At first blush, it may seem strange that I am focussing today on Andrea Jenkyns MP [Con, Morley and Outwood], in that she wants to leave the EU, is an animal-lover and a vegetarian. I support, in essence, all three positions. Also, she has chronic medical conditions, and I always feel sorry for people suffering in that way. However, “there is no religion higher than Truth” and so on, so I am writing about her, though —after thought– I have decided not to include her in my blog category “Deadhead MPs: An Occasional Series”. That decision may reflect mercy more than justice, but so far she falls just the right side of the line.
“Jenkyns was born in Beverley, Humberside. After leaving school at 16, Jenkyns secured employment at Greggs bakery as her first job.[4] When 18, Jenkyns’ father sent her photo off to a beauty pageant and she got into the final for Miss UK.[5] Over the subsequent years Jenkyns changed employment a number of times, performing a number of different roles at different businesses. Her employment history has included being a secondary school music teacher and an executive with a management training company.” [Wikipedia]
What does that show? Not necessarily that she is unacademic or unintelligent. There are reasons, or were, why people drop out of school early (I believe that it is now more or less mandatory for them to stay until 18). In her thirties she did study for a degree (for what it may be worth these days): International Relations and Politics. Her Wikipedia entry does not say that she was awarded the degree or finished the course at the University of Lincoln. It seems that she may have finished the degree over time at the Open University. She was also awarded a diploma in Economics from the Open University, but only when in her forties (she will be 45 in June 2019).
Andrea Jenkyns is a singer and songwriter, who even had a musical hit in South Central Asia at one time.
I started this study thinking that I would find Andrea Jenkyns rather mediocre and even one of my “deadhead MPs”, but find that I slightly warm to her. She is evidently genuinely interested in animal welfare, and got into politics, it seems, from a recognition that the NHS needed to improve its standards, particularly hygiene standards in hospitals, her own father having perished from having developed MRSA.
Sadly, like so many MPs, Andrea Jenkyns seems to think that proper preparation is unnecessary. Not so. Lack of preparation can make you look rather silly.
"I don't fear the WTO!" insists Andrea Jenkyns, mere seconds after being exposed to the apparent kryptonite of simple questions and demonstrating that her pitiful knowledge of the subject barely goes beyond the acronym itself.
Her husband, Giacomo “Jack” Lopresti MP, a former Army reservist, would be able to tell her about the military acronym “the 5 Ps” (PPPPP) (“Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance”); the less polite version has 6 Ps.
Nearly three years of Brexit and ERG ‘star’ Andrea Jenkyns still hasn’t done her basic homework. The arrogance of these people is staggering https://t.co/rYlN4yoffm
Andrea Jenkyns is absurd. Nothing going on there at all. Nothing. I think we should all start demanding *a lot* more from our MPs. https://t.co/SeYPeUSv6Y
As mentioned above, I myself strongly favour Leave/Brexit, but the performance of dunce-like Conservative Leave MPs (some of them) makes me fume: Iain Dunce Duncan Smith is another such.
On the even more negative side, it seems that Andrea Jenkyns is a member (like 80% of Con Party MPs) of Conservative Friends of Israel. Her husband, Jack Lopresti, is another one.
As to her future, her constituency is a Con-Lab marginal created in 2010 and held until 2015 by Labour big-hitter and Bilderberger, Ed Balls. Morley and Outwood has had Con and Lab (Labour and Cooperative) within a couple of points of each other in 2010 and 2015, but in 2017 Andrea Jenkyns won with a bigger margin (50.7% as against 46.7% voting Labour). The third-placed (and only other in 2017), the LibDems, scored worse in 2017 than they had in 2015 (2.6% from 3%). This is a trend seen across the country.
UKIP scored 16.5% in 2015, but did not stand in 2017. There is every prospect that, if Brexit Party stands any time soon, that it could outdo UKIP’s 2015 result. It is doubtful that Brexit Party could win, but a vote amounting even to 10%, let alone 16.5% or more, would be enough to destroy the Conservative majority.
There is every reason to think that, unless Brexit Party lets her off the hook by not standing a candidate at the next general election, Andrea Jenkyns will have to add “MP” to her other and previous short-lived employments.
Reading the above again, and again watching Andrea Jenkyns squirm in that Daily Politics clip, I think that I probably was too kind in not including her as a “deadhead MP”. Still, there it is.
Andrea Jenkyns has been given an unexpected gift from the Gods inasmuch as Brexit Party is now not standing against her in the 2019 General Election. That may help her to hang on.
Update, 21 December 2019
The gods again smiled on Andrea Jenkyns: Brexit Party did not field a candidate, Labour’s vote collapsed from 46% of the total to 35%, and so Andrea Jenkyns was re-elected with a increased majority and no less than 56.4% of the total vote.
Andrea Jenkyns, with her husband (or ex-husband; it seems unclear), Jack Lopresti [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Lopresti] are both Con Party MPs, and both are also members of Conservative Friends of Israel. His constituency (also to be fought on new boundaries) may be “safer” than his wife’s or ex-wife’s, but whether safe enough to save Lopresti from also having to stack shelves is an open question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filton_and_Bradley_Stoke_(UK_Parliament_constituency). His only real job prior to becoming an MP was in his family’s ice-cream business (he is of Sicilian origin).
Andrea Jenkyns and Jack Lopresti. Both pro-Israel and the UK Jewish lobby. Kick them both into the political gutter, dear voters.”
Labour 44%, Con 23%, Reform UK 20.4%. Even had all the Reform voters voted for her, Andrea Jenkyns would still have lost. Looks like she has had her 9 years of high pay, good expenses, and other perks. She will probably end up stacking shelves.
The political realities and tendencies of 2025, Reform UK, and Eastern England being as they are, there is every chance that Andrea Jenkyns will win election to that post.
Update, 2 May 2025
Well, there it is. Once again, Andrea Jenkyns, former Greggs employee (etc) has been saved from stacking shelves at Lidl by electoral success. She is now the Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, a name reminiscent of the inventions of P.G. Wodehouse.
Incidentally, Jack Lopresti, Andrea Jenkyns’ ex-husband, is now sitting at a desk in Kiev doing some kind of military-connected work for the Kiev regime:
“A Tory MP who lost his Westminster seat in the general election last year is now serving in the Ukrainian military.
Jack Lopresti was the MP for Filton and Bradley Stoke, in South Gloucestershire, until Labour’s Claire Hazelgrove secured victory in 2024.
Mr Lopresti, 55, said on social media he was now volunteering for the International Legion of Ukraine, Defence Intelligence.
“It’s a huge honour and an immense privilege for me to serve in the Ukrainian military and be able to help the gallant and amazing Ukrainian people in any way I can,” he said.
Mr Lopresti previously served in the UK Army Reserve as a corporal, and said he was focusing on charity work in the country, supporting veterans, foreign relations and diplomacy and weapons procurement – as well as military duties.“
So here we are again, in the “deadhead MPs” zone. The problem I have is that so very many MPs are now deadheads, meaning MPs who fall below the bar even for mediocrity. Mediocrity alone does not qualify an MP to be immortalized here. The MP must be outstandingly poor. How to say where that line is set, when so many now qualify? Anyway, having already chosen a number of MPs to participate in this series, here is a well-deserving example: Jess Phillips MP [Lab, Birmingham Yardley].
Jess Phillips
Background
Jess Phillips is the daughter of two “socialist”-oriented persons, who apparently walked around naked all the time at home, in front of their children. Very odd. Even the East Germans (some of them) only did that on specified Baltic beaches. The online magazine, Conservative Woman, commented thus:
“‘Teach girls at school about orgasms, says Labour MP’. That startling newspaper headline, alone, would have been sufficient for most readers to guess that the source was an interview given by that shameless self-publicist Jess Phillips.“
“Her interview also revealed that not only was Phillips brought up in a ‘naked household . . . an environment where nothing was embarrassing’, today in her own home she often goes around nude. Jess further boasts of being ‘open about sex’ with her two sons, currently aged 10 and 14, which must be delightful for them, though it is unclear whether or not she is clothed during their intimate chats.”
“If Phillips’s tale of home nudity is actually true and not a wind-up, far from being charmingly eccentric, it is revolting. Were a father revealed to be exposing himself to school-age daughters, with whom he frankly discusses sex, it would likely be career-ending, certainly for an MP, and might also interest both social services and police.”
“But don’t expect Jess Phillips to have her collar felt – she won’t be wearing one.”
Readers of the profile were not complimentary to Jess Phillips:
“Phillips is as mad as a barrel of polecats anyway. The fact that people actually vote for her is astonishing.”
and
“I’d like to like Jess Phillips, because at least she seems to have an infectious laugh. The trouble is, I remember her laughing also at male suicide statistics. Seemed to think it funny that suicide is the leading cause of death in British men aged 20-49. Not so funny really.”
It seems that her parents, though “socialist”, set up a private company in order to make money out of the NHS, her mother having been Deputy Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation and Chair of South Birmingham Mental Health Trust. That private company was active from 2003 until at least 2010, but is now defunct. Jess Phillips’ mother died in 2011.
Jess Phillips attended a local grammar school for girls, then the University of Leeds (Economic and Social History and Social Policy, a “soft” degree); she then took a post-graduate diploma in Public Sector Management at the University of Birmingham.
“At 16 I was a raver, a party animal to say the least. Weekends would start early on a Friday night, round at my friend’s house where we’d get ready. Then we’d be out, maybe to a local party at someone’s house. Then on Saturday it was an all-night rave until the wee small hours of Sunday.”
The only known jobs done by Jess Phillips are working for her parents until 2010 (when she was 29), and (from 2010) working as a business development manager at Women’s Aid domestic abuse charity. It is unclear for how long this position lasted. In the 2010-2015 period, Jess Phillips was also engaged in paid political activity as a councillor and as a member of at least two local quango panels. On occasion, Jess Phillips has made reference to having done waitressing and other work, but I think that we can be sure that we are talking days or weeks rather than months or years, assuming that she ever did those jobs at all.
Jess Phillips is married to one Tom Phillips. They have two children. I have been unable, as yet, to discover whether her husband is of Jewish or part-Jewish origin or indeed whether she herself is.
Controversies as MP
Jess Phillips
was selected as candidate not by open competition but via an approved “all-women shortlist”;
is a member of Labour Friends of Israel and has made a number of pro-Jewish interventions; Jews on Twitter etc often seem to give her support (may be part-Jew);
invented an altercation with Diane Abbott MP in which, Phillips claimed, “‘I roundly told her to fuck off.’ When asked what Ms Abbott did after that suggestion, Ms Phillips replied: ‘She fucked off.'” According to Diane Abbott in a January 2018 Guardian interview: “Jess Phillips never told me to fuck off. What was extraordinary is that she made a big deal of telling people she had”. Phillips later apologised.” [Huffington Post]
“Phillips told Owen Jones in December 2015 that she had told Corbyn and his staff “to their faces: ‘The day that … you are hurting us more than you are helping us, I won’t knife you in the back, I’ll knife you in the front‘”, if it looked as though he was damaging Labour’s chances of winning the next general election. Responding to criticism about her use of language, Phillips said on Twitter: “I am no more going to actually knife Jeremy Corbyn than I am actually a breath of fresh air, or a pain in the arse” [Wikipedia]
walks around in the nude at home, despite having two sons living with her;
has quarrelled with UKIP MEP candidate Carl Benjamin aka “Sargon of Akkad”, who said, in 2015, that “he would not even rape her”. Jess Phillips has now dredged that up, four years later, and has been making her usual and no doubt well-paid round of the TV and radio studios in order to make more publicity for herself out of it; she has even made complaint to the police about it, four years on (and, no doubt coincidentally, during the EU election campaign)!
has threatened several times to resign from the Labour Party but somehow never quite manages to do it (see below for details of how much money she drags down solely by being an MP);
“In July 2018 it was reported that Phillips served as deputy editor of The House, the in-house Parliamentary magazine published by the Dods Group, which had been purchased by Conservative Party donor and former Tory vice-chairman Michael Ashcroft, earning an annual salary of £8,000 for two hours’ work per month.” [Wikipedia]. So she does maybe 2 hours work each month for that obscure magazine, which pays her about £700 per month, i.e. about £350 an hour. Not bad compared to most of her poverty-stricken constituents, who are probably lucky to get £10 a hour!
draws a salary of £80,000 and also claims a quarter of a million pounds each year in expenses, most of which consists of “staff pay”, which includes £50,000 a year paid to her husband as “Constituency Support Manager” (house husband?); she also claims about £30,000 a year for accommodation (about 50% more than average);
constantly makes the rounds of TV studios, radio studios, Press interviews (all or mostly paid…)
Ambition
“In March 2019, she said: “I think I’d be a good prime minister” and that “I feel like I can’t leave the Labour Party without rolling the dice one more time. I owe it that. But it doesn’t own me. It’s nothing more than a logo if it doesn’t stand for something that I actually care about – it’s just a f***ing rose.” [Wikipedia]
Conclusion
The mystery is (or would be, were it not so common in the House of Commons now) why this ignorant, uncultured, foul-mouthed creature was ever thought suitable to be an MP. Birmingham Yardley is a safe Labour seat, and it seems that no way exists for her to be removed, unless her local Labour Party deselects her. Incredibly, despite her saying time and again that Labour means nothing to her, she has been reselected. She makes a very good living out of being a caricature loudmouth MP, and I see no possibility that she will leave Labour unless another party offers her a continued sinecure. Unfortunately.
Jess Phillips is the Left's equivalent of Boris Johnson – using irreverence and edginess as a substitute for ability, more interested in being a media celeb than in the hard graft of political ideas and debate, courting publicity at every opportunity. Why do people fall for it?
In case people think that I select only tweets hostile to Jess Phillips, here is one from (another) “Labour” and pro-Zionist doormat, Stella Creasy MP (Labour Friends of Israel etc), who wants to make “misogyny” [meaning trenchant criticism of any female, female MP that is] a “hate crime”! Note: Stella Creasy and Jess Phillips are both personal friends and members of Labour Friends of Israel.
