It would be cruel and unusual punishment to make anyone share a cell with Jess Phillips. But while having no truck with her, we should still resist the attempted interference in our affairs by a man none of whose three nationalities was British and who did not live here, nor even have much in the way of business interests in this country. Like Phillips's, Keir Starmer's own position would also be tenable until one considered that everything to do with his time as Director of Public Prosecutions had been destroyed under the Conservative Government to which he was supposedly opposed and which he purportedly went on to defeat. Everything. Destroyed. By "the other side".
Such is the State to which it is proposed to give the power of life and death in the form of assisted suicide, a proposal that would have been defeated at Second Reading if it had not been for the votes of 23 Conservative and three Reform UK MPs, and the abstentions of three more Conservatives. If they had all voted against it, then there would have been a tie, 304 votes each, and by convention the Speaker's casting vote is for the status quo. More Labour than Conservative MPs voted against, but the 23 Conservatives who voted in favour included all three of that party's most recent Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Health Secretary, and Work and Pensions Secretary, together with a former Chief Whip who went on to function as Foreign Secretary in the Commons as deputy to Lord Cameron (another supporter), and by the present Shadow Chancellor, Shadow Home Secretary, Shadow Defence Secretary, and Shadow Education Secretary, as well as the Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. Among other grandees. Right behind this is the same Tory Deep State that covered Starmer's tracks at the Crown Prosecution Service.
As for Reform, at 60 per cent, its support for assisted suicide was slightly higher than Labour's, and included both the Deputy Leader and the Chief Whip. There has been no negative consequence of that from Mar-a-Lago. Mostly obviously, there remains the strong support, potentially including an enormous donation, from Elon Musk. In that context, Nigel Farage deserves credit for reiterating his and his party's repudiation of Musk's beloved Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. That has probably cost it a lot of money, and quite a few votes. If Musk really did want to do something for Britain, then he might look at contributing to this country's social care, which is free in Scotland but apparently cannot be so in England because of Venezuela or something. Not that Scotland is without faults. I am profoundly unconvinced that the Glasgow consumption room is legal, and I am profoundly convinced that it ought not to be. But at the present rate, assisted suicide would be on the Statute Book down here before there had been so much as a report into social care. That is not an accident.
People warned that assisted suicide is what you’d get if you risked a Labour supermajority by not voting for the Conservatives, the only party that could deny them that (and opposes assisted suicide).
ReplyDeleteAnd a mathematical analysis of how the votes for assisted suicide split on party lines shows “For all we talk about them being non-party, and even with the whips off, the outcome of free votes is largely dependent on the partisan composition of the House.
Holding everything else constant, had there been 100 fewer Labour MPs and 100 more Conservatives taking part, the Leadbeater bill would have fallen at second reading.”
https://theconversation.com/assisted-dying-how-mps-voted-and-what-it-tells-us-about-cross-party-consensus-245060
If the Conservatives had won, then the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Health Secretary, and Work and Pensions Secretary, would all have voted for the Private Member's Bill that there would still have been in this Parliament. Under those circumstances, far fewer Conservatives would have voted against it.
DeleteAs a British patriot (but certainly not a supporter of this awful far Left government), I’m getting to like this kind of American “interference” in British politics. Trump has rightly condemned Red Ed’s net zero policies of punitively taxing North Sea oil and gas production, adding “get rid of the windmills.” Hear, hear!
ReplyDeleteHow nice it is to have a rightwing anti net zero Republican administration back in charge of America.
But Musk has made the most important intervention in British politics, one rightly backed by Kemi Badenoch, the Daily Mail and Telegraph (and by the leading child victims writing in this weekend’s Daily Mail) calling for a national investigation into the Pakistani Muslim grooming of underage white girls.
That enquiry would reveal the true scale of a scandal covered up too long due to political correctness and a desire to sacrifice children on the altar of the ideology of multiculturalism.
There has already been an inquiry into child sexual abuse.
DeleteThere hasn't been a national public enquiry into this-only enquiries into the localised abuse in particular towns like Rotherham. The problem of British Asian (primarily Pakistani) gang grooming of white girls is a national phenomenon requiring a national enquiry to understand and tackle it everywhere.
ReplyDeleteThe government fears such an enquiry because a) it would reveal Starmer's failure to deal with the scale of the issue when he was DPP and b) it would reveal the true consequences of mass Muslim immigration (what the Left calls "fuelling the Far Right").
The obvious consequences of inviting millions of mostly men from deeply sexist primitive Islamic societies into a Western country where women dress and behave completely differently from Muslim women.
Thankfully, terms starts again on Monday.
Delete"If the Conservatives had won then the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Health Secretary, and Work and Pensions Secretary, would all have voted for the Private Member's Bill"
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary if the Conservatives had won, they'd never have given MP's a vote on this Private Members Bill, as Sunak knew most of his MP's were opposed. This same bill was heavily defeated when they were last in power, and 80% of their MP's still oppose it now.
Starmer had publicly promised Esther Rantzen to allow a vote on assisted dying before the election-the Conservatives of course did not make any such promise.
That level of naïveté is downright touching.
Delete"That level of naïveté is downright touching."
ReplyDeleteKeir Starmer was the only leader to publicly promise a vote on assisted suicide before the election so those who voted for parties other than the Conservatives (in the knowledge that would likely result in a big Labour majority) knew that's what they were voting for.
You got what you voted for, so what are you complaining about?
I did not vote for him. But you are still wrong.
Delete"There has already been an inquiry into child sexual abuse."
ReplyDeleteWhen was the national enquiry into Asian gang grooming of white children? The Alexis Jay report was a local enquiry focused only on one town- this phenomenon is happening in towns and cities across the country from Rochdale and Rotherham to Oxford, Reading and Telford.
I have let that one up so that other readers can enjoy it.
Delete“I did not vote for him. But you are still wrong.“
ReplyDeleteNow there’s true naivette on display. If you voted for anyone other than the Conservatives then you were voting for him since only they were in a position to deny him a majority (or at least a supermajority). And if you did that you were voting for assisted suicide too since he was the only leader who promised to allow a vote on it as Leadbetter and Rantzen gratefully remind everyone, and unlike the Opposition the majority of his MPs support it.
Although not as heavily as Reform's, the majority of Conservative MPs is in favour of the principle, at least. There would always have been a Private Member's Bill in this Parliament, and the Conservative voting figures would have been very different if the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Health Secretary, and Work and Pensions Secretary, had all been in favour of it. The lack of any Trump-Musk rebuke to 60 per cent pro-death Reform has been noted on the Conservative benches.
Delete“In a post on X, shadow safeguarding minister Alicia Kearns urged the government to release "the ethnicity data" the Conservatives had begun collecting, about people arrested for and charged over child sexual exploitation and grooming.”
ReplyDeleteWe all know why they won’t release that data or have a proper government led enquiry.
Some of us have seen a lot of enquiries.
Delete"the majority of Conservative MPs is in favour of the principle, at least. "
ReplyDeleteTrying desperately to evade your responsibility for creating a Labour supermajority that will pass assisted suicide, I see. No, the majority of Tories do not support it "in principle" but voted against it by an 80% majority, and they voted against it even more heavily when they were in government. Leadbetter's bill would never have seen the light of day under the Tories who mostly oppose assisted suicide, which is why only Starmer promised a vote on it and Rantzen urged a Labour vote.
Everything is simple when you are simple.
Delete"Some of us have seen a lot of enquiries."
ReplyDeleteNot of the government-led kind the victims are asking for-and the government has not only refused to hold one but as Kearns pointed out, they have buried the ethnicity data the Conservatives had begun collecting. What exactly are the faithful believers in multiculturalism and mass immigration hiding about organised abuse of white girls in Britain and Starmer's failure to deal with it when he was DPP?
Easier to put some "Far Right" protestors in jail for social media posts than properly investigate and prosecute organised nationwide child abuse....
"Government-led"? Where does one begin?
Delete"Everything is simple when you are simple."
ReplyDeleteYou must tell us what that's like. Anyone who voted for anything other than the Conservatives and didn't realise that would mean a Labour supermajority is simple indeed. There's no evidence whatsoever for your fantasy that the Tories would have allowed a vote on a Private Members Bill opposed by most of their MP's which would have divided the party and alienated their (mostly very elderly) voters, which is why they never pledged one. Starmer did, so people knew what electing Labour would mean.
Also, why do you keep saying "60% of Reform MP's" supported it when that's just three people? Nobody uses percentages to describe such a small sample unless they're being dishonest and trying to make the number sound bigger than it is.
You also omit to mention in the same post that 80% of Tories voted against it which was also far bigger as an absolute number of MP's and is far more significant since that means if the same proportion of MP's in other parties opposed it, just 100 more Tories and 100 fewer Labour MPs would have meant a different outcome.
Everything is simple when you are simple.
Delete