[cirrus-clouds]

Some info about disgraced former International Development Secretary Priti Patel, who is the UK's new Home Secretary (a position that looks after home affairs such as crime, security, terrorism, immigration, citizenship).

- She resigned from her previous position as International Development Secretary in 2017 when it was discovered she held secret unauthorised meetings with Israeli officials and lied about it. The meetings were not sanctioned by the Foreign Office and were a breach of ministerial code.

- A supporter of Brexit, she suggested last year that the UK leverage the prospect of food shortages in Ireland in order to gain a better Brexit deal. Although, she quickly back-pedalled on her comments, she was rightly criticised for her remarks.

The depressing reality is that the current Conservative Party in the UK is stuffed to the rafters with nasty politicians just like her.

Priti Patel's voting record in parliament: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24778/priti_patel/witham/v...

"Generally voted for requiring the mass retention of information about communications"

"Voted for mass surveillance of people’s communications and activities"

[NeedMoreTea]

Not to forget that immediately on being appointed Home Secretary she was accused of breaking the ministerial code yet again, in May! It's currently the only significant point under the Home Secretary section of her Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priti_Patel#Home_Secretary:_Ju...

Most of the reasonable and moderate members of the Tory party are on the back benches, leaving or about ready to retire. The old, reasonable, one nation Tory party is dead as a dodo.

[repolfx]

The alternative view is that this is the first reasonable and moderate cabinet since the referendum.

Consider that it's the first one which appears to be serious about actually doing what the government repeatedly said it would do, both before and after the vote. A government doing what it promised it would do is reasonable. It is led by a man who wants very much to reach an acceptable deal with the EU, but will leave without one if the EU makes it necessary. That's a reasonable and moderate position of the sort that millions of business leaders take every single day.

The previous cabinet had a position like this: we're saying we'll leave no matter what, but we're lying because we definitely won't ever leave without a "deal" of some sort, which basically means the party we're negotiating with can propose whatever terms they like and we'll always accept them regardless of how terrible. Thus an "agreement" which is universally regarded as awful is presented as the only possible path forward, other than ignoring the biggest vote in British history. That's not at all a reasonable way to go about negotiations or politics. Nor is it even slightly moderate - "we must accept terrible terms or else we'll be destroyed" is an unusually extreme belief, of the sort usually held by countries which just lost a war.

Patel may have broken some ministerial code, and that's bad. But the former Prime Minister and her cabinet said 108 times the country would leave the EU on the deadline with or without a deal and they were lying every single time. The cabinets before that told voters they were committed to bringing down immigration, but after leaving government Osborne admitted the cabinet never believed in their stated goal, didn't want to do it and therefore just ignored it. That sort of blatant, knowing manipulation is far, far worse and completely destructive to trust in politics. Meeting Israelis without filing the right paperwork is trivial compared to it.

[NeedMoreTea]

Whatever the former prime minister, or the current prime minister say, it only becomes so once it is voted into being. When you have a majority of 3, and a controversial policy, prior to vote it's just aspiration. If Theresa was lying, Boris is likely to be lying. Neither brought good governance.

Unless there is an election and the Tory party are returned with increased majority, it is certain that the current prime minister will have as little success in the house as his predecessor. They have a majority of 3, soon to be 2, held up by the DUP. There are enough moderates left in the Tory party to lose the government a vote on every problematic exit scenario, and on a no-deal exit, just as was the case for Theresa.

> Meeting Israelis without filing the right paperwork is trivial compared to it

No, it was worthy of dismissal. She preempted that by resigning. She was not Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister. It was not her role to make policy on the hoof on a topic irrelevant to her office. She blew her chance to explain by continuing to leave out some of the meetings, resulting in a second summons to Downing St. She does not deserve to return to senior office.

[repolfx]

That may well be the case, but May didn't have to ask for an extension to Article 50 or have a man as her Chancellor who was totally against no deal. She chose to do those things. And it was - to nobody's surprise - later revealed that she never even brought up the possibility of no deal with her EU counterparts.

In the end, the current cabinet is much more likely to try and implement the Conservative's actual manifesto. The only reason you describe that as immoderate and extreme is you want them to fail to do so. It wouldn't be considered so if "UK" and "EU" were replaced with random tokens and presented to people who weren't invested in British/EU politics.

[NeedMoreTea]

No one in their right mind would expect them to mention the possibility of no-deal - it's the idiotic option to be avoided. Mentioning it or threatening it in negotiations is brinkmanship of the worst kind, as a no-deal is more damaging for us than the EU.

Moderate and immoderate are well known and defined political positions completely unrelated to how you are attempting to redefine them.

[arethuza]

I recommend watching this clip from Question Time on the subject of capital punishment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DrsVhzbLzU

I'm still shocked that we have someone as Home Secretary who thought capital punishment was a good idea.

[DanBC]

"ultimate burden of proof"??

Are we going to now have three verdicts?

Not guilty

Guilty

No, we really mean it this time, actually properly guilty.

[CommanderData]

Terrible, cons have always been the nasty party and will continue this legacy.

Her unapproved meetings with foreign states should be enough to warrant her resignation but how she continue baffles me.

[philpem]

Good social connections.