It makes me want to tear stuff up and go all boudicca that this is happening to @jessphillips – I'll settle for now for making misogyny a hate crime so these idiots can be tackled and ensuring there's jacobs crackers and edam on tap whenever she needs next door x https://t.co/17XM6SJf6x
and here is another tweet supporting Jess Phillips, this time from vastly privileged System mouthpiece Dan Snow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Snow , the son of BBC talking head Peter Snow. Dan Snow: St. Paul’s School, Balliol College, Oxford, married to the second daughter of the 6th Duke of Westminster (who was one of the richest men in Britain). “Snow presented his first programme in October 2002 just after graduating from university, co-presenting the BBC’s 60th anniversary special on the Battles of El Alamein with his father” [Wikipedia]. “With his father”?…Oh, that’s handy… Nepotism Central…Also a Remain drone (of course), Dan Snow thinks that making a silly remark should “instantly” disqualify a political candidate! He’s a well-educated, er, idiot…(correction, a well-educated and above all well-connected idiot).
Feeling so sad and helpless about the @jessphillips assault discourse. It should obviously be instantly disqualifying. That it isn't shows there is evil in our politics. I would never have believed it of my country.
and here’s another, but this time obscure, idiot who also believes that only “approved” and uncontroversial candidates should be allowed. Oh, right, like in Asian fake “democracies” such as China…
of course you are in an 'obvious box' – your politics are those of a careerist politician. You could be any number of Parties. I would suggest that your eye is on the main chance for Jess Phillips, not the people of Britain who you say you serve…? #RevolvingDoor
I have to admit that I found the following tweet rather funny!
Just leaving Westminster and and man ran down the street along side me asking me about why Carl Benjamin shouldn't be able to joke about my rape. Shouting "I pay your wages".
First The Times gave us Phillips as glamorous & seductive, now we have her looking like a prison warden. No matter how the media portray Phillips they'll never persuade us she's anything other than a publicity seeking opportunist. pic.twitter.com/7RlPDPNz7r
I expect that the judge and police/CPS will turn a blind eye. I myself think that she should suffer some penalty. What an incredibly stupid woman she is.
Update, 15 November 2023
🚨🚨 BREAKING: Jess Phillips has RESIGNED from Keir Starmer's front bench after voting for a Gaza ceasefire pic.twitter.com/x1zRT2v2Vr
Maybe liberalism’s children are starting to realise that multiculturalism has been a disastrous social experiment that no one wanted and that will destroy every society it’s forced upon. https://t.co/9qRLKK25TC
It just occurred to me that, with Jess Phillips, the apple did not fall far from the tree. She, like her parents, combines pseudo-socialism with grabbing as much money as possible, and with using Labour Party networking in order to do that.
I saw tweets about her today:
This is exactly the same kind of whataboutery and denialism that enabled the rape gangs to begin with https://t.co/Ol7CYZmIhy
Just a straight-out enemy of the future of white Europe.
Update, 25 October 2025
The second is from all 6 survivors switalskis represent both on the panel and 2 that have resigned, outlining the concern both from on the panel and that led to people leaving the panel. pic.twitter.com/7hgIXsCGEj
[above, Rory Stewart, many years ago in Afghanistan, consciously reprising Lawrence of Arabia; he was sometimes called both “Florence of Arabia” (in Iraq) and “Florence of Belgravia” (because of his well-connected and wealthy background)]
Introduction
My attention was caught by the BBC Politics tweet below.
Rory Stewart MP [Con, Penrith and Borders], who until yesterday was Minister of State for Prisons, a political dead-end, now can be said, appropriately enough, to have jumped free with one bound, and is now Secretary of State for International Development, a position again not quite in the front rank but a Cabinet post all the same. From his new elevation, Stewart has wasted no time in declaring his candidature for Conservative Party leadership.
I have been interested in Stewart and his political career for several years. I was puzzled as to why someone who appeared to have so many advantages (wealth, family influence, expensive education, pre-political career moves, a degree of public prominence etc) seemed to have run into the sand as an MP. However, it may be that he was playing a long game which will yet bring him to the highest office.
I do blog about MPs individually, but mostly those I term “deadhead MPs”. Stewart is certainly not one of those. However, his CV is almost too obviously brilliant. He seems to have almost too many talents, qualifications and virtues to be true. I do, perhaps unfairly, harbour a suspicion that the sum of his many parts may not quite add up to the same amount.
“After graduating, Stewart joined the Foreign Office.[11] He served in the British Embassy in Indonesia from 1997 to 1999, working on issues related to East Timor independence, and was appointed at the age of 26 as the British Representative to Montenegro in the wake of the Kosovo campaign.” [Wikipedia]
Stewart is believed to have been, like his father, an officer of the Secret Intelligence Service [SIS], a fact alluded to by David Dimbleby on BBC Question Time. Stewart neither agreed nor demurred. Still, a touch of the James Bonds impresses the common herd, I suppose…
[above, Brian Stewart, the father of Rory Stewart, wearing the badge of a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG), the 4th-highest order of chivalry in the UK (if excluding two now-dormant orders, the Order of St. Patrick and the Order of The Star of India)]
“After the coalition invasion of Iraq, he became the Coalition Provisional Authority Deputy Governorate Co-Ordinator in Maysan and Deputy Governorate Co-ordinator/Senior Advisor in Dhi Qar in 2003, both of which are provinces in southern Iraq.[9] He was posted initially to the KOSB Battlegroup then to the Light Infantry.[12] His responsibilities included holding elections, resolving tribal disputes, and implementing development projects.[12] He faced growing unrest and an incipient civil war from his base in a Civil-Military Co-operation(CIMIC) compound in Al Amarah, and in May 2004 was in command of his compound in Nasiriyah when it was besieged by Sadrist militia.[9] He was awarded an OBE for his services during this period. While Stewart initially supported the Iraq War, the International Coalition’s inability to achieve a more humane, prosperous state led him in retrospect to believe the invasion had been a mistake.” [Wikipedia]
Full marks for honesty, but not for perspicacity. Let’s look at the above again: Stewart joined the FCO (and/or SIS) in 1995-96 and by 1999, at age 26, he is British Representative in Montenegro, at that time emerging from nearly a decade of ex-Yugoslav conflict.
This is rather remarkable. Why was a 26-y-o appointed to this rather important strategic post? Even more remarkably, perhaps, Stewart was then posted to Iraq in the immediate post-invasion era, and was rather famously deputy-governor of an Iraqi province at the age of 28. As noted above, he even “saw action” to some extent when his compound was besieged by militia fighters.
“From 2000 to 2002 he travelled on foot through rural districts of Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India and Nepal, a journey totalling around 6000 miles, during which time he stayed in five hundred different village houses. He had previously walked across West Papua in 1998,[115] and has since made a number of long walks through Cumbria and Britain. He also travelled into Libya a day after the fall of Colonel Gaddafi.” [Wikipedia]
“In late 2005, at the request of the Prince of Wales and Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan,[15] he established, as Executive Chairman, the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, a human development NGO, in Afghanistan, and relocated to Kabul where he lived for the next three years restoring historic buildings in the old city of Kabul, managing its finances, installing water supply, electricity, and establishing a clinic, a school and an institute for traditional crafts.[4] Stewart was awarded the Royal Scottish Geographical Society‘s Livingstone medal in 2009 “in recognition of his work in Afghanistan and his travel writing, and for his distinguished contribution to geography”.[16] Stewart stepped down as Executive Chairman of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in May 2010.” [Wikipedia]
By any standards, Stewart’s life up to age 33 at least (he is now 46) was packed with achievements and adventures. Not many UK MPs could lay claim to anything even a tenth as interesting and varied (note my blogs about “deadhead MPs”). Indeed, it seems that, in 2008, a Hollywood studio (Studio Canal/Brad Pitt) actually bought the film rights to do a biopic of Stewart, starring, it was envisaged, Orlando Bloom as Stewart! No film has been made (yet).
This is not the British politics we know! This is somewhere in the realm of John Buchan and Sidney Reilly, a post-imperial Great Game pastiche.
Stewart’s second book, The Prince of the Marshes: and other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq, also published as Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq, describes his experiences as a Deputy Governorate Co-ordinator in Iraq.[4] The New York Timescritic William Grimes commented that Stewart “seems to be living one of the more extraordinary lives on record”, but for him the “real value of the new book is Mr. Stewart’s sobering picture of the difficulties involved in creating a coherent Iraqi state based on the rule of law”.[126] Stewart’s books have been translated into multiple languages.
Stewart’s reflections on the circumstances under which outside military and political intervention in countries’ internal affairs may or may not hope to achieve positive results were distilled in a 2011 book, Can Intervention Work?, co-authored with Gerald Knaus and part of the Amnesty International Global Ethics Series. He has also written about theory and practice of travel writings in prefaces to Wilfred Thesiger‘s Arabian Sands,[127]Charles Doughty‘s Arabia Deserta[128] and Robert Byron‘s The Road to Oxiana.[129]
In 2016, he published The Marches, a travelogue about a 1,000-mile walk in the borderlands separating England and Scotland, known as the Scottish Marches, and an extended essay on his Father, Brian Stewart.[130] The Marches was long listed for the Orwell Prize, won the Hunter Davies Lakeland Book of the Year,[131] was a Waterstones Book of the Month,[132] and became a Sunday Times top ten bestseller.” [Wikipedia]
I suppose that many would be well satisfied to have done even one or two or three of the things noted above. Stewart has dozens of accomplishments and successes to his name. A few more are:
“His 2008 cover article in Time magazine, where he debated presidential candidates Obama and McCain, arguing against a troop surge in Afghanistan, has been shortlisted for an American Journalism Association Award
Afghanistan: The Great Game – A Personal View by Rory Stewart, a documentary in two parts that tells the story of foreign intervention by Britain, Russia and the United States in Afghanistan from the 19th century to the present day,which aired on BBC2 and which won a Scottish BAFTA (2012).[139]
Border Country: The Story of Britain’s Lost Middleland, which investigates the rift created by Hadrian’s Wall, and the issues of identity and culture in a region divided by the fabricated border, which was singled out for praise by David Attenborough.”
“Stewart speaks some French, Persian (Dari), and Indonesian. He has also studied at school, in the Foreign Office, and on his Asian travels, Latin, Greek, Russian, Chinese, Serbo-Croat, Urdu, and Nepali languages. He acknowledges that the latter three languages are “very rusty“;
He has lectured at Harvard and even advised Hillary Clinton…;
He is a karate expert (level unknown) and belongs to the Special Forces Club in London, some of whose members were in WW2 secret work, some were in the military and naval special forces, some ex-intelligence personnel —and there are also some who are rumoured to be just gold-plated fakes and fantasists;
“His speech about hedgehogs in Parliament in 2015[39] was named by The Times and The Telegraph as the best parliamentary speech of 2015 and described by the Deputy Speaker as “one of the best speeches she had ever heard in Parliament” [Wikipedia]
Stewart is married to an American woman who had previously been married to a fellow NGO worker. One of the children of the Stewarts was delivered by Stewart himself without medical assistance.
Stewart once tweeted to me about something, several years ago, and was very polite, something that I value. I do not attribute that entirely to the influence of the Dragon School or, indeed, Eton. He seems to know how to behave (though not all agree, I have heard).
Thoughts
Stewart’s stellar career stalled after he became an MP in 2010. Having said that, he has chaired Commons committees, been promoted slowly but surely, and Wikipedia notes that he attended the Bilderberg cabal along with George Osborne. Not that being a Bilderberg attendee is a guarantee of lasting political success (cf. Nick Boles MP) but it does indicate that the primary powers behind the Western throne consider that a person is of interest.
This is Rory Stewart’s moment of opportunity. He has seized it. Once Theresa May leaves office, the Conservative Party will elect a new leader. Stewart is the international System candidate nonpareil. I should not be surprised were he to win a first ballot outright, bearing in mind the collection of fools, knaves, deadheads and frauds likely to oppose him in the contest:
Penny Mordaunt, best known for diving in a swimsuit (she looked good, so be it…) and for being a reserve naval sub-lieutenant;
Michael Gove, pro-Jew, pro-Israel fraud and expenses cheat (I tweeted that once and it was one of 5 tweets that had me disbarred at the instigation of the Jew lobby, so it pleases me to repeat it!);
Boris Johnson (aka Boris Idiot), who proved as Foreign Secretary that he cannot hold down high office;
Andrea Leadsom, a nonentity;
Jeremy Hunt, smarmy clever snake and tipped to take May’s purple;
Amber Rudd, yet another dimwit, though she thinks herself terribly clever. Pro-Israel, pro-EU, pro-immigration. Was involved personally with Kwasi Kwarteng, the “African at Eton” (well, one of them), who has now married, or is about to marry, a younger Amber Rudd lookalike. Amber Rudd’s own seat may well be lost next time;
Philip Hammond, careful calculating Remainer;
Dominic Raab, part-Jew, pro-Brexit, hardfaced and careerist.
There may be others. There would have been Gavin Williamson (who has the self-confidence of the stupid) and Stephen Crabb (sex pest, expenses cheat and so pro-Israel that he could be termed “an agent of influence”) but both of those have ruled themselves out by their egregiously poor behaviour. Deadheads.
It scarcely needs to be said that, as social nationalist and thinker into the future, I am not on the same page as Rory Stewart, so obviously NWO/ZOG in orientation is he, and whose MP voting record etc is far from entirely to my liking. He also wanted the UK to remain in the EU and now seems to want to “leave” but not really leave: Brexit in name only (BRINO). However, there is no doubt that he is the standout candidate now to replace Theresa May, which means that he could be Prime Minister by the Autumn.
Still don’t understand the hard-on people have for Rory Stewart. Guess Brits can’t get over their worship for the military or posh men addicted to lying about statistics.
Military? Does 5 months as an instant 2nd lieutenant count? Or is that a reference to Stewart’s “secret war” posts?
A few more thoughts, 4 April 2019:
It seems that Stewart favours immigration:
“One farmer told Stewart, “All illegal immigrants should be rounded up and on the first ship out.” Some voters might expect their Conservative candidate at least to nod, but Stewart said, “Hmm,” and changed the subject. After leaving that house, he said quietly, “Actually, I’m rather in favor of immigration.” [The New Yorker]
So he favours (mass?) immigration. That would chime with those Bilderberg/Davos linkages. Also, it is all very well for a spoiled son of the “British Establishment” (father was a high-ranking SIS officer; Stewart lives in a country house surrounded by a small estate of a hundred acres or so) and who has always had access to effectively any money or anything he wanted without struggle or effort, to be OK about the mass of British people being replaced by blacks, browns, Chinese etc; and having to live with those basically backward peoples, share limited housing, road/rail space etc. Not to mention the effect on rates of pay, and the huge strain on public services, education, NHS, “welfare” etc.
