UKC

.. I am obliged to report it to my professional regulator who then determine my fitness to practice at a tribunal. This is because my behaviour is deemed to have the potential to impact public confidence in my profession (which is to serve the public). This seems very reasonable. That is all.

If this simile is what I think it is about, you would have been 'struck off' a long time before the law breaking event due to multiple horrendous governance failures, repeated dishonestly and corrupt practices.

And drinking at work.. (I’d have done it in the garden but we don’t have one)

Expect the secret Tory down voters, happy to thumb down but won't admit to supporting Johnson after all this 

I have no idea what you’re talking about. Tories aren’t regulated by the HCPC!

edit: I guess some are (shockingly)

Nadine Dorris??

The range of professional regulation is quite varied.  Zero for both politicians and journalists as they don't have professional bodies. I was surprised to find however that solicitors have no professional obligations to society in general, which perhaps explains their willingness to protect Russian oligarchs etc.

I don’t think you would have to declare a fixed penalty notice. It’s the same level as speeding. That’s not to say that creature shouldn’t resign and I emailed our local MP to complain and used that terminology. Perhaps I’ll be up for hate crime.

To quote from the regs (*emphasis mine*):

*All* convictions, cautions and other potential character issues or health issues must be declared to the HCPC1. However, based upon the prior recommendations made by Registration Assessment Panels, the Committee has identified certain categories of cases where the information declared (whether on admission, re-admission or renewal) will rarely have a bearing upon a person’s registration.
*Except where the Head of Fitness to Practise2 considers otherwise, no further action needs to be taken in relation to:*
• a caution or conviction3 received by a person before or while undertaking a programme of study approved by the HCPC, or any other character matter, which:
o was considered by the education provider as part of its admission procedures and the person was admitted to the programme; or
o was considered by the education provider under its student fitness to practise process and the person was not excluded from the programme;
• managed health conditions;
• private family or personal disputes or civil matters;
• minor motoring offences such as parking fines; other fixed penalty offences; or public transport penalty fares;

I certainly wouldn’t be confident to not report a covid FPN, given the lack of precedent on the matter (afaik). Speeding is certainly reportable and in extreme cases paramedics have been sanctioned.

What if you had told your professional body that you couldn't have been speeding, you didn't even know cars existed.

Consumption of alcohol in a work context (e.g. at lunchtime) is accepted in a fair few non-safety-critical professions (though is becoming less so over time), I'd not get hung up on that.

What we should be hung up on is making a law then breaking it and being a liar.

If Boris had campaigned hard on the importance of anti-speeding laws and tightened them up as a result, and he'd been FPNed for 31 in a 30, then yes, I'd see that as a resigning matter.

Any decent lawyer would get him off as he clearly suffers from Pseudologia fantastica.

The sense of entitlement that made them think the law didn't apply to them, just to us plebs, is one thing, and pretty bloody bad.

The barefaced, deliberate, repeated lies is another thing entirely. That's why they should go. The lying.

Both the hypocrisy (making a law then ignoring it) and the lying are equal to me and are both reasons for him to go.

Id rather try telling them there was a frame of reference in which I wasn’t speeding, it was them..

If I had been instrumental in implementing a law, appeared on television to explain the importance of said law, sent a letter to every household in the country to further emphasize its importance, and then broke the very same law... Well, I would probably lie about it. After all, it's embarrassing. 

Ah but that's the difference between us and them - I honestly think that our PM is utterly devoid of that emotion.

Prince Andrew is available for "work" these days, he may be at least comparatively speaking... a more honest man with a better memory. 

Edit: and (comparatively..)  a better attitude to relationships with women too, come to think of it

The big question will be when Parliament resumes.

That is when someone can ask for Johnson to be removed (from Parliament itself possibly) for the crime of "lying to the House". I'm not sure whether this requires a vote, or simply proof of such lying.

Obviously the Tories can then choose a successor from amongst their own. So there is the opportunity for any honest Tories to join with the opposition to get rid of the little sh1t.

 (And any less than honest Tories who want a shot at the big prize could join in too).

They can ask, and the answer will be "no" unless about 40 Tory MPs vote against him.

I don't really think that is how it works. There is no such Parliamentary device as 'lying to the House', on the now-disproven grounds that members are honourable and therefore do not lie. It has been pointed out by a number of MPs that a Member can be sanctioned (usually a suspension from the House for a period of time, often as little as a day) for accusing another member of lying, the Member who does the lying has no such sanctions applied against them.

The closest is 'misleading the House'. If charged with misleading the House, a Member can apologise and that is an end to it. A correction to the misleading statement should be made, but that requirement seems to have gone by the wayside. 

There's a forum for political stuff, if that's what this is. 

While it may have become this, it was originally an observation on the appropriateness of professional regulation. Many threads become political, one way or another.

Fair enough, I can't make out what you do. 

That’s the way (uh huh, uh huh) I like it!

I think you are right broadly but I can't see how 'lying to the House' doesn't come into the following which is from the Ministerial Code (August 2019 with, funnily enough, a foreword by the PM himself) - applicable to all 'Ministers of the Crown': 

Section 1, paragraph 1.3(c) (page 1): 

'It is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister'

(emphasis in bold added) 

Unfortunately, I think the reality is that we are way beyond the realms of 'normal' political conduct here. The PM and his inner circle seemingly act as an unchecked cartel with few (if any) restrictions on their ability to act in whatever way pleases and serves them best. 

Scary times indeed. 

Johnson's excuse, feeble as it is, is that he did not knowingly mislead Parliament. To any normal person, the acts of chairing Cabinet meetings at which the relevant regulations were discussed and announcing them to the country would be enough to make it clear what the requirements were. Sadly, Johnson does not seem to live in the same world and appears to believe that saying he did not realise the events at which he was present were in breach of the regulations is sufficient to absolve himself of the charge of knowingly misleading Parliament. 

Quite so. He has already shown his disregard for the Ministerial Code when he chose not to sack Patel when she was found to have bullied Home Office staff. As you say, the normal rules have been discarded. 

He had already done so when he appointed Patel in the first place, after her previous dismissal from the cabinet.  As with Liam Fox before her.  In saner times such transgressions should have ended their political careers entirely, not merely led to a spell on the back benches waiting for another shot at ministerial office.

Patel colluded with a foreign government to hold secret talks with a view to advancing their interests without the knowledge of (the rest of) our own government, and then lied to the Prime Minister about it when she was rumbled.  That wasn't just against the ministerial code, it was arguably treason! 

With all the complete covfefe that's been going on the last few years it's easy to forget just how completely insane it is that such a person could end up in charge of our national security.

There are two issue here, I think.

One is the PM knowingly misleading the House.

BJ will get away with not resigning because he will say(and has in the past said) that he was assured no rules COVID rules were broken. Therefore he can maintain that while he did mislead the House, he did not do so knowingly.

The other is that he attended a gathering at number 10 which the rules he, and other senior party members created, said should not have happened.

While I think the honourable thing to do would be to resign, as I do not believe that Johnson and Sunak were not aware they were breaking the law, I can't see it happening.

Dave

This is a genuine brexit benefit that we were promised.   It's taking back control. 

I've seen comments to the effect that Boris is the first PM to have broken the law. Surely what we should be thinking is that he is the first PM to have broken the law AND  been nicked for it.

I've long been of the opinion you're right, such action were it what it seemed would preclude Patel from ever holding high office again. My suspicion is her her brief solo career in diplomacy, sorry, her 'holiday' was maybe not quite as unsanctioned as it was presented once it became known and embarrassing. Patel's subsequent, hard to understand stellar rise back through government and teflon coating perhaps a reward for her taking the earlier demotion without dragging anyone else down with her.

Or it could be that she's just the sort of semi-competent brexity monster that Johnson has been forced to surround himself with to hold power in the party and country he destroyed.

Yes.

jk