Rishi Sunak: he’s about to claim we need cuts to pay for the Covid-19 pandemic but that will just stop money from flowing through the economy, making it impossible. And in any case, it is unnecessary as he has already paid for it!
As the Tories continue to pretend we have to pay the cost of Covid-19 twice, it’s clear we’re going to hear a lot of double-talk in today’s (March 3) Budget speech.
Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK has released a video of the kind of media interview he’d like to hear, with a politician who doesn’t mind telling the facts as they are, rather than as Rishi Sunak would like to pretend.
Here it is:
It won’t happen because too many people are supporting the lie – for reasons already mentioned on This Site and elsewhere.
But it needs to be said – and you need to hear it before Sunak pumps his nonsense into all our heads.
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Jeremy Corbyn: surprisingly, the interview didn’t even mention his new Project for Peace and Justice. Perhaps it was recorded before the organisation was announced?
What a lot of fuss about nothing.
When Kerry-Anne Mendoza announced that she had recorded an hour-long video interview with Jeremy Corbyn and it would be published by The Canary under its new Frontline strand, the usual suspects piped up immediately with their usual nonsense.
“All anti-Semites together!” they carped. There was some speculation about the content of the conversation, with a heavy accent on anti-Jewish racism.
Well, they were disappointed because there wasn’t a single word of that kind spoken.
It seems the detractors of Ms Mendoza and Mr Corbyn are far more interested in anti-Semitism than they. They seem to be living examples of the maxim that some people protest too much.
The conversation was a pleasant chat between two reasonable people about Corbyn’s origins – political and personal – his philosophy, and his hopes for the future.
And that’s all very well, but…
This was a missed opportunity.
There was a chance here to ask Corbyn about the challenges he faced during his leadership of the Labour Party, and the reasons it failed.
Many of us believe that he was stabbed in the back by right-wing “factionalists” (if you adopt the wording of a certain leaked report) who undermined his campaign in the 2017 election and may have done the same in 2019.
Does Corbyn believe this to be true? Was he unaware of it at the time? If so, to what did he ascribe the problems that beset his leadership?
And there were certainly questions to be asked about the anti-Semitism controversy. Perhaps Corbyn wanted to avoid them, although I see no evidence of him requesting that the issue not be addressed.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission recently found that Labour’s complaints investigation team discriminated against people accused of anti-Semitism in 60 per cent of cases*. This was deliberate; it was a policy adopted by the party’s governance and legal unit.
I was among those who suffered as a result of it. I had to take Labour to court to show that the party ignored its own regulations in order to trump up charges and falsify evidence against me, prior to using that false evidence to bring a verdict against me and expel me from the organisation.
This happened while Jeremy Corbyn was the party leader – while he himself was suffering similar false accusations. And he allowed it to go on. Why?
Did he think nothing was amiss? Or was he hoping that the right result would magic itself up out of nowhere, despite the fact that the malcontents in the party machinery had all the power and the rank-and-file members suffered all the abuse?
Did he hope to be able to resolve the issue, and think that a bitter injustice against a few dozen – maybe a few hundred by now – members was a reasonable price to pay? It wasn’t; and Labour will continue to pay the price for its abuse of process – and of justice – for some time to come, until all those who suffered wrongly during this dark period receive the compensation that is their due.
Perhaps it was too much to ask Corbyn for a word of explanation or apology for the suffering that happened under his leadership.
It’s still a good interview – don’t get me wrong. Mendoza gives Corbyn the time that so many so-called “mainstream” interviewers wouldn’t – although there are moments where a little more direction from her would have been welcome. I’m sure she’ll get the hang of it with practice.
*The only way I can understand that figure is if the other 40 per cent were genuine cases of anti-Semitism that did not require falsification of evidence. This is entirely possible as – remember – nobody says there isn’t any anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and expects to be taken seriously. Racism – like all the uglier sides of humanity – are present in Labour as in all large organisations, as This Writer has stated since the issue first arose.
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Jeremy Corbyn: if you need a reason to support him (and listen to his Canary interview), just consider the dire state of the hate-filled people who don’t.
