UKMT February 2017 - Welcome to Tiny Train World

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LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Paul Nuttall may be going to pokey:

https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/826914332768423936

The penalty for lying on your nomination form is: you go to prison for up to six months, you're banned from voting for multiple years, and if you've been elected, you're automatically kicked out

# ¿ Feb 2, 2017 01:58

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 09:15

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Apparently there's a photo of the three of them in the pub, but I don't see how a few adults going for a quick drink after work is somehow damning. Anyway, Abbot participated in Commons debates without issue before the vote, so she clearly wasn't that badly hungover, if hungover at all. Supposedly she suffered a migraine shortly before the vote. That may or may not be real - if it is, it's certainly got to be the most politically convenient migraine of the last few decades since it allowed her to avoid breaking the whip or voting to Leave while representing one of the most pro-Remain constituencies in the country. Possibly the most fortuitously timed migraine in history, in fact.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2017 16:42

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Julio Cruz posted:

I'm gonna wait for an actual source for his comments rather than just criticise him on what he "apparently" said.

https://www.facebook.com/pinknews/videos/10155018741476518/

the "choice" comments are in the last 30 seconds

# ¿ Feb 2, 2017 20:44

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

https://twitter.com/davey/status/827300019699085312

so this is where we are as a country. good to know.

ukmt: i go to the supermarket and a banana is straight

# ¿ Feb 3, 2017 09:08

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

tax is fun!

https://twitter.com/PJTheEconomist/status/827443565831868416

# ¿ Feb 3, 2017 10:34

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Dead Goon posted:

What's up with panic buying lettuce?

Rainfall and flooding in the Mediterranean countries has ruined the crop, so supermarkets are only letting people buy at most three at a time.

I mean, I can't imagine ever wanting to buy more than one head of lettuce at a time, but there you go.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2017 14:25

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Subtlety from Andrew Neill:

https://mobile.twitter.com/bbcthisweek/status/827333938767032320

# ¿ Feb 3, 2017 22:26

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Wheat Loaf posted:

The next Labour leader is coming from the Corbyn wing in any case. I don't think anyone who had a political career before 2015 is in with a shout so that's Starmer out. What you (in Labour) need to do is ensure you end up with someone like Lewis or Long-Bailey or Rayner rather than McDonnell or Abbott or that idiot Burgon.

(As I say, I am no socialist, so I don't know whether any of those will actually satisfy Labour members.)

Starmer was part of the 2015 intake - he was a QC/director of public prosecutions before going into politics.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2017 14:00

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Attention all renters: Tee-May's got your back!

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/04/may-abandons-home-owning-democracy-thatcher-tories

quote:

A major shift in Tory housing policy in favour of people who rent will be announced by ministers this week as Theresa May�s government admits that home ownership is now out of reach for millions of families.
In a departure from her predecessor David Cameron, who focused on advancing Margaret Thatcher�s ambition for a �home-owning democracy�, a white paper will aim to deliver more affordable and secure rental deals, and threaten tougher action against rogue landlords, for the millions of families unable to buy because of sky-high property prices. Ministers will say they want to change planning and other rules to ensure developers provide a proportion of new homes for �affordable rent� instead of just insisting that they provide a quota of �affordable homes for sale�.
They will also announce incentives to encourage landlords to offer �family-friendly� guaranteed three-year tenancies, new action to ban unscrupulous landlords who offer sub-standard properties, and a further consultation on banning many of the fees that are charged by letting agents.
...
The Tory manifesto for the 2015 general election spelt out plans for 200,000 new �starter homes� that could be bought by first-time buyers at 20% discounts, but said little about promoting the interests and improving the lot of so-called �generation rent�. Cameron also pushed the idea of getting people on the housing ladder through shared ownership schemes, an idea that is no longer such a priority. The white paper will be seen as part of May�s deliberate break with Cameron, and her drive to create a country �that works for everyone, not just the privileged few�.
...
Councils will be told to put more emphasis on rental schemes , particularly in towns and cities, while making it easier for �build to rent� developers to offer affordable rented properties.
The proportion of people living in private rented accommodation has doubled since 2000 and ministers will accept that housing costs �are hurting ordinary, working people the most�. The average couple in the private rented sector now hands over roughly half their salary to their landlord each month and 2.2 million working households with below-average incomes spend more than a third of their incomes on housing.
...
Ministers insist that they will not allow more building on the green belt but will stick to existing rules that this should only happen in exceptional circumstances. They will, however, say that developers must build on land for which they have obtained planning permission, to help reach their target of building one million new homes by 2020.

