The denial machine: puppet Steve Barclay (front) doesn’t have a brain of his own and can only repeat the nonsense he’s been told by Tory HQ, with his boss Rishi Sunak behind him, pulling his strings.
The absolute state of this.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay squirms as the BBC’s Sally Nugent points out that the Home Office was informed on August 7 that the prison barge for asylum-seekers, Bibby Stockholm, was infected with legionella.
People were sent on board the following day. It wasn’t until August 10 that the decision was made to clear the vessel of human inhabitants and decontaminate it.
Steve Barclay is a lying bastard.
Dorset council told a Home Office contractor about Legionella on Monday.
They continued to board people until Thursday.
Nobody should have been on board until safety checks were completed.
It’s criminal negligence. pic.twitter.com/dVFOmxDkWn
— Supertanskiii (@supertanskiii) August 14, 2023
Don’t you love the nervous tic that gives Barclay away – his repetition of the word “precaution” or “precautionary”. It’s likely to have been part of a speech he’d been told to rehearse beforehand, and when he was pressed on the subject he had nothing else to say.
As Ms Nugent said, he’s the Health Secretary; he should know how dangerous legionella is and how important it is to act urgently if it is discovered.
Ms Nugent has also won praise after she “eviscerated” the Tory Health Secretary for lying about waiting lists:
Steve Barclay, "Four times as many in Wales waiting over a year for treatment"
Sally Nugent, "English and Welsh figures are collated in a different way, so it's not relevant. Long waiting times have actually halved"
Steve Barclay, "No"
Sally Nugent, "Welsh include more… pic.twitter.com/utDHXQxb0C
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) August 14, 2023
Metro published the full exchange:
The politician replied: ‘What really matters is patients waiting for treatment. Commitment to getting waiting times down. We’re making big progress on the longest waits. In England we’ve virtually eliminated waits of over 18 months, whereas in Wales for example, there’s over 70,000 waiting more than 18 months.
‘In fact, many of your listeners will be surprised to learn that there’s four times as many patients waiting over a year for treatment in Wales compared to in England, and that’s despite Keir Starmer saying that Wales is the blueprint for what we would do in England.’
However, as the politician was finishing what he was saying, Sally interjected, stressing that the figures comparing waiting times in England and Wales required further context.
‘Can I just stop you there, because actually those… – can I please just stop you there for a moment, because the figures are actually collated in a different way, so that’s not particularly relevant. We also know that long waiting times are falling every month in Wales. They’ve actually more than halved in the last year,’ she stated.
However, the MP disagreed, adding: ‘No, people waiting more than 18 months in Wales is over 70,000 there. There’s over 30,000 waiting more than two years.’
Yet again, Sally pointed out the difference in the statistics’ relevance, telling the programme’s guest and their viewers: ‘They include more referrals in their statistics than England does, so they’re not really comparable figures, are they?’
The news provider also published reactions from the social media, with one person describing the interview as a “metaphorical evisceration” and another saying Ms Nugent “skewered him”.
But you wouldn’t know that from the propaganda clip put out by the Conservatives’ press office, that just regurgitates the lies and cuts out all of Ms Nugent’s contradictions – her only comment in the Tory clip is, “Yes”. Take a look if you can stomach it:
Under the Labour-run NHS in Wales, patients are four times more likely to wait over a year for treatment than in England.
Keir Starmer says Wales is his “blueprint” for a Labour government.
That’s why Labour cannot be trusted with the NHS. pic.twitter.com/fy20vRD76t
— Steve Barclay (@SteveBarclay) August 14, 2023
What a rotten liar.
And how sad that there are people who will swallow this pigswill gratefully.
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