Tag Archives: apology

Sunak flounders over WhatsApps and Eat Out To Help Out at Covid inquiry

Rishi Sunak at the Covid Inquiry: is that smirk Duper’s Delight?

Rishi Sunak, the UK’s current prime minister, made a dog’s dinner of his evidence on his Covid-19-boosting Eat Out To Help Out initiative in his first day in the hot seat at the Covid inquiry.

He also made himself look stupid over his failure to deliver WhatsApp messages that he should have kept, in order to make them available to the inquiry.

In the light of these failings, his apology – was it an apology? Or was it just an expression of sympathy to the families of people who have died of Covid? – fell flatter than a cowpat.

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The video evidence speaks for itself so I’ll just deliver what I’ve found and let you make up your own mind about it.

Here’s the apology:

This is what I could find about the WhatsApps:

Here’s the juice about Eat Out To Help Out:

Oh, and just for fun, here’s what Sunak had to say about lockdown:

Here’s the whole hearing, if you’ve got the stomach for it:

https://www.youtube.com/live/qzi4DDNi3Jk?si=Ygz-vMH2Ng0WClOO

Finally, let’s have some reaction. I apologise that this is from LBC:

For balance, here’s Phil Moorhouse and A Different Bias:

More will follow – inevitably.


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Evasions and ‘apologies’: Boris Johnson at the Covid inquiry

Boris Johnson at the Covid inquiry: expansive hand gestures and facial expressions can’t hide the lack of remorse.

Boris Johnson seems to have taken part of his strategy for giving evidence to the Covid inquiry from Harry Potter.

In the fifth book of JK Rowling’s celebrated children’s series, the title character is accused of a crime and his trial is brought forward in an attempt to ensure that his head teacher is unable to attend in time and give evidence.

Today (December 6, 2023), Johnson arrived at the inquiry’s venue no less than three hours early, in an attempt to evade critics – hecklers, bereaved family members of those who died, and so on.

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In this, he appears to have succeeded. All he had to avoid on the street were questions from the press:

It didn’t stop him from being heckled while giving his evidence:

While the inquiry’s chair was right to have the hecklers removed – they were disrupting proceedings, their interruption highlighted the lack of any real apology in Johnson’s statement.

Here’s Professor Tim Wilson:

He’s right. The apology was “Sorry you’re not happy,” rather than “I apologise for my failure”.

The questions he faced seem to have been primarily about WhatsApp messages that passed between the then-prime minister, his advisers and staff during 2020 – in particular, those that went missing from a phone he stopped using on the pretext that it was a security risk.

After it was unlocked, technicians appear to have discovered that a “factory reset” was performed on that phone in January 2020, and then an attempt was made to put back the information that had been removed at that time in June of that year. Johnson denied knowledge of what a “factory reset” was, implying that he had nothing to do with this alleged activity.

Do you believe him?

In the event, it seems unlikely that the loss of this information mattered very much because Johnson’s advisers and staff passed the messages from him on their own WhatsApp accounts to the inquiry, so it was entirely possible to question him on issues of his government’s competence that were raised by those people during the period under discussion.

Here’s what he had to say:

Questions raised were whether there was an abusive/misogynistic atmosphere, how well the government performed, what the government’s members thought of each other and what they thought of the decisions that were taken.

The impression received by the inquiry so far, it seems, was one of “incompetence and disarray”.

Johnson tried to defend himself and the government, but you can judge for yourself how well he succeeded.

He said there was a distinction between the language used in the messages and the performance of the government, claiming that he “got an awful lot done”.

He dismissed concerns that were raised about the toxicity of his operation, saying prime ministers are constantly being lobbied to sack other members of the government, and opinions expressed by his top civil servants were part of the “day in, day out” running of a country.

He is continuing to give evidence so more will follow.


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Madeley apologies for asking UK-Palestinian MP if she knew of Hamas attack plan?

Clumsy: Richard Madeley (right) didn’t stop to think of the implications when he asked Lib Dem MP Layla Moran if her Palestinian relatives knew of the Hamas attack against Israel before October 12.

It is as though there is a kind of sickness sweeping through the UK’s broadcast media.