If Jeremy Corbyn has been interviewed by The Canary, and it’ll go out at 7pm on Thursday, then This Writer will be watching it and no amount of unsubstantiated lies and malicious gossip by the “anti-Semitism” fakers is going to stop me.
If you’ve got any sense, you’ll be like me.
There is no evidence to show that either Corbyn or anyone concerned with The Canary is, or every has been, anti-Semitic but whenever either of them does anything of note, the same weary weirdoes come out of the woodwork, beating the same worn-out drum.
None of them ever back up their accusations with fact, because they can’t.
I won’t name any of them here; nor will I publish their rants – because they simply don’t deserve the oxygen of publicity.
But we can all see them for what they are:
Its totally wrong for Jeremy Corbyn to do an interview with The Canary.
But it's totally right for me to do interviews with The Times, The S*n, The Daily Heil and LBC.
Labour politicians should not speak to left wing outlets. We don't do socialism in this party.
The UK is a country where 95% of mainstream media outlets push racist headlines almost everyday, and you're telling me The Canary is beyond the pale because it took a moral objection to apartheid? Jesus sees you, you racist fuckers.
Here’s The Canary‘s trailer for the interview. Please feel free to share it everywhere.
🤩 We're excited to announce a new Canary video series featuring intimate conversations with inspirational people on the FrontLine. First up, none other than Jeremy Corbyn! Tune in at 7pm on Thursday for the full 50-minute video. pic.twitter.com/qlXVh2roTv
I’d be especially grateful if you would retweet it on Twitter and tell everyone that @MidWalesMike asked you to do it. My personal account is still suspended from that platform for no stated reason so it would be nice to be able to show that I won’t be silenced.
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After cocking up his own brief on breakfast TV, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson went on to display his ignorance on the radio.
Talking with LBC’s Nick Ferrari (who once crossed swords with This Writer, and I wonder if he regrets it), Williamson was asked about the Covid vaccine and decided to play the race racist card:
For clarity: the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was developed by a US/German company using mainly Turkish scientists. It was approved using EU rules, which means all the countries Williamson mentioned had some involvement (if only minor).
And on a day when a man named Adolf Hitler was trending on Twitter after he won an election (in Namibia), the public ensured that Williamson was right up there with him – as inept TV comedy icon Frank Spencer.
(It seems they find his accent amusing.)
See:
Gavin Williamson stars in the most embarrassingly jingoistic and xenophobic comedy sketch since Basil Fawlty’s ‘Don’t Mention the War’
Except it’s not a sketch
He’s an actual *Secretary of State*with all the competence of Frank Spencer https://t.co/UnbSFQqEqY
I thought listening to George Useless for 20 seconds was bad enough, but I can't stomach 'Frank Spencer' Gavin Williamson for more than 10. At least with @AlokSharma_RDG you go to sleep straight away.
Gavin Williamson announcing to the world in his ridiculous Frank Spencer voice something akin to Jack's declaration in The Lord of the Flies that "we're English, and the English are best at everything." 🤦♂️
Really, all he has done is divert attention away from the terrifying fact:
This latest tory jingoism being spouted by Hancock/Rees-Mogg/Fabricant and now Frank Spencer tribute act Gavin Williamson against the EU is designed to make the UK look tough, in reality it's now a sad little island, totally isolated, about to lose access to our largest market.
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Rayner and Starmer: who knew their “new direction” would be towards blatant dishonesty?
We all owe Angela Rayner a debt of gratitude for admitting publicly what some of us have known for years: that the Labour Party will expel members for quoting facts about anti-Semitism complaints.
That is what she said in front of television cameras in an interview yesterday (October 31) – albeit not in so many words.
Referring to Jeremy Corbyn’s statement that the amount of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party had been exaggerated – a statement borne out by the facts – she said this:
“Hurt” and “distress” are irrelevant if they are not based on facts. And how do we know that the people saying they were “hurt” and “distressed” actually were? There are a lot of liars out there.
