General UK politics

Status
Not open for further replies.
Darat said:
You have seemingly equated "plain speaking" with what she did (and not alleged - the report found she had breached the code). Plus you have named politicians that were in power before the "Ministerial Code" was put in place - (which was if memory serves me right the policy of Cameron and Clegg) perhaps the politicians you mentioned were the reason for having a ministerial code in the first place?
I also think we are at best getting what she actually did through the government's spin and that sounds bad enough. If it is true that someone attempted suicide because of how she treated them then it is well beyond any "bullying" I've had to deal with over the last 30 years or so across multiple large international companies and I've had to deal with a lot of these types of complaints over the years.

(Bullying in quotes not to downplay it but to indicate in that past such behaviour would not have been classed as bullying but as harassment/intimidation/sexism or some such variant as bullying as a classification on its own is quite new.)
Click to expand...

The Torys hoisted by their own petard for introducing standards into politics!
I have not read the report and do not know the details.

From the BBC
Legal correspondence seen by the BBC show a junior employee at the DWP brought a formal complaint of bullying and harassment against the department, including Ms Patel, after being dismissed from her role in October 2015.
The staff member's grievance letter alleges she had previously attempted to kill herself after reporting similar allegations of workplace bullying concerning another individual in 2014, before Ms Patel was a minister.
Click to expand...

The individual's first suicide attempt was before she had any contact with Ms. Patel. The bullying occurred before Ms. Patel was a minister. She may have been the minister when the court case was brought, and may have been when the person took the next overdose. Clearly it would be wrong to attribute the whole of this persons distress to Ms. Patel, according to the record she left two weeks after Ms. Patel came into post, but according to the above the problems had been longstanding prior to her arrival.

ETA

I wonder if any of the others against whom allegations were made have been sacked? Perhaps they were all white men?
 
Last edited:
Planigale said:
Yes in the public sector bullying is one of the things that one can be instantly suspended for. Certainly her behaviour should have been addressed when she was earlier in her career. But I wonder if there is a racist element to this? How much do you think this is because as an Asian woman she is expected to behave in a submissive way and if she swears and shouts this has more of an impact and is less forgiven than if a man behaved this way. Mo Mowlam, a labour minister shouted and swore but this was 'endearing'. John Reid was regarded as blunt spoken. Both were white working class, was bad language and shouting culturally acceptable for them but not her? There is a phenomenon that white men get away with things that ethnic minorities are disciplined for. was her behaviour that unusual? How many ministers rant and rave at times? It took me ten seconds to find blunt spoken John Reid, and I know from having a friend who worked for MM that multiple complaints were made by her civil servants to Tony Blair about her behaviour.
Click to expand...

But didn't the report mitigate for that? Whilst it might an historical truth that the working classes resented having woman or an ethnic minority person as their boss, so behaved in a resistant and hostile manner, nonetheless it is also well-known that in Indian culture (which is also very much class-based, as is British culture) that 'you suck up↑ and kick down ↓' . By this, it means you sycophantically crawl to your bosses but bully those lower down. So, whilst Johnson and his chums think the 'pritster' is charming and has been misunderstood, her underlings in the Civil Service may have had a very different experience of her. It is a common tactic of an office bully to surround him or herself with an inner circle.

This type of behaviour is very damaging for the victims of the bully. It can cause nervous breakdown (as happened to two friends of mine). Whilst sure, there are still people around who resent women and 'ethnics' as their bosses, I fail to see how bullying resolves this. There are proper HR procedures to deal with this. It is a cop out to say it is 'racism' that forced Patel to be a bully.
 
Vixen said:
But didn't the report mitigate for that? Whilst it might an historical truth that the working classes resented having woman or an ethnic minority person as their boss, so behaved in a resistant and hostile manner, nonetheless it is also well-known that in Indian culture (which is also very much class-based, as is British culture) that 'you suck up↑ and kick down ↓' . By this, it means you sycophantically crawl to your bosses but bully those lower down. So, whilst Johnson and his chums think the 'pritster' is charming and has been misunderstood, her underlings in the Civil Service may have had a very different experience of her. It is a common tactic of an office bully to surround him or herself with an inner circle.

This type of behaviour is very damaging for the victims of the bully. It can cause nervous breakdown (as happened to two friends of mine). Whilst sure, there are still people around who resent women and 'ethnics' as their bosses, I fail to see how bullying resolves this. There are proper HR procedures to deal with this. It is a cop out to say it is 'racism' that forced Patel to be a bully.
Click to expand...

I haven't read the report. My issue would be whether this is a correctable behaviour, if so then she needs assistance in improving her management style. If not then she should not be a minister.
 
Planigale said:
The Torys hoisted by their own petard for introducing standards into politics!
I have not read the report and do not know the details.

...snip...
Click to expand...
None of us have....

Do you agree then that your use of politicians' behaviour prior to the Ministerial Code isn't a support for this case being caused by institutional racism?

And I am not saying there isn't institutional racism within the civil service and the government, just that in this case there doesn't seem to be any evidence of it.

I am happy to see whatever evidence you think supports that this case is in fact caused or heavily influenced by institutional racism.


Planigale said:
From the BBC


The individual's first suicide attempt was before she had any contact with Ms. Patel. The bullying occurred before Ms. Patel was a minister. She may have been the minister when the court case was brought, and may have been when the person took the next overdose. Clearly it would be wrong to attribute the whole of this persons distress to Ms. Patel, according to the record she left two weeks after Ms. Patel came into post, but according to the above the problems had been longstanding prior to her arrival.

ETA

I wonder if any of the others against whom allegations were made have been sacked? Perhaps they were all white men?
Click to expand...

Shouldn't you let the evidence lead to a conclusion ?
 
Last edited:
Planigale said:
I haven't read the report. My issue would be whether this is a correctable behaviour, if so then she needs assistance in improving her management style. If not then she should not be a minister.
Click to expand...

Again we are all only getting titbits of information so I am dubious of the quality of the "facts" however from what we have in front of us one person who in fact has a case going to tribunal in which she is named states that she had previously been warned about her behaviour.

(That person's evidence wasn't considered by the inquiry because of the ongoing legal case.)
 
Last edited:
Planigale said:
From the BBC


The individual's first suicide attempt was before she had any contact with Ms. Patel. The bullying occurred before Ms. Patel was a minister. She may have been the minister when the court case was brought, and may have been when the person took the next overdose. Clearly it would be wrong to attribute the whole of this persons distress to Ms. Patel, according to the record she left two weeks after Ms. Patel came into post, but according to the above the problems had been longstanding prior to her arrival.
Click to expand...

Can you link to the story, please?
 
Darat said:
You have seemingly equated "plain speaking" with what she did (and not alleged - the report found she had breached the code). Plus you have named politicians that were in power before the "Ministerial Code" was put in place - (which was if memory serves me right the policy of Cameron and Clegg) perhaps the politicians you mentioned were the reason for having a ministerial code in the first place?)
Click to expand...

There’s been a written Ministerial code since at least the first time I worked in a UK Govt department, which was 1999. Blunkett resigned over a breach of the Code in 2004. But it’s lost in the midst of time and memory what provisions it had on bullying, harassment and discrimination, and whether those were added recently, sorry. Each PM since Brown has issued a new version on attaining office. The Johnson version is here, if you’re interested: Current Ministerial Code
 
Last edited:
gypsyjackson said:
There’s been a written Ministerial code since at least the first time I worked in a UK Govt department, which was 1999. Blunkett resigned over a breach of the Code in 2004. But it’s lost in the midst of time and memory what provisions it had on bullying, harassment and discrimination, and whether those were added recently, sorry. Each PM since Brown has issued a new version on attaining office. The Johnson version is here, if you’re interested: Current Ministerial Code
Click to expand...

Thanks for the background info.
 
Darat said:
Thanks for the background info.
Click to expand...

You’re welcome. I tried to find older versions of the Code without success, but I have now found a history of the Code at the Institute for Government website. History of the Ministerial Code

You’ll be interested in the last para:
The most recent update was in August 2019, when Boris Johnson became prime minister. The bulk of the code is the same as the version issued by Theresa May. Prior to that, it was updated in January 2018, following misconduct allegations against former ministers Michael Fallon, Priti Patel and Damian Green. Changes were made to the section on conduct during foreign visits and to include a section about harassment and inappropriate behaviour.
Click to expand...

So it looks like the specific BHD section was added as a result of Patel’s earlier behaviour*, along with Fallon’s and Green’s.

I am actually surprised at that, as BHD has been monitored (and sometimes even acted on!) for civil servants for a long time. Perhaps it was thought that Ministers wouldn’t stoop to such behaviour.

* ETA - actually, this could be wrong. While there were allegations of Patel’s bullying behaviour at DFID, it’s not clear these were ever raised formally under the Code. The element that she resigned from DFID over, inappropriately making contact with a foreign government, appears to have been added to the Code in the section on conduct during foreign visits.
 
Last edited:
Lothian said:
Link
Click to expand...

I honestly don't know what's happened to this website recently, where it now seems that providing a citation is seen as a terrible imposition, and asking for a citation is seen as the height of unreasonableness.

People do understand the role that evidence and primary sources play in scepticism, don't they? And they have looked at the name of the website that they're posting on, haven't they? This is really, really basic stuff.

The board rules, for reference:

The ISF has adopted a policy of treating all published material as if it was copyrighted regardless of its legal copyright status. (This includes articles, images and other media.)

[...]

All quoted material should be credited to the original author or publisher and a link provided (when available) to the original work.
Click to expand...
 
gypsyjackson said:
Blunkett resigned over a breach of the Code in 2004.
Click to expand...
As is the case with many prominent politicians, he resigned, and then came back. Some politicians do this multiple times. Blunkett sits in the House of Lords now, so probably won't need to resign again because "the Code" for lords seems to be rather more lax than the already pretty lax ones for ministers and MPs.
 
Last edited:
gypsyjackson said:
There’s been a written Ministerial code since at least the first time I worked in a UK Govt department, which was 1999. Blunkett resigned over a breach of the Code in 2004. But it’s lost in the midst of time and memory what provisions it had on bullying, harassment and discrimination, and whether those were added recently, sorry. Each PM since Brown has issued a new version on attaining office. The Johnson version is here, if you’re interested: Current Ministerial Code
Click to expand...

I vaguely recalled Blunkett’s resignation - the visa for a nanny stayed in my mind, so I’ve gone and read a few articles about it from the time. I’m astonished to learn that the bod who ran the inquiry didn’t know there was a ministerial code!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jan/28/davidblunkett.politics

...snip....

Sir Alan told MPs earlier this month: "Such as I do know about it are matters I have learned since I started the inquiry and are certainly not things that I knew when I was asked to undertake it.'

He also disclosed that John Gieve, permanent secretary at the Home Office, who asked him to conduct the inquiry never mentioned the existence of the code.

...snip...
Click to expand...

At least things seem to have changed and everyone knows about the code now, even if they do breach it! :)
 
Its all about who you know and are in favour with. Patel is now totally beholden to Johnson.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom