George Eustice has a record of defending the indefensible: he also believes children should starve during the holidays, asylum seekers should drown and people should die of Covid-19 rather than let the economy be harmed.
After the Greensill Scandal brought to light a mountain of evidence showing corruption at the highest level of government, Boris Johnson announced a ‘review’ – that won’t have power to change anything.
Environment Secretary George Eustace admitted the review will be utterly pointless:
Mr Eustice told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge: “This review doesn’t need enforcement powers as such, it just needs to get to the bottom of what happened.”
Asked if the government would act on any recommendations from the report, Mr Eustice said there probably wouldn’t be any.
He said: “I don’t think the review’s going to make any policy recommendations.”
Asked what the point of the review was, when it has no powers and won’t make any recommendations, he said: “People are raising questions about what happened in this particular instance around [failed bank represented by David Cameron] Greensill…The purpose of the review is to answer those questions, not prescribe policy.”
In other words, it seems the aim is to make up a plausible fairy story that the Tories think we’ll accept.
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David Cameron: he acted very slick in office but it seems he simply refused to do anything right.
Labour has (rightly) attacked Boris Johnson for launching only a government review of lobbying rather than a full independent inquiry in the light of the Greensill scandal.
Revelations about David Cameron’s involvement with the failed finance firm – for which he lobbied Tory ministers after quitting as their prime minister – are coming thick and fast.
The latest is that the government’s former head of procurement, Bill Crothers, was allowed to take a job with Greensill Capital two months before quitting his civil service role.
Having made this decision, the Cabinet Office (run at the time by Matt Hancock) then decided that, because he was already working for the firm before leaving, Mr Crothers would not have to apply to Whitehall’s “revolving door” regulator, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA).
The former civil servant says he did not promote Greensill for any public sector business for more than two years after leaving – but what did he do during those two months in 2015?
Labour’s Rachel Reeves did the morning media rounds today (April 14), saying that an internal review would not be good enough. Considering the Crothers revelations, she had a point:
BBCBreakfast: “Day-by-day new revelations are coming out about Greensill”
Shadow cabinet office minister Rachel Reeves says Labour are calling for a 'proper inquiry' to look into David Cameron and the Greensill lobbying scandal. pic.twitter.com/uaJKlGozEn
Adil Ray on Good Morning Britain tried to torpedo her by pointing out that Tony Blair took a job with JP Morgan – one of the world’s biggest banks – after quitting as the UK’s prime minister in 2007.
She responded: “If anyone has any evidence that former Prime Ministers have been using their status to access special treatment for firms they are working for they should be investigated.
“But there are no accusations.”
Mr Ray might have scored a more palpable hit if he had pointed out that Labour has its own experience of whitewashing a corruption inquiry: the Forde inquiry was originally intended to examine whether party officers had worked to prevent the party from winning the 2017 election with Jeremy Corbyn as its leader – but this was subsequently removed from its remit and the inquiry’s report has been suppressed by the Labour leadership for many months.
There will be a vote on the form any inquiry will take later today (I’m writing this at around 11.30am) – but it won’t succeed because of that 80-seat Conservative majority that means Boris Johnson can impose any corruption he fancies; his backbenchers will vote it through mindlessly, herding through the lobby like the sheep they are.
And no doubt many members of the public will believe the findings of that inquiry, drinking the whitewash like the sheep they are, even though they know it is poison to their own well-being; government corruption harms the nation.
But it is good to see Labour attacking Tory corruption at long last.
Johnson has had a free pass from Keir Starmer’s right-wingers for far too long. It is many months past time the UK’s main opposition party actually did some opposing and held him to account.
But I fear that it is only happening because Starmer thinks it will look good in the run-up to the local elections – and that it will prove to be the usual half-hearted attempt from his party: too little, too late.
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After the crisis, will we put up with the cover-up? For the sake of the many thousands he sent to early graves, we have a duty to hold Boris Johnson to account for his Covid-19 cock-ups.
This Writer had the first Covid-19 vaccination on Easter Sunday and within a few hours I felt terrible.
Having been warned that a tiny minority of people experience headaches, fever and/or flu-like symptoms, I was forearmed and didn’t panice. That’s the best I can say about it.
After the headache came on I retired to bed, which I found to be extremely cold – to a point where my hands and feet felt like blocks of ice, no matter what I did to warm them up. I also experienced bizarre pains in my legs.
I did get some sleep, but awoke to the onset of the flu-like symptoms and spent the day on the sofa with the cat lying on me, downing Paracetomols and sniffing (me, not the cat).
When I told my stepdaughter about this, she said, “It’s ok, it’s just your body trying to reject the DNA changes and the nanochip. Bill Gates gets all the information fed back to him, it’ll pass and you’ll be fine in no time.” It’s good to know that someone saw the funny side.
I’m writing this just before going to bed and all those symptoms have died away.
It’s a small price to pay for the protection that the vaccine promises.
With the rollout proceeding at high speed (the vaccination centre in Builth Wells was as full as social distancing would allow when I attended), Boris Johnson and his government have announced that they are proceeding with their plans to lift lockdown restrictions, according to the timetable they set some weeks ago.
Here’s what it means, according to the BBC:
More businesses will open, but indoor settings should be visited alone, or with household groups. Outside, six people or two households can meet.
All shops allowed to open
Hairdressers, beauty salons and other close-contact services can open
Restaurants and pubs allowed to serve food and alcohol to customers sitting outdoors
Gyms and spas can reopen, as can zoos, theme parks, libraries and community centres
Members of the same household can take a holiday in England in self-contained accommodation
Weddings attended by up to 15 people can take place
Funerals be attended by up to 30 people, with 15 at wakes
Children will be able to attend any indoor children’s activity
Care home visitors will increase to two per resident
Here in Wales, matters are slightly different:
All travel restrictions have been lifted within the country – residents can travel anywhere within Welsh borders
Six people from two different households (not counting children under 11) can meet and exercise outdoors and in private gardens
Organised outdoor activities and sports for children and under-18s can resume
Limited opening of outdoor areas of some historic places and gardens
Libraries and archives can reopen
Self-contained holiday accommodation, including hotels with en-suite facilities and room service, can open to people from the same household or support bubble. But non-essential travel to and from other UK nations remains banned
And then, from 12 April at the earliest:
All pupils and students return to school, college and other education
All shops and close-contact services can open
The ban on travelling in and out of Wales ends
Driving lessons can resume and some driving tests (remainder on 22 April)
In Scotland:
Outdoor mixing between four people from up to two households is already allowed, along with outdoor non-contact sports and organised group exercise.
Communal worship is also now allowed with up to 50 attending (if social distancing permits).
The stay at home became the stay local rule on 2 April.
From 5 April, hairdressers and barbers (but not mobile services) can reopen for pre-booked appointments; more shops can reopen and non-essential click-and-collect can resume; outdoors non-contact group sports for 12 to 17-year-olds can resume.
12-19 April:
All pupils back at school full-time
And in Northern Ireland:
People can now meet for exercise in groups of up to 10 from two households
Golf and other outdoor sporting activities can resume (although clubhouses and sports facilities must stay closed)
Six people from two households can meet in a private garden
Garden centres can operate click-and-collect services
From 12 April:
Remaining school year groups 8-11 return (Years 1-3, 4-7 and 12-14 have already returned)
Stay-at-home message relaxed
All other non-essential retail can operate click-and-collect
Sports training with up to 15 people can resume
Up to 10 people from two households can meet in a private garden
It all seems very optimistic.
Personally, I’m hoping it all works out because I am sick to the back teeth of being stuck at home.
But I don’t want us to forget that we have paid a terrible, terrible price, just to get to this point.
Our government, in whom the nation placed its trust in December 2019, failed us abjectly – and the number of deaths so far is greater than many recognised genocides including:
The Romani genocide in Nazi-occupied Europe (130,000 at its lowest estimate).
The Polish genocide (around 110,000 at lowest estimate).
Idi Amin’s Ugandan genocide, the Rohingya genocide, and the genocides in Darfur, East Timor, Bosnia, Croatia, and California.
I use the lowest estimates because, of course, the number of deaths currently known in the UK is also a lowest estimate. It will be a long time before we get the final figure.
It is already horrifying enough, though:
What a searing, unforgivable milestone 😔
Today’s @ONS statistics show a staggering 150,116 people have now died of Covid.
These deaths were not inevitable. Not predestined. These people didn’t have to die.
Boris Johnson avoided dealing with Covid-19 when the pandemic first arrived in the UK. He avoided briefings and refused to take the decisions we needed, to restrict the spread of the virus.
Because he wanted it to spread through the population and kill where it could. He said as much in a TV interview in March last year.
It was his great “herd immunity” fallacy.
Ever since, he has been too keen to lift lockdown early and too reluctant to impose it again.
He has relied on a heavy propaganda campaign, intended to whitewash his decisions by claiming that the UK’s response to Covid-19 has been successful when it hasn’t.
And while he has said he is willing to have an inquiry into his government’s handling of the pandemic, he has demanded that it will only happen “at the appropriate time”, inducing some of us to believe that, for him, the appropriate time is “never”.
Alternatively, he’ll just fob us off with a government-scripted whitewash, like we’ve seen in his “racism report” last month.
He will never accept responsibility for the huge death toll he has caused.
And that means it’s up to us to pin it onto him.
But will we?
I’m concerned that the Great British Public will let him off the hook.
We have a deplorable tendency to forget about terrible injustices, pretty much the instant after we’ve had a good complain about it.
We shout at the television during the news, but how many of us actually do anything about the cause of that rage afterwards?
You know I’m right.
I can think of 150,116 people who would demand that Johnson and his government be held to account – if only they could communicate with us from beyond the grave.
They can’t so we should.
Whatever happens, it is our duty to demand justice for the multitude who died when they should not have died – because an ignorant, selfish part-time politician could not do his job properly.
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Whistleblower: this image is representative (the revelations in the article were made by a woman). Many whistleblowers suffer for their principles, in spite of assurances that this won’t happen. It will be interesting to see what happens to Alice O’Keeffe’s career from now on.
The timing is exquisite.
On the day This Site published an article about allegations that a report on institutional racism was scripted by the Tory government to support a lie that there isn’t any in the UK, a whistleblower attacked another report – on the policing of protests – saying it was scripted by the Tories too.
The claim is a huge blow to the credibility of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services. Another blow to its credibility is the fact that it will apparently examine whether there is any truth to it.
For clarity, whistleblower Alice O’Keeffe has said
The official policing inspectorate showed repeated bias in favour of the police and against peaceful protesters…
[The report] was skewed in favour of the government view, with conclusions reached before evidence was gathered and assessed.
The civil service code was breached.
HMICFRS told the home secretary in a private letter it backed the need to change protest laws five months before its report was published.
Some in the inquiry team… likened peaceful protesters to the IRA, which waged a terrorist campaign against the UK.
Ms O’Keeffe’s written complaint was made as HMICFRS worked on a separate report on the policing of a vigil for Sarah Everard. She said the biases she had seen left her fearing a report into the policing of the vigil would be a whitewash.
That report totally exonerated the police and found fault with those of us who criticised police violence against and manhandling of women at the Clapham Common vigil.
HMICFRS has defended itself by claiming independence – based on nothing more than reputation. But reputations can be broken by facts.
And Ms O’Keeffe has spent five years working for the police inspectorate, so it is reasonable to believe she may know her subject.
Well, I hope she made copies of her evidence and put them in a safe place because if HMICFRS holds any information corroborating her claims then you can bet the hard drives have been wiped and the hard copies shredded already.
The upshot of all this is that in the short term we have another reason to distrust a police service that seems to be working for a totalitarian Tory government – and against us.
And in the long term?
We can expect another report that whitewashes the Tory-supporting inspectorate and gives us even more reason to live in fear of our government and the police force that smashes our heads in its name.
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Is anybody surprised that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) has cleared the Metropolitan Police of any inappropriate behaviour at the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard?
The review said the force “was justified in adopting the view that the risks of transmitting COVID-19 at the vigil were too great to ignore”.
So that made it reasonable to kettle these people – crowd them into an ever-smaller space, making those risks much greater, did it?
That made it reasonable to arrest these people, did it? Were they crammed like sardines in police vans? Were they crammed like sardines into cells?
Forcing people into close contact with each other seems an extremely odd way to combat a disease that is spread by close contact – especially people who had been very recently injured.
The review said “officers remained calm and professional when subjected to abuse” and “did not act inappropriately or in a heavy handed manner”.
So this wasn’t heavy-handed?
How about this?
Clashes broke out between police and crowds gathering on Clapham Common.
The Metropolitan Police is facing criticism for its handling of the vigil in memory of Sarah Everard.
#BREAKING: Several people arrested at Sarah Everard vigil in Clapham Common, south London; police say vigil is violating coronavirus-related restrictions pic.twitter.com/5lTmiMWmDV
Like many others, I notice that there was no problem with the Duchess of Cambridge attending the event that Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick branded illegal.
Why wasn’t Kate Middleton attacked with a baton and bundled into a White Maria?
Ah, but she attended during daylight. The police didn’t move in and start hurting people until after dark. Now, why was that, do you think?
The report by Sky News makes it clear that the atmosphere did not turn hostile until the police started kettling people. Oh, the cops were telling people to leave, were they? How could they do that when the uniforms were cutting off their ability to go?
The bandstand was soon almost surrounded by officers and the atmosphere started to become more hostile. It was at this point that a number of women appeared to be shoved and people starting shouting at the police.
It seems clear to me that HM Inspectorate of Constabulary came to the conclusion it usually reaches – that the police can do no wrong.
How many attendees at the event were consulted during this review?
None, I’m betting.
No wonder the result was one-sided.
Let’s have a proper, public inquiry – then we’ll hear some uncomfortable facts (but of course, that will never happen).
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Lawyers for victims of the Grenfell Tower fire have told the inquiry into the disaster that residents were “bullied” and “stigmatised” for raising safety concerns.
Michael Mansfield QC, representing a group of survivors and the bereaved, said Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council regarded the 24-storey block in North Kensington as an “eyesore which required cosmetic surgery to make it more palatable to its elegant and wealthy neighbours”.
So it provided a refurbishment between 2012 and 2016 that was only a “superficial facelift while neglecting underlying deficiencies”.
The council, along with the body that ran Grenfell Tower and oversaw the refurbishment, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (TMO), ran a complaints system for residents that was “outdated, cumbersome, not simple and was used to shut them off, lock them out essentially”, said Mr Mansfield.
He said the council and TMO had a “culture of indifference”.
Edward Daffarn, a member of the Grenfell Action Group, wrote a series of blog posts about safety issues in the building and raised concerns with the council – such as a fire door with a broken closing mechanism.
This was pointed out in 2015 and the door still wasn’t working on the night of the fire in 2017, allowing smoke into a central area on one floor where two people died.
The inquiry heard the council described Mr Daffarn’s blog posts as “scaremongering”.
Another lawyer, Stephanie Barwise QC, read an email from council worker Laura Johnson, sent during the building’s refurbishment, saying that a councillor would not want to attend a public meeting of people “moaning about minor issues”.
In fact residents had correctly identified issues such as gas pipes in hallways, problems with fire doors, power surges, a failed ventilation system and access for fire engines.
London Fire Brigade warned in the months before the fire that cladding could be dangerous. The inquiry heard the council simply forwarded the letter from the fire brigade to the TMO, saying: “FYI.”
James Ageros, lawyer for the TMO, said: “The TMO does not accept that it ever adopted a dismissive attitude toward residents or indeed toward their complaints and concerns.”
He said the inquiry should consider whether the TMO could have been expected to see through the “deceptions” of cladding manufacturers about the safety of their products.
Hundreds of other building owners and management organisations had not been able to “untangle this subterfuge”, he said.
In its submissions, the council apologised for its failings in monitoring the TMO and said “the council could have, and should have, done more to stop it happening”.
It’s a big buck-passing exercise, isn’t it?
The council apologises and says it should have monitored the TMO; the TMO doesn’t apologise and says it could not have been expected to see through “deceptions” by the manufacturers of the cladding.
My opinion? Residents are right to blame them all. The council, at least, has admitted a failing. The TMO should have recognised any false claims by the cladding manufacturers; that’s part of its reason for existing and the council should have realised this wasn’t happening.
And residents were ignored – until they died.
And now, residents at other blocks with similar cladding are being penalised for living in places where the landlord made the wrong decision because the Tory government is ignoring their concerns.
History repeats itself. The UK is run by people who want to take your money and do nothing in return – especially people in government.
We can vote them out – for example at the local elections in May.
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Small change: ironically, that’s probably how the Tories think of the 21.7 million people they’ve tipped into poverty.
One in three people will be living in hardship by May, according to a report by the New Economics Foundation.
This means 21.7 million people will still not have a decent standard of living even though the £20 per week Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit uplift has been extended.
Here’s Charlotte Hughes:
The report goes on to say that 12.9 million of the people in financial difficulty will be receiving less than 75% of the Minimum Income Standard which is defined as being £19,200 for a single person and £37,400 for a family of four.
Despite the furlough scheme, unemployment has continued to rise over the last year. According to the latest government data it shows that unemployment has increased by 1.3% points higher than the previous year. It also also shows the largest annual decrease in employment since the aftermath of the financial crisis. This being half a million fewer people employed than there was last year. Redundancy rates have also risen from 8.4 per thousand on the year, to 12.3 per thousand employees.
This leaves millions of people that are now dependant upon our social security system to support incomes, help with housing costs and to feed people.
At the time of writing the latest government data reveals there are 5.9 million people on universal credit with 3 million receiving housing benefit, 2.5 million receiving personal independence payment, 1.9 million receiving employment support allowance, 1.4 million receiving disability living allowance, and 0.3 million receiving jobseeker’s allowance.
We know that the UC/WTC uplift will continue until September but after that, claimants face a “cliff-edge” situation that could tip a further 1.1 million people into poverty.
But, you know what?
None of them will be members of the Tory government or doners to the Conservative Party, so they don’t matter. Do they?
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Jeremy Corbyn: the Forde Inquiry could have exonerated him from any implications of support for anti-Semitism but it seems to have been gagged from doing so.
Martin Forde QC’s report on the leaked report into the way anti-Semitism was handled by Labour Party officers has been delayed. But does it really matter after its focus was watered down to almost nothing?
Mr Forde told Labour’s National Executive Committee he was delaying his report to avoid prejudicing an inquiry by the Information Commissioner’s Office into whether the leak breached data protection laws.
But is this really likely, considering that the Forde Inquiry is apparently now focused only on examining “the structure, culture and practices of the Labour Party”.
It had originally been charged with some much more interesting and worthwhile purposes.
This was the inquiry’s most important purpose. The report had produced a mountain of evidence which, if true, cleared Corbyn of claims that he had been complacent on anti-Semitism.
Instead, it implicated party officials who had been among his fiercest critics with claims that they actively worked to prevent the party as led by Corbyn from winning a general election.
If the claims were found to be true, then claims that Corbyn and his supporters were soft on – or even supported – anti-Semitism would have been exposed as primarily a witch-hunt.
But now, nobody is checking the basic accuracy of the report at all.
Also ditched was the requirement to investigate why the report was written and how it was leaked.
So it seems there is little point in being concerned about when the Forde Report will be released. It simply won’t provide any information worth waiting for.
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Jeremy Corbyn: the evidence is mounting up in his favour.
A report by the Labour Party has made it clear beyond doubt that Keir Starmer and his (acting) party secretary, David Evans, had no reason to suspend the party membership of former leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The suspension was attributed to words spoken by Corbyn after the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its report on allegations of anti-Semitism in Labour.
He said the claims had been blown up out of proportion by people who had political reasons for doing so.
Even EHRC guidance states that Corbyn had every right to say what he did but Starmer stuck to his pop-guns. Now we know he had no right to do so:
According to a section of the report from Labour’s Governance and Legal Unit, his statement “did not contain any overtly discriminatory language on the face of it”.
A panel of the party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) reinstated Corbyn three weeks after his suspension but Starmer used his position as party leader to continue to exclude him from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).
This means Corbyn cannot stand for election as a Labour MP unless or until the suspension is lifted.
Corbyn’s lawyers say Starmer has acted in bad faith and have launched a High Court challenge.
The damning document, showing Starmer had no grounds on which to suspend Corbyn, is part of this action.
Labour isn’t co-operating (what a surprise). It is refusing to provide minutes of meetings where Corbyn’s suspension was discussed, claiming that there are no notes or minutes – and that no back room deal was struck over Corbyn’s future.
It’s an easy thing to say. They were internal meetings and there’s no way – that I can see – that anybody else can prove minutes were taken.
But it would be a huge dereliction of duty if they weren’t.
I’d like to hear from the attendees – particularly Trickett and McCluskey. Was somebody taking notes? If so, what happened to them?
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Feel free to copy this image and share it anywhere you think people should see it.
I never thought I would find myself in agreement with the lunatics from Labour Against Anti-Semitism.
But their call for an independent review of all historic reports of anti-Jewish racism in the Labour Party since Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015 is right on the button.
It was a reaction to a new plan announced by Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, for an independent complaints process in line with recommendations by the Equality and Human Rights Commission earlier this year.
As with all such plans by politicians, the real issue is what’s missing, rather than what is included.
The EHRC found that no fewer than 60 per cent of the cases it examined involved discrimination against the respondent – the person accused of anti-Semitism – by the Labour Party while it was supposed to be pursing an independent inquiry.
Starmer – whose strategy since becoming Labour leader has been to use false accusations of anti-Semitism to persecute prominent left-wingers and eject them from the party under false pretences – has made no plans to rectify this.
I had to take the party to court to prove that Labour threw away its own regulations to falsely accuse and expelling me.
So let’s have that “full review” of all cases since 2015.
And let’s see how many other members were falsely accused by lying Labour officers from Starmer’s wing of the party.
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.
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