Tag Archives: cabinet

Covid inquiry: is government bid to blackmail Boris Johnson over evidence a bust?

Disinformation: apparently, during the Covid crisis, Boris Johnson’s government set up a unit to remove posts about vaccines and lockdown that were perceived as harmful to the government’s position. Considering that most of us perceived the government to be lying, was any accurate information allowed to circulate at all?

This Cabinet Office blackmail attempt might be a bit late:

This Writer’s understanding is that Boris Johnson has already handed all his WhatsApp messages from April 2021 to February 24, 2022 over to the Covid inquiry. He gave his diaries and notebooks to the Cabinet Office and has requested that they be given back, so he can pass them on as well.

So this blackmail attempt by government lawyers might be a bit late.

The Cabinet Office has also foisted on him a requirement to co-operate with any “reasonable” demand and to send them his witness statements and any requested documents for pre-approval and redaction before they are submitted to the inquiry, according to the Times article.

The article states that

The Cabinet Office has agreed to fund his advice but last week its lawyers wrote to Johnson, saying: “The funding offer will cease to be available to you if you knowingly seek to frustrate or undermine, either through your own actions or the actions of others, the government’s position in relation to the inquiry unless there is a clear and irreconcilable conflict of interest on a particular point at issue.”

They said that the money would “only remain available” if he complied with other conditions, including sending the Cabinet Office “any witness statement or exhibit which you intend to provide to the inquiry so that it can be security checked by appropriate officials”.

Johnson, the letter continues, must not submit evidence until “you have applied any redactions which the Cabinet Office has informed you are needed before submission”.

The lawyers add the caveat that their request “does not in any way restrict your freedom nor your duty to provide sincere witness to the inquiry independently and without reference to the views of the current government”.

That reads like a lot of nonsense to This Writer.

Firstly, it seems the government is trying to unilaterally alter its contract with Boris Johnson to provide funding for his legal advice. In law (as I understand it), this cannot be enforced unless Johnson agrees to it.

Also, the claim not to be restricting his freedom/duty to provide sincere witness evidence to the inquiry independent of the current government’s views appears to be rubbish. How can he do so, without knowing the current government’s views, and having to submit his evidence to the government for redaction so that it can withhold its views from him?

Personally, This Writer thinks his best bet is to turn his back on the government’s funding and pay lawyers at Peters and Peters (according to The Times; it’s the same firm advising him at public expense on his response to Parliament’s Partygate inquiry) from his own money.

He’s certainly banked enough of it from extracurricular activities since he ceased to be prime minister.

Meanwhile, the Times article also features a couple of pieces of information which appear to have been tacked on, as they’re about the Covid inquiry but the paper didn’t seem to have anywhere else to put them:

Tussell, a data provider, says the government has issued £113 million worth of public contracts for law firms and other suppliers carrying out the inquiry.

One of the issues the inquiry will examine is the government’s communications strategy as Britain entered lockdown. The Daily Telegraph has alleged that the Cabinet Office had a secretive team called the Counter-Disinformation Unit which worked with social media companies to tackle perceived “threats” and remove posts about vaccines and lockdown that were deemed to be harmful.

Will we learn what those posts were, why they were deemed harmful, and what measures were taken against them, I wonder?


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Covid inquiry: what good is Boris Johnson’s offer to bypass the Cabinet Office, really?

Boris Johnson: he probably thinks this is all very funny.

The latest development in the Covid inquiry saga is that Boris Johnson has offered to bypass the Cabinet Office, which has refused to give up his diaries, notebooks and WhatsApps for use as evidence.

There are just two problems:

Firstly, he seems not to have the notebooks, having handed them over to the Cabinet Office last week in the expectation that its people would pass them on to the inquiry.

He has reportedly told the inquiry, “I have asked that the Cabinet Office pass these to you. If the government chooses not to do so, I will ask for these to be returned to my office so that I can provide them to you directly.”

But why would the Cabinet Office return these notebooks to him, knowing that if it does so, he’ll hand them to the inquiry – which is what the government is demanding a judicial review to avoid?

Secondly, he hasn’t handed over WhatsApps from before April 2021 – so most of the messages covering the period requested (January 1, 2020 to February 24, 2022) are missing.

And that’s really odd, because – as I’ve mentioned already – he could grab backup copies of this missing stuff from Google Drive or iCloud (depending on the make of his phone).

The claim is that the messages were compromised because it turned out his phone number had been in the public domain for 15 years and malcontents like foreign governments could have tapped into it, so he had been advised to turn it off and keep it that way.

Why? If foreign powers have had access to Johnson’s messages for up to 15 years before he did switch it off, then shouldn’t the UK authorities know what they’ve been reading?

According to the BBC article (link above),

cyber-security expert Prof Alan Woodward said the risk of turning on Mr Johnson’s old phone was “minimal”, adding: “It is perfectly possible to do that without exposing it to the potential threat.”

So Johnson has said he’s “perfectly content” to release information he’s already given the Cabinet Office to the Covid inquiry – but in fact he’s not in a position to hand over very much that’s of any use.

What good is that?

In fact, there is method in it – from Johnson’s point of view. You see, as former government lawyer David Allen Green points out, it is possible that Johnson’s new lawyers have advised him that there is no solid legal basis on which he can resist disclosing his documents to the inquiry.

So, by saying he wants to hand over these items, even though he doesn’t have them, Johnson has done two things:

He has made it clear that, whether or not the Cabinet Office had copies of his WhatsApps, diaries and notebooks before last week, it has them now – and had them in time to honour the Covid inquiry’s demand for them to be handed over.

This means gives the Covid inquiry an opportunity to show the Cabinet Office is in breach of the law.

And he has made it clear that he has waived his right to privacy – he is happy for the documents to be made public. That undermines the Cabinet Office’s claim that handing over the documents would breach the privacy of the people mentioned in them – partially. Others may still object, but it will be hard to maintain a privacy claim in court after what Johnson has done.

So, without actually helping the inquiry, Johnson has dumped the Cabinet Office deep in the metaphorical mire. I wonder if he feels pleased with himself.


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Covid inquiry: How did the Cabinet Office know Boris Johnson’s documents are ‘irrelevant’ – if it didn’t have them?

Two-fingered salute: Boris Johnson’s WhatsApps, diaries and notebooks have put the Cabinet Office between a rock and a hard place – and he may be delighted, after the Cabinet Office referred him to two police forces for possible social distancing breaches during Covid lockdowns on the basis of information in his diaries.

There’s an important piece of information missing from yesterday’s (June 1, 2023) stories about the Cabinet Office taking the Covid Inquiry to court.

It is this:

Unless the Cabinet Office supplied a signed ‘Statement of Truth’ that it had seen Boris Johnson’s notebooks and diaries for the relevant period of time, the judicial review it has requested is likely to find against it.

Allow me to explain (with help from the source listed below):

You will recall that the Covid inquiry had demanded access to Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages, diaries and notebooks covering the period from January 1, 2020 to February 24, 2022. This requirement was communicated to the Cabinet Office on April 28 this year.

The Cabinet Office responded with an application to object to this demand, dated May 15, on grounds that it was outside the legal powers of the Inquiry to request what the Cabinet Office dubbed “unambiguously irrelevant” material and that it was for the Cabinet Office to determine what was “unambiguously irrelevant”; and that the Cabinet Office did not understand the request for the diaries and notebooks, which was new.

The Cabinet Office stated that its point about irrelevance applied “with similar force and obviousness to Mr Johnson’s notebooks containing contemporaneous notes on all manner of subjects which he was, as Prime Minister, required to consider.”

(Notice that this applies to the notebooks and not the diaries – and implies that the Cabinet Office had, or had access to, the notebooks in order to know what was in them.)

On May 22, the inquiry’s chair, Baroness Hallett explained that extracts from the diaries had been received in redacted form in draft witness statements that had been “exhibited” to the inquiry. It seems she was going to formally request the diaries and notebooks after receiving these extracts from the former and information about the contents of the latter and had merely used its April 28 notice to do so.

Then, after the close of business on Friday, May 26 (and remember, the deadline for handing over the information was the following Tuesday, with a Bank Holiday weekend in between), the inquiry received a letter from the Cabinet Office saying it did not have either Johnson’s WhatsApp messages or his notebooks. It seems the claim is that it had not had them since the April 28 demand was made.

So how could the Cabinet Office say these items contained material that was “unambiguously irrelevant”?

On Tuesday (May 30), Baroness Hallett granted an extension of the deadline – of just two days, until yesterday (Thursday, June 1).

But she added a new requirement:

She says she will accept that the Cabinet Office does not have under its custody or control the requested materials only [if] there is a full detailed explanation for why this is so – and that this explanation will need to be attested to by officials with a signed statement of truth.

That is, under pain of perjury.

