Probably unwisely, but nonetheless, I stayed up to watch the results in the Wakefield and the Tiverton & Honiton by elections which were held yesterday. I had some element of passing interest in both - I was born in Wakefield and raised in my nearby home town, and I have relatives in Devon and one of the reporters covering the by-election there is a friend from Oxford days.
Here are a few random thoughts which came to me in the wee small hours:
1. Were it not for two busy-body women Conservative MPs snooping over his shoulder to squint at what he was watching on his mobile phone Neil Parish would still be MP for Tiverton and Honiton, and the Lib Dems would not have secured a famous victory.
2. If the Conservatives had dropped Imran Khan as their candidate for Wakefield like the proverbial hot potato once his past was flagged up to them by his victim they would have still probably won the seat in 2019 with another candidate, and still hold it.
3. The last time Wakefield made such an impact on national politics was probably as a result of the battle fought there in 1460. Unlike the aftermath of that, so far, no severed heads have appeared above Micklegate Bar in York. So far ….
4. Whilst Bojo is in Rwanda perhaps he should follow his Home Secretary’s idea and claim political asylum there.
5 comments:
Do you condone the watching the of pornography in the workplace? Thank goodness arseholes like you are a dying breed.
1. I do not condone people looking at pornography at work or at home, but pornography is a regrettable fact of modern life. It is a sin against chastity.
2. If person A sees person B ( a legal adult ) looking at pornography then talking about the fact is gossip and that is a sin against charity.
3. I am surprised that you, whilst apparently disapproving of pornography, are prepared to publically use coarse and vulgar language about me. That is also a sin against charity.
I heard, as I expect we all have by now, that he had been searching on "Dominator combine harvesters", and the first word prompted the porn results. It doesn't sound convincing to me, as a Google search on the same which I tried just now yields nothing but results on tractors (although Google may have tweaked their algorithms since the incident).
Whatever the rights and wrongs of viewing porn in the workplace, or anywhere else for that matter, I find two things about the incident absolutely unfathomable:
1. Neil Parish's utter stupidity in viewing porn in the chamber to start with and, worse still, his carelessness in allowing his dodgy phone display to be viewed by anyone else sitting behind and above him.
I can only assume he was, to put it crudely, as pissed as a pudding! (For US readers "pissed" here means drunk, as many MPs often are after hours spent in their heavily subsidised bars in the Houses of Parliament!)
He certainly sounded fairly fragile and slurry when publicly announcing his resignation a day or two later, although going on a bender after the scandal broke would be more understandable and perhaps condonable.
2. The two women's staggering disloyalty to the Tory party (of which they and Parish were all MPs) in making the allegations public, when they could and should have just had a quiet word with a Tory party whip, who in turn would have given Parish a stern lecture and no more would have been heard about it.
But we don't know the background and, although Parish always seemed to me a decent enough cove, it may be that he was "creepy around women", especially in his cups, as no doubt many MPs are, and these women had been the unwilling subjects of his attentions before and simply aimed to see him permanently gone. One thing is for sure though, whether their motives were earnest or Machiavellian, their political prospects are now in tatters.
I'm amazed that the first anonymous reply, presumably from someone interested in arcane religious matters, which seems to be one of the main topics discussed on this site, was so coarse and hostile. Perhaps they were mainly triggered by your phrase "busibody women", although it seems pretty apt to me in the circumstances!
A vulgar insult and peremptory brevity suggests a youth. But then most young people would be fairly relaxed about watching porn on their mobiles, even if most would probably refrain from doing so at work, whereas the poster appears to consider it a mortal sin. Maybe it is someone you know, John, and at some time offended, knowingly or otherwise! Who can say?
Regards
John Ramsden
https://highranges.com
As to your last point who knows, though I have a vague suspicion…..
Your other points are good about the politics and the personalities - but then it is your home area.
Re Imran Khan, my advice, for what it may be worth, to anyone who drinks alcohol at all, especially a public figure in public venues, is that it's best to drink it regularly. Otherwise even modest amounts will go to your head in no time and greatly increase the risk of you making a complete fool of yourself, as he did.
As for Fattaturk, his limitations seem much the same as Hannibal's in one respect: One of Hannibal's generals chided him, possibly after he turned aside from Rome following his victory at the Battle of Cannae "It's true what they say, that the Gods don't bestow all their gifts on one person. You know how to gain a victory, but not how to use it!"
Likewise, Boris has abundant talents and devotes enormous effort and energy to winning elections. But then, despite occasional flurries of activity and grandiose announcements, to garner good headlines, deep down he clearly feels that his work is done and he can coast it, as if he had just completed a gruelling set of exams before the summer hols!
It's quite possible to be a constant hive of activity, and yet be intellectually lazy and neglect tasks that seem uncongenial until they can no longer be ignored. That, I think, to a large extent, is Boris.
John Ramsden
https://highranges.com
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