Tag Archives: dead

An Israeli soldier has shot and killed a toddler. Let’s discuss ‘outdated’ notions

Leave a reply

Muhammad Tamimi: his two-year-old life was ended after a member of the Israel Defence Forces raided his village and shot this defenceless toddler in the head.

Remember last week, when This Site commented on Jewish Chronicle reviewer Jonathan Sacerdoti’s critique of Maureen Lipman’s performance in the play Rose, in which he stated that it invests “dramatic capital in the outdated notion that Jews kill children”.

Outdated?

This happened last week:

I think it’s time we discussed some of these “notions” that certain people are constantly telling us are “outdated”.

Certainly the claim that armed Israelis shoot children is neither a notion, nor outdated. It is a terrifying fact.

Some have tried to justify the killing of a child by saying his parents put him in the line of fire. This is clearly false; the shooting happened during a raid on a Palestinian village by members of the Israel Defence Forces.

They claimed that they were responding to Palestinian aggression and I am not going to debate that. It might be true but that is irrelevant to what has happened, which is this:

Armed military aggressors attacked unarmed civilians in their homes and shot a toddler in the head, causing injuries from which he later died.

There is no explanation that can justify such an act.

It is unacceptable on any level at all – as all civilised observers must agree. Nobody can ever say they shot an unarmed toddler in the head as an act of self-defence.

And the very least the rest of us should expect is a little contrition from people like Mr Sacerdoti.

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:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

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.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

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!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

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

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Politicians want people with Long Covid to work. Is it another cull of the sick?

1 Reply

Long Covid: to sufferers, it is a huge burden they have to carry every day. Now politicians on both sides of the political fence want to force them to suffer that burden AND go to work as well, so they don’t have to take migrant workers from abroad. It will be a death sentence.

Politicians in both main political parties want to push sick people back into work – but isn’t that an indictment of the UK’s political response to Long Covid?

Let me explain, with the help of Samuel Miller:

You have to look behind the headlines, behind what the mouthpieces are uttering, in order to understand what they really mean.

Here’s an example:

How about this now-deleted tweet from broadcaster Jeremy Vine?

It attracted a strong response:

The document contains details of people who have died or committed suicide as a result of government mistreatment of their sickness benefit claims in attempts to force them back into work.

Looking at the evidence, and based on my own experience of government policy over the last 20 years (Tory and Labour), This Writer is moved to ask:

Are we looking at the beginnings of another politically-motivated cull of the sick?

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:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

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.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

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!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

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

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

DWP still linked with countless deaths, despite 10 years of reviews

Here’s yet another attempt to make the government see sense:

All those investigations and yet the bodies continue to pile up.

And the government somehow continues to deny any blame.

Why do you tolerate this? Is it just because you aren’t among the dead?

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:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

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.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

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!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

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

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Ambulance/NHS-related deaths are a result of government policy

The problem: ambulances are delayed at hospitals because patients, who could be discharged, haven’t been.

Are the news media carrying out some kind of government propaganda job to run down the NHS and the ambulance services in a time of strikes?

Here’s a Metro report on a man who was found dead in a supermarket car park, five hours after calling for an ambulance while having a heart attack:

Martin Coleman, 54, died while waiting for an emergency response in the car park of Lidl in Taverham.

He was found in his van outside the store – just a 15-minute drive from the nearest hospital- in the early hours of July 1 last year.

At the time, the service was on ‘black alert’ due to the pressures it was facing and no ambulances were available when he called.

He was told to keep his phone line free, so did not contact friends and family.

David Allen, head of operations at EEAST, highlighted the pressures the service continues to face – despite efforts to make improvements.

He said: ‘Sometimes we can have up to 30 ambulances waiting outside the Norfolk and Norwich [hospital] at any one time.

‘There are over 400 patients across the three Norfolk hospitals who are medically fit to leave but cannot be discharged.’

He said the ambulance trust was making efforts to treat more people in the community and had been able to reduce the number needing hospital admission by 22 per cent.

The problems at the hospital – with knock-on effects on the ambulance service – are due to political decisions not to provide adequate funding for staff and beds.

Here’s Noam Chomsky to explain:

Expect more stories like this.