The full list of conditions shows that Baroness Hallett, and therefore the inquiry, wants to know whether the Cabinet Office has had the WhatsApps, diaries and notebooks at all since February 3 this year – the date the inquiry sent its initial request for information to the Cabinet Office.

This will establish whether the Cabinet Office had any grounds for its claim that these materials contained information that is “unambiguously irrelevant”.

This Writer thinks the trap here is in the notebooks. The Cabinet Office has not been clear about what is in them but has been required to issue a Statement of Truth that they contain “unambiguously irrelevant” information.

That will be hard to do, if nobody at the Cabinet Office has seen them.

As my source below – a former central government lawyer – states,

The requirement for a signed statement of truth is significant – and you may recall that the Miller II case on the prorogation of parliament was lost by the government because nobody was willing to provide a statement of truth as to the actual reasons for the prorogation.

And this Statement of Truth was required by 4pm yesterday.

And we haven’t been told whether it was provided.

But I shall ask.

ADDITIONAL: Boris Johnson’s announcement on Wednesday that he had provided unredacted WhatsApps, diaries and notebooks to the Cabinet Office and is happy to send them to the Covid inquiry makes matters even worse for the government.

In a judicial review, the Cabinet Office will no longer be able to say it does not have the disputed material – but will still be required to prove that it had not been in possession of it between February 3 and May 31. Any claim that it contains “unambiguously irrelevant” material may be dismissed as irrelevant to the main issue, which is whether the Cabinet Office knew that at the time it was claiming it to the Covid inquiry.

Source: How the Covid Inquiry may have set an elegant spring-trap for the Cabinet Office – The Law and Policy Blog

Here’s why court call over Covid inquiry’s demand for Boris Johnson’s WhatsApps is so suspicious

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak: what’s in Johnson’s WhatsApp messages that Sunak is going to such LEGAL lengths to hide?

The plot thickens: why does the Tory government need to stop the Covid inquiry seeing Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and notebooks, after Johnson himself asked for them to be handed over?

The Cabinet Office, acting for the government, has unilaterally missed the deadline of 4pm on Thursday, June 1, 2023 to hand over the material.

Instead, it waited until the deadline passed, then said it would seek a judicial review of inquiry chairwoman Baroness Hallett’s order to release the documents.

This means a judge will have to decide whether the inquiry has overreached its legal powers.

The argument is that sight of Johnson’s WhatsApp messages might create a precedent for the inquiry to see WhatsApp messages of serving ministers, including the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak.

The Cabinet Office said handing over the material would compromise ministers’ right to privacy and could prevent them from discussing policy matters in the future.

Some might say that was a good thing. There was a debate a short while ago about whether government ministers should be carrying out government business via WhatsApp or personal email when it should all be done via government devices so it may become available if necessary – like all other governmental communications.

The government’s reasoning – and the stated fact that Rishi Sunak and deputy PM Oliver Dowden signed off the decision to launch a judicial review on Wednesday – suggests an ulterior motive: that material compromising Sunak (and/or others) is among Johnson’s communications.

Perhaps this really could bring down the government, as This Writer has already suggested.

And then there’s the question of the material Johnson has offered to provide.

It turns out that he has only provided WhatsApps from May 2021 onwards. This is because he had acquired a new phone after his old number had been listed online (now, how did that happen?) and he had received advice (from whom?) not to switch it on again.

Johnson (coincidentally?) ordered the inquiry into the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic that same month – May 2021.

So his part in this is looking extremely questionable.

That being said, he has offered to provide not only all his WhatsApps and notebooks to the inquiry, but also the phone – saying he has asked the Cabinet Office whether technical support can be provided so the messages it contains can be retrieved without compromising security.

And here’s a thing: WhatsApp messages are habitually backed up – on Google Drive if it’s an Android phone or on iCloud for iPhones. Unless that facility was turned off, then all the WhatsApp content of the compromised phone should be available.

And if that facility was turned off, we should ask why. If it was done by government order, why wasn’t the information backed up elsewhere (and why was the government allowing its business to be done via private phone messages)? If by Johnson, doesn’t this indicate he was trying to hide something? What could it be?

It all points to a monumental attempt to hide guilt – of the kind that Rishi Sunak himself implied would not happen under his leadership.

So we should all be able to understand why Peter Stefanovic is so angry about it in his summation of the situation:

To This Writer, it seems highly unlikely that even Tory politicians would go to this length if they didn’t have a strong self-interest in it. But it’s self-defeating, also: after this, would you ever trust them again?

