Liam Fox latest

Bags Let me clarify what I meant by 'dignity of office'.

It is a great responsibility but also a great privilege to hold office in the government of this country.

I think that anyone who is elected to serve as an MP should respect the people who have elected him or her and that means behaving with dignity and honesty.

So it is about MPs respecting the electorate, not the other way round.

But it is a virtuous circle - if the MPs respect the office they have assumed and their constituents, behave themselves properly, and don't indulge in cheap jibes, don't fiddle their expenses, don't take corrupt payments, don't get sent to prison for any other reason, are seen to be hardworking and sincere in their beliefs, then they will earn the people's respect.

Well, here's a little story about international trade. My late ex-father-in-law was an international businessman. Decades ago, he became a multi-millionaire from the commission he earned selling machinery for factories to China, when it was emerging from its Communist era. The machinery was manufactured in South Wales and exported. Unfortunately, the Chinese learned to make their own machinery, so the Welsh manufacturing plant was closed down. That's the present day reality. China knows how to make its own machinery and doesn't need to import - in fact, it's become so proficient, it even wants to build nuclear power stations.

The UK makes most of its money from financial services. Almost 10% of its total exports are from exporting financial services to the US. The US likes London, because we speak English (or 'American' according to Sarah Palin) and it is a gateway to the EU and its far bigger market. This isn't reported much in the British press, although it is reported in the foreign media. London is currently the biggest financial centre in the world, but if the Americans have second thoughts and centres like Paris make a concerted effort to capture business, the British economy is in for a major blow.

The UK exports relatively few tangible goods. They include cars and pharmaceuticals. However, the biggest car manufacturers are foreign-owned and we know that Japanese companies have said that they are considering relocating their factories abroad. Pharmaceutical companies are in a constant game of buying smaller companies. The UK's advantage is that we have world class R&D centres in Cambridge, Oxford and London, but they rely on EU funding and have a high proportion of foreign researchers. Generic medicines (when a patent expires) are already manufactured in other countries, such as India. It wouldn't take much for pharmaceutical companies to leave the UK and relocate.

Liam Fox would do better to work on ways to keep financial services, cars and pharmaceuticals in the UK, rather than berating British businessmen for being lazy. If he's not careful, they might do the same as Dyson and relocate their manufacturing abroad.

I agree with you entirely, ja. I just think too much is being made of the fat and lazy remark and not enough about the possibly sensible stuff he was saying, not by you necessarily, but by the media in general. I can imagine him, or someone else in his position saying it in a humorous way and it being taken wrongly, or reported wrongly, as with that case of Tim Hunt at the science conference in Malaysia. I'm not saying that's what Fox did, just that I think it's possible, so I can't get all worked up about any kind of dignity.

It's a bit like a Twitter storm (not that I've been involved in any but one hears about them). All a bit OTT.

I think he made it very clear that he was criticising British businesses for not trying hard enough to export. Maybe the actual words don't matter (although I think they do when they come out of the mouth of a senior politician), but what he said was unequivocal. He's right that the balance of trade is a big problem, but businesses have a duty first and foremost to their employees and shareholders (and themselves, of course) and not to baling out the country as their duty. Maybe he should have put more effort into stopping the sale of ARM, if he's so concerned about British companies' going abroad. The comment about playing golf on a Friday afternoon was crass.

While I agree it was a tactless comment, I can't help but feel that if it had been JC or JM who had made this same remark the outraged people on here would be nodding their heads in agreement at this pop at bosses having time off on the golf course, while workers slave away. (To my knowledge it has been known to be true!) But any stick will do to beat a Tory, particularly a Brexit!

Not at all! It was a stupid thing to say, whoever said it. Ironically, it was said at a Conservative Way Forward event. CWF was founded to promote Thatcherism, which did much to destroy British manufacturing in favour of monetarism. Fox is the Trade Secretary - he's supposed to be encouraging trade, not insulting the people engaging in it.

As I understand it this was a secret recording made by a newspaper at a private function. Those who condemned the newspapers for publishing a recording of KV appear to be supporting their publishing a recording of Fox.

