UKC

"The government has consistently, throughout this year, been ahead of the curve in terms of proactive measures with regards to coronavirus"

https://mobile.twitter.com/bbcpolitics/status/1341340265135665152

I have no words!!

It's hard a fought title, but I think she just shades it as the least competent, stupidest, most arrogant, least trustworthy, nastiest and actually most wicked member of Bunter's entire 'team'. So our future PM then.

I don't understand who she thinks she's talking to. Conservative supporters won't buy it (only the complete thickoes who don't have any idea what's going on and simply believe anything a Tory says without any effective cognitive processing). Opponents will just be stunned in disbelief at whay they're hearing. Treating the public as if they're f*cking two years old is not a good look, no matter how desperate your loss of control is. I'd rather listen to matt Hancock sounding like he's going to wet himself than be spoken to with the contempt that that appalling, smirking witch has for us all. And we pay her to a job for us. 

The performances of these "people" are straying into the realm of self-parody. Will someone make the nightmare end? 

Patel is pure nastiness.

https://www.politico.eu/article/caroline-nokes-uk-government-house-asylum-s...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-55403058

... And... Some more... 

She also sent out a tweet that could have forced a retrial on the biggest trail of this year. And she believes in the death penalty.

So out of her depth in one of the most important jobs 

Given the philosophy behind the selection of the current cabinet, you could say she's perfect for the role.

Truly embarrassin'.

apparently her only qualification is that she thinks "borris is the shit". She reminds me of professor Umbridge from Harry Potter.

It's absolutely mind-boggling and very worrying that for the first time in our entire history we have a Home Secretary who doesn't seem to understand her job, or what it entails. Really scary, about on a par with our farcically ignorant and inept new "Attorney General".

!

I know an Attorney General who has no understanding of criminal law. 

Close. Just need replace one word with "a"

I can't actually think of any of the present cabinet that I would call honest and/ or competent. It is a race to the bottom of integrity.

Johnson, Patel, Williamson, Hancock,. Jenrick, Raab, Gove, Truss, Lewis, Sharma, Coffey,  Sub....Gove.

A team of incompetents. Even if determined to reward Brexit zealots, surely there were some with more ability. 

They don't *want* ability in the cabinet.

They want to destabilise the UK, and make profit from the ensuing chaos. Putting idiots in charge of the country is s good way to destabilise it.

https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2020/12/15/alastair-campbell-the-23-year-old-...

Promoted way beyond her abilities.

You only posted this so you could do a thread juxto:

Priti Patel

Victim of Mathematics

Not a fan of hers then !

For BBC breakfast presenters judging by the look on her face this morning whilst being interviewed.

Although personally I wouldn't hold that against her.

It would be good to think that at some point there will be a reckoning and she will end up doing time. No, I'm not a fan!

A parallel with the last Foreign Secretary who clearly demonstrated zero understanding, nor any care to acquire some, of his role. And now he's PM.

Plus any minister displaying an ounce of competence, compassion or intelligence risks showing up Boris for his shortage of all three.

Do you really think they're such a small percentage? Opinion polls, sadly, would suggest they're not so insignificant.

Last yougov poll I saw discussed showed the majority of people in favour of the latest covid restrictions, but the govt doing badly.

Conservative supporters are fairly diverse after all. You've got the total bell-end libertarian/Telegraph lot who think that they should be able to do what they like, and f*ck the consequences for everyone else - people whom I despise with every fibre of my being. They hate the government, for all the wrong reasons.

You've got the more intelligent, moderate conservatives who are absolutely shamed by Brexit and the govt with its consistently pathetic "smile and platitudes until the road has run out" approach to covid.

Then you've got the tribal thickoes who actually can't see what a worthless maggot Priti Patel is, and who wouldn't accidentally trip over the power cable to her life support unit, as any rational human being would. OK, they're not insignificant in number, but I don't think they're at all represented of conservative supporters.

