Give Over, Matthew Parris. We Know It’s the DWP Screwing Over Disabled People: the Backdating Trick

August 5, 2023 Eleanor Scott

***‘And then the DWP said there was nothing wrong with me, and had I thought about a job with Deliveroo?’*** (Painting: *Les Mendiants* Pieter Brueghel the Elder. See also Disability Arts Online.)

Matthew Parris, one of many MPs who have failed to survive on benefits for even a week, has headlined in The Times today under the banner, ‘We must ask whether generous benefits for conditions such as stress have made opting out of work too attractive’. Oh give over, Matthew. The Department for Work & Pensions’s own figures show they are the ones diddling disabled people of out money allocated to them. What you trivialise as ‘stress’ includes conditions such as brain damage, profound developmental delay, and post-combat complex PTSD.

No, Andrew Neil, the UK doesn't have a 'sickie culture' problem - it has an NHS lack of treatment problem

July 16, 2023 Eleanor Scott

Skeleton mosaic from house floor, Pompeii (Source: Ashmolean Museum Oxford). Trust me, Andrew, I’m trying to *carpe diem* but it’s hard when you’re being stuffed full of an iatrogenic chemical soup

Andrew Neil, writing in the Daily Mail, bemoans the ‘sickie culture’ of this country.

Welcome to Sick Note Britain, a country whose people are succumbing to all manner of medical ailments almost as quickly as they are losing the will to work.

Oh Andrew, you so very nearly ‘get it’ when you mention the NHS waiting lists, before segueing into all the immigration stuff. But you know it’s not that simple. Have you got any idea how fucked up the NHS is for people genuinely seeking treatment for the most common medical problems that keep them off work, even when they do get an appointment?

How about we look at back pain and arthritis? Are you aware that most of the patients developed these problems at work in the first place?

Ed Balls Should Stick to Dad Dancing - Debate with Prof Stock is Beyond Him

May 30, 2023 Eleanor Scott

I admit that I suffer easily from vicarious embarrassment, which is why I avoid a lot of breakfast TV and sometimes have to look away from live parliamentary broadcasts when Desmond Swain is speaking.

Ed Balls is in a league of his own.

Penny Mordaunt Seeks Out Her Prime Directive

May 14, 2023 Eleanor Scott

The Coronation is over, and one of my abiding memories is Penny Mordaunt cos-playing Game of Thrones while the beautiful 6th century Augustine gospels were relegated to bit-part status. I watched a fair bit of the Coronation in the end, switching from BBC to ITV when Huw Edwards kept talking over one of the few things that was truly majestic, the music.

Social media was unforgiving and occasionally bonkers in its comments about Penny Mordaunt’s ability to walk, hold a sword, and wear and hat & frock combo at the same time, in her ceremonial role of Lord High Embellisher of the Pointy Thing. Views ranged from the drooling adoration of parliamentarian stans to the iconoclastic take-downs of British satirical culture.

Personally, I’d like to know how many thousands of pounds her custom-made fancy dress costume cost and who’s paying for it - I’m presuming it’s being claimed for on expenses, so I’m guessing that’ll be the taxpayer.

Phil Shaddock RIP - the Man Who Ate the Raffle Prize

October 30, 2022 Eleanor Scott

**This is the last photograph I ever took of Phil.** **We were in my house in Fratton, in front of a book case in my kitchen. We’d been talking about the old days, and Lee Hunt, and all sorts of things.** **I’d left the Lib Dem Group long before** **and couldn’t stand his mate Hancock, but Phil didn’t give a f*uck. We were mates. And he let me take this photograph.**

My old friend and colleague Phil Shaddock passed away in September. It was Phil who first got me involved in politics; and dear lord we had some laughs. I said, ‘oh for f*ck’s sake, Phil’ so often he joked it was his new name. The man was politically incorrect to his fingertips; and yet people were incredibly fond of him. He suffered from shocking class snobbery at the City Council in Portsmouth, where we were both Fratton ward councillors, but it was water off a duck’s back to him. He was a working class boy who made it to become the Leader of Council.

Penny Mordaunt - All At Sea With Liz Truss

August 21, 2022 Eleanor Scott

**Penny Mordaunt twins up with Navy-slasher Liz Truss** (image from Wiki Commons, originally BBC)

I remain baffled by the popularity of Penny Mordaunt. Here she is still supporting Liz Truss, while Liz Truss is known to have been vehemently against all those things that Mordaunt supposedly holds dear, like investing in the Royal Navy and education.

The 'Support of Penny Mordaunt'? I'd Rather Trust a Fifth Columnist

August 4, 2022 Eleanor Scott

Who does Truss trust? Has Mordaunt done enough by coming out in ‘support’ of the clear race favourite to have wheedled her way onto the list of future secretaries of state and ministers? Could Mordaunt - god forbid - be re-appointed as Minister for Women and Equalities, as she possibly desires?