Stewart is quite consciously remote from the concerns of the British people. He has put in huge effort on his adventures and career, but has never had to. Big difference.
I seriously wonder now, looking at or studying Stewart, whether he is right for the office of Prime Minister. Yes, it is very impressive to have run an Iraqi province (effectively or not, though?…) or part of Kabul (ditto) when only 28 or 30-ish, it is impressive to have walked across Afghanistan etc. It is impressive to have all those literary and other medals. However, how far does that get you in terms of being a British Prime Minister?
As a matter of fact, is it really that impressive to have been deputy governor of an Iraqi province when you were (some say) no bloody good, accomplished almost nothing and got a transfer a few months later to a more congenial post elsewhere in Iraq? I do not know the truth of it all, and I may be unfair or simply mistaken here, but I wonder whether Stewart’s other great accomplishments have a rather thin layer of reality under the surface glitter?
Impressive though those career highlights are, I am unsure as to whether Stewart really does have what it takes to be Prime Minister of this country in 2019 or 2020, as distinguished from being in that high office in a John Buchan political landscape circa 1912, and as a kind of Richard Hannay, a Hannay who is playing the role of an earlier and English/Scottish type of “Jack Ryan”, the American adventurer-patriot who eventually becomes President in the bestselling books of Tom Clancy.
I have spent some time (by my standards anyway) in preparing and writing and rethinking this picture of Rory Stewart. He disturbs me more than he reassures me: he seems rather fixated on himself, his own psychology, his motivations, his own (enormous and not denied by the man himself) ambition.
It worries me that, in the interviews and profiles I have read, Stewart says much about himself, his achievements, his accomplishments (or allows them to be known…), but little about the needs of the world, of Europe, of the European peoples, of the British people. I see little or nothing in terms of policy, or wider ideas, just a self-view that he is the right sort of chap to run the UK. That sounds like a more impressive sort of David Cameron-Levita-Schlumberger to me, and that worries the hell out of me.
Parris is not only remote from the concerns of the British people (though in his case the remoteness comes not from ancestral hauteur but is the self-consciously created la-di-da-ness of the fastidious metropolitan gay), but is also a pro-immigration Remainer who thinks that ruling the UK should be left to people like him and his affluent, cosmopolitan, pro-multikulti friends. Trouble is, it has been, and look at the result! (Parris himself, elected in 1979, was reprimanded by Mrs Thatcher for having replied to a constituent that she should count herself lucky to have a council house, whatever its flaws…), though he stayed on as an MP until 1986.
I started off thinking that Rory Stewart was, judging objectively, far and away the best candidate to replace Theresa May. I still think that he is by far the most accomplished candidate, but I the more I read about him, the more doubts and suspicions I have. I am also disturbed that some of the Jewish lobby on Twitter seem to favour him.
In the end, no System party or candidate has the right to rule the UK. Social nationalism must triumph.
A few recent tweets seen about Rory Stewart
I’ve a horrid feeling it means they are going to do a deal soon. She will announce she is going, the contest will start with Rory Stewart being lined up as her successor. Democracy is dead in this country, I just worry they will do us out of voting for MEPs too.
Rory Stewart abnormal. Who ignores pleas fr help when a quadriplegic prisoner lying on back 24/7 with bedsore so badly neglected & tissue deteriorated that pelvic bone is exposed ? Stewart as Prisons Minister downright cruel.
I thought I’d heard it all from Diane Abacus until this bloke Rory Stewart springs up. Where do political parties find these lying conniving self indulgent corrupt fuckwits? https://t.co/6cbEnUKXnY
Here is a surprise. The MI6 house journal, the Guardian, shills for ex MI6 officer Rory Stewart (whose dad was also deputy head of MI6). The Guardian views his role in the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan as making him "highly qualified" in International Development. https://t.co/2NrZXzC9tE
The first day of his promotion to Cabinet is an opportune time to recall a classic from Rory Stewart's back catalogue. As Floods Minister he said the flood defences had worked well but the water had come over the top of them. #r4today#BBCNews#Reshufflepic.twitter.com/1N2iHIkvpP
Oh, dear…(see below): I am thinking now that Stewart is rapidly using up his credit with at least some of the public, though in the end the ones who will vote for a new Conservative Party leader will be, initially, the Con MPs in the Commons, not Joe Public. It may be that Stewart will be seen as the ideal “Stop Boris” candidate, someone to rally to. I do not know what level of MP support he now has. I presume some, or why would he risk being humiliated? On the other hand, he does strike me as a very ambitious gambler and chancer.
Am I alone in thinking Rory Stewart comes across as a complete prat. I’ve never seen less leadership qualities from an officer in the armed forces.
The tweeter above is yet another who seems to think that Stewart’s 5 months as a gap-year “officer” on probation is something real, rather than a kind of adventure holiday for the gentry. Unless the tweeter, like others, takes the term SIS “officer” at face value, rather than as a conventional designation (cf. police “officer”, council “officer” etc).
Update, 25 May 2019
Well, here we are after Theresa May’s announcement of departure, and Rory Stewart is on all msm outlets. He has put the knife into Boris-Idiot and may have damaged the latter’s campaign. Opinion on Stewart himself is divided, half seeing his accomplishments and character, half seeing his gaffes. The tweet below is more favourable than not to him
On the other hand, I saw Stewart on TV, saying that “we” must build 2 MILLION (!) houses. My reaction? “Only because the UK has imported millions of unwanted immigrants, who are breeding fast; and Britain CONTINUES to import huge numbers, even in 2019!”
I see no willingness in Bilderberg/Davos Stewart to take on mass immigration. In fact, he seems to support it. The negative effects will scarcely impact him or his family, after all, in his listed Borders country house…
Ah…another tweeter who raises points against Stewart:
and, below, the sort of statement that comes easier to those who have never been poor, hungry, desperate etc…Almost clownish coming from someone who has been an MP and whose votes, with those of other Conservatives and LibDems, enabled the attacks on the unemployed and disabled since 2010…
The country can be a much better and much happier place if we learn again to focus on the small things that make a real difference to people. pic.twitter.com/KfYxEi6E6e
Stewart seems to be an engaging fellow, at least on the surface, but the more I see of him, and the more that I read about his voting record and views, the less I like him ideologically or politically.
Update, 1 June 2019
Ah, I see that I am not alone in thinking that Stewart’s accomplishments and achievements are perhaps not quite all that they seem on paper:
“Though few would speak on the record, there is a broad critique of Stewart that his biography is a little overegged and certainly self-regarding – leading to a nickname, a member of his wider social circle confides, of “Florence of Belgravia”.” [The Guardian]
“Though Stewart has claimed to know “what it feels like to be in the army”, for instance, he spent only a gap year stint in the Black Watch and did not see active service. He can often give the impression his role in Iraq was rather more important than the reality, according to someone who witnessed his work there (“He was regarded as a pretty competent mid-ranking Foreign Office official … He wasn’t a nonentity and I think the view in Iraq was that he was conscientious, but he wasn’t Lawrence of Arabia.”).” [The Guardian]
“Several well-placed observers of Stewart’s time in Afghanistan point out that his much-discussed Afghan walk, the origin of his reputation as an expert on the region, was a month spent crossing a comparatively safe part of the country (“Other people would call it a walking holiday,” notes one).” [The Guardian]
“In general, he has done a lot and it’s all very impressive,” says someone who observed Stewart at close quarters in Kabul. “But it’s not quite as impressive and remarkable as he allows people to think. This is not necessarily all his doing, but the willingness of others to project things on to him … All sorts of journalists wrote up the Turquoise Mountain Foundation [Stewart’s Afghan NGO, which aimed to preserve local crafts] as the most amazing project in Afghanistan, when it was actually a rather low impact thing that affected the lives of a small number of people.” [The Guardian]
“…to his credit he does not dissemble when asked directly about his experience (“It was unbelievably brief,” he told the New Yorker of his time in the Black Watch.)” [The New Yorker; The Guardian]. So not even 5 months? Sounds as though it was somewhere between the 5 months previously claimed and, er, what? A week? A month? A few months?
“Claims this week to have “negotiated in Iraq, negotiated in Afghanistan” provoked “snorts of derision”, the former Afghanistan correspondent Jon Boone tweeted. “Who with, the Kabul guild of potters and calligraphers?” [The Guardian]
Maybe Stewart should not have exposed his gilding to the very harsh light of scrutiny.
A few more thoughts
Since I penned the main blog post, much has happened. Stewart has come under more scrutiny, but also has travelled the country (the UK, not Afghanistan) doing Twitter vox pop chats with random passers-by. At least he is not afraid to do that. He is becoming better-known to the public and apparently now has a few Conservative MPs supporting him; but not many. As to the bookmakers, some have him as 66/1 for “next Conservative leader”, though Betfair betting exchange has him at 12/1, which strikes me as more realistic (making that 66/1 a value bet if you can get it)
“Speaking in her personal capacity – and not in her current role as chief executive of the Jo Cox Foundation – Catherine Anderson told The Courier she was drawn to Rory’s internationalism.” [The Courier]
A few more endorsements like that and it’s Goodnight Vienna to Stewart!
Ah…seems that Catherine Anderson is “an aspiring Conservative MP” who used to be “Chief of Staff” and Campaign Manager for (drum roll…) Rory Stewart! In fact she worked for Rory Stewart for nearly 9 years!
Well, the first ballot has been held and Rory Stewart is still standing. Just. 4th from bottom. All below him (McVey, Leadsom, Harper) eliminated (though only from the contest, sadly…). So far, only 19 MPs voted for Stewart. His immediate prospects look bleak, inasmuch as Boris-Idiot, someone with no real vision, ability, ideas, ideals, nor even basic decency, is the frontrunner still. Boris has 114 craven MPs backing him, so far.
Our analysis of the results of the first ballot of the Conservative leadership contest… three candidates have been eliminated – Leadsom, Harper and McVey. pic.twitter.com/GUlcsa900q
What does it say about the Conservative Party and, to a lesser extent, the UK (England, mainly) that a blot like Boris Johnson may soon be Prime Minister? I am not talking about his character alone, but also his actual ability to be effective. Still, there it is…
Update, 17 June 2019
Well, as I guessed a couple of days ago, Rory Stewart has gained ground, at least in the betting, though the betting exchanges’ and bookmakers’ odds are often not a reliable guide to political results (see the EU Referendum, the Trump election, the recent Peterborough by-election etc).
Stewart is now at 2nd place in the betting to be next Conservative leader, though only at 16/1. Boris Johnson is favourite at around 1/5 odds-on (Hunt 20/1, Gove 46/1, Raab 85/1, Javid 120/1).
By all accounts, Stewart did well in the TV debate (Johnson the sole absentee, obviously afraid of being exposed as an idiot and incompetent, as well as wanting to seem to be the “presidential” figure above the fray).
Having said that, Stewart will have to pull off a considerable coup even to be one of the final two, though that now seems a 50-50 possibility.
Update, 19 June 2019
Well, Rory Stewart is out of the race, which means that, until or unless Boris Johnson leaves frontline politics, his career is stalled again. He pledged not to serve in a Johnson Cabinet, and, as I blogged previously, it is doubtful that Johnson will appoint him to anything significant anyway.
That leaves Johnson, Hunt, Gove, Javid.
Looks as though arguably the worst candidate is about to win…
Talked to a Tory MP last night who was backing Johnson "Do you think he'd be any good as PM" "No" "What on earth will he do about Brexit"? "No one knows" "Why do you want him, then?" "He's the best hope we've got" "By 'we" you don't mean Britain do you?" "No the party, of course"
Having said that, Stewart has staked his claim to be taken more seriously somewhere down the line. System politicians, like revolutionary ones, are all seeking to catch the right wave, like surfers.
Update, 20 June 2019
Just saw this tweet, posted 2 days ago. Worth reading; one has to take its veracity on trust, not ever having heard of the tweeter, and the emailer mentioned remaining unnamed.
So Rory Stewart is standing down as MP for Penrith and Borders at next election. He has also resigned from the Conservative Party. Reasons not given. Maybe, in the end, he just was not hungry enough, which would explain why he did not want further ministerial preferment, or to seek the role of PM, but does not explain why he has also decided not to continue as MP; neither does it explain why he has also resigned from the Conservative Party. Perhaps the situation will be clarified in due course.
Update, 5 October 2019
Ah…mystery solved. Stewart is intending to stand for the post of Mayor of London.
He has obviously seen how Boris-Idiot used the position to keep his profile high until he was ready to re-enter the Westminster fray.
The other main candidates are already known: Sadiq Khan, the present Mayor, for Labour, and Shaun Bailey, the West Indian who will be the Conservative candidate. Sadiq Khan has the support of the msm, the Jewish lobby etc, as a Labour mayor who is rather anti-Corbyn. Shaun Bailey may be seen by the blacks as rather an “Uncle Tom”, and there are still questions around missing or misapplied funds of a “social enterprise” he set up in 2006: the monies missing were never accounted for; other monies, amounting to the bulk of spending by the organization, went on “travel and subsistence”, probably for Bailey himself. No criminal charges or civil claims were ever brought, though.
Despite Khan’s poor record as Mayor, he is probably well-placed vis-a-vis Bailey. Now that Rory Stewart has entered the fray, Bailey is holed below the waterline and his candidature will inevitably sink. Whether Rory Stewart can beat Khan and the other candidates (the LibDem being the main also-ran) is an open question.
London is a mainly non-white city now, and an English candidate (well, Anglo-Scottish) like Stewart may find this an uphill slog. On the other hand, Khan is not a popular figure, Stewart is a fresh and now politically non-aligned contender who, however, has high public recognition and profile. I do not think that he can be written off here, and if that is so, his wider ambition, to be Prime Minister, may survive the presently wintry conditions.
Update and addendum, 10 October 2019
Thank to an alert and well-informed blog reader, I can now add a significant addendum to my study of Rory Stewart:
So it turns out that, notwithstanding the listed country house in the Scottish Borders, notwithstanding the almost caricature “country gentry” persona, Stewart is part-Jew! It now is clear that he is what the Reich called a “Mischling”, in his case one-quarter, his maternal grandfather having been “a Jewish doctor from Wimbledon”, whose own parents were Jews from Romania who arrived in London after having lived in New York City for a while.
Well, now it becomes clearer: the self-publicizing (shades of Boris Johnson…), the liking for “fancy dress”, eg tribal costume and being photographed posing in it, the pro-immigration stance, the Davos and Bilderberg linkages.
More than that: Stewart’s wife, Shoshana Stewart, is half-Jewish. In fact, the “half” in question is the maternal half, which means that, according to the way that Jews themselves calculate ancestry, his wife is “Jewish”, simpliciter; that also means that, according to Jewish custom, Stewart’s children are Jewish (though of course we non-Jews decide such designations according to genetic science, meaning that his children are in fact three-eighths Jewish, if my mathematical calculation is right, which often is not the case; anyway, no matter if the right answer is three-eighths or something else, the exact proportion changes nothing). According to the Jewish Chronicle report, above, Stewart and his wife and children celebrate Jewish religious holidays as well as the main Christian ones.
I smelt a rat about Stewart when I saw that the vocal Jew cabal on Twitter all seemed to favour him during the Conservative leadership contest, but it did not occur to me that he himself was part-Jew. I thought that his odd and dark looks came from Western Scottish origins (as they presumably do, in part). I thought that the Jews were supporting Stewart because of his “liberal” Conservatism…
How do these facts, concealed or at least not publicized until now, affect Stewart’s London Mayor election bid? Damaging, I think. While the Jews of North London will probably support him now, the far greater number of Muslims and others who commonly disfavour Jews will probably not vote for him (despite the fact that the present Mayor of London and Labour Party candidate, Sadiq Khan, a Muslim by origin, has been a complete doormat for the Jewish lobby for years).
Fair comment, surely, if one looks at Rory Stewart’s voting record as an MP (2010-2019).
Without taking away from his interesting and accomplished background, as detailed in my lengthy blog hereinabove, my feeling at the moment is that Rory Stewart is basically an oleaginous, dissembling, part-Jew shit.
Update, 6 April 2020
Stewart is no longer standing as candidate for Mayor of London:
There must be a reason; I do not know that reason.
feels entirely absurd that one year ago this month Rory Stewart became the new DfID secretary in Theresa May's cabinet, and since then he's resigned from that post, run for the Tory leadership, left the Tories, and run for London mayor as an independent
So once again Rory Stewart is the nearly man: nearly something important in SIS or FCO, nearly Conservative Party leader, nearly Mayor of London. Sometimes a candidate has to stick in there and await Fate. Had Stewart not huffed off and resigned as MP after losing out to, ultimately, Boris Johnson, his time might have come, after Johnson messes up even more, which is inevitable.
I always recall being in the USA during the 1992 US Presidential Election campaign. At one point, Clinton was placed third of the three major candidates in the opinion polls. A poor third, at that. He stuck it out (admittedly, what else could he do?) and, after Ross Perot dropped out, beat George Bush snr. for the Presidency, being inaugurated in 1993.
[addendum, 31 October 2021: my point about Clinton sticking to it applies more forcefully to Ross Perot, which I should have explained better. Had Perot shown more resilience, and stuck to it, he might easily have become President and thus, as a non-Republican/Democrat candidate, made history. As it was, he dropped out, later claiming that sinister forces had threatened him and his family. Who were they? NWO/ZOG?].
Years earlier, Clinton, who at 31 had been a very young Governor of Arkansas, was defeated there after one 4-year term. Undeterred, he tried the next time and was re-elected. A stayer.
I should think that this spells the end of Rory Stewart as a potential political leader. What does it mean for the London race? I have not followed it closely, but it must give the Conservatives a better chance, despite their candidate being a West Indian with a very dodgy background in terms of near-fraud (though he has never been charged with anything).
Sadiq Khan was running at 8/1 on (1/8) with the bookmakers. Rory Stewart was at 11/8. Shaun Bailey, for Conservative Party, at 20/1. Now that Stewart is gone, I imagine that Sadiq Khan will go out to about 1/6, and Shaun Bailey go in to about 10/1 or so. Despite his poor record, Sadiq Khan is unlikely to lose to Shaun Bailey.
In a John Buchan story, the Stewart or “Hannay” character would no doubt “retire” from public life only because he would be secretly saving the Empire from imperial Russia, or imperial Germany, or would be thwarting a dastardly plot involving transnational conspirators. In fiction, he would save the Empire, then either be knighted or (and/or) be appointed Chief of the Imperial Secret Service. In real life? I have no idea. Stewart is now, or was until recently, teaching at Yale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Stewart#Post-political_career.
Update, 22 January 2022
Boris Johnson is a symptom of a much broader problem in British politics – which can only be fixed with new policies, and – almost certainly – new parties and a new electoral system https://t.co/4XUQ8YGAZ8
Had Stewart retained his MP-status, he might now be in again with a real chance of leading his former party. Having decided not to continue as MP, he is necessarily out in the cold.
Update, 9 July 2022
Just read an appreciation of Stewart from the Tatler (2016, expanded and updated 2019). Don’t think I saw it before today. Written by Quentin Letts [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Letts].
Frankly, nowhere as complete, or as good, as my own assessment, if I say so myself. As for it containing “everything you need to know about Rory Stewart“, I think not! For one thing, no mention of the part-Jewish background, and no mention of the fact that his wife is half-Jewish.
Update, 2 April 2023
Well, in the end, the London Mayoral Election was held in 2021. There were 20 candidates, both Independents and those from political parties. In the run-off, Sadiq Khan (40%), beat Shaun Bailey (35.3%) in what turned out to be a close-run thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_London_mayoral_election.
As for Rory Stewart, now 50, he has pottered around doing podcasts in the past couple of years. He also moved to Jordan in 2021 with his wife and children, apparently to do work connected with his Turquoise Mountain charity.
That article mentions that Stewart is (or was, in September 2021, when the article was written) thinking of possibly standing again as a London mayoral candidate in 2024. I doubt that he will. The 2024 election will be run on FPTP lines, giving an outsider (in his case, as a non-party candidate) fewer chances.
Overall, it seems to me that Rory Stewart’s political career is finished, in all likelihood.
“Anyone with the slightest interest in politics should get a copy of Rory Stewart’s political memoir.
Not because he had a particularly long or even influential career: just nine years in Parliament and only months in the Cabinet. But you will learn more about the nature of Westminster machinations and how government actually works (or doesn’t) from this volume than from those of many more illustrious politicians. In terms of the quality of writing, there has been nothing to approach it since the diaries of Alan Clark (who never made it to the Cabinet at all).
But whereas Clark was a genuinely bad person — part of the attraction, perhaps — Stewart is a fundamentally good man, even if his self-belief, touching on the messianic, occasionally made him appear preposterous.”
[Dominic Lawson in the Daily Mail].
Interesting that Stewart was apparently in SIS/MI6 for several years, and that Dominic Lawson was said to have been a long-term SIS/MI6 source: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Lawson. Lawson is 17 years older than Stewart, in fact born the same year as me— 1956.
However, the allegations about Lawson do refer mainly to the 1990s and focus partly on the Balkans, particularly (ex-) Yugoslavia. Stewart joined FCO/SIS in the mid-1990s, and was posted to Montenegro in, I think, 1999. Tenuous link, perhaps nothing…
“This silly little man has delusions of grandeur“, “I cant wait to see the back of Khan, but Rory Stewart god help us“, “Gottle of Gear“, “Nay ,nay ,thrice times nay.“, “The guy’s a joke, and not a funny one“, “Please no, he’s a right weirdo” and “Oh no! Not this opportunist” are among some of the more polite.
Rory Stewart has now written his latest book. His profile is high enough even in 2023 to ensure msm interest and comment (not all favourable, though):
Behind a paywall, but I include it for the sake of completeness.
[Rory Stewart, 2023]
I expect that I shall buy the book secondhand off Amazon, once it reduces to about £5 or £2. The price for the new and unreleased (until 14 September) book has already declined from the original £22 to £16 or so.
I am not now in the new-book-buying classes (and prefer hardbacks) so the Amazon website is a great boon for me.
Not long ago, I bought the memoirs of Gorbachev, a heavy tome; great value at about £5 including postage from a used-book company on Amazon.
I have now bought another book: £2.80 only, and also including the postage. Hard to believe. One wonders how they make a profit, but then (to coin a phrase) I never was much of a businessman!
I met the author a few times in the 1980s. Frankly, a rather pompous man whom I (even more frankly) found rather unpleasant in a minor way, but his book might be interesting. As for the author, he is now deceased.
(about how Stewart is now angling for both a peerage and a ministerial portfolio from Starmer…).
Stewart’s ambition and careerism are both relentless, if inconsistent.
Actually, in terms of individual jobs or posts, I should say that Stewart (despite his many accomplishments) is a “quitter”, but behind that is his already-noted enormous ambition, “looming like a thundercloud over the scene“…
An old friend of mine used to quote her deceased husband (ex-Guards officer, ex-Royal Flying Corps, WW1, d. circa 1970): “if you throw a Jew out of the door, the Jew will sneak back through a window“… Of course, Stewart is only part-Jew.
If Starmer can indeed give Rory Stewart a job and put him out of his often expressed misery of not being a politician with a brief anymore then that really would be great for everyone including those who are tired of hearing him pine pic.twitter.com/83Q6CfN6Lz
Stewart will fight Vance over 'ordo amoris' but stands idly by while mothers kill their own children in their wombs and HMG arrests those who pray silently against it!
Emasculated phoney who actually cares nothing for the most vulnerable and marginalized.
USAID: British politician complaining that his wife was supposed to get $1M in USAID grants before Trump cancelled the contract. Rory Stewart's wife runs Turquoise Mountain Foundation, which exposes modern art to puzzled Afghan women.
USAID: The NGO which Rory Stewart’s wife works for just has its USAID funding cancelled, The Turquiose Mountain Foundation, teaches ‘liberated’ Afghan women about modern art like Duchamp’s urinal. pic.twitter.com/0IJdoF2Rwn
Oh this has absolutely made my day. Rory Wrong About Everything Stewart whingeing about his wife having her $1 million contract from USAID cancelled with immediate effect by DOGE. Priceless, absolutely priceless🤣🤣
I had meant “Deadhead MPs” to be indeed “occasional” in these blog pages, but the “democratic” deadheads are so prevalent now, and so prone to getting themselves into trouble and into the newspapers, that I have had to write more often about them than I had at first intended.
Gavin Williamson’s background
So we move to Gavin Williamson. Where to start? At the beginning, I suppose: Williamson was born in 1976, in “bracing” Scarborough. His parents were both public sector office workers. Comprehensive school was followed by the University of Bradford, where he read Social Sciences. He was involved with the rowdy and eventually shut down Conservative Students organization, of which he was penultimate Chairman.
Williamson must have graduated in 1997 or 1998. The next we hear of him is in 2001, in North Yorkshire, where he was a county councillor for a while. He is also at that time involved in Conservative Party activities in Staffordshire and Derbyshire.
There is an obscurity about Williamson. We do not know what non-political jobs he has done, save for having been Managing Director of a fireplace manufacturer, Elgin & Hall, for a while (until 2004) and then Managing Director of and shareholder in Aynsley China, a Stoke on Trent china manufacturer founded in 1775 and which was dissolved in 2014. It seems, again, obscure as to when Williamson’s connection was severed, but between 2005 and his election as MP in 2010, he was also Managing Director of an architectural design firm or company. So we are told.
Am I missing something here? Williamson came from modest origins, his academic background seems to have been at best mediocre, there is no evidence in the public domain (that I have seen) of family wealth, yet here is Williamson, still in his twenties at that, becoming managing director of three separate companies in three different industries or areas of commercial activity, despite the fact that his academic background was in Social Sciences, nothing to do with business, industry, china manufacture, pottery, architecture or design. He is even described as “co-owner” (major shareholder?) of a china manufacturer. Where did he get the capital? Very odd.
It is likely that Williamson is a freemason, but all the same, his being appointed to those jobs (all seemingly within about 5-6 years) is a little strange, somehow.
Parliament
Williamson made a racing start in the House of Commons from election in 2010. He became a Parliamentary Private Secretary or PPS to a minister in 2011, again (this time to a Cabinet minister) in 2012, then made another career leap in 2013, becoming PPS to the Prime Minister (David Cameron-Levita).
In 2016, he supported Theresa May in her leadership bid, mainly (we are told) in order to stop Boris Johnson. In return, upon her victory, May made Williamson the Government Chief Whip.
In 2017, following the resignation of drunk and sex-pest Michael Fallon as Secretary of State for Defence (I feel another blog post in this series coming on…), Williamson was appointed to replace him.
Secretary of State for Defence
It was after having been appointed to Cabinet that Williamson’s lack of serious academic, political and intellectual background began to tell, resulting in a series of blunders and gaffes. The Sun “newspaper” reported that “
Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has ‘lost the plot’ over barmy plan to put guns on tractors
Other crazy ideas include disguising mobile missile defence systems as Coca-Cola lorries and transforming old commercial ferries into beach assault craft”
and continued:
“DEFENCE Secretary Gavin Williamson has stunned military chiefs with crackpot ideas to solve an equipment crisis — including fitting tractors with guns. Williamson‘s department faces a shortfall of £20billion in its budget for new equipment.”
“A source said: “The man is out of his mind. No one knows what to do.”
As the MoD struggles to deal with a budget black hole, Williamson has been accused of hatching a series of crackpot schemes to solve an equipment crisis.
According to several senior sources they include:
MOUNTING “really expensive guns” on tractors and disguising mobile missile defence systems as Coca-Cola lorries;
BUYING old commercial ferries and transforming them into beach assault craft, and;
WASTING thousands of hours of civil service time on plans to launch his own medal“
The source added: “We need billions and serious ideas to tackle serious problems.
“Yet Williamson is mucking about with his spider and coming up with crazy suggestions. The man is out of his mind.
“His behaviour is totally bizarre and no one knows what to do.”
“Williamson took over at the MoD in November. The source added: “Everyone had so much hope in him. It all looks so misplaced now.”
Defence chiefs now fear Williamson’s bizarre regime has torpedoed any hope of the MoD getting desperately needed extra money out of the Treasury.
It needs £1billion more a year just to keep the armed forces at their present size — and it has to somehow fill a potential £20billion budget deficit in its £179billion ten-year equipment plan.
But sources say ex-furniture salesman Williamson’s failure to grapple with the detail and refusal to heed expert advice is proving disastrous.”
