Government watch

John Hyde
@JohnHyde1982
Had it confirmed that neither the Domestic Abuse Bill nor the Divorce Bill were subject to a last-minute carry-over motion. Both will have to be started from scratch if they are brought back in the next parliament.

Prof Tanja Bueltmann
@cliodiaspora
·
Sep 10
Parliament shut down.
MPs silenced and prevented from doing their job.
Prevented from representing our interests while an unelected Prime Minister is led by a man in contempt of Parliament.
These are extraordinary times.
And this is not what a democracy looks like.

Cummings using the U.K. government information service for his own ends

HM Treasury
@hmtreasury
·
Duty-free shopping with the EU is coming back, if we leave without a deal.

People travelling to EU countries will be able to buy beer, spirits, wine and tobacco without duty being applied in the UK.

Anna Soubry MP
@Anna_Soubry
·

This is wrong

* it’s misleading
* it’s propaganda
* it’s an abuse of impartial civil servants
* it’s a waste of tax payers money

If Parliament was sitting MPs would challenge & scrutinise this Government propaganda.

They shut down Parliament but they won’t shut us up

Emily Thornberry
@EmilyThornberry

Why is Cummings ordering civil servants to centralise a massive amount of user data as a "top priority"? In the normal course of events, if a secret memos like this came to light, questions would be asked in Parliament, but we have been shut down.

No yellowhammer yet been given out for scrutiny.

To coin a much hacked phrase..

Is the government FRIT?

Totally dishonest from
@andrealeadsom
on #R4 that leaving the EU means we can implement policies to encourage 'global talent' to move to and contribute to the UK economy.

We've always been able to do that, it was xenophobic Tory hostile environment policies that prevented it.

Why not publish Are you FRIT?

Why won't you publish Yellowhammer?"
"Because if we do, we won't get Brexit."
"Why not?"
"The impacts are so awful, the public would tell us not to do it."
"So why are you doing it?"
"Because it's what the public wants."

???

Stop Cummings harvesting your data. This is how. I’ve done it really easy

Jo Maugham QC
@JolyonMaugham
·

If you want to make it more difficult for Dominic Cummings and The Charlatan to scrape data from Government sources to help them turn our democracy into a Turkey-on-the-Thames can I suggest you turn off cookies here? gov.uk/help/cookies

They take us for fools

norman smith
@BBCNormanS
·
Don't panic. Govt signals won't publish Yellow Hammer No deal documents cos they might "serve to concern people" says
@andrealeadsom

What time do you get up WW? You have been busy.

Gosh WWmk2

It’s certainly got you wound up.

Strange how 4 days short in Parliament (taken overall in the situation) is suddenly so important to the Remainers. They’ve had more than 3 years to discuss Brexit!!

It’s time to move to the next base.

This time was always coming. Let’s get it done. And I’m not stupid - I know it’s the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.

I feel for those involved after all their hard work in trying to get important bills passed before Parliament was prorogued. But surely the same thing will have happened (to some bills) previously, at the end of every Parliament session? In fact, apparently this has been the longest sitting in a very long time and I expect those bills got further along than would ordinarily be the norm.

Brilliant idea Whitewave and thank you for all the starter posts. I have never got to grips with twitter so it's good to have the feedback from it.

Thank you Whitewave. Strange & troubling times we live in.

Don’t think it’s the 4 days per se Urmsongran that would ordinarily be the issue. It’s the timing that’s concerning and the way important info is being shut down.

Thank you Whitewave.

And now we know that prorogation is illegal!
Queen misled as the only purpose of suspension was to 'stymie Parliament'.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/11/scottish-judges-rule-boris-johnsons-prorogation-unlawful Breaking news.

You seem to have got the wrong end of the stick UG. Parliament was prorogued for five weeks not four days. It would have been perfectly possible for the conference's would go ahead without a suspension. Hard work but very possible and what all parliament, except the Great Johnson party, were prepared to do.

[sigh] but I have no doubt you will keep repeating it.

Thanks Whitewavemark 2. A lot to take in there. Interesting about the big data. Wasn't there some scandal about Cummings and Cambridge Analytica, where the information was used illegally to target and influence 'Leave' inclined voters? Was Cummings not found to be in contempt of Parliament? Why is he allowed to have so much power now? Keeping us in the dark at this vital time.

Maremia I agree, what is going on? I seem to recall from watching the docu-drama that his inspired idea was to get contact details of people who were not on the electoral register, and therefore were outside the radar of the remain campaign; so not Leave inclined voters per se, but people who were probably feeling ignored/disenfrachised etc. and who heard only one argument, which doubtless played into the idea that voting Leave was the way to get their grievance out...

Very many thanks Whitewavemark2. You are doing a fantastic job in keeping us all aware of the abuse of power and undermining of democracy. I cannot understand why so many people think that calling Johnson and Cummings out is a Leave v. Remain issue. No decent person should find acceptable the flagrant abuse of power and the silencing of opposition (with a small o) in unprecedented ways which we are currently witnessing. It is absolutely not simply a Remain v. Leave issue.

We only know that prorogation is illegal with one court, we still have to wait for The Supreme Court to make up their minds.
Personally I don't think that a lot can be gained by Parliament sitting until we have a deal that can be voted on. However, I probably wouldn't have prorogued Parliament nor would MP's have had a holiday. We really have to get this sorted out one way or another.

You are right of course GracesGranMK3 - there were suggestions in the house about sitting through the conferences - but to take the extra days in order to firmly shut people up and stop difficult questions is particularly Machiavellian.