or whether such a thing is even necessary.

I definitely agree that we need to get a deal that is at least positive, but I recognise that the chances are it will absolutely not be better than the one we had in economic terms.

Agreed. I'm expecting any deal to provide less access than the current single market system. I think it's simply not plausible that we will get continued single market access while leaving the EU and meeting some of the governments stated goals such as an end to free movement. The question is what kind of deal we get, which fundamentally is a matter of what we're prepared to trade away for other things in return. It's been revealed today that the EU sees virtually a carbon copy of the Canada-EU agreement as a kind of last ditch, back up option if all elses fails, so at this point a hard brexit is probably off the table unless the government opts to purposely go that route. That at least gives May et al something to start working from.

WTO rules are a base framework for those to use who haven't negotiated a better deal, we shouldn't be relying on them for very long at all if possible.

Agreed. I think the outlook based off today's news is quite promising that the "nuclear option" is off the table now. As long as Theresa works with all the voices in her party she should be able to come up with a good compromise deal.

Your last paragraph is basically talking about the UK rationalising and specialising, however we actually have already done this as a service economy. The problem is that the service economy relies on being a member if the single market, or a deal being struck that means we can continue to rely on the banks. Hopefully they will come up with something that allows our economy to continue to function as it is for the time being before we restructure it into something else, maybe a giant silicon valley? Tech companies and IT innovation across the whole country. You never know.

See, that's what we could use more of; people thinking about good ideas for the future! We have the so-called "Silicon Fen" around Cambridge, so one option would be to pump even more investment into that. Or we could look at other universities like Oxford and the other major players in the Russell group and build enterprise zones around them, investing in top notch broadband, lower business rates etc. The banks I'm not too worried about because they seem to have already figured out a work around and indeed the noises coming from Mark Carney and others would seem to suggest that they might already be a step ahead of the curve.

Whirlwind wrote:It's not as simple as this. We still have to negotiate with the WTO to agree the terms we go back to them under.

We've already agreed with the EU what our schedule of commitments will be, which is basically inheriting their tariffs and a portion of their lower tariff quotas based on our historical imports. The WTO works in a way where we don't actually require approval for our schedule, it is what it is. The other countries vote on whether to confirm the schedule, but you need to understand that even if they don't, the trade continues as normal. Their only real recourse is if they think we're trying to shaft them, in which case they enter negotiations with us bilaterally. After that they can try a legal option, but they have to prove some kind of material loss, which is notoriously difficult and most lawyers in this area seem to agree we'd likely win any challenge. We can of course smoothe the process over just by being reasonable i.e. there's no good reason for us to have high tariffs on things like citrus fruits.

UK membership of the ECHR predates its membership of the EU by over 20 years.

There is no reason to leave the jurisdiction of the ECHR.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
UK membership of the ECHR predates its membership of the EU by over 20 years.

There is no reason to leave the jurisdiction of the ECHR.

You're forgetting that it has an E in front of the acronym mate

Our PM and her managers (the right wing press) have made it clear that human rights are a horrible inconvenience to being able to remove people’s rights, arbitrarily detain people and send people you don’t like to be tortured or killed.

Great news for Remain supporters, and one Mod in particular.

It's official: the blue passports are back!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42443253



Let the good times roll!

Well, that was worth cutting off our noses to spite the EU....

I actually had a blue passport, back in the day.

To be frank, the colour of your passport is irrelevant. What's important is how much freedom of travel it gives you.

The "Iconic" blue passport is another of those "Brexiteer" shibboleths. There is no EU rule that makes the UK have a red passport. We could have made it blue any time we wanted.

I've always kept my passports in a leather wallet of a different colour.

Let the good times fething roll indeed.

I don't like the new shade of blue they're proposing.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
In the case of DG.

The right result occurred, but in the wrong way.

I'll say it till I am blue in the face though. If any of you ever have the misfortune to be on the wrong side of a police investigation make sure you are lawyered up.

