The Guardian today revisits Cheltenham Races when Tory England ignored the warnings from Italy.
They don’t mention Tory MP Laurence Robertson (no relation!). They should. I did in a report here on April 23rd 2020. I think it points the finger accurately. Here is again:
Over 250,000 people attended the annual four-day event in March, which ended 10 days before lockdown measures began. A former director of Public Health in the region said it should not have gone ahead, and lessons must be learned. The government has defended its decision not to cancel the festival. Prof Gabriel Scally, former director of public health in the south west and visiting professor of public health at the University of Bristol, said there “seemed to be” a high number of virus cases in Gloucestershire.’ Government data shows there have been 972 cases of the virus in Gloucestershire, and 147 people have died.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-52380282
Local Conservative MP Laurence Robertson, whose constituency Cheltenham is in, attended this year’s festival but said there should not be a public inquiry. Wonder why? All those deaths among his constituents? Surely he want answers? See this:
Gloucestershire MPs have received more than £8,000 worth of free tickets for sporting events since the last General Election, an exclusive investigation for Gloucestershire Live has revealed. Betting firms, media companies and sporting organisations are amongst those who have lavished 13 sets of tickets on our county’s politicians. Those tickets had an estimated value of £8,243 and covered horse racing and polo. Tewkesbury MP Laurence Robertson received more tickets than any other MP in our county and the second most of any MP in the country.
Robertson’s donors in 2019/20: Racecourse Association twice, William Hill three times, The Jockey Club three times, Chester Race Company, Coral Ltd, Betting and Gaming Council,
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10505/laurence_robertson/tewkesbury/votes
Follow the money?
BLIND CORRUPT TORIES
GLAD WE DO NOT HAVE MANY IN SCOTLAND
ONLY ROSS,WELLS,CARLAW AN HAMILTON COLE
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All a case of
It is not what you know that matters
But one of who you know
All ways has been the Modus Operandi
Of Westminster it has been built and modelled as such for hundreds of years
And totally and utterly useless now in the realities of the rapidly changing modern World
Unless you one of their elite and you can cut yourself a piece of A exceedingly ever and rapidly depleting Cake
So bloody obvious
Scotland tis time for a Harp and as John Wayne used to always say in a Shit situation
Let,s get the Hell out of Here
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Westminster–synonymous with sleaze, corruption, graft, cronyism, sexual harassment and deviancy. That is their good points.
But they all stick together, these Brit Nats, and there is a wall of silence from the media.
The Texas Monthly magazine has offered its readers “13 curses” to fling at Senator “FlyinTed Cruz”, who fled the Big Freeze for the Ritz-Carlton in sun-drenched Cancun.
Boris only fled to an Oligarch funded “freeby” in Mustique.
Somehow “13 curses” don’t seem enough for the Westminster lot.
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Gavinochiltree
Fret not
Because the strongest structural pillar of the
Whole useless corrupt house will soon no longer be holding it up
And that pillar is the Blue one called Scotland
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Of course, the Tories don’t hold a monopoly on dishonesty and self-serving politics, though the right-wing mind is somewhat predisposed to helping itself first, last, and always. Criminality is also closely associated with fascism (see Trump).
Behavioral Dishonesty in the Public Sector
https://academic.oup.com/jpart/article/29/4/572/5123577
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Interesting paper – thanks for the link CameronB.
Given the context in which the link is given, it could leave an impression that the paper’s conclusions are negative – in a ‘dispiriting’ sense. This would give a partial picture. It’s interesting enough I think to pull out a few key findings here.
The first of its two studies into behavioural dishonesty in public sector organisations uses as a sample prospective public employees in Denmark. The authors show how individual-level behavioral dishonesty is very strongly NEGATIVELY correlated with public service motivation (PSM).
The authors argue that Denmark is a crucial case for the study of dishonesty as the country consistently has been found to be one of the least corrupt countries in the world. They find that higher levels of PSM (in particular commitment to public interest [CPI] and self-sacrifice [SS]) are all associated with substantively less behavioral dishonesty among Danish prospective public employees.
I find the Danish results not unexpected but nonetheless positive and ‘reassuring’! And if in Denmark why not extant in Scotland too?
Their second study considers prospective public employees in 10 different countries with very different levels of corruption. It finds that widely used country-level indicators of corruption are strongly correlated with the average behavioral dishonesty among prospective public employees. This correlation may reflect that the selection of more or less dishonest individuals into the public service can be a driver of corruption in itself or it may reflect that behavioral dishonesty is generally more pervasive throughout corrupt, rule-violating societies.
Interestingly, the paper suggests that the increasing digitization of the public sector raises important questions of how dramatic changes to monitoring and lower levels of interpersonal contact might affect dishonesty in public organisations in future. They point to recent evidence from the private sector suggesting that loss of direct human interaction has very profound negative effects on individual honesty.
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More research from Denmark suggest dishonesty in public service is associated with high wages in the public sector. Which appears to encourage the more innately dishonest to seek employment in public administration.
Sustaining Honesty in Public Service: The Role of Selection
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when the Tories were ignoring the warnings from Italy, Bozo was on breakfast telly telling us we could take it on the chin, herd immunity pish, the BBC had reports from there every night, telling us how badly the Italians were doing, we don’t get BBC reports from Italy anymore, funny that.
What a cracking pic of Stirling you’ve put up JR, brilliant.
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Fortunately I’m trained in how to combat dishonesty in public administration, as well as authoritarian populism.
https://www.mmuperu.co.uk/bjcj/articles/the-case-for-a-radical-moral-communitarianism
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Cameron
I now must quote Chairman Mao
When negotiations came to a end with
The Lackey Capitalist regime in China
‘ When all has failed the Answer shall come out the barrel of my gun’
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Though I’m a bit of a crack shot, I prefer to rely on legal theory and political science. Not least because they’ve got more guns. 😉
Intrinsic Honesty and the Prevalence of Rule Violations across Societies
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4817241/
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Cameron
I am not by any means advocating violence
But please focus on the words
When all else has failed
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Nero fiddles while Rome burns. The Westminster fiddlers burn the economy to ashes. More ashes in a urn.
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But least they forget
That it is their very own ashes that end up in the urn
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Often it is other people’s ashes in the urn. The Westminster felons survive. Other people die. They do not care. That is why they do it. It will not happen to them. They illegally make money out of it. To line their pockets. With privileges and ill gotten gains.
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I’m sorry for the way that pdf displayed. I think it’s an important study though, so here’s an alternative link.
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premieroneuk
I wasn’t being entirely serious, and I think I’d have spotted if you pose a threat to open democracy. Which is certainly coming under sustained attack from criminality and science denial in populist Brexitania. 😉
POLICY MAKING IN THE REAL WORLD
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Chronic corruption MPs receiving money from private businesses and in return the MPs pave the way for those businesses to trade when it clearly puts peoples lives at risk.
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The Tory/red Tory government, cabal, have absolutely no sense of care, and duty of care, lol lol lol! The people of England should be extremely angry at their masters in London, but no, the Tories would win again if there was an election tomorrow.
That Cheltenham event which they allowed to go ahead, cost many lives,
and no doubt contributed to infections in Scotland, people were freely travelling about the UK and still are. Definitely all in it together, the actual people are collateral to the Brit state, that’s the terrifying thing, they woud not care if half the population snuffed it tomorrow, they can always be replaced can’t they.
The ‘follow the money’ is spot on, EngGovs’ corruption knows no bounds. Scotland needs to get the hell out while there is a chance of escape, that window of opportunity is narrowing each day however.
O/T
CameronBBrodie, your comments are interesting and links, which I rarely click on because I really don’t have the energy or time right now, perhaps like many people. Some of it could be expressed in laymans (or womans!) terms for those who can’t sift through the info you share and the links to academic papers etc. It’s a bit off putting when the comments are clogging up with your ideas and links much as they are worthy of attention, but we need more people commenting and having their say and their tuppence worth on here.
Why not set up your own blog with all this info? That would be good and it could be linked to on here as other blogs are. I might be inclined to visit such a site and take in the info as well.
Thanks.
Ps not saying some people shouldn’t comment of course(!), just can be off putting when it’s a one way conversation and every comment is full of quite technical stuff and links. Sound reasonable? Forgive me if not.
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Arthetty
RE.CameronB
I full respect his views and comprehend as to where he is coming from
But from a personal point of view I always endeavour to come to grips with a fundamental understanding of how any thing actually works
And once you have done so no matter what
You very firmly begin to understand all and where it is coming from
That is why i always try to convey my posting in a humorous manner
And tis the sole function of real comedy to Tell the TRUTH
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I hear you, but It isn’t always easy to be humerus when you’re dealing with serious issues.
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Cameron
But we all need a wee chuckle now and again
Especially so at the expense of those who do commit
Ill upon us
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I’m not prepared to blog for myself, so I need to rely on the tolerance of those who can. I hear you as well though, and I’ll try to hold back, at least a bit. Though I hope you can appreciate how frustrating it is for me, that folks either don’t have the time to inform themselves, or aren’t particularly open to learning from those with practical insight. Most of the stuff I’m posting is simply structured common sense, it’s not exactly rocket surgery.
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This was meant as a reply to ArtyHetty.
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link
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/02/21/concerns-about-democracy-in-the-digital-age/
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If SNP members want to support open democracy in Scotland, I’d suggest you’ve almost run out of time to do anything about your party’s rejection of the biopsychosocial model of health. Please make more of an effort to regain your party’s democratic credentials.
https://www.equalitylaw.eu/publications/thematic-reports
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