Quote of the day 4th February 2023


 

Comments

Paul Holdsworth said…
I accept the unpleasant truth that there are politicians who do lie to us, Chris, but your blog is not very conducive to pointing out those lies - you won't have it.

There was never, ever a genuine intention by the Conservatives to build "40 new hospitals" - it has long been clear Johnson's outrageously dishonest 2019 manifesto pledge, defended by you yourself, Chris, is a complete sham.

The Observer now reports that planning permission is in place for just eight - eight! - of the 40 projects (most of which are not new hospitals at all, of course, they're refurbishments and extensions), and that there is a 0% chance of the promised 40 new hospitals being built by 2030 - despite it being a central manifesto pledge of the current administration.

The fundamental untruthfulness of that pledge is something you have repeatedly refused to accept, Chris. But you have also been determined to stop contributors to your blog from calling out lying politicians when we see them - you can't abide it when commentators call out Tory politicians' blatant lies.

So the biggest refusal to accept unpleasant truths on here is - it's you, isn't it, Chris? You ignore any unpleasant truths as they relate to your party. You don't comment on tax-dodging chancellors, bullying Tory front-benchers, law-breaking PMs, and a completely unhinged administration led by a self-deceiving Tory PM who crashed the economy, costing us all billions.

These things never get mentioned in your blog because, for you, they're unpleasant truths.

So what are the just deserts of the many politicians who refuse to accept unpleasant truths, Chris? Do they get voted out of office? As purveyors of these grand deceptions, who encourage their readers to ignore unpleasant truths, they certainly deserve to become pariahs.

Chris Whiteside said…
Paul, someone who is constantly accusing anyone who makes a statement you disagree with of lying really ought to pay more attention to the accuracy of tour own statements.

On the same day you posted the above comment accusing me of never mentioning certain subjects on this blog, you also posted another comment on a post - and not the only one which exists on this blog either - about one of the very subjects you accuse me above of never posting about!

Do you not even make the most cursory attempt to read the posts you comment on?

Yesterday while on a visit to a hospital in Cumbria I walked past one of the magnificent new buildings which has been completed and opened as part of the hospital building programme which you describe as a "complete sham." It looked pretty real to me and it is providing a substantial improvement in cancer care to residents of Cumbria.
Jim said…
I wonder if a lot of the "Unplesant truths" are true these days. I realised a while ago austerity is a choice not manatory and the "debt" is nothing more than an illusion. QE and covid proved that to me.
Anonymous said…
I do make a cursory attempt to read your blog, Chris. But only cursory, I'm afraid.

You're more of a historian than a commentator, aren't you? You keep loyally mum throughout each and every scandal afflicting your party, only hazarding an opinion once the issue is no longer live. I'd read with much more interest if you posted about issues while they're actually current - do you think Truss's dreams of a comeback are delusional, for example, or: why do you think Raab hasn't been suspended, when you, I and everyone we know would certainly expect to be suspended if we'd faced a fraction of the complaints he's being investigated for. You must have an opinion on this, but you'll duck the question and regurgitate the party line of "due process" (ignoring the inconvenient truth that due process, for the rest of us, would include immediate suspension!). Why would I want to read recycled CCHQ press releases like that, anything more than cursorily?

But you're right, mea culpa, I'm sorry I accused you of not commenting on the Zahawi cover-up - I was wrong, you did.

Delighted you were wowed by the new hospital building you saw - I'm sure it'll make a big difference to the patients who use it. Did it persuade you that the hospital building programme will deliver on the central promise of 40 new hospitals by 2030? Because that promise is what I said was a complete sham - and it is.
Paul Holdsworth said…
Sorry Chris, maybe you missed that question. I'll restate it, to give you yet another opportunity to accept an unpleasant truth you've spent much effort avoiding. Did the facility you mention persuade you that the hospital building programme will deliver on the central commitment to build 40 new hospitals by 2030?
Chris Whiteside said…
You can't have it both ways, Paul - in the past when I have delayed both putting your posts up and answering them, you complained about me not releasing them until I had written a response.

On this occasion, I saw your comment the day after it was posted and released it immediately, but, having been extremely busy this week, have not got round to answering it until now.

Do I accept that the programme to build 40 new hospital projects is a complete sham or that there was never any intention to take it seriously? Absolutely not, the new cancer centre in Carlisle is one of eight projects now up and running which were built under that programme and I have attended meetings with the NHS trust which provides service in the area of North Lancashire and South Cumbria where I presume you live about the bids they are bringing forward which include proposals not just for new wings or departments but in one case for a complete new hospital.