If Liz Truss has any political and common sense left at all, after a deranged start to the Conservative leadership contest, her response to Mordaunt’s offer of ‘support’ will be, ‘thanks, but no thanks, now feck off’.

Margaret Foster, Friend of the 'Hancock Dynasty', and Jacqui Hancock To Be Voted on as Honorary Aldermen

July 18, 2022 Eleanor Scott

A close friend of Hancock's wife, former councillor Jacqui Hancock, Margaret Foster was found to have conducted herself in a manner which fell far short of the standards expected of her in the council chamber.

The Unease Around Penny Mordaunt: A Mumsnet Explainer

July 13, 2022 Eleanor Scott

At the time of writing, a #PinnochioPenny is trending on Twitter, and she’s getting an absolute pasting on one of the biggest talk board websites in the world, Mumsnet. To understand this, it’s worth looking at a bit of the history involved.

Penny Mordaunt is most famous on MN for her disastrous webchat in 2019, where she badly fucked up her answers to questions about (a) women, (b) children, and (c) our exit from the EU. So, that’s most of the population and current politics of the UK she couldn’t deal with, then.

Mike Hancock and his 'Category X' Parliamentary Pass - His Victim ‘Annie’ Says ‘Enough’

May 8, 2022 Eleanor Scott

**Mr and Mrs Hancock (Source: Daily Express). ‘Have they got any red sauce, Mick?’**

It’s been a busy old week in politics, and in the midst of it Mike Hancock, disgraced former MP and alleged ‘pro-Putin’ ‘Kremlin lobbyist’, has reared his head again. The Liberal Democrats are no doubt thrilled to be reminded of their erstwhile colleague. Better than that - they can still take tea with him in the Mother of Parliaments! The Mail on Sunday has reported that 7 years after the man left Parliament, and 8 years after the Lib Dems were finally forced, red-faced and squinnying, to sideline ‘Mr Teflon’, Hancock is still able, if he chooses, to swan around the parliamentary estate courtesy of his special ‘Category X’ pass.

Fireworks Ahoy - the Questions That Still Exist for the Portsmouth Lib Dems

November 5, 2021 Eleanor Scott

This will be the shortest blog piece I’ve ever written. In 2014, I put in a dossier of complaints and concerns to the Lib Dem Party after I resigned from the Portsmouth Council Group (and Cabinet) over its mishandling of the Mike Hancock scandal and the toxic culture that enabled it all to happen. I had a one hour meeting with Tim Farron in London, and received correspondence from him and Nick Clegg saying that my compliants and concerns would be investigated. To the best of my knowledge, despite pushes from me, no such investigations have ever been undertaken. A lot of questions remain about the conduct of the Portsmouth Liberal Democrats from 2010 to date. The fact that the Lib Dems haven't answered the questions doesn't make the questions go away. I haven’t gone away.

Portsmouth's Follies - will imploding business plans leave student sky-hutches redundant?

May 21, 2020 Eleanor Scott

**Graduation days like this are currently cancelled (Photo: Eleanor Scott)**

Professor Glen O’Hara’s article in today’s Guardian on the threats to the UK’s universities is food for thought; and it strikes me that there are wider and very significant implications for the built environments and economies of towns and cities like Portsmouth, where I live. Social distancing guidelines have resulted in universities moving to online teaching only, from September 2020 onwards; however they are still asking students for full tuition fees of up to £9,250 per annum. (Living costs are extra.) Students and prospective students are increasingly looking at deferring their places, as they stare not only at a bewildering future of debt and unemployment, but also a disintegration of meaningful “student experience”, student support and value-for-money. Overseas students in particular - the universities’ “cash cows” who pay inflated fees - are expected to stay away in substantial numbers. Cities like Portsmouth, dependent on one large and rapidly-expanded university and the tourist vibe to keep its economy afloat, are looking at dark days ahead.

Emily Thornberry's Mumsnet Webchat & The Children's Safeguarding Inquiry Not Worth A mention

February 5, 2020 Eleanor Scott

The webchat began at 12.30pm and at first it seemed as though Thornberry was going to be able to put in a 60 minute powerhouse performance. There were murmurs of approval and optimism. I learned a lot about her background and her frustrations with the current Labour Party culture. Women were rooting for her. It was all going so well. And then … well, something went wrong. A couple of simple questions about freedom of expression, no-platforming at universities, and women’s rights, left Thornberry - a barrister, no less - floundering in the wake of her own cognitive dissonance on sex and gender. She started closing down.

Keir Starmer's Mumsnet Webchat & the ‘Lost’ Inquiry into Children's Safeguarding

February 3, 2020 Eleanor Scott

Mumsnet is a massive website, used primarily by (millions of) women, particularly from the UK. Any British politician who doesn’t engage comprehensively with questions about women and children during a MN Webchat is pretty much pissing about on the sidelines of debate before scoring an own goal. It happened to Penny Mordaunt and now it’s happened to Keir Starmer. This is especially noteworthy given that before the webchat, Keir Starmer was very much a favourite with many of the left-leaning MN members.

Five Political Things I Love About Mumsnet This Week

September 4, 2019 Eleanor Scott

I came across the Mumsnet (‘MN’) website in 2011 while researching Sexual Entertainment Venues, as you do. (To be specific, I was sitting on a forthcoming Licensing Committee on the Council and wanted more information – from women.) MN’s strapline is ‘by parents for parents’ but this place is no trite mumsy parenting forum. This is more like a women’s space with rotating knives. Within that outer layer of the main parenting pages are nestled many arenas, in the form of its numerous talk boards – sites within a site, harbouring ever more fascinating and colourful treasures for those who look deeper inside.

Penny Mordaunt, Defence Secretary - Has Theresa May Replaced One Gaffe-Prone 'Liar' with Another?

May 2, 2019 Eleanor Scott

Mordaunt on the Andrew Marr show, as a Defence Minister - she is now elevated to Secretary of State

Penny Mordaunt, MP for Portsmouth North, is now the Secretary of State for Defence, a position she arrived at in circumstances where lying is apparently A Very Bad Thing. I was thus a little perturbed to read the view from The Guardian that ‘Mordaunt has avoided any major gaffes since joining the cabinet’. On a day of assessing the importance of truth & lies, I would say to The Guardian: well, that’s just not true. Her Mumsnet webchat just 7 weeks ago to celebrate International Women’s Day was an unmitigated disaster, whereby Mordaunt exposed herself as being hopelessly unable to define what a woman is, incapable of understanding children’s safeguarding issues, and flippant enough to dig herself an even deeper hole over the Turkey veto ‘lies’.

Penny Mordaunt, THAT Mumsnet Webchat, And A Brewing Children’s Safeguarding Scandal

April 8, 2019 Eleanor Scott

*Penny Mordaunt - Erm, What Was The Question?*

Today The Times published a piece of investigative journalism that follows on from long-standing safeguarding concerns around children. The service under scrutiny at the Tavistock reacted by rejecting the claims. This, however, is potentially a child safeguarding crisis in the making. One might now ask, is this Government up to the job of dealing with the brewing scandal? Last year we learned that Penny Mordaunt MP, in her role as Minister for Women & Equalities, had initiated an inquiry into the extremely large increase in the number of children presenting as wanting to change gender. What’s happened to her inquiry? These matters are too important for the services involved to be left to investigate themselves.

Did Mumsnet Catch Out Penny Mordaunt Over Turkey 'Lies'?

March 16, 2019 Eleanor Scott

Penny Mordaunt official portrait (wiki commons)

In the past week Penny Mordaunt MP, Secretary of State for International Development and Minister for Women & Equalities and former defence minister, performed (in the opinion of many Mumsnetters) one of the most abysmal Mumsnet webchats ever, now held in perpetuity in the influential website’s digital annals. (I wrote about it here.) The focus of the ensuing disappointment and ire has understandably been on her apparent disregard for sex-based protections and rights for women, and the safeguardng of children of both sexes, and her odd comments about the meaning of ‘mother’. Additionally there remains another nugget buried deep in the motherlode of Mordaunt’s thought-mine of doom, which goes to the heart of her credibility.

Did Mumsnet Just Hand Penny Mordaunt Her Arse?

March 14, 2019 Eleanor Scott

Penny Mordaunt MP - image from her website

It takes a certain set of tools to turn a golden opportunity to engage with hundreds of thousands of women on International Women’s Day into an unmitigated PR disaster, and Penny Mordaunt MP has somehow managed to pull it off. I’ve met Penny Mordaunt a few times in Portsmouth over the years while I was on Council-related business, and she has always seemed perfectly likeable and pleasant. But future Prime Minister material? Not unless courting disaster is now seen as prerequisite rather than unfortunate happenstance. This story involves a ‘webchat’ which followed on from a conversation between Penny Mordaunt MP, Secretary of State for International Development and Minister for Women & Equalities, and Justine Roberts CBE, co-founder of the hugely popular and influential website Mumsnet.

The Politics of ... Student Housing

October 25, 2018 Eleanor Scott

**The changing face of city centre skylines, as private developers cash in - but how high should student rents in private ‘Halls’ go?**

Housing is in the news - conditions, safety, shortages, rip-off rents, and rogue landlords. In Portsmouth, a city with a housing shortage, local tradespeople are talking openly about ‘600 student houses’ in the city lying empty this academic year. It’s certainly true that in my area many are unseasonably untenanted and hushed. It’s probably a relief for some beleaguered neighbours, and ought to be a welcome source of additional Council Tax revenue for the the Local Authority given that the landlords are liable to pay up to a city facing severe austerity cuts. Significantly, the terraced houses once let to students aren’t empty because of the huge ongoing building programme of privately built student ‘Halls’. This is not a policy victory. It’s a market failing. These ‘Halls’ supposedly have vacancies too, not least because of the eye-watering costs of renting them for students already dependent on scarily huge loans.

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