The Conservatives have gone into freefall over the ‘Net Zero’ announcements – we can’t call them changes – that Rishi Sunak announced yesterday (September 20, 2023).
Sure, there are a lot of messages on the social media from Tory MPs and Cabinet members, saying what a good job he made of it…
… but get ’em on the telly and they turn into jelly. Here’s Kemi Badenoch, unable to take in the fact that the poorest families don’t have ministerial cars and chauffeurs like she does:
Jeez! Imagine the shock for the Business Secretary when someone tells her the poorest households actually can’t afford a car – a million adults can’t even afford to eat every day! This Government has completely lost touch with all reality! pic.twitter.com/KMkwudQpeW
Here’s George Eustace, giving up and openly admitting Sunak was playing fast-and-loose with the facts when he said he was axing policies:
"When did they [the government] announce that we were all going to have seven bins and that they were going to tax meat?"@krishgm asks former Environment Secretary George Eustice if Rishi Sunak is claiming to cancel policies that have never existed. pic.twitter.com/ytrqhFGfFl
And here’s Kwasi Kwarteng, basically losing it for no good reason. He says he doesn’t want to relive his time as Chancellor but that’s a pretty good summary of it, I would have thought:
"We wouldn't be in this position today if you and Liz Truss hadn't crashed the economy."
Kwasi Kwarteng has a mini meltdown when Victoria Derbyshire asks him the above. pic.twitter.com/5BvsMEP1Hn
For a change of pace, let’s have Peter Stefanovic’s critique of the prime minister himself, after Rishi Sunak made a fool of himself in a Tory promo video:
JEEZ! Even I can’t describe the Prime Minister’s new video!
WATCH IN DISBELIEF & never underestimate just how thick this Government thinks we all are! pic.twitter.com/pGJILwcXk5
As an aside: the Tories have all spent the day banging on that they won’t dictate what the public can or can’t buy. This is nonsense.
Does anybody remember the ‘nudge unit’, that David Cameron used to … encourage … the British people into actions they would not otherwise have taken? Is Rishi not still using that?
Also: look at your energy bill. You don’t get to choose how the energy you buy is generated, and much of it comes from the burning of fossil fuels – coal and gas – or nuclear fission. All are hugely polluting and we don’t have any say at all about it.
So the government really does dictate what we can buy.
Still – in the middle of this pack of lies, who’d notice another one?
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:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
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!
Laura Trott: she wanted us to judge her party on its record. The video clip mentions just a few parts of it.
This is purely because the record of the Tory government’s failures is worth keeping in the public eye.
After yesterday’s article (read it here), I made a YouTube video, in order to keep the information about what the Tories have done as accessible as possible.
Here’s the clip:
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:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
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!
The accused: Russell Brand is said to have committed a string of sexual assaults including rape but the only trial he has faced so far has been by the mainstream media – which seem biased against him because of the questions he has raised about them. And doesn’t their manufactured outrage indicate that his arguments have merit?
NOTE: This post is getting an unusually large number of views – which is great! Thanks! But it means you are statistically unlikely to receive notifications of Vox Political articles normally. The answer to this is simple: Subscribe! It’s free, and you can do it using the box in the right-hand column. We’ll both be happier if you do!
I wasn’t going to write about this.
The accusations of sexual assaults, including rape, against Russell Brand are serious matters that, now exposed, are for the police to investigate and – if necessary – prosecute. I would wish to let that happen without comment – partly in order not to prejudice any such investigation.
But the mainstream media seem (and I place emphasis on that word) determined to give Brand a kicking for the years he has spent criticising them and their own biases.
There is an element of the either/or narrative Mr Cook suggests in Jim Waterson’s piece; right at the start, he states:
Russell Brand has spent the past decade telling the world not to trust the mainstream media industry. Now the comedian will find out whether the wider public has bought into this scorched-earth narrative – or if they believe the claims of rape and sexual assault.
Why can’t we believe both?
Just because a person does wrong in one way, that doesn’t mean everything they say and do is untrue or even unacceptable; even if Brand is eventually convicted as a rapist, that should not invalidate any good arguments he makes about the media.
You see – if they are good arguments, they should stand up regardless of who has put them forward.
