Former Conservative Party chairman Jake Berry seems to have embarked on a new career course – as an irritant.
Watch him in his appearance on the BBC’s Politics Live, where he came out with a series of falsehoods, overtalked other guests, and tried to start argument after argument.
I was live-tweeting at the time and tried to comment on as many of his shenanigans as possible. Feel free to comment down below on his words, my observations and anything I missed.
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Greg Hands: I’d forgotten I had this duff graphic that approximates his image. I suits what he’s done here, though.
Suella Braverman said she wouldn’t apologise to civil servants for saying they blocked her bid to stop Channel migrants coming to the UK in an email to Tory supporters – and she hasn’t.
It was left to party chairman Greg Hands to do it instead.
The email, in Braverman’s name, sent by Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) to party members, said the following:
“We tried to stop the small boats crossings without changing our laws.
“But an activist blob of left wing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour Party blocked us.”
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA Union, which represents civil servants, stated in a letter to prime minister Rishi Sunak that it was “a direct attack on the integrity and impartiality of the thousands of civil servants who loyally serve the home secretary, doing some of the most complex and difficult work in government”.
Penman also said Braverman may have broken the ministerial code, which says ministers must “uphold the impartiality of the civil service”.
Braverman disowned the email, despite the fact that it went out under her name.
She told Robert Peston: “I didn’t write that email, I didn’t see it and it was an error that it was sent out in my name.”
Nevertheless, her name was attached to it and for that reason alone, she had an apology to make. She should have been paying attention to what was being said in her name. She didn’t.
Instead, we hear that the head of the civil service, Simon Case, has written to the PCS union to say that Hands has apologised for the “error”:
“He assured me that he has already taken action to change procedures in CCHQ to make sure that there is not a repeat of this incident,” the head of the civil service said.
Hands has also “provided his assurance that attacks on the civil service are not part of any standard CCHQ lines”, Case added.
It’s not enough, is it? It’s just a proxy apology from a civil servant to a civil service union. Where’s the full and frank apology and explanation from the Home Secretary?
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Suella Braverman doesn’t think before broadcasting: she’s pictured in a committee where she claimed there were legal routes for refugees to enter the UK. Challenged on it, she couldn’t name even one.
Once again, for Tories, “sorry” seems to be the hardest word.
An email in Suella Braverman’s name, sent by Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) to party members, said the following:
“We tried to stop the small boats crossings without changing our laws.
“But an activist blob of left wing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour Party blocked us.”
See for yourself. I’m using an image posted by a journalist on Twitter because it clearly shows Braverman’s name:
The message has been savaged by Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA Union, which represents civil servants.
He stated in a letter to prime minister Rishi Sunak that it was “a direct attack on the integrity and impartiality of the thousands of civil servants who loyally serve the home secretary, doing some of the most complex and difficult work in government”.
Penman also said Braverman may have broken the ministerial code, which says ministers must “uphold the impartiality of the civil service”. Here’s the relevant part:
Braverman was challenged over this scandal by Robert Peston on his ITV show – and denied having anything to do with the email. Take note of Clare Hepworth’s comment prefacing the video below:
Word to the wise Home Secretary. In a moment of generosity I'll share this with you. Always better to own up & take the consequences – which would probably be less punishing – than denial & being found out further down the line. https://t.co/3PemaQ0lZd
But it was sent out in Braverman’s name. From This Writer’s point of view, it is inconceivable that any government minister – or anyone at all – would allow a message to be sent out (in this case to many people at once) without having seen it or approved its contents.
So I think Ms Hepworth may be right that we may discover something different, some time in the future.
Mr Penman had already stated that, whether or not Braverman had approved the message that went out in her name, she should apologise for it:
As Home Secretary, Suella Braverman leads thousands of civil servants who she has now effectively accused of blocking govt policy. As I told @mrjamesob, whether or not she approved the message that went out in her name, she must immediately withdraw the remarks and apologise pic.twitter.com/ESJiE8GjWN
As you have seen in the Peston video, above, Braverman has not apologised.
