UK Politics Mega-thread - Page 15

MPs have privately begun to voice concerns that their leader made a catastrophic mistake by engineering the defeat of the Government’s motion in the House of Commons on Thursday night.

Meanwhile senior figures inside the Government accused the Labour leader of “stark raving hypocrisy”, “dishonourable behaviour” and “putting his party before the national interest”.

Ministerial aides said that Mr Miliband consistently gave the impression of a series of days that he would back a “consensual” approach with the Government, only to suddenly change his mind.

Labour politicians have also acknowledged that Mr Miliband’s strategy faces being undermined by every new atrocity committed by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

One MP, who declined to be named publicly, said he began to regret his decision to vote against military action within minutes of stepping out of the Division Lobby – because television screens began to show new footage of suffering Syrian innocents.

Last night senior figures in the Coalition said that Mr Miliband gave the impression at a series of meetings and phone calls on Tuesday and Wednesday that he would back the Government’s motion.

In two phone calls on at around 8pm and 10pm on Tuesday night Mr Miliband calmly suggested that more information would from the United Nations would be “helpful” but he at no point said that he would vote against the Government’s motion.

The next afternoon at 3pm at a Downing Street meeting with Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary and Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband still gave no clue that he would abandon the “consensual” approach he had taken with the Coalition. Onlookers commented that his “posture” and demeanour seemed supportive.

When the Labour leader left Downing Street, Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg were convinced the Opposition would largely back the Government’s motion.

“That was our biggest mistake – to trust Ed Miliband not to play party politics with dead children,” said one senior Government source. “We were genuinely astonished – shocked. The only thing we can think of is that the Shadow Cabinet told him to u-turn and he did.”

Labour disputes this account of the Downing Street meeting. They say Mr Miliband had made no final agreement to back the motion. A Labour source said: “We were asked to a meeting. We attended and we listened to what was said. That was the right and proper thing to do.”

When pressed why Mr Miliband gave no initial signal that he might not back the motion, the source added: “If someone hands you a piece of paper at the end of a meeting with a lot of words on it the proper thing to do is to read it and consult with your party.”

At 4.30pm Mr Miliband chaired a 15-minute conference call of the Shadow Cabinet, where Labour’s front-bench team unanimously agreed not to back the Government motion.

A Labour spokesman said that the call was “business like”, but one party insider admits that senior members of the Shadow Cabinet had been alarmed by how little public support there had been for an attack on Syria.

At 5:15pm, the Labour leader called the Prime Minister back to say that he and his party would not support the Government’s motion. A furious exchange ensued between the two men.

“It was stark raving hypocrisy,” said a senior Government source. “Miliband was putting his party before the national interest. It was thoroughly dishonourable behaviour.”

MPs have privately begun to voice concerns that their leader made a catastrophic mistake by engineering the defeat of the Government’s motion in the House of Commons on Thursday night.

Meanwhile senior figures inside the Government accused the Labour leader of “stark raving hypocrisy”, “dishonourable behaviour” and “putting his party before the national interest”.

Ministerial aides said that Mr Miliband consistently gave the impression of a series of days that he would back a “consensual” approach with the Government, only to suddenly change his mind.

Labour politicians have also acknowledged that Mr Miliband’s strategy faces being undermined by every new atrocity committed by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

One MP, who declined to be named publicly, said he began to regret his decision to vote against military action within minutes of stepping out of the Division Lobby – because television screens began to show new footage of suffering Syrian innocents.

Last night senior figures in the Coalition said that Mr Miliband gave the impression at a series of meetings and phone calls on Tuesday and Wednesday that he would back the Government’s motion.

In two phone calls on at around 8pm and 10pm on Tuesday night Mr Miliband calmly suggested that more information would from the United Nations would be “helpful” but he at no point said that he would vote against the Government’s motion.

The next afternoon at 3pm at a Downing Street meeting with Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, William Hague, the Foreign Secretary and Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband still gave no clue that he would abandon the “consensual” approach he had taken with the Coalition. Onlookers commented that his “posture” and demeanour seemed supportive.

When the Labour leader left Downing Street, Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg were convinced the Opposition would largely back the Government’s motion.

“That was our biggest mistake – to trust Ed Miliband not to play party politics with dead children,” said one senior Government source. “We were genuinely astonished – shocked. The only thing we can think of is that the Shadow Cabinet told him to u-turn and he did.”

Labour disputes this account of the Downing Street meeting. They say Mr Miliband had made no final agreement to back the motion. A Labour source said: “We were asked to a meeting. We attended and we listened to what was said. That was the right and proper thing to do.”

When pressed why Mr Miliband gave no initial signal that he might not back the motion, the source added: “If someone hands you a piece of paper at the end of a meeting with a lot of words on it the proper thing to do is to read it and consult with your party.”

At 4.30pm Mr Miliband chaired a 15-minute conference call of the Shadow Cabinet, where Labour’s front-bench team unanimously agreed not to back the Government motion.

A Labour spokesman said that the call was “business like”, but one party insider admits that senior members of the Shadow Cabinet had been alarmed by how little public support there had been for an attack on Syria.

At 5:15pm, the Labour leader called the Prime Minister back to say that he and his party would not support the Government’s motion. A furious exchange ensued between the two men.

“It was stark raving hypocrisy,” said a senior Government source. “Miliband was putting his party before the national interest. It was thoroughly dishonourable behaviour.”

On September 02 2013 17:03 BrTarolg wrote:
uk politics just.. make me sad

We have no respect for our leaders, but they do not deserve our respect

Pretty much everyone hates the leaders and general actions of all 3 major parties, and do not trust them and consider them useless (and for good reason too)

The only leaders who have managed to garner any respect are boris johnson (who says he wont go for PM), and nigel farage (who is a one man party, as the rest of his party sucks even though he is great)


It's obvious right now that our politicians are not a representation of the smartest and most capable people of running the country. No, this segment is never supposed to be perfect, but it should be damn better than this.
What happened to politics in other countries, where the absolute brightest and most hard-working, those guys who are the absolute geniuses in academics, business and science, where THEY are the guys who go into politics, and when you hear them speak you know they speak nothing but 100% brilliance, where the whole country can actually TRUST their judgement in both fairness and common sense

Vince Cable could be dragged before MPs to explain why the government allowed chemicals to be traded between the UK and Syria months after violence broke out in the war-torn country.

The Department for Business issued licences for the export of sodium fluoride and potassium fluoride to Syria last January before revoking them several months later. These chemicals are potentially able to be used to make nerve gas like sarin as well as being having industrial uses.

The Government said no chemicals were exported before the licence was revoked in June 2012 following EU sanctions but MPs said they intend to raise the issue at Westminster.

Nick Clegg defended the decision to grant chemical export licences to Syria, saying: "I think it's very important that everyone understands that these licenses were revoked, so these substances were not exported by British companies to Syria."

However, MPs have stated their intention to ask questions in Parliament about the exports issue.

MPs, Lords and parliamentary staff have been trying to access porn websites potentially thousands of times, official figures reveal.

Following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from the Huffington Post UK, the House of Commons authorities acknowledged that users of the Parliamentary Network servers, including both MPs and their staff, have repeatedly attempted to access websites classed on Parliament's network as pornographic between May 2012 and July 2013.

According to the official figures, the number of attempts to access pornographic websites via the Parliamentary network peaked for 2012 at 114,844 last November and at 55,552 in April for 2013. At least 5,000 people are estimated to be working on the parliamentary estate.

However, the figures have varied wildly, with the peak in attempted access this April more than halving in the following month to just 18,436 this May.

Parliamentary officials indicated that the figures would be inflated by websites automatically refreshing and thus adding to recorded access attempts. Additionally, pop-up or embeddable content like videos and pictures could have a knock-on effect on the number of access attempts recorded.

So the evidence from the research is clear. The BBC tends to reproduce a Conservative, Eurosceptic, pro-business version of the world, not a left-wing, anti-business agenda.

On September 02 2013 19:53 Eufouria wrote:
Nigel Farage is a closet racist who would have no idea how to actually run anything if he had any power, if he somehow became leader he'd blame Europe and immigrants for all of our problems and then nothing would be better since they're really not the main problems in Britain.

On September 04 2013 19:12 KwarK wrote:
Such none news. Who doesn't try to look at porn.

On September 04 2013 21:28 GhastlyUprising wrote:
Yes, he doesn't have a clue how to run anything, but it's ridiculous to accuse him of being a "closet racist".

He wouldn't blame immigrants for all our problems, which is why he took a stand against the Tory advert that told illegal immigrants to "Go home or face arrest".

He would be correct in saying that we had, and continue to have, too much immigration. Most of the country agrees with him there.

On September 04 2013 21:59 Zaros wrote:


doesn't mean he is correct. He is an isolationist maybe xenophobic.

On September 04 2013 22:23 GhastlyUprising wrote:
It's pretty clear to most of the population that the UK cannot sustain unlimited immigration.

England is already one of the most densely populated countries in the whole world.

We have enough trouble providing for our population ALREADY. The government is already making cuts to basic public services, including the NHS. A subsequent wave of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, such as what we experienced in the past, would be absolutely disastrous for the UK.

On September 04 2013 22:30 Zaros wrote:


Its not clear at all, and government shouldn't be providing most of what it does anyway, even if it should immigrants are a net benefit to the government finances.

On September 04 2013 22:47 GhastlyUprising wrote:
"Government shouldn't be proving most of what it does anyway"?

Even though ALREADY there's vast poverty in the UK?

I see now that I'm dealing with someone who thinks the role of the UK government is to take care of the rest of the world before it takes care of its own citizens.

I'll not be lectured on morality by someone who apparently glorifies anarchy more than the most fringe of Tea Party fanatics.

On September 04 2013 22:30 Zaros wrote:


Its not clear at all, and government shouldn't be providing most of what it does anyway, even if it should immigrants are a net benefit to the government finances.

On September 04 2013 21:14 adwodon wrote:
https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-the-bbc-17028

Interesting article, seeing as a lot of political discussions seem to throw up the BBC as being a 'left wing' organisation it's nice to see someone actually put in the time to research the facts and they are interesting to say the least.

On September 01 2013 05:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Among the other missing Government members, four - Treasury Minister David Gauke, International Development Minister Alan Duncan, Pensions Minister Steve Webb and whip Jenny Willott - did not break from their holidays abroad, all with permission from the whips office.