If the U.S. Election fiasco has highlighted anything....

Said to the missus that stunt was beyond parody and satire. The more I watch it the more hilarious it gets.

 

Beautifully written and imo correct. Thank you.

 

Our political system is equally corrupt, never more so than currently when senior appointments are made based on cronyism, and those who toe the line get rewarded with seats in the House of Lords. The Government currently has the power to make unprecedented decisions without reference to Parliament, based on the need to react quickly to the Coronavirus pandemic, and barely a day passes without an example of extremely 'questionable' decisions coming to light, for which they're delaying making the usual disclosures available as to the process. Hancock's awarding of contracts for PPE, in particular, is subject to legal challenges regarding the transparency of the process.

As noted earlier in the thread, the current Attorney General, promoted to the role due to her support of BoJo and Brexit rather than her legal skills, was widely ridiculed by the legal profession for her attempt to defend the Internal Market Bill. Ordinarily, her ability to continue in the role would already be untenable, but we're in an unprecedented era where no-one in Government is held accountable for bringing their roles into disrepute (in her case specifically, it's the breach of the oath she takes on appointment that's the resigning issue).

The only thing that is fundamentally different over here is that Supreme Court appointments are judicial, and not made by politicians based on who is in Government at the time, so there's no chance of a repeat of the current situation in the US where Trump is desperately trying to get something escalated to the US Supreme Court, which is stacked 6-3 in his favour thanks to him rushing to replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg just ahead of the election, ahead of usual protocols. His whole strategy for this election, in the event that he didn't win it, was to get the outcome determined via SCOTUS, as happened in 2000. Thankfully, it looks like none of the Trumped-up (see what I did there?) accusations are likely to get that far, and even if so, would not impact the outcome of the entire election.

Beyond that, we're very similar. Cronies appointed to AG in both countries, and in any influential role that they can fill. Just look at Dido Harding or Kate Bingham for current examples in the news.

 

Some info on the nature of the legal challenges over disclosures are outlined here:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ils-of-4bn-covid-contracts-with-private-firms

 

Have you got any specific examples?....I'm not arguing otherwise, but I would be interested to know...it's a genuine question as I read an article in the Grauniad that suggested otherwise.

 

Can't find anything but I remember the debates at Tory party conferences where the the brexiteers used it as an argument for leaving. Maybe they just made that up as well as all the other guff....

 

Coincidental timing, but someone has started to map out the interweaving links between the various contract awards, party donors and connections with members of government. It's very clever, but naming it "My Little Crony" is the icing on the cake.

The sources of the underlying information are the various organisations highlighting these issues, so this isn't someone throwing around spurious accusations. She's just compiling the research done by others on the topic into a visual format.

No doubt this type of thing has always gone on to some extent, but I doubt that it's ever been as brazen and widespread as it is currently under the Johnson government.

 

Rules around redundancy in the UK are lower than those in equivalent Western European countries - certain my ex (multinational) employer found it easier (&cheaper) to make British workers redundant than their equivalents in France, Germany or Holland.