Source: Taverham: Lidl shopper died in the car park five hours after calling 999 mid-heart attack | UK News | Metro News

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:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

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.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

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!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

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

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Former Chancellor Nigel Lawson has died and the eulogies are misleading

Nigel, later Lord Lawson of Blaby, was Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1983 and 1989. Much of the state of the UK today is his responsibility.

Was Nigel Lawson really a towering financial genius?

That’s not my memory, and I was around when he was Chancellor.

I appreciate that, now he has passed away at the age of 91, people will want to say kind words about him. But that doesn’t mean we should whitewash his career and ignore his mistakes.

That will just set up future generations to make them all over again.

So I tend to agree with Clare Hepworth:

The economist Richard Murphy has provided some criticism, along with some of his Twitter followers:

Nick Rider tweeted: “I remember hearing him on the radio, about 1988, saying for the first time, even more clearly than Thatcher, that the loss of manufacturing, thousands of people’s jobs, didn’t matter, because ‘services’ were the future. The architect of the low-wage economy.”

“Remember when he removed double income mortgage tax relief? It cause chaos in the housing market,” added Jane Clout.

The list goes on and on.

The privatisations of railways, water, power, and BP were all disasters.

He tanked the housing market.

He supported Brexit while living in France.

And in later years, he opposed action to prevent climate change, because he thought the economic cost of saving our environment would be too high. Think about that.

To those who genuinely liked him and want to praise him: I wish you well.

But please, praise him for praiseworthy acts – not for a career that has maimed the country he was supposed to be serving.

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:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

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.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

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!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

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

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Mainstream media have discovered Sunak’s ‘Eat Out’ scheme spread Covid-19 – two years too late

Profiting from death: after he served up this little howler – and pushed up Covid-19 infections massively, Rishi Sunak became prime minister. Shouldn’t he be paying for the consequences of his actions?

Watch the video summary:

Congratulations to Metro* for discovering that Rishi Sunak’s ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme of summer 2020 actually spread Covid-19 and may have caused thousands of deaths. Better late than never!

This site, and others on the social media, broke the story in December 2020.

This is the reason people should be reading Vox Political. They should be reading Another Angry Voice, Skwawkbox, The Canary and all the other independent news-related websites because that’s where they’re going to find out the things they need to know, at the time they need to know them.

And this is the reason you should be telling everybody you know.

Rishi Sunak may be responsible for killing off thousands of UK citizens – including your relatives, perhaps – and what’s his punishment? He’s now the prime minister. He’s already the richest man in the UK. Doesn’t he deserve to be in prison for dreaming up a scheme that killed many people?

He might have been, if enough attention had been drawn to what he had done at the right time.

But it wasn’t. The mainstream media ignored it – and that meant most people did too.

And now it has been (re)discovered via Matt Hancock’s leaked WhatsApp messages:

The Prime Minister is under pressure over his ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme during the pandemic with claims of a ‘cover up’ and that it spread Covid.

Leaked messages show … concern from then Health Secretary Matt Hancock about how Eat Out to Help Out was spreading the virus.

Mr Hancock told [then-Cabinet Secrtary Simon] Case that the scheme was driving up Covid cases in some of the worst hit areas and that the problems it was causing were ‘serious’.

But he added that he had ‘kept it out of the news’, according to the Telegraph.

Those WhatsApp messages were sent in August 2020. I published my story in December that year, as follows:

Tory Chancellor Rishi Sunak made certain that thousands more people caught Covid-19 than would otherwise have done so, with his Eat Out to Help Out scheme.

Research by the University of Warwick has shown that the initiative is likely to blame for 17 per cent of infections – one in six outbreaks – between August and early September (when it was overtaken by outbreaks linked to schools that had reopened at Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab’s insistence, we may conclude).

People will have died from catching the virus after taking part in Sunak’s crackpot plan.

But nobody has been asking him any hard questions!

Isn’t it time these Tories took responsibility for the fatal consequences of their decisions and left public life for good, under a cloud of shame?

Note that I quoted the Daily Mail, which seems to have done as little as possible about the story.

Obviously, nobody involved has left public life for good under a cloud of shame.

They’re all still here, rubbing our noses in their ability to get away with – if not murder, then possibly mass manslaughter.

