Whether or not David Ross of Carphone Warehouse fame did or didn’t pay for the PM’s £15,000 Christmas break (see here, here, here) there’s no getting away from the closeness of the grouse shooters to the government.
This blog has written before about David Ross, his shooting lodge in the North York Moors and the blue plaque that fell from heaven and then disappeared (see here). And about the auctioning of a day’s grouse shooting for 8 people at a fundraiser for the Tory party. Grouse shooters have access to the top of the Conservative party but that can delay, but not prevent, the eventual demise of driven grouse shooting – an unsustainable hobby underpinned by wildlif crime and whose fundamental unsustainability is clear for all to see (see here).
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Shall we have a whip round and send some politicians on holiday? I hear China is lovely at this time of year.
China is far too good. I’d say Syria would be more up their street.
North Korea may be or a revolutionary guards jail in Iran and of course he Yanks still have Guantanamo open. I can think of various Tories, UKIP and Brexit party folks who might find them all beneficial and illuminating as its a long time to bonfire night. Does Putin still have the Gulag camps open?
In other countries we might call accepting such paid for holidays as corruption but we the UK public somehow along with the laughable Parliamentary standards committee get away with it.
What do you expect from this lot – a corrupt group of self centred individuals protecting their privilege.
Paul, I believe your use of the term ‘corrupt group’ is inappropriate and inaccurate. The Wikipedia ‘list of UK political scandals’ details 1 in 2016, 3 in 2017 and 5 in 2018. These people may have different views and objectives to you but calling them corrupt! Really?
I’ve worked in and around UK local government all my career and in my experience we very rarely do “brown envelope” corruption in the UK, despite it being alleged (without any evidence of course) by many people who simply don’t like a decision that a politician or official has made. I’ve been accused myself – and the accuser would always be outraged if the official accused *them* of corruption.
However I have long realised that we do have a problem with “old boy network” corruption – favours and familiarity for like minded people of similar background or personal acquaintance. It’s much less obviously criminal, indeed rarely criminal at all, but it is an insidious influence that helps keep power where the old boys think it belongs.
If you don’t believe that what goes on in this country is blatantly corrupt then you must have your head stuck somewhere.
How about the pro Tory media brain washing a massive percentage of our very stupid population? That’s quite a good place to start.