Wes Tender

Three months on from the General Election and all the usual remoaners bleating about how unfair it all was. It really is pathetic. It's done and there is nothing you can do to change it. Accept the result of the referendum and the general election, accept that we have finally left the EU and move on to discussing our trade prospects for the future during this period of negotiations with the EU and other nations.

Not like you to overlook an event covering a span of a couple of years, Timmy. As you say, his tenure as Foreign Secretary wasn't exemplary, but it was one of the great offices of state, so difficult to make a case that Boris lacked experience as a minister. The Labour Party membership probably has a majority of young idealistic, but incredibly naive momentum lefties, so any attempts to take the party back towards the centre where it might stand a chance of being elected, will probably be outvoted by them. As it will also be difficult to purge the party of them, the best bet is to have a more moderate Blairite party form, maybe in alliance with the Lib Dumbs. Unless Boris decides to go to the country before December 2024, the FTPA sets that as the time of the next GE. With a stonking majority of 80, it really is up to him, barring exceptional circumstances. He might feel it expedient to pass legislation repealing the act, but at the moment he doesn't need to, as even under the terms of the act, the majority he has could enable him to call an election. As it stands, the probability is that the longest time to get past the 31st December and completely free of the EU, will suit him best, so why wouldn't he avail himself of as long a parliament as possible?

Boris had never before been a Minister? Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I seemed to recall him being Foreign Secretary from 2016 -2018 when he resigned over May's Brexit strategy. Anyway, the circumstances over Johnson's election victory with such a stonking majority wasn't only because of the complete uselessness of Corbyn and Swinson, it was also down to their parties' policies, particularly on Brexit. Had the girl Swinson not been so idiotic as to agree to a general election in the vain belief that she could be the next Prime Minister, we could still have been on the merry-go-round of the minority Tory government having policy dictated to them by the likes of Letwin, Benn and Bercow, headed towards a third referendum on our membership in a rigged referendum favouring remain, following a further WA extension after the 31st January no doubt. Whether Labour stands a chance of beating Boris in over four and a half years time, depends not only on whether Boris has made a success of Brexit and the economy generally, but also on what sort of Labour Party Starmer as leader (if it is him) represents. At the moment, the party still believes that its policies ought to remain largely as they were under Corbyn. The three leadership candidates can't even bring themselves to blame the Marxist for their failure. Even if the delivery of policies and the aftermath of our leaving the EU isn't as smooth as it could be, if Labour puts out a manifesto as insanely left wing as the last one, it doesn't matter a jot whether Starmer has a complete personality transplant, he will not get elected as PM.

In exactly the same way that you label my posts as boring, and yet will not put me on ignore. So I throw back the question to you about that; is your life really that empty? Anyway, whereas the process of the Labour Party choosing their new leader is indeed an over lengthy and boring process, as I said, had you read it properly, the Neil interview added a bit of heat and light to it. In other words, I found the car crash interviews very entertaining.

There's no imaginable circumstances whereby I would ever wish to have rejoined the Civil Service once I had left it, any more than I would wish to have become an accountant or a schoolteacher. I'm very happy with how my career has gone these past forty years, thank you. Regarding the second sentence, the classic Gavyn insult. Anybody who disagrees with you is thick, because you are an intellectual giant and never cease to tell us so. How much a points boost is that on the narcissism scale, Gavyn?

To which I responded by arguing that despite the circumstances peculiar to the government/civil service relationship, the human interaction between the government ministers and the civil servants employed to implement their policies was still influenced by the same personality traits that characterised most other workplace relationships. I didn't need to have chapter and verse in a patronising essay of how the Civil Service works, but I do acknowledge how expensive this must have been, you spending so much of your valuable time to write it. Likewise, I'll take the same position as you regarding Patel, that it is best to await the full story. You are however content to accept rumours in the FT as probably having some substance to them, whereas I am inclined towards other opinions expressed that a lot of these stories are the result of a political campaign agenda by a remain establishment to discredit her and thus the government.

