Michael Lambert: Worst UK Government Ever? (After Truss and Johnson)

Jan 21, 2023 | The UK government of Rishi Sunak is incompetent presiding over chaos and collapse. This week the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman confirmed when challenged by a holocaust survivor that she stood by her description of asylum seekers as being an 'invasion'. Sunak responded to six questions from Keir Starmer at PMQ's about ambulance waiting times by criticising the Opposition for not backing his anti-strike legislation. The Chairman of the Conservative Party and former Chancellor of the Exchequer is believed to have settled with HMRC several millions in unpaid taxes.

There is widespread evidence of fraud and corruption and incompetence at the highest levels of government. Whilst we are experiencing a massive cost of living crisis and the economy is collapsing Sunak confirms his main priority is to stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel in small boats.

Extraordinary ITV News Broadcast Yesterday: There’s Chaos in Westminster as Liz Truss Hangs On as PM

Check it out here
Krishnan Guru-Murthy taken off air for swearing about Steve Baker: Channel 4 News anchor used offensive word off air to describe Northern Ireland minister »

U.K. Government Goes Full Tilt on Tax Cuts and Free-Market Economics

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The new administration’s proposals are a sharp break from the era of Boris Johnson, and they represent a turn toward Thatcherism.

Britain’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, will be hoping that the measures can engineer at least the start of a solid economic recovery before a general election that must take place by January 2025. | Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
LONDON — Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain on Friday gambled that a hefty dose of tax cuts, deregulation and free-market economics could reignite growth before the next general election as her government unveiled a package of measures that is likely to determine its electoral success or failure.

Breaking sharply with the era of the previous prime minister, Boris Johnson, the new chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, promised the dawn of a new age of lower taxation, with the scrapping of one planned tax rise and the reduction of levies on home purchases to try to fire up the real estate market.

Mr. Kwarteng abandoned a proposed rise in corporate taxation and, in a surprise move, also abolished the top rate of 45 percent of income tax applied to those earning more than 150,000 pounds, or about $169,000, a year. He also cut the basic rate for lower earners.

“We will focus on growth, even when that means taking difficult decisions,” Mr. Kwarteng told a packed House of Commons. “None of this is going to happen overnight, but today we are publishing our growth plan that sets out a new approach for this new era.”

The focus on tax cuts to grow the economy “is how we will turn this vicious cycle of stagnation into a virtuous cycle of growth,” he added.

…

Some dispute the comparison because the plans announced on Friday are likely to mean a large increase in government borrowing, at a time of rising interest rates, because there has been no indication of big spending cuts. While Thatcher was a committed tax cutter, she believed in balancing the books first. » | Stephen Castle and Eshe Nelson | Friday, September 23, 2022

Just when you thought we had reached the bottom with BoJo, along comes Truss to disabuse us of any such notion! At least it will be a smooth ride for the super rich! That's some consolation, I suppose. The rest will be able to look on! – © Mark Alexander

LBC Caller Slams 'Most Arrogant, Complacent, Corrupt, Dishonest and Incompetent' Govt. in Lifetime

Aug 8, 2022 This LBC caller says which government is the "most arrogant, complacent, corrupt, dishonest and incompetent" in his lifetime.

Whoever this caller is, he is absolutely right. We need a change of administration now. The Tories have been in office for far too long. When any government is in office as long as the Tories have been, it is never healthy, regardless of their political persuasion. And as for Thatcherism, that is the last thing this country needs in the mess we're in. Thatcherism was great for its time: the Eighties. It might well be good for another time in the future. But it is NOT GOOD for these times we are now living in. We've had forty plus years of the politics of greed. It is now high time that we get a dose of the politics of compassion. And that ain't Thatcherism! – © Mark Alexander

Revealed: How UK Targets Saudis for Top Contracts

Prince Khalid bin Faisal bin Abdulaziz welcomes David Cameron
as he arrives in Jeddah in 2012 to push for more arms sales.

THE GUARDIAN: Documents show that the controversial kingdom is seen as a ‘priority market’ for British companies

Government departments are intensifying efforts to win lucrative public contracts in Saudi Arabia, despite a growing human rights row that led the ministry of justice to pull out of a £6m prison contract in the kingdom last week.

Documents seen by the Observer show the government identifying Saudi Arabia as a “priority market” and encouraging UK businesses to bid for contracts in health, security, defence and justice.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that ministers are bent on ever-closer ties with the world’s most notorious human rights abusers,” said Maya Foa, director of Reprieve’s death penalty team. “Ministers must urgently come clean about the true extent of our agreements with Saudi Arabia and other repressive regimes.”