It'll be interesting to see what they mean by "incentives" for landlords to offer longer tenancies, since it suggests that such tenancies won't be mandatory. It'd have to be a pretty powerful incentive for landlords to choose them over the current six month secure tenancy followed by a rolling monthly contract.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2017 12:19

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Guavanaut posted:

Without the Common Agricultural Policy and other Eurocentric protectionism existing since the mid-60s, farmers are able to operate more comfortably in the Levant and North Africa, leading to farms not collapsing in Syria, a desperate rural population not converging on Syrian cities, riots not happening, harsh countermeasures to said riots never occurring, a division in higher military policy never happening, and thus nothing even approaching the current situation resulting. We'd probably also need 'without NATO' and a couple of other variables too though.

This is insane argument because it assumes that individual member states would somehow be less agriculturally protectionist than they are now if the EU didn't exist, even though the EU is a broadly market-oriented liberal organisation and has massively increased external countries' access to European markets over the course of its existence.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2017 11:10

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Guavanaut posted:

It's a well known fact that we import two thirds of our cheese etc. etc. and that is a disgrace, if the Levantine and North African farms were able to compete against the European ones why wouldn't we go with them absent any large scale structure to penalize buying non-Euro? Some sense of white loyalty?

Because of things like this: http://www.fwi.co.uk/news/french-farmer-protests-win-600m-government-aid

National farming lobbies are powerful because they have a lot of public support and farmers traditionally aren't afraid to gently caress poo poo up good and proper when they feel they're getting a raw deal.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2017 11:53

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Zephro posted:

A land value tax (which is what this essentially is) is one of those ideas that hangs around Westminster like a ghost. Every couple of years someone points out that it would be a really good idea, and then nothing gets done.

The problem is that after the first guy points out that it would be a good idea, a second guy points out that it would cost a huge amount of political capital to make the change, with no short term payoff.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2017 13:33

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Pochoclo posted:

Aberdeen, one of the cheapest cities to buy...

Aberdeen has been one of the most expensive cities in the UK for a long time because of all the oil money sloshing around. That effect is tailing off now that the oil's not so lucrative, but it's still nowhere near one of the cheapest cities.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2017 15:23

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Pissflaps posted:

Everybody in Teesside has walked up the local mountain Roseberry Topping at some point.

having just looked it up on wikipedia, i can confidently state that Roseberry Topping is not a mountain

# ¿ Feb 7, 2017 16:48

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

JFairfax posted:

you cannot get a train directly from south of the river to north of the river, you have to change at temple meads. madness.

This is a good thing because people who live south of the river are unsettling web-footed abominations and must be kept away from normal people insofar as possible.

e: Also, when comparing public transport available in cities you have to consider their populations because an investment that is economically sound with a large population to serve won't necessarily make sense with a much smaller one. For example, people have been comparing british cities to Hong Kong (pop 7m), Chicago (pop ~3m) and New York (pop ~8m). The largest UK city outside London is Birmingham, whose population barely breaks 1m.

LemonDrizzle fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Feb 8, 2017

# ¿ Feb 8, 2017 11:29

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

https://twitter.com/patrick_kidd/status/829277557405208579

# ¿ Feb 8, 2017 12:37

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

baka kaba posted:

What are the chances of the Lords causing a bit of trouble? I'm guessing they won't throw themselves to the wolves by actually blocking it, but are there any rumours of any spoilers going down?

According to the Guardian, none - there have been so many "we want hard brexit and we want it now" votes in Parliament that the Lords would be unable to justify presenting any meaningful impediment to the bill's passage.

Also...
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/829419578358915077

Remains to be seen what mystery condition will tragically strike Diane Abbott down before she can cast her vote.

LemonDrizzle fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Feb 8, 2017

# ¿ Feb 8, 2017 21:02

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

jBrereton posted:

Lib Dems. SNP. S'it.

e: oh Sinn Fein I guess also.

Plaid and the Greens too, for what they're worth.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2017 21:43

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Dead Goon posted:

Stop paying money then. "Resigning" smacks of self-importance.

It's not self-important, it's a courtesy to the party - you're saving it time and money by letting them know they should stop sending you campaign literature and not bother chasing you up about your "overdue" membership fees.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2017 14:03

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Paxman posted:

For example, "Srichand Parmanand Hinduja (born 28 November 1935) is an Indian-born British business magnate, investor, and philanthropist". Aside from his name and his birthday, the fact that he is Indian-born is literarlly the first thing we're told about him (even though Wikipedia says he is British, not Indian). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._P._Hinduja

By contrast, "Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate, investor and philanthropist". The place of his birth is mentioned later on, but as he was born in London it's not considered to be interesting enough to be put in the intro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Branson

Note that they are both seem to be British, it's just that being born in India is in some way remarkable while being born in London is "normal" for a British person and far less interesting. There are lots of similar examples on Wikipedia.

