In his latest car-crash (please don’t groan) TV press conference, Boris Johnson told us that he had taken action to reduce the number of lorries queuing in Kent to be transported to continental Europe, as both the UK and the EU prepare for new trading conditions from January.
Oh, really?
What are all these, then?
This would make a brilliant establishing shot for a disaster movie. They could call it ‘Boris Johnson, Prime Minister’. pic.twitter.com/zVO6Rul2S4
Those of you who saw the broadcast might be saying, “Ah, but! Johnson was referring to lorries on the M20 – and that’s some airport runway, from the look of it!”
Yes indeed. These appear to be the overspill from the M20 – lorries that have been diverted to park elsewhere.
But it doesn’t mean that Johnson wasn’t misleading us. Oh, and let’s make it clear – it’s Boris Johnson who made the misleading statement (this for the benefit of the BBC):
Boris Johnson (again) misled the country saying plans put in place by his Gov’t had reduced lorries waiting on M20 from 500 to only 170
It was completely false
Today journalists seem to be suggesting it was only transport Secretary who said it!
Highways England has confirmed that 900 lorries were on the M20 in Kent on Monday evening – not the 174 that Boris Johnson had claimedhttps://t.co/SHnWbnbTO7
The tailback was precipitated by Johnson’s (him again!) announcement on Saturday (December 19) that he was cancelling a planned relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions for Christmas because of the unexpected virulence of a new mutation of the virus – a situation of which, it transpires, he has only been aware for four months (since late September).
The international response from around 40 countries now has been to close their borders to any and all traffic to and from the UK – hence the queue in Kent.
The advantage of being an island is that if you control your borders early you can keep the virus out. On the other hand, if you fail to control the pandemic, everyone else can close their borders to keep you out.
Today in his briefing @BorisJohnson said that there had been 500 lorries queuing in Kent but because of their preparations it is now 170. Since then Kent County Council have confirmed the number is in fact in excess of 500, not 170. There was no need to lie. It’s pathological.
One aspect of this situation that isn’t being discussed by Johnson is the fact that he is creating a huge health risk by failing to provide emergency food and sanitation facilities for more than a thousand stranded lorry drivers:
Those hundreds of truck drivers backed up in Kent don't have access to loos or showers. That's a health risk for you, right there.
Stranded drivers say a lack of facilities is creating a dire situation as the new Covid strain leaves them unable to enter France. https://t.co/Txi254jDu5
Isn’t Johnson begging for a new outbreak of Covid-19 – right there among the drivers – by failing to provide basic facilities for cleanliness?
He is responsible for this; it was his decision that created the situation.
I wonder how he will talk his way out of it.
With a lie, I expect…
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Jo Swinson (left): she seems to be trying to steal Boris Johnson’s crown as the biggest liar in Parliament. But then, that is why her party’s nickname is the Fib Dems.
It’s a piece of electioneering by the Liberal Democrats that – on the face of it – presents a false impression of who are the main players in the North East Somerset constituency, running up to the general election in December.
The trick is in the small print. Congratulations if you can read it; I’ve got my specs on and the print is too small for me. Also – who is going to bother reading the small print when they haven’t been told they need to?
The gaff was well and truly blown by Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday. Take a look at the video in Dawn Foster’s tweet – and note Helen Pender’s follow-up that the Lib Dems have done the same elsewhere.
Ms Swinson’s attempted defence is an embarrassment. “It’s labelled on there what the question is that it relates to so anyone looking at it can read what the question is”? Only if you’ve got a magnifying glass and obsessive compulsive disorder!
Still, what can you expect from the Liberal Democrats? Even when they’re directly quoting election results, they can’t resist using their infamous block graphs to mislead people.
In Brecon and Radnorshire, they came out with their usual “two-horse race” rubbish with a block graph – that completely misrepresented the differences between the parties’ standings. You can see the difference when their graph is juxtaposed with an accurate representation:
In the by-election on August 1, the Liberal Democrat candidate only won because the Brexit Party split the Conservative candidate’s vote – and the Tory was a convicted criminal.
Sophy Ridge seems to have a knack for showing Jo Swinson up. Take a look at the following clip, in which the Lib Dem leader is forced to acknowledge evidence showing that, in the Coalition government, she supported more Tory policies than some genuine Conservative MPs:
Priceless television. Jo Swinson made to listen to all the things she voted for with the Tories. pic.twitter.com/TjQurDypkc
Note also that she only ever seems to criticise Labour.
Perhaps it’s right that she is next to Boris Johnson in the image at the top of this article. She tries to mislead the public as much as he does, and she certainly supports Tory policies.
And that’s the hidden message – that Liberal Democrats will support the Conservatives, if there’s a hung Parliament and they end up with the balance of power.
In other words: Vote Liberal Democrat – get Tory.
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Brecon and Radnorshire seems to be disappearing into a weird consensus reality in which the Liberal Democrats are actually being considered a serious alternative to the Conservatives, capable of standing up to them in Parliament. Has everybody here gone mad?
No. They are just falling prey to a well-oiled propaganda machine that the party known as the Fib Dems is using to steamroller all opposition.