Source: Government to take legal action against Covid inquiry over Johnson WhatsApps | Boris Johnson | The Guardian


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Evidence deadline extended for Tory government that wants to corrupt Covid-19 inquiry

Social media junkie: Boris Johnson is probably deleting WhatsApp messages in this shot. “Less than two days until the new deadline! Must hurry! Veni, vici, voodoo! Posterus erectus!”

The Cabinet Office has been given an extra two days to divvy up all of Boris Johnson’s WhatsApp messages and notebooks written during the Covid-19 pandemic to the inquiry into how the government handled it – or face court action.

The original deadline was 4pm on Tuesday (May 30). It has now been extended until 4pm on Thursday (June 1).

Claims that some of the material is “unambiguously irrelevant” have been dismissed by the inquiry’s chair, Baroness Hallett. She said it is her role – not that of the government – to decide what is relevant.

Her point is excellent. No inquiry into the activities of the government can be said to be fair if the government dictates the evidence that is submitted to it. In fact, any such affair could only be considered corrupt to the core.

Indeed, that is exactly what many are already saying about the way the Cabinet Office has been digging in its heels:

Let’s stick with Antony Seldon for a moment, because he made this great character analysis of Boris Johnson:

Clearly the consensus is that the Cabinet Office should swallow its pride and dish the dirt.

But in the interests of balance, let’s have a dissenting viewpoint:

(For information: Andrea Jenkyns is a Tory MP who is currently deputy chairwoman of the Brexiteer European Research Group (ERG). Her claim that other Tories got the leader they wanted in Rishi Sunak suggest a developing schism among Tory MPs that could split the party as it grows – and let’s hope it does.)

Now you can understand why BBC-style impartiality is for the birds. This MP wants us to leave Johnson alone because he’s got his missus up the duff yet again?

If that’s the criterion for abandoning justice these days, the courts could clear their backlog by allowing all suspects a night of “compassionate leave” but denying them the use of birth control.

I don’t think the victims of crime would be prepared to accept that – so we should be glad that Baroness Hallett isn’t about to, either.


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The rumours about the emergency alert system were wrong, says the Cabinet Office

If you read this story after 3.23pm on April 24, you’ll know that the Cabinet Office has denied any connection between the new emergency alert system that was tested the day before, and Infosys, a company in which Rishi Sunak’s wife has shares.

That’s the government line and we have to accept it.

This Writer has to admit doubts. It seemed the contract for providing the service was originally awarded to Fujitsu, which partners with Infosys on some projects, despite it being involved in the fiasco over the Horizon system in UK post offices – but the Cabinet Office provided this link to a debate about it in the House of Lords.

In it, Cabinet Office Minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe said, “Fujitsu has had a small role in the development of the UK’s emergency alert system, initially providing a subject matter expert to support early development by DCMS.”

So the counter-claim is that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport developed the emergency alert system, and Fujitsu only provided an advisor.

Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom – also a Conservative – pointed out that awarding any contract to Fujitsu after the Horizon system “caused the sub-postmasters of this country to be shamefully accused of things that they had not done” seemed unreasonable, and the company should have been taken off the government’s procurement list altogether.

He said: “Some went to prison, some took their own lives and all those accused were humiliated in the eyes of their own communities. Fujitsu, which knew perfectly well what it was doing, has said not a single word of apology. This is already costing the Government hundreds of millions, potentially more.”

Baroness Neville-Rolfe responded that “all government contracts are awarded in line with procurement regulations and transparency guidelines, and that goes for the contract on the alerts”.

Considering what happened with Horizon, it doesn’t seem very convincing, does it?

Add to that the fact that Fujitsu has had a working relationship with Infosys since 2003, and in 2009 Infosys teamed up with Australian firm Telstra to create an emergency alert system in Australia, and it seems odd that Fujitsu would not employ any expertise in this field that its partner had.

Then again, the UK’s Tory government is not exactly known for making rational decisions.

That’s the best This Writer can say about it.


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Was Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle just a bid to distract attention from Dominic Raab?

Dominic Raab: he reckons he has never raised his voice in a meeting, and denies all other bullying accusations against him. Do you believe him?

Rishi Sunak has performed a snap reshuffle of his Cabinet, splitting some departments to reflect his priorities (he says).

Good for him. But I have to question some of his decisions and motives.

Look at his new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (which isn’t even a clear explanation of what it is. Net Zero refers to the plan to get the UK down to no carbon dioxide emissions, but that’s not what it says).