UK-Palestinian MP Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat), appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, was talking about her concern for family members in Gaza, facing the danger of attack by Israel, when host Richard Madeley asked her if any of them had had advance warning that Hamas would be attacking Israel on October 7:

What kind of stupid question is that?

Of course they didn’t know! They are ordinary citizens, not terrorists! The operation would have been secret and nobody would have been told who didn’t need to be.

Simply asking the question, therefore, implied that Ms Moran was related to terrorists.

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So now Madeley has rowed back, saying that was not his intention. What was he trying to do, then?

Here‘s The Independent:

Taken aback, the senior Lib Dem politician replied: “Not this, not this. Everyone, everyone has been surprised first of all by the timing and sophistication and they way that it’s happened.”

Ms Moran added: “I don’t believe it is right that my family is being held accountable for what Hamas is done. It is a choice to turn off the water and the electricity and the way that has happened – I don’t believe that is right.”

Issuing an apology following widespread outrage, a Good Morning Britain spokesperson said: “Richard is sorry that he has upset viewers with his question to Layla Moran.”

They added: “His intention was to understand the mood and atmosphere amongst the civilian population of Gaza immediately before the attacks … He did not mean to imply that she or her family might have had any prior knowledge of the attacks.”

Madeley’s words have been widely condemned and there have been calls for him to be taken off-air.


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BBC apologises for misleading on pro-Palestine demonstrations

Misleading report: these people were not voicing their support for Hamas, BBC.

I was going to do a piece about this but the BBC has – for once – got its correction out first!

In a report on October 16, a BBC newsreader read out the following words:

I would have pointed out that the demonstrations were not about backing Hamas in any way; thousands upon thousands of people across the UK had taken to the streets to show support for the two million innocent Palestinian people whose lives are threatened by Israeli war crimes – collective punishment (cutting off their food, water and power, and bombing innocent civilians in retribution for the attack by Hamas), and forcible transfer (ordering a million of them to move from northern Gaza to the south of the region).

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But I didn’t get the chance before the BBC broadcast a correction:

Methinks Auntie must have received quite a lot of complaints about that one!


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Met police apologises, compensates women arrested at Sarah Everard vigil

Orwellian: police at Clapham Common weren’t actually stamping on Patsy Stevenson’s face, but they might as well have been.

It seems Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley wants to draw a line under his service’s shameful treatment of women. It may not be that easy.

But while the Met has issued an apology and “substantial” payouts to Patsy Stevenson and Dania al-Obeid, who were arrested at a vigil for Sarah Everard in 2021, both have said they will continue to “speak up about police abuse”.

Ms Everard was kidnapped, raped and murdered by then-serving Met Police officer Wayne Couzens, who is now serving a whole-life prison sentence for his crimes.

Ms Stevenson and Ms al-Obeid attended the vigil on Clapham Common while Covid-19 restrictions were in place in March 2021 because they felt women had been “badly let down”, and the Met has now officially admitted that this was “understandable”.

In letters to the two women from Commander Karen Findlay, the Met acknowledged that even during Covid, their “fundamental right to protest remained”, but noted that the pandemic “presented an extremely difficult challenge for policing and the officers present”. It added: “That aside, I appreciate the anger, frustration and alarm your arrest undoubtedly caused you, exacerbated by the subsequent proceedings.”

Ms Stevenson tweeted:

The Guardian reported,

On Wednesday, Stevenson expressed relief that this chapter of the “tiring” fight was over, but said that while the apology was welcome, it was “half-arsed”. She added that the controversial Public Order Act had “further eroded and undermined” citizens’ fundamental right to protest.

“Every step has been a huge hurdle, so I appreciate what they’ve said, but […] even if you go through a [legal battle], they still won’t hold themselves accountable for what they’ve done. But this is a very big win for us, and for everyone who attended the vigil.”

And Ms al-Obeid was reported as receiving the information in the following way:

Al-Obeid, who was handcuffed and arrested at the vigil, discovered that she had been convicted behind closed doors under the Single Justice Procedure (SJP) only after being contacted by media.

She challenged the conviction on the grounds that she had no opportunity to plead not guilty, and the case was then dropped by the CPS and her “crime” removed from the record. She called the apology “empowering”, but said victims of abuse needed more support that could not be provided by the police.

“The police are not the right organisation to be on the frontline for victims of violence. They just end up re-traumatising them,” said Al-Obeid, herself a victim of domestic abuse. “There is a real need for specialised resources to deal with these situations.

“I will continue speaking out about the abuse that goes on in police forces and their lack of support for victims of abuse.”

The covert conviction under the Single Justice Procedure is deeply concerning in itself.

How many other people have been convicted of crimes without even knowing they had been accused?

That in itself suggests that the apology from the Met is hollow.

Also in the news today is this:

Scotland Yard has admitted overusing its power to strip-search children after four of its officers were told they would face disciplinary proceedings over allegations that their search of a 15-year-old black schoolgirl known as Child Q was inappropriate and amounted to discrimination owing to her race and sex.

Remember this story?

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said three of the officers faced accusations of gross misconduct over the search, carried out at a school in Hackney, in east London, in December 2020. A fourth officer faces lesser misconduct action over the absence of an appropriate adult.

It is alleged that the decision to carry out the strip-search, while the girl was having her period, was inappropriate; that Child Q was treated differently because of her race and sex; that there was no appropriate adult present; and that the officers did not get authorisation from a supervisor.

So disciplinary proceedings are to begin, nearly three years after the incident.

This Writer can’t see the result affecting the careers of those involved.

At the rate the case is proceeding, they will all have retired long before any verdict is reached.

Source: Met police pays damages to women arrested at Sarah Everard vigil | Metropolitan police | The Guardian


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Gavin Williamson wanted to clear his name of bullying accusation. He failed

Williamson apologises: he has failed to clear himself of bullying Wendy Morton and was ordered to make reparation to her.

Serial Tory failure Gavin Williamson has failed again – to clear his name of bullying fellow Tory Wendy Morton.

He quit as Minister Without Portfolio last year after sending expletive-laden texts to former Tory chief whip Wendy Morton, accusing her of excluding some MPs from the late Queen’s funeral last September.

Ms Morton lodged a complaint with Parliament in November and Williamson quit his government position in order to clear his name – but the inquiry found against him and he was ordered to deliver his apology in a speech in the House of Commons on Monday (September 4).

He said he accepted he had used “intemperate and inappropriate language,” and he accepted “the decision that my conduct constituted a breach” of the policy.

“I will do my utmost to ensure this does not happen again,” he added.

Opposition parties have questioned why Mr Sunak appointed Sir Gavin as a minister in October last year, after being told about Ms Morton’s complaint – and it is a good question, especially as Williamson’s apology comes at the same time as Chris Pincher’s suspension.

Pincher had to resign as a Tory whip after he admitted groping two men. It subsequently transpired that then-prime minister Boris Johnson had promoted him to the Whips’ office, despite having been informed of previous transgressions by the same MP.

Bullying is not the same as sexual offences – but the fault of the Tory leader in both cases is the same; giving a job to an MP whose integrity was, at the very least, questionable (and proved to be nonexistant).

Williamson sent the abusive texts to Ms Morton on September 13, 2022, complaining that he and other colleagues had been excluded from the Queen’s funeral for political reasons. Here are the most offending messages:

Ms Morton complained to the Conservative Party about his conduct on October 24. He refused to apologise.

Ex-Conservative Party Chair Jake Berry said he told Rishi Sunak of the complaint on the day it was made. Sunak subsequently made Williamson a Cabinet minister.

Morton handed Williamson’s messages to the Conservative Party on October 26, two days after she made her complaint – but Sunak insisted that he did not see them until they were published in The Sunday Times on November 6.

Do you believe that?

An official investigation into Williamson’s words to Ms Morton was launched on November 8 – but, by then, other allegations had been made against him.

According to the BBC,

Sir Gavin told a senior civil servant to “slit your throat” and “jump out of the window” when he was defence secretary.

An unnamed official told the Guardian Sir Gavin, who is now a Cabinet Office minister in Rishi Sunak’s government, “deliberately demeaned and intimidated” them.

