This is intensely embarrassing. Obviously the candidate is a crook and a charlatan.

What? Wasn’t The Spectator one of Johnson’s greatest cheerleaders? These people are loathsome, simply loathsome.

As I wrote recently this is the inevitable end point of saying "the problem with immigration is the stock not the flow". samf.substack.com/p/race-to-th...

Once you start mass removal of citizenship on political grounds you've stopped functioning as a viable democratic state. But that was always where this agenda was heading.

Michael Gove today "Mistakes were made in the procurement of PPE, but it's important to stress these were honest errors" They should all be on trial every one of them. Their bank account history searched, every penny they have received in the last 6 years accounted for Straight to jail if they did

Michael Gove says £10bn waste on PPE was an 'honest error' The slimy little snake has no shame You have to wonder how much of the £10bn found it’s way into his own pockets

Ah, Sarah Vine. A woman of such perspicacity that she married Michael Gove.

Aye Right get the tent out Michael Gove claims £10bn waste on PPE was an 'honest error' 👇 www.thenational.scot/news/2628134...

So sweet to hear Michael Gove boasting on radio about PPE contracts on his watch. Not corruption or cronyism he said. The loss of £10bn was all down to his total incompetence

There is no other kind of error. If it's not honest then it can't be an error. Gove wouldn't know this.

Left: Michael Gove on BBC News, "Some of the PPE we ordered was deficient, that's because we were maintaining high standards" Right: Nurses wearing bin bags for PPE

If ever I need advice on flushing, Sarah would be my very first call.

She married Michael Gove,her opinion means nothing.

Sarah Vine says she would welcome a fight for the Labour premiership and would not condemn it as chaos (I think she absolutely would), because leadership contests "flush out people who are not very good". 🧐 The last such contest yielded Liz Truss.

It's like investigating whether a horse race was fixed, by examining only the eyesight of the judge at the finishing line, when half the field were allowed to start halfway down the track. "No race-fixing was identified in the final adjudication" is perfectly true and perfectly irrelevant.

She implicitly defined cronyism as corrupt intent at the award stage, rather than preferential access based on connections. On the latter, which is its ordinary meaning, her own findings describe cronyism. A lane the entry criterion for which was knowing a minister, producing a 13-fold advantage.

His only contribution is going relatively quietly. I detest him for many reasons, but first and foremost, his support of Israel and his participation in genocide.

I would say that the answer is: disqualifying himself from further incumbency. He's not dead, so I feel no need to be especially kind. I think he's a man of integrity, who abandoned it but didn't replace it with anything else. Such as charisma, boldness or engendering trust.

He betrayed the country several times over on Brexit, on Israel and on prosecuting the Tories for their corruption in government.

I would say that the answer is: disqualifying himself from further incumbency. He's not dead, so I feel no need to be especially kind. I think he's a man of integrity, who abandoned it but didn't replace it with anything else. Such as charisma, boldness or engendering trust.

Bah! He's been John Major on charismastatin.

Bah! He's been John Major on charismastatin.

No AI has yet been developed that can successfully compete with Trump's capacity for lying and deceit.

No AI has yet been developed that can successfully compete with Trump's capacity for lying and deceit.

It's always a good idea to admit mistakes, especially when caught out making blindingly obvious ones and when many weren't mistakes at all. But that doesn't resurrect suitability for the job. I knew a physics teacher who happily admitted to knowing no physics. He still shouldn't have taught it.

Trump has brought a whole new meaning to double jeopardy. You can lose the same war several times over.

Trump has brought a whole new meaning to double jeopardy. You can lose the same war several times over.

She implicitly defined cronyism as corrupt intent at the award stage, rather than preferential access based on connections. On the latter, which is its ordinary meaning, her own findings describe cronyism. A lane the entry criterion for which was knowing a minister, producing a 13-fold advantage.

What future prosecutions? The ones that matter - Tory ministers themselves - will never happen.

It's always a good idea to admit mistakes, especially when caught out making blindingly obvious ones and when many weren't mistakes at all. But that doesn't resurrect suitability for the job. I knew a physics teacher who happily admitted to knowing no physics. He still shouldn't have taught it.

The admission doesn't address the issue. The problem is their making, which is an incurable impediment to his appointment as AG.

The admission doesn't address the issue. The problem is their making, which is an incurable impediment to his appointment as AG.

Not really. This entire area of law is clumsy. It is not established that duty of care, required for gross negligence m/s and corporate m/s, extends to public law duty or only to private as in common law negligence. Also, the absence of an offence of reckless homicide is a lacuna in criminal law.

Anyone recall the Widgery inquiry into Bloody Sunday? The pattern is the same rhetorical device: find the substance; refuse the noun. Widgery: conduct "bordering on recklessness", but not recklessness. Hallett: a system inherently biased toward the politically connected, but not cronyism.

How can they say no evidence of cronyism ?? Beggars belief 🤷🏻‍♀️ and may prejudice future prosecutions? Just leaving these here: nothing to see here, of course. dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/e... www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/pub-lan...

Anyone recall the Widgery inquiry into Bloody Sunday? The pattern is the same rhetorical device: find the substance; refuse the noun. Widgery: conduct "bordering on recklessness", but not recklessness. Hallett: a system inherently biased toward the politically connected, but not cronyism.

A++ for this compelling description by @laurenceineu.bsky.social 🧵

.. Moreover, the horses given the head start were, on average, the slower ones, which is proof that the head start, not form, was winning them races.

It's like investigating whether a horse race was fixed, by examining only the eyesight of the judge at the finishing line, when half the field were allowed to start halfway down the track. "No race-fixing was identified in the final adjudication" is perfectly true and perfectly irrelevant.

Let's talk about the Hallett report finding of "no cronyism", may we? Because I find it deeply unsettling, as set out in brief below:

Let's talk about the Hallett report finding of "no cronyism", may we? Because I find it deeply unsettling, as set out in brief below:

.. The finding survives only by defining cronyism as corrupt intent at award stage. A merit defence is unevidenced and contradicted by finding that VIP contracts performed worse at equal prices. Also findings about the best-known award-stage candidate are withheld due to police investigation. (2)

The report found "no cronyism or corruption in final contracting decisions" while finding that VIP-lane suppliers were 13 times more likely to win contracts. That is a selection-effect fallacy. Neutrality at the final gate is irrelevant if the queue is rigged. (1)

The report found "no cronyism or corruption in final contracting decisions" while finding that VIP-lane suppliers were 13 times more likely to win contracts. That is a selection-effect fallacy. Neutrality at the final gate is irrelevant if the queue is rigged. (1)

It was Johnson's triple simultaneous whammy. He destroyed the UK economy and with it took the personal finances and freedoms of the majority. His pandemic bungling killed ~100,000 people, many of whom were sacrificed by his collateral endeavours to channel public funds to his mates.

All the cases from the individual child abuse scandal to the corporate abuse of power involving many victims are all, imo, a result of political corruption. Political choices wrt taxation, regulation, legality etc., appear to be results of lobbying, media manipulation, money and personal ambition. 🤷‍♀️

'Unprecedented' climate change facing UK - with extreme temperatures here to stay

In the case of COVID and in particular turning it into a massive profit opportunity, we aren't talking about mistakes. That was *not* a mistake. Johnson never thought that giving contracts to mates who had been encouraged to set up companies days beforehand, with no experience, could benefit us.

As if I care. They are hardly a significant fraction of the population and I tend not to be all that sympathetic to people who have been paid astronomical salaries for years.