British Politics

[DieselDaisy]

49 minutes ago, Padme said:

Sorry, I can't find any information about thousands of turists from Italy, Peru or Norway arriving in London 

You don't trust the Sun? Then here are both The Times and Telegraph carrying the story: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/flights-arriving-in-uk-every-day-from-coronavirus-hotspots-0w3gb9q5w and https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/09/banning-flights-screening-arrivals-will-not-stop-coronavirus/. Further, here is the Mirror https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/airline-passengers-still-flying-uk-21776455 and Metro https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/30/20-planes-coming-uk-every-day-americas-coronavirus-hotspot-12479665/

Edited April 10, 2020 by DieselDaisy

[Padme]

14 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Who claimed that there were ''thousands of tourists from Italy, Peru or Norway arriving in London''? 

The point was that commercial flights, i.e., not repatriation, arriving in the United Kingdom, are still extent. Scheduled new arrivals at Heathrow: 9pm Milan (British Airways); 930pm Dublin (Air Lingus); 935pm Copenhagen (SAS); 935 Cork (AL); 1025 Dubllin (AL), etc etc.

It is demonstrable fact.

 

2 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

You don't trust the Sun? Then here are both The Times and Telegraph carrying the story: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/flights-arriving-in-uk-every-day-from-coronavirus-hotspots-0w3gb9q5w and https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/09/banning-flights-screening-arrivals-will-not-stop-coronavirus/ 

 

If they are not tourists. Then they are people who live somewhere in the UK. And if they don't live there. They clearly have something very important to do. And whatever that is, It must be done now. Some come from Italy and others come from other places. British Airways and other airlines are sending those fights to pick people up.

[DieselDaisy]

Just now, Padme said:

 

If they are not tourists. Then they are people who live somewhere in the UK. And if they don't live there. They clearly have something very important to do. And whatever that is, It must be done now. Some come from Italy and others come from other places. British Airways and other airlines are sending those fights to pick people up.

They're commercial flights, not chartered flights, and operate in accordance with any commercial flight in that the possessor of a ticket can board the flight. 

I am not sure why you cannot accept that these flights are still occurring? You can even track them yourself with flightradar!! 

[Dazey]

21 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Who claimed that there were ''thousands of tourists from Italy, Peru or Norway arriving in London''? 

The point is that commercial flights, i.e., not repatriation, arriving in the United Kingdom, are still extent. Scheduled new arrivals at Heathrow: 9pm Milan (British Airways); 930pm Dublin (Air Lingus); 935pm Copenhagen (SAS); 935 Cork (AL); 1025 Dubllin (AL), etc etc.

It is demonstrable fact.

Great story today about a bunch of people who flew into France to go to a holiday villa in Cannes. 10 of them on a private jet flew into Marseille from London and had three helicopters waiting on the tarmac to take them the rest of the way. French police told them to fuck off back to the UK and fined the helicopter pilots for breaking lockdown.  

The funniest part of the story to my mind was "Seven men and three women arrived on the chartered aircraft to Marseille-Provence airport, where helicopters were waiting to fly them on to Cannes, where they had rented a luxury villa. The men, aged 40-50, and women, aged 23-25."   

Call me cynical but I'm guessing that the women weren't their PAs.  

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/10/french-police-turn-back-private-jet-of-holidaymakers-from-uk

[Padme]

34 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

They're commercial flights, not chartered flights, and operate in accordance with any commercial flight in that the possessor of a ticket can board the flight. 

I am not sure why you cannot accept that these flights are still occurring? You can even track them yourself with flightradar!! 

I don't dispute those flights are occurring. I don't understand why you think it's wrong. We both agree those passengers are not turists. As long as they are not turists. I don't care what kind of fight they take.

[SoulMonster]

There are very little commercial flights taking place, but countries are bringing home their citizens. I had eight flights cancelled by my airline today. 

[DieselDaisy]

38 minutes ago, Padme said:

I don't dispute those flights are occurring. I don't understand why you think it's wrong. We both agree those passengers are not turists. As long as they are not turists. I don't care what kind of fight they take.

Again, these are normal commercial flights, not repatriation flights that have been chartered by the government and exclusively aimed at UK citizens. They are the same type of flight that you would've booked before anyone had heard of coronavirus. Why is this so hard to understand for you? ''Tourists''? I wouldn't care to speculate on people's motivations for flying between Italy and New York and London Heathrow - family, misguided/belated tourism (people buying cheapo tickets?). It suffices to say that one only needs to be in possession of a ticket. 

''Why is it wrong''? Commercial flights still bringing people from corona epicentres such as New York and Milan whilst the United Kingdom is supposedly in lockdown, compounded with no screening or stipulated self-isolation at airports? Come on? 

20 minutes ago, SoulMonster said:

There are very little commercial flights taking place, but countries are bringing home their citizens. I had eight flights cancelled by my airline today. 