I wonder what the other members of the “activist blob” – the “left wing” lawyers and the Labour Party – have to say about the way they were mentioned. I would certainly expect Keir Starmer to object at Labour being described as “left wing”.
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Dominic Raab: if he’s innocent he’s got nothing to worry about, right?
For those of you who don’t know – and that included me until a few minutes before I started typing this – Big Jule is a gangster in the musical Guys and Dolls who boasts about being arrested 33 times but never convicted. It seems Dominic Raab may be the Tory equivalent.
He is currently accused of bullying civil servants in the Justice Department during his first term in office there, from September 2021 to September this year.
But it’s not the first accusation of bullying against him, as Jolyon Maugham explains in the following Twitter thread. Bear in mind when you’re reading this that these accusations were not proved:
Back in 2011, before the Mail on Sunday became arguably the moat mendacious newspaper in the country, it carried an article about Dominic Raab for which Raab sued it. 🧵
The Mail also alleged that Raab's behaviour would have been gravely embarrassing if it had become public and the Tory party instituted a cover up and paid £20,000 in hush money to keep his appalling behaviour secret.
The judge refused to help the Mail by busting the confidentiality agreement. And, whether for that reason or another, as we can see from a subsequent Information Commissioner's decision, the Mail had to apologise and withdraw their article. pic.twitter.com/TYfnpLmvPG
The same ICO proceedings show that a similar allegation was made about Raab when he was a junior Housing Minister. Those allegations were also denied, albeit in a particularly revolting way. pic.twitter.com/onOVrt0r3r
I guess, if you excluded everyone embroiled in sex scandals, ethical or criminal investigations or bullying accusations, there wouldn't be enough Tory MPs to fill the Ministerial posts. That's why they have to keep going back to bottom-feeders like Raab, Braverman and Williamson.
For clarity’s sake, let’s be clear that this is not a “no smoke without fire” situation. Raab cannot be said to be a bully just because he has been accused twice before.
But the fact that these accusations were made provides valuable context in which to set the current claims.
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Rattled: Dominic Raab trying to explain himself during a grilling by the Foreign Affairs committee in September 2021. Look at the way his hands were twisting as he tried to justify his failures. Does he look like the kind of man who treats others with respect and kindness?
First Priti Patel was accused of it, then Gavin Williamson. Now Dominic Raab has been accused of bullying civil servants during his spell as Justice Secretary, between September 2021 and September this year.
Raab was sacked as justice secretary and deputy prime minister by former PM Liz Truss – in possibly the only sensible move she made in that role.
But he was reappointed by Rishi Sunak following his election as leader by Tory MPs in what may be yet another entry in an ever-lengthening list of howlers by the new prime minister.
The Guardian has reported that staff in the Justice Department were offered “respite or a route out” amid concerns that some were traumatised by his behaviour during his previous stint:
The Guardian has spoken to multiple sources in the MoJ who claimed that Raab, who first held the post between September 2021 and September 2022, when he was sacked by Liz Truss, had created a “culture of fear” in the department.
They alleged that his behaviour when dealing with civil servants, including some in senior roles, was “demeaning rather than demanding”, that he was “very rude and aggressive” and that he “wasn’t just unprofessional, he was a bully”.
It is also understood that Antonia Romeo, the MoJ permanent secretary, had to speak to Raab when he returned to the department to warn him that he must treat staff professionally and with respect amid unhappiness about his return. One source, who was not in the room at the time, claimed she had “read him the riot act”.
The allegations raise further questions over Rishi Sunak’s judgement, which is already in question after he re-appointed Suella Braverman as Home Secretary despite concerns that she is more leaky than the migrant boats she is trying to stop crossing the Channel.
He also made Gavin Williamson a Minister Without Portfolio, only for him to resign within weeks amid an ever-growing litany of bullying claims.
Needless to say, there has been a bit of commentary about this – and about bullying in Parliament in general. Here’s Novara Media:
The revelations by Labour’s Charlotte Nichols are damning – she discussed a huge list of 40 MPs who are “known dangers”, from whom she had been told not to accept drinks and with whom she had been told not to allow herself to be alone.
