Will Boris Johnson be tackled for ‘misleading’ House of Commons after Covid in care homes ruling?
Here’s something that happened after the end of the last Parliamentary session, but that should be raised in the new one.
More than 20,000 people died in care homes because of decisions made by Boris Johnson’s ministers (notably then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock).
Johnson made a statement in Parliament that ministers were not aware of asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 at the time they were ordering that care home residents in hospital should be sent back. The evidence shows it was false.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting claimed this was not true, highlighting a point of order raised by Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire, the shadow leader of the House of Commons.
Speaking to MPs on Thursday, Ms Debbonaire claimed the government was provided with evidence at the beginning of 2020 that pointed to that asymptomatic transmission of the Covid virus.
“On 28 January 2020, advice from Sage on asymptomatic transmission included that ‘early indications imply some is occurring,’” she said. On 24 February, the Lancet published a paper finding that infected individuals can be infectious before they become symptomatic.
“On 13 March, Patrick Vallance told the Today programme that ‘it’s quite likely that there is some degree of asymptomatic transmission’. Yet it wasn’t until 15 April that the government’s guidance was changed to require patients were tested before being discharged to care homes.”
Ms Debbonaire said Johnson might have “inadvertently” misled the House of Commons, but This Writer disagrees.
Either he was briefed on asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19, or he deliberately chose to miss the briefings at one or several of the COBRA meetings that he skipped (due to laziness?) in early 2020. In any case, the responsibility to know the facts fell on Johnson.
Therefore, if he told the Commons that ministers didn’t know about asymptomatic transmission, he was deliberately choosing to mislead MPs. He should be challenged and he should resign.
Source: Boris Johnson accused of ‘misleading’ House of Commons after Covid in care homes ruling
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I doubt if anything will be done…Parliament has turned into an open prison that is run by the criminals for the criminals, and are able to carry on with their crimes of lying, bribery, theft, fraud, corruption and treason…and are free to come and go as they please….Parliament is no longer fit for purpose.