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I think if you asked people the reasoning behind Johnson's resignation then party gate would be very high up that list and she did author the report.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tito Fuente
I doubt anything is untoward, but it is bad optics as several have noted, and it is pretty bad that Starmer couldn't give a straight answer on when he approached her.
Instead of focusing on the facts of what caused Boris Johnson's resignation you'd rather hypothesise on what "people" thought the reasoning was.Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesWales
I don't think that this would stand up to scrutiny from you if another poster tried this tactic with you, James.
Partygate and Sue Gray's report did not lead to Boris Johnson's resignation and, again, in his own words, the SG report actually "vindicated" him.
https://www.itv.com/news/2022-07-06/...-boris-johnsonQuote:
Originally Posted by JamesWales
Partygate was part of the Johnson omni-shambles, but not the trigger. There were plenty of straws on the camel's back but Pincher was the final one - and the one that finally tipped it for a large chunk of the Cabinet and the 'Men In Grey Suits'.
How the public remember the pathetic saga is anyone's guess - with short term attention spans and corruption/lies fatigue, I expect they have the latest story in their heads. That would have been Pincher at the time - but with the desperate attempts now underway to re-write history, I'm sure a good percentage will be suckered by the Dorries and Rees-Mogg propaganda.
If Sue Gray is anything but professional, competent and ethical I will be very surprised. But as Starmer is none of those things I stick by my view that this appointment has handed a PR gift to Johnson and (probably) to Sunak.
You are missing my point. I'm not saying she or Keir have done anything wrong (although like I said, it's weird he can't give a straight answer) but I'm saying it looks bad, and if it looks bad it's about how it looks in people's minds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tito Fuente
How am I missing your point?Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesWales
I created this thread and began it by saying how I thought that it was terrible optics for Labour (and mentioned it again a few more times during the course of the thread).
You've made a couple of points about this story as far as I can tell.
One of them was about optics (which we seem to fully agree on) and the other was that the Sue Gray report "fundamentally led to Boris Johnson's resignation" - which is pure fantasy.
Yes fair point tbh. I meant that party gate ultimately led to his resignation, so it's fair for you to point that out. I agree with you, her report as such didn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tito Fuente
That's close enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesWales
This never happens. I don't know what we're supposed to do now.
Do we hug?
We play football for 24 hours and then start shooting eachother again tomorrow 😊Quote:
Originally Posted by Tito Fuente
Just been listening to the News Agents podcast, they played an LBC interview Keir Starmer had with Nick Ferrari in which he was asked when he first talked to Sue Gray about the Labour Party chief of staff job. When this thread started, I said I didn’t see a problem for Labour, but, after hearing Starmer’s evasive and uncomfortable answers, it’s impossible not to wonder “what’s he hiding?”.
Rightly, John Sopel and Emily Matlis compared Starmer’s squirming with the mess Richi Sunak got himself into regarding questions about whether he had private health insurance or not - in both cases, I would have thought that the majority of “normal” people were thinking “just answer the bloody question” as they listened to these two people who, it seems, are unable to relate to them.
There was also mention of a poll in the Times where 86 per cent of respondents at the time of the broadcasting of the podcast said that they still had faith in Sue Gray’s report and only 14 per cent thought it was politically motivated, so why is Starmer so defensive about the matter? He’s only making things worse.
Starmer is a fanny
And utterly hopeless
The buck stops with him and his front bench
I want these Tories put to the sword at the next election and hopefully in the wilderness for as long as possible
But this is embarrassing seeing him doing a very good job of shooting himself in the foot
He's got no charisma , style or any sort of confidence which is incredible considering he was DPP
I hope to god he's got enough about him to beat the conservatives
I don't think I have ever seen a decent Labour or Liberal leader in my lifetime
No wonder the Tories take the piss
It does seem rather bizarre that Labour announced this without preparing a good answer for the most obvious questions.
I also see the Tory front bench is still pretty much avoiding the issue and letting Rees mogg and co foam at the mouth of their behalf.
I wonder whether at some point, with labour struggling to coherently defend, the Tories begin to see this as a workable attack line.
I didn't see the Sunday segments but the summaries I saw tended to imply that this week's Tory rep was not pressed on the sue gray thing, which seems remarkable considering the hoo-ha that their back benches are making of it. Implies to me that they didn't really want to discuss it/they haven't decided which way to go yet.
Simply there's only a "hoo-ha" from the Johnson fanboys in the Tory party, along with the usual suspects on here from both left and right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric Cartman
Sunak will probably steer well clear as he knows Johnson is now politically toxic as well as still after his job. He will want "partygate" to die a death quickly and all this storm in a teacup does is remind voters of the events in Downing St. during covid. ACBA will probably delay Sue Gray's appointment by a few months and normal service will resume.
The ridiculous UQ in the commons yesterday rather shows up how desperate certain folk are. John Crace sums it all up beautifully in the Guardian today, well worth a read :thumbup:
The Guardian is too complicatedQuote:
Originally Posted by Claude Blue
What did he say ?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...xpects-results
None of this makes any different to how shifty Starmer sounded in that interview I mentioned.