They should also stand up regardless of whether people branded as undesirable by the mainstream media have stood up to support Brand. Waterson mentions Elon Musk, Andrew Tate and Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson in an apparent attempt at “guilt by association”.
But in fact, Waterson’s article can be seen to support some of those arguments itself; for This Writer’s money, it seems to have been mis-headlined.
He goes on to admit,
there are still questions for mainstream British broadcasters to answer
and he lists some of them, which make it seem (yet again!) apparent that media representatives encouraged aberrant behaviour by Brand while he was working for them:
Hypersexualisation and graphic descriptions of sexual desire were part of his public persona – which is not illegal, but may have been considered red flags by those hiring him to present shows.
During Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary, there is a clip of the comedian telling Lorraine Kelly: “If you’re in a position of some success, people will let you be a nutter as long as they’re making money out of it.”
The suggestion is that – as far as mainstream media moguls were concerned – Brand could do whatever he wanted, as long as he was telling the world what they wanted him to say.
It is only since he turned against the mainstream that they have been looking for a way to undermine him. Waterson states that the initial inquiries against Brand began almost five years ago, after he started criticising the MSM. Why not before, if his behaviour was so well-known?
It seems to me that the media outrage against Brand may be nothing more than hypocritical ass-covering; an attempt to hide its own complicity any any wrong-doing by stirring up hysteria against him now.
And part of that is an attempt to discredit his arguments against them – arguments that may in fact be proved by their naked aggression against him.
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:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
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!
Social media demon: UK judges have already shown they don’t recognise how these people harm others – so is the new Online Safety legislation nothing more than a dead letter?
The father of a girl who took her own life after viewing content that may be described as harmful has said a new law to police the internet will fail if it does not stop this material being seen.
In that case, it seems doomed to be a dead letter.
Molly Russell took her own life after viewing suicide and self-harm content that induced her to harm herself. A coroner concluded that she died while suffering from the “negative effects” of online content.
So Molly died under the influence of what other – irresponsible – people published on the social media.
The Online Harms Bill is intended to prevent people like them from publishing material that could cause such harm to other impressionable viewers.
But how can it do that when some harms are not acknowledged by UK law?
I was involved in a court case in which an argument between a TV celebrity and a young girl with anxiety-based mental illness led to the girl receiving a high volume of abuse that caused her extreme distress.
She was pushed into an extreme emotional state under the influence of what other – irresponsible – people published on the social media. You comprehend the similarity, I hope.
She was not induced into self-harm, but she was put in fear of being harmed by others.
But the court case showed that the law does not recognise the potential for harm in what happened to this girl.
Her dialogue with the TV celebrity was labelled as nothing more than a misunderstanding, and the threatening messages she received were said to have had nothing to do with that contact.
So it seems to me that, even after this Bill becomes law, vulnerable people will still be in danger of distress, torment and ultimately harm – because my case has created a precedent for judges to ignore the connections between what is posted online and the effect it has on real people.
I dread the day my fear is proved accurate.
I am still raising funds to pay my legal team for their valuable work in my court case. If you have been moved by the story above, then please help in any of the following ways:
Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.
Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.
Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.
On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.
And don’t forget that if you’re having trouble, or simply don’t like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it’s for the crowdfund!
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:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
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!
It was an innocent question; I don’t know anything about tidal flows between England and Scotland (why should I?), and there really is an awful lot of ordure being pumped into English waters right now.
The response I received was astonishing – particularly in political terms. Example:
I'm fascinated to learn from the responses to my innocent question that I'm a Scottish Nationalist, despite opposing Scottish independence. Makes me question any other information coming from such biased sources.
It turns out I was right to question this information; I was just mistaken about the basis for questioning it.
Thankfully we have Martin Odoni of The Critique Archives to put us straight.
Here he is:
Note the pains Neil goes to quite needlessly to stress that the authority responsible for overseeing sewer overflows is a nationalised utility, subtly encouraging readers to imagine that the problem is caused by ‘inefficient public industry.’ But also, look closely at his claim and see if you can spot where he might be fiddling the arithmetic.
The Times offers a similar spin on this in its headline, but look closer at the text, and you soon realise we are being deliberately misled.
