Labour party comedy spoof, surely?

matt b

Indexing all opinion
some very disturbing mental images:

"Mr Prescott was also spotted springing out in front of her while pulling a funny face to make her laugh."


"As soon as Mr Prescott arrived he jokingly lifted her skirt to see if she was wearing stockings."


"At one party Mr Prescott picked up a giggling Tracey and twirled her in the air. Then, with her legs over his shoulders, he swept her unsteadily across an impromptu dance floor."
 

corneilius

Well-known member
Impromptu dancefloor?

matt b said:
some very disturbing mental images:

"Mr Prescott was also spotted springing out in front of her while pulling a funny face to make her laugh."


"As soon as Mr Prescott arrived he jokingly lifted her skirt to see if she was wearing stockings."


"At one party Mr Prescott picked up a giggling Tracey and twirled her in the air. Then, with her legs over his shoulders, he swept her unsteadily across an impromptu dance floor."

What I want to know is about this "impromptu dancefloor". I have never heard of such a thing!

It is a secret weapon? Do the government dance? To whose tune?

I think we should be told!
 

bassnation

the abyss
matt b said:
"Mr Prescott was also spotted springing out in front of her while pulling a funny face to make her laugh."

actually one of the most disturbing of all the photos was him sweatily mugging at the camera as she grabbed a fistful of his belly at some function or another.

none of it beats him lamping that mulleted welsh farmer after being egged several elections ago, however. that one is still fresh in the mind.

http://www.ananova.com/images/news/prescott_punch1SKY410x309.jpg
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
In a sense the deportation of prisoners business is a bit of a non-story as they had served their sentences and if they had been English they would have been released and on the streets. On the other hand it was obvious that the press would have a field day with it when it came out and, given that Clarke knew all about it, you have to say that it was gross incompetence to not try and rectify it before it inevitably did. I (and I suspect a lot of other people) found it particularly galling that the time that could have been spent sorting it out was instead used to try and force through ID cards etc and to berate the press for the level of their political debate. I'm glad the stupid cunt has gone, fuck him.
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
I'm no Charles Clarke fan, but I doubt this will change anything. It's the civil servants that run and do the work of the Home Office who are actually to blame for the mess of freed deportees, yet they're all still in work this morning and their future knighthoods remain guaranteed and the whole sorry mess continues.

And why the demotion for Jack Straw?
 

bassnation

the abyss
Rambler said:
I'm no Charles Clarke fan, but I doubt this will change anything. It's the civil servants that run and do the work of the Home Office who are actually to blame for the mess of freed deportees, yet they're all still in work this morning and their future knighthoods remain guaranteed and the whole sorry mess continues.

And why the demotion for Jack Straw?

i'm not in agreement with this. i've worked in a government department for the last two years and the MPs are the ones that run things.

the civil servants don't control anything, least of all their own jobs - which they frequently have to re-apply for, as government-sponsored serial reorganisations throw everything up in the air with little regard for consequences and zero measurement of whether it actually worked or not. i'm sounding bitter here, but believe me if you'd worked there you'd be outraged about your tax being wasted in such hair brained ways too. its a real eye-opener. its true that failure is rewarded in the civil service, but at the end of the day this stuff happened on clarks watch - if he'd took action it would have been stopped right away, no matter how inept the civil servants were. when an MP asks for something, people jump.

besides, if we don't hold the boss responsible, there is no incentive for future secreataries to do a good job. the buck stops with them, simple as that. they already squirm out of their responsibilites as it is, we shouldn't let them.
 
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Rambler

Awanturnik
I can't speak for whichever dept you're familiar with Bassnation, but my friend's experience working at the FSA is that it's staffed by drunks (literally) with no work to do who are there only because it's too much hassle to sack them; now that is a waste of taxes.

But as an honest inquiry, from what I gather the whole deportees business comes down to a failure of two govt departments to properly communicate. That sort of thing simply cannot be the responsibility - other than in the most completely general way - of the Home Secretary. It's the job of the leaders of his departments to organise staff and working practices to ensure that ministerial objectives are put into practice. The Home Office is massive, so these things get delegated - to civil servants at varying degrees up the ladder. Does the buck always end with the minister in question? And why should it?

Like I say, I'm interested to hear - my info on the civil service is second hand at best.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
Rambler said:
But as an honest inquiry, from what I gather the whole deportees business comes down to a failure of two govt departments to properly communicate.

one of the reasons being that it made the asylum figures look better, which politically was important. spin rules doesn't it?
 

bassnation

the abyss
Rambler said:
I can't speak for whichever dept you're familiar with Bassnation, but my friend's experience working at the FSA is that it's staffed by drunks (literally) with no work to do who are there only because it's too much hassle to sack them; now that is a waste of taxes.

But as an honest inquiry, from what I gather the whole deportees business comes down to a failure of two govt departments to properly communicate. That sort of thing simply cannot be the responsibility - other than in the most completely general way - of the Home Secretary. It's the job of the leaders of his departments to organise staff and working practices to ensure that ministerial objectives are put into practice. The Home Office is massive, so these things get delegated - to civil servants at varying degrees up the ladder. Does the buck always end with the minister in question? And why should it?

Like I say, I'm interested to hear - my info on the civil service is second hand at best.

its also the responsibility, up the food chain, to manage this communication. if the home office is too big to deal with all these areas and should be split, thats the governments responsibilty too.

the way this would work in the commercial world, is that the manager would be sacked, plus the incompetent staff.

that the manager shouldn't be held responsible for staffs mistakes is the same argument that businesses use to avoid being held responsible for corporate manslaughter when things like rail disasters happen. the fact that these things are big and distributed does not let them off the hook. they should have dealt with it. if you don't make them deal with it, these things happen more and more often.

the only lever we have is to sack them when things go wrong - what other sanction would work?

but yeah, i'd agree with your friends assessment. but worse than those people are the predatory consulting companies taking advantage of the civil services cluelessness to reap big money with no checks, balances and accountability. i was involved in a project that cost millions (no names mentioned) which screwed up due to lack of direction and the fact that they got rid of all the good staff and kept the bad ones. ultimately no-one was held responsible and they'll basically create another system to replace it which will also cost several million - which will go straight into the pockets of some big IT consultancy firm whos paid off some MP or high ranking civvie for the deal.

its an absolute disgrace in my view. thats my hard earned cash being wasted there which could be being spent on helping the poorest in society.

sorry, ranting a bit now. had to get that off my chest.
 
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sufi

lala
the whole deportees business comes down to a failure of two govt departments to properly communicate. That sort of thing simply cannot be the responsibility - other than in the most completely general way - of the Home Secretary. It's the job of the leaders of his departments to organise staff and working practices to ensure that ministerial objectives are put into practice. The Home Office is massive, so these things get delegated - to civil servants at varying degrees up the ladder. Does the buck always end with the minister in question? And why should it?
1 ex-home secretary, (maybe jack straw?) said that there are 20 civil servants in the HO at any one time whos' bad decisions could hang the home secretary - the trick for the big boss is to to work out which ones....

my long experience of working closely with IND is that they have a strong culture of impunity so if a civil servant drops the ball the rest close ranks and noone loses their job (they have their own union who are rightist scumbags) - this particular fuck-up is the result of no-one bothering to implement this newfangled & highly prejudicial law about the 'foreign prisoners', it's an issue that plays into the tabloid agenda so perfectly that i'd be very surprised if it was not a set piece...

fat clark's pretty lucky to get off with this neat by-election re-shuffle sidestep instead of more humiliating resignation, tho his name's already mud, hopefully that'll be the last we'll see of him.
 
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