The stated aim is “securing our long-term energy supply, bringing down bills and halving inflation” – but we know that absolutely no work will be required on the last aim because inflation will halve this year in any case. This is just a bid to take credit where it isn’t due.

Then there’s the appointment of nonentity Greg Hands as Tory Party Chairman, tasked with running the local election campaign (among other things). Is this a tacit admission that the Tories have no chance?

And what about the decision to make “30p Lee” Anderson vice-chairman? The apparent homophobe and transphobe who reckoned it was possible to cook a meal for 30p. This is barrel-scraping at its worst.

Check out this analysis from A Different Bias for more insight:

Dominic Raab stays in place as Justice Secretary and Deputy PM.

And Sunak made this decision on the day it was revealed that yet another bullying accusation has been made against Raab.

According to the BBC,

A former senior civil servant who worked closely with Dominic Raab has described his behaviour as “nasty and difficult”.

In an anonymous interview with BBC Newsnight, he accuses the deputy prime minister and justice secretary of using “demeaning tactics to make himself the most powerful person in the room”.

The former civil servant – who has not made a formal complaint against Mr Raab – told the BBC, “I saw him seething at other senior people, hard staring at you, you know like cold fury.

“It was pretty sinister – and raising his voice. He would make examples of very senior members of staff in front of more junior members and vice versa.”

When challenged on whether this was bullying or just a secretary of state being direct and assertive while doing an important job, the person said they had no doubt it was “unacceptable behaviour”.

“No, it’s bullying. I mean, the worst thing is the sort of the cold anger and making people wait in silence.

“Expecting people to turn up very, very quickly without knowing really why they’re there. Treating his private office with contempt and doing so publicly.

“There were long silences, which if you tried to continue speaking he would tell you to wait or stop talking.

“And he would expect everyone to have the answers to all his questions even when he wanted information on topics outside of the knowledge of the people in the room. He would get cross with his private office on these occasions for not ensuring all the right people were in the room”, he said.

Who’s got time for that kind of nonsense?

If anyone told me to sit in a meeting in silence I’d assert that, since nobody had anything to say, I’d get back to my job – and leave.

But that’s just me, I suppose.

The decision to leave Raab in post betrays a serious failure of judgement on Sunak’s part. It suggests that, if Raab is forced out eventually, Sunak may have to go too.


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An appeal on behalf of former Cabinet members [SATIRE – VIDEO]

It’s nearly the weekend and time for something to cheer us all up.

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.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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This Tory can’t take the truth about his government’s new cabinet [VIDEO]

Mark Harper: a Tory ‘divide and rule’ boy who thinks that facts about cabinet MPs are “a nationalist view”.

SNP MP Stephen Flynn laid out the facts about members of Liz Truss’s cabinet on the BBC’s Politics Live – to indignation from Tory Mark Harper.

After one fact after another, about one Tory after another, was laid out, Harper responded with “that is a nationalist view”.

Is it?

Or is it more likely that Harper is in denial, treats Scotland with contempt, and has demonstrated the reason increasing number of Scottish people want independence from a UK government that they didn’t elect and don’t want?

Here’s a clip:

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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Eddie Dempsey explains why UK living standards are so low – and rinses Truss’s cabinet

Eddie Dempsey.

The assistant general secretary of the RMT union dropped a salvo of truth bombs in his speech at the Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow last week.

Profits are high because wages are low – and wages are low because the market says so.

And who is “the market”? According to Mr Dempsey, it is people titled “CEO”.

He made the point that, without working people, the bosses taking all the money would have no wealth – but without them, the UK could be a country fit to live in.

And he pointed out that, with shareholders taking hundreds of billions of pounds worth of profit out of the UK, it is not credible to say there is not enough money available to give working people a living wage.

The only reason wages don’t rise is because profits would then come down, and the greedy CEOs who run “the market” would rather feather their nests than safeguard the people who make their money for them.

It’s a hell of a speech:

Mr Dempsey went on to absolutely humiliate Liz Truss and her new market-ruled cabinet in this interview, when he admitted: “I’ve no idea who any of them are”:

Based on this evidence, it is easy to see why unions like the RMT are enjoying a huge surge in popularity.

While Labour stagnates under Keir Starmer, people like Mr Dempsey are standing up for the hard-working people of the UK – and helping us to stand up for ourselves.

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.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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The Livingstone Presumption is now available
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Health Warning: Government! is now available
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HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook