Current Affairs The Conservative Party
- Thread starter Ashtonian
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Jib in lad
Player Valuation: £25m
Its what they do.
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
What a useless bag of wind.
Jib in lad
Player Valuation: £25m
orchard
Player Valuation: £60m
Is this good governance?
In response to the Freedom of Information request, the response said: “It is not inconceivable that officials and ministers could become much more conscious of public opinion and thus more circumspect when expressing their views and considering options for fear of how the public might react. That would not be in the public interest.”
In response to the Freedom of Information request, the response said: “It is not inconceivable that officials and ministers could become much more conscious of public opinion and thus more circumspect when expressing their views and considering options for fear of how the public might react. That would not be in the public interest.”
Differences in the brain of conservatives and liberals.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...xiety-drive-conservatives-political-attitudes
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...xiety-drive-conservatives-political-attitudes
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Americans eh.......
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
this Cambridge Analytica story just got interesting:
it would certainly explain how some recent British political stories have come out...
it would certainly explain how some recent British political stories have come out...
zzr45
#MURDERINGSCUM
Sounds more like a typical agency promising the world when they can actually do sweet fa.
orchard
Player Valuation: £60m
You can't prove a thing man.
orchard
Player Valuation: £60m
Hahaha, yea, just tracing Peteblu a Joey666's GOT subscription now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCL_Group
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...32_-_Payments_made_to_named_Ltd_companies.pdf
We used Joey's lad for all the IT work. We're watertight.
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
That is probably a part of it, but the most important thing Nix said when being taped was not what they would / could do but the way in which all their work would be paid for:
If that was how they operate, then the chances are anyone that used them is unlikely to have reported that spending to the relevant electoral authorities (since to do so would invite questions as to who the company that no-one had ever heard of was that the campaign had spent the money on, and what it had done for that money); that would then suggest that either the law around reporting spending has been breached or (if they've got someone else to pay for it on their behalf) that the law around reporting donations has been.
Michael Gove
Gove faces fresh scrutiny over school sexual abuse case
Second witness tells inquiry that then education secretary intervened in Downside case
Owen Bowcott and Rob Evans
Tue 20 Mar 2018 11.50 GMTFirst published on Tue 20 Mar 2018 10.51 GMT
Michael Gove has already been asked whether he tried to find out about an investigation into suspected abuse by a priest at the Somerset school. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Rex/Shutterstock
Michael Gove is facing fresh questions about his alleged intervention in a sexual abuse investigation at a Catholic school after further evidence emerged that appears to link him to the inquiry.
The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) has already written to Gove asking whether he tried, during his time as the education secretary, to find out about an investigation into a priest suspected of abuse at Downside Abbey boarding school in Somerset.
Now the environment secretary, Gove denied making any calls to the local authority about the investigation.
It has now emerged that a second witness testified to the inquiry that Gove took an interest in the Downside investigation.
In public evidence to the inquiry, Jane Dziadulewicz referred to preparing a report for an MP while she was the safeguarding official for the Clifton diocese, responsible for child protection in that region.
During cross-examination at the IICSA in December, Dziadulewicz, who was in the post from 2003-15, was asked by the inquiry: “Did you attend a number of multi-disciplinary meetings?” She replied: “Yes.” She was then asked: “Including a late-night safeguarding commission meeting in relation to a report being prepared for an MP?” She replied “yes” without being asked for the identity of the MP.
The Guardian has established that, in a written statement to the inquiry which has not been published, Dziadulewicz named the MP as Gove and said his office had asked local officials to produce a report on the progress of the Downside investigation.
Her evidence adds to that given by Claire Winter, the deputy director of children’s services responsible for children’s social care at Somerset county council, who testified to the inquiry about the investigation on 13 December.
Winter and Dziadulewicz worked closely together with the police during a series of investigations into allegations of sexual abuse at Downside.
In her public evidence, Winter described a sequence of phone calls the likes of which she said she had never experienced before or since.
She said there had been concerns about a priest “and it was agreed that the abbot would suspend him from ministry while investigations continued”. The priest “did have, I discovered subsequently, connections to some quite senior figures”.
One afternoon she received “two phone calls from the office of the minister of state for education asking for the time at which that decision [about the priest] was going to be made. I said I knew what time it was, but I said it was a child protection matter and that I wasn’t willing to discuss it.
“Then very shortly before the time it was due to happen, I had a phone call from somebody who said they were the secretary of state for education and please would I tell them the time at which – he was quite insistent about the time that decision was due to be made.
“ ... I said exactly the same thing, that it was a child protection matter, it was in relation to a criminal matter, and I couldn’t give that information.”
The priest, identified at IICSA by the reference number F65, was said to have been the subject of an allegation of oral sex with a 16-year-old boy. The investigation resulted in a file being sent to the Crown Prosecution Service but did not lead to any charges because it was deemed there was insufficient evidence.
Gove’s spokesperson said he and the Department for Education had replied fully to IICSA’s requests for information.
“In preparing his response, the secretary of state has reviewed the relevant DfE documents and the witness statements from DfE officials already provided to the inquiry. Those documents show DfE officials engaged with the relevant agencies and provided briefings to ministers – this was entirely appropriate and followed normal procedures in handling child protection issues arising in an independent school,” the spokesperson said.