Sewage-related debris made up 17.9 per cent of litter on beaches in Scotland, compared with an average of 8.9 per cent on beaches throughout the UK in 2022.
What the MCS have actually found is that there is an eight-times-higher proportion of sewage-debris in the litter on Scottish beaches than in the litter on English or Welsh beaches. That would only mean there is eight times as much sewage on Scottish beaches as on English ones if there is exactly the same quantity of litter on Scottish beaches. The ‘eight-times-the-proportion’ figure does not substantiate the claim that there is eight times the total.
It seems the real difficulty that the MCS was trying to draw attention to is there is a lack of monitoring of sewage outlets in Scotland compared with the rest of the UK, so we do not actually know the accurate amount of sewage debris on Scottish beaches, or even of litter in general.
There does appear to be proportionally more litter on Scottish beaches (492 items per 100m) than on English beaches (309 per 100m), but that information only comes from volunteer clean-up operations and so is unscientific.
“Moreover,” Mr Odoni adds,
the English coastline is 2,748 miles long. The Scottish coastline is well over twice as long at 6,160 miles, due to the considerably greater ‘zig-zagging’ of Scottish beaches and the extensive peninsulae, which would substantially mitigate the bare amounts of litter involved.
This is not to say that Scotland doesn’t have a sewage-related litter problem:
On balance from what information there is, there probably is somewhat more sewage-debris on Scottish beaches than on English ones.
But This Writer can wholeheartedly join with Mr Odoni in suggesting:
The snake-ish attempt by Neil to give the impression that it is eight times higher, and that purely to smear nationalised companies, is a vintage example of how misleading his brand of ‘journalism’ is.
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:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
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!
Jo Bird: Bigoted witch-hunters are again conducting a hate campaign to sabotage her chances of winning a Parliamentary seat from Labour – but the facts are against them.
A woman who was unfairly expelled from the Labour Party while she was running for election to its ruling NEC is to stand as the Green Party’s candidate for Birkenhead in the next general election – and the false accusations against her have suddenly re-emerged.
Somebody must be terrified that Jo Bird will take the seat!
Ms Bird was originally suspended by Labour – for just nine days – after making a self-deprecating remark that their should be “Jew process” when considering allegations of anti-Semitism against party members.
She was suspended again when she was running for election to Labour’s ruling body, the NEC.
Much was made of this at the time, including by the Jewish Chronicle. Ms Bird complained to press regulator IPSO about inaccuracies in its article, and the eventual finding came back in her favour.
But we live in an age of despicable lies that won’t die – and, now that she has been announced as the Green Party’s Birkenhead candidate, they have resurfaced – to derision from those of us who know the facts:
In March, we wrote to the Greens to express our concern that they were harbouring people who had been expelled from Labour for supporting antisemites.
Now they’ve doubled down and made one of them a parliamentary candidate.
HopeNotHate has to decide whether to keep promoting the racist ideology of Zionism or to be anti-racist like many of the people it falsely accuses of antisemitism. https://t.co/1Ly2dEQ5xo
Fortunately she has plenty of support. This is just one example:
Solidarity with @JoBirdJoBird, a wonderful person who will make a brilliant MP for Birkenhead. I'm so glad that @TheGreenParty is welcoming to left-wingers that have been unfairly marginalised by Labour 🟢
We know why this is happening: the Green Party is in an excellent position to take Birkenhead from Labour right-winger Alison McGovern*, so Labour is wheeling out its old, false, accusations against that party’s candidate.
This is politics of the dirtiest kind. If you live in Birkenhead and you were thinking of Labour before, think again now.
*McGovern beat left-wing candidate Mick Whitley in a selection contest after boundary changes:
🚨 NEW: Jo Bird (who was expelled from Labour for speaking at a pro-Corbyn meeting) has been selected as Green candidate for Birkenhead.
Labour's candidate is the right-wing MP Alison McGovern, who beat left-wing MP Mick Whitley in the selection contest after boundary changes. https://t.co/RPZAYxargF
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:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
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!
The written-word version of this article seems to be quite popular with the public, so I’ve put a video version onto YouTube, in the hope that it will have more longevity.
Here it is:
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:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
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!
The United Kingdom is often described as a two-party state – meaning that one of only two domestic political parties can win a general election and form a government.
If that is true, then the UK is in big trouble because neither of the two largest parties here – Conservative or Labour – is fit to govern in their current form and under their current leaders.
If you want the proof, look to the public and find out what they’re saying. Here’s just a smattering of comments about both Labour and the Tories, based on current events, from the social media:
In my opinion, if labour gets into power, the UK is in serious trouble.
The whole country now knows that Sunak and his ministers are more or less uniformly corrupt and dishonest. They don’t have majority support of the electorate , and their Tory VIP associates have stolen about £ 14 billion from the taxpayer. Why on earth are they still in office ?
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to imagine the NHS ever fully recovering from 13 years of Tory neglect when the only possible replacement government are up to their eyeballs in private healthcare cash before they’ve even won anything.
Keir Starmer & his stooges sabotaged Jeremy Corbyn's election chances in 2017 & 2019 so they could regain control of the Labour party. They installed this corrupt Tory regime for their own selfish careerist reasons. If you vote Labour at the next election, you're rewarding snakes
The simple yardstick for all of the above is the different parties’ policies.
Do either Labour or the Conservatives have any policies that you want to see inflicted on you, personally? Did they have any policies you wanted and supported, only to find that party leaders reneged on them? Do you honestly think you can trust them?
If not, you need to find someone else.
Who are the other political organisations in your constituency? What are their policies?
There is always someone better out there. Find them.
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:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
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!
Face of evil? Suella Braverman’s dossier attacking immigration lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie seems to be not only dishonest and illegal, but also racist.
Let’s see if I’ve got this right: the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom has deliberately released a dossier filled with lies in order to get the media to harass an immigration lawyer, thereby putting her in danger. Is that correct?
I refer to a four-page document created by Suella Braverman (or ordered by her), and sent to right wing papers the Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express.
It contained a series of falsehoods about Jacqueline McKenzie, head of immigration and asylum at the law firm Leigh Day, which she herself described as follows, in an article for The Guardian:
Someone had drawn a diagram linking Keir Starmer to anyone who challenged the Conservatives’ Rwanda plan. There was mention of a case in which I represented a Jamaican man who had lived in the UK from the age of nine and was facing deportation. It said that I was a hired adviser on race to Starmer, when in fact I am an unpaid volunteer on a working group set up by Labour to look at race disparities across a number of indicators, just as the Conservatives did with the Sewell report.
It also “outed” me as a trustee of Detention Action, a well-respected NGO supporting people in immigration detention centres, presumably because the organisation challenged the Rwanda scheme in the courts. The dossier did not mention that I had become a trustee after that challenge. I did represent a man who was one of seven shackled on the tarmac waiting to be flown to Rwanda before the flight was grounded by the courts. I feel no shame: a doctor in the immigration detention centre confirmed that my client displayed signs of being a victim of torture.
A statement in support of Ms McKenzie by her colleagues at Leigh Day points out:
Omitted from the briefing was Jacqueline’s involvement on another group chaired by Priti Patel MP on the Windrush Scandal and the 90% of her work which is focused on legal support for victims of the Windrush Scandal.
Another Guardianreport quoted the actual Tory document:
The party’s document, which had the heading, “Revealed: senior Labour advisor is lefty lawyer blocking Rwanda deportations”, sought to highlight McKenzie’s links to the party and her work on immigration cases, she said.
The Tory dossier said: “Just last year, she [McKenzie] helped a Jamaican criminal lodge last-minute appeal to deportation because of his high blood pressure. The foreign-born crook had just served an eight-year prison sentence for kidnapping.
“[Labour leader Keir] Starmer has been keen to distance himself from previous remarks and convince voters that he can be trusted on immigration.
“But his decision to hire lefty lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie is further proof that ‘Sir Softie’ can’t be trusted.”
A spokesperson for the Conservative Party intensified the attack in a comment for the same article, stating:
“It’s no secret that an activist blob of leftwing lawyers, dubious campaign groups and the Labour party are trying to frustrate our efforts to stop the boats and deport more foreign criminals.”
Ms McKenzie has made her opinion on the reasons for the Tory attack on her abundantly clear:
There is no doubt this story was timed to accompany the moving of asylum seekers, many traumatised, on to the Bibby Stockholm. The government attacks vulnerable people and those like myself, who represent them in order to distract from issues that the electorate prioritise: the cost-of-living crisis, the environment and the NHS.
This flagrant attack on me and my work, built on misinformation and mischaracterisation and underpinned by racism and misogyny, is a dark day for our political sphere. It represents a serious slur on the integrity and independence of thousands of hardworking and upstanding lawyers.
I’ve saved the worst for last: The attack on Ms McKenzie has put her in danger, along with those around her:
The hit job on me was vile and self-serving, and put me and those close to me at considerable risk of physical harm. I’m having to take security advice and precautions, such is the seriousness I place on ominous emails I have received.
The Tory dossier was not only full of lies; it deliberately and falsely alleged that Ms McKenzie was politically biased – a claim that has outraged members of the legal profession, not just at Leigh Day but across the UK.
According to the Leigh Day statement,
Lawyers should not be criticised for doing their jobs. People are entitled to have legal representation when faced with removal from the country, or indeed being moved to accommodation which may be unsuitable. Many of the clients represented by Jacqueline’s team have been through trauma, torture or incredible hardship. In a civilised society they should be treated with compassion and understanding as well as having the law applied accurately and fairly to the individual circumstances of their case.
While the work we do as a firm is not always popular we strive to provide access to justice to all whether that is bereaved families who need help finding answers through the inquest process, those who have been seriously injured on our roads, employees who have been discriminated against by their employers and international communities who bear the brunt of multinational corporations wreaking havoc on their local environments. This commitment to access to justice for all extends to those seeking asylum in this country or who need support with their immigration status.
We are proud of the work we do and will not be cowed by a government whose strategy appears to be to attack and demonise lawyers, and the judiciary, merely for working to ensure the laws of this country are upheld.
It is a position that the Law Society, which represents and supports solicitors across England and Wales, and the Bar Council, its counterpart organisation for barristers, fully supports:
“No lawyer should be criticised, or made the subject of a targeted campaign, for doing their job."
Our full joint statement with @thebarcouncil, sharing our support for immigration lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie:
"Everyone is entitled to legal representation, and it is a United…
“Everyone is entitled to legal representation, and it is a United Nations basic principle that lawyers should not be identified with the causes of their clients as a result of representing them.
“The legal community is gravely concerned by the experience of immigration solicitor Jacqueline McKenzie.
“That is why – as we have said repeatedly – it is wrong to describe lawyers as ‘lefty’ or ‘activist’ simply on the basis of the causes they advocate on behalf of their clients.
“Lawyers who represent their clients are not only doing nothing wrong, they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do in playing their part in ensuring that the rule of law is upheld. Ms McKenzie has been doing exactly what she is supposed to do as an immigration solicitor, acting in the best interests of her clients within the constraints of the law.
“Political leaders know that lawyers represent their clients within the legal framework that parliament creates and CCHQ should seriously reflect on what has happened in this case.
“Language and actions that unfairly undermine confidence in the independence of the legal professions, and potentially risk the safety of lawyers, will ultimately undermine confidence in our entire justice system and the rule of law.”
It seems clear to This Writer that the dossier of lies about Ms McKenzie is part of the “crackdown” on “rogue lawyers” that the Tory government announced earlier this month.
At the time, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk claimed that the aim was to stop a minority of lawyers who were making false claims in order to allow people who should be deported to stay in the UK.
Jon Kay: You've announced a crackdown on rogue lawyers.. but this is a distraction… you should be tackling the backlog?
Alex Chalk: "A small minority are doing terrible damage.. coming up with false claims… & this illegality, dishonesty is extremely serious" #BBCBreakfastpic.twitter.com/nDM49V4w57
He seemed to be having trouble getting his words out and, if the attack on Ms McKenzie is representative of the Tory plan, this should be unsurprising. It can be hard to present a pack of lies as factual information.
Even then, the Law Society was pointing out the errors in the Tory claims:
Today, the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office announced that they have launched a Professional Enablers Taskforce to crackdown on lawyers.
Responding, deputy vice president of the Law Society Richard Atkinson said: (1/5)
“The overwhelming majority of immigration lawyers continue to support the #RuleOfLaw through their adherence to the law and professional standards set by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. (3/5)
The Tories’ claim to be cracking down on a small number of lawyers who are dishonestly and illegally playing the system on behalf of foreigners who should not be in the UK seems to be a cover for an attack on entirely respectable lawyers that is itself dishonest and illegal.
But then, what can we expect from a Home Secretary whose own word cannot be trusted?
Suella Braverman wants to crackdown on crooked lawyers. Braverman was accused of lying on her CV by saying she made a contribution to a seminal law textbook. The author, Philip Colvin QC denied her claim “I asked her to do some photocopying for the book, which she did”.
One final point that I haven’t mentioned before: Ms McKenzie is black. This Tory “crackdown” on asylum-seekers and those who represent them is not only dishonest and illegal; it is also racist.
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:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
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!
The Empire Windrush: the people brought to the UK on this ship in 1948, the Chinese deported back to that country two years before, and Afghan asylum-seekers who face death trying to cross the English Channel are all victims of the same primitive racism.
It’s always sad to see proof that a country is evolving backwards – especially when that country is your own.
That’s exactly what This Writer saw, watching an old BBC documentary series called Mixed Britannia.
It showed me that the current fervour for shipping people of foreign extraction who have been re-defined (take careful note of that: re-defined) as “undesirables” out of the UK (destination: anywhere) is a regression to the attitudes of more primitive times.
In the series, the late George Alagiah relates what he describes as the “shameful” episode in which people who were originally from China but had settled in Liverpool, some having married local women, were separated from their families in a night-time raid, thrown onto a ship and sent directly back to their country of origin.
Their labour had previously been welcomed but then it was considered no longer to be needed and racist law-makers dispensed with their services, with extreme prejudice.
Their wives and children were not told the truth about what had happened; they were left to believe they had been deserted by their husbands.
This happened under the otherwise-progressive Labour government of Clement Attlee; it should perhaps serve as a warning to us all that we should be careful not to view history through rose-tinted glasses, or any other distorting prism.
Mr Alagiah went on to show how attitudes had improved over the decades leading to 2011, when Mixed Britannia was made.
Hindsight renders it ironic that he referred to the arrival of the Empire Windrush, packed with passengers from the West Indies who had been promised UK citizenship in return for their help in rebuilding our then-war-torn nation, as a great step forward that happened only a few years later.
Today, the Windrush Scandal is one of the deepest scars on the face of the Conservative administration of 2010 onwards; documentation proving the right of the Windrush generation to live in the UK was deliberately destroyed and people who’d had every right to believe they were UK citizens were forced through a deportation process that was entirely unwarranted, unfair, and illegal. The Tories have yet to make full restitution to those they wronged.
Today we live overlooking the river of blood (to adopt a phrase) that used to be the English Channel – where refugees and asylum-seekers place their lives in the hands of criminal gangs because they have no safe, legal route to claim asylum in the UK; the Tories have closed them all off and say anybody trying to make the crossing is coming here illegally.
Does that include people from Afghanistan who worked as employees of the UK government and its forces there for 20 years after the post- 911 invasion, as implied by this social media post about the people who died or were rescued in the tragedy that happened on August 12:
You work with the British army against the Taliban The Brits promise to look after you & your family The Brits withdraw after 20 years They leave you & your family behind You die in the Channel
Tory MPs, radio & broadcast blowhards, ignorant people suggest it is YOUR fault
“Their labour had previously been welcomed but then it was considered no longer to be needed and racist law-makers dispensed with their services, with extreme prejudice.”
It fits, doesn’t it?
Remember: The current Conservative government has deliberately dismantled the UK’s immigration and asylum system in order to make it impossible to properly process people coming to these shores to claim asylum.
They have done this in order to fool you into thinking that our borders are being overrun by foreigners who have no reason to come here.
They believe they need to put a fake enemy in front of you because otherwise you will realise that the only real enemy you have is the current Conservative government.
At the time of writing, Mixed Britannia may be viewed via the BBC iPlayer here.
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:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
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.