But it may well run out of steam before we reach polling day on August 1 – especially as some of us are getting very good at debunking the falsehoods.
For example:
Yesterday (July 7), This Writer received a letter from Liberal Democrat candidate Jane Dodds, asking me to sign her petition to improve access to dentists in Llandrindod Wells. This is actually a genuine issue here.
But it is a devolved issue. Ms Dodds states: “My colleague Kirsty Williams AM has been working with Powys Teaching Health Board to tackle access to dentists and I will work with her and all parties to help resolve these issues” but it is nothing to do with her. If she becomes MP and the issue is resolved, it seems likely that she will try to take credit for something she won’t have done.
This seems to be the pattern with all of the policies so far announced by this charlatan. I have already detailed reasons why we should doubt her claims about bringing improved broadband and more investment into the constituency.
Elsewhere on the social media, This Writer has become involved in several discussions about Liberal Democrat policy positions. As readers of This Site will know, I characterise the Liberal Democrats as a right-wing, authoritarian, neoliberal, austerity-supporting, privatising party – based on their record – and it infuriates me when their supporters describe them as centrist or even as a party of the left.
I eventually had to dig out the voting record of LD leadership candidate Jo Swinson to demonstrate the facts of the matter.
Ms Swinson is a dedicated Liberal Democrat and has supported her party in the vast majority of votes.
She has supported the Bedroom Tax, benefit cuts, the persecution of the sick and disabled, and cuts to local authority support for council taxpayers, among other things:
She voted to increase tuition fees to £9,000 per year after the Liberal Democrats promised to abolish them, to bring schools into private ownership, and to cut financial support for students.
Her environmental credentials are similarly appalling: She voted to sell our state-owned forests into the hands of developers and commercial profiteers, in support of the badger cull, against green energy, and for fracking. On climate change, her position is ambiguous – and we should take heed of that when Jane Dodds makes wild claims about wanting to fight climate change as Brecon and Radnorshire’s MP.
Finally, I pointed out that Ms Swinson voted to privatise the Royal Mail, to cut legal aid – putting court action beyond the reach of most people, and to create secret courts – at which defendants were not to be told the charges against them or even any of the evidence.
These are all right-wing policies that would make many Conservatives proud – and may even be too extreme for some.
If Ms Swinson becomes Liberal Democrat leader, these will be her policy positions – or she’ll be a hypocrite. And the bad news is that the other leadership candidate, Ed Davey, differs only in that he has a better record on climate change (but not on fracking).
We also touched on another policy issue – the Liberal Democrats’ opposition to the Iraq War. This came about in an extremely bizarre manner, from a comment by a person who, told that Labour was “negative”, said they wanted “to stop seeing children going to school hungry and coming home to parents exhausted by irregular work or ridiculous DWP requirement and either homeless or terrified of becoming so… Its negativity to want children not to starve?”
The response was to claim that Labour was responsible for the deaths of children. Under challenge, this was justified by reference to the Iraq War.
My response: “That is a war against another country, not a policy enacted here. If you’re determined to invoke it, how many children died in Libya, due to the Coalition government’s intervention there? You might also consider the fact that airstrikes against Syria were only called off – famously – because of intervention from the Labour Party, supported by rebel Tories. The Liberal Democrats voted to support them, including current leader candidates Ed Davey and Jo Swinson.”
It seems the Liberal Democrats’ anti-war credentials aren’t all that they’re said to be, either!
So we came to the fall-back that has been the basis of the entire Liberal Democrat campaign in Brecon and Radnorshire – and across the UK: That it’s a “two-horse race” and they are the only party capable of beating the Conservatives.
This is a lie.
I can demonstrate that it is a lie with reference to just one sentence by a Lib Dem supporter: “How are you going to convince Tory voters to vote Labour? It is unrealistic to think that they will.”
My answer is that there is no need to get hardcore Tories to vote for Labour.
No less than six candidates are standing in the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, of which four are right-wing.
Leaving aside the Liberal Democrats for a moment, that means the right-wing vote will be split between Conservative Chris Davies, the Brexit Party’s Desmond Parkinson and UKIP’s Liz Phillips. It won’t be an even split but, considering the core Tory vote is around 9,000, it should be enough to stop any of them from winning.
The Monster Raving Loony Party will have a representative in Lady Lily the Pink, and she’ll pick up the votes protesting at the lunacy of politics in the UK at the moment.
That leaves Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dems are trying hard to convince people that giving them a 13th MP will make them a formidable force to convince Parliament to revoke Article 50 so we can all remain in the European Union. That is not going to happen.
Take a look at the graph at the top of this article. Liberal Democrats have just 1.8 per cent of the MPs in the House of Commons. That’s 12 MPs. A 13th will give them exactly two per cent of sitting MPs. That isn’t enough to achieve any such radical change of policy.
Alternatively, the Liberal Democrats are trying to convince people that giving them another MP will stop a Brexiteer from taking the seat and steering us towards a disastrous departure from the EU. That is not going to happen either. Not only will the vote be split between three Brexiteer parties but there wasn’t enough consensus on Brexit to make it happen when Brexiteer Chris Davies was the MP here, so having another Brexiteer won’t make any difference.
