Boris Johnson: his Brexit is an insult , even to those of us who voted to leave the EU.
There’s more happening in the UK than Covid-19 and Dominic Cummings.
But the Tories’ mismanagement means none it is good.
Take Brexit: the instant he was shot of the need to pander to the DUP, Boris Johnson threw out all pretence that he was going to demand the same trade and customs conditions in Northern Ireland as in the rest of the UK.
So he is paving the way for the restoration of the Province to the Republic by making it easier for them to align than for NI to stick with the rest of the UK.
As for the trade deal: he has thrown the inexperienced Liz (“cheese!”) Truss into the arena, adding fuel to claims that he is in collusion with hedge fund bosses who want to profit from Brexit by betting that the UK’s economy will collapse.
There was huge outcry about these stories last year – but now Johnson has carte blanche to do what he likes.
A new Brexit border in the Irish Sea will not be ready by Boris Johnson’s end-of-year deadline, according to a new analysis that warns more than 60 administrations, government departments and public bodies will be involved in overseeing the new system.
Ministers finally admitted last week that there would be some checks on certain goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK from next January, when the Brexit transition period comes to an end.
Johnson and others have also refused to consider extending the transition period, despite having no agreement between the EU and Britain over the practical treatment of Northern Ireland and little prospect of a trade deal being in place by the start of 2021.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
But while academics think in terms of justice for all, Tories don’t.
Even if they accept changes to their flagship benefit, how likely is it that they will allow an end to their favourite pastime – torturing people with long-term illnesses and disabilities?
As for bringing in a UBI – Universal Basic Income that will mean nobody goes without food, clothes or a home… The Tories are sure to tell us: go whistle.
Or am I reading them wrong?
Radical changes to the welfare system are historically associated with major crises and events such as wars, civil unrest, famines or epidemics. There is no reason that it will this time be any different, says a new paper from Dr Stephen Davies, Head of Education at the Institute of Economic Affairs.
Redefining the State of Welfare argues it is very probable that Coronavirus will bring to a head discontent with the existing system that has been growing for some time and will lay bare its weaknesses, particularly that of its central element: Universal Credit.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Ordinary people the length and breadth of Britain have given voice to their frustration with the country’s ineffective, elitist government by giving its leader a huge, wholehearted “BOO!”
This Site was among those that promoted a campaign to let the prime minister know exactly how little regard we have for him, in a concerted shout at 8pm on May 26.
And Brits across the country took up the gauntlet and used it to give him a voluble and verbal slap in the face.
Did you boo? I did.
But like a boo-foon, I didn’t take any video of it. I’ll level with you: I’m shy.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Who’s going to open a window and ‘Boo for Boris’ today at 8pm?
His failure to get a grip on Covid-19 should be enough for any of us.
Add that to his support for an underling who thinks the lockdown rules, that we have all accepted, simply don’t count for him and we should all be shouting loud and long.
But let’s not forget the smaller matters, like the fact that Johnson is an absentee prime minister, who simply hasn’t been there to deal with the problems we’ve all suffered throughout his premiership so far. Where was he during the floods in February? On holiday, that’s where!
8pm today. Tell Johnson what you think of his miserable efforts. Take video too, and post it on the social media so we can show it to him!
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Dominic Cummings’s presumptuous decision to hold a press conference in Downing Street over his decision to break lockdown rules so he could visit his parents should lead to a prosecution for dangerous driving, it seems.
As part of his defence, he claimed that he had driven 30 miles to Barnard Castle because Covid-19 had affected his eyesight and he wanted to see if it was possible for him to drive back to London.
Incidentally:
How amazing that in 16th century dialect Barnard Castle was a euphemism for a pathetic excuse! pic.twitter.com/7c5hV4wLs1
(For those who can’t read images well, it says: “‘Barnard Castle‘ – a Durham dialect term for a coward. It derives from the Northern Rebellion… by the Catholic earls in 1569, when Sir George Bowes refused, despite many opportunities, to leave his fortified position in Barnard Castle to engage in battle. Hence also the expression come, come, that’s Barney Castle, meaning ‘that’s a pathetic excuse’.”)
Driving with impaired eyesight – meaning that a driver cannot look properly – indicates dangerous driving, which is an offence.
#DominicCummings had been ill; his vision had been "weird", so he got into a car and onto the roads – to see if he could bring death onto them? What rubbish!
Indeed, the chairman of the Police Federation took to Twitter to express his concern that anyone hearing Cummings’s excuses should not assume that they can do as he said he did:
As a former road death investigator with Hampshire police I have investigated many serious collisions, including fatalities. Some of these were caused by drivers with impaired vision, this is a serious issue. Do not drive if your eyesight is impaired or you feel unwell.
It’s a microcosm of the entire Cummings scandal – a public servant doing something forbidden to the rest of us because he thinks he is above the rules that govern us all.
If you need information here’s an easy-to-read map of Dominic’s Travels:
There was plenty more of it in his statement, and in his answers to journalists who were on the scene. I commented on a few of these transgressions:
A falsehood. There WERE people in London he could reasonably ask to help. #DominicCummings
If #DominicCummings is denying he was with his parents in their property, that is NOT what Durham Constabulary has told us. I believe the police over the politician.
(In a statement release half an hour before Cummings started his press conference, Durham police said: ““We can confirm that on April 1, an officer from Durham Constabulary spoke to the father of Dominic Cummings. Mr Cummings confirmed that his son, his son’s wife and child were present at the property. He told the officer that his son and son’s wife were displaying symptoms of coronavirus and were self-isolating in part of the property.” Some have claimed that, as “the property” includes three buildings, it was possible for Cummings and his wife to have stayed away from his parents – but unlikely. They would have had to meet up with them to gain access and hand over the child – who could have been a carrier of the disease, remember. Also, we only have Cummings’s word for any of this, and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw his boss.)
Why did Mary Wakefield give a false account of all this in her Spectator articles? #DominicCummings
There can be no doubt about the rules we were all told to follow – all of us, including Cummings:
"The guidance doesn't say you've got to just sit there," says #DominicCummings – but that's exactly what we were all led to believe and it is disingenuous of him to say that.
Interesting revisiting this letter from the Prime Minister
– you MUST stay at home – you can only leave home to buy food/medicine,exercise once a day,seek medical attention – these rules MUST be observed. If people break them the police will issue fines
I don't believe this claim that #DominicCummings argued for lockdown. It's just something to say to try to get people on his side now. All the evidence is that he was for "herd immunity" and "if a few old people die, who cares?" or whatever the phrase was.
Cummings said he warned about i.a. corona virus in 2019.
Thing is, he didn't. References to SARS and corona virus were added to his blog post on pandemic risks sometime between April and May of this year. pic.twitter.com/NneonooLoj
“I hope that you don’t mind my informal mode of address but since you were calling all the journalists by their first name I’m assuming that this is acceptable.
“I’d like to summarise my main take-aways from your extraordinary press conference in the garden of No.10 Downing Street. Please excuse me if the points are a bit random, but I think that this resonates rather well with your rambling statement.
“1. The PM’s time is very important, but not apparently anyone else’s. If just 10% of the population spent 30mn waiting for you to appear you’ve just wasted around three million hours of the nation’s time. What were you doing, having a crap?
“2. You don’t possess a smart short-sleeved shirt. I can recommend many charity shops where you can pick one up for less than a fiver.
“3. You tend to panic when your wife is unwell. In view of this, I hope you are in no way involved with national security.
“4. Your family, friends and neighbours in London all hate you.
“5. Your Dad owns a farm with many houses, but not all of them very luxurious.
“6. You have a young niece who is prepared to put her life on the line for you and your family.
“7. Your parents shout in the woods. (I hope I got that one right.)
“8. When you can’t see anything you go for a 30-mile drive to test your eyesight. This tends to make your son want to piss himself, which is quite understandable.
“9. Your wife is a fiction writer.
“10. Any confusion related to this matter is all the fault of the press which persists in reporting on things, most of which have proved to be true, which you refused to confirm or deny for two months.
“11. You had some sort of conversation with Boris but neither of you can remember when that was nor what was said. Let’s hope that’s not the norm for your conversation.
“12. You are a very very important person, critical to the future of this nation, and you wouldn’t dream of resigning. You really couldn’t let your fag Boris down in that way.
“I trust that I’ve captured all the key points. Please do let me know if I’ve missed out anything important.
“Finally, thanks very much for going in to work on a Bank Holiday, I do hope that they are paying you double time.
“Hope to see you up in Durham some time. My family is from that part of the world, but you wouldn’t know them – they mainly worked underground in the pits.”
The comment that Cummings won’t resign because he doesn’t want to let Boris Johnson down is ironic as this scandal has turned out to be ruinous for Johnson’s popularity and for any credibility that his woefully inadequate government has had in handling the Covid crisis.
Interesting that, rather than consider resigning, #DominicCummings thought it was perfectly reasonable to put his employers through a bitterly damaging scandal that is not their fault but his.
As a result, it seems Johnson has lost 20 popularity percentage points in just the four days this scandal has been frothing:
Boris Johnson‘s approval rating has plunged by 20 points in four days, amid the ongoing Dominic Cummings scandal, according to new polling.
Overall government approval turned negative, to -2 per cent, according to data from polling group Savanta ComRes. That represents a drop of 16 points in just a single day.
Mr Johnson’s approval also turned negative as the scandal continued. it dropped from +19 per cent to -1 per cent since Friday, the same data showed.
Public opinion of individual ministers such as Matt Hancock, the health secretary, and chancellor Rishi Sunak also fell. Both ministers publicly backed Mr Cummings over the weekend.
But Cummings won’t face prosecution, nor will he resign. Johnson will do his best to ignore the fact that his advisor’s actions have made it irrevocably clear that they, the ministers who supported them, and the entire Tory government consider themselves to be above the law that they impose on the rest of us.
And you know what? I think people are right to be angry about that!
So I hope you will all be opening your windows at 8pm today (May 26) to give a resounding “Boo!” for Boris Johnson and all his creepy cronies:
— MrsAitchBee 3.5% #3PointFivePercent #FBPE (@MrsAitchBee) May 24, 2020
POSTSCRIPT: Incidentally, even the act of holding a press conference was against the rules that apply to Cummings:
Para 14 of the code of conduct for special advisers
“Special advisers must not take public part in political controversy, through any form of statement..to the press..and would not normally speak in public for their Minister or the Department”
— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) May 25, 2020
It seems he cannot do anything right.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. This includes scrolling or continued navigation. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
