Well, it is called the 'European' convention.

A pox on Churchill I say!

I've always wondered why more defenders of our rights don't use the fact that it was the Churchill who proposed it and used his influence to bring many countries together and it was British lawyers who penned the ECHR.

Remind me again: exactly which well-known purveyor of lies made up much of that when he was the Telegraph's Brussels correspondent?

Whatever happened to him? Didn't Max Hastings sack him for lying?

CINO the lot of them!

Well, the “Eurosausage” was a joke on Yes Minister. Implementing European regulations on ingredients would mean that the British sausage would have to be renamed to the Emulsified High-Fat Offal Tube.

It's now quoted as a reality though.

Oh, yeah! But even then it wasn't too far off the mark in its representation of anti-EU, errrrrrrrrr, thinking.

We are land of hope and glory
They steal all the sunbeds.

Paul Brand, UK Editor at ITV News

Were police aware of the Downing Street Christmas Party?

ITV News understands that an alarm was triggered accidentally that night inside No 10, leading security/police to respond.
So far the Met have declined to investigate.

Daily Mirror has pictures of a Christmas Party at the Tory Westminster HQ for an event organised by Shaun Bailey’s mayoral campaign - Mr Bailey tonight quit as chair of the London Assembly’s police and crime committee after being approached by the Mirror


https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politi...-xmas-25699183

This is like a Tory rule breaking advent calendar. I wonder what’s behind the last window?

When I saw that image elsewhere, I genuinely thought it was Coldwar Steve's take on the last week's news about the party not a genuine photo.

He didn't have the brains not to attend the party, but at least displayed a shred of honour in resigning so quickly.

He's already on it

https://twitter.com/Coldwar_Steve/st...083334/photo/1

I think it's generally fair to say that unplanned, informal parties don't tend to have hot and cold buffets.

He was a wuss, he should have just brazened it out. :rolleyes:

Of course he's only resigned as chair of the London Assembly’s police and crime committee - he's still drawing a salary as a member of the assembly ;)

Meanwhile, the rate of inflation in the UK is over 5%.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59663947

As someone with considerable cash savings and no outstanding borrowings either personally or commercially, I would ordinarily be looking forward to a steep rise in interest rates - with a resulting rise in income (though those savings would still be plummeting in value in real terms :().

In truth I'll probably be disappointed because:

• The inflation spike is forecast to be soon, and short-lived so action may not be required
• The combination of Covid and Brexit has left the UK economy in a poor state and borrowing-fuelled spending is about the only thing keeping it going
• A lot of the inflationary pressures are external, especially the cost of fuel and energy and raising interest rates wouldn't affect them

This Conservative government has demonstrated that so long as you have a largely "helpful" press, a fundamentally disinterested public and a lot of different kinds of bad news, then something which would have been a crisis for a Labour government with headlines for weeks about how badly the economy is being managed and how much worse off everyone is, barely warrants discussion.

At least pensioners, who form the core of Tory support, will be insulated from this. :rolleyes:

edited to add.....

Stripping out housing costs - which is arguably a better measure for someone like me who doesn't have a mortgage and who doesn't pay rent - makes it even worse:

My monthly outgoings - including housing have risen in actual cash amount of £190 a month, and that is before next year's inevitable rise in Council tax. That is cost increases in weekly shopping, petrol, and energy costs. Those are all unavoidable rises for many people - especially the ones on lower earnings, the lower earnings folk are being shafted in all directions. And of course, there are the tax increases next April

Friends that have been renting the same 2-bedroom property for 8 years have been hit with a rent increase of £250 a month!

The poor are as ever suffering the most from the Tory decisions. Yet they still vote for them.

Windows key, type charmap and you get a nice tool. Or hold the alt key and type 0198

Of course they do, because the problems are the fault of the last Labour government and the current Conservative one has been generous enough to provide loads of food banks while Labour provided nary a one :rolleyes:

There's a lot of noise in the press that wages are very nearly keeping up with inflation, but that ignores that this represents a contraction in lower paid roles rather than significant increases for those in low-paid work.

