Tag Archives: Karen Bradley

Deadhead MPs, MPs, Party Politics, Uncategorized

Deadhead MPs, An Occasional Series: The Karen Bradley Story

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Karen Bradley is the Conservative Party MP for Staffordshire Moorlands, and has been since the constituency boundaries were changed for the 2010 General Election, making the seat a safe seat for the Conservatives. Her share of the vote increased from 45.2% in 2010 to 58.1% in 2017.

Unlike most MPs, Karen Bradley represents an area not far from where she was born. She went to a comprehensive school and then to Imperial College, where she graduated in Mathematics (B.Sc.).

There is little information about Karen Bradley’s family or parents. Her origins seem modest, at any rate.

Karen Bradley worked in tax for Deloitte and KPMG, for a total of 16 years; she also worked for 3 years as a consultant in the same field, but gave up and rejoined KPMG. I think that we can be sure that Karen Bradley does know about how to calculate tax.

Karen Bradley is married (husband’s occupation unknown to me); they have two children.

Upon election as MP in 2010, Karen Bradley joined the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee (MPs on such committees get more pay). At least she would understand the tax questions.

There is no record that I have seen of her criticizing or even questioning the cruel system of “welfare” (social security) put in place by Iain Dunce Duncan Smith, the Jew “lord” Freud etc after 2010. On the contrary, she has always voted to make the poor (if unemployed, sick or disabled, at least) poorer.

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24725/karen_bradley/staffordshire_moorlands/votes#welfare

What a bitch.

The Germans have a saying: “put a beggar on a horse and he rides it to death”.

Karen Bradley became a Government Whip in 2012, a traditional home for mediocre MPs.

Karen Bradley was appointed junior minister at the Home Office in 2014 and then, in the turmoil following the 2015 General Election and the subsequent election of Theresa May as Conservative Party leader, she was appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

It may be that Theresa May wanted to appoint women to senior posts.

MPs, like generals, need luck in their careers. I doubt that many, in 2010, would have predicted that Karen Bradley would go from not even being an MP in early 2010 to being a member of the Cabinet only six years later. She certainly had luck; however, the luck ran out:

“During the cabinet reshuffle in 2018, Bradley was appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland after the resignation of James Brokenshire due to ill health. Matt Hancock replaced her as Culture Secretary. In July 2018 she came under criticism in the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee for failing to take action on British government discrimination against former soldiers and police. Andrew Murrison challenged her on her account of what she had done, and she said she would write to him. Sylvia Hermon commented: “I wait and wait for letters.”[12]“

[Wikipedia]

“In September 2018 she was criticised for admitting in an interview for House magazine, a weekly publication for the Houses of Parliament, that she had not understood Northern Irish politics before being appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. “I didn’t understand things like when elections are fought, for example, in Northern Ireland – people who are nationalists don’t vote for unionist parties and vice versa,” she said.”

[Wikipedia]

The newspapers were soon full of views about Karen Bradley, the vast majority very critical, using words such as “shamefully ignorant,”, “a slow learner”, “should resign”, “should not be in job” etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/12/karen-bradleys-shameful-ignorance-about-northern-ireland

Karen Bradley did not even understand that Northern Irish voters mostly vote on sectarian lines! Hopeless…

“Attracting widespread and sustained criticism, Karen Bradley united the political classes in their belief that she was inept, ineffectual, gaffe-prone and completely out of her depth,” said Deirdre Heenan, professor of Social Policy at Ulster University.” [BBC]

“Media appearances by Mrs Bradley became infrequent and brief.” [BBC]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49085076

In the end, though, Karen Bradley’s loyalty to Theresa May and the Conservative Party (she has almost always voted with her party) saved her until Theresa May was replaced by Boris Johnson, who sacked her at once:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49103711

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/karen-bradley-sacked-as-northern-ireland-secretary-by-boris-johnson-38343488.html

It is not hard to be Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Lazy half-Jew chancer Ed Vaizey blagged it for years. Karen Bradley did the same. It became clear, though, when she was appointed to Northern Ireland, that she had received at least one promotion too many. She was out of her depth in Cabinet. She had to go.

What now for Karen Bradley?

I was unsure as to whether Karen Bradley was enough of a deadhead to make it into the hallowed halls of my Deadhead MPs series. She might have been assessed as merely mediocre. However, her performance at the Northern Ireland Office has sealed her fate and provided her entry ticket to this blog series.

I imagine that we have seen the end of Karen Bradley as a member of the Government, whether under Boris Johnson or anyone else. However, she has a safe seat in the Staffordshire Moorlands, seems to be popular there and so will no doubt continue to be, as a constituency MP, merely mediocre most of the time, rather than a deadhead.