“It is feared he also scuppered any chance of a financial aid package by briefing against the Treasury and boasting he could “make or break” Theresa May as PM.
Williamson’s idea for armed tractors is said to have come at a summit on the equipment budget.
A source said: “Gavin just came out with it. He said, ‘Can’t we buy tractors and put really expensive guns on them?’ People were open-mouthed. Others didn’t know where to look. It was totally bizarre.”
Williamson has since denied making the comment.”
“But insiders say it was just one of a stream of nonsensical suggestions.
He allegedly outlined the disguised missile trucks during a meeting with his Polish counterpart to discuss the renewed Russian threat.
A source said: “The idea was to have an HGV with the livery of the Coca-Cola brand — but inside would be a missile defence system.
“His plan was missiles systems disguised as soft drinks delivery trucks. No one really knows why.” [The Sun]
More:
Williamson thought that a proper way to respond to the Spanish government over Gibraltar was to fire paintballs at Spanish Navy gunboats;
Williamson responded to Russian comments about the Skripal affair by saying that “Russia should just shut up and go away”, hardly a suitable response, neither tough (bearing in mind Russia’s alleged behaviour) nor intelligent (bearing in mind Russia’s enormous and growing strength!);
Williamson “threatened” to send a warship (one of maybe a dozen or so that the UK now has) to the South China Sea, to intimidate China…That would really frighten a country that has 512large ships, about 800 naval aircraft alone, and a quarter of a million sailors! (see the link in the Notes, below, for details of the truly fearsome Chinese order of battle on the high seas).
In Williamson’s very silly mental landscape, throwing around schoolboy remarks about paintballs, shutting up nuisances with a throwaway remark and disguising mobile missile-carriers as Coca-Cola trucks serve as brainstorming, I suppose…
Now, of course, Williamson has been sacked for supposedly having leaked secret talks in the National Security Council (NSC). He denies having done so. As Mandy Rice-Davies said, in another context, “well he would, wouldn’t he?”
What can we learn from this farce?
For me, there is much that could be learned, were there politicians with the ability to learn.
First of all, I am concerned less about the leak, or who did it, than the fact that a mediocre little careerist like Williamson could ever become an MP, let alone minister, let alone Cabinet minister. It must be something to do with freemasonry and/or the Israel lobby (is Williamson a member of Conservative Friends of Israel? Odds-on…).
Secondly, I am concerned that the now-ex Secretary of State for Defence has so much time on his hands that while in office he can spend a quarter of an hour telling his contact at the Daily Telegraph all about his day (or whatever). Also, was that mobile telephone secure?
As soon as the leak scandal blew up, I thought “either Williamson or Fox”. Fox probably learned his lesson when Cameron-Levita caught him leaking years ago.
South Staffordshire is one of the safest Conservative seats. Williamson got 69.8% of the votes cast in 2017.
What now?
Williamson has been replaced by Penny Mordaunt, though the reason remains obscure. Surely her stints as naval “reservist” sub-lieutenant were not taken into account? Rory Stewart MP, arguably a better candidate, was also elevated, but to another ministry.
As to Williamson himself, there are now calls for him to face police action and possible prosecution. Theresa May would rather avoid that, in the runup to the EU elections, but time will, of course, tell. Watch this space.
I doubt whether Williamson can ever recover from this whole situation, though he will be able to stay on as MP unless sacked by his local Conservative association. He will not be seen on the Conservative front benches again, though.
Well, I was wrong. Not about Willamson as such, but the parting comment that his frontbench Conservative career had finished. Incredibly, Boris-idiot has appointed Williamson as Secretary of State for Education! So this twerp is actually posing as a Cabinet minister again! At first I was incredulous, but there again, you have a complete idiot as Prime Minister, and a bunch of total fuck-ups as Cabinet ministers anyway: Priti Patel, Matt Hancock, Sajid Javid, Liz Truss, Grant Shapps (!), that little pissant Robert Jenrick, Dominic Raab, Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom, Amber bloody Rudd, the idiotic James Cleverly, Liz Truss (!), Theresa Villiers (a doormat for the Jew-Zionist lobby even in a Cabinet stuffed with Zionists and pro-Zionists) etc…
…and…among those who sit in on Cabinet without being members, Nadine Dorries (I mean, how lowbrow can you go?) and even, on occasion, apparently, ah…the fellow who runs the Wetherspoon’s pub chain! Who is not even an MP!
Among the rest of the Cabinet and the occasional attendees, I suppose that Williamson does not stand out as impossibly half-witted. No, he fits in just fine…
“Ian Millard has left the building”…
Update, 4 March 2022
Williamson was dismissed as Education Secretary in 2021; also dismissed from Cabinet and Government.
Williamson was appointed Sec for Defence on Nov 2 2017. Days after FBI revealed it was investigating suspected Russian assets/agents operating in London. Some of these had met Foreign Office officials. These including Johnson, then Foreign Secretary 2/https://t.co/x9Vf995MS0
I wrote about the Russian connections to Brexit & Conservative party which unleashed a world of trouble.
Meanwhile, Isabel Oakeshott had a tip off. A person "high up in govt" with intelligence connections rang Richard Tice who passed it on to her. 4/https://t.co/YQB5sm0SCI
Under cross-examination, I had to explain how I obtained the emails. It's a matter of court record – & therefore reportable – that source believed that person who tipped off Tice about Banks's Russian connections was…drum roll…Gavin Williamson, then sec of defence 6/ pic.twitter.com/3hwkz0Viw4
On Nov 14, 2017, Theresa May called out Putin in strongest possible terms. A landmark moment. First time, UK govt acknowledged Russia's attack on our democracy.
Final weird oddity. The article I wrote at that time on Russian connections to Brexit includes Johnson's relationship with Russian "diplomat" Sergey Nalobin. He ran an influence op targeting Conservative MPs.
A useless freeloader, personifying the broken UK political system.
Update, 25 May 2024
“From the next general election, Williamson’s current seat of South Staffordshire will be split, with Williamson being selected as the Conservative candidate for the newly formed constituency of Stone, Great Wyrely and Penkridge. Philip Catney, a senior politics lecturer at Keele University described the newly formed constituency as a safe seat, with a Conservative MP being “guaranteed a job for life”.[94]
On 4 September 2023 Williamson was told by a Parliamentary independent expert panel to apologise to the House of Commons and to take behavioural training. The panel concluded that he had abused his power when he sent Morton text messages in 2022.[95]“
[Wikipedia]
An “eccentric” but not a pleasant one. Useless idiot.
Here, in my occasional series about those I am pleased to call “deadhead MPs”, I now feature Justin Tomlinson MP [Con, North Swindon]. Tomlinson is unique —so far— in terms of this series, in that he has actually achieved junior ministerial rank (appointed junior minister at the DWP). [*Note: I have previously written about Kate Osamor MP, but until she resigned she was only in the Shadow Cabinet and has never been in government].
As on previous occasions in this series, this MP’s academic and work background do not inspire confidence. His family origins seem obscure. Having been born in Blackburn, Lancs, in 1976, he attended a comprehensive school in Kidderminster, Worcs, before reading History and Politics at Oxford Brookes University (the former Oxford Poly).
Arguably bizarrely, Tomlinson’s only known employed position was as manager of a small nightclub known as Eros, in Swindon: see Notes, below (the photographs show scenes every bit as ghastly as expected, a strange mish-mash of provincial, cheesy, decadent and humdrum. Forget Cabaret, think The Office).
It must remain a mystery as to why Tomlinson, a son of either Lancashire or Worcestershire, and then a student in Oxfordshire, relocated yet further South to Wiltshire. Was the Swindon job (as manager of “Eros”) the only one he could get?
We are asked to believe that Tomlinson also “ran a small marketing business” called TB Marketing Solutions Ltd at the same time (c.2000-c.2010). It must have been “small” indeed. The Companies House accounts summary shows the company’s net worth in 2011 at only £66,000. It seems to have had, at any one time, only one director other than Tomlinson, as well as a company secretary, and to have operated from a privately-owned or rented flat in Swindon. It was dissolved in or shortly after 2011. Still, something to add to the CV, I suppose…
Tomlinson may be short on background but he is certainly not lacking self-confidence, having when a student placed a bet on himself to become Prime Minister!
“Chris Kelly and Justin Tomlinson stand to collect £500,000 from William Hill should either become prime minister before 2038. Tomlinson placed two £50 bets at 10,000/1 when the pair were at university. Both are already Conservative MPs.” [BBC, in 2012]
Chris Kelly stood down as MP in 2015 (returning to his family’s Midlands truck-rental business), which is a pity in that he might have made a good “deadhead MP” for this series, were I able to find anything even slightly interesting to say about him.
Back to Tomlinson. He was a local councillor for several years prior to being selected then elected as MP for North Swindon, one of the two constituencies in the town.
Some highlights from Tomlinson’s Parliamentary career
“In May 2015, it was reported by The Huffington Post that his appointment as Minister for Disabled People was controversial as he had previously voted against protecting the benefits of disabled children and those undergoing cancer treatment.” [Wikipedia];
“Tomlinson faced calls for his resignation in October 2015 after it was reported that he had leaked information from the Public Accounts committee regarding regulation of short term high cost credit “payday lenders” to Wonga.com back in 2013. Tomlinson accepted he had broken the rules and apologised, stating that his “strongly-held belief that action needed to be taken on payday lenders” had caused his “judgement to be clouded”.[13] Tomlinson arranged £30,000 of sponsorship for Swindon Supermarine F.C., a local football team by the same payday lender wonga.com. The football club’s chairman, Jez Webb, has made donations of £30,218 to both Tomlinson’s and local Conservative Party funds since 2014. Webb stated that he donated in a personal capacity and that the very similar amounts “were coincidental.”[14] Tomlinson was subsequently accused of trying to remove references to previous links to Wonga from his website, including the arrangement of a sponsorship deal with Swindon Supermarine F.C. in 2011.” [Wikipedia];
Tomlinson, 42, employs his personal partner, Katie Bennett, 28, as his office manager, on a salary of £50,000 p.a.; Tomlinson was married from 2012-2016 to another lady but is now divorced;
“Tomlinson leaked a draft of a public accounts committee report on the credit industry to someone he knew who worked for payday lender, Wonga. And when that person emailed four suggested amendments back, Tomlinson had forwarded them virtually word for word on to the Committee as if they were his own.” [The Guardian];
“In November 2018, Tomlinson again sparked controversy, this time by suggesting that families facing penury under the Universal Credit scheme initiated by the Conservative governments of 2010-2018 should “take in a lodger.”
“Tomlinson was apparently unaware that [even discounting the fact that few such families have spare rooms], both private and other (e.g. local council and housing association) leases prohibit any form of sub-letting.” [Evening Standard].
North Swindon
Considered to be a “bellwether” constituency, North Swindon has, since its creation in 1997, always followed the national trend. Tomlinson was elected for North Swindon in 2010, receiving a 44.6% vote share (Lab 30.5%). In 2015, the Conservative vote share was 50.3% (Lab 27.8%) and in 2017, 53.6 (Lab 38.4%). In other words, Labour are creeping back but were still well behind in 2017.
Tomlinson has consistently voted for Leave/Brexit, which may help him hang on.
Tomlinson’s vote in numbers was just under 30,000 in 2017, and his majority about 8,000. If, as a recent opinion poll claimed, half those who voted Conservative in 2017 are not going to vote Con in any 2019 General Election, that would reduce Tomlinson’s likely vote to about 15,000 and render the election of another candidate, probably the Labour one, likely. Labour got over 21,000 votes in 2017.
Conclusion
Well, there he is, voters of North Swindon— your deadhead MP. If you want to kick him out, the only lawful way is to vote for Labour or, if it stands, Brexit Party, next time.
In the end, Tomlinson held on at North Swindon rather easily. Nigel Farage stabbed his Brexit Party and its candidates (and supporters) in the back; Brexit Party candidates in Conservative Party-held seats (even where the sitting MP was a Remain partisan) were all stood down so that the Conservative Party could win the General Election of late 2019. Tomlinson thus faced no danger that much of his vote would defect to Brexit Party.
Not that the absence of Brexit Party materially altered the result. Labour’s vote slid substantially, and Tomlinson was re-elected by a majority double that which he had achieved in 2017, both in absolute and percentage terms (majority in 2017 was 8,335; in 2019, 16,171).
His vote share in 2019 was 59.1% (2017: 53.6%); pretty convincing by any standards.
Tomlinson continues as Minister of State (i.e. junior minister) at the DWP, the post he has held since April 2019.
Update, 9 August 2022
Tomlinson was sacked as junior minister in a Government reshuffle of September 2021.
“In February 2022 Tomlinson was accused of bullying and sending inappropriate “unprofessional” and “belittling” messages to employees at Conservative Campaign Headquarters.[32]“
[Wikipedia].
Tomlinson must have blagged plenty of money since 2010 in terms of pay, expenses, and “consultancy fees” from Wonga etc. He may need those monies. On present opinion polling, the bellwether seat of Swindon North may jettison him at the next general election.
Update, 5 July 2024
As expected, Tomlinson was binned at GE 2024. Time for him (and girlfriend/wife?) to get employment of a more useful type.
This is the latest in my occasional series about those whom I consider to be “deadhead MPs”. The lucky politico this time is Karl McCartney, MP for Lincoln 2010-2017.
I would not usually bother with someone who is no longer an MP and who is very unlikely to be returned to the House of Commons. In McCartney’s case, I have decided to make an exception. The reason is because McCartney’s combination of brash overconfidence, unpleasantness, personal moneygrabbing and expenses blodging, lack of interest in the poorer part of society and unimpressive academic and work background is now, and has become, over the past decades, almost typical of MPs (and by no means only on the Conservative side of UK System-politics). That such people can become MPs is an indictment of the selection and election procedures in place in the UK.
Lincoln is considered to be an “ultra-marginal” and a “swing seat”. In 2010, McCartney and the Conservatives won with 37.5% of the votes cast, as against 35.2% for Labour and 20.2% for the LibDems (BNP 3%, UKIP 2.2%, English Democrats 1.3% and an Independent on 0.5%).
In 2015, McCartney was re-elected: Con 42.6%, Lab 39.6%, UKIP 12.2%, LibDem 4.3%, TUSC 0.7%, Lincolnshire Independent 0.6%. The key points were the collapse of the LibDem vote by 16 points, the non-appearance of the BNP and English Democrats, and the rise of UKIP —by 10 points, though that was modest bearing in mind that the BNP and EDs did not stand. Both Con and Lab increased their percentages.
