Liar, liar, pants on fire!

ga there’s really no point in asking that question - the supporters of the Government on GN do not believe that any Tory minister can be either incompetent nor deliberately mislead parliament. They are never prepared to criticise the Government and are now refusing to take the NAO letter as evidence of her appalling behaviour.

Thank you to those of you who have replied to my earlier question.

I'm really not sure what 'facts' we're meant to be waiting for.

This was a very important report and the two MPs, who both asked her questions about the same point, actually had read the report. So it's not as though it wasn't available for McVey to have read. It had been signed off by her department thirteen days before she told her lies on 21st June. She should have had it off by heart...

Not only did she lie to both of them about its contents, she also managed to repeat the lie, with different wording, in her 'apology'. I posted the clips earlier, you can all see them.

This is indefensible.

GillT there is another version which has been put forward all day. This is that there is more to come out and that she did not have the information before making her speech in Parliament. Hence she has not then deliberately mislead Parliament, as it seems the Speaker agrees. She has apologised and corrected, that is the end of it. Unless something else comes to the fore.

If she as granny activist says is found to be incompetent, or deliberately changed the information then that is another matter. But right now, that is not considered to be the case.

Whose 'version' is this, ally. Do you think you could provide a link so we can all judge of its reliability?

If two MPs can have read the NAO report which was published 13 days before they asked their questions why hadn't the Minister, whose job it is to be fully aware of and conversant with the detail of official reports on their departments, read it and mastered its contents? Very simple question. Very hard to whitewash I think.

Take your pick, it was either wilful of absolutely incompetent.

I think that is what I and others have been saying too.

In Cameron premiership McVey (amongst others) used the chamber to impress a personal hateful aspect of the people needing help with benefits. It led to hate crime on our streets and a lot of needless suffering. Things are supposed to have changed, the HoC is not supposed to be used as a platform for hatred. What McVey did was actually completely misquote the department to say they were accelerating universal benefits when they said they needed to slow down to sort out the glitches. They way it was said was hideous. It was the old hateful rhetoric which used to get her congratulations from the back benches. It's now called hate crime.

Her apology was equally hideous. A no apology, the "sound of it" made it clear she couldn't care less. She should be sacked from the party to prevent her finding another constituency to try and get back to the chamber.

Esther McVey defending the Universal Credit system

Esther McVey received less of a grilling for misleading parliament than most vulnerable people do trying to claim universal credit

www.independent.co.uk/voices/esther-mcvey-dwp-universal-credit-parliament-poll-tax-a8431036.html

lemongrove You say "For those who dislike this particular government, I can see this would be a disappointment, no hanging today!"

I could equally say "Those who like this particular government continue to brazen it out"

As for those who say it is not for Gransnetters (or, indeed, people on any forum) to form an opinion on such matters, I believe for those who routinely support this government there has been no such reluctance to judge the honesty and competence of MPs who do not belong to the Conservative Party.

I agree Eloethan the inherant dishonesty of our present government is utterly appalling.

Ah, but you’re a Corbyn fan Eloethan ( which says it all)

If anyone thinks this present government is bad, wait until
Jezza becomes PM, then you will know the meaning of incompetence ( and he will bankrupt us into the bargain.)

Vote Leave said during the referendum that:

1) promising to use the Article 50 process would be stupid and the UK should maintain the possibility of making real preparations to leave while NOT triggering Article 50
2) triggering Article 50 quickly without discussions with our EU friends and without a plan ‘would be like putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger’. Following this advice would have maintained the number of positive branching histories of the future, including a friendly departure under Article 50.

lemongrove What "all" does it say?

lemongrove: If anyone thinks this present government is bad, wait until Jezza becomes PM, then you will know the meaning of incompetence ( and he will bankrupt us into the bargain.)

When I was fourteen or so, Harold Wilson was elected. My mother scared me by saying it was the end of the world as we knew it, and also what you said above.
Three years or so later, when I had a bit more political knowledge, I saw that things were actually going quite well. I was entitled to a grant for University education, houses had been built to replace those destroyed in the war, the NHS was going from strength to strength.
And the present government is far more incompetent then the old traditional Tories of the fifties. They have already "bankrupted" the country in general, apart from their own nesteggs in the Bahamas.
We need a complete change. And of course, Labour party policy is made by the members, not the leader.

The BBC’s reporting of the scandals around the Brexit referendum is not biased or unbalanced: it barely exists. It is as though the US networks had decided the Mueller investigation was no concern of theirs. There have been three huge stories the BBC has covered with only the most perfunctory reports: the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica data leak, the Brexit campaign funding scandal, and the exposure of Russian interference in British politics.

www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/07/12/how-the-bbc-lost-the-plot-on-brexit/

This commentary on the abject failure of the BBC to report Brexit scandals draws parallels to an Orwellian word which we are now so close to.

The relationship between the Trump campaign and Brexit still has not penetrated public consciousness in the UK, but Carroll believes they are converging, circling the same ground.

“We now have investigations in the US, Canada and the UK that are actively coordinating and we are getting closer to this knowledge of how this transnational collaboration [allegedly] worked and how they [ allegedly] used jurisdictional arbitrage to get around laws. Denham has had the time and resources and what’s clear from the interim report is that she’s finding stuff. There are hints of explosive revelations to come. There are findings here that finally smash the narrative that the Facebook data was not used for Trump,” he says. And it’s not finished yet. We know there’s more to come.”

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/15/elizabeth-denham-data-protection-information-commissioner-facebook-cambridge-analytica?CMP=share_btn_tw

I'm waiting for Esther Mcvey to state EITHER that the UC rollout has been halted OR that she has met with the NAO to discuss this matter and that differences over timing and implementation have been resolved.

I'm not holding my breath!

Anna Soubry was meeting with Esther McVey this week to discuss the shortcomings of UC. She says it's what the majority of complaints in her postbag are about and is very angry that UC is just rolling out when it is patently not fit for purpose. I am slightly hopeful that being challenged by someone from her own party will cause EMcV to rethink.

Sarah Wollaston , who originally supported the leave campaign, changed her mind on the EU because – unlike Britain in this debate – she cares about truth

www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2016/06/sarah-wollaston-changed-her-mind-eu-because-unlike-britain-debate-she

Caitlin Moran wrote a nicely argued article about this subject in yesterday's times magazine. Pretty much sums up my views. [email protected]

yggdrasil, my parents thought exactly the same about Harold Wilson. Whatever the shortcomings of the present Labour party may be, Labour has consistently managed the economy better when in power than the Tories have. I for one believe that vulnerable people, including those who are disabled, in low paid jobs or even the just about managing ones would be better off and treated with more dignity than they are at present.

Posted too soon! I meant to add 'under a labour government than under the present shower of incompetent fools.'

Defending the present bunch of numpties that calls itself a government by saying Labour are worse is not really addressing the point, many people are coming to the conclusion that the bar is set so low by T May and co it would be hard to be worse.