Notes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Bradley

https://www.karenbradley.co.uk/

Boris Johnson, Brexit, Deadhead MPs, MPs, Party Politics, Uncategorized

The Government of Complete Imbeciles

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I am often to be found ranting about the lack of education (in the real sense), culture or plain commonsense in the connected worlds of politics, journalism and law, as well as at the steep decline in quality in those areas and generally. Thus it was with a cynical sneer that I read the statements made by Cabinet ministers (!) this past week and in other recent weeks. Take a look at this piece from The Guardian (a pro-Remain article, but leave that aside).

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/09/dominic-raab-brexit-government?CMP=share_btn_tw

Extracts:

  • “I hadn’t quite understood the full extent of this, but if you look at the UK and if you look at how we trade in goods, we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing.” [Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab];
  • “My wife would say [my Lego collection is] far too large, but I find Lego therapeutic … Everybody who does any difficult or stressful job needs a way to switch off. We all have different ways. Mine is Lego.” [Culture Secretary (!), Jeremy Wright];
  • “I freely admit that when I started this job, I didn’t understand some of the deep-seated and deep-rooted issues that there are in Northern Ireland. I didn’t understand things like when elections are fought, for example, in Northern Ireland, people who are nationalists don’t vote for unionist parties and vice versa.” (!)[Karen Bradley, Northern Ireland Secretary].

There are hundreds of other examples from the last 8 years of total incompetence. Iain Dunce Duncan Smith alone contributed dozens, though his metier is more in complete executive incompetence mixed with graft and outright fraud. He may never have been promoted beyond Lieutenant in the Guards, but he did manage to learn the Guards officers’ knack of sounding authoritative despite complete ignorance and despite being as thick as two short planks.

One of the more honest (perhaps— some disagree) of recent Conservative Party MPs, Johnny Mercer, not long ago called the Theresa May government-of-fools “a shitshow”! Blunt Army language, but can anyone now disagree?…

Things are really coming to a head now with this sorry excuse for a government. Either Brexit is going to be in name only, or it will happen but under conditions of chaotic incompetence, thanks to this government’s inability to do its job.

It really does say something about the Theresa May government that until his self-interested resignation recently, the “great intellectual” in it was supposed to be Boris Johnson, who has not once been able to do competently any one of the jobs given to him by reason of his privileged background. This is a man whose idea of appearing intelligent and cultured is (or was, until people generally started to laugh openly at it) quoting bits of rote-learned Latin and Greek and dog-whistling classical-history soundbites. The amazing thing is that, until very recently, Johnson’s self-publicized image as “Prime Minister in Waiting” was actually taken seriously by the msm and so the masses. Indeed, few were willing to point out that Johnson was a walking self-parody, with his classical crammer-college allusions and his pathetic am-dram reprise of Winston Churchill, right down to the gruff comments and slight stoop. He even copied Churchill’s gait sometimes!

Well, thank God for small mercies: it now seems that even Boris Johnson himself has now accepted that he will never be Conservative Party leader and so will never be PM either. Only about 20 or 30 MPs would back him and so he would not be in the top two places. About 5th-ranked, probably.

Most MPs can scarcely be called mediocre, let alone competent. That applies equally to Labour, but this Government stands or falls on its own record. Labour has every chance of being largest party in the Commons quite soon, perhaps by some date in 2019.

The situation now seems to be that the Brexit-in-name-only scenario may not pass the Commons. The Democratic Unionists [DUP] will not accept Northern Ireland being treated differently from the rest of the UK, and if forced to that will simply oppose the Government (or abstain) on all other legislation. Collapse of Government not long after.

Alternatively, if a real no-deal Brexit happens, unprepared for and resulting, in the words of Johnny Mercer MP, in “a shitshow” economically, then a situation of both economic and social turmoil might be brought about within months.

Social nationalism can only prosper from now on.

Update, 20 June 2019

Well, on rereading this for the first time since writing it, and because I noticed that it had had a few hits recently, I have to admit that I underestimated the level of stupidity of the Conservative Party MPs and membership. The exceptional (crazy) Westminster politics of the hour have brought about a crazy result (probably): Boris Johnson now looks quite likely to become Conservative leader and so, by default, Prime Minister next month.

Update, 3 December 2023

In the words of Macmillan, “Events, dear boy”… Events and “Conservative” MPs conspired to get “Boris” Johnson elected (by Con Party members) as Con Party leader, and so Prime Minister. As we now know, he then won the 2019 General Election and, on resignation in 2022, was replaced by absurd and vacant “ho”, Liz Truss, who in turn was replaced after about 6-7 weeks by Indian money-juggler Rishi Sunak.

Despite having underestimated Johnson’s chances of becoming Prime Minister, I think that the original blog post stands up quite well.

As to the others mentioned in that original post, half-Jew bully Dominic Raab is standing down as MP in 2024, after being found guilty of bullying civil servants, and after 13-14 years as MP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Raab.

Jeremy Wright was sacked (by Johnson) after only a year in post as Culture Secretary, but is still an MP and fairly likely to remain one unless the swing to Labour in 2024 is huge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Wright.

Karen Bradley was dismissed from Cabinet in 2019 but remains an MP and, like Wright, has a notionally very safe seat.