The official said they raised concerns to the Ministry of Defence’s human resources department but made no formal complaint.

Williamson did not deny using the language mentioned in the accusation.

But he issued a statement: “I strongly reject this allegation and have enjoyed good working relationships with the many brilliant officials I have worked with across government.

“No specific allegations have ever been brought to my attention.”

Williamson resigned in order to fight Ms Morton’s claims against him on November 8. He also said he did not want to become a distraction from the work of Sunak’s government.

It was the third time the serial quitter had resigned a government role.

Williamson’s previous Cabinet role ended when he was sacked as Education Secretary in September 2021.

At the time, I wrote the following:

England’s education system is (momentarily) stronger with the announcement that Gavin Williamson has been sacked from his post as the minister in charge, as part of a Cabinet reshuffle by Boris Johnson.

His two-year tenure stands as testament to the fact that having no Education Secretary is better than having him in the role.

Incompetent Williamson’s failures are fast becoming the stuff of legend, with the headline disasters well-known to all of us:

In 2020, when A-level students could not take their exams because of Covid-19, he used a algorithm to allocate marks – that was rigged to make it seem that privately-educated pupils were more intelligent than the riff-raff from the state system that he ran.

He later tried to force disadvantaged, black and minority ethnic children in England to take exams when other kids didn’t have to, claiming that they respond better to examination conditions. It seemed clear racism – an attempt to put these children down with duff results.

He made it clear that the government expected all schools to open as normal in January this year – then closed them after just one day because prime minister Boris Johnson ordered a new lockdown and he was unaware of it.

He decided to foist Latin as a subject onto state school pupils, rather than anything useful. At the time I wrote: “Having killed the economy with Brexit and enormous numbers of the population with Covid-19, the Tories now want us all to learn a dead language.”

He scrapped dozens of legal rights for children.

He also wanted a clampdown on indiscipline in schools after the return from Covid-19 lockdown – but provided no evidence whatsoever to support his wild claim that our children had gone feral.

Before Boris Johnson gave him the bullet, it was suggested that Williamson would blame school pupils and parents if Covid-19 infections spike after the start of the school term.

Prior to that, he was Defence Secretary under Theresa May – but was sacked from that job too.

In May 2019, I wrote:

Theresa May has sacked Gavin Williamson as Defence Secretary, saying she has “lost confidence in his ability to serve in the role of defence secretary and as a member of her cabinet”.

It appears he is to take responsibility for an embarrassing leak from the National Security Council, stating that Huawei is to take a contract to help provide the UK’s 5G network, despite concerns over spyware funnelling information to the Chinese government.

But was he really to blame?

Mr Williamson himself is on the record as swearing on his children’s life that he had nothing to do with the leak.

But it seems an inquiry run by Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill has found that he was responsible for the leak, which has angered the United States government, which has banned Huawei from government networks and pressurised the UK to do the same.

Alternatively, some have suggested that the US is simply protecting its interests, saying Huawei provides better service than American firms.

According to The Independent, Mr Williamson is said to believe his firing was “politically motivated”.

It has also been alleged that Williamson was knighted on the wishes of Boris Johnson because he knew of connections between Johnson and Russia that the former prime minister wanted to keep quiet.

So there are certainly a lot of claims about Williamson. Did he ever clear up those previous allegations? Not as far as This Writer is aware.

Has he cleared up the other allegations of bullying? Not as far as This Writer is aware.

It is possible that some – especially among the Conservative Party – will want to close the book on Gavin Williamson’s alleged wrongdoing now.

I would suggest that it would be premature to do so. Let’s have all the answers first.

The Tories DID lie to give builders bigger profits. Don’t buy their houses!

A river in flood: the new houses that will be built after the Tories dropped ‘nutrient neutrality’ rules will probably be on flood plains of environmentally-sensitive rivers that the water firms have already filled with raw sewage. They will flood, meaning if you buy a house there, all your possessions will be ruined.

EXTRA: Is it true that Michael Gove took two £50,000 donations from a property developer last year – and should we be asking whether that has anything to do with this change in government policy?

