The Blunderful Dr Fox

So the news has come though that Dr Liam Fox has resigned as Secretary of State for Defence. As Dr Fox wrote in his resignation letter to the Prime Minister he had "mistakenly allowed" his personal and professional responsibilities to become "blurred".

After a week of trying to defend himself more than the country over allegations that his best man Adam Werrity had unparalleled to the Defence Secretary and his contacts both at the MoD and on his overseas trips. He has finally fallen on his figurative sword.

He claims that the consequences of the close access his close friend has had to foreign leaders and their retinue when they have been meeting with the representative of the UK Government has only become apparent to him in recent days. Going on to say:


"I have also repeatedly said that the national interest must always come before personal interest.

"I now have to hold myself to my own standard. I have therefore decided, with great sadness, to resign from my post as secretary of state for defence."

It has somehow taken Dr Fox longer than most of the rest of us have taken to see the issues of access and frequency of which Mr Werrity had that access as an issue in one of the most secure Ministers and his meetings with key people.

The resignation comes after it was revealed that a private intelligence firm and a property company that lobbies the UK on behalf of Israel had been funding the many travels of Mr Werrity to the tune of £147,000.

If Mr Fox was getting alternative non-Civil Service advice on a regular basis from a friend employed by people with a number of vested interests it is something that David Cameron why hasn't the PM taken action sooner. After all at conference he said:


"If we fool ourselves that we can do these things without effort, without correcting past mistakes, without confronting vested interests and failed ideas, then no, we’re not going to get anywhere.

"But if we put in the effort, correct those mistakes, confront those vested interests and take on the failed ideas of the past, then I know we can turn this ship around."

Mr Fox has been fooling himself about his friend surely not being wholly on the periphery of overseas events that he attended, as he claimed. Surely he must have known that the frequency with which he turned up was something untoward, especially if as he claims he was not representing him in either an official or unofficial capacity.

But if these vest interests have managed to work so close to the heart of government for one minister you have to ask how many of them are working elsewhere? Cameron seems to think that the only vested interests we have in this country are the unions, what about the businesses that have vested interests that the Conservative party have long pandered to. They would probably hope to continue to do so unchecked if it weren't for the Liberal Democrats also in government.Source URL: https://free-wallpapers-2.blogspot.com/search/label/Conservatives
Visit Free Wallpapers | Wallpapers 2012 for daily updated images of art collection

The Blunderful Dr Fox

So the news has come though that Dr Liam Fox has resigned as Secretary of State for Defence. As Dr Fox wrote in his resignation letter to the Prime Minister he had "mistakenly allowed" his personal and professional responsibilities to become "blurred".

After a week of trying to defend himself more than the country over allegations that his best man Adam Werrity had unparalleled to the Defence Secretary and his contacts both at the MoD and on his overseas trips. He has finally fallen on his figurative sword.

He claims that the consequences of the close access his close friend has had to foreign leaders and their retinue when they have been meeting with the representative of the UK Government has only become apparent to him in recent days. Going on to say:


"I have also repeatedly said that the national interest must always come before personal interest.

"I now have to hold myself to my own standard. I have therefore decided, with great sadness, to resign from my post as secretary of state for defence."

It has somehow taken Dr Fox longer than most of the rest of us have taken to see the issues of access and frequency of which Mr Werrity had that access as an issue in one of the most secure Ministers and his meetings with key people.

The resignation comes after it was revealed that a private intelligence firm and a property company that lobbies the UK on behalf of Israel had been funding the many travels of Mr Werrity to the tune of £147,000.

If Mr Fox was getting alternative non-Civil Service advice on a regular basis from a friend employed by people with a number of vested interests it is something that David Cameron why hasn't the PM taken action sooner. After all at conference he said:


"If we fool ourselves that we can do these things without effort, without correcting past mistakes, without confronting vested interests and failed ideas, then no, we’re not going to get anywhere.

"But if we put in the effort, correct those mistakes, confront those vested interests and take on the failed ideas of the past, then I know we can turn this ship around."

Mr Fox has been fooling himself about his friend surely not being wholly on the periphery of overseas events that he attended, as he claimed. Surely he must have known that the frequency with which he turned up was something untoward, especially if as he claims he was not representing him in either an official or unofficial capacity.

But if these vest interests have managed to work so close to the heart of government for one minister you have to ask how many of them are working elsewhere? Cameron seems to think that the only vested interests we have in this country are the unions, what about the businesses that have vested interests that the Conservative party have long pandered to. They would probably hope to continue to do so unchecked if it weren't for the Liberal Democrats also in government.Source URL: https://free-wallpapers-2.blogspot.com/search/label/Conservatives
Visit Free Wallpapers | Wallpapers 2012 for daily updated images of art collection

Next time you have a business trip abroad take me your bestest friend

I have a number of friends who work all over the world travelling to meetings here and there. Apart from the ones who have traveled for the same work purposes or have traveled to where I am, very few of them have seen me on the margins of any of their work meetings.

But apparently the Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox has encountered his friend Adam Werrity on the margins of 18 of his foreign trips. This appears to be on top of the 14 trips to his Ministry of Defence offices since May of last year.

Now surely the foreign secretary's itinerary of foreign trips is one of those that is protected by the official secrets act. After all we are at war in Afghanistan and recently in Iraq and the terrorist threat still exists in many parts of Africa and Asia. But as one of these chance encounters was apparently at a military airbase as Dr Fox was transferring flights to Afghanistan. Yeah that is airbase not airport, but apparently to transfer to a civilian aircraft. Surely the only reason to transfer there, would have been during the Arab Spring uprisings, when surely Mr Werrity and the other arms dealers defence industry businessmen would surely have been advised not to travel to Dubai.

I'm not that keen on fox hunting, but I smell a rat.

Although if you are going on a business trip overseas and wouldn't mind seeing me on the margins of it and your work may well pay me to be there as an advisor or something, give us a call, my diary is pretty empty at present.Source URL: https://free-wallpapers-2.blogspot.com/search/label/Conservatives
Visit Free Wallpapers | Wallpapers 2012 for daily updated images of art collection

Next time you have a business trip abroad take me your bestest friend

I have a number of friends who work all over the world travelling to meetings here and there. Apart from the ones who have traveled for the same work purposes or have traveled to where I am, very few of them have seen me on the margins of any of their work meetings.

But apparently the Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox has encountered his friend Adam Werrity on the margins of 18 of his foreign trips. This appears to be on top of the 14 trips to his Ministry of Defence offices since May of last year.

Now surely the foreign secretary's itinerary of foreign trips is one of those that is protected by the official secrets act. After all we are at war in Afghanistan and recently in Iraq and the terrorist threat still exists in many parts of Africa and Asia. But as one of these chance encounters was apparently at a military airbase as Dr Fox was transferring flights to Afghanistan. Yeah that is airbase not airport, but apparently to transfer to a civilian aircraft. Surely the only reason to transfer there, would have been during the Arab Spring uprisings, when surely Mr Werrity and the other arms dealers defence industry businessmen would surely have been advised not to travel to Dubai.

I'm not that keen on fox hunting, but I smell a rat.

Although if you are going on a business trip overseas and wouldn't mind seeing me on the margins of it and your work may well pay me to be there as an advisor or something, give us a call, my diary is pretty empty at present.Source URL: https://free-wallpapers-2.blogspot.com/search/label/Conservatives
Visit Free Wallpapers | Wallpapers 2012 for daily updated images of art collection

Cat on a HRA Tin Roof?

Did you hear the one about Theresa May, the Human Right's Act and the Cat?

Well earlier today the Conservative Home Secretary said in her speech to the Tory faithful.


We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act. The violent drug dealer who cannot be sent home because his daughter – for whom he pays no maintenance – lives here. The robber who cannot be removed because he has a girlfriend. The illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because – and I am not making this up – he had pet a cat.

Only she was kidding them somewhat.

The cat wasn't the reason that the immigrant couldn't be deported but was merely evidence that the immigrant had a relationship of some time standing. Indeed as the Telegraph at the time reported.


As part of the application and as part of the appeal, the couple gave detailed statements of the life they had built together in the UK to show the genuine nature and duration of their relationship. One detail provided, among many, was that they had owned a cat together for some time.
The appeal was successful and when giving the reasons for the success the judge did comment on the couple's cat. It was taken into account as part of the couple's life together. The Home Office asked for the decision to be reconsidered. They argued it should be reconsidered because the decision was wrong in law, and one error they cited was that too much consideration was given to the couple's cat. 
The home secretary mentioned the case in the context of her plans to change the rules to stop convicted criminals resisting deportations on the basis of article 8 – family ties. But the Bolivian man – who has never been named – was not even a convicted criminal.

So not only was the cat only part of circumstantial evidence that the man was in a relationship with another human being, not a feline, but also he wasn't a criminal as the Home Secretary, whose remit includes policing and immigration, almost seemed to imply by adding him to this list.

Indeed the Home Office had failed to carry out its own procedures regarding unmarried partners which is why the cat and the other factors were brought up to show that the relationship status was that of partners not housemates. So British authorities had failed to acknowledge their own procedures in bringing this man before  British judges seeking to expel him.

Ken Clarke has even challenged her that nobody has even been refused deportation purely because they owned a cat. However, May has been back pedaling since she left the stage saying that the fact checking of her speech was done from the press, maybe she puts too much trust in the Daily Mail's reporting of this story. Why not the court papers themselves to which she would have access?

May got a knee jerk reaction to her speech from the conference faithful, just as Nick Clegg gained a great cheer for saying we would not be scrapping the Human Rights Act in his speech at Lib Dem Conference. The difference is that Nick Clegg knows the history of the Human Rights Act, as he demonstrated in his speech, Theresa May was just playing to the crowd.


We are right to stand up for civil liberties. No retreat to the illiberal populism of the Labour years. We are right to insist on keeping the tax system fair. Asking the most of the people who have the most. And we will always defend human rights, at home as well as abroad. The European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act are not, as some would have you believe, foreign impositions. These are British rights, drafted by British lawyers. Forged in the aftermath of the atrocities of the Second World War. Fought for by Winston Churchill. So let me say something really clear about the Human Rights Act. In fact I'll do it in words of one syllable: It is here to stay. Nick Clegg in Birmingham 21 September 

Update The BBC have made it possible download the original judgement here


Notes:

The European Court of Human Rights came into being21 January 1959 by virtue of Article 19 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Convention was founded out of the Council of Europe at the end of World War II.

The Council and what it were seen as required to do were laid out by a speech from Winston Churchill on (fortuitously for my memory my birthday) 19 September, 1946.

In the meantime some cats.
Source URL: https://free-wallpapers-2.blogspot.com/search/label/Conservatives
Visit Free Wallpapers | Wallpapers 2012 for daily updated images of art collection

Cat on a HRA Tin Roof?

Did you hear the one about Theresa May, the Human Right's Act and the Cat?

Well earlier today the Conservative Home Secretary said in her speech to the Tory faithful.


We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act. The violent drug dealer who cannot be sent home because his daughter – for whom he pays no maintenance – lives here. The robber who cannot be removed because he has a girlfriend. The illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because – and I am not making this up – he had pet a cat.

Only she was kidding them somewhat.

The cat wasn't the reason that the immigrant couldn't be deported but was merely evidence that the immigrant had a relationship of some time standing. Indeed as the Telegraph at the time reported.


As part of the application and as part of the appeal, the couple gave detailed statements of the life they had built together in the UK to show the genuine nature and duration of their relationship. One detail provided, among many, was that they had owned a cat together for some time.
The appeal was successful and when giving the reasons for the success the judge did comment on the couple's cat. It was taken into account as part of the couple's life together. The Home Office asked for the decision to be reconsidered. They argued it should be reconsidered because the decision was wrong in law, and one error they cited was that too much consideration was given to the couple's cat. 
The home secretary mentioned the case in the context of her plans to change the rules to stop convicted criminals resisting deportations on the basis of article 8 – family ties. But the Bolivian man – who has never been named – was not even a convicted criminal.

So not only was the cat only part of circumstantial evidence that the man was in a relationship with another human being, not a feline, but also he wasn't a criminal as the Home Secretary, whose remit includes policing and immigration, almost seemed to imply by adding him to this list.

Indeed the Home Office had failed to carry out its own procedures regarding unmarried partners which is why the cat and the other factors were brought up to show that the relationship status was that of partners not housemates. So British authorities had failed to acknowledge their own procedures in bringing this man before  British judges seeking to expel him.

Ken Clarke has even challenged her that nobody has even been refused deportation purely because they owned a cat. However, May has been back pedaling since she left the stage saying that the fact checking of her speech was done from the press, maybe she puts too much trust in the Daily Mail's reporting of this story. Why not the court papers themselves to which she would have access?

May got a knee jerk reaction to her speech from the conference faithful, just as Nick Clegg gained a great cheer for saying we would not be scrapping the Human Rights Act in his speech at Lib Dem Conference. The difference is that Nick Clegg knows the history of the Human Rights Act, as he demonstrated in his speech, Theresa May was just playing to the crowd.


We are right to stand up for civil liberties. No retreat to the illiberal populism of the Labour years. We are right to insist on keeping the tax system fair. Asking the most of the people who have the most. And we will always defend human rights, at home as well as abroad. The European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act are not, as some would have you believe, foreign impositions. These are British rights, drafted by British lawyers. Forged in the aftermath of the atrocities of the Second World War. Fought for by Winston Churchill. So let me say something really clear about the Human Rights Act. In fact I'll do it in words of one syllable: It is here to stay. Nick Clegg in Birmingham 21 September 

Update The BBC have made it possible download the original judgement here


Notes:

The European Court of Human Rights came into being21 January 1959 by virtue of Article 19 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Convention was founded out of the Council of Europe at the end of World War II.

The Council and what it were seen as required to do were laid out by a speech from Winston Churchill on (fortuitously for my memory my birthday) 19 September, 1946.

In the meantime some cats.
Source URL: https://free-wallpapers-2.blogspot.com/search/label/Conservatives
Visit Free Wallpapers | Wallpapers 2012 for daily updated images of art collection