Eh, that [country]-born formulation crops in all sorts of places - for example, here are the opening sentences of the bios of the winners of the 2016 Physics Nobel:

quote:

John Michael Kosterlitz (born June 22, 1943) is a British born Anglo-American physicist.

Frederick Duncan Michael Haldane FRS[4] (born 14 September 1951),[1] known as F. Duncan Haldane, is a British born physicist who is Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics at the physics department of Princeton University, and a Distinguished Visiting Research Chair[5] at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

I don't think you should read too much into things like that.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2017 14:25

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

it's a day ending in 'y' so there's another wonderful poll

https://twitter.com/MattSingh_/status/830476525380239361

quote:

Petition to give Wales more vowels

"Llwchwr" has two vowels, though :confused:

# ¿ Feb 11, 2017 19:10

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Pochoclo posted:

How terrible on a scale from 1 to Farage is Bercow? Because so far he's made a stand against Trump, said he voted Remain, and pisses off the Tories, that would make him a pretty okay PM on my book (if only because there's zero alternatives). But you know, he might have voted to kill puppies or something, you never know with politicians.

He used to be more Farage than Farage - in his youth he was a member of the Monday Club and called for things like hanging Nelson Mandela and "involuntary repatriation" of non-white immigrants. He's since renounced those views.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 15:03

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

jabby posted:

At what point can you tell a focus group participant to gently caress off rather than validating their poo poo opinion by publishing it in a national newspaper?

If you're the person conducting the focus group, no such point exists - the exercise will be completely useless if you start booting people out when they say things you would rather not hear.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 16:11

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

jabby posted:

You might not kick them out of the focus group, but there should be some sort of filter preventing stuff like pure appearance-based criticism from making it to the party higher-ups and eventually the newspapers. Why even write down things like 'charity-shop looking'? I mean if the person in question called her a fat bitch instead would we see that printed in the Times as an official focus group opinion? At a certain point the opinion expressed reflects badly on the person holding it and has nothing to do with the MP in question.

People do judge each other on appearance, though - one of Ed Miliband's big problems was that people saw him as a goofy-looking nerd who wouldn't be a credible prime minister. If you're scoping people out for a political leadership position and for whatever reason, everyone you ask says that there's something about one person's appearance or self-presentation that makes it hard to take them seriously, that's important and useful information even if it's unfair and unreasonable that the person in question is being judged in that way.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 20:49

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Spangly A posted:

he caused the european debt crisis and threatened to break his parliament if they didn't force his massive social cuts through, he's not "centre left" at all

I think perhaps you've got Steinmeier confused with someone else - he wasn't involved in the european debt crisis in any meaningful sense, and has never been Chancellor. Are you thinking of Schroeder and the Hartz IV reforms?

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 20:59

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Pochoclo posted:

It's amazing and sad but every time I ask "hey this politician sounds like he might be slightly good, is that true?" the answer is always "no, it's not true, he's poo poo" because all politicians are poo poo. I mean, I already know that, but I'm kinda grasping at straws here you know.

Steinmeier's pretty inoffensive as SPD guys go. However, his appointment as president isn't particularly big news because the president of Germany is mostly just a figurehead whose main job is to appear at state events and hobnob with foreign dignitaries. The real power rests with (in decreasing order) the government/chancellor, the bundestag, and the federal states.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 21:16

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

jabby posted:

And what do you propose political parties do about this information? Are you suggesting people should be barred from running for high office purely on the basis of appearance? Does that change if you replace 'looks like a nerd' with 'is black' or 'is a woman'? Because those attributes would definitely be unpopular with focus groups in certain parts of the country, and would have been highly unpopular in the past.

No, I'm not suggesting anyone should be barred from doing anything on the basis of their appearance. I don't run a political organisation, but if I did, what I'd do with that kind of information would depend very strongly on the context - a problem with someone's presentation could be trivially fixable by telling them to get a haircut and buy some new clothes, something more fundamental that you'd just have to accept, or anywhere in between.

To address something you said later on in the thread...

jabby posted:

Rebecca Long-Bailey will now have an advantage over Angela Rayner in getting nominations for the position of leader, in part because one person somewhere thinks she looks too 'charity shop'. Not because many people think it, or even that she polls badly. Because one person thinks it.

