Dressing up

[Ruffy]

Originally Posted by Bibio

well. you are saying rules are rules.. there is no difference regarding the law. if the PM and his cronies get punished then so should the idiot telling the public she got to sit with her father while he died. after all she broke the law at the time. or do you want one rule for others? if you do then you must forgive the "party". sorry but i don't see a difference.

I agree in principle - if you have rules then they should apply equally. Exceptions can be a portal to corruption and discrimination. "Justice is blind" allegedly.

This illustrates why 'rules' are so hard to define and why they can often be a bad thing, because all discretion is removed by default. It's why I always worry about rushed legislation based on groupthink or 'knee-jerk' (that doesn't get a lot of debate, challenge, testing from many perspectives, review etc. before enactment) and why we absolutely need separation of powers of legislature and judiciary. Not perfect, but IMHO the least bad of the alternatives if we don't have a benevolent dictator aligned with our morals who we trust.

Originally Posted by garynortheast

Maybe that's because I think that compassion and humanity have an important place in life.

I also agree in principle. The challenge is how to blend the absolutes that rules create and the impossible-to-predict situations that reality often throws us. Surely made harder when different views of 'fair' are thrown into the mix?

Originally Posted by Seeker

Do you truly see life so black and white? You see no difference between the rule setter PM breaking the rules by attending a party and a daughter sitting with her dying father where she is most likely attired in PPE?

'Difference in reality', yes, but 'difference in Law', no (as above). That's the difference!

Sad but true, maybe, so what's crucial is that we deal with poor outcomes when they become apparent and learn from them to improve - which does seems to be missing somewhat in current politics.

Originally Posted by Seeker

... the PPE cronyism, the corruption, ...

I've actually been wondering about this quite a bit. I'm not 100% sure it's deliberate intent just to funnel public money for personal gain (as seems to be the general accusation). I think they were genuinely trying to (primarily) solve the problem on PPE. It's surely more a skewed secondary outcome, a foreseeable bonus at worst. I know some don't agree but I think 'Hanlon's Razor' applies.

To contrast, consider this: if your bike breaks down suddenly, would you turn to someone you knew for help or would you throw open the local Yellow Pages and just call round the bike shops listed there? The scale is different of course, thus needing more rigorous checks and balances (in the absence of trust), but wouldn't you say the principle wasn't the same?

Originally Posted by Seeker

... Fix the damn roads ... and electrify the rail network.

This I like!

[Seeker]

Re: cronyism and corruption (over PPE)

Originally Posted by Ruffy

I've actually been wondering about this quite a bit. I'm not 100% sure it's deliberate intent just to funnel public money for personal gain (as seems to be the general accusation). I think they were genuinely trying to (primarily) solve the problem on PPE.

It's generous of you giving them the benefit of the doubt. Where it falls down, though, is the fact the some of the money was funneled towards friends who had no experience of making PPE whilst ignoring (UK) PPE companies that couldn't get any replies from government and consequently shipped their stock to Denmark and Italy instead. As a postscript, some of the products made by the cronies proved unusable/unsuitable.

There was a VIP list for PPE contracts, 10 Tory MPs/Peers had contacts with the companies on the list including the minister in charge of procurement. Estimated value: £1.6 billion.

Not Hanlon's razor, Occam's razor.

[garynortheast]

Ooops....

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...box=1639771436

[Seeker]

Originally Posted by garynortheast

Ooops....

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...box=1639771436

Simon Case interview with PM

PM: we need you to investigate illicit government parties.
Case: yes, PM
PM: did you attend any illegal parties, Simon?
Case: err, actually, yes I did PM
PM: excellent! You'll be perfect for the job - don't forget: "nothing to see here!" is our mantra.

Denial.Distract.Divert.

[Bibio]

wow the media are not half milking this.

[Ruffy]

Originally Posted by Seeker

Re: cronyism and corruption (over PPE)

It's generous of you giving them the benefit of the doubt. Where it falls down, though, is the fact the some of the money was funneled towards friends who had no experience of making PPE whilst ignoring (UK) PPE companies that couldn't get any replies from government and consequently shipped their stock to Denmark and Italy instead. As a postscript, some of the products made by the cronies proved unusable/unsuitable.

There was a VIP list for PPE contracts, 10 Tory MPs/Peers had contacts with the companies on the list including the minister in charge of procurement. Estimated value: £1.6 billion.

Not Hanlon's razor, Occam's razor.

You could very well be correct that I'm being generous. I haven't researched in detail, only pondering. What you describe is bad, of course, and I don't know why the existing supply chain arrangements couldn't deal with the increased volumes of demand. I don't dispute that the outcome was poor, whatever the drive behind it.

I did mean Hanlon's Razor though ("Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" - it's only anecdotal and not scientifically proven, but it covers surprisingly well in my experience). I definitely didn't mean it to be any more complimentary to them (they do seem to be f'ing idiots when judged by the reasoning of the common citizen! )

Now you mention it though, Occam's Razor may be an appropriate consideration for the number of MPs we have in Parliament. Our 'whip' system of toe-ing the line seems to suggest to me that we only really need a couple in Parliament for each party, rather than 600+. As we're seeing more just recently, it's pretty much presented as scandalous when MPs don't vote in line with their party leader. Is that a good thing? I'm not convinced. What's the point of a mass vote if there's no real freedom to choose how to vote? (Shouldn't individual MP voting be demonstrably in line with constituents wishes perhaps?!)

[Ruffy]

Originally Posted by Bibio

wow the media are not half milking this.

They make money out of chaos, instabilty and bad news, so no real wonder IMHO.

[Seeker]

Originally Posted by Bibio

wow the media are not half milking this.

something else to milk

Lord Frost, the current Brexit negotiator has resigned, allegedly unhappy with direction Conservative policy is going. He is/was a hardliner when it came to Brexit and on the more extreme right side of conservatism.

[garynortheast]

Sounds to me like the tories are imploding. Can't say I'm sorry, although it makes me worried about which bunch of far right nutters will succeed them.

[svenrico]

Originally Posted by Seeker

Re: cronyism and corruption (over PPE

It's generous of you giving them the benefit of the doubt. Where it falls down, though, is the fact the some of the money was funneled towards friends who had no experience of making PPE whilst ignoring (UK) PPE companies that couldn't get any replies from government and consequently shipped their stock to Denmark and Italy instead. As a postscript, some of the products made by the cronies proved unusable/unsuitable.

There was a VIP list for PPE contracts, 10 Tory MPs/Peers had contacts with the companies on the list including the minister in charge of procurement. Estimated value: £1.6 billion.

Not Hanlon's razor, Occam's razor.

Is anybody being held responsible /being investigated for this scandal ? Probably not !