In 2017, the result was Lab 47.9%, Con 44.7%, UKIP 2.6%, LibDem 2.6%, Green 1.2%, and two Independents (0.6%, 0.3%). A pattern seen in many constituencies: UKIP slumping back to a 2010 or pre-2010 level and the LibDems failing to recover from the 2015 debacle and indeed slipping further. While the Con vote percentage did slightly increase –2 points– in 2017, Lab did far better–8 points higher. That despite the UKIP slump, despite McCartney favouring Leave/Brexit, despite the appearance of a Green candidate likely to impact the Labour vote. It is hard to escape the view that the Con loss was the result of popular judgment on McCartney himself.
McCartney was exposed from 2010-2017, in various ways, as unsuitable.
A lecturer at the University of Lincoln blamed McCartney’s laziness and complacency for the loss (see Notes, below) and was too polite to mention McCartney’s alleged porn-trawling (though that was, admittedly, in 2014), his employment of his wife at £50,000 a year via Parliamentary expenses, or his expenses generally.
“On 28 February 2013 McCartney apologised to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) for the content of notes he had sent to staff. The notes were described by IPSA Chief Executive, Andrew McDonald as ‘abusive’, ‘offensive’ and ‘condescending’. McCartney’s apology stated, “I apologise unreservedly to IPSA for my comments” [Wikipedia]. and
“The following month he claimed that IPSA’s incompetence had forced MPs from all parties to borrow money and that he had had to ask his parents for financial assistance.[30] McCartney also said that he had been told by a “senior IPSA official” that the organisation intended to “damage MPs as much as possible,” a claim that IPSA said was “wild ..simply untrue.” [Wikipedia].
The readers’ comments section under that newspaper report was harsh:
“Poor old Karl. He really needs to wipe away those tears and get on with his life. He is an arrogant, rude and bitter loser. And they are his good points. Lincoln and the Conservatives are better off without him. Ignore him Karen.”
and
“Happiest day last year was when he walked away in a huff and refused to speak to anyone or congratulate at the election result which pretty much summed everything up.”
As to what McCartney is doing now, I think that the answer may be “very little”. I notice that, as I write this piece, around 1800 hrs, he has already tweeted or retweeted 29 times today, so far. His website seems to say that he will be the Conservative candidate at the next general election. It is hard to know why. One can only speculate as to why the local Conservatives have chosen him. He was a lay magistrate at one time; he is a Freeman of the City of London (see Notes, below), having “worked with”, his website claims, more than one Lord Mayor in the late 1990s. Freemason? I do not know.
McCartney obviously did pretty well financially in his 7 years as MP: salary of (then) about £70,000 pa, and wife’s salary (paid out of his expenses claimed) £50,000 pa; also possible other (outside) sources of income (I do not know about this). His overall expenses alone over his time as MP totalled well over a million pounds. He does not appear to have a job at present (there is nothing mentioned on his website); perhaps his wife has found another job, now that her well-paid work as her husband’s assistant has gone.
Readers of The Lincolnite (online newspaper) were as harsh as those commenting on Lincoln Live (above):
“A totally useless MP, more concerned about himself and his expenses than he ever was about Lincoln – amazed that they’ve reselected this waste of space.
John Bercow (Speaker, House of Commons) summed him up nicely with this in a parliamentary debate when McCartney let himself (and us) down yet again:
“Mr McCartney, calm yourself. Be quiet, young man. We do not need to hear from you. You add nothing and you subtract from the proceedings.”
Then there were the abusive notes (for which he had to apologise) he sent to the parliamentary expenses staff when they queried his expenses.”
and
“Unvelievable! [sic] A sure fire way for the Conservatives to lose votes.”
and
“It’s not what you know but who you know ,Roll your trouser leg up, funny handshake and fancy apron crowd.”
What are McCartney’s chances of getting back as Lincoln’s MP? Very slight. I have blogged elsewhere about the impact of Brexit Party (and slightly revived UKIP) on the Conservative vote, assuming that Brexit Party contests a general election. That alone would sink the Conservatives in an ultra-marginal such as Lincoln.
Another point is that present Labour MP, Karen Lee, who worked in shops for years before spending 14 years as an NHS nurse, still puts in some shifts at a local hospital, donating her NHS earnings to charity! What a contrast to greedy, moneygrasping and “entitled” McCartney! His work in the City of London in the 1990s was obviously so unimportant that even his own website says almost nothing about it (neither does he seem to have done much outside Con politics in the decade up to his election in 2010).
In addition to all that, Karen Lee is local in origin, whereas McCartney was born in Birkenhead, “Murkyside” (Merseyside), and was educated there and in Wales.
Well, there you are. My latest “deadhead MP”, who is hoping to resume his place at the trough soon. Over to you, voters of Lincoln…
“In England, the most established borough freedom is that conferred by the Freedom of the City of London, first recorded in 1237. This is closely tied to the role and status of the livery companies. From 1835, the freedom “without the intervention of a Livery Company” has been bestowed by a general resolution of Common Council, by “redemption” (purchase), at one time for an onerous sum. Now the Freedom can be obtained by servitude, by patrimony, by nomination, or by presentation via a Livery Company. Freedom through nomination by two sponsors is available for a fee (known as a “fine”) of £100, but is free to those on the electoral roll of the City.” [Wikipedia]
Update, 1 May 2019
I am writing this update just after 1400 hrs. McCartney took to Twitter today at about 0600 and, by my reckoning, has, in the intervening 8 hours, tweeted or retweeted at least 52 times (I think that I have left out a few retweets). Quite a few of his tweets and retweets seem to be about “anti-Semitism” in the Labour Party. McCartney must have been part of the “Friends of Israel” crowd (like 80% of “Conservative” MPs). He obviously wants to remain (((onside))). I have no idea whether Lincoln’s deadhead former MP actually has a job at present. I doubt it. He seems an extremely unpleasant person either way.
In the article above, written for The Lincolnite (local online newspaper), McCartney again obsesses about “anti-Semitism” in the Labour Party, saying that Labour peers have raised the issue again. Well, about 50 or 60 have, out of 179…
I wonder whether the voters of Lincoln share McCartney’s obsession with speaking out in favour of the Jewish lobby? I doubt it! As for the rest of his article, the Lincolnite needs a sub-editor to correct spelling errors (“buses” is right, “busses” is not) and grammar.
Some of the few readers’ comments on the above article have been unkind:
Why are you giving this failed Tory a voice he spent 1000s on a letter folder, and employed his wife as an assistant on 45k a year. He doesnt give a toss about us he just wants his expenses back…“
I am assuming the Lincolnite has decided to join his very early election campaign hence the article. I assume we will get more of the same until a General Election. As it stands he is a nobody and yet has got 3 times more space than the sitting MP who represents which Party? Well blow me“
Seems that McCartney and his wife, a local councillor, are living rather well off the hump, despite having had their joint income reduced since his 2017 election failure:
Well, it seems that McCartney’s leech-like tenaciousness in Lincoln might (against the odds and all reason) pay off. Corbyn-Labour is suffering a crisis of public confidence, while (by reason of that) Boris-Idiot and the misnamed “Conservatives” are riding high in the opinion polls.
People vote (mainly) according to party label and national trend rather than for or against the individual candidate. That plays to McCartney’s advantage here, however unfair that may be. At present, the Conservatives are favourites in the betting to retake Lincoln (1/2) whereas Labour is on 11/8:
If I myself say so, it was rather prescient of me to have included Karl McCartney in my Deadhead MPs series, inasmuch as the tides have turned, at least temporarily, in his favour, which means that he may well be back as MP for Lincoln (well, MP for His Own Benefit, His Wife’s Benefit, and, maybe, Lincoln) by 12 December.
The betting odds have McCartney favourite to retake the seat on Polling Day. That must reflect the general/national public sentiment against Labour, mainly, as well as McCartney’s pro-Brexit stance in a Leave constituency.
Brexit Party is standing, but is probably of no great significance now, Farage having shot his own party in the head (now at 3% or so in the opinion polls). UKIP stood at Lincoln in 2017, but only received 2.6% of the total vote.
Well, the voters of Lincoln have evidently eaten too many potatoes. McCartney has been elected again as MP. He must be celebrating his return to paid “work”, generous (whatever he says) expenses, and perhaps to getting his wife back on the gravy-train (£50,000 pa as “assistant” or whatever, yet again via expenses), though the rules were changed for MPs elected in or after 2017, so it may be that he at least will be prevented from blodging in that way.
McCartney was elected this time because the Brexit Party candidate withdrew on his own initiative. What an idiot…his (guessing) several thousand intended votes probably did it for McCartney, who beat the far better Labour candidate, Karen Lee, by about three and a half thousand votes.
I have blogged in the past about a few MPs in the present House of Commons who stand out even in that —at best— mediocre ensemble for their stupidity, deadheadedness and general uselessness. My most recent targets have been Kate Osamor MP and Fiona Onasanya MP. I move now to examine Scott Mann, Conservative Party MP for North Cornwall.
Scott Mann has made so little impact in Parliament since he was elected in 2015 that I was entirely unaware of his existence until today, despite the fact that, in the years 2002-2004, I myself lived in the North Cornwall constituency and had a lease of one of the largest country houses there [seen below in a 1940s photograph]
The North Cornwall Constituency
The constituency is largely rural, though it contains some fairly small towns (Launceston, Bude, Wadebridge, Padstow); it has a significant, mostly coastal, tourist industry. It was held by the Liberal Democrats from 1992 to 2015. The national collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote in 2015, which continued in 2017, was reflected in North Cornwall. The Conservative, Mann, increased his vote share from 45% in 2015 to 50.7% in 2017. It can now be considered a safe Conservative seat.
Scott Mann
I am not someone who is biased against those who drop out of school or education; after all, I myself did! (and then had to do it all myself later). There are several possible reasons (apart from sheer lack of ability) why someone gets a university degree late or (as in Mann’s case) not at all (and in any case the “degree” label is so devalued these days anyway), but Mann’s background, like those of so many MPs now, does not inspire confidence.
Mann was educated locally before becoming a postman, working out of the sorting office in Wadebridge (Cornwall), the town in which he had been both born and brought up.
In 2007, Mann was elected as a county councillor. In 2016, he resigned after having been criticized for poor attendance. He remained a postman until he became an MP.
Mann employs his girlfriend as “part-time secretary” via Parliamentary expenses (she gets about £30,000 a year for a part-time job). Apparently, they do not live together. He also claims, or has done, for other personal items, such as Amazon Prime [see Notes, below], and for his London accommodation. Well, after all, he lived for years on a modest Royal Mail pay-packet, and the opportunities to make hay, as a county councillor, are far more limited than those open to an MP.
Now Mann has come to public attention as the idiot who says that all knives should be fitted with GPS (!) and that anyone carrying one should be severely punished unless hunting, fishing or shooting! P.G. Wodehouse meets Common Purpose? I have some sympathy with the tweeters who asked “how are you even an MP?”
“Scott Mann admitted his idea was “s—“, but added: “ultimately we do have a problem, and no one’s coming up with any solutions, we need to sort it out.”” [Daily Telegraph]
I fear that the answer to the above question (as to how this idiot ever became an MP) is the same as applies to all other “deadhead” MPs (and they are many) in the Westminster monkeyhouse: they get through a selection procedure which is often a joke, or rigged, then get “elected” in circumstances where only one candidate (sometimes two, very occasionally three) has a realistic chance, because of FPTP voting, dominated by 2 or 3 System parties.
The tweet that exposed Scott Mann MP as a deadhead…
Every knife sold in the UK should have a gps tracker fitted in the handle. It’s time we had a national database like we do with guns. If you’re carrying it around you had better have a bloody good explanation, obvious exemptions for fishing etc.
It's not at all cool. People who opt for idiotic & unworkable solutions to complex/deadly problems shouldn't be allowed anywhere near law making process. Doubly so when they vote thru huge cuts in police funding. He's pretending to look for solutions whilst being part of problem
Unusually, especially for a Cornishman (I would suppose anyway), Mann cannot swim. He nearly drowned in 2016 and had to be saved by fellow-MP Johnny Mercer:
The General Election 2019 confirmed Mann as MP for North Cornwall. In fact, Mann received the votes of no less than 59.4% of those who bothered to vote, the largest winning percentage in the history of the constituency if one leaves out the unopposed victories of Liberals in 1918 and 1923.
In 2019, Mann managed to more than double his 2017 majority to 14,752; he also doubled his majority in percentage terms. Interestingly, the LibDem candidate’s percentage share (30.8%) fell not only compared to 2017 (36.6%) but even as compared to 2015 (31.2%). Another sign that the LibDems are on the way out even in former strongholds.
Seems that deadhead MP Scott Mann is now odds-on to lose his seat to the LibDems. Five years ago, and in fact until quite recently, I thought that “LibDemmery” was dead, but it has revived as a result of the total incompetence of the present Conservative Party and its ministers and MPs, and may be set to actually get 40, 50, maybe even 60 or 70 seats at the 2024 General Election. Who would have thought it? Unmerited, of course, but unmerited benefit is, after all, so UK 2024…
As for Scott Mann himself…well, my opinion is that, for someone with his very underwhelming academic and work background, he has been very lucky to have had a pretty well-paid near-sinecure as MP for 9 years.
Indeed, in 2022, he was even appointed to a minor ministerial position (as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, or PUS) by Liz Truss. That was after he was “shifted” says his Wikipedia entry (probably edited by Mann himself) in 2021 after a few months being a Government Whip (paid) to being an Assistant Whip (unpaid). Translation: he’s useless.
Mann will now have to forgo the MP salary (now over £90,000 p.a., plus pretty decent expenses), and that also means that the London flat will go, as will (at least as paid “part-time secretary”) his girlfriend.
In fact, MP salaries are not paid while Parliament is not sitting by reason of a General Election, so he may already be feeling the pinch.
Mann could, I suppose, go back to being a postman, a far more socially-useful job than being an MP, at least one of the type Mann has been. Otherwise, unless his friends can find a job for him, he may soon start to learn from personal experience how hard life can be in contemporary Britain for the unemployed, especially at his age (46).
That should not come as too much of a shock to him, though. After all, he himself voted for all of the anti-“welfare” nonsense put through from 2015-2024, and approved of most if not all of the Dunce Duncan Smith nonsense of 2010-2015.
I have blogged previously about Corbyn, Labour etc. About Corbyn, I have not much changed my view, which is that
Corbyn is someone with an almost pathetic level of formal (and also, judging from his pronouncements, informal) education, someone with what at least appears to be a poor knowledge-base even in respect of those areas where he seems to think himself knowledgeable (eg the 1930s, Fascism, National Socialism, Marxism, Mosley, the Second World War and so on);
Corbyn was never expected to be more than a back-bench Labour MP and (in the view of many) an infantile crypto-Communist nuisance (perhaps more “anarcho-Communist”), and who was more likely to appear in the now-all-but-defunct pages of Militant (now, The Socialist), Tribune, Lobster or Private Eye than in the commentary columns of the more serious newspapers;
Corbyn’s election as Labour leader had something supernatural about it, in that he was only able to get the necessary 35 nominations to stand in the contest because he was nominated by a number of MPs who had no intention of voting for him!
Corbyn’s nomination was (to use the Leninist metaphor) the spark that created a raging conflagration in Labour;
Corbyn has, on the one hand, energized Labour’s activist base and “created” a party of between 500,000-600,000 members (though pre-2015 Labour did have a total of about 550,000 full members, affiliated members and registered supporters, of which 147,000 were full members); on the other hand, there is no evidence that Corbyn-Labour has solid support in the country as a whole;
The Jewish-Zionist element has tried to unseat Corbyn several times, by holding a second leadership election, as well as by a relentless msm and social media campaign;
As I predicted throughout would happen, Corbyn saw off all challenges despite his being a poor leader (indeed, scarcely a leader at all) and despite the relentless Jew-Zionist assault on his leadership; this again indicates the supernatural nature of, not Corbyn himself, but his placement as Labour leader. Corbyn is there for a reason;
Despite his strange fuzzy “sort-of-Marxist” or almost anarcho-syndicalist ideology (as it seems to me), Corbyn is actually not as alien a figure to many voters as are or were the “entitled” trustafarians David Cameron-Levita, George Osborne (both part-Jew, in fact) and Nick Clegg, with their cosmopolitan sheen of wealth, easy road to fame, inherited money and foreign origins. Corbyn is in fact, as I have said before, a recognizable English/British type, with his Lenin-meets-engine-driver caps, his vegetable-growing allotment, his non-Oxbridge bicycling etc. At any point from the 1920s or even the Edwardian age to the present day, such a figure might be encountered on, indeed, local allotments, in local Labour constituency parties, at the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ commemoration, the Durham Miners’ Gala, at steam fairs or on heritage railway lines, not forgetting marches and demonstrations in solidarity with this or that obscure foreign cause.
I have thought for some time, certainly since 2015, that voters in England (and maybe Wales, and even Scotland) today are voting (if at all) against and not for this or that party. I now see more mainstream commentators taking up that baton. Someone on the BBC World Service radio made the same point in the past week.
The Jew-Zionist lobby has thrown everything at Corbyn from “antisemitism” (which may even have rebounded to his advantage!) to his silly pro-IRA linkage in the 1970s and 1980s. Nothing has worked. Labour has not overtaken the Conservative Party by much (if at all) but has not collapsed in the opinion polls either. Likewise, the shambolic performance of the Conservative Party in government has not collapsed the Conservatives in the polls. To my mind, that is because there are huge numbers who are going to vote against parties rather than for them. That means tactical voting to exclude the most disliked party in any given constituency.
To me, it is telling that, when asked to give a thumbs-up or down re Corbyn as PM, he scores only about 25%; Theresa May scores slightly better, maybe 35%, but “Don’t Know” beats both of them at about 40%.
The odds must favour a hung Parliament. Neither main System party is now in a position to deliver a killer blow, though much depends on whether the SNP vote continues to decline or whether it holds up enough to maintain a serious voting bloc. It looks as if the SNP will hold on to at least 30 MPs, maybe more.
What is holding Labour back more than anything is the corona of “deadhead” MPs (many, though by no means all, black or brown) around Corbyn. The “Diane Abbott effect” has been seen in spades recently, with the Fiona Onasanya and Kate Osamor scandals.
In the end, I think that Corbyn has a good chance of being the next Prime Minister, though at the head of a minority government, so long as the next general election occurs before boundary changes kick in in 2022.
“Man proposes, God disposes”…as someone (Mark Twain?) once wrote. My blog post was right in almost everything but its main prediction! In fairness, it was written over a year before the disastrous General Election of 2019, which propelled Boris-idiot into real power as Prime Minister, a role which, at time of writing, he has been unable to fulfil with any credibility.
I have, in the recent and fairly recent past, blogged about various MPs in a House of Commons where, increasingly, to be mediocre is a standard few can reach. See Notes, below. I have now decided to blog from time to time about a few more deadhead MPs, starting with recently-convicted Fiona Onasanya.
Now let us be clear: people in the UK, especially in the mainstream media [msm] tend to bend over backwards to be fair to ethnic minorities and especially blacks. You see it on quiz shows and in TV interviews and elsewhere. You see it even more in that echo-chamber of the pathetic “me too” “socially-liberal” multikultis, Twitter.
Some of the deadhead MPs (indeed, most) are white; however, the black ones can rely on getting a fairly easy ride from the msm until they really push the boat out in terms of stupidity, aggression or general uselessness. See, for example, Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler, Kate Osamor and now Fiona Onasanya.
Fiona Onasanya
Fiona Onasanya, a black African (Nigerian origin) but born in Cambridgeshire, and now 35 years old, is usually described as having been “a commercial property solicitor” prior to having been selected as a Labour PPC (prospective Parliamentary candidate) then elected as MP. I suppose that most people merely accept that bland potted bio, but in fact it is only superficially true.
Fiona Onasanya was Admitted to the ranks of solicitors in November 2015, at the age of 32. Prior to that (but exactly when, I do not know) she attended the University of Hertfordshire on an LL.B course, and then the University of Law (former College of Law) in order to qualify as a solicitor.
So what did Fiona Onasanya do between the ages of 18 and 32? A first degree and then Solicitors’ course together add up to about 4 years. That leaves 10 years outstanding. Her constituency website is not at all illuminating. Her Wikipedia entry states that she was a County Councillor in Cambridgeshire from 2013. That of course pays an allowance these days, as well as expenses (such as fuel for a car). Fiona Onasanya was also Deputy Leader of the Labour Group on that council, which pays extra (exactly how much, I do not know, but there are councillors with “extra responsibilities” that make a modestly good living out of it). At any rate, there seem to be 8-10 “missing years”, for which there may or may not be a good explanation.
Fiona Onasanya’s (self-drafted?) Wikipedia entry states that “She worked as a solicitor at Eversheds, Howes Percival, Nockolds and DC Law, specialising in commercial property law”, but she can have been little more than an office gopher. She worked for 4 different law firms in only 18 months! Probably no good and did little more than make coffee and read up on “diversity” regulations etc…
As for her selection as Parliamentary candidate, it seems to me that to have selected Fiona Onasanya, especially for somewhere like Peterborough, was almost an insult to the people of that city, 82.5% of whom are white, while only 2.3% are black (and little more than half of those are black African).
It now appears that there was no proper selection process. Here are tweets from the Political Correspondent of Channel Four News, Michael Crick, on the subject:
Fiona Onasanya, found guilty today, is one of the 36 new Labour MPs in 2017 – like Jared O’Mara In Sheffield Hallam – whom Labour picked without a proper selection process in 2017 – no interview, no speech, no selection by local members. Just picked by a small NEC panel.
I have confirmed it was left-winger Pete Willsman who effectively chose Fiona Onasanya on the small Labour NEC panel which met to pick candidates at the 2017 general election for the eastern region. https://t.co/nkloN6umN3
The meeting lasted a gruelling six hours, in which the NEC panel simply read people's CVs. The panel didn't meet or interview any of the people they picked. https://t.co/wad8pZHrvw
Fiona Onasanya was prosecuted for perversion of the course of justice, a charge which has brought a number of MPs to a prison cell, among them Jonathan Aitken and Chris Huhne (the latter on very similar facts to the present case).
Fiona Onasanya was lucky in her first jury, when the jury could not agree, even on the required 10-1 majority basis (one juror became unwell during trial). There must have been blacks and/or Labour Party partisans on that jury! Its prolonged deliberations and weekend adjournment brought hundreds of mocking tweets (heedless of “contempt of Court”), such as one which suggested that the jury would be sequestered for the weekend “in the local mental hospital”, so open-and-shut was Onasanya’s case. In fact, the second jury did not take long to find her guilty.
Since then, Fiona Onasanya has compared herself to Biblical figures who faced courts, such as Jesus Christ and Daniel, and to others who (apparently unknown to avid Nigerian church-goer Fiona) never faced courts at all (Moses, Joseph etc).
Fiona Onasanya faces a prison sentence. Though perversion of the course of justice carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, the relevant judicial guidelines indicate between 4 months and 36 months, with 12 months not uncommon in cases where the defendant lied about the identity of a car driver. Chris Huhne got 8 months, and that was on a guilty plea and far simpler facts (a simpler conspiracy). Jonathan Aitken got 18 months, also on guilty pleas, but his offence, in fact 2 offences, were intrinsically more serious, arguende.
If Fiona Onasanya is sentenced to a year or more in prison, she will be forced to vacate her seat (though in theory an MP so forced out can re-enter if again elected). The judge’s sentence will therefore either trigger a by-election, or keep Fiona Onasanya in her seat (at least until the next General Election). Jeremy Corbyn has given a broad hint that she faces deselection before that election anyway. Without the Labour label, she would probably get only a handful of votes.
My guess, albeit an educated guess, is that Fiona Onasanya will get a year or more of imprisonment. Why? Apart from the bare offence, she not only pleaded Not Guilty in both trials but also made up a complicated story with her brother (guilty of several similar offences), part of which was to blame an entirely innocent young Russian of whom they knew. He was saved from possible (indeed probable, arguably) prosecution only because he was visiting his family in Russia at the material time. The failure of the first jury to agree was plainly perverse and flew in the face of a plethora of convincing circumstantial and other evidence.
As to Fiona Onasanya’s future outside politics, it looks bleak: if imprisoned, she will undoubtedly be struck off the solicitors’ roll (that is a likelihood in any case). She is now 35. If imprisoned, she could be 37 when released. It looks as if the dole queue beckons. Either that or digging up potato from the heavy soil of Cambridgeshire.
On today’s date, Fiona Onasanya MP was sentenced to 3 months’ imprisonment, which means that she will actually be in prison for about 6 weeks minus days in court and in police custody, so probably about a month in the end, if that. Her brother got 10 months.
I am surprised at the leniency of the sentence, in that she deliberately set out on a course of deception, tried to blame someone else for the offence and pleaded Not Guilty despite overwhelming circumstantial evidence, thus necessitating two expensive trials (the first jury being unable to agree on a verdict).
In his very similar trial a few years ago, Chris Huhne got 8 months on a Guilty plea! As a former practising barrister who has (long ago, in the early/mid 1990s) conducted Crown Court criminal trials (though I was always more civil and commercial), I am aware that every sentencing is different because every defendant is different, but the anomaly here is stark. Fiona Onasanya gets about a third of Huhne’s sentence despite her crime being worse on the facts, despite having pleaded Not Guilty (twice). Is it because she is black? Or because she is a black woman? Vicky Pryce (see below) was a woman, after all, and she got 8 months, not 3, and for less. I read much about “white privilege”. Hardy ha ha.
Vicky Pryce got 8 months for having done less than either her husband or Fiona Onasanya. Vicky Pryce and Chris Huhne both actually served 9 weeks in prison before being released early, not the strict 4 months as might have been expected.
Reading the judge’s remarks in the Onasanya case (see tweet below), it is clear that he was floundering in trying to find a reason to suspend the sentence, but in the end could not, so made the sentence as lenient as he felt was possible.
Judge to Fiona Onasanya's barrister on suggestion of suspended sentence: "I'm in difficulty."
"If she wasn't an MP or wasn't in a position of responsibility, she would go inside. It's not one law for those in a position of power, and another for those who are not,"
The lenient sentence means that, until removed by the electors of Peterborough, Fiona Onasanya will continue to collect about £1,000 a week after tax, whether in prison or not. She will also continue to get her flat rent, utilities etc paid for via Parliamentary expenses!
The only way to remove her early would be for 10% of Peterborough electors to demand that via a Petition of Recall, which would trigger a by-election. She has been expelled by Labour, which supports such a petition. However, it will take months both to organize the petition and then for a by-election to be held.
In fact, latest news is that the Recall Petition cannot even be started until Fiona Onasanya has finished her appeal process, which might be months or even (potentially) years. For all that time she will be dragging down £1,000 a week after tax, despite the fact that her assistant has said (to a newspaper) that she did no work as an MP whatsoever, and had 5,000 emails unanswered until she employed said assistant (via expenses, of course).
I suppose that there will be a General Election soon anyway and that, if this waste of space stands, she will get only about 10 votes, or at least only a few hundred (depending on how many Africans in Peterborough are totally stupid).
The Onasanya case proves yet again what a load of useless trash many MPs are now. In this case, her only known jobs are 18 months working as trainee (making the tea?) at a few law firms. At the age of 35. We should find some island somewhere and start deporting. Tristan da Cunha? Target number? In the millions.
Well, I had no idea that the Attorney-General reads and takes account of my blogging! Only joking…but it seems that the A-G is considering whether to refer Fiona Onasanya’s sentence to the Court of Appeal as “unduly lenient”.
Fiona Onasanya, still an MP and likely to remain one until the next general election, was released after only 28 days in prison. I guessed right on that.
Update, 5 March 2019
Fiona Onasanya lost her appeal, in the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) against conviction. In theory, she might appeal to the Supreme Court, but it is unlikely that that would be allowed, there not being (as it seems) grounds for such appeal. It is doubtful too whether legal aid would be forthcoming for it, and Fiona Onasanya has no means with which to pursue a privately-paid appeal, though it occurs to me that it is in her financial interest, possibly, at least to make application to appeal, in that, as noted here above, she is getting (net of tax) about £1,000 (in pay) and a similar amount for her London rent, utilities etc paid to her (on Parliamentary expenses) for every week in which she still sits as MP, despite disgrace, despite conviction, despite imprisonment, despite the fact that “her assistant has said (to a newspaper) that she did no work as an MP whatsoever, and had 5,000 emails unanswered until she employed said assistant (via expenses, of course)“. Typical. Most of Africa is in near-chaos for the same reasons, because most blacks are incapable of organization…
So far, there have been no active moves made to start the procedure of recall, because the criminal appeal process is still active, even if only notionally. I expect that Fiona Onasanya will be able to hang on as MP until the Summer, if not until the end of the year. To stop her clinging on until the next general election, there has to be the political equivalent of stamping on her fingers, meaning
an end to the appeals process;
a Recall Petition in proper form;
a petition signed by at least 7,000 people in Peterborough;
The deadhead has now made a video appealing to Peterborough voters to keep her as MP. She really must think that the people of Peterborough are as thick as she is! My guess? If there is a recall petition before a General Election, then I think that it will be voted for overwhelmingly, and that, in the subsequent by-election, she will get a vote of somewhere around 2%. Of course, in the meantime, because she is appealing her conviction, she is still receiving her over £77,000 p.a. salary, plus expenses such as a paid-for London flat (with all utilities, Council Tax etc also paid for).
The creature (Fiona Onasanya) could not pronounce “eligible” or “ineligible”, saying “illegible” (i.e. did not know the difference!).
She is still on Twitter, and still tweeting as if the axe will not soon fall on her whole life and lifestyle!
Update, 30 April 2019
It seems all but inevitable that tomorrow a recall petition will approve the sacking of Fiona Onasanya and the calling of a by-election which might result in Brexit Party scoring a hit:
BREAKING: Constituents in Peterborough opt to remove their MP Fiona Onasanya- 19,261 signed the petition which will trigger a by-election. pic.twitter.com/xeZUJSm0xF
It would be incredible if Farage stood for the seat and captured it (despite the fact that “Brexit Party” is obviously rather far from my position ideologically).
Update, 7 May 2019
The by-election will be held on 6 June 2019 (the anniversary of the Normandy Landings of 1944! You couldn’t make it up!) and, while Nigel Farage will not be standing, the Brexit Party will be putting up a candidate. Nominations close on 9 May. Look at the rally below. According to local newspapers, nearly 2,000 people. In a provincial city. In England.
Peterborough rally for the Brexit Party. When was the last time British politics saw something like this?? Astonishing. They’re doing three rallies a week! pic.twitter.com/YVUlQnhTdw
Change UK London Rally vs Brexit Party Peterborough Rally. One made lead story on BBC News, the other didn’t even feature. That’s right. The tiny one made the front page, the massive one didn’t. Why’s that I wonder? pic.twitter.com/0MVGwgUoly
— The Other Nigel. My truth. (@TheOtherNigel) May 7, 2019
(In fact, the photo there may not be of Brexit Party’s meeting)
As for Fiona Onasanya, she has now been removed as MP, and will almost certainly be expelled (struck off) from the solicitors’ profession (in which she only practised for about a year anyway). She is already effectively forgotten and will soon be back on the dole.
Update, 8 August 2019
Fiona Onasanya has, as expected, now been struck off the solicitors’ roll.
The fact that creatures like Fiona Onasanya were and still are selected as Labour candidates was one major reason why Labour started to slide from being a major party to becoming a niche party appealing to blacks, browns, public service workers and a few other groups.
Update, 5 October 2022
At the by-election necessitated by the removal of Fiona Onasanya as MP, Labour’s new candidate, Lisa Forbes, won narrowly from Brexit Party. pushing the Conservative Party candidate into third place. However, at the General Election of 2019, some 6 months later, Lisa Forbes was unseated by the same Conservative candidate (and Brexit Party relegated to a poor fourth place): see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterborough_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s
“I have now authored and published a book about my journey into politics, Parliament and prison entitled ‘Snakes & Adders’ (see http://www.fionasanyaa.co.uk), currently release monthly newsletters to subscribers, host workshops and am seeking to establish trauma informed care support for women in prison.
Outside of the political arena, I am an active member of my church, an avid reader and seek to encourage, inspire and assist others utilising the experience I am privileged to have.”
Those who have read my recent blogs on Brexit and Theresa May will have noted that I predicted (in the posts and/or in the Comments sections to the posts) that, if the Commons vote on the Theresa May Brexit “deal” were to go against the Government, as always seemed probable, one likely consequence would be that there would be a revolt among Conservative Party MPs, with the aim of ejecting her from her leadership position. That has now happened, though the Commons vote on the Brexit “deal” has not been taken, and may never be.
Theresa May as Prime Minister
I do not conceal that I am very opposed to Theresa May.
She has had passed repressive legislation, both as Prime Minister and in her former office as Home Secretary;
She is very pro-Jewish, very pro-Zionist, very pro-Israel and is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel;
There are indications that she herself may be of partly-Jewish origin;
She has continued the Con Coalition (and, even before that, Gordon Brown Labour) demonization of the poor, unemployed and disabled, even to the extent of promoting dishonest and thick-as-two-short-planks Esther McVey to Cabinet as Work and Pensions Secretary;
She failed, both as Home Secretary and as Prime Minister, to stop or even slow mass immigration;
She has shown no strategic grasp.
[Theresa May became Prime Minister after all other candidates “killed” each other]
I will say that, for a few days after having become Prime Minister, Theresa May looked like a slightly better choice than David Cameron-Levita had proven to be. She made statements in the “One Nation Conservative” vein and seemed to be willing to revisit the obviously not-working bits of Con Coalition policy, such as Dunce Duncan Smith’s pathetic and misconceived Universal Credit fiasco. However, it soon turned out that Theresa May had few ideas of her own and yet was completely inflexible.
Theresa May worked for 20 years, before entering Parliament, as a back-room bureaucrat at the BACS cheque-clearing organization. She is out of her depth as Prime Minister (in fact she was no good as Home Secretary either).
Theresa May’s brittle persona, which might be described as “barely-concealed hysterical panic”, disguised under a “Wicked Witch” outer layer, became very apparent during the General Election campaign of 2017. Afraid to show herself in public, even to the limited extent of her predecessors, her “campaign speeches” to carefully-vetted tiny groups in aircraft hangars etc were every bit as fake as those of US Presidents, and were seen as such. Her hysterical “Nothing has changed! Nothing has changed!” screech turned her from a perceivedly “solid” Prime Minister to an embattled and weak one. Immediately. The 2017 election was probably lost right there.
After the 2017 election, Theresa May was a lame duck PM, dependent on the Democratic Unionist Party votes, which were bought at great expense. Without those DUP votes, Theresa May is totally powerless. The EU establishment saw that and has taken full advantage of Theresa May’s political weakness.
How Has Theresa May Survived This Long?
The answer, in my view, is that there has not been seen to be an obvious challenger for her position. She is second-rate. All right, but most of the would-be leaders and prime ministers are third-rate:
Clown Prince Boris Johnson: completely unfit for any public office, being acquisitive, greedy, lazy, incompetent, often rather stupid, narrowly-educated, unethical, untrustworthy, callous, as well as cosmopolitan in his origins (part-Jew, part-Turk, a bit of this and a bit of that, born in New York City); Conservative Friends of Israel; a poseur and overall a fake, a £3 note who attempts to present himself as “Prime Minister in Waiting” via an am-dram reprise of Winston Churchill, but with none of the intellectual depth or personal steel; supported Remain but turned coat;
Sajid Javid: A Pakistani by origin, cosmopolitan business type by pre-political career; his earnings at time of departure from Deutsche Bank in 2009 are said to have been £3M a year; he owns 4 homes in the UK; someone whose judgment is very questionable, as witness his support for the masked “antifa” thugs (a remarkable stance for someone now posing as Home Secretary!); connected with that is Javid’s doormat-level support for Jews and indeed Zionists —and Israel—; Javid and his English wife took their honeymoon in Israel; member of Conservative Friends of Israel; supporter of American neo-con adventurism and “intervention”; an Ayn Rand devotee…it just gets worse; incompetent in office; supported Remain;
Jeremy Hunt: dark horse; smarmy snake type; possible front-runner; multi-millionaire (tens of millions); property speculator; supported Remain, but has turned coat;
Michael Gove: has a Jewish or part-Jewish wife, and is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel; one of the most egregious expenses cheats of the pre-2010 Parliament; arguably more intelligent than most of the other likely successors to Mrs May, but often wrongheaded; dishonest; supported Leave;
Amber Rudd: member of Conservative Friends of Israel; complete doormat for the Israel/Jewish/Zionist lobby; wants to pass even more repressive laws targeting British patriots etc, making even reading dissident literature online a criminal offence (!); despite her financial services background, pretty thick; incompetent and dishonest in office; personally involved with African and Old Etonian MP, Kwasi Kwarteng; Remain Queen Bee;
Philip Hammond: dull but predictable and therefore perceived as “safe”; supported Remain;
Dominic Raab: a half-Jew, Raab has worked in diplomatic activity; there have been some controversial news reports about his personal behaviour; supported Leave;
Jacob Rees-Mogg: may or may not be a candidate; multi-millionaire and Leave luminary; may not want to give up his big City of London wealth fund operation to become PM, but the lure of the highest office is powerfully magnetic.
The above seem to be the most likely candidates to vie for the succession to Theresa May, if she cannot get 158 MPs to vote for her this evening (50% of the total).
Incredibly, some even less suitable names may want to be on the ballot paper, including
sex pest and doormat-for-Israel Stephen Crabb;
Esther Mcvey (another, yawn, Conservative Friends of Israel member); an evil associate of Dunce Duncan Smith;
dull nobody Andrea Leadsom;
even Penny Mordaunt! (but this is a contest for leadership of the Conservative Party, it is not a swimsuit competition…).
It has been the lack of alternative and credible leadership candidates that has kept Theresa May from having to face a leadership challenge; that and the fact that, should she get 158+ MPs to support her, she will be safe from challenge for a year.
At present it seems that about 110 MPs have pledged to support Theresa May, but the ballot is secret, so their support cannot be confirmed or checked. The vote is a Yes/No one.
A month ago, I should have thought (and did think) that Theresa May would win any confidence vote fairly easily, though perhaps not convincingly. Now, I doubt it, though the outcome must still be seen as uncertain. Her authority as PM, let alone as Conservative Party leader, is in shreds. Her power is non-existent, now that the DUP have as good as pulled the rug from under her government. She is disrespected by the EU, the public, her own party. She must surely go. If she does not, the Conservative Party will ebb away to nothing with her.
Life After Theresa May
Life for the UK has become very uncertain. It might even be said that the British are starting to follow Nietzsche’s dictum, and are living dangerously. It seems to be not unlikely that any successor to Theresa May might want to revoke the invocation of Article 50, thereby stopping Brexit in its tracks. After that, a new Referendum could be held. Not that I favour that course of action. I myself should prefer Britain to wake up, kick out the traitors and unwanted cuckoos in our nest, and leave the EU completely, finally. However, I am not Prime Minister.
Well, as I have repeatedly written over months and years in this blog, the “glorious uncertainty” of the racecourse is replicated in British politics. I thought, only this afternoon, that the outcome of the no-confidence vote would be close, somewhere around 50-50. In the event, Theresa May won by 200-117, so 63% of Conservative Party MPs backed her or at least were unwilling to get rid of her (at present), as against 37% who voted to dump her.
I see the vote not as MPs having confidence in Theresa May, but in having no confidence in any of the likely candidates vying to replace her.
What Now?
Theresa May now cannot be challenged in any no-confidence vote of her party for a year, i.e. until December 2019.
Theresa May still has no credibility, politically. She still has no chance of any substantial revision of her EU exit “deal”; the DUP are distancing themselves from her, which may completely paralyze her legislative programme (such as it is); she now knows for sure that 117 of her MPs have no confidence in her. In reality, few have confidence in her but are not willing to eject her right now.
Theresa May should realize that, just as she became Conservative Party leader and so Prime Minister by default and not by reason of her own merit, so she has now survived the no-confidence vote for the same reason.
There is uncertainty now as to whether the Brexit “deal”, with minor EU concessions as a figleaf, will be put to the House of Commons soon (or at all). As for revoking Article 50, that seems to be not unlikely, perhaps if any revised Brexit “deal” is voted down by the Commons, whatever Theresa May now says.
We must never forget that ZOG/NWO wants the UK to either stay in the EU or to leave the EU but on a basis of effectively still being tied to it.
Afterthought, 14 December 2018
It may be thought surprising that I left out the name of David Davis from the list of possible leaders. Back in 2008, I predicted that he might return to government as Cabinet minister and even Prime Minister. I have subsequently been proven correct in the first part; as to the second, that is now unlikely though (things being what they are…) not impossible. Davis is now 69, but the main obstacle to his being elected as Conservative Party leader and notionally then Prime Minister is that he is for Leave, most MPs are for Remain. That, and his more traditional type of Conservatism.
Update, 15 December 2018
“It’s over. If Brexit happens at all – and for the first time I’m beginning to think it won’t – it will be on terms that keep the worst aspects of EU membership. Britain will be humbled in the eyes of the world, having tried to recover its independence and been faced down. The largest popular vote in our history will be disregarded, and the nation that exported representative government exposed as an oligarchy. Plus – and I know this sounds almost trivial next to those calamities, but it matters to me – the Conservative Party might never recover.” [Daniel Hannan MEP, in the Daily Telegraph]
Update, 1 April 2019
Incredibly, Liz Truss, who only became an MP on her back, is now spoken of as a potential Conservative prime minister! This is madness!
@BBCr4today Liz Truss was on Radio 4 this morning and was simply dreadful. For a cabinet minister it was embarrassing. What on earth have we become when these mediocrities are running our country? #LizTruss#brexit
— capitano coffee #NHSBlueheart 💙 (@capitanocoffee) April 1, 2019
Liz Truss: Tory leadership candidate: Just imagine; Prime Minister Liz Truss: God forbid, politics can’t foist this Tory dimwit as the country’s leader😳🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪can it?😱😱
Well, now we know that, in between 2019 and now, Britain had to endure 3 years of shambolic “Boris” Johnson, followed by 6 weeks of Liz Truss, “ably” supported by Woollyhead Trussbanger (Kwasi Kwarteng), who together managed to tip the UK into a downward economic spiral in only a few weeks.
Now we have diminutive Indian former money-juggler, Rishi Sunak, as “Prime Minister”. This is not looking good.
Ian Robert Millard 