Ash Sarkar discussed Labour’s Neil Coyle, who bullied a journalist with Chinese heritage (as mention by This Site after he asked a question during Prime Minister’s Questions). She suggested that he was treated as a credible source because he was an opponent of Jeremy Corbyn, with a blind eye shown to his (alleged) wrongdoing.
So it seems that bullying and intimidation are epidemic in Westminster.
But that is no reason for a UK prime minister to employ people who are known malcontents.
It seems that is exactly what he has done, not just with Gavin Williamson but also – we’re hearing – with Dominic Raab. And it is not good enough.
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Strike call: PCS Union General Secretary Mark Serwotka.
Civil servants in the PCS union have voted to strike, just one day after members of the Royal College of Nursing voted to do the same.
Around 100,000 public sector workers in 126 areas voted to strike, demanding a 10 per cent pay rise, better pensions, job security and no cuts to redundancy terms.
It comes after government announced plans to reduces civil servant jobs by 91,000 and proposals to cut redundancy pay by an estimated 25.9%.
Details of the industrial action will be announced on November 18, the union said – unless the government provides “substantial” proposals to resolve the dispute before that date.
In a statement, PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka said: “Our members have spoken and if the government fails to listen to them, we’ll have no option than to launch a prolonged programme of industrial action reaching into every corner of public life.”
Mr Serwotka said that the pressure of the cost-of-living crisis, job cuts and office closures had meant workers had “reached the end of their tethers”.
The PCS, which represents workers employed by several British government departments, said an average of 86.2% of its balloted members voted for industrial action – the highest percentage vote in the union’s history.
The BBC also listed the other strikes that are already known to be taking place, turning late 2022 into an Autumn of Discontent, if not also another Winter of Discontent as well:
The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) union has also announced that train drivers working for 12 British operators will go on strike on November 26, and teachers in Scotland have also voted to strike.
Another Tory rip-off: the government wants to reduce the civil service by 91,000 employees – AND cut their redundancy pay by nearly 26 per cent while doing so.
How many levels of wrong is this?
At a time when the cost of living is ramping up steeply, with huge inflation and astronomical energy prices, one might expect any national government to need all the civil servants it can have, to administer measures to ease the burden on the population.
Instead, the Tories are cutting the UK’s civil service by 91,000 people.
But that’s not all.
After giving civil servants a derisory two per cent pay increase – in reality a massive pay cut due to the 9.4 per cent inflation rate – the Tories are adding insult to injury by cutting redundancy pay by more than a quarter (25.9 per cent).
Their rationale for doing this adds insult to (double) injury.
They reckon in a time of “high national debt and increasing cost pressures” the Civil Service Compensation Scheme should be “affordable” to the taxpayer – who has nothing to do with it.
Money for the scheme is created by the government. We pay taxes to keep inflation within reasonable boundaries (according to at least one economic theory) but with inflation almost entirely dictated by energy prices and Brexit-related shortages, taxation doesn’t make that much difference any more.
It’s just another silly “divide-and-rule” tactic, trying to turn us against civil servants by saying paying them a decent redundancy package would be an attack on people who pay taxes.
More details of this sorry story are available here.
The good news is that, when the Tories tried to cut civil service redundancy pay in 2017, it was forced to stop when unions successfully took court action to protect their members.
The PCS union has announced that it will fight the current proposals as well.
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The Department for Work and Pensions has unilaterally decided to ignore a ruling by the Parliamentary Ombudsman that it should pay compensation to 118,000 people who suffered maladministration at its hands.
The decision sets a deeply worrying precedent as it could lead to other people suffering maladministration receiving no rectification or compensation.
Here are the details in a handy YouTube video:
And journalist David Hencke, on his Westminster Confidential site, had this to say:
Since seeing this I have contacted Sir Stephen Timms, Labour chair of the Commons Works and Pensions Committee, to see if, as they promised the Ombudsman, the DWP had alerted him to the decision. Initially he said he could not recall getting this and promised to investigate what has happened.
There is another big issue. This could impact on the Waspi campaign and the all party state pension inequality group of MPs to get compensation for women through a report from the Ombudsman. If after the Ombudsman says compensation is due the DWP follows this practice for the 3.8 million – six people will get compensation and the remaining 3.6 million still alive will have to write individual letters outlining their case to the ministry for any money due which will take even more time to resolve. You have been warned.
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Minister for inhumanity: Priti Patel’s “Hostile Environment” policies have involved Home Office staff in illegal activities in the past. Now she is being challenged in court to prove her plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda is not also against the law.
10 years after the launch of the ‘Hostile Environment’ policy, representatives of Home Office staff are challenging the government in court over things they are being asked to do.
The Public and Commercial Services Union and the Immigration Services Union are challenging Priti Patel’s policies to “pushback” small boats in the English Channel and to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda.
They have strong justification: the “pushback” policy is likely to break international law on asylum while the idea of deportations to Rwanda copies a previous policy by Israel – that didn’t work and was abandoned.
And the Conservative government has a record of “Hostile Environment” criminality.
We all know – don’t we? – about the Windrush Scandal that illegally targeted for deportation a generation of people who had the right to live in the UK but whose documentation had been destroyed.
The Home Office has also wrongly accused 34,000 international students of cheating in English language tests and failed to ensure that innocent people were not wrongly deported.
An Institute for Public Policy Research report in 2020 concluded the hostile environment policy had fostered racism, pushed people into destitution, wrongly targeted people who were living in the UK legally, and had “severely harmed the reputation of the Home Office”.
In the wake of the Windrush scandal the Home Office committed to introduce a total transformation of the department, including a review of the hostile environment policies – and failed to complete it.
So it should be no surprise that civil service representatives are trying to protect workers from having to take part in Priti Patel’s potential crimes.
One glance at comments on the “Hostile Environment” policy by Nazek Ramdan, the director of the charity Migrant Voice, should make the reason crystal clear:
“Perhaps no other policy in living memory has left such a malign mark, a stain like an oil slick. It is racist, xenophobic, immoral, illegal, unfair, punishing, divisive, mean-spirited, discriminatory and counterproductive.”
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Jacob Rees-Mogg, making a gesture that well defines him.
Is this Jacob Rees-Mogg’s comeuppance after he went around leaving nasty notes on empty civil service desks, for them to see after they returned from home working?
In notes left for civil servants, he wrote: “Sorry you were out when I visited. I look forward to seeing you in the office very soon.”
Nadhim Zahawi took Rees-Mogg’s demand for a return to the office seriously, and told officials at the Department for Education to “immediately” return to “pre-Covid working” after an audit found that the DfE had the lowest attendance of any Government department, at a quarter capacity.
Well, unless pre-Covid working took place in corridors and canteens, he didn’t get his wish!
It turns out that, before the pandemic, the DfE only had an occupancy rate of 60 to 70 per cent because of the department’s flexible working policy.
And changes to the department’s estate, such as giving up space at the DfE’s London headquarters, has meant there are fewer desks than previously – 4,200 to accommodate 8,009 staff.
So after the department’s top civil servant, permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood, was joined by ministers to tell officials to work 80 per cent of their week in the office, chaos ensued:
Civil servants at the Department for Education have been forced to work in corridors and canteens.
Whole teams have been turned away from some offices because of overcrowding.
According to Schools Week, staff were sent home from the department’s Sheffield office after a mass return earlier this month, despite some staff already working from the canteen.
Online meetings were also forced to take place with staff perched on the end of shared seating because meeting rooms were full.
The Tories have insisted that having more people than desks was the practice at the department.
Were they saying that chaos is supposed to be the practice at the Department for Education and that it was the intended result of Rees-Mogg’s interference. How revealing!
And isn’t it curious that, while DfE staff – and presumably other civil servants – scrabble for desk space, another government department looks set to spend £20 million on a luxury townhouse for a single, privileged representative – so she can hold lavish parties?
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