Dominic Cummings: if he’s trying to rehabilitate his rep after the Rose Garden debacle, this might not work.
It seems Dominic Cummings’s plan to pump £100 million of public money into “air scrubber” technology is intended to help the bosses of energy companies that pollute the UK in the first place.
The “direct air capture” technology would use metal “air scrubbers”, to chemically strip carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The excess carbon could then be stored safely underground.
There’s just one catch: it currently costs nearly £500 to extract a single tonne of CO2.
So if all the cash the Treasury has apparently devoted to the project went on scrubbing the air alone, it would extract only £200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
In 2018, the UK’s carbon footprint – the amount of CO2 emitted in the country – was 364 million tonnes.
In other words, the amount that would be cleaned is negligible compared to the amount emitted.
Meanwhile, it seems this expensive, long-term scheme is diverting investment away from more realistic near-term solutions.
So what’s going on here?
Is Cummings really trying to help?
Or is he sucking cash away from greener solutions, while trying to give polluters an excuse to carry on stinking up the planet?
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Mahsa Taliefar: there is a case against Dominic Cummings and she needs your help to take it to court.
Dominic Cummings could find himself facing an unlimited fine for breaching the Covid-19 lockdown after expert lawyers said there is a case against him.
Law graduate Mahsa Taliefar launched a funding campaign to help her bring a private prosecution against Cummings over his now-notorious trip to Durham at the end of March this year.
She sought legal advice from Benjamin Douglas-Jones QC and Nathaniel Rudolf on the practicalities of bringing a prosecution.
Their opinion is that he could indeed be prosecuted under Regulation 6 of the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020
Prosecutions.
These state that “during the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse”.
The lawyers’ advice states: “The published guidance… in our view reinforces the conclusion that there is a realistic prospect of conviction in relation to this conduct.”
The penalty, if such a conviction is won, would be an unlimited fine.
Concerns had been raised that Regulation 11 of the same law prevents private prosecution. It states: “Proceedings for an offence under these Regulations may be brought by the Crown Prosecution Service and any person designated by the Secretary of State.“
The advice states: “At first blush this may be seen as preventing a prosecution by anyone other than the CPS or a person designated by the Secretary of State. In other words preventing a private prosecution.
“The regulation is not drafted with any precision: a literal (and absurd) reading would be in that in the absence of anyone designated by the Secretary of State the CPS may not prosecute.
“It seems to us that… permitting the Secretary of State to designate people who can prosecute the section simply clarifies that this does not oust the ability of the CPS to do the same. It does not go further.
“If Regulation 11 were to be read as excluding private prosecutors, it would also exclude the police from prosecuting, unless the police were designated by the Secretary of State as persons who can prosecute. As far as we can tell no such designation has taken place.
“Our view is that the Regulation 11 is sufficiently clear so as not to warrant, at this stage, our consideration of whether the right to bring a private prosecution had been prevented by its language. A private prosecution may be classed as a ‘constitutional’ right founded in statute (or common law). It would require the most explicit language to extinguish that right.”
So not only could Cummings face a large fine if found guilty of breaching the regulations, but it seems entirely possible that a private prosecution may be launched against him, in order to ensure that he does so.
As This Site has already reported, Ms Taliefar is already crowdfunding for this purpose and her site may be found here.
If you agree that Cummings should be brought to book, feel free to contribute to the fund.
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They’re laughing at you really: Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson are using Little Englanders’ hatred of Europe to force on the UK a dictatorship worse than anything we’ve ever had from Brussels.
So much for democracy.
Remember all that “Take back control” tripe Brexiteers like Dominic Cummings were force-feeding us, during the EU referendum campaign?
It seems they weren’t advocating a return to democratic rule by Parliament. Instead the UK is to be ruled with decrees by people like – guess who? – Dominic Cummings.
The facts are in a forensic analysis of every bit of legislation passed and going through Parliament to change the law after Brexit becomes a reality on January 1 next year, by the House of Lords Constitution committee.