Does that mean that the proposals are on schedule? Sadly, No. The devastating double impact on the economy of first COVID-19 and then Putin's illegal war have delayed many highly desirable things and I accept that it is very unlikely that we will hit the original timetable to deliver all 40 of these projects by 2030.

Does that mean that we have abandoned the promise? No. It is still the intention to complete as many of these projects by 2030 as possible, and the rest as soon after 2030 as possible.


With regard to the other points on your post: I accept your apology. Perhaps I can suggest the relevance of something which the late C.S. Lewis once wrote, that the ability to "know negatives" was a sign that you know a subject very well indeed. The converse applies too. If one has only had a cursory look at something, making negative statements - not critical ones, statements about what it does not contain - can be asking for trouble.

There is a good reason why any wise person who is involved in politics or government often has to fall back on the "due process" position, and it's not just because it is the party line. If I offered an opinion on why Dominic Raab has not been suspended you can bet your life someone would accuse me either of pre-judging the results of the inquiry, or speculating without knowledge, or both. And frankly, they would probably have a point.

Do I think speculation about the return of Liz Truss is delusional?

I can give you a view on that one. I think Rishi Sunak will lead the Conservatives into the next general election as Prime Minister. I think we have had as many changes of PM without a general election as the public will accept and to do it again would not be in the interests of either the country or the Conservative party. I think the majority of Conservative MPs are well aware of this.

I have not read the recent interview by Liz Truss. From the reports I've seen about it, I assumed it was more of an attempt at rehabilitation rather than a comeback. But I would not claim to know her mind on the subject.

Would an attempt at the latter be, in your words, "Delusional?"

Well, I'll respond with the code phrase which will forever be associated with the late Sir Ian Richardson,

"You might very well think that, I couldn't possibly comment."
Chris Whiteside said…
Jim - I have always hated the description of any attempt to balance the books as "austerity" because the point of the policy is not to deliberately cause pain but to keep debt under control.

Because of COVID we've gone far further away from the aim of balancing the books than I like.

Please don't give up on the idea that debt matters, Jim, there are many times when a contrarian voice is needed, and on more than one occasion you have been a welcome voice of balance, by making a critique of the government from exactly the opposite direction from which the vast majority of critics were coming - and when I have been very afraid that the fact that so few concerns were being raised from that direction was extremely dangerous.
Paul Holdsworth said…
Morphing the commitment to build "40 new hospitals" into a commitment to build "40 new hospital projects" is a cheap trick, Chris. The electorate was promised 40 new HOSPITALS and you're trying to move the goalposts. This sort of chicanery fools no-one.

And your justification for ducking the question as to why Raab hasn't been suspended, when in a similar circumstance the rest of us would be suspended, is equally spurious. If suspension while an inquiry into allegations of bullying was initiated constituted a pre-judgement of that inquiry, then it wouldn't ever happen. But it does, all the time - just not to the likes of Raab. As a 'wise person involved in politics' you again resort to the 'due process' dodge - AGAIN ignoring the fact that due process for everyone else involves immediate suspension!

That doesn't look wise at all, Chris. It looks downright devious.
Chris Whiteside said…
We were unable to agree when we debated this many times before and I'm afraid we are not going to agree now.

In particular we've had the argument about what was meant by the promise on new hospitals on multiple previous occasions, starting when it was first made before the 2019 election, and although you didn't agree with me then either I stated specifically even before the election that it meant 40 new hospital projects, so you can't reasonably accuse me of morphing it now.

If you really didn't understand that the "due process" argument is a genuine reason not to comment, not just a way of ducking a question, you would be far more stupid than I think you are.

When you say that "due process" for "the rest of us" would mean immediate suspension I presume you mean for everyone other than politicians. Dominic Raab is hardly the first politician to be accused of bullying, such accusations are regularly made against political leaders of all political parties, and if the investigation finds against him he would not be the first to whom that has happened either. However, I can't ever remember a politician being suspended while that particular charge was investigated.

I simply do not agree that due process normally does mean that a person accused of anything is always subject to automatic and immediate suspension from their job in the world inside or outside politics.

Different companies and authorities have different policies, but whether suspension is seen as a proportionate response to an allegation would tend to depend on what exactly the person against whom the complaint has been made has been accused of, how serious that accusation is, the degree of risk which the person accused would pose to other people or the aims of the organisation concerned if the accusation were true, and so on.

Obviously someone accused of, say physical assault, rape, or large-scale embezzling would almost certainly be suspended. In the company I work for, someone who was accused of having hit another employee, or operating heavy machinery while drunk, or stealing thousands of pounds, would almost certainly be suspended while the accusations were investigated.

But if someone in my company or several other bodies with which I am familiar was accused of having over-claimed on their expenses by £50, or having bullied a subordinate when the type of bullying concerned involved no actual or threatened violence but rather things like saying calmly of a report the subordinate had written "this isn't good enough, I can't accept it" then immediate suspension would probably not be seen as proportionate.

Obviously as I have not seen all the allegations against Dominic Raab and do not know how representative the reports in "The Times" and other newspapers are of the complaints made against him, I am in no position to make any statement about whether this applies.
Paul Holdsworth said…
You do love misrepresenting my position in order to avoid responding to it, don't you Chris?

"I stated specifically even before the election that it meant 40 new hospital projects, so you can't reasonably accuse me of morphing it now."

I'm not arguing with YOUR (bizarre) interpretation of what the words "40 new hospitals" means (although you'd definitely fail a primary school English comprehension test with it). What YOU believe those words mean is of no great importance - what matters is how they are interpreted by the electorate. The promise was made to us, after all.

Although you are of course part of the electorate yourself, your silly misrepresentation of that promise is a rather sad attempt to defend your party. It doesn't represent what you know those words mean to the person on the Clapham omnibus. If you did truly believe that, you'd be far more stupid than I think you are...

I'm saying, quite simply, that to anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with the English language, a promise to build 40 new hospitals does NOT mean 40 new hospital PROJECTS, it means 40 new HOSPITALS.

Clearly the government is not going to deliver 40 new hospitals. Was it ever intending to? No, even according to you it was never going to do that. It is now, and always has been, a false promise. A sham.

As you say, we've disagreed on this before. We'll not agree now or ever. But it doesn't hurt to point out again just how wilfully obtuse you're being.

Re. Raab, you write:

"I simply do not agree that due process normally does mean that a person accused of anything is always subject to automatic and immediate suspension from their job in the world inside or outside politics."

Who don't you agree with on that, Chris? Because that's certainly not the argument I presented you with. Ah yes, you're misrepresenting my position again so you don't have to answer it, aren't you?.

"... whether suspension is seen as a proportionate response to an allegation would tend to depend on what exactly the person against whom the complaint has been made has been accused of..."

Now we're getting somewhere. So what exactly has Raab been accused of? Fiddling his expenses? Nope. Rape? Embezzlement? Assault? No.

We know exactly what he's been accused of. No 10 has confirmed that he's facing eight formal complaints of bullying across three different departments. Now, I'm arguing that in most people's place of work that would certainly result in suspension.

Of course, it might be that he's not a bully, but just a rather unpleasant person with a poor grasp of how to get the best from subordinates. Or perhaps that there's been a conspiracy by numerous civil servants across three different departments to "get" him.

No point in speculating. Until Adam Tolley KC reports, we won't know the full detail. But that's not pertinent to whether he should be suspended IN THE INTERIM. As you say, what matters is what exactly he's been 'accused' of, NOT what he's guilty of. We don't know the full details of the complaints, of course. But what we DO know is clearly enough to warrant suspension.

Unless you're seriously suggesting that eight formal complaints of bullying across three different departments would not IN ITSELF be sufficiently serious to warrant suspension in most other workplaces?
Chris Whiteside said…
I have never deliberately misrepresented your position. I am sorry you feel I have done so: if I have it was accidental.

This government is bringing forward a vast programme of hospital buildings. I see the evidence for this with my own eyes almost every time I enter a hospital, which I very frequently have to do. The reality that billions have been spent on magnificent new hospital buildings since 2019 will remain true no matter how many times people squabble about the semantics of the wording of the promise.

The term bullying has been used to cover a vast range of things, ranging from some which probably would justify suspension of a person accused of them while the charges were investigated to others which certainly would not.

You may think you know what exactly Dominic Raab has been accused of, I know that I do not. If you want to take positions on things you don't know the full facts about, that is up to you, but I am not going to go down that road and therefore I will wait until the investigation report. In the meantime I am not going to take a position on whether Raab should have been suspended.

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