Well there you go sunseeker, hypocrisy? Surely not!!!!!!

niggly Neither JC nor JM is the Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade, are they?
It's nothing to do with Liam Fox being a Tory. It's to do with his holding a high office in Government, and that in that position he should have had the political nous to know that if he was speaking at a Conservative Way Forward event, his remarks would be reported.
It was hardly a private dinner party among friends.
And there is no comparison between reporting remarks that cabinet ministers make at political dinners with reporting deviant sexual behaviour. (I haven't followed the details of KV's latest scandal).

But Jane it was a private function. The recording was made secretly by a newspaper. In KV's case the recording was made in secret by someone he had invited. KV does hold an influential post. Personally, I don't think either recording should have been published.

Sunseeker The event is reported on the Conservative Way Forward's website. Needless to say, Liam Fox's remarks about British Businesspeople being fat and lazy have been edited out.
It was an event for CWF supporters, but that does not make it 'private' in the sense that LF could think that it would not be reported, and if you read what else he said, it's obvious that he did expect that his remarks would find their way into the media.
www.conwayfor.org/parliamentary_drinks_reception_with_the_rt_hon_dr_liam_fox_mp

If it's what he really thinks then he has every right to say it whoever he is and whatever "high office" he holds. It may have unpleasant repercussions for him just as other things people say that listeners don't like do.

If he said it to make a point, ditto.

If he said it because he's a twit, ditto.

Shrug.

Who(m) would GNers appoint to his ministry instead?

Well, Michael Gove needs a job, doesn't he....

Apart from the fact that it doesn't seem very sensible to completely alienate some of the people you are supposed to be representing, there seems to be a bit of mixed message here.

On the one hand, he speaks triumpantly about the referendum result and on the other he undermines British business by describing its people as fat, lazy and prone to taking time off to play golf. Given that the Out campaign kept going on about the great opportunities awaiting our resilient, hardworking businesses, this seems to say quite the opposite. He says "Let's stop apologising for our country" - and yet he seems to be attacking it.

I had to laugh at his comment regarding starting up a totally new department in 6-7 weeks which "probably makes us one of the most successful start-ups in UK history". Does he really equate his role in a new government team with individuals starting a small company who risk their own money and future security?

I think it was an unnecessarily aggressive and divisive speech. There are, no doubt, some bosses of companies who need a good shake up but I don't think this is the way to do it.

I could never understand why this man was welcomed back into the fold - both by politicians and by the media which regularly wheeled him out for interviews. He allowed his close friend and, Adam Werrity, to take up an unofficial and undeclared role in which he attended meetings at the Ministry of Defence without first obtaining security clearance. Werrity had access to Fox’s diary, printed business cards announcing himself as his advisor, and even joined him at meetings with foreign dignitaries. In light of the serious breach of security and totally inappropriate behaviour, he had no option but to resign in disgrace.

I'm not the Prime Minister Bags, so I have no idea who might be a replacement for Liam Fox, and I disagree that a Minister of State has the right to say what he likes in any circumstances.

It goes with the territory that when you hold high office you are careful what you say, that you are mindful of the effect your words might have on both your own colleagues and the Opposition, as well as those directly affected by your policies.

Of course it is not just politicians who have to watch their words. What do you think would happen to a judge, for instance, or a senior doctor who blurted out in public exactly what he or she thought? I think we know the answer to that one.

Crossed posts Eloethan, agree with you especially about the Werrity affair.

I think judges and doctors do say what they think quite often, ja. There have been some quite embarassing comments by judges reported in the news. Doctors are currently disagreeing quite loudly in public about the usefulness of statins.

I think openness is a valuable commodity in a society, even (possibly especially!) when it shows up stupidity or crassness in a person in an important post.

Don't shoot the clumsy messenger. This Times article makes a stab at cutting Fox some slack, but I like this comment about it best:

"You can cut Liam Fox some slack if you like but I'm going to carry on thinking of him as a slimy dimwit."

Which is what I'm saying too: I want to know who are the stupid, crass, clumsy people in government! I don't want civil service corrections or colleague dimming down to disguise their crassness!

When Ministers DON'T say things they later regret come and tell us about itIt happens all the time.

Nor do I, Bags.
I just wish we had politicians who weren't crass and stupid in office.

Exactly! I expect politicians to behave professionally and consider anything less unacceptable.

Sounds like we're all agreed then.