Wednesday 14 April 2021

Cameron & Greensill: and another question ...

Gotta laugh at Cameron falling into his own "lobbying will be the next big scandal" pit - and through sheer greed, too.  The arrogance and entitlement-assumptions of Blair and Cameron know few boundaries.

To me, there's a question as yet unvoiced, which might usefully occupy the enquiry:

  • Cameron did not expect to lose the 2016 Referendum, nor the 2015 GE, and thus to be in the wilderness looking for wonga as early as turned out to be the case.  So: why was he bending over backwards for Greensill way back (2011-2012) in his first administration?  Very long-term planning on his part?  or Someone Else in that government spotting the main chance for themselves? 

Mercifully, Britain is not corrupt au fond: Rafael Behr correctly assesses matters here.  (I've worked in Russia ...)  But it's a slipperly slope.

ND

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rafael Behr and "correct" in the same sentence, now I know I've lived a long time.

I'm still assuming an Ukrainian attack on the Donbass once the "rasputitsa" has dried out, the Mail is banging the drum more and more feverishly about Russia, and I see they are using the Turkish drones which proved so successful against the Armenians.

https://www.yenisafak.com/en/news/from-karabakh-to-black-sea-turkish-drones-now-rule-the-skies-of-ukraine-3564107

"Turkey sold a total of six Bayraktar TB2 drones and three ground controls stations to Ukraine in 2019. It is said that Ukraine is preparing to order additional drones to beef up its naval forces in 2021. Turkey’s combat drones had reportedly destroyed the Russian-made Pantsir missile systems in Syria, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, as Ankara’s deployment of UAVs was credited for the victories clenched by Turkey’s allies from Asia to Africa."

But that US ship and those C15s wouldn't have been unloading rice and naan breads in Ukraine, maybe if Russian tech has an answer to the TB2 the Ukrainians will turn out to have some shiny new tricks in their bag.

Btw does the EU still have that excellent no-tariff deal with Turkey, the sort they wouldn't give to us?

Anonymous said...

Behr - "he remembers the putrescence of the John Major years and its deep contamination of the Tory brand"

Were the Major years particularly putrescent? Did I fail to notice? I was a Labour type in those years, but compared to the Lavender List of Wilson/Falkender and Blair's Abrahams "fundraising" yet to come I don't recall much from Major, who struck me as personally honest other than the Edwina Currie lapse from taste and probity.

dearieme said...

Blair-lite proves to be Blairish. Hardly surprising.

Anonymous said...

One day I will get round to to creating an ID

http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2021/03/i-have-nothing-to-say.html

I am the spineless commentard at

1026 & 2200

JC

Anonymous said...

The Guardian used to love the old Soviet Union, now they out-Mail the Mail.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/15/joe-biden-russia-sanctions-election-interference-hacking

“We see what Russia is doing to undermine our democracies,” said the British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, in a statement.

*sigh* I guess I wasn't expecting anything else in the post-Brexit world.

E-K said...

Slippery slope indeed.

Look. I can handle being poor. We are going to be poor and this sudden Green putsch is a set up. The Tories know the economy is going to collapse and are using Thunbergists to make out it's being done for our own good and even going as far as trying to convince us it's our own idea.

What I can't handle is crime and corruption and I fear that we are going to be as bad as any other third world shit hole in ten years.

I can't manage the 3D thinking that is needed to survive in a "buckshee" set up.

This was wilfully caused by cynical UK politicians and also those naive enough to believe that goodness levels up evil without the use of a big stick.

I note that Blair and Cameron (similarly slippery and untrustworthy) are EU federalists.


And when will the Tories (despite the hugely successful vaccine roll out) get their boot off our windpipe ?

If they don't then tell me one thing that Boris has got right ?

Either the vaccine releases us or we are forced out into the open by national bankruptcy.

Furlough can't go on forever.

Only a... er... moron would think otherwise.

Nick Drew said...