Yet again, these are commercial flights. 

PS

Details of the UK's repatriation flights can be found here: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/coronavirus-flights-uk-repatriation-list-latest-a9424381.html

Edited April 10, 2020 by DieselDaisy

[Padme]

2 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

They're commercial flights, not chartered flights, and operate in accordance with any commercial flight in that the possessor of a ticket can board the flight. 

I am not sure why you cannot accept that these flights are still occurring? You can even track them yourself with flightradar!! 

From what I read, there are thousands of Britons all over the world. They want to come back to the UK. When charters are not available or not enough number of charters are sent to a given country. Britons try to catch a flight with whatever airline to go to Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, etc. Upon arrival, they try to find a conection flight to the UK.

It is not easy to organize repatriations for some reason.It seems they are not getting much help and advice from embassies. So people are left to do whatever they can. Sure, we know nothing about possible health issues of those passengers. I guess once they arrive, they should be put in quarantine or take a test either at airport or at a near hospital.

 

[SoulMonster]

7 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

Yet again, these are commercial flights. 

I didn't say there are zero commercial flights. I said there are very little. Maybe I should have said very few, and then you would have understood me? 

People must be allowed to return home to their homelands. I doubt people are going on vacation these days. And why do you bother anyway, you have already bragged about flaunting domestic guidelines in a couple of posts. Seems a bit...hypocritical. 

 

 

[DieselDaisy]

9 hours ago, Padme said:

From what I read, there are thousands of Britons all over the world. They want to come back to the UK. When charters are not available or not enough number of charters are sent to a given country. Britons try to catch a flight with whatever airline to go to Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, etc. Upon arrival, they try to find a conection flight to the UK.

It is not easy to organize repatriations for some reason.It seems they are not getting much help and advice from embassies. So people are left to do whatever they can. Sure, we know nothing about possible health issues of those passengers.

On a commercial flight there is no determiner that one has to be a UK citizen - I do not know why you are assuming this? One only requires being either a EU citizen or belonging to a country with a Visa waiver, and to be in possession of a commercially acquired ticket. 

9 hours ago, Padme said:

I guess once they arrive, they should be put in quarantine or take a test either at airport or at a near hospital.

Yes. Finally!

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

you have already bragged about flaunting domestic guidelines in a couple of posts. Seems a bit...hypocritical. 

Where I exercise - we are allowed a period of exercise - I can maintain social distancing of two miles if I want to which is more than the stipulated two metres. Such is the benefits of living near the coast and in a fairly underpopulated area of England. Besides, my original point was, ''is it any wonder the British public evade ''lockdown'' recommendations/legislation, sunbathing in parks etc, when this is still happening?''

Edited April 11, 2020 by DieselDaisy

[Padme]

2 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

On a commercial flight there is no determiner that one has to be a UK citizen - I do not know why you are assuming this? One only requires being either a EU citizen or belonging to a country with a Visa waiver, and to be in possession of a commercially acquired ticket. 

The problem is the repatriation is not well organized. If you are in Peru, you still need to find a way to come back. So you try to find whatever flight is going somewhere in Europe first. Then you try to find another flight to the UK. Why is there such mess with repatriations?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/10/lisa-nandy-seeks-urgent-meeting-with-dominic-raab-over-covid-19-repatriations#maincontent

[AtariLegend]

Labour antisemitism investigation will not be sent to equality commission

A report found factional hostility towards Jeremy Corbyn amongst former senior officials contributed to "a litany of mistakes".

Tom Rayner

Political correspondent @RaynerSkyNews

Sunday 12 April 2020 10:15, UK

 

An extensive internal investigation into the way Labour handled antisemitism complaints will not be submitted to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, after an intervention by party lawyers.

The 860-page report, seen by Sky News, concluded factional hostility towards Jeremy Corbyn amongst former senior officials contributed to "a litany of mistakes" that hindered the effective handling of the issue.

 

The investigation, which was completed in the last month of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, claims to have found "no evidence" of antisemitism complaints being treated differently to other forms of complaint, or of current or former staff being "motivated by antisemitic intent".

Image:The investigation was completed in the last month of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership

Instead, the report concludes there was a lack of "robust processes, systems, training, education and effective line management" and found "abundant evidence of a hyper-factional atmosphere prevailing in Party HQ" towards Mr Corbyn which "affected the expeditious and resolute handling of disciplinary complaints".

As well as 10,000 separate emails, the dossier uncovers thousands of private WhatsApp communications between former senior party officials and singles out for criticism some who gave whistleblower evidence to last year's highly-critical BBC Panorama investigation on antisemitism within Labour.

These include the former General Secretary Lord McNicol and the former acting head of the governance and legal unit, Sam Matthews.