It wasn't just one person: According to the Sunday Times, the focus group responses to Rayner were �overwhelmingly negative�. The MP for Ashton-under-Lyne was judged by the group to be �not likeable�, a �bit charity shop-looking� and �weird�, with one participant suggesting voters would not take her seriously, the newspaper reported.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 22:18

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

jabby posted:

Are you suggesting that multiple people, unknown to each other, spontaneously used the phrase 'a bit charity-shop looking'?

Saying the responses were negative is one thing, although without any context of how large or diverse the group was or a more specific definition of 'negative' I'd argue it has little value, but cherry-picking specific phrases to use as somehow representative of the whole population is clearly wrong.

No, I'm not suggesting that multiple people used that specific phrase. I was relaying what was stated in the article - that apparently most of the focus group participants expressed negative opinions about Rayner and her appearance/presentation. The fact that one participant chose to use more colourful language than the others when expressing that opinion is neither here nor there unless you're a journalist looking for a tasty quote to get dem clicks, in which case it's very important.

LemonDrizzle fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Feb 12, 2017

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 22:44

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Cerv posted:

As a charity shop volunteer I'm now a bit worried about my apprearance
What does it mean?

perhaps you're angela rayner in disguise

# ¿ Feb 12, 2017 23:00

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

jabby posted:

Some opinions are actively harmful to society when you try to indulge them, and the obsession with politicians appearance is one of them. As I said you wouldn't advocate using a focus group to see what skin colour or gender is most acceptable to the public, so you probably shouldn't use them to focus on people's looks either... Actively seeking out opinions on an MP's appearance is a toxic thing to do, and any attempt to 'fix' things would be equally toxic. If you wouldn't go into the street specifically asking people what they think of Angela Rayner's dress sense or body weight then letting them bring that stuff up in a focus group is no better.

The polling firm and the Labour leadership almost certainly did not use the exercise to focus on Rayner's looks or specifically ask the participants about her appearance/mannerisms/presentation because a key objective when conducting a focus group is to avoid imposing your own perceptions or biases on the proceedings insofar as you possibly can. The typical practice is to make your questions as open-ended as possible - they would almost certainly have just shown the participants some footage of Rayner and Long-Bailey speaking and then asked something like "what did you think of the speaker?" to ensure that the responses reflected the participants' own thinking rather than the pollster's.

quote:

Would 'trivially fixable' include stuff like wearing more makeup? High-heeled shoes? A push-up bra?... And as for 'something more fundamental' (I assume you mean actually being unattractive) do you really think it's going to be accepted once it's public knowledge that the public have decided you aren't pretty enough?

When I said "trivially fixable", I meant "possible to address without a major investment of time/money/effort", so in that sense, yes, all of those things would be trivially fixable. Obviously, changing one's appearance or presentation will not necessarily be "trivial" on a personal/emotional level. I did not mean "unattractive" when I talked about "more fundamental" characteristics - I was thinking about things like someone's accent/speech patterns or physical habits and mannerisms (or, yes, gender/skin colour), which are both much harder to change and much more likely to raise someone's dander if identified as an electoral problem. It is certainly not right, reasonable, or fair that someone would be judged negatively on the basis of any of those characteristics, but that doesn't mean there won't be groups in the electorate who will go ahead and judge them negatively anyway. Worse, some of the people who judge in that way may belong to groups or demographics who would otherwise be amenable to your message. More generally, I don't think attractiveness is what the participants in the focus group were talking about when they made their comments, and I'm not sure it's even all that important; Theresa May and Angela Merkel don't have problems being taken seriously, and I don't think anyone would describe either of them as attractive.

LemonDrizzle fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Feb 13, 2017

# ¿ Feb 13, 2017 02:46

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

here are some tweets with slopey lines in them

https://twitter.com/caprosser/status/831481192406999040

https://twitter.com/caprosser/status/831481379867226112

# ¿ Feb 14, 2017 14:04

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Baron Corbyn posted:

I was more making fun of "you don't win elections if..." coming from a member of a party with no experience of doing that in living memory.

The lib dems won a parliamentary byelection just over two months ago. Apparently "living memory" ain't what it used to be.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2017 03:15

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

marktheando posted:

It's not just a London thing. Most people across the country have never seen NI banknotes before and will stare wide eyed at them and won't believe they are real money.

Well, they aren't legal tender so the wide-eyed starers aren't completely wrong...