With this and the sexual harrisment cases - they should really be looking at the basic human resources element of Parliment - after all most of us have to live by rules and regs - it should not be yet another thing that MPs haev exceptions on. people working for and with MPs should havethe smae level of protection as elsewhere.

 Kilkrazy wrote:


The "Iconic" blue passport is another of those "Brexiteer" shibboleths. There is no EU rule that makes the UK have a red passport. We could have made it blue any time we wanted.

Indeed.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, that was worth cutting off our noses to spite the EU....

Never let it be said that leave don't uphold their campaign promises.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I actually had a blue passport, back in the day.

To be frank, the colour of your passport is irrelevant. What's important is how much freedom of travel it gives you.

The "Iconic" blue passport is another of those "Brexiteer" shibboleths. There is no EU rule that makes the UK have a red passport. We could have made it blue any time we wanted.

I've always kept my passports in a leather wallet of a different colour.

Let the good times fething roll indeed.

I have an old, expired, burgundy passport. I may burn it in an act of defiance.

I'm surprised that Farage isn't out organising a mass bonfire of burgundy passports.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Mr. Burning wrote:
In the case of DG.

The right result occurred, but in the wrong way.

I'll say it till I am blue in the face though. If any of you ever have the misfortune to be on the wrong side of a police investigation make sure you are lawyered up.

With this and the sexual harrisment cases - they should really be looking at the basic human resources element of Parliment - after all most of us have to live by rules and regs - it should not be yet another thing that MPs haev exceptions on. people working for and with MPs should havethe smae level of protection as elsewhere.

There should be a robust process overseen by a reputable independent body, agreed and adhered to by all the parties to which MPs belong. (Including independents.) This would cover the activities of MPs and their directly employed staff.

There should also be a proper HR function for parliamentary employees.

 r_squared wrote:
I don't like the new shade of blue they're proposing.

If memory serves, your hometown was 80% leave or something.

Are they out dancing in the streets at this news?

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, that was worth cutting off our noses to spite the EU....

Never let it be said that leave don't uphold their campaign promises.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I actually had a blue passport, back in the day.

To be frank, the colour of your passport is irrelevant. What's important is how much freedom of travel it gives you.

The "Iconic" blue passport is another of those "Brexiteer" shibboleths. There is no EU rule that makes the UK have a red passport. We could have made it blue any time we wanted.

I've always kept my passports in a leather wallet of a different colour.

Let the good times fething roll indeed.

I have an old, expired, burgundy passport. I may burn it in an act of defiance.

I'm surprised that Farage isn't out organising a mass bonfire of burgundy passports.

Defiance of what? Of the non-existent rule that doesn't make you have a red rather than a blue passport?

I suppose it's a symbolic, non-victory victory, or something like that...

I would say I couldn't care less what my passport looks like as long as it lets me pass ports, and this new one will let me pass ports with more work than before, so whatever it looks like it's a step backwards.
I think I'll renew my burgundy (?) passport before the changeover just to be a rebel.

Bestow demonstrably fewer privileges than the burgundy one but people are happy because it will be blue.

Swift would be proud.

IIRC it's something like 1/3rd of current passport holders have never had a passport other than the current ones anyway.

. which could've been blue if we wanted anyway.

Great use of time and money.







1 down then, 6 to go.





Bless.

Well this seems to have sneaked past people on here.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/david-cameron/news/91572/official-eu-remain-campaign

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I suppose it's a symbolic, non-victory victory, or something like that...

It's a stupid irrelevance, is what it is.

Here is the country in the middle of the worst political, economic and social crisis for a generation, and people are rattling on about the ability to have a blue cover passport, which we could have done anyway.



One of the most important "priorites" perhaps should be ejukayshun.

Skullhammer wrote:
Well this seems to have sneaked past people on here.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/david-cameron/news/91572/official-eu-remain-campaign

It was mentioned a few pages ago, when the electoral commission investigation into the possibly dodgy funding of various Leave campaigns was being discussed.