Those involved in compiling the huge dossier insist it was intended to provide additional context to the equalities watchdog and supplement the party's main submissions to the investigation into institutional antisemitic racism.

Indeed the report directly addresses the EHRC on several occasions, including urging the watchdog to "question the validity of the personal testimonies" of former members of staff and to "focus instead on the documentary, primary-source evidence that the Party has made available", leaving little doubt as to the intention of its authors that the document be submitted to the investigation.

However, Sky News understands party lawyers have told General Secretary Jennie Formby the report entitled: "The work of the Labour Party's Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014 - 2019", should not be submitted to the Commission, due to fears it could damage the party's wider case.

A Labour Party spokesperson disputed the suggestion the report was ever intended to be submitted to the EHRC, saying:"The Party has submitted extensive information to the EHRC and responded to questions and requests for further information, none of which included this document."

It is understood party lawyers consider the document to be a draft internal report covering a time period and breadth of issues that are not within the scope of the watchdog's investigation, and that it should be used to inform and enhance the party's understanding of the situation.

But that decision has prompted widespread concern amongst those who worked in the most senior positions in the leadership office of Jeremy Corbyn, with one telling Sky News: "This report completely blows open everything that went on".

"We were being sabotaged and set up left right and centre by McNicol's team and we didn't even know. It's so important that the truth comes out", the source added.

The report claims private communications show senior former staff "openly worked against the aims and objectives of the leadership of the Party, and in the 2017 general election some key staff even appeared to work against the Party's core objective of winning elections".

The report says the WhatsApp communications in question, which included some of the most senior figures in the party headquarters and Lord McNicol's office, were leaked by one of the group's members.

The examples from chat archives published in the document include:

• Conversations in 2017 which appear to show senior staff preparing for Tom Watson to become interim leader in anticipation of Mr Corbyn losing the election
• Conversations which it is claimed show senior staff hid information from the leader's office about digital spending and contact details for MPs and candidates during the election
• Conversations on election night in which the members of the group talk about the need to hide their disappointment that Mr Corbyn had done better than expected and would be unlikely to resign
• A discussion about whether the grassroots activist network Momentum could be "proscribed" for being a "party within a party"
• A discussion about "unsuspending" a former Labour MP who was critical of Mr Corbyn so they could stand as a candidate in the 2017 election
• A discussion about how to prevent Corbyn ally Rebecca Long-Bailey gaining a seat on the party's governing body in 2017
• Regular references to corbyn-supporting party staff as "trots"
• Conversations between senior staff in Lord McNicol's office in which they refer to former director of communications Seamus Milne as "dracula", and saying he was "spiteful and evil and we should make sure he is never allowed in our Party if it's last thing we do"
• Conversations in which the same group refers to Mr Corbyn's former chief of staff Karie Murphy as "medusa", a "crazy woman" and a "bitch face cow" that would "make a good dartboard"
• A discussion in which one of the group members expresses their "hope" that a young pro-Corbyn Labour activist, who they acknowledge had mental health problems, "dies in a fire"

The investigation also accuses the former General Secretary Lord McNicol, and other senior figures of providing "false and misleading information" to Jeremy Corbyn's office in relation to the handling of antisemitism complaints, which the report claims meant "the scale of the problem was not appreciated" by the leadership.

The report claims McNicol and staff in the Governance and Legal Unit "provided timetables for the resolution of cases that were never met; falsely claimed to have processed all antisemitism complaints; falsely claimed that most complaints received were not about Labour members and provided highly inaccurate statistics of antisemitism complaints".

Responding to the messages cited and the allegations made against him in the report, Lord McNicol said:"The energy and effort that must have been invested in trawling 10,000 emails rather than challenging antisemitism in the party is deeply troubling.

"This a petty attempt to divert attention away from the real issue. It is telling that the Party's own lawyers appear to have ruled that this information was unsuitable for submission to the EHRC's ongoing investigation.

"I have repeatedly stood by the professional staff of the Labour Party who I worked with over the seven and a half year period I was General Secretary, and continue to do so."

The report also claims Sam Matthews, who served first as Head of Disputes and then as acting Head of the Governance and Legal Unit, "rarely replied or took any action, and the vast majority of times where action did occur, it was prompted by other Labour staff directly chasing this themselves".

It states that there was a failure to develop "detailed or coherent guidelines for investigating complaints based on social media conduct" and a failure to "implement the Macpherson principle of logging and investigating complaints of racism as racism".

Following what the report describes as a "systematic review" of all complaints received between November 2016 to February 2018, it claims investigations were initiated into only 34 of the more than 300 complaints received in relation to antisemitism.

"At least half of these warranted action, many of them in relation to very extreme forms of antisemitism, but were ignored. Almost all of these complaints were forwarded from one inbox to another, and many of them were identified as Labour members and sent to the Head of Disputes, Sam Matthews, for action", the report claims.