And now we know they include the current Labour leadership among their number.
Rayner was saying that she and current leader Keir Starmer will lie about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, to keep on the right side of people who aren’t even members (and who are probably Conservatives).
She was saying that any party member who quotes factual information contradicting the party line will face suspension and possible expulsion for doing so.
And in doing so, she has said that Starmer was lying when he said he accepted in full the report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party by the Equality and Human Rights Commission; after discriminating against 60 per cent of party members accused of anti-Semitism (as noted in the report), it is clear from Rayner’s words that such discrimination will continue.
It makes me glad to be out of the Labour Party.
I don’t want to be a member of an organisation whose leaders admit they will lie freely about an issue as important as anti-Semitism – and who are saying they will only allow other people who lie about it to be party members.
Who would?
I don’t know – but I’m willing to bet that, among those who would, we would find a high number of anti-Semites.
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Alok Sharma: I’ve cartoonised the pic of him so he doesn’t look too contagious. The alternative would have been an image of a pilchard.
Alok Sharma – what a gift to satire.
Today (October 19) he was on the radio, gifting us with his interpretation of the kind of Brexit trade deal Boris Johnson is likely to hand British businesses:
No deal. But he tried to dress it up by calling it an “Australia-style” deal.
How did he think he’d get away with it?
Nick Ferrari on LBC made him look the fool he is:
Alok Sharma says the PM "has been very clear" that the UK is preparing to leave on Australia-style terms.
Nick Ferrari: what's the difference between an Australia deal and No Deal?
For those who are unfamiliar with the term, semantics is the branch of language and logic concerned with meaning; Sharma was admitting that an “Australia-type” deal and “no deal” are the same.
He was just – desperately – trying to dress it up to pretend that it wasn’t; a last-ditch bid to fool the less attentive or less well-read among the radio audience.
I don’t think it worked:
Alok Sharma and Boris Johnson can speak about it all they like, but an 'Australian-style deal with the EU' is the same as my deal with the EU: it doesn't exist.
Now Alok Sharma has confirmed the difference between a disastrous No Deal Brexit and the so-called Australian Deal is mere semantics (they mean exactly the same thing) we might as well start referring to it by the names of other mythical things such as 'Boris Johnson's integrity'
Just heard a clip of Alok Sharma being told by Nick Ferrari that Australia is the same as No Deal, Sharma was momentarily lost for words then waffled something about semantics. This is why the media need to challenge this b*llocks every time.#BrexitReality
— claire savage 🇪🇺 #FBPE #Rejoin #3.5 (@csav55) October 19, 2020
@LBC Alok Sharma floundering, blustering, blundering and completely flummoxed by a Brexit deal question. He hasn't got a clue, may as well ask a pilchard
You’d probably get a better answer from a pilchard.
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Michael Gove – oh no! Sorry – it’s the Spitting Image dummy of Gove. I have a terrible feeling it talks more sense than he does.
If you saw Michael Gove blathering on the Andrew Marr Show today, This Writer sympathises. What a terrible waste of time.
Personally, I don’t care what he said about Brexit, or Manchester, or the amount of money paid on contact tracing; he’ll be saying something different tomorrow, if it suits him.
Here’s the reason:
Gove is accusing Burnham of incoherence. Just a reminder that Gove is a minister in the go to work/stay home, eat out/stay in, go to university/stay in your rooms, have money to eat out/no money for kids lunches, bastard government. #Marr
Yes. It is Johnson’s Conservatives who are incoherent. They say whatever they think we want to hear.
So you must judge them on what they do. And what a catalogue of failure that provides!
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Days after This Site noted that the Department for Work and Pensions is running trials of video assessments for Personal Independence Payment – and other benefit – claims, we find that the Tories are already recording telephone assessment interviews.
This is very interesting because the recording of assessments has been a roasting-hot potato ever since it was first suggested.
The most recent statement of the situation was that, in order to have an assessment recorded, a claimant needed to bring a piece of tape-recording equipment worth around £1,400 to the interview, capable of recording on two tapes at the same time, with one to be held by the interviewer and one by the interviewee.
