A diplomat speaks...

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/12/brexit-shambles-has-ruined-uk-reputation-says-senior-diplomat

Wherein we find that:-

"Scott Wightman, Britain’s outgoing senior diplomat in Singapore, has said Britain is now seen worldwide as a country beset by division, obsessed with ideology and careless of truth.

In a valedictory note, he compared Brexit to the fall of Singapore in 1942 and said major investors expect future investment in Europe to be directed more towards Germany and France."

And

"Wightman said post-referendum political risk was now overseas investors’ “principal consideration”. He likened Brexit’s impact to the fall of Singapore in 1942, the largest British surrender in history and the battle that showed the “complacency and arrogance of colonial leadership.

It transformed their view of British imperialism,” he added. “Things were never the same again. The last three years have done the same for Singaporeans’ view of contemporary Britain.”

I saw the Tory leadership campaigns' PR guff. So many supposedly intelligent folk deep in denial. What have we become?

We have become international idiots. A nation to be pitied. A divided nation in thrall to Tory party ideologues, fools, dupes, and con-artists. And the Labour Party is quite as bad. The Tory fellow-travellers of the extreme right (the ERG for those who don't know) fancy Boris.

Boris is wrong when he says the time has come to unite around Brexit. Fuck you Boris. We are fighting against Brexit to the last man. And we will never give up.

That is true for David Cameron as well. We will not forget, we will not forgive. You take this to the grave with you. And on that grave folk can spit as they pass.

Further to a previous story...

Which I blogged about here there is this:

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/12/universal-credit-delays-a-factor-in-prostitution-government-accepts

Wherein we find that:

Donna Ward, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) senior civil servant responsible for children, families and disadvantage, told the committee chair, Frank Field, that it had fact-checked Alston’s report, which had in passing referred to a rise in survival sex.

“He made a lot of good points. It was factually correct,” she said. “I think where the secretary of state took issue with it, and where I as a civil servant can’t be involved, was the political interpretation of a lot of what’s happened.

“But in terms of the facts, in terms of austerity, cuts to local government, in terms of the reliance that we have on the labour market and the risks we face if there is a recession – all of those things were really good points that we have taken on board, and we should take on board.”

Our last two governments have been pretty disgusting institutional pimps. And now they are admitting it, but no-one appears to care very much.

Where is the sense of institutional shame? When the BBC had to confront the legacy of Saville, it showed institutional remorse, and put safeguards in place. Fat chance that any government will do any of that. Instead a minor functionary will fall on his or her sword. Eventually.

The Department of Work and Pensions needs a complete overhaul. As do the policies which encourage the outsourcing of the responsibility for determining whether folk are eligible or not for welfare; as this means there is no political accountability for this and it can all be blamed on the the private operators providing the service to the DWP.

When it all goes wrong, the government have managed to privatise the blame. That really is the current Tory party's main accomplishment.