Wednesday 5 April 2023

What's going on in the Tory party?

There is something odd happening in the Conservative Party. Quite a lot of MPs have altered their social media profiles to remove the word “Conservative.” Where a few days ago, they were describing themselves as Conservative MPs, they have suddenly become plain MPs. Carole Vorderman posted on Twitter showing out of 195 just two admitted they were Tory, later claiming it now applies to more than 70 percent of the 350-strong parliamentary party. Are they ashamed of it?

Here's Vorderman's tweet:

This includes Dominic Raab, Priti Patel, Laura Trevelyan, and Andreas Jenkyns and Leadsom.

The London Economic claims that Tory MPs were ‘instructed’ to remove reference to their own party, but it’s not clear who was doing the instructing - presumably party managers. They show the Twitter profiles of Rees-Mogg, Dorries and even Jeremy Hunt, none of which now show they’re Tory MPs.

Even Michael Fabricant now claims he’s a "socially liberal" MP. You’d never guess he’s been Tory MP for Lichfield since 1992, although he's never had a ministerial post.  Obviously, the party isn't entirely mad.

What is going on? It is clearly an orchestrated move.

Alongside this odd news, it has been noted that quite a number of Tory MPs are publishing election literature not in the old Conservative blue but in a shade of green and once again with all mention of the Conservative party omitted. 

It’s as if they’re embarrassed at being Tories, and who wouldn’t be after thirteen years of austerity and with voters facing two more years which are forecast to see the biggest fall in living standards in living memory. They are 20 points behind in the polls and probably expect to be even further behind in 2024.

Brexit also has to be part of it, too.

Fraud and corruption in government 

I remember sometime after the referendum, around 2018 or so, having a conversation in our local pub about fraud in EU spending. For years the trope about the EU Commission presiding over a web of corruption so bad that the auditors regularly refused to sign off the account has been circulating over here.

In an effort to convince this fellow drinker, the following week I brought in a copy of the annual court of auditors report which explicitly said the accounts had been signed off every year for years. It was true there had been problems in the past but most of them had been at the national level, not at the Commission.

Well, I'm sure my friend will be interested in the NAO report into fraud and corruption published a few days ago. This isn't fraud in the EU but in this country and the sums are truly staggering. I quote:

"The Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) – established last year in response to concerns about fraud during the COVID-19 pandemic and the lack of a coordinated response – has a broader estimate that includes both fraud and error but excludes expenditure specific to the COVID-19 pandemic. It estimates that in 2020-21 there was between £33.2 billion and £58.8 billion of fraud and error in government spending and income unrelated to the pandemic. This is out of £1,106.1 billion of expenditure and £608.8 billion of HMRC tax income."

This doesn't even include spending on COVID-19, if that's included you can add another £7.3 billion and these numbers are in addition to an estimated £10 billion of tax revenue lost to evasion and crime every year anyway!

The sums of money (up to £75 billion) are astronomical and are perhaps another reason Tory MPs prefer not to be linked to the party?

Sunak was chancellor from February 2020 to July 2022, so all under his tenure.


Trump.

Trump appeared in court yesterday, pleading not guilty to 30 charges relating to the payment of hush money to a woman, Stormy Daniels, with whom he had an affair. His supporters say it’s all politically motivated and who knows, they may be right. US politics are amazingly partisan.

Reading the 'statement of facts’ issued by the NY DA it’s clear the prosecution is about the falsification of business records at The Trump Organisation and at the HQ of the owners of The National Enquirer to disguise the payment of thousands of dollars to two women to suppress - known as catch and kill - negative stories about Trump.

Here is a quote:

"From August 2015 to December 2017, the Defendant orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the Defendant’s electoral prospects. In order to execute the unlawful scheme, the participants violated election laws and made and caused false entries in the business records of various entities in New York. The participants also took steps that mischaracterized, for tax purposes, the true nature of the payments made in furtherance of the scheme."

He also coughed up $30,000 to his own Doorman who claimed to have a story that another woman with whom Trump had an affair had given birth to Trump's child. That story proved untrue.

Earlier, Trump attacked the judge. Speaking in Florida, he accused Justice Juan Merchan of bias, saying, “I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating family.” He really doesn't help himself. The really weird thing is that millions of his supporters believe it really is all a conspiracy against him, a man who is clearly out of his tiny mind and has been for decades.

However, as I understand it, even if a jury finds him guilty next year he’s not likely to serve time or be prevented from standing as a presidential candidate. It is a minor show.

More worrying for Trump are the other cases and investigations going on. In a few weeks, he faces a charge of rape in a civil case while inquiries into his alleged interference in the 2020 election in Georgia, removing classified documents from the White House and being involved in orchestrating the 6 January insurrection two years ago, are ongoing. These are far more serious cases and could well see him in jail.

In the 6 Jan case, yesterday three judges ruled that his top aides must testify to the man charged with looking into the events surrounding the riots at the capitol building in 2021. 

None of this bodes well for 2024 when Trump will have another go at the White House. America is terribly divided and a lot of the most recent divisions have been stoked personally by him.  I really worry about what might happen if he is found guilty on some of these charges.

He has done more damage to US democracy and the legal system than all of the other 45 presidents put together.

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