# ¿ Feb 16, 2017 14:47

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

https://mobile.twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/832205371699785729

Corbyn is less well regarded than both Foot and IDS, and therefore the worst performing leader of the Opposition in over three decades. Ipsos' data don't go back past the early eighties; if they did, I suspect they'd show him to be the least well-liked leader of the Opposition in postwar history.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2017 18:43

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

nuttall status: scuttled, or at the very least rattled

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/16/ukip-leader-paul-nuttall-condemned-for-failing-to-attend-hustings?CMP=share_btn_tw

quote:

The Ukip leader, Paul Nuttall, has been criticised for failing to turn up at a hustings in Stoke-on-Trent Central, the constituency where he is contesting next week�s byelection.
Nuttall gave just an hour�s notice that he was pulling out of the event on Thursday that had been organised by business representatives in the area.
He claimed he needed to attend �essential party meetings� before a Ukip conference.
Meanwhile, Nuttall�s personal website was offline on Thursday, displaying a message saying that the site had been temporarily taken down. It comes in the wake of his admission that the claim he had lost �close, personal friends� at the 1989 Hillsborough football disaster was untrue.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2017 22:09

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Rakosi posted:

IIRC the whole "legal tender" thing is bullshit and no salesman is obligated to sell you anything, at anytime, for any price (in english or scottish sterling, or anything else for that matter). No one "has to" accept any note.

Google is, like, magic:

http://edu.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/what-is-legal-tender/

quote:

What is legal tender?
Legal tender has a very narrow and technical meaning, which relates to settling debts. It means that if you are in debt to someone then you can�t be sued for non-payment if you offer full payment of your debts in legal tender.
What is classed as legal tender varies throughout the UK. In England and Wales, legal tender is Royal Mint coins and Bank of England notes. In Scotland and Northern Ireland only Royal Mint coins are legal tender. Throughout the UK, there are some restrictions when using the lower value coins as legal tender. For example, 1p and 2p coins only count as legal tender for any amount up to 20p.

What is not legal tender?
There are many acceptable payment methods which aren�t technically legal tender. This is why the term �legal tender� has little use in ordinary everyday transactions.
Most shops accept payment by debit or credit card, and some accept cheques and contactless payments. These are safe and convenient ways to pay, despite not being classed as legal tender.
The same is true for Scottish and Northern Ireland banknotes. Seven banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland are authorised to issue banknotes. These notes make up the majority of banknotes in Scotland and Northern Ireland and legislation is in place to ensure that noteholders have a similar level of protection as they would for Bank of England notes. Despite this, Scottish and Northern Ireland banknotes are not classified as legal tender anywhere in the UK. Equally, Bank of England notes are not legal tender in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2017 02:08

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

John Curtice on Labour's support and referendum voting patterns - the whole piece is worth reading, but the final two paragraphs makes the key point: http://ukandeu.ac.uk/is-labours-brexit-dilemma-being-misunderstood/?platform=hootsuite

quote:

So, a substantial minority of 2015 Labour voters in Labour-held seats in the North of England and the Midlands did vote to Leave. But it is no more than a minority. Indeed, it is not much bigger than the proportion of Conservative voters in Conservative-held seats who voted for Remain (37%), a group whose continued loyalty to their party might also be thought to be potentially vulnerable in the wake of the Brexit vote.

Ensuring Labour�s survival in the North of England and the Midlands is not just a question of strengthening the party�s appeal to the so-called traditional Labour voter who voted to Leave. There are simply not enough of them for that alone to be a viable strategy. Rather, it is also about retaining the support of the majority of Labour voters in the northern half of England who voted to Remain. For without them, the party really will be in trouble.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2017 10:45

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Apparently Irish politics is sort of blowing up: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/20/ireland-pm-enda-kenny-fine-gael-expected-resign-police-scandal

quote:

Enda Kenny is expected to step down as prime minister of Ireland next month after severe criticism of his handling of a crisis in the Irish police force.
Kenny, who last year became the first Fine Gael leader to win a second term as prime minister, will outline his plans at a party meeting in Dublin on Wednesday.
A spokesman declined to comment on the agenda or possible outcome of the meeting, but party sources indicated that Kenny would move aside after his visit to Donald Trump at the White House to mark St Patrick�s Day on 17 March.
...
The policing controversy centres on unfounded allegations made against a police whistleblower and claims that he was smeared by senior figures in government.
Sgt Maurice McCabe has raised serious charges of corruption, namely that officers failed to prosecute influential people charged with offences including traffic violations. McCabe�s allegations suggested that �friends in high places� in the Republic were being �let off� traffic offences.

Brung low by speeding tickets and parking infractions, RIP.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2017 16:14

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Fangz posted:

Are the abstains votes they were whipped to abstain on, or votes they didn't whip on?

The former.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2017 16:56

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 09:15

LemonDrizzle: Mar 28, 2012; neoliberal shithead

Re: today's ICM poll with Labour 18 points behind the Tories

https://twitter.com/MattSingh_/status/833693598487085056

# ¿ Feb 20, 2017 19:35

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