Prime Minister Cummings flexes his muscles

[albie]

Not sure that folk have grasped how big a change it is to remove Treasury spending rules.

You can make a case for revising those rules, as part of the normal process of updating the system. I would support that.

What Cummings is doing is removing the value for money framework that applies to project assessment. Whether something new emerges remains to be seen.

Without the backstop of VFM, it is not possible to see the worth of one project against another. It allows spending to flow according to political criteria alone. So if a proposal has electoral appeal, say in a marginal, it will get the go-ahead over a much more important scheme elsewhere.

It is how tinpot dictators dispense favours, paying back donors with lucrative supply deals, and buying votes with pet vanity projects.

[SydneyRover]

VFM is a more user friendly way than saying business case and you're dead right Albie if it's thrown out it does mean they can do what they want. But as we know it looks as if there is some sort of unconventional master plan but basic economics doesn't or shouldn't change every time there is a new gov' it should be more tweakage to change direction more to the left right or whatever, but as we all know there are not many ways to run a business properly and keep it running. Scary days ahead.

[albie]

One of Cummings "weirdo" little helpers has marked himself out as a promising talent;
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-under-pressure-to-sack-adviser-who-backed-compulsory-contraception-1742527

Think the unthinkable, eh!

Now lets think, I'm sure that compulsory action to prevent unwanted births was a key part of another political programme, some time back in the middle of the last century.

Nothing new under the sun, is there?

[idler]

One of Cummings "weirdo" little helpers has marked himself out as a promising talent;
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-under-pressure-to-sack-adviser-who-backed-compulsory-contraception-1742527

Think the unthinkable, eh!

Now lets think, I'm sure that compulsory action to prevent unwanted births was a key part of another political programme, some time back in the middle of the last century.

Nothing new under the sun, is there?

The quotes shown there would be funny if they weren't so worrying. It's like part of a script from Til death us do part. Alf Garnett is alive and well and working in Westminster.

[Axholme Lion]

One of Cummings "weirdo" little helpers has marked himself out as a promising talent;
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-under-pressure-to-sack-adviser-who-backed-compulsory-contraception-1742527

Think the unthinkable, eh!

Now lets think, I'm sure that compulsory action to prevent unwanted births was a key part of another political programme, some time back in the middle of the last century.

Nothing new under the sun, is there?

The thing is though he is right. You only have walk around most town centres for five minutes to see the proof of this. Eugenics is an excellent idea. We have enough brain dead, workshy trash roaming the streets without breeding more.

[Not Now Kato]

One of Cummings "weirdo" little helpers has marked himself out as a promising talent;
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-under-pressure-to-sack-adviser-who-backed-compulsory-contraception-1742527

Think the unthinkable, eh!

Now lets think, I'm sure that compulsory action to prevent unwanted births was a key part of another political programme, some time back in the middle of the last century.

Nothing new under the sun, is there?

The thing is though he is right. You only have walk around most town centres for five minutes to see the proof of this. Eugenics is an excellent idea. We have enough brain dead, workshy trash roaming the streets without breeding more.

Most of them, it seems, voted leave.  So which category do you fit into AL?

[selby]

  I like this. comments made in 2014 being condemned by  mostly the same people who are willing to forgive rapists and drug dealers for making mistakes in the past and want deportations stopped.
   I don't agree with the comments, but don't see any reason for them to stand between him and a job he maybe the best suited for.
  If racial comments are the test of being in government Lammy should have gone years ago.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Selby.

Where in God's name to start with that contribution?

1) What does it matter when he made those factually wrong and morally bankrupt points? The question is, if he BELIEVES them, should he be advising Government? Neither he nor the Government have said anything to distances themselves from his idea that the poor should be compulsorily sterilised, and the decades-old racist bullshit that genetics defines intelligence. If he doesn't REALLY think that, don't you think he has a responsibility to make that clear before he gets a job as a Govt adviser? 

2) The people who were deported last week had served their time for whatever crimes they committed. So what on earth the connection is between a) What they had done and been penalised for and b) what Sabisky apparently believes and has been given a job for, God alone knows.

3) Did you see anyone in here "forgiving rapists"? If you did, then please point it out. If not, please think a bit before you post.

4) The comments I personally made were not about forgiving anyone. They were about the spellbinding hypocrisy of Class A drug USERS being in the Cabinet and enforcing the deportation of Class A drug sellers. I usually find in a discussion that it helps to read and absorb what people actually say, not answer what you think you'd like them to have said.

[wilts rover]

  I like this. comments made in 2014 being condemned by  mostly the same people who are willing to forgive rapists and drug dealers for making mistakes in the past and want deportations stopped.
   I don't agree with the comments, but don't see any reason for them to stand between him and a job he maybe the best suited for.
  If racial comments are the test of being in government Lammy should have gone years ago.

Racial comments do appear to be the test of being in government.

This bloke has not only made comments about sterilisation of working class girls but also about a supposed difference in intelligence between black and white people.

When asked if Johnson distanced himself from these remarks his spokesman refused 10 times to answer that question but instead said that Johnson's views on racial difference were well known and on the record.

Johnson's views on race of course are that black people are 'piccanies' with 'water melon smiles'.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Selby.

Which Government is David Lammy a member of? And what raCIST things has Lammy said?

[MachoMadness]

Some big fans of eugenics on here, what a shock. Can we just rename the off topic forum the racist holding pen and have done with it?

[albie]

Sabisky has just resigned.

That leaves 2 Eugenics fans in Downing St......Cummings and Johnson.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Fascinating. Cummings' first encounter with the real world as Supremo ends up with him realising he's not omnipotent.

This shows precisely why Cummings needs to be controlled and contained though. He has no self-control mechanism. He's employed Sabisky because he sounded like the sort of disruptive influence that Cummings wants in Government. But he clearly didn't do due diligence on what Sabisky actually thought. Or if he DID, it never dawned on him that the majority of right thinking people would be disgusted at it.

And there is the issue with Cummings. He wants to shake everything up, but the problem with doing that is that you don't know what the outcome is going to be.

This time, the outcome is just a little embarrassment for him and Johnson. But what happens when he starts "shaking up" the way we do foreign affairs? Or economics? Or education? Make stupid mistakes on those things and the results can be catastrophic.

So like I say. I hope this is the first sign of people in Government putting him in a box. Preferably with a life firmly nailed down.

[wilts rover]

I guess Billy you have yet to see the news reports today that Trump is sending his chief of staff over to the UK to discuss the Huawei problem with the representative of the UK government - one Mr D Cummings.

#takingbackcontrolfromunelectedadvisors

[BillyStubbsTears]

Well Kwasi Kwarteng has raised the odds today.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/andrew-sabisky-resigns-news-eugenics-boris-johnson-cummings-kwarteng-a9341436.html%3famp

Racists shouldn't be allowed to enter No10?

I assume that's aimed at the man who wrote about picaninnies with watermelon smiles and Muslim women looking like letterboxes?