You are probably right about the historical generalisation that you make, but the current situation is a lot more specific and involves several departments implementing one fundamental government policy to which the Civil Service is largely opposed - leaving the EU. This one policy affects the Home Office via immigration, the Treasury, Trade, DEFRA, Defence and other departments to a lesser extent. Hardly any of these ministries are run by mandarins sympathetic to us leaving the EU, so they have not exactly assisted the smooth progress of Brexit up to now, especially when there was a government with a small majority, or latterly none at all. Since December 12th however, the change in the political landscape has been seismic. Small wonder then that a government elected with such a huge mandate to "get Brexit done", will feel inclined to adopt a firm line with any remainer Civil Servant mandarin who attempts to obstruct or delay on their instructions on which the various Ministers were elected and their Civil Servants were employed to carry out.

I used them two or three times a year on business flights to the Channel Islands for the past 40 years, but stopped those trips a couple of years ago because they had become expensive once they had regained their monopoly to the Islands by getting into bed with their rival, Blue Islands. Most on the Islanders called them Fly maybe. It had got to the stage that many of Flybe's flights to the Island began in Edinburgh, with a stop off at Leeds before flying on the Guernsey, then Jersey, rather like a bus route. Any delay as a result of fog or other factors at any of those airports, meant a delay of departure from Southampton. Now there is an opportunity for Blue Islands and Aurigny to take over Flybe's Channel Island slots, which are probably lucrative because of the financial markets on both Islands. I believe that the Southampton route was the second costliest in the world per mile, the costliest being the 10 minute flight between the Islands.

A bit of heat and light was added to the borefest that is the Labour leadership election last night, when two of the candidates were interviewed on the Andrew Neil show last night. Both Starmer and Long-Bailey took a mauling from Neil, particularly the latter, whose credibility as a serious candidate is now in serious doubt. Starmer was accused of lacking charisma and did his best to perpetuate that image. He claimed that his own personal image was irrelevant, as he would appoint a team of capable ministers to work alongside him. But then anybody capable and with more charisma/personality would have stepped forward as a rival candidate. Certainly Starmer is intelligent and self-assured, but his credentials in terms of being white, London centric and with a knighthood, don't chime well with the leftie Momentum wing of the party. Neil correctly identified his problem, that he has to court the lefties in the party and then take it towards the centre if Labour is to be elected in the future, but the party doesn't want to elect a centrist leader. Nandy comes across as being reasonably bright and personable, but is otherwise a lightweight. Whoever is elected, it will probably take a decade or more for Labour to get their act together.

Congratulations. You're taking hubris to new levels on here. You speak as if the dynamic between Ministers and Civil Servants is a constant, despite the Ministers changing with every government, they coming from a spectrum of backgrounds and different political views and most of them not having had any experience of central government before. However, the inter-personal relationships between the two parties will be the same as it is in other fields from the point of view that on both sides behavioural traits will be the same as in the rest of the employment marketplace. There will be strong and weak characters, efficient and inefficient personnel, those blessed with calmness and patience and those with a short fuse temperament, the arrogant ones and the self-deprecating. Therefore this dynamic you speak of must vary between individuals and departments and is also changing over time as the educational and domestic backgrounds of Ministers and Civil Servants changes. So you've had experience of central government. Bully for you. But it isn't difficult, judging from your posts on here, to make a reasonable assessment of the sort of working relationships you would have had during your career. I'm assessing it that you will have rubbed up many of your employees the wrong way with your insufferable arrogance and rudeness. In short, you're the bullying type.

*yawn* And still no reply to my question.

I'm trying hard to recall something about you and bullying, Soggy? Now, what was it?

Isn't that what I just said? Something wrong with your comprehension today, Gavyn? Just because the police haven't arrested the alleged perpetrator doesn't mean that he didn't commit the offence, does it? You'd have to be very naive if your believed that. And I note that you haven't bothered to answer my question as to what your reaction would be if some pervert sexually assaulted your children/grandchildren. I refer you to your hypocrisy about bile in posts and thank you for the evidence that you are one of the most persistent offenders.