Now read on…

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds briefly became a hero – and then a zero – when it said Tory ministers were liars … and then apologised.

The charity had spoken up against Michael Gove’s decision to strip “nutrient neutrality” demands from rules governing housing developments near UK waterways:

The charity provided ample evidence to support its claim; the Tory government has insisted for years that it will improve environmental protections significantly. Having failed to do this in any way at all – and in fact having caused a disaster in our waterways – the Tories are now legislating to force authorities to ignore pollution altogether. Here are those claims, as provided by Feargal Sharkey, who fears the original posts may disappear:

This is the legislation requiring planning authorities to ignore the threat of pollution when granting permission for homes to be built, followed by the RSPB’s evidence of Tory lies:

Charity Commission guidance on campaigning gives the green light to posts of this nature:

And the RSPB at first won widespread support:

And then it all dissolved:

Let’s remember a few facts:

The evidence seems to be lost on Tory supporters who claim that a promise of funding (£140m extra – not more than £200m as described by the drone below) will entirely negate the damage that will be done:

For clarity: the nutrients (“human wee and poo” as the Wildlife Trust’s Craig Bennett described them on Radio 4) will be going into rivers that are already clogged with raw sewage that has been illegally discharged by England’s privatised water companies (with government blessing).

It will be easy to argue that it is impossible to show what extra harm is being done by new developments – and refuse to spend the money.

There’s also the question of whether the government should be spending public money on such cleaning in any event.

It seems that developers are responsible for one-fifth of donations to the Conservative Party, and have been sitting on more than a million planning permissions, waiting for the Tories to get rid of the expensive environmental protections that would cut into their profits.

After the Tories made their announcement, share prices in just three housebuilding firms rocketed by nearly £500 million – more than three times the extra cash the government has promised to mitigate the environmental harm they will do.

That’s money they were going to get as soon as they decided to start building again; building is a major economic multiplier – it adds a lot to the economy and that means people with cash want to invest in it to make more cash.

So the developers could easily have afforded to implement the environmental protections as formerly required by the law. They just didn’t want to. And to force the issue, they sat on more than a million planning permissions while the government was made increasingly embarrassed by its failure to hit housing targets.

Here’s the evidence:

In summary:

The RSPB had no reason to apologise for correctly calling Tory government ministers liars who reversed their environmental policies under pressure from greedy housing developers who wanted to maximise their profits.

The best way to give these greed-consumed creeps their just desserts is simple: don’t buy their houses.

I know – most of us won’t have the option.

But for the rest: they’ll be built on the flood plains of environmentally-sensitive rivers, and most likely without any of the mitigation measures the government has promised.

So when they flood – and they will – those houses will be filled with human “wee and poo”.

Do you really want that stuff to get into everything you own? Have a think about it.


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Where is Boris Johnson’s apology to families who lost loved ones while he partied?

Boris Johnson: he’d rather sulk in public than do the one decent thing left to him.

Have we all forgotten the scandal underlying the Partygate scandal?

The reason the Downing Street parties were such a bad thing, and the reason it is so shameful that Boris Johnson lied to us all, is that thousands of people were dying while these parties were taking place.

The families of the deceased – including the then-Queen – were forced to observe social distancing rules laid down by Boris Johnson – rules which he and others were merrily breaking with after-the-event justifications that “imperfect” social distancing was perfectly acceptable rather than cancelling a gathering or holding it online (Partygate Report page 6).

The Commons’ Privileges Committee has rightly stated in its report that such justifications are unacceptable. There is no way to make it look reasonable or acceptable that these parties happened in the way they did, and that Johnson then lied about them, when families across the UK were suffering because of the rules the yobs in Downing Street were vomiting on.

Johnson has, of course, refused to accept the report and its conclusions. Instead, he has run away from Parliament, trailing a string of recriminations behind him. This is because he, too, is a yob.

If he had even a shred of decency, he would have made a full, frank and abject apology to everybody who lost loved ones and were prevented from mourning them properly by the rules he decided didn’t apply to him.

You see, he is presenting an appearance of being affronted by what has happened – but it happened because of what he chose to do. The bereaved families are actually aggrieved because of restrictions that he forced on them. That’s the difference.