100% with you on crime & corruption

Before the Wall came down, I was of the view that the "end of communism" as a credible external threat would have the effect of making us less cohesive, and more open to corruption

but, as I keep banging on about, there's no need to worry about the green thing - it's gone mainstream capitalist now. and will turn out to be not so very green at all

http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2021/04/joe-bidens-trillions-just-look-where.html

andrew said...

... tell me one thing that Boris has got right ?

He has tacked with the prevailing mood of the british public quite well for the last 6 years or so - well, better than the other side (v.v.v. low bar)

On the general topic of the post, Cameron is just another in a long line of politicians of declining quality.

From Carrington who resigned (honorably) over the falklands to Thatcher and Major(*) who shaded the truth to Blair who whilst he did not flat out lie, did not tell the truth to Cameron who skirted closely around untruths to Johnson who just makes stuff up

(*) I assume "Major cesspit" refers to Jeffry Archer and Aitken etc.

Personally I think Major's standing only increases as time goes by.

The problem is too many rules and not enough principles.
I worked with one PLC board director who had a test:
"If your children read about X in Private Eye, would you be happy justifying that to them"

forgotten his name but he wore really lovely handmade shoes.

dearieme said...

Blair who whilst he did not flat out lie ...

Pah! We went to war on Iraq based on his lies.

Iraq, that had nothing whatever to do with 9/11.

dearieme said...

And a few more: he campaigned in 1997 saying that student grants would be safe under Labour. Then he abolished them.

He said that Ecclestone's cash was nothing to do with exempting Grand Prix racing from the tobacco advertising ban. Hah, hah!

He said that he'd put his family wealth into a Blind Trust and then it turned out that his wife was giving instructions on how the money was to be invested.
"Blind" my arse.

E-K said...

Nick

I don't expect anything will be green but we'll be poor and told it's for our own good and was our own idea and how much we loved Greta.

What is happening is this:


China does not owe us compensation for this CV-19 crisis. They paid that up front and in spades. Our bankrupt and credit driven standard of living reliant on their slave labour.

This is the reckoning.

The result is the transfer of wealth (consumption) from one part of the globe to another - west to east. Look at the growth in the Chinese economy since the outbreak.

Seen the price of a crab sandwich lately ?

John Redwood bangs on about home reared food being our saviour post Brexit. I'm afraid lamb goes to the highest global bidder - much as any food from a poor nation does.

-------

Andrew

Boris is a newspaper man. Of course he's tracked the public mood well.

The vaccine was/is his one last shot.

So far he's wasted it and I don't want that shit in my body. I only took it on the promise that things would be normal this summer.

Remember that we were told we'd be celebrating Christmas at Easter.

Before that we were just 'flattening a sombrero'

The bloke is a confirmed liar and sleezebag and I bet he has a cheezy smelling arse.

E-K said...

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1424244/covid-news-indian-variant-first-cases-detected-in-uk-coronavirus-ont

Here we go.

The variant I mentioned a couple of months back. Why weren't the borders closed to India ?

E-K said...

... surely, if we go back into lockdown I get the yearly predictions award in advance !!!

Or a special one just for me :)

andrew said...

Ek, dearieme : thank you for the history.

It makes me hope that things are not actually getting worse, rather my opinion of those in power is getting more negative over the last 30 years.

Though if we are fairly united that Johnson is a lying, incompetent, gaffe prone, corrupt misuse of carbon who may well have guided the uk into its steepest decline and an period of existential risk since 1066
... why is he in power.
... who

Jan said...

I think we can add Nick Hancock to the list now after the latest about his conflict of interest in owning shares in a company which subsequently r eceived a contract from the Welsh government.

He's another one for whom I reach for the off button whenever I hear his voice. Bliar is the prime culprit with Hancock second and Cameron third in my list of sleazebags.

I'm sure there are more....

Anonymous said...

Jenrick?

The thing is most of us are small-c conservative, but we have no illusions about big-C Tory politicians.

lilith said...

E-K it is my understanding that the variants can and will show up anywhere as the mutations are "built in" and do not depend on geography to emerge. Although I'm not sure if anyone has seen the actual virus to compare it.

E-K said...

Lilith

They're looking for the one that stalls release from lockdown.

We will not be allowed out before the EU.