I read that Robinson has been charged and will appear before magistrates on 2nd April. Didn't you get that far? Or did you mean had the perpetrator of the alleged assault on Robinson's daughter been charged? I couldn't find anything about that, but as I said, the leftie media are only too happy to report only one side of the story where he is concerned. You haven't answered my question, so I'll ask it again. Feel free to say what would you do if somebody sexually assaulted your young children/grandchildren?

When it comes to reading "sources", I watched a video account of the incident by Tommy Robinson himself. I'm sure that you're bright enough to recognise that there are always two sides to any of these stories and I took the trouble to seek out that other side. You and Soggy on the other hand, seem quite content to form an opinion based on only one side of the story. Go you two. I'm not claiming that Robinson's reason that he gives for the assault must be the truth, merely that the left wing media which detests him, have been very happy to give their own stilted one-sided version of events. I'd be interested to hear what you two would do if somebody sexually assaulted your young children/grandchildren.

*Yawn*. It wasn't "another" Tory. It was Tommy Robinson. And it was at Centre Parcs. Do get your facts right, Soggy. And why did he assault this other guy? Well, as I understand it from a short reading of the situation, Robinson hit him because he sexually assaulted his 8 year old daughter. I know that you are prone to go off half-cock with your Tory hating agenda, but if what Robinson says turns out to be true, do you not think that he had some justification?

LOL. Good one, Soggy.

Rutman isn't going to come out this very well. If he wishes to shine a light on his own incompetence, more fool him

Why is it a case of if Priti Patel had any decency she would resign? What has she done wrong apart from upsetting some snowflake pen-pusher mandarin, who on the face of it has been a bit of a disaster wherever he has been before and wasn't used to having his shortcomings addressed by his minister. I'm trying hard to remember the calls from you for Bercow to resign for bullying his staff. There were much more lurid reports about that over a much longer period of time, but I would be interested for you to show me where you ever condemned his behaviour. And of course, the situation is delicious, where Labour are calling for Patel's head over this. How things have changed whereby they are on the side of an establishment elite public school and Oxbridge educated posh boy against the grammar school and nondescript university educated daughter of Ugandan Asian immigrants who made a success of her life through her own graft and ambition.

Whereas all your posts are completely devoid of any bile whatsoever, aren't they?

Whereas all your posts are completely devoid of any bile whatsoever, aren't they?

When I have a different opinion to that expressed in those publications. Also, much depends on who the author of the article is. You?

I see that neither you nor Badger are going to debunk anything that the article says. So I cite articles from sources that represent my opinions from the side of the political spectrum and policy positions that I approve of. What a revelation eh? Are you and Badger going to deny that you do exactly the same thing? I would have thought that it was a human nature trait, wouldn't you? I consider a comparison between the pay of the PM and a Civil Service mandarin to be more an eating apple and cooking apple one, or an orange and mandarin orange one. Apples and oranges is more one between the PM and say a Premier League footballer. And yes, I have worked in the Civil Service many moons ago, although quite what that has to do with anything is beyond me.

So I believe that the article is proven and trusted fact, do I? I don't recall claiming that it was. I merely stated an opinion that it was about time that the Civil Service got rid of the likes of Sir Disaster, having read that, and indeed other articles, from other sources saying that he was incompetent. As I asked Gavyn, no doubt you will be happy also to debunk any part of the article that you can prove to be false. I read a broad spectrum of media sources online, in order to see a wide range of views, but naturally I make allowances for the political agendas of each. I expect that it is this sort of sniffiness towards the Mail from the leftie Guardian reading Islington Corbynistas that put them in the position of not having the faintest idea what their traditional core voter support in the Midland and Northern industrial heartlands believed and wanted over Brexit.

Did you read the article? Or do you only take stuff in the Guardian or the Not Independent to be the truth? What am I desperate for, Gavyn? I can't think of anything that is making me desperate. Do please enlighten me.