I'd have to disagree.  I think 'stupidest' and 'least competent' are categories she'd not necessarily win.  Liz Truss springs to mind.   Some of the things Patel does which get called incompetent are completely intentional and what she was put in the job to do.   As far as least trustworthy you have Michael Gove providing strong competition.   Arrogance - well that's a tough contest.   Nasty and wicked, is where Patel shines through as a winner.  Gove is undoubtedly nasty but as far as I know he hasn't actually done PR for military juntas employing child labour in cigarette factories.

This is just a page out of the Trump/Putin playbook - you don't need to tell the truth, you can just tell outrageous lie after outrageous lie because your aim isn't to persuade people to believe what you are saying, your aim is to undermine the very concept of facts and truths existing in the first place.

Also, the argument always lies between two points of view and the more extreme what you are saying is, the more you can drag the middle ground in your general direction.

Maybe that's the intention. It's a pretty brazen, inappropriate and ill-considered approach to the Today audience, who just hear it and think "what a c^nt". She's doing no one any favours, she's making the govt look ridiculous.

I find her to be an appalling person with no morals worth talking about and a disregard for anyone or anything that gets in the way of her ambition and greed. She sits well with Johnson's arrogance, buffoonery and utter laziness.

The Philip Rutnam case for constructive dismissL seems to have gone quiet? I wonder what's happened? If he had a legal fund I'd contribute if it meant she was cross examined in a public Tribunal and shown up for the vindictive arrogant bully she is.

But. Like it or not, on the sliding scale between "complete incompetence" and "preternatural foresight and brilliance", she is stamping the claim that the government is very much towards the latter so she is attempting to reframe the debate on government actions to being between "fairly solid" and "excellent" rather than being between "execrable" and "just about passable". When enough noise is generated at the excellent end, some people, who might not have done so otherwise, will start to think the government did Ok or even above average.

Her words are designed to reach under your scalp and twiddle the subconscious buttons that govern a lot more of our behaviour than we would be happy to admit. She isn't debating, she is social hacking. The rise of mindless repetition of phrases like "strong and stable" and "good deal" and "take back control" have shown conclusively that reaching into peoples subconscious and triggering the desired reaction is a far more effective method of politically getting what you want than any reasoned or logical argument or debate.

If there is any silver lining at all, it might be that over time people might learn to ignore and resist this crap in the same way that over time people (mostly) have learned to ignore charity pests and phishing phonecalls and so on. Tricks only work well for as long as the majority (or a significant number of people) don't realise they are being tricked. How long till we become resistant to meaningless soundbites? Who can say...

Agree, but perhaps she should given an award. To be, arguably, the least competent member of the present Cabinet is quite an achievement.

Dave

And yet, and yet, they are still there and apparently entirely unopposed.  Its depressing 

Two things spring to mind young man.

1) it is not Priti Patel's fault. Its them counter-terrorists innit!

2) when the Tories are eventually shown the door I shall really miss your rants against them.

Be careful what you wish for. The US has just endured 4 years of Donald*%@$@!

I'm sorry if you feel that calling them counter-terrorists makes me look like a thick, incompetent, dishonest, lazy bag of rats cocks. 

Indeed.

I know at any election each party should say what it would do if elected, rather than pointing to the actions of an opposing party.

However, come the next election, I think the opposition parties should list what Conservatives have done and said, since the EU referendum, and ask the question, "Do you really want this party running the country for the next five years?"

Dave

You make a compelling case, and I agree when it comes to press conferences and soundbyte clips to be repeated on all the news channels. She's trying it on with the Radio 4 audience - check out this thread for how it went down. The techniques you describe appear to be effective against those who aren't engaged. But if you listen to Today, you're not just catching the news headlines, you're following what's going on, you know who she is, you already hate her, and now she's talking to you like you're f*cking two.

The tactic isn't sophisticated enough to get the message right for the right audience at the right time. It's like she's been programmed by a satan, Cummings, whoever, and she's only got one setting: smirking c^nt.

Come now. Let's not forget Boris was Home Secretary. Although mind you the 'her' gives you a get-out, I suppose.

jcm

I thought Bojo was Foreign Secretary not Home Secretary? TM did it as a joke against the rest of the world

For a moment I thought I'd (embarrassingly) forgotten he'd been Home Secretary, but now I've done a Google and found he never was.