“The documents contain no evidence to suggest any official or minister departed from normal procedures or acted inappropriately in any way. The secretary of state has never knowingly met F65 and has no connection with him. It is false to insinuate otherwise.
“The DfE has confirmed there is no record of the phone calls referred to in Claire Winter’s oral evidence and that no one in the DfE at the time, including the secretary of state, recalls any such phone calls.”
The Somerset MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has connections to Downside school, did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about whether he had discussed the investigation with Gove.
Lady Gillian Rees-Mogg, the MP’s mother, was the school governor with responsibility for child protection at Downside for some of this period. Her role, mentioned in evidence at the IICSA inquiry, is recorded in a July 2009 Downside school pamphlet on child protection and a subsequent Downside school parents handbook for 2010-11.
The abbot of Downside, Dom Aiden Bellenger, officiated at Jacob Rees-Mogg’s wedding in 2007, reciting a Catholic mass in Latin at the service in Canterbury Cathedral. The MP, whose constituency is next door to Downside, has spoken at Downside".
Gove faces fresh scrutiny over school sexual abuse case
Second witness tells inquiry that then education secretary intervened in Downside case
Owen Bowcott and Rob Evans
Tue 20 Mar 2018 11.50 GMTFirst published on Tue 20 Mar 2018 10.51 GMT
Michael Gove has already been asked whether he tried to find out about an investigation into suspected abuse by a priest at the Somerset school. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Rex/Shutterstock
Michael Gove is facing fresh questions about his alleged intervention in a sexual abuse investigation at a Catholic school after further evidence emerged that appears to link him to the inquiry.
The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) has already written to Gove asking whether he tried, during his time as the education secretary, to find out about an investigation into a priest suspected of abuse at Downside Abbey boarding school in Somerset.
Now the environment secretary, Gove denied making any calls to the local authority about the investigation.
It has now emerged that a second witness testified to the inquiry that Gove took an interest in the Downside investigation.
In public evidence to the inquiry, Jane Dziadulewicz referred to preparing a report for an MP while she was the safeguarding official for the Clifton diocese, responsible for child protection in that region.
During cross-examination at the IICSA in December, Dziadulewicz, who was in the post from 2003-15, was asked by the inquiry: “Did you attend a number of multi-disciplinary meetings?” She replied: “Yes.” She was then asked: “Including a late-night safeguarding commission meeting in relation to a report being prepared for an MP?” She replied “yes” without being asked for the identity of the MP.
The Guardian has established that, in a written statement to the inquiry which has not been published, Dziadulewicz named the MP as Gove and said his office had asked local officials to produce a report on the progress of the Downside investigation.
Her evidence adds to that given by Claire Winter, the deputy director of children’s services responsible for children’s social care at Somerset county council, who testified to the inquiry about the investigation on 13 December.
Winter and Dziadulewicz worked closely together with the police during a series of investigations into allegations of sexual abuse at Downside.
In her public evidence, Winter described a sequence of phone calls the likes of which she said she had never experienced before or since.
She said there had been concerns about a priest “and it was agreed that the abbot would suspend him from ministry while investigations continued”. The priest “did have, I discovered subsequently, connections to some quite senior figures”.
One afternoon she received “two phone calls from the office of the minister of state for education asking for the time at which that decision [about the priest] was going to be made. I said I knew what time it was, but I said it was a child protection matter and that I wasn’t willing to discuss it.
“Then very shortly before the time it was due to happen, I had a phone call from somebody who said they were the secretary of state for education and please would I tell them the time at which – he was quite insistent about the time that decision was due to be made.
“ ... I said exactly the same thing, that it was a child protection matter, it was in relation to a criminal matter, and I couldn’t give that information.”
The priest, identified at IICSA by the reference number F65, was said to have been the subject of an allegation of oral sex with a 16-year-old boy. The investigation resulted in a file being sent to the Crown Prosecution Service but did not lead to any charges because it was deemed there was insufficient evidence.
Gove’s spokesperson said he and the Department for Education had replied fully to IICSA’s requests for information.
“In preparing his response, the secretary of state has reviewed the relevant DfE documents and the witness statements from DfE officials already provided to the inquiry. Those documents show DfE officials engaged with the relevant agencies and provided briefings to ministers – this was entirely appropriate and followed normal procedures in handling child protection issues arising in an independent school,” the spokesperson said.
“The documents contain no evidence to suggest any official or minister departed from normal procedures or acted inappropriately in any way. The secretary of state has never knowingly met F65 and has no connection with him. It is false to insinuate otherwise.
“The DfE has confirmed there is no record of the phone calls referred to in Claire Winter’s oral evidence and that no one in the DfE at the time, including the secretary of state, recalls any such phone calls.”
The Somerset MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has connections to Downside school, did not respond to the Guardian’s questions about whether he had discussed the investigation with Gove.
Lady Gillian Rees-Mogg, the MP’s mother, was the school governor with responsibility for child protection at Downside for some of this period. Her role, mentioned in evidence at the IICSA inquiry, is recorded in a July 2009 Downside school pamphlet on child protection and a subsequent Downside school parents handbook for 2010-11.
The abbot of Downside, Dom Aiden Bellenger, officiated at Jacob Rees-Mogg’s wedding in 2007, reciting a Catholic mass in Latin at the service in Canterbury Cathedral. The MP, whose constituency is next door to Downside, has spoken at Downside".
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