Posts On Ab

[Hymie]

During the last 14 years of Tory corruption, I would occasionally post details of that corruption on AB – often involving the misappropriation of millions if not billions of pounds of public money.

 

Many of those posts were deleted from AB for no reason other than that they were attacking the Tories.

 

I recently posted a thread critical of Nigel Farage, linking a youtube video – this was removed from AB on the pretext that it had defamatory content (according to an AB moderator).

 

The video is still available to view on youtube, having been viewed over 15,000 times within the last 24 hours, with over 1,500 likes.  Having viewed the video again, there is some comparison between Farage and a donkey braying on Frinton-on-Sea sands; but I doubt any donkey will be suing AB or youtube.

 

Should this Labour government engage in anything approaching the corruption/incompetence/dishonesty of the Tories, you can bet I will be posting it on here (not nonsense, such as someone accepting designer spectacles) – I wonder if those posts will be deleted too.

[New Judge]

“NJ – My employer allows me to accept gifts (under specified conditions) to the value of circa £25”

I don’t quite know what point you are trying to make, for two reasons:

1. Politicians – especially government ministers – are not in the same position as you. They are in a unique position to influence the way the country is run. People that shower them with gifts usually do so because they expect something in return, not because they like them. 

2. The “gifts” that were bestowed on the Prime Minister and a few senior Cabinet members cannot by any definition (except perhaps Lord Ali’s) be described as “small”. The PM agrees (and this is still on the BBC website, so not likely to cause alarm among AB’s editors) that he accepted clothing to the value of £16,000. He also accepted accommodation to the value of £20,000 so that (he says) is son could revise without intrusion from the press.

David Lammy is quoted as saying “The truth is that successive prime ministers, unless you’re a billionaire like the last one, do rely on political donations so they can look their best.” Which of course is absolute cobblers. As leader of the opposition, Mr Starmer had a salary of about £155,000. This, of course, excludes any other earnings he might have. If he cannot “look his best” with an income at that level he needs to take some financial advice rather than accept gifts.

I have no issues with people making donations to political parties. Lots of people, rich and not so rich do that. But to make large personal donations to individual senior politicians (or more precisely for them to accept them) is not healthy.

“I have no problem with it ( small gifts) should it esculate above a small gift…”

Do you call £36k “small”? It seems you don’t:

“I would say when Lord Bamford coughs up 30k for Boris's wedding, thats only what we found out about. Now that is a hell of a gift, I would call it somthing else, ”

But we’re not talking about Conservatives. I find it equally odious that that they were at it. But the Labour party has spent a decade or more castigating the Tories for doing exactly the same thing, in principle, that we have discovered they are up to.

There is no reason for individual politicians to receive gifts of any description. It may have become the “perks of the job” but it stinks.