The DWP – and by extension, assessors at Atos and Capita – has a small number of these devices, but their scarcity meant it was hard to be sure of securing one for an interview.
This led to some charitable people buying the equipment in order to lend it to benefit claimants who needed it. I’m sure it also led to less charitable people renting the same equipment out for money.
With the announcement that Atos is recording telephone assessments, though, hasn’t that situation changed?
If the assessment company is making recordings unilaterally, does it still have to use the same equipment as in previous stipulations?
Will it have to provide claimants with copies?
If it doesn’t have to use the prescribed equipment, why not? And does this mean claimants don’t have to use it either and can make their own recordings? If not, why not? There must be a level playing-field for these matters.
Here’s Benefits and Work on this:
IAS (Atos) have begun recording telephone assessments for personal independence payment (PIP) Therese Coffey, secretary of state for work and pensions, told the Work and Pensions Committee on Wednesday 30 September.
Coffey told the committee that IAS had begun recording the assessments on 21 September.*
“But that has not yet started with Capita. That is under, I can assure you, active management to get Capita going quickly on this”
claimants must ask to have their assessment recorded, it will not be done automatically.
You are likely to need to arrange this in advance. The earlier you request a recording the better, as a new appointment may need to be arranged.
I note that the website’s authors say the DWP will not give permission for claimants to make their own recordings – and say they should do it themselves, clandestinely, if they feel they need to:
You may still consider it sensible to record the assessment yourself just in case the DWPs recording goes astray. Though you will need to do this covertly as the DWP will not give permission.
We would still strongly recommend that claimants consider making a covert recording of their assessment, just in case the DWP’s copy goes astray when you challenge a decision.
The suggestion that copies of assessors’ audio recordings can go “astray” indicates that the DWP and its privately-contracted assessors are as untrustworthy as ever (75 per cent of benefit refusals are now being overturned at appeal).
This is worth chasing up. I’ll ask the DWP what’s going on and let you know the answer.
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People are getting tired of the BBC and other Tory-supporting media letting Boris Johnson’s government get away with its mistakes.
That’s why this drubbing of Tory “death minister” Matt Hancock by Channel 4’s Jon Snow – carried out while Parliament was deadlocked over Brexit last year – has suddenly become hugely popular on Twitter.
People haven’t been holding back in their criticisms of certain hacks in the mainstream media:
If any journalist who works for #bbcnews wants to see how a real journalist asks questions of Cabinet Ministers watch Jon Snow on #C4News interviewing Matt Hancock, he didn't just hold him to account, he monstered him, proper journalism, i suggest you study it @bbclaurak
Jon Snow was like a blizzard in the face of Death Secretary @MattHancock . Kuensbergg, and all you sycophants that is what being a journalist is all about. Honesty, integrity, and holding snivelling liars to account.
As I type this, the BBC’s Politics Live has been discussing Chris Bryant’s nomination of US Presidential candidate Joe Biden for the Nobel Peace Prize rather than any of the disasters that the Tories are bringing to the UK.
Perhaps they’ll get around to the Tory cowards who are abstaining on the Internal Market Bill that plans to break international law and return violence to Northern Ireland later but I doubt it.
Oh look! They’re discussing Boris Johnson’s daft speech about re-skilling people for the post-Covid economy as if he knows what he’s talking about.
Perhaps we should all just adopt the Jon Snow ‘blizzard’ approach whenever we see our own Tory MPs instead.
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Andrew Bridgen: winner of this week’s “Inverse Genius” award.
Everyone with any political nous in the UK has been laughing at eurosceptic Andrew Bridgen after he swallowed both feet (metaphorically) in a Channel 4 News interview.
Discussing his Fuhrer Boris Johnson’s plan to renege on the EU withdrawal agreement that he signed in January, Bridgen said – well, see for yourself:
The reaction on Twitter has been universal:
The preposterous Andrew Bridgen on #c4news telling us all that the EU are crumbling under the pressure. Also purports to know about the Irish border issues. Remