The corrupt prick has now resigned. This is so clearly orchestrated to avoid a by-election loss after a furious electorate does a recall petition.

 

 

His statement is pathetic and ironic for sure. Good riddance to one of many corrupt MPs

And he should really stop bringing his wife's suicide into it at every opportunity. Even if it was a contributing factor, it's not fair to play that emotional blackmail card on someone who cannot clarify when dealing with a breach of standards.

This is so funny.

Lmao, well didn't that end well, I swear their attempt to prorogue parliament to get a No Deal Brexit was at least alive the next day? :lol:

 

I agree he can sod off with trying to make him out to be the victim, that's obviously horrible for anyone, but it has no bearing on him breaking the law and attempting to get away with it.

Anyway the more cynical/realistic people on the interwebs are saying that Paterson probably got offered a job or a seat in the House of Lords to resign.......

There are suggestions that Labour, Lib Dems and Greens may stand aside in the North Shropshire byelection in favour of a Martin Bell-style anti-sleaze candidate.

There are suggestions that Labour, Lib Dems and Greens may stand aside in the North Shropshire byelection in favour of a Martin Bell-style anti-sleaze candidate.

 

Interesting. There would need to still be a swing towards them but maybe first step towards Progressive Alliance. Wonder who that could be.

Pointless doing that they would last two elections max then another Tory would be in sooner rather than later!

You mean Shropshire North - well I don’t doubt it will eventually go Tory in future elections but if the public (and wish I could say when) explicitly voted in an anti sleaze candidate rather than a Tory that would send a message that the public are aware and watching the moral standards of this Government. Martin Bell was very successful in what he did - unfortunately he shot himself in the foot and said he’d only stay one term.

Quite, and while I don't expect Shropshire North to long-term be anything other than Tory-voting farmland, the way to start dislodging their automatic hold over so many of these seats is to provide alternatives that meet the material conditions of those who live there, and one way to do that is to have a non-Tory MP for a bit to make it into more of a battleground.

 

If there are enough disgusted at the conduct of their former MP AND the other parties stand aside for an anti-corruption independent, it could be an interesting race.

Anyway it's not happening as Labour have said they will field a candidate - I bet even if the Tories had a policy to nuke the entire country in their manifesto in the next election, Labour and Lib Dems would not work together to even stop that. Awful and depressing

I think the case for an anti-corruption candidate is lessened now that Owen Paterson has resigned and that some other Tory will contest it. It made more sense when the likely route was Owen Paterson himself contesting a by-election triggered by a petition enabled by his suspension from the Commons for 30 days.

 

And while the FPTP system is harmful overall, a progressive alliance doesn't necessarily need to be formalised when we see opposition parties who are out of contention squeezed to tiny numbers anyway. There's no guarantee that many of the 1.6% who insisted voting Labour in Chesham and Amersham this summer would have voted Lib Dem if there was no Labour candidate - the vast majority of 'natural' Labour voters there were of course happy to switch but you always get a few who aren't willing to switch and there's no guarantee that a formalised pact would bring them on board.

I personally think a Progressive Alliance would be a good idea - the Brexit party did a partial one in the 2019 election (albeit a one way pact as the Tories did not reciprocate) not standing against sitting Tories and that prevented a squeeze of the right wing vote.

Edited November 5, 20213 yr by Smint

You only have to look in Scotland to see that a tactical voting electorate can work even where it’s informal and not explicitly backed by the parties. There are constituency seats held by the unionist parties only through tactical voting. Which means that Labour and LibDems who have far more electorally in common with the SNP voted Tory and now have a Tory MSP who couldn’t care less about them (and the SNP took a list seat to make up for it anyway so they threw all their morals and values in the trash for heehaw)

This is so funny.

 

@1456248699978457095

 

:rofl:

 

Classic.

 

 

Apparently some of the Conservative MPs for so-called 'Red Wall' northern seats were threatened with funding cuts for their constituencies if they didn't vote with the government to abolish the standards committee. Oh my! Clearly something to do with the 3 (or 4) investigations into the PM - Cummings seems to know what is behind it.

 

Also:

 

@1456595431757164551

 

We are a banana republic without any bananas! :lol:

Classic.

Apparently some of the Conservative MPs for so-called 'Red Wall' northern seats were threatened with funding cuts for their constituencies if they didn't vote with the government to abolish the standards committee. Oh my! Clearly something to do with the 3 (or 4) investigations into the PM - Cummings seems to know what is behind it.

 

Also:

 

@1456595431757164551

 

We are a banana republic without any bananas! :lol:

 

Yeah that is what lots of people suspect - Paterson was just a lemming for pushing through changes if anything came to bite Boris or anyone else in the Cabinet in the future. The massive negative PR obviously made them switch tact. Suspect they will still try and push through the standards committee changes, but will wait a good few months now to let this story burn out. Interesting to see if this story does burn out, or whether Labour can spin it against Boris. Looks like they're pushing at the moment.

It seems to me that ever since the Tories got back in power things turned to crap and the uk (and the world) is more divided.

We had austerity and the benefit changes and the uk riots, the referendum leading to brexit which has been a total shambles,

and Cameron cleared off and left us in a right mess, now we've got bumbling Boris and we had Trump and Biden is no use either.

Just loads of things have happened since the Tories got back in power to cause division and hatred and of course the rise of

social media where we see the division and hatred in full flow with all the trolls.

I ciould go on but i'll leave it there.

Edited November 9, 20213 yr by Mark.

I agree with every single word above - it's certainly a nastier country in every way. The Tories pretended to be cuddly and nice to get in for 2010 and quickly reverted back to type and now have become frankly worse than ever. Corrupt, destructive, prejudice and dangerous.

You can tell their desperate with this 'drunken Labour and SNP MPs' bollocks. Can't imagine anyone's buying it.

You can tell their desperate with this 'drunken Labour and SNP MPs' bollocks. Can't imagine anyone's buying it.

 

I did laugh :lol: Tried to change the narrative, but it's not worked. Interesting how the Daily Mail has fully turned on the Tories now.