As one of the bereaved has said, now is the time for contrition.

Instead, Boris Johnson has shown that he is so full of his own windy self-importance that he has not even spared a single thought for the consequences of his behaviour – its meaning for the millions of people who were struggling to cope with this, and all the other stupid, self-serving decisions Johnson made when he should have been governing in the national interest.

When the Tories slithered back into Downing Street in the first place, back in 2010, they did so with a lie that “we’re all in it together”. Remember?

If any of them has proved that the Tories aren’t “together” with the rest of us in any way at all, it is Boris Johnson. We must remember that.

And where’s his apology?


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Labour’s suspension of Diane Abbott is unprecedented and unnecessary. Here’s why

Diane Abbott: suspended for erroneous reasons?

If you’re unaware of the situation, the UK’s first black female MP – Diane Abbott – has been deprived of Labour’s Parliamentary whip after she penned a letter that correctly pointed out that people of colour suffer racism more habitually than other ethnicities – but did it in a clumsy way.

This Site has published an article about it here.

Public reaction has been split – partly, in This Writer’s opinion, because Ms Abbott is famously the most racially abused member of Parliament. In fact, she receives more racially abusive correspondence than all other MPs put together, so it can hardly be surprising that people who themselves are lower than vermin have latched onto this.

Not only that, but she is a socialist, meaning that members of the right-wing faction that currently controls Labour, together with their supporters, also want her removed from that party. This incident has been their excuse to suspend her, pending an investigation on grounds of anti-Semitism.

There’s just one problem:

Members of their faction have been caught making far more clearly anti-Semitic comments. Like Ms Abbott, they subsequently apologised. Unlike her, their transgressions were instantly forgotten.

Here’s one example:

Claudia Webbe, a socialist MP who now sits as an Independent after being expelled from Labour, has pointed out the similarity, and others have added additional arguments to her words:

So on that level, Labour has no ground on which to continue with Ms Abbott’s suspension.

The other issue is whether her letter was anti-Semitic. Let’s consider:

If you don’t believe that, let’s hear from some Jewish people (although Keir Starmer’s right-wing mob dispute their authenticity – apparently they are the “wrong type of Jew” and you can judge for yourself what that says about the current Labour leadership.

Here‘s Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL):

Her original letter was not antisemitic and the way some critics have rounded on her as if it were is cynical and unhelpful.

As a prominent Black Labour MP she cannot avoid discussing the way Black and Asian people are in the frontline of racist oppression – and the way the Black experience has been downplayed in the Labour Party. This was identified by Martin Forde in his report as a hierarchy of racism.  The wording of Diane’s letter was unfortunate in that it appeared to compare forms of racism. Diane has rightly apologised for this.

All racism is abhorrent – and she has always fought against it. Historically Jews have been major victims – most notoriously in the time of the Holocaust. As Diane says in her tweeted apology, “Racism takes many forms and it is completely undeniable that Jewish people have suffered its monstrous effects, as have Irish people, Travellers and many others.”

The fight against racism today – certainly in this country – is centred on defence of Black and Asian people. This in no way discounts the experience of Jews. Jewish people in this country of course face prejudice and racism, in particular the Haredim, who in their dress are highly visible, but it is not institutional, structural racism that fundamentally affects their prospects and outcomes.

Yes, Diane’s letter should have been drafted with more care – but this is no ground for suspension from the Labour Party.

So that’s the opinion of (some) Jewish people. That would divest Labour of its other excuse to suspend Ms Abbott – except of course that Keir Starmer couldn’t give two figs about what left-wing Jews have to say.

And that leads us to one last point:

Exactly. This is now a litmus test for Labour’s electability.

If Starmer and his cronies don’t reinstate Ms Abbott, then left-wing voters who traditionally support Labour will know that they no longer have a home there and should not, under any circumstances, vote for that party while Keir Starmer and his team lead it.


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Tory chairman apologises to civil service for ‘activist blob’ email. Why not Braverman?

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?

Source: Simon Case: Conservative Party chair has apologised for ‘activist civil servants’ email


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