Priti Patel, the Secretary of State for International Development, is under intense pressure to resign but the abject weakness of Theresa May has so far prevented the PM-in-name-only from sacking her for a series of meetings during Patel’s ‘holiday’ in Israel.
Theresa May’s excuse? ‘No damage was done‘:
Fellow front-bencher Liam Fox also defended his colleague, telling Radio 4’s Today programme:
It’s not in any way forbidden to do that.
Really? Well, perhaps Mr Fox can be excused for thinking that. After all, it was all of six years ago that Fox himself was forced to resign for breaching the ministerial code by taking his friend, Adam Werrity, to official meetings when Werrity had no official status or security clearance.
Such small things can easily slip the mind.
To most of us, though, taking a mate to a meeting would pale into insignificance compared to Downing Street’s confirmation this morning that Ms Patel’s undisclosed meetings – which included a secret meeting with Israeli PM Benjamin Neytanyahu – was followed by her asking for foreign aid money, which is meant for the world’s poor, struggling nations, to be sent to the Israeli army:
We’ve all done it, of course – pop off to Scarborough or North Wales for a break, bump into a few people we didn’t expect to meet and end up trying to funnel billions to the armed forces of a foreign power.
Or not, as the case may be.
Others were a little less prepared to turn a blind eye or call ‘no harm, no foul’ on Ms Patel’s attempted deception – which the PM has claimed/admitted she didn’t know about for three months after the event.
Comedian David Schneider used humour to withering effect to highlight Ms Patel’s farcical excuses:
Others were more direct. Author Alex Nunns pointed out that even after she was caught out, Patel had tried to claim all her meetings were now in the public domain – in spite of a rather large omission:
Rights Watch’s Miqdaad Versi pointed out that when Ms Patel claimed Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson knew about her meetings, it appears that was untrue:
Versi also pointed out that May’s claim that the Ministerial Code is unclear about such behaviour and its expected consequence is, well, bollocks:
Patel’s failure to resign and May’s failure to sack her demonstrate with crystal clarity that the Tories are bereft of honour and beyond desperate to cling to power – and that May as PM and the Tories as even a shell of a government are broken beyond repair.
They must both go – but nothing short of a General Election will be sufficient to right the wrongs being perpetrated on us all by a party that has no excuse for doing anything but fall on its collective sword.
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Anyone know how she voted on the military covenant?
Oh, that’s right…
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24778/priti_patel/witham/divisions?policy=6667
On 26 Jun 2012:
Priti Patel voted against calling on the Government to strengthen the military covenant and against requesting a reassessment of the assumptions on which the Strategic Defence and Security Review was based.
The other rat who’s now defence sec voted the same way
Yes folks – patel’s more interested in us funding a foreign army than our own…williamson isn’t even arsed neither, it’s evident.
But that Jeremy Corbyn – Don’t trust him; he wouldn’t nuke anybody, would he?
Honestly, some people (Old white males, usually) are effing THICK.
IT’S THE OLD THATCHER WAY OF DEALING WITH PROBLEMS. DENY//DENY/DENY
MAYS FRONT BENCH IS SLOWLY BUT SURELY CRUMBLING UNDER THEIR OWN LIES AND MISCONDUCT!
IT’S BLATANTLY RIGHT THAT PATEL IS AN OUT AND OUT LIAR!
NO MATTER THE WAFFLE OF IDS TODAY ON DAILY POLITICS SHE SHOULD BE GIVEN THE GOLDEN BOOT ALONG WITH JOHNSON!
“SACK EM BOTH”!
Priti Useless Patel is as thick as a brick as anyone would have immediately observed from her utterly shambolic public outings during (i) the Brexit Pack of Lies Tour
and
(ii) the Tresa May Unnecessary Election Tour.
Her appearances on Question Time left one wondering how and why Conservative HQ chose to put her up for public examination when her mouth did not seem to be connected in any way to her brain; any old garbled rubbish just tumbled out.
Yet despite Priti’s many obvious handicaps, Tresa Strong & Stable (in her dreams) May astonishingly promoted her to Secretary of State level.
It’s just one more dreary example of Tory tokenism in attempting to hold their rag bag of factional infighting careerist MPs together.
Seldom have so many square peg incompetents been pushed into so many round government holes where they just don’t fit: Gove? Fox? Davis? Johnson? Hunt? Patel? And May herself, of course.
The list just goes on and on.
Is it any wonder the country is falling to pieces?
Reblogged this on sdbast.
As Saudi Arabia says Lebanon and Iran have “declared war” on the Kingdom, a very novel way of declaring war on them, and as the anti Russian themes grow to a crescendo the likelihood of a new war breaking out seems imminent. The Sunni Alliance relies on America and Israel to back it, if not lead the way. Patel’s discussions in Israel must have been logged by Mossad and MI6 and therefore part of government policy (although the Intelligence Services may not have told the PM of course!). It is all part of the growing drive to war v Iran and the Shia headed up by Gulf Arabs, America and Israel. All parties are getting into line; just look at the Guardian today with a long piece about how marvellous the Crown Prince is and how “nasty” SA is already a thing of the past; they are suddenly nice enough to die for! As for Patel the Guardian says only she made a “mistake” and doesn’t join in the criticism of her cavalier foreign policy nor indeed her blatant lies. You can anticipate the Guardian’s headlines when the skirmishes start; “West World Under Attack”; support Israel against Shia loonies etc etc. Will British MP’s have the nerve to say No to entering the war as they did in Syria? It seems unlikely because most MP’s are “Friends of Israel” and will enthusiasticly back them because they are “under threat” (even though they aren’t!). Anybody who says No will be hounded as anti Semetic terrorist supporters. The ground is being laid in many ways; see the letter in yesterday’s Times from the 3 foremost British-Jewish writers claiming Labour is riddled with anti Semetism and shouldn’t be tolerated let alone listened to in a time of “crisis”. The “liberal elite” already know which side they’re on; their only worry is Russia so it’s no surprise to read daily condemnation of their “evil ways”. Patel’s foray is unlikely to have been only about hospital treatment for IS fighters (see Robert Fisk’s reports in the Independent over the last couple of years); it didn’t need 13 meetings with security chiefs and the PM to discuss that! It is more likely to have been discussions about the coming war and how to ease the UK into it.
Reblogged this on Hercules space.
Reblogged this on MAL's MURMURINGS.
pritti patel has always been a dangerous woman – she was very happy killing disabled people in the uk – she is FOUL