The UK’s increasingly close relationship with Saudi Arabia – which observes sharia law, under which capital and corporal punishment are common – is under scrutiny because of the imminent beheading of two young Saudis. Ali al-Nimr and Dawoud al-Marhoon were both 17 when they were arrested at protests in 2012 and tortured into confessions, their lawyers say. France, Germany, the US and the UK have raised concerns about the sentences but this has not stopped Whitehall officials from quietly promoting UK interests in the kingdom – while refusing to make public the human rights concerns they have to consider before approving more controversial business deals there. Several of the most important Saudi contracts were concluded under the obscurely named Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA) policy, which is meant to ensure that the UK’s security and justice activities are “consistent with a foreign policy based on British values, including human rights”. Foreign Office lawyers have gone to court to prevent the policy being made public. Read on and comment » | Jamie Doward | Saturday, October 17, 2015

David Cameron Appoints First Lesbian to a Conservative Government

Margot James was appointed as an
Assistant Government Whip

PINK NEWS: The Prime Minister has promoted the first out lesbian MP to a Conservative Government as an Assistant Government Whip.

Margot James, the MP for Stourbridge, was promoted by David Cameron in this week’s ongoing reshuffle.

On winning Stourbridge in 2010, Ms James was one of two out lesbian MPs in the last Parliament, and today becomes the first lesbian in the current Government, and the first to serve under a Conservative Prime Minister. » | Joseph Patrick McCormick | Wednesday, May 13, 2015

This Is a Government of Chums, Say Six Out of Ten in Damning New Poll

MAIL ONLINE: Nearly two out of three say entry to Mr Cameron’s elite inner circle depends on ‘who you know’ / Three out of ten said George Osborne was a 'snob' / Ratings of Boris Johnson show that it is possible to have a privileged background and still be popular

David Cameron is running a ‘Government of chums’ where ‘who you know’ matters more than ‘what you know’ – and he is becoming dangerously out of touch with voters as a result.

That is the finding of a new poll in the wake of the longest run of political and public-relations blunders by the Tories, many self-inflicted, since Mr Cameron became Prime Minister.

The hostile reaction to the ‘granny tax,’ the ‘pasty tax,’ the petrol panic and the Downing Street ‘donorgate’ scandal appears to have led to a growing feeling that Mr Cameron and his Ministers are elitist and remote.

The phrase ‘a Government of chums’ was first coined in a leader column in The Mail on Sunday last week, which asserted that ‘a small group of people from very similar backgrounds, who have known each other for years, are running the country mainly by talking to each other – and to nobody else’. Read on and comment » | Simon Walters | Saturday, April 07, 2012

Controversial US Pastor Terry Jones Barred from UK
THE GUARDIAN: Preacher sparked outrage last year when he announced plans to burn copies of the Qur'an to mark 9/11 anniversary

Terry Jones at his Florida-based church last year. Photograph: The Guardian
The controversial US pastor Terry Jones has been barred from the United Kingdom, the Home Office said tonight.

The preacher sparked outrage when he announced plans by his Florida-based church to burn copies of the Qur'an to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America.

A Home Office spokesman said: "The government opposes extremism in all its forms which is why we have excluded Pastor Terry Jones from the UK."

The spokesman added: "Numerous comments made by Pastor Jones are evidence of his unacceptable behaviour.

"Coming to the UK is a privilege, not a right, and we are not willing to allow entry to those whose presence is not conducive to the public good. >>> Press Association | Wednesday, January 19, 2011

So now we have no freedom of speech in the UK. This is the price we have to pay for allowing Islam to take root in our once glorious country. One would have thought that the Conservatives who are largely in power would have seen to it that Britons retain their hard-won freedoms. Alas, the Conservatives today are a shadow of their former selves. I await the downfall of Britain as we came to know and love it. It is just a matter of time, for britons without balls will NEVER be able to keep Britain British. – © Mark

Target: Muslims; Forced Integration!
THE NATIONAL (UAE): LONDON - Muslim communities in Britain would be forced to integrate into UK society as a whole under a future Conservative government, the party has been told.

Plans to force all immigrants to speak English and to ban any place for sharia in the British legal system have been outlined at the annual conference of the Conservative Party, the country’s main opposition party.

The party, which has seen its lead over the Labour government in opinion polls cut to 12 points from 21 points in the past month, signalled an end to the policy of multiculturalism, which has encouraged different groups to retain their own religious and ethnic identities.

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative shadow minister for community cohesion and social action, attacked what she called a “decade of state-driven multiculturalism” under Labour.

Mrs Warsi, a Muslim, said at the conference, which opened in Birmingham on Sunday, the policy had played on people’s differences and had created cultural divisions at the expense of shared British values.

“It has sent out the message that we’re not sharing a society, we’re just cohabiting a space,” she said. “It has led people to retreat into separate cultures rather than reach for a shared community.”

Additionally, she said it had created an “obsession with self-appointed community leaders, and a crude use of patronage politics has led to communities divided against each other, with people losing that inner instinct of what it is to be British”.

A future Conservative government would make integration and neighbourliness central to the party’s policy-making with everyone in Britain being obliged to speak English and with British history being taught “so young people know who we are as a nation”. She added: “Good neighbours look out for each other. That’s why we will tackle unacceptable cultural practices, not turn our backs and say it’s sensitive and none of our business.”

In a separate speech, Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, a shadow minister for security, said a future Tory government would “force Muslims to integrate into British society”. Forced Social Integration Plan Targets Muslims >>> David Sapsted, Foreign Correspondent | September 29, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>