I recall then home secretary Blunkett got caught out with a three year affair with an aide which came out in the August of 2004. By the December it came out with another alleged affair with a secretary in his department 20 years his junior (age not relevant in itself but relevant in terms of increasing the degree of imbalance in power highlighted as a problem by the metoo movement). The particular details of that second allegation was that the husband of the other party got a nice promotion to placate him.
As you will recall 2004 was right in the middle of the Bliar years? Spin, lies and jobs for your cronies just as present then. At least Boris didn't say something as stupid as the hand of history on our shoulders. At least Boris's stupid sayings are completely ridiculous and part of that bumbling style. Blair was being serious probably using a focus group tested soundbite that failed when it was actually used!!!
My point is things like this have happened right through the history of modern politics and further. Once they treated it as a private matter now it's ragtop headlines.
Having never voted Tory or Labour , I condemn both , but this shower have taken sleaze to a new level. I can't recall any Labour folk going to jail . https://www.theguardian.com/politics/1999/jun/08/uk It's a bad day when one has to decide between Cummings and Bojo as to which is the bigger liar and which is covering his own back. Every time I hear Bojo saying " I consider the matter closed" I picture a child sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting "LA LA LA LA LA CAN'T HEAR YOU"
Of course there's been many who believe Bliar and cronies had a case to answer wrt the dodgy dossier, contempt of parliament, etc. Not to mention both Bliar and Brown's close relationship with the news of the world editor and IIRC there were claims that relationship was too close. Anyone remember that clip of a Blair and Brown visit to their HQ where to the side of the camera view one of them did a cooey style wave to the editor? What was her name, Rachel something I think?
People often look to current government's sleaze and forget past versions of previous government sleaze. You climb the greasy pole the closer you get to the sleaze at the top. Colour of rosette matters not. It's Western politics and system. It's easy to see Eastern politics as corrupt with dictators but our system has never been right neither. There's always lobbying, side jobs, unsafe influence and improper behaviours. Do you really think there's no such thing like the rotten boroughs around now? There is but it's evolved a bit.
BTW I'm not putting my fingers in my ears just thinking an affair in government only matters if the imbalance in power between people involved is abuse, there's a security issue, undue influence or illegality present. The most out to get Hancock can get is breaching COVID regulations. Without COVID I doubt there would be as much to beat him up about?
Plenty of cheats in government over the years, not to mention drugs, alcoholism, use of prostitutes/rent boys, etc.
I wonder how people who have denied themselves a visit to loved ones, been prevented from visiting sick relatives or friends and had their freedoms to see people seriously curtailed feel about a man who was happy to enforce these measures blatantly ignoring them for a bit of fun with a married woman?
One rule for them one rule for us has never been more clearly illustrated.
Exactly, @debs64. It's not the fact a politician has been caught out having an affair which is important here - it's his blatant disregard of rules he was earnestly urging the rest of us to adhere to, which stinks. Plus the suspicion that the appointment of his "friend" may just be another example of "jobs for the boys" (or, in this case, girls...).
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
It’s the way such people are appointed that sticks in my craw … Dido Harding, Dom Cummings et al … it’s just jobs for mates and girlfriends, or to keep sweet the husband of a woman they’ve assaulted/propositioned/abused … it’s a fetid morass of self serving ‘entitled’ hypocrites with no more understanding of the ethos of public service than a warthog 🐽 … and I’m prepared to concede that I may be doing the majority of warthogs a disservice. 😡
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'm surprised anyone is surprised at this latest "scandal" - this sort of behaviour has been going on for ever and a day. Simply that we have become gradually more aware of it with social media and endless "leaks" and the need to produce ever more exciting stuff to enrage the general population. The present Tory government are a bunch of Twits ( generalising I know ) but they have little real opposition from any of the other parties. It would seem that provided those caught out apologise, all is forgiven and forgotten. One wonders how many people have been fined for doing exactly as Mr. Hancock did and whether they will now be expecting some recompense via the courts ? I'm sure no one really cares whether he has an extra marital affair - more the implication Don't do what I do, do what I say. Hypocracy at it's best
Do you not think that what some minsters have done is like insider trading? Hancock - his sister. Hancock - his girlfriend. He abuses power. Boris appears to have done the same as major with his then girlfriend. As Hostafan says, it is the open lying ... people are now only too willing to accept that lies are acceptable - that has become the issue. We are the problem. The acceptance is the problem. Trump perfected it and got away with it and now Boris and his team realise people just don't care if you lie. If politicians openly lie without fear of any punishment (not even losing their job) - and the electorate just say '...oh, they're all like that...' and just shrug it off, what point manifestoes? What point any interview with a politician? Didn't it used to be funny to look at foreign tin pot countries and laugh (in a sad way) at their corrupt, lying politicians? All the politicians just in it for the 'dash'? Maybe I used rosy coloured spectacles, but I really thought we were still slightly above that - but this bunch has plumbed the depths.
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I can't recall any Labour folk going to jail .
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/1999/jun/08/uk
It's a bad day when one has to decide between Cummings and Bojo as to which is the bigger liar and which is covering his own back.
Every time I hear Bojo saying " I consider the matter closed" I picture a child sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting "LA LA LA LA LA CAN'T HEAR YOU"
People often look to current government's sleaze and forget past versions of previous government sleaze. You climb the greasy pole the closer you get to the sleaze at the top. Colour of rosette matters not. It's Western politics and system. It's easy to see Eastern politics as corrupt with dictators but our system has never been right neither. There's always lobbying, side jobs, unsafe influence and improper behaviours. Do you really think there's no such thing like the rotten boroughs around now? There is but it's evolved a bit.
Plenty of cheats in government over the years, not to mention drugs, alcoholism, use of prostitutes/rent boys, etc.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
The present Tory government are a bunch of Twits ( generalising I know ) but they have little real opposition from any of the other parties. It would seem that provided those caught out apologise, all is forgiven and forgotten.
One wonders how many people have been fined for doing exactly as Mr. Hancock did and whether they will now be expecting some recompense via the courts ?
I'm sure no one really cares whether he has an extra marital affair - more the implication Don't do what I do, do what I say. Hypocracy at it's best
We've never been above that - just slightly better at hiding it until relatively recently.