In a statement to Sky News responding to the leaked report, Sam Matthews said: "This latest episode comes as no surprise to me, as an effort by a disgruntled faction who are floundering in their attempts to blame others in order to distract from matters that will be investigated by the EHRC and the Courts.

"I hope Keir Starmer will stand by his commitment to undo the damage that they and their supporters have caused.

Mr Matthews continued: "The proper examination of the full evidence will show that as Head of Disputes and Acting Director, I did my level best to tackle the poison of anti-Jewish racism which was growing under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.

"A highly selective, retrospective review of the Party's poor record, not deemed good enough for submission by the Party's own lawyers and conducted in the dying days of a Corbyn's leadership in order to justify their inaction, simply cannot be relied upon."

 

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-antisemitism-investigation-will-not-be-sent-to-equality-commission-11972071

Edited April 12, 2020 by AtariLegend

[dontdamnmeuyi2015]

I got the Dallas morning news paper today. They have a section that shows quotes from some famous and not so famous people.

They quoted the speech Queen Elizabeth told the world the other day. My God! What a smart, amazing woman she is! She said the most important words I have ever heard! It gave me so much comfort.

Now if only President Trump could take a page from her book.

God save the Queen!

[AtariLegend]

The Labour leaks really should be a story, if there wasn't a certain world event happening atm.

They show that several key staffers tried to litterally throw seats, hoped the Torries would win and briefed press against the party. Alot of nastiness in it.

Some of the names still in key positions, 1 of them is Jonthan Asworth's wife. Ashworth is the shadow health secetary who got "recorded" on tape by a conservative friend the week before the election suggesting he was hoping Labour wouldn't win. He blew it off as a joke, despite the fact that it was a big story and all over the 6'o clock news. It wasn't a joke for his wife.

Also in relation to antisemtism... Cases were intentionally acted upon slow and briefed to the press to harm the leadership. 

Watson was involved in Ken Livingston not getting expelled, because it would be better to "embarrass" Corbyn instead.

There's litterally multiple copies of their convos attacking various mps and trying to lose an election.

[DieselDaisy]

The only thing I know about Labour right now is that Keir Starmer included David Lammy in his shadow cabinet haha. If you are going to make yourself completely unelectable you may as well do a thorough job of it I suppose!

[Dazey]

I'm starting to like Dominic Raab. I think the lockdown is getting to me.  

[DieselDaisy]

1 hour ago, Dazey said:

I'm starting to like Dominic Raab. I think the lockdown is getting to me.  

He looks like a Bond bad guy-henchman.

Edited April 16, 2020 by DieselDaisy

[Dazey]

11 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

He looks like a Bond bad guy-henchman.

He looks like a cross between Rik Mayall and Greg Davies.

[DieselDaisy]

 

PS

Maybe I am a cynical bastard but this hand clapping thing is really getting on my tits now. And,

 

Edited April 17, 2020 by DieselDaisy

[Dazey]

46 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

 

PS

Maybe I am a cynical bastard but this hand clapping thing is really getting on my tits now. And,

 

They were showing a bunch of people in the street somewhere up north and there were fuckloads of people piled into the street not social distancing at all. The reporter was interviewing a nurse who was off work because she was part of the vulnerable group told to shield for 12 weeks. She was being interviewed from about 3 feet away in the middle of the street amongst about 100 people.  

[DieselDaisy]

1 hour ago, Dazey said:

They were showing a bunch of people in the street somewhere up north and there were fuckloads of people piled into the street not social distancing at all. The reporter was interviewing a nurse who was off work because she was part of the vulnerable group told to shield for 12 weeks. She was being interviewed from about 3 feet away in the middle of the street amongst about 100 people.  

As my mother says, who worked in the NHS for decades and saw its decline, ''they'd prefer a pay rise rather than a handclap''. It was nice the first week perhaps but now it has become a load of virtue signalling nonsense. 

 

[spunko12345]

We really are a strange country. We pay 15 million to a 100 year old man to endlessly walk up and down his garden to give to the NHS. Maybe taxation wouldn't be so hard for people to swallow if it were rewarded with cruel punishments😁

[DieselDaisy]

 

 

[AtariLegend]

I littetallly just woke after a dream about being driven off the side of a cliff in a bus trip organized by Matt Hancock.

When the realization settles in and people start complaining, Hancock says "we're learning".

[DieselDaisy]

Oh joy at the news this morning. The Blair creature creeps out of the woodwork again; Sadiq Khan drolling on about ''minorities'' (dying from corona); Meghan and Harry, desiring to repudiate British media, write a letter to the editors of the British media to remind them of their presence; tax payers picking-up wage-tab of Posh Spice's staff, despite Beckhams being worth 350 million.

Edited April 20, 2020 by DieselDaisy