So what is this really about?
I’ll tell you. It’s about stealing votes from Labour.
The Liberal Democrats have traditionally pressganged Lavbour supporters into supporting them in Brecon and Radnorshire, with the threat that – if they don’t – a Tory will take the seat.
Their infamous “two-horse race” block graph is set at false levels to make it seem the distance between the Labour and Liberal Democrat votes is greater than it is, precisely to encourage this belief. A friend of This Writer has created a more accurate graph and it is damning for the Lib Dems:
Put it all together and you’ll see that the best place for floating voters who want to defeat the Conservatives, and the other right-wingers, is Labour.
It’s a genuinely left-wing party, with policies that most people support, as I stated in a previous article. But for the benefit of those who missed it, a vote for Labour would be a vote to:
Ensure that at least 60 per cent of the UK’s heat and electricity will come from low-carbon or renewable sources by 2030 (polling suggests this was supported by 79 per cent of the electorate);
Cap rents at the rate of inflation (74 per cent);
Increase income tax for the top five per cent of earners (68 per cent);
Require businesses to reserve a proportion of seats on their boards for workers (63 per cent);
Re-nationalise the railways (60 per cent);
Re-nationalise utility companies like the energy and water firms (57 per cent);
Provide free university tuition for all students (55 per cent);
Prevent the UK from participating in military interventions in other countries (52 per cent).
And the party’s policy on Brexit is to let the people decide between ‘no deal’, any deal agreed by Parliament, and the possibility of remaining in the EU – which is more than anybody else is willing to offer, including the Liberal Democrats!
Labour’s 247 MPs totals only 38 per cent of the Commons, and another will increase that total only slightly. But 248 is a lot more than 13, and may attract support from other parties and even – in the case of Brexit/remain – from Conservatives.
And Labour’s Tom Davies isn’t misrepresenting himself, his party or his policies.
Put all these elements together and there’s a chance to make a genuine change for the better in Brecon and Radnorshire – and send a meaningful message back to Westminster.
That will be by returning a Labour MP to Parliament.
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Jane Dodds: The backcloth suggests we should “demand better” and it is absolutely right, for once.
The Liberal Democrats proceeded with their propaganda onslaught on the people of Brecon and Radnorshire last week, with a leaflet that – it seems to This Writer – should be investigated regarding the accuracy of its claims.
That in itself should speak volumes about what was printed on the front and back of a single sheet of paper.
The leaflet, on behalf of candidate Jane Dodds, brands her as “the strong, effective voice to fight for our community”, yet it makes policy claims that do not bear out this message.
“As our next MP, Jane will fight for more ambitious broadband targets from Westminster and force big broadband and mobile companies to deliver these decent services,” it claims.
But communications regulator Ofcom has already announced that everyone will have the right to demand a fast broadband service at a reasonable price from March next year.
This ‘universal broadband service’ safety net is set to help 620,000 homes and offices in the most remote parts of the UK – such as Brecon and Radnorshire.
So it seems all Ms Dodds would have to do, were she to be elected, is wait. She wouldn’t have to lift a finger because somebody else has already done all the hard work for her.
That is hardly the kind of conduct we should expect from an MP.
The leaflet states: “Jane will bring investment to our area to create good jobs, properly funded public services and affordable housing so people are not forced out of the communities they have grown up in.”
This seems very positive but, considering the claim about broadband, we should be cautious.
Work is about to begin on a new competition-standard BMX cycle track in Rhayader which, it is hoped, will encourage people to visit the town and make it the biking capital of Wales. The local county councillor has said this success is entirely due to the involvement of local people – but would Ms Dodds, as MP, try to take the credit?
Plans are well under way for a new “global centre of rail excellence” on the Neath Port Talbot/Brecon and Radnorshire border near Ystradgynlais, which would be a testing facility of international significance. This would be a huge economic boost to the constituency, so would Ms Dodds try to claim credit for it? If so, it would be a slap in the face for the real architect of the project, Labour Assembly Member and minister for the economy and transport.
Powys Teaching Health Board is about to receive a £1.5 million boost from the Welsh Assembly – a substantial investment in the public health service courtesy of Labour Assembly health minister Vaughan Gething. While health is a devolved issue, I wonder, would Ms Dodds try to say she had a hand in it, once the money comes through?
It may seem that my doubts about this Liberal Democrat’s honesty are a little too strong. If so, may I draw attention to the now-obligatory block graph on the leaflet? Here it is:
Does something seem… out of proportion to you?
If so, you’re absolutely right. The difference in votes between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats in the 2017 election – illustrated here – was 8,038, while the difference between the Liberal Democrats and Labour was just 4,708 – but look at how these differences are misrepresented on the graph! Readers are led to believe that Labour were twice as far behind the LDs as the LDs were behind the Conservatives – almost a total reversal of the truth.
With misrepresentations such as this, and policy claims that simply don’t stack up, no wonder Ms Dodds’s party is known locally as the Fib Dems.
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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