Lib Dems

[Strontium]

3 minutes ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

It does make me happy to know that you don't think he was forced out of the country, that the Guardian tried to force him out of the country, and the entirety of your post can be dismissed. Don't get me wrong, I understand you are Mr Lib Dem, and Stronts gon' Stront when LDs get a dig, but you glossed over the entire actual story with a statement that attempts to deflect. It'd be a much more productive thing to do, in my view, to actually talk about the way our politicians, from all major parties, and their advisors, friends, and family, are given cushy numbers. It's all a bit grubby, I think. It makes you wonder what fingers are where and what promises are made. There have been a number of dodgy donations to major parties that are troubling to me. The private healthcare stuff with the LDs was one I particularly disliked. It surely goes on all over the place, though. 

At the end of the day, Nick Clegg is an articulate, well-connected Cambridge graduate who speaks five languages, which is something he has been since before he was even elected to Westminster. He was never a Cameron or Osborne, though of course he moved in those circles and superficially appears like one of them. It doesn't surprise me that a corporation like Facebook wants to hire someone like him. And in any case, I would want someone like him in a position where he can make Facebook less "evil" and more open and liberal, which is what I think he's been hired for. He has, after all, been a prominent critic of Facebook, which is markedly different from the sort of cushy relationships you allude to in your post, like Alan Milburn expanding private involvement in the NHS before becoming involved in private healthcare.

[moof]

[Numero Veinticinco]

Just can’t help it. It’s in his DNA, like. I almost admire it. 

 

Almost. 

[Strontium]

I figure Clegg owes us nothing. The country just voted to deny his wife the right to live and work here.

[Numero Veinticinco]

Just now, Strontium Dog said:

I figure Clegg owes us nothing. The country just voted to deny his wife the right to live and work here.

Also not true! Although, it might be true of his next wife. 

[Stickman]

Anyone else get that email from Facebook saying they're going to charge £9 grand a year to carry on being a member ? 

[Numero Veinticinco]

I can get it for 8 grand if you go through me. 

[cloggypop]

1 hour ago, Strontium Dog said:

I figure the abuse they've doled out to him on a regular basis for a very long time indicates they would prefer if he wasn't around. Fair play to him for sticking around this long, I would have been on my way to better things three years ago.

You've been on here 14 years! 

[ZonkoVille77]

Ah, such a shame....

 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/alexwickham/lib-dems-redundancies?__twitter_impression=true

[Numero Veinticinco]

I feel that it is a shame. 

[Jairzinho]

Who has he sold the party to?

[Strontium]

Thought this was going to be about us voting against the government's tax cuts for higher earners.

 

21 Labour MPs defied their party to vote with us...

[Stickman]

1 minute ago, Strontium Dog said:

Thought this was going to be about us voting against the government's tax cuts for higher earners.

 

21 Labour MPs defied their party to vote with us...

"Us" , being a party that helped in cutting benefits for the poor, disabled and bringing in austerity...

 

A party devoid of MP's , ideas and now money.

[Anubis]

Whatever I think about the Lib Dem’s as a party, I feel for people losing their jobs just before Christmas. That’s a bit shit.

[VladimirIlyich]

9 hours ago, Anubis said:

Whatever I think about the Lib Dem’s as a party, I feel for people losing their jobs just before Christmas. That’s a bit shit.

They have learned well from their coalition masters.

[sir roger]

To be fair, looking at the 21 Labour names involved they have probably just got used to following the Lib Dems through the chamber on votes regarding austerity. 

[Anny Road]

I’d love to vote Lib Dem. They potentially stand for most things I hold dear. Liberty, personal freedom, fairness, equality.

Shame Clegg fucked it up, then Faron and The Old Fella. They are now virtually anonymous as a political force.

Shame however to cut the potential political effectiveness of a radical third choice for a few hundred grand when no end of funding is found for cunts.

[VladimirIlyich]

5 minutes ago, Anny Road said:

I’d love to vote Lib Dem. They potentially stand for most things I hold dear. Liberty, personal freedom, fairness, equality.

Shame Clegg fucked it up, then Faron and The Old Fella. They are now virtually anonymous as a political force.

Shame however to cut the potential political effectiveness of a radical third choice for a few hundred grand when no end of funding is found for cunts.

Yet they partnered up with a party that stand for none of those things(unless you are obscenely wealthy.)

It is a shame though that one man's ego has set back a whole party for years to come just when they were becoming a genuine choice for a fair few voters.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Lib Dem Peer Lord Lester Suspended From House Of Lords After Sexual Harassment Claim

Just in.

 

•  
  By Ned Simons

A Lib Dem peer faces being suspended from the House of Lords until June 2022 for sexually harassing a woman.

A parliamentary committee found that Lord Lester of Herne Hill was guilty of offering the complainant “corrupt inducements to sleep with him”.

It is said Lester, a prominent human rights lawyer, repeatedly harassed a woman and offered her a peerage in exchange for sex. 

The committee, which recommends the 82-year-old face the longest parliamentary suspension since the Second World War, heard evidence from the woman, including how Lester warned her of "other repercussions" if she did not accept. 

 

A complaint was reportedly made by a woman who visited Lester’s office several years ago and says there was inappropriate sexual behaviour. It is believed the woman was encouraged to come forward in the wake of the #Metoo movement. 

The victim's paraphrased evidence to the committee reads: “As we were approaching the House of Lords building, he pointed to it and said ‘do you see that building?’ to which I replied ‘yes’, he told me it was the most powerful of decision-making. 

“He said ‘if you sleep with me I will make you a baroness within a year’.” 

The woman told Lester that were she ever to enter the House of Lords it would be on merit. 

She went on: “The impression he conveyed was that he was a man of power who could make things happen and that I was powerless in comparison. 

“I felt angry of the impression he gave of the House of Lords having a culture where this type of behaviour was acceptable and not unusual.” 

She added: “He said that if I did not, he would see to it that I never had a seat in the House of Lords and warned me there would be repercussions for me, which he did not specify.

“I was a ‘good girl’ and did what he was asking, I would be in the House of Lords and could visit his house abroad with him.” 

A breach of the parliamentary code in relation to "personal honour" is a wide-ranging allegation that Parliamentary officials say is "whatever the House of Lords collectively considers dishonourable".

The code says that "the term "personal honour" has been used for centuries to describe the guiding principles that govern the conduct of members; its meaning has never been defined and has not needed definition, because it is inherent in the culture and conventhat tions of the House. It adds that the term is "ultimately an expression of the sense of the House as a whole as to the standards of conduct expected of individual members. "'Personal honour' is thus … a matter for individual members, subject to the sense and culture of the House as a whole."

Lord Lester was made a peer in 1993, and was revered for his work on drafting race relations legislation in Britain.

The peer, who is a member of the joint Lords/Commons committee on human rights,  was given a lifetime achievement award for human rights by Liberty and Justice in 2007.

He served as a special adviser to Roy Jenkins at the Home Office in the 1970s and moved with him from the Labour Party to found the Social Democratic Party in 1981.

 

In 2007 he was appointed by then-prime minister Gordon Brown as a special adviser on constitutional reform.

 

This is a breaking news story and will be updated. Follow HuffPost UK on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.

[Denny Crane]

I saw some figures a few months back at the time there had been a higher % of mps who have been caught up in sex offences than Labour members involved in antisemitism.

 

I wonder if you add the Lords and Local councillors how that compares to other groups who have been highlighted as high risk in the public discourse such as the "Catholic church" or "Muslim grooming gangs".  

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

They've left Lord Lester's first name out of that article. 

 

Is it Mo? 

[skend04]

51 minutes ago, Denny Crane said:

I saw some figures a few months back at the time there had been a higher % of mps who have been caught up in sex offences than Labour members involved in antisemitism.

 

I wonder if you add the Lords and Local councillors how that compares to other groups who have been highlighted as high risk in the public discourse such as the "Catholic church" or "Muslim grooming gangs".  

"The only thing in common is most the predators are men. We need to stop having male babies until we can find out what the hell is going on!"

 

(Donald Trump may or may not have said this).

[Section_31]

"Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, called the former deputy prime minister while he was walking in the Alps in the summer holidays. Sir Nick subsequently flew over to Silicon Valley, where I understand he spent a couple of hours in Mark Zuckerberg's garden."

 

 

[skend04]

22 hours ago, Nelly-Torres said:

Lib Dem Peer Lord Lester Suspended From House Of Lords After Sexual Harassment Claim

Just in.

 

•  
  By Ned Simons

A Lib Dem peer faces being suspended from the House of Lords until June 2022 for sexually harassing a woman.

A parliamentary committee found that Lord Lester of Herne Hill was guilty of offering the complainant “corrupt inducements to sleep with him”.

It is said Lester, a prominent human rights lawyer, repeatedly harassed a woman and offered her a peerage in exchange for sex. 

The committee, which recommends the 82-year-old face the longest parliamentary suspension since the Second World War, heard evidence from the woman, including how Lester warned her of "other repercussions" if she did not accept. 

 

A complaint was reportedly made by a woman who visited Lester’s office several years ago and says there was inappropriate sexual behaviour. It is believed the woman was encouraged to come forward in the wake of the #Metoo movement. 

The victim's paraphrased evidence to the committee reads: “As we were approaching the House of Lords building, he pointed to it and said ‘do you see that building?’ to which I replied ‘yes’, he told me it was the most powerful of decision-making. 

“He said ‘if you sleep with me I will make you a baroness within a year’.” 

The woman told Lester that were she ever to enter the House of Lords it would be on merit. 

She went on: “The impression he conveyed was that he was a man of power who could make things happen and that I was powerless in comparison. 

“I felt angry of the impression he gave of the House of Lords having a culture where this type of behaviour was acceptable and not unusual.” 

She added: “He said that if I did not, he would see to it that I never had a seat in the House of Lords and warned me there would be repercussions for me, which he did not specify.

“I was a ‘good girl’ and did what he was asking, I would be in the House of Lords and could visit his house abroad with him.” 

A breach of the parliamentary code in relation to "personal honour" is a wide-ranging allegation that Parliamentary officials say is "whatever the House of Lords collectively considers dishonourable".

The code says that "the term "personal honour" has been used for centuries to describe the guiding principles that govern the conduct of members; its meaning has never been defined and has not needed definition, because it is inherent in the culture and conventhat tions of the House. It adds that the term is "ultimately an expression of the sense of the House as a whole as to the standards of conduct expected of individual members. "'Personal honour' is thus … a matter for individual members, subject to the sense and culture of the House as a whole."

Lord Lester was made a peer in 1993, and was revered for his work on drafting race relations legislation in Britain.

The peer, who is a member of the joint Lords/Commons committee on human rights,  was given a lifetime achievement award for human rights by Liberty and Justice in 2007.

He served as a special adviser to Roy Jenkins at the Home Office in the 1970s and moved with him from the Labour Party to found the Social Democratic Party in 1981.

 

In 2007 he was appointed by then-prime minister Gordon Brown as a special adviser on constitutional reform.

 

This is a breaking news story and will be updated. Follow HuffPost UK on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.

So if you're going to be a sex pest I would suggest that the one person you perhaps shouldn't harass is a woman known for escaping an abusive relationship and helping other abused partners to do the same.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/13/lord-lester-harassment-claims-jasvinder-sanghera-come-forward

 

[Pidge]

Paddy Ashdown has passed away after a short illness.  Had nothing but respect for him throughout my voting life.  The country and the political landscape is worse off without him.