New Acts of Parliament covering covering agriculture, money laundering, immigration, trade, taxation, reciprocal health agreements and even the granting of road haulage licences will give power over these matters directly to Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and advisers like Cummings.
The Bills create statutory instruments – otherwise known as “Henry VIII powers” – allowing ministers to change the law by decree, meaning they make the changes without bothering with a Parliamentary vote. In some cases, they won’t even have to inform other MPs.
The Agriculture Bill alone creates 40 of these “Henry VIII powers” – including power to define new criminal offences with unlimited fines.
One new power on export and import duties will allow ministers to change the law by public notice – meaning they will simply pin up a sign somewhere, saying that the law has been changed.
And there won’t be a thing your elected MP can do about it.
In his article about this, David Hencke makes an excellent deduction:
If Waitrose followed what it said it will do and clearly label chlorinated chicken a government minister could just change the law by decree, making it illegal to do so. And if Waitrose disobeyed they could face unlimited fines.
Think about that.
To facilitate a trade deal with the United States, your Tory government – voted in because people were desperate for Brexit – could force supermarkets to sell you, and force you to eat, diseased meat.
Remember when we were told Brexit would end EU bureaucracy that saddled the UK with thousands of unwanted rules and regulations?
Now read this [boldings mine]:
The Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Bill [gives ministers] well over 150 separate powers to make tax law for individuals and businesses. These laws made by Ministers will run to thousands of pages. The Treasury’s delegated powers memorandum, which sets out in detail all these law-making powers, alone runs to 174 pages.”
Even legislation delegated to the devolved governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is not safe from Tory interference as ministers are also taking powers to override those laws, as well as to interfere in what EU-adopted case law can be used to decide new cases in tribunals and lower courts.
All of these dictatorial powers will be handed over to Johnson, Gove and Cummings by Parliament because the UK electorate handed Johnson’s Conservatives a massive 80-seat majority in the House of Commons.
And the reason voters gave them that massive majority was Brexit.
Little did these Little Englanders know that they were taking power away from an elected organisation and handing it to a tiny cabal of Tory dictators instead.
Mahsa Taliefar: she has already received abuse from supporters of Dominic Cummings. Have a guess at their reasons – then scroll down through the article to see if you’re right.
How will the populist, propagandist supporters of our far-right government de-legitimise Mahsa Taliefar, the 25-year-old law graduate who wants to take Dominic Cummings to court?
Well, for a start she has a foreign-sounding name (her background is Iranian), so obviously she’ll be trying to harm all good, right(-wing)-thinking British people, right?
And from the photograph she’s physically attractive, so she’ll be talked down as a know-nothing bimbo (qualifications notwithstanding).
Undoubtedly Gina Miller will be able to provide advice on some of the other ways.
Oh hey! It’s already happening:
She has … been targeted by abuse and misogynistic comments from Dominic Cummings’ supporters on social media.
“I have been subjected to nasty comments about my facial features and hairstyle,” she said.
“There have also been many Cummings supporters who have suggested that the money may be going towards aesthetic lip fillers and hair maintenance.
“I find this totally unacceptable. This campaign has nothing to do with my gender or looks. Many people supporting Dominic Cummings have also aggressively told me to ‘move on’ – but we should not until he does.”
Ms Taliefar – like those of us who know right from wrong – was incensed by Cummings’s decision to ignore lockdown rules and drive off to Durham with his wife and son.
These feelings were undoubtedly aggravated by his decision to (again) ignore rules – this time relating to government advisers – to hold a press conference in which he defended his behaviour.
So she has launched a funding campaign to help her launch a private prosecution against Cummings.
“It was like Dominic Cummings was spitting in the face of everyone who adhered to the lockdown,” she said.
“People were not able to see their families and friends and were not even able to bury their loved ones and grieve properly.
“This is because we were all following the laws that were put into place to protect the public.
“Dominic Cummings had a direct hand in the making of those Covid laws and I was extremely offended when he didn’t even apologise for breaking the rules – he seemed very arrogant and there were people in government standing by him.”
She makes good points about the insult Cummings’s behaviour represents to people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds:
Mahsa, who is from an Iranian background, says Dominic Cummings’ behaviour is also a kick in the teeth for people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities who have been harder hit by coronavirus and are more likely to die of it.
“People from ethnic minority backgrounds are affected more by this virus and have less money and resources and are less likely to have powerful friends and connections,” she said. “Everything Dominic Cummings has, most people from ethnic minorities don’t.
“That makes me angry as when people from ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by coronavirus, why should someone well off and more powerful put other people’s lives at risk by breaking his own laws?
“People from ethnic minority backgrounds also tend to have more people in our households and a lot of families have grandparents living with them. So it is really difficult for these communities to understand why someone like Dominic Cummings would travel so far and potentially put his parents at risk.”
Ms Taliefar reckons it will cost £300,000 to take a lawsuit all the way – and any funds not used for the private prosecution will be donated to Vision Aid Overseas – a charity dedicated to helping those with eyesight problems.
On Covid-19, the Tory government is still a danger to UK citizens:
"The UK government’s testing and contact-tracing system is not fit for purpose and will not be able to keep coronavirus in check as other countries have done." #independentSAGE on TTIhttps://t.co/FkWS4OMHj4
Tories MP busy dismissing research showing earlier lockdown would've saved tens of thousands of lives by blurting out glib platitudes about "hindsight being a wonderful thing".
Not only that, but Covid is now revealed as a particular danger to BAME citizens – creating double jeopardy for Johnson:
» How the coronavirus pandemic could create a ‘ticking time bomb’ that worsens racial and income inequality in higher education – MarketWatch https://t.co/R2AEAXqW6l
Is this a good moment to remind everyone that Cummings has set up Brexit to ensure that fabulously rich businesspeople can create conditions for a UK economic crash – and then make a fortune betting that it will happen?
Is this why we haven't seen any resignations?
"His rich backers have bet big against the UK economy and Dominic Cummings must stay in Westminster to deliver a No Deal Brexit."
Once this is achieved and we're Frithed, how long is he going to be around? https://t.co/7UgJ9EOIDx
Priti Patel is also in trouble. Her harsh immigration bill will needlessly shut out people trying to “contribute to society”, say Catholic leaders in a stinging attack on the plans:
Catholic leaders condemn Priti Patel's immigration crackdown for shutting out people trying to 'contribute to society' | The Independent https://t.co/czZN506dc4
Hey Priti, If you're willing to impose immigration policies that you admit would have banned your OWN FAMILY from entering the country, then you can't say that your experience of xenophobia means you can't be xenophobic. Stop playing the victim when you're the oppressor. Thanks!
The Robert Jenrick corruption scandal is rolling on:
Scandal-hit cabinet minister Robert Jenrick is refusing to turn up in the Commons to answer questions about his go-ahead for a billionaire Tory donor’s property scheme.
The stench of corruption. Big money political donations must be made illegal.https://t.co/yLaLMxKINq
— Nick Reeves 3.5% #FBPE (@nickreeves9876) June 11, 2020
Robert Jenrick should be fired.
But that won’t happen.
The saga with Cummings changed things for good. If they can get away with telling us he went for a drive to a beauty spot to test his eyesight, with his wife and child in the car, on her birthday, they’ve got a free pass.
