the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

I see some of Yvette Cooper's tough on immi' posturing around the time of the leadership election takes a bit of a shine of her "hero" performance against Rudd yesterday.

off

before that even, back in 2012 she was showing she could match May for "toughness" on foreigns.

I’m here to end the Yvette Cooper rehabilitation tour. There’s a reason I called her Poundland Theresa during the original leadership challenge. pic.twitter.com/OGO1De5GGO

— Congolesa “Fire @Jack” Rice (@judeinlondon2) April 26, 2018

I just retweeted that. Suspect Cooper didn't even believe it the first time round and it was part of their facile and self-defeating triangulation policy, but she does tend to serve the prevailing winds as far as public anger goes. The idea that anyone in the Labour 2014 team saw this disaster coming is pretty spurious as well.

really loving Congolesa's work lately

I felt starstruck when I got a like from her the other week!

If Rudd doesn't walk, the next scandal brewing up for her will be the Indefinite Detention one, although as has been mentioned - this one might not cause as much outrage with the good old G.B.P. as Windrush. But it really ought to.

and don't forget she only had a majority of ~300 at the last GE so her political career looks fairly precarious rn

in the long term i mean

whoops

The ministry of housing is investigating allegations that a member of staff met men though a “sugar daddy” website and discussed her work with an undercover reporter.

According to the Daily Mirror the woman boasted of knowing “everything” about the housing minister, Dominic Raab, and that she knew his “every move”.

The employee met twice with an undercover journalist posing as a wealthy businessman, including at a five-star hotel less than a mile from the House of Commons.

At the end of each meeting she was paid £750, the paper said.

The ministry for housing, communities and local government launched the investigation amid concerns that the woman’s actions could pose a security risk.

There is no suggestion that Raab was aware of the woman’s actions, or use of the “sugar daddy” website.

This is pretty appalling from the Mirror, imo.

They're publicly shaming a woman, outing her as a sex worker, and inevitably getting her sacked - and the only thing she's supposedly done wrong professionally is gossip about her awful boss. There's no obvious security risk.

As if 95% of their work, and the work of all lobby journalists, isn't getting people to say indiscreet things they shouldn't.

if her boss was just some private-sector shithead i'd be inclined to agree, and i'm not usually inclined to support the work of the daily mirror, but surely there is a fairly obvious security risk from a minister's aide broadcasting their detailed knowledge of his movements to strangers who could easily use it as blackmail material

I dunno, if the choices are that on the one hand she actually provided some information and the Mirror have decided to play it down (just saying that she boasted of knowing stuff is not the same as saying what she knows), and on the other hand someone at the Mirror spotted an opportunity to expense getting his rocks off..

I agree with SV’s general points about the shaming of the woman but cash getting someone physical access to a minister’s office is unquestionably a security risk.

It doesn't seem like she shared anything about his movements. You could argue that she'd be open to blackmail, and could have her security clearance revoked on that basis, but the reason they've conducted the sting is clearly to get someone on tape talking about how much they hate him.

There's no suggestion that she gave anyone access to his office - just joked about how it would be fun.

it sort of reads like they were hoping to get some dirt on raab themselves, went undercover, but the best they could get was what he likes to eat for lunch at Pret, so they.... burned their source? weird

not like a tabloid to play the sex scandal angle

would be ironic if the housing minister's pa had to turn to sex work to pay her rent

more ropey Rudd backtracking after saying deportation targets never existed yesterday.

“The immigration arm of the Home Office has been using local targets for internal performance management. These were not published targets against which performance was assessed, but if they are used inappropriately, then I am clear that this will have to change.”

just resign already ffs, this is already embarrassing enough

she's the best they've got, that's a fun thought

I can understand why she doesn’t want to resign when literally all of this is May’s fault.

I wonder if there is a deal to move her to a seat she can win in return for sticking around and taking the heat.

"Take care of a tree, and you will eat its fruit; look after your masterbe a willing and idiotic human shield, and you will be praisedget a safe seat."

I can see them redrawing the constituency borders more so that Rudd has to defend merely a couple of hectares of Japanese knotweed.

and even then i dunno if she'd be able to rely on the vote of an immigrant plant

The local elections are next week, if story continues to run its probably more likely to happen after that?

The government is a big machine.

There is no way that any one person could ever be aware of what every cog and widget is up to at any one point. It's not reasonable to expect them to know about absolutely everything.

Laura Kuenssberg on the case

always good for journalists to act as apologists for government fuckups ime

That's a shocking statement. They're accountable - it's a basic principle of Parliament.

she goes on to hum and haw a bit but that's the opening statement of intent

jamie grierson nails it in the guardian:

“I didn’t hear that testimony, I’m not sure what shape that might be in,” Rudd said in reference to the existence of targets.

Here’s what shape it might have been in. There are three layers of state-enforced or enforceable departures: deportations, administrative removals and voluntary departures. ...

would be ironic if the housing minister's pa had to turn to sex work to pay her rent

LOL read this as the housing minister's father.

like even if rudd wasn't aware of what was going on in the department she's supposed to be leading, wtf was stopping her from finding out in the time since this story broke? she's now apologised four times and each apology is the result of her being - at best- totally fucking incompetent

are ugandan asians the next cohort to become visible in this shitshow ?

There were Kenyan Asians before them too.

I've worked with a lot of Asian people who were born and brought up in Kenya or Tanzania.

Ugandan Asians had their own process after the 1971 cut-off for others so i wouldn't expect it to be an issue.

Pre-1971 immigrants went from a situation of not needing documents to needing them - sometimes finding out decades later that they didn't have them or couldn't apply easily. Pretty much anyone who immigrated legally after 1971 will have had to have been issued with indefinite leave to remain or citizenship docs.

are ugandan asians the next cohort to become visible in this shitshow ?

elderly children of Jewish refugees? I imagine Labour party workers desperately trying to find some.

ba-dum-tshh

https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyashton/amber-rudd-just-suggested-britain-might-not-leave-the-eu

Rudd's having quite a day here.

starting to look like suicide by journo at this point

like May, Rudd seems to be a completely useless politician, but with a compensating vermin-like resilience. I suppose that is what you would need to survive a marriage to A A Gill.

you wot? <checks wikipedia> lmao, every day a school day huh

I can remember his fantastic S Times humbleboasting in his column, where he is smugly reflecting on what it is like to be an ugly old man with a young model g/f, who he abandoned Rudd for.

the 90's eh?

all my memories of the '90s involve someone wearing cork-wedge shoes

it's funny how you can forget important or even exciting memories of your life, but recall all sorts of pointless minutiae with absolute precision!

Amber Rudd also has a Four Weddings and a Funeral credit for something like ‘aristo wrangler’.