Meanwhile over here in the "This is probably useless, but it makes me feel a bit better" corner.

Our MP, Tory Girl Trevelyan, was spouting off in the local meejah recently that local folk are not interested in anything but local events and concerns. So I decided that she should be informed differently and so she is getting regular updates about the many things her constituents are actually interested in and why we are interested.

Strangely, the only response I've had is the auto reply from her Commons e-mail address...This is pretty typical for Tory Girl, the MP who told Carrot Flower Queen that cuts to local hospital services were not her concern. Can't even be arsed to get an aide to respond with some standard boiler plate...And they wonder why we hold them in such contempt...

Nice headlines to wake up to:

"North Shropshire by-election: Humiliation for Boris Johnson as Tories lose to Lib Dems."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...ms-win-labour/


"'No 10 is creating a nightly soap opera of calamity and chaos', says Helen Morgan in North Shropshire by-election victory speech"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...os-says-helen/


(I like that these are both from The Telegraph, Johnson's 'safe port in a storm', an additional kick in the nuts for the complacent oaf)

Almost thirty thousand vote shift, that'll mean the knives will be sharpened.

Merry Christmas, Boris.

That said, senior Conservatives are behaving like indulgent middle-class parents saying that young Boris is absolutely on his last chance.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-p...ost_type=share

...and like a child of indulgent middle class parents, he's not going to change his behaviour one jot. I'd say he was almost daring them to do it but IMO the truth is that he simply cannot imagine them taking action against him, such is his sense of entitlement.

Boris has been a dead man walking since elected. His career showed he was incapable for the job. Absent the pandemic he would still have faltered.
The question is when.
The Tories in the last few general elections have by changing the leader convinced the electorate that they present a radical change to the previous (Tory) government. They need to find someone who will be the change to Boris. Is there a competent, truthful, monogamous Tory out there?

Maybe, but she doesn't seem interested in the job and any perception of truthfulness and propriety may only be down to a lack of scrutiny. :o


edited to add.....

Also most of her political positions appear to be diametrically opposed to current party policy and more akin to something Labour or the LibDems would suggest so she lacks "gammon-appeal"

You thought Boris was a bad/weak leader?

Patel, Gove and Raab in unison: "Hold my beer!"

Dishy Rishi is probably best of a bad lot.

Pity Dominic Grieve and Ken Clarke are gone.

At this rate, and considering the sensibilities of the current Tory faithful, Nadine Dorries may even be in the running for PM :boggled::eye-poppi

Radio 4 today were discussing this. I was driving so no notes. I'd agree with someone that Tories tolerated BJ as he won elections and by-elections. He failed to deliver so knives are out. BUT it seems that nobody is really seen as an acceptable new leader who will tick all the required boxes of Brexit, Red wall voters etc so expect an interregnum. Look how long May stayed in until they found someone.

Liz Truss (heaven help us) is 2nd favourite after Sunak.

Reminds me of our septic tank and what tends to float to the top.....:o

Not really, sceptic tanks do a job.

In the war on xmas? :D

"Winner Helen Morgan took the seat by nearly 6,000 votes, overturning a Conservative majority of almost 23,000!"

Ha!

From the BBC:

Perhaps Johnson was on feeding duty last night so hasn't got up yet.... or perhaps hung over after not attending a party that didn't happen and if it had happened no rules were broken?

This didn't age well
December the 3rd Lucy Allan MP (Tory Telford) said

That it was such a strong pro Brexit seat must also be worrying for the Tories.

There was plenty of sensible tactical voting from Labour and Green supporters.

Tories didn't help themselves by dropping in someone from Birmingham who had to be kept away from the press because of his lack of knowledge of the constituency.

Already heard someone say it's not important because by-elections always go against the party in power and it's just a 'protest vote', nothing to do with Boris or his popularity.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...n-us-a-kicking

"The civil servant tasked with investigating claims of a Christmas party at Downing Street last year held his own office party the day before.
Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, attended a Christmas party with a team of his officials on December 17 last year."

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/p...arty-s3c9zxl0t

How many bloody parties did they have?!? You can only spend £15 on an employee before they have to pay tax.