*In this instance – I’m sure other mainstream media outlets are also covering this story now, at long last.

Source: Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out ‘spread Covid but was covered up’ | Metro News

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:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

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!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

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

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Hancock WhatsApps: he hid the life-threatening danger of ‘Eat Out to Help Out’

After he served up this little howler – and pushed up Covid-19 infections massively, Rishi Sunak became prime minister. Shouldn’t he – along with Matt Hancock and then-Cabinet Secretary Simon Case – be facing punishment for endangering the lives of many thousands of people?

Eat Out to Die Out, I called it.

The scheme by Rishi Sunak was introduced in July 2020 to get people to eat out. It provided vouchers supporting half the price of the meal – and was initially criticised because many people did not have enough spare cash to support paying for the other half.

But worse was to come when research by the University of Warwick published in December that year showed that the initiative was likely to blame for 17 per cent of infections – one in six outbreaks – between August and early September.

And now we know that Matt Hancock – Health Secretary at the time – knew about it and conspired with then-Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, and Sunak (who is now prime minister, remember) to hide it from us.

Because these then-ministers – and the then-Cabinet Secretary – hid the evidence, Eat Out To Help Out continued for several months and was only shown to have spread the virus much later, when it was too late to do anything about it.

Look at his WhatsApp messages from the summer of 2020:

News outlets like The Independent are reporting that Hancock ridiculed the scheme, calling it “Eat Out to Help The Virus Get About”.

Clearly the scheme should have been halted as soon as the concerns became apparent to Hancock. Instead he made a bad joke about it.

Who knows how many people died because they weren’t told about the danger? And shouldn’t Hancock, Case and Sunak be punished for allowing those deaths to happen?

Quick footnote: the BBC’s big story about the Hancock WhatsApps today is all about his reaction to the publication of a photo showing him kissing then-aide Gina Coladangelo.

Don’t we deserve better service from our public-service news provider? Is it because the BBC’s Chairman, Richard Sharp, is a Tory and a friend to Tories?

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:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

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!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

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

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Are these the facts about Matt Hancock’s Covid 19 care homes blunder?

Matt Hancock: Blunderman strikes again.

The cache of 100,000 WhatsApp messages by Matt Hancock about Covid-19, from 2020, in which he discussed delaying or failing to test people going into care homes from the community, got a thorough airing on the BBC’s Politics Live and in Parliament during Prime Minister’s Questions.

PMQs focused mostly on the fact that information about the government’s behaviour during the Covid crisis is starting to drip out piecemeal, meaning it is now a matter of urgency that the independent inquiry into the response to the pandemic be concluded and report in good time.

The discussion on the talk show was more about the content of the messages – and did, in fact, touch on the fact that these messages all came long after the big decisions about testing for Covid-19 in care homes had already been made.

Hancock had known since February that year that people from the community, coming into homes, were infecting the people living there, and since March that people there were dying of Covid-19.

He chose to do nothing about it until April – and then, as the messages indicate, he didn’t do enough.

So, is this a storm in a teacup?

Judge for yourself:

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:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

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!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

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

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

Matt Hancock WhatsApp leak rewrites history – but not the way you’re being told

Matt Hancock: the current WhatsApp controversy makes it seem he only considered testing people in care homes from April 14, 2020 – but existing information shows he had been ruling it out for around two months (since February) despite mounting deaths.

No wonder Isabel Oakeshott was so liverish on Politics Live – she was about to become the centre of a new Covid-19 controversy.

Ms Oakeshott is the person who leaked 100,000 Matt Hancock WhatsApp messages that seem to suggest he has not been altogether truthful about government plans for Covid-19 testing in care homes during 2020. She had access to them while “helping” him write his memoir.

Spokespeople for Hancock have said the messages have been doctored to present a false impression.

But my recollection is that the controversy at the time had little to do with what these messages say. I made my point on Twitter as follows:

You can read the relevant background information in these Vox Political articles from 2020:

Coronavirus deaths: ‘sorry’ is the hardest word for Hancock (April 29, 2020)

Is Johnson guilty of human rights abuses over coronavirus care home deaths? Could be! (May 3, 2020)

Care home deaths cover-up suggests Johnson and Hancock are guilty as sin (May 15, 2020)

If Tories really regret not testing for Covid-19 in care homes – is it because they were caught? (May 20, 2020)

Why didn’t Matt Hancock send vulnerable Covid-19 sufferers to Nightingale hospitals rather than care homes? (May 22, 2020)

Hancock denies claim about Covid-testing care home residents. What DID he mean, then? (June 6, 2020)

Hancock’s excuse for care home deaths changes with the wind – but doesn’t change the fact that HE LIED TO US (June 10, 2020)

Doctor launches court case against Tories over Covid-19 care home death of her dad (June 14, 2020)

Is Matt Hancock denying care homes Covid-19 tests to deliberately harm residents? (August 30, 2020)

So there you have it. Despite advice from SAGE in February 2020 that Covid-19 was already being transmitted between people in the community, Hancock put out official guidance saying there was no such transmission and nobody in a care home was likely to be infected.

Care home staff who moved from one home to another were also not tested, meaning they were able to catch the disease from patients at one home and transmit it to those at any others they visited.

This remained official advice until March 12, 2020, despite the fact that care homes had been recording deaths related to Covid-19 from March 2 onwards – 10 days previously.

The UK only went into lockdown on March 23.

Care homes did not start testing for the disease until April 15 (of people leaving hospital), and regular tests of all staff and residents did not start until July.

Now check this against the current story (I’ll use the BBC version as the Telegraph, which broke this story, is behind a paywall):

WhatsApp messages leaked to the Daily Telegraph newspaper suggest Mr Hancock was told in April 2020 there should be “testing of all going into care homes”.

Government guidance later mandated tests only for those leaving hospital.

In one message, dated 14 April, Mr Hancock reportedly told aides that Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medial officer for England, had conducted an “evidence review” and recommended “testing of all going into care homes, and segregation whilst awaiting result”.

The message came a day before the publication of Covid-19: Our Action Plan for Adult Social Care, a government document setting out plans to keep the care system functioning during the pandemic.

Mr Hancock said the advice represented a “good positive step” and that “we must put into the doc”, to which an aide responded that he had sent the request “to action”.

But later the same day, Mr Hancock messaged again saying he would rather “leave out” a commitment to test everyone entering care homes from the community and “just commit to test & isolate ALL going into care from hospital”.

“I do not think the community commitment adds anything and it muddies the waters,” he said.

A spokesman for Mr Hancock said this followed an operational meeting, where he was advised it was not possible to test everyone entering care homes.

When the care plan was published on 15 April, it said the government would “institute a policy of testing all residents prior to admission to care homes”, but that that would “begin with all those being discharged from hospital”.

It said only that it would “move to” a policy of testing everyone entering care homes from the community.

From March 2020 to January 2022, there were 43,256 deaths involving Covid-19 in care homes in England, according to the Office for National Statistics.

There’s a big discrepancy, isn’t there?

The WhatsApp messages have it that Hancock was only advised to start testing everybody going into care homes on April 14.

But in fact, SAGE had warned him in February – two months previously – that Covid-19 was already being transmitted in the community, and it is clear that community transmission was considered likely to cause infections within care homes from the government advice that was published on February 25.

And death figures from care homes clearly showed that Covid-19 had caused deaths there from March 2 onwards, so Hancock had no reason to believe that these homes were unaffected.

But he waited nearly two months before doing anything.

The lack of testing kits in sufficient numbers has been blamed for the failure to test everybody who needed it – but this is not an acceptable response. The government had known of the threat since late 2019 but had not bothered to take timely action, and this is the reason too few testing kits were available.

And more than 43,000 people died.

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:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

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!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

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

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

First female Commons Speaker dies. Is this the best comment on her?

Betty Boothroyd: first female Commons Speaker dies aged 93.

This Writer is saddened to learn of the death of first female Speaker of the House of Commons, Betty Boothroyd, at the age of 93.

She was also the first Speaker I can remember who became a media personality in her own right – not only because she was a woman but because she was a former Tiller girl (it was a famous dance troupe, back in the day).

The best comment I’ve seen on her passing is this:

It puts the official word from current speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle in the shade:

Will we see her like again? Definitely.

But with people like Hoyle around, and politicians like Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, it seems unlikely that they’ll turn up for a long, long time.

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:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

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!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

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

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook