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Tories suffer stunning election defeat
17 Dec, 2021 06:48
December 17, 2021. © Reuters/Ed Sykes
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party lost a by-election on Thursday in an area it firmly held for almost 200 years. The Tory government has been marred by a lobbying scandal and an internal revolt.
Liberal Democrat Helen Morgan won 17,957 votes in North Shropshire, central England, beating her Tory opponent, Neil Shastri-Hurst, by nearly 6,000 votes.
The result is a stunning upset for the Conservatives, who had represented North Shropshire in Parliament for the past 189 years, with the exception of the short period between 1904 and 1906, according to UK media. The party comfortably won the constituency in 2019, leading with a nearly 23,000-vote majority.
“Tonight, the people of North Shropshire have spoken on behalf of the British people,” Morgan said after the vote. “They have said loudly and clearly: Boris Johnson, the party is over.”
“Our country is crying out for leadership. Mr Johnson, you are no leader,” Morgan added.
The by-election was held after veteran MP Owen Paterson gave up his seat due to a lobbying scandal.
The defeat in North Shropshire, previously considered to be a safe Tory bastion, could be a sign of future electoral losses for Johnson’s party. The PM currently faces a revolt in Parliament, where nearly 100 Tories broke ranks this week and voted against the government’s proposal to introduce Covid passes for certain venues and events in England.
Shropshire, UK
Brexit minister resigns over ‘disillusionment’ with BoJo’s govt
18 Dec, 2021 20:47
© Reuters / Hannah McKay
Cabinet Minister Lord Frost has reportedly walked out of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government. Frost is believed to have grown disillusioned with Johnson’s Covid measures, tax hikes, and environmental policies.
Frost’s departure was reported by the Mail on Sunday, citing sources within the government. The minister, who negotiated Britain’s departure from the European Union, reportedly handed in his resignation a week ago, but was persuaded to stay on until January.
Frost’s resignation was prompted by his growing “disillusionment” with Johnson’s government, the Mail reported. Specifically, he disagreed with the introduction of ‘Plan B’ coronavirus restrictions, income tax hikes announced in September, and the high cost of Johnson’s plan to lower carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.
Of these gripes, the ‘Plan B’ restrictions have been the most contentious for Johnson. Introduced earlier this month, the suite of measures includes a mask mandate for indoor venues, vaccine passes for nightclubs and large events, and daily testing for the close contacts of infected people.
The restrictions, which reports suggest that Johnson will soon be asked by ministers to expand into a full lockdown, have caused discontent even within Johnson’s own party, with 100 Conservative MPs refusing to vote on bringing in the vaccine pass system. Forty of these MPs voted against mandatory masking too.
The introduction of these measures was followed by a devastating loss for the Conservative Party at the ballot box. While the Tories had held the constituency of North Shropshire for nearly 200 years, Liberal Democrat Helen Morgan beat the Conservative's Neil Shastri-Hurst by nearly 6,000 votes in a by-election there on Thursday.
Public anger against Johnson stems not just from the introduction of new restrictions, but also from the revelation that staff at Downing Street and a number of other locations held Christmas parties last year, while ordinary Britons were forbidden from gathering. The cabinet minister assigned to investigate these events, Simon Case, resigned on Friday after it emerged that he too held a party in his office.
Frost has not publicly commented on his apparent resignation yet. As of late, Frost had been locked into negotiations with European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic on post-Brexit arrangements between the UK and EU.
EU demands inclusion in Russia & US/NATO security talks
20 Dec, 2021 10:21
The EU should play a major role in discussions between Russia and NATO on the future of security in Europe, the bloc’s foreign policy chief insisted on Monday, suggesting Moscow and Washington also invite his organization.
Josep Borrell, who has served as the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy since 2019, was reacting to a set of proposals published by the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday, which asked the US and NATO for a set of security guarantees. Instead of dismissing the documents immediately, as some have suggested, Borrell is seeking to ensure the bloc is part of negotiations.
According to the ex-Spanish cabinet minister, “the EU must, of course, be at the table of any discussion on the European security architecture.”
It's insanely absurd that they are not. But then, Deep State would have a little less control.
“Russia’s Foreign Ministry this Friday released a draft proposal on security guarantees between Russia and the US as well as to European members of NATO. It is clear that the EU must be an integral part of such discussions,” his blog said.
Borrell noted that the Helsinki Final Act and the Paris Charter, as well as the OSCE, are “key principles” on which European security has been built for the last 50 years.
He also commented on the tensions between Russia and Ukraine and suggested that Moscow seeks to “threaten and weaken” Kiev, suggesting that the EU “hope for the best and prepare for the worst.”
“We cannot exclude Russia’s desire to use this crisis as leverage for its declared purpose to reshape the security framework in Europe, also excluding the Europeans [sic] from the discussions,” he said. “But we know that our American allies will not fall into this trap.”
On the other hand, it may be our American allies who are setting the trap.
On Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry released a draft version of two proposed treaties, one with the US and one with NATO. The documents are made up of a list of security guarantees, including a proposal that NATO won’t expand eastwards into states that were formerly a part of the USSR. If signed, it would also see troop movements near the Russian border be limited and would stop missiles from being placed near the frontier.
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Russia shows German diplomats the door
20 Dec, 2021 15:00
Russia has declared two German diplomats persona non grata. Monday’s move is intended as a response to a similar decision taken by Germany last week, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow explained.
It comes just days after Berlin showed two Russian envoys the door after a German court sentenced a Russian national to life in prison over the murder of a Chechen separatist, Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, in 2019. Khangoshvili had been wanted in Russia on multiple charges. Three years prior, he had moved to Germany and applied for asylum there.
Germany’s foreign minister reacted to the expulsion with a statement describing the step as “not surprising, and yet completely unfounded from the perspective of the German government.” However, Berlin insisted its own decision to boot out two Russian representatives was an “appropriate reaction” to a “major violation of Germany’s sovereignty.” The statement concluded by saying that Moscow’s decision would further “strain relations.”
After Khangoshvili was fatally shot in Berlin’s Tiergarten park, German authorities were quick to point the finger at Moscow. Russia has denied any involvement in the murder. Russian Ambassador Sergey Nechaev denounced the German court’s verdict as “politically motivated” and “biased.”
A statement published on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website on Monday dismissed the court’s claims of Moscow’s involvement in the crime as “baseless and divorced from reality.”
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European gas prices surge
20 Dec, 2021 12:00
Gas prices in Europe spiked more than 7% on Monday, with the price of January futures on the TTF hub in the Netherlands hitting $1,732 per 1,000 cubic meters, or €148.87 per megawatt hour in household terms.
In early October gas prices in Europe reached a record $2,000 per 1,000 cubic meters, which constituted an almost 400% rise since the start of the year.
Energy prices in Europe continue to spike as Germany keeps postponing the launch of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that was laid to deliver additional supplies of Russian natural gas to the continent.
The delay in approving the pipeline is not political, new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said last week. Its construction faced strong opposition from the US, Poland, and Ukraine.
Funny, it sure sounds political! And what does the USA have to do with it at all?
The amount of gas in Germany’s emergency reserves has been decreasing, dropping to a “historically low level” of below 60% last week for the first time in years, according to the German association of underground gas storage operators INES.
BoJo’s popularity sinks to record low
20 Dec, 2021 17:13
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s woes grew on Monday, as new figures show his approval rating has declined to its lowest level since he took office, with most Britons expecting him to resign or be forced out in the near future.
An opinion poll released by Ipsos Mori found that six out of 10 respondents believe Johnson would not be prime minister by the end of 2022. The poll comes in the wake of a wave of allegations that a number of Conservative Party ministers and their staff – including Johnson and his office – had breached lockdown restrictions last year.
Meanwhile, a separate YouGov tracker poll has shown that the prime minister’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest level, 29%, since he entered Downing Street in 2019. Some 64% of respondents said they felt he was doing “badly” as PM.
The latest figures mark a steep decline in support for the Conservative leader, who, in April 2020, secured a record-high approval rating of 66% as he worked to combat the Covid pandemic.
The findings also come a day after The Guardian published a photo purportedly showing Johnson, his wife, and 17 Downing Street staff members violating the government’s own rules during the first lockdown in May 2020. Downing Street has defended the image, claiming it shows a “work meeting.” despite bottles of wine and a cheese board being visible.
Maybe that's the problem, the work meetings are all drunken parties!
This is the latest alleged infringement of the rules to rock the government, with an investigation already underway into reports a number of parties were held in violation of Covid restrictions during November and December 2020.
Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, who was leading the probe into the alleged parties, was forced to step aside last week after it was claimed he was aware of or attended two gatherings at his own office in December last year. Senior civil servant Sue Gray has taken over the investigation.
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