And Chancellor Rishi Sunak is being taken to court over his sexist self-employed grant scheme:
BIG NEWS: We are taking the Chancellor to court. The Self employed grant scheme discriminates against women in the way it has been calculated and they must be held to account https://t.co/Lfk1trqMwu
— PregnantThenScrewed (@PregnantScrewed) June 11, 2020
Over at Labour, tone-deaf Keir Starmer has unveiled a new ‘race equality’ strategy. Presumably he’s desperate for us to forget his own two-tier attitude to racism in his own party:
He had an entire dossier with the names of racists, with supporting evidence, and he’s done his absolute best to protect them from the same auto-suspension he demanded for party members accused of racism. Another hollow gesture. #BlackLivesMatterhttps://t.co/exdE9rvm9t
He mentioned seven reports on racism in the House of Commons but strangely can’t seem to see the leaked report by his own party that named racists among Labour employees who targeted Diane Abbott (among others) for racist abuse – and won’t take action against them:
Consider Starmer’s shadow work and pensions secretary, who thinks the best way to mark Diane Abbott’s 33rd anniversary as the UK’s first black female MP was to delete his backstabbing tweet attacking her choice of education for her children:
Fellow 'Labour' MP Jonathan Reynolds has marked the 33rd anniversary of his colleague Diane Abbott's election as Britain's first black woman MP – by deleting his tweet abusing her for choosing the best school for her children… We're marking it by calling for a #DianeStatuepic.twitter.com/yuOsoNvXPZ
Thank goodness we have a few people whose attitude to racism is more sincere:
David Harewood is a King. What this man is doing for anti-racism and to tackle mental health stigma, by showing vulnerability and power are synonymous, now that’s the kind of legacy you put a damn statue up about.https://t.co/tRSmhSOlmn
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza 🏳️🌈🏴 (@TheMendozaWoman) June 11, 2020
Grenfell Tower campaigners are trying to get the Conservatives to commit to removing flammable cladding from more than 23,000 households that should never have been forced to have it in the first place:
Grenfell campaigners call on Government to commit to cladding deadline | The Canary https://t.co/Sq3nBsTGsC
No sooner had he alerted us all to the danger to cancer patients of having to wait longer for treatment, than Dr Karel Sikora ruined his reputation:
This is horrible. And wrong.
1. “Excess” death figures cannot be “gamed” whatever is on the death certificate. 2. It’s a criminal offence to write a false cause of death on a certificatehttps://t.co/KuBr3A5m6B
Statues are still in danger across the UK as their subjects’ misdeeds are re-examined:
“Robert Clive was a vicious asset-stripper. His statue has no place on Whitehall” @DalrympleWill doesn’t mince his words, as ever. I’m with him on this one…. https://t.co/0AdbymS8vl
Former IS bride Shamima Begum has launched a legal appeal to reclaim her UK citizenship after it was stripped from her by former Home Secretary Sajid Javid:
British citizenship of former Isis bride Shamima Begum should be restored, court of appeal told https://t.co/bwAL6S1C3E
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Dominic Cummings in the Rose Garden: his attitude was “I can do whatever I like”.
Whatever happened to Dominic Cummings?
Did he quit his job as a prime ministerial advisor, ahead of being sacked? Did he apologise to the nation?
No.
Boris Johnson told us he was on his “last warning”, as if that means anything to us.
His arrogance has been unforgivable. His “last warning” should have been before the lockdown was imposed in Mid-March – not after he broke it in everybody’s face.
Nobody believed it anyway. When Boris Johnson failed spectacularly during Prime Minister’s Questions this week, we all thought he was wearing an earpiece so Demonic could Dominate him from a backroom.
There has been one dead cat after another. Today’s was the revival of a plan to build a new Royal Yacht, to cost the people of the UK £100 million that would be better-spent rebuilding the fabric of our ruined society after 41 years of neoliberal conservative rule and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dominic Cummimgs; a Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, made it clear that he had stayed at a “spare cottage” at his father’s farm when he addressed allegations that he had broken lockdown restrictions in April.
The cottage in question is not registered for Council Tax, nor has planning permission been sought for the cottage from Durham County Council.
So he broke lockdown and social distancing rules in order to stay in a house that is a standing violation of planning laws, where Council Tax is avoided. Am I correct in that assumption?
And still this creepy little rule-flouter is drawing fat amounts of cash from the public purse.
Why?
Simon Wren-Lewis makes some good suggestions on Mainly Macro. He writes:
The old rules, like when an adviser becomes the story they go, just do not hold anymore, because this government has no respect for those rules.
Cummings is so valuable… He gaslighted half a nation into making them[selves] poorer because of an issue few of them had cared about before the referendum. To then convince enough people that Johnson accepting a deal which the EU originally proposed and the UK rejected was some kind of triumph was also impressive. Winning a large majority in the subsequent election sealed his reputation as a master manipulator of voters, although it has to be said that with all these things he had tremendous help from the collective media.
He wants a say in everything any minister does that might influence his mission… [and Boris Johnson] is happy to allow his partner in crime to pursue his own agenda, because Johnson does not have an extensive agenda of his own.
The ultimate in Cummings gaslighting was his appearance in the Rose Garden of No.10. As Frances Coppola writes, it was a gigantic show, a show of personal power. Look what I can do, he was saying. I can lie about why I went to Barnard Castle, I can lie about how I foresaw how vulnerable the UK was to a pandemic, and there is nothing you can do about it, much like all the previous lies I have made in the past and got others to say.
Yup. This Site drew attention to this lie but hardly anybody paid attention.
And later, when a BBC presenter tells the truth about what he did, his helpers get the BBC to give her a reprimand.
Again, I highlighted the injustice of this, to a chorus of tumbleweeds.
It is not as if Cummings necessarily improves Johnson’s decision making capacity. What Johnson desperately needs is someone with a proven record of gaslighting a nation to get voters to forget about it all as quickly as possible. For that reason Cummings survives, for now at least.
So there you have it.
Dominic Cummings will remain at Downing Street as long as he manages to do what Boris Johnson cannot, which is to make Boris Johnson look acceptable.
He has enjoyed the complicity of the right-wing media in this.
But the press pack has shown signs of turning lately. With Keir Starmer dragging Labour back across to the political right-wing, they have a new horse to back while still supporting the idea that rich people should be allowed to do what they want, especially if it humiliates the poor.
Maybe Demonic’s days are numbered after all. But don’t get your hopes up because even if that does happen, you won’t reap the benefits.
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Rosie Duffield: she broke lockdown to meet her married lover.
This is an open-and-shut case, isn’t it?
Rosie Duffield seems a nasty character. The Labour MP for Canterbury marched in the ‘lynch’ mob with Ruth Smeeth and others to have Marc Wadsworth ejected from the Labour Party in the kangaroo court that was his hearing before the party’s National Constitutional Committee.
She campaigned for Chris Williamson to get the same treatment from his kangaroo court (NCC) hearing.
Now she has been caught breaking lockdown – possibly more scandalously than Dominic Cummings – in travelling to meet her lover, who happens to be married. So she’s an adulteress. Shocking behaviour, and a terrible example to set – especially at a time when her party leader has been (rightly) criticising Cummings:
In contrast with Cummings, Duffield has done the right thing: she has resigned from her job as a Labour Whip. Here’s the reason it’s right:
So Rosie Duffield who joined a lynch mob to get Wadsworth out,demanded Williamsons expulsion + smeared Labour activists whose efforts got her elected in no hope seat Canterbury …is a liar, a cheat+ a hypocrite in her private life too?
The hypocrites in this situation are any Labour MPs who have voiced support for Ms Duffield, saying she shouldn’t quit, after spending more than a week saying Cummings had behaved appallingly and should quit.
Labour MPs "privately backing" Rosie Duffield, whilst calling for Dominic Cummings to go is peak hypocrisy
When Opposition MPs say things like this to the press, the Mailnon Sunday of all papers too, it only helps the Tories.
That is the scandal in this story and Keir Starmer needs to take action before the tabloids use it to drag him down. And just when Labour was catching up with the Tories in the polls, too.
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Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson: we expect a higher standard from government than this shifty pair.
Congratulations to the Great British (and Northern Irish?) public for refusing to meekly accept the unacceptable from Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings.
They – we – expect a higher standard from our elected representatives.
If you haven’t written to your MP already – or if you have and fancy adding a bit more – you can do so by visiting Write To Them.
The furore over Dominic Cummings’ breach of lockdown rules has prompted tens of thousands of people to flood their MPs’ inboxes in what some described as the biggest outpouring since Brexit, a Guardian analysis has found.
As Boris Johnson tried to draw a line under the crisis involving his chief adviser, constituents across the country sent missives to their MPs, with many sharing stories of their own lockdown hardships.
A Guardian analysis covering 117 MPs found they have received a total of 31,738 emails since a joint Guardian and Daily Mirror investigation a week ago divulged that Cummings had travelled to County Durham and taken a trip to a beauty spot with his family after suffering coronavirus symptoms.
If that level of correspondence was reflected across all 650 MPs, it would suggest the revelations may have sparked as many as 180,000 items of correspondence. The numbers were either provided in response to the Guardian’s request for figures, or in statements MPs had released to constituents.
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It seems Boris Johnson isn’t the only one who can’t put Dominic Cummings’s Durham trip behind him.
The local constabulary has fallen foul of the general public:
Durham police is facing a possible inquiry into its handling of the Dominic Cummings saga after complaints were passed to its internal investigation team.
The force has received a number of complaints from members of the public angry at the way it dealt with Boris Johnson’s aide over his travels during lockdown.
Durham police said it believed the special adviser probably did break lockdown rules by embarking on a 52-mile round trip to the town of Barnard Castle with his wife and son on her birthday.
Officers might have intervened to send him home had they caught him on the trip on 12 April, or fined him if he refused, the report said.
Its investigation also concluded that Cummings did not break health protection regulations by making the 260-mile trip to Durham with his son and wife, who had coronavirus symptoms, though it made no finding in relation to the “stay at home” government guidance.
The force’s findings have been met with anger in some quarters, prompting several emailed complaints which were then passed on to its professional standards department as is protocol.
The nature of the complaints is not known.
Is it possible that the force has been accused of favouritism – of according Cummings a privilege not provided to others?
Durham police issued fines to two people – from different households – who travelled together from London to County Durham during lockdown.
The two individuals fined by the force travelled to nearby Peterlee.
The BBC is seeking further details from Durham Constabulary about the two individuals who were fined for travelling from London to Peterlee, about 13 miles east of Durham, on 8 April, a week after Mr Cummings made his trip.
So, they fined these two people for travelling a similar distance up from London, after Cummings made his journey – but they decided not to fine Cummings or take any other action against him?
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A million signatures is a lot of people, but you can be sure that Boris Johnson will try to ignore this public exercise of democracy.
My reason for saying this is simple: look where the petition is being hosted.
If it had been on the UK Parliament’s petition page, it would have needed only 100,000 signatures to guarantee a discussion in the House of Commons – but it would never have achieved it because it would have been removed on the grounds that petitions about government employees are forbidden.
So much for democracy.
As this one is on Change.org, it give Johnson an opportunity to deny its legitimacy and refuse to pay attention to it, no matter how many people eventually sign.
Remember when the ‘Revoke Brexit’ e-petition – that was on the UK Parliament site – reached six million signatures?
Even after there was a debate in the Commons, the government of the day ignored it.
Johnson will try the same tactic here – but he has far less justification for doing so.
Even after the Brexit e-petition gained its six million names, that was only slightly more than a third of the number of people who voted to leave the EU, so there was some legitimacy in the claim that it should not overthrow the referendum decision (although the fact that the claim was made before the final number of signatures was known made it ambiguous at the time).
But nobody voted Cummings into Downing Street. He’s a hired hand.
The fact that so many people have signed a petition calling for his removal is significant – and indicates that far more people are unhappy with him continuing to hold any position within the workings of government.
So Johnson has put himself between a rock and a hard place.
If he sacks Cummings, then he will be admitting he was wrong to support his chief advisor. But the longer he delays, the more people lose confidence in him – and the more likely he is to be replaced.
A petition calling for Dominic Cummings’ departure from government is on course to reach one million signatures, as fury over the scandal fails to die down.
A Change.org page that demands the PM’s top aide either resigns or is sacked now has the backing of more than 945,000 people.
A survey has suggested that 80% of the public disagrees with his actions, while around 40 Tory MPs have called for him to leave Downing Street.
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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