The ongoing stupidity of Home Secretary Priti Patel

[discokermit]

Well apart from sacking the civil servants and replacing them by Johnson/Cummings yes-men is a decided slide into totalitarianism. At least civil servants would provide some sort of check on their more lunatic actions.

no they wouldnt.

 

[two sheds]

I refer the honourable gentleman to the subsequent answer I gave


Eta. But we won't really know for a while will we? We'll have to see what Cummings comes up with.

 

[existentialist]

Me too, seems a bit flimsy tho. Sounds like he doesn’t like PP and has heard some bad things about her and has decided to take a strop emptying the contents of his pencil case onto the office floor before slamming the door behind him.

Well, coming from you, that interpretation is absolutely no surprise whatsoever...

(ETA: and I use the word "interpretation" most advisedly... )

 

[MrCurry]

There’s a stench of corruption which I dearly hope gets widely recognised and brings down sneery Patel. The allegation that she set out to unseat Sir Phil and public money was then offered to buy his silence is pretty outrageous.

I do hope this story develops into a resignation issue for Priti Patel.

 

[maomao]

There’s a stench of corruption which I dearly hope gets widely recognised and brings down sneery Patel. The allegation that she set out to unseat Sir Phil and public money was then offered to buy his silence is pretty outrageous.

I do hope this story develops into a resignation issue for Priti Patel.

They'll just find some other cunt.

 

[existentialist]

There’s a stench of corruption which I dearly hope gets widely recognised and brings down sneery Patel. The allegation that she set out to unseat Sir Phil and public money was then offered to buy his silence is pretty outrageous.

I do hope this story develops into a resignation issue for Priti Patel.

I fear it won't.

And the thing is (to address the comments upthread), this isn't about sympathy for a civil servant - it's about a government minister blatantly behaving like a cunt. It doesn't matter who she's doing that to, it's bang out of order.

 

[existentialist]

If the bullying allegations are true it's perfectly normal and usual
They'll just find some other cunt.

TBF, they'll struggle to find someone who combines stupidity, cuntitude, and self-serving grandiosity to quite the degree that Priti "vacant" Patel manages. But that might just be my optimism at work again...

 

[not-bono-ever]

I’m in no way defending this bloke but the competence of long standing permanent secretaries to run things shouldn’t be underestimated, irrespective of their background,class and politics.

 

[Marty1]

I’m in no way defending this bloke but the competence of long standing permanent secretaries to run things shouldn’t be underestimated, irrespective of their background,class and politics.

Be interesting to see how his court case goes especially in light of govt losing some recent cases (tho not related to this constructive dismissal allegation).

 

[existentialist]

Be interesting to see how his court case goes especially in light of govt losing some recent cases (tho not related to this constructive dismissal allegation).

Apples and oranges - a constructive dismissal claim is heard at an employment tribunal, which is a different animal - albeit a similar species - to a court.

 

[Proper Tidy]

What union are the civil service big cheeses in, is it FDA?

 

[stavros]

I do hope this story develops into a resignation issue for Priti Patel.

She has resigned in disgrace before.

 

[maomao]

She has resigned in disgrace before.

I don't think she felt disgraced. This was her apology for the Israel meetings:

In hindsight, I can see how my enthusiasm to engage in this way could be misread, and how meetings were set up and reported in a way which did not accord with the usual procedures. I am sorry for this and I apologise for it

She's sorry that she was misunderstood and she's sorry she got caught.

 

[Fedayn]

What union are the civil service big cheeses in, is it FDA?

Mostly aye, some in Prospect too.

 

[MrCurry]

I don't think she felt disgraced. This was her apology for the Israel meetings:



She's sorry that she was misunderstood and she's sorry she got caught.

Not actually sorry for doing anything wrong then. How unsurprising.

 

[stavros]

I don't think she felt disgraced. This was her apology for the Israel meetings:



She's sorry that she was misunderstood and she's sorry she got caught.

She's also not alone in her employment past. Johnson has been sacked twice for lying, and Williamson had to resign from Defence for leaking like a 90 year old.

 

[Artaxerxes]

She has resigned in disgrace before.

Disgrace only lasts a couple weeks these days

 

[agricola]

She has resigned in disgrace before.

that was a sacking tbf

 

[Smangus]

Trump MO in this gvt, force out people that are seen as obstacles to your agenda, or make their lives so difficult they feel they have to leave. This happened to a recent chancellor and now a perm sec, there have been others and there will be more to come. They calculate that there will be a media kerfuffle for a couple of weeks max and then people will move on.

But the UK has a very different culture to the USA and this type of bullying culture is less likely to be accepted by the public at large I think. Once if has that reputation it will be hard to shift .

 

[existentialist]

She has resigned in disgrace before.

I was going to reply to your point until I read maomao's post, and I think he has it spot on.

I don't think she felt disgraced. This was her apology for the Israel meetings:



She's sorry that she was misunderstood and she's sorry she got caught.

We might all think she's disgraced, but it is a mark of the overweening self-regard she appears to hold herself in that she, really, couldn't give a fuck about what anyone thought about her Israel adventures - as far as she is concerned, she was right, and anyone saying otherwise is Just Plain Wrong. And not just on the Israel thing.

That seems to run through quite a lot of her behaviour, like writing through a stick of rock, and I think she's just got a very bad case of Politician Disease - the illness that says you must never, ever admit you're wrong, or that someone else has a point. And she's a critical case of that.

I notice that she's now claiming that she no longer holds the views on the death penalty she publicly held less than a decade ago. I don't believe her on that, either - she blows with the prevailing political wind, and she will be well aware that the appetite for the kind of viciousness she specialises in has diminished, so she's toning it down. I'd bet dollars to donuts that, given one iota of an opportunity, and she'd be back in among it with the "hang 'em high" brigade like she never left.

A vile specimen of humanity.

 

[existentialist]

She's also not alone in her employment past. Johnson has been sacked twice for lying, and Williamson had to resign from Defence for leaking like a 90 year old.

90 year olds don't usually leak blatantly and deliberately, though

 

[Streathamite]

It's generally built into the system that people will settle though - as I understand it if you're awarded less by the court than was offered in the settlement then you have to pay their costs.

True, but the fact he's gone all out to say he won't settle indicates that he REALLY wants his day in court.
In fact, his whole statement was extraordinary. I have never seen a public statement from such a senior mandarin worded as strongly as that

 

[Shechemite]

Well apart from sacking the civil servants and replacing them by Johnson/Cummings yes-men is a decided slide into totalitarianism.

Seems a little ott this

 

[Streathamite]

who gives a shit about senior civil servants?

No one: it's more that the direction that the government is heading in is simply really scary

 

[two sheds]

Seems a little ott this

Possibly, but I saw a quote yesterday saying it was one of the signs and it's what's happening in the US even more strongly.

 

[Sasaferrato]

who gives a shit about senior civil servants?

Anyone with more than one brain cell.

 

[tim]

Me too, seems a bit flimsy tho. Sounds like he doesn’t like PP and has heard some bad things about her and has decided to take a strop emptying the contents of his pencil case onto the office floor before slamming the door behind him.

You are a fucking idiot!

 

[Sasaferrato]

Apples and oranges - a constructive dismissal claim is heard at an employment tribunal, which is a different animal - albeit a similar species - to a court.

It is a public forum though, and this one will be well reported.

 

[MrSki]

You are a fucking idiot!

And that is being polite.

 

[agricola]

No one: it's more that the direction that the government is heading in is simply really scary

TBF this has been the direction that government has been heading in for ages, since at least the early years of Blair.

Its hard to see how the direction could be changed as well because its yet another consequence of No.10 wanting to control policy generation whilst having none of the staff, experience, competence or knowledge required to determine what is actually possible, and no legal responsibility for it anyway. They just fling off directives that ministers (who usually lack experience, competence or knowledge of their particular area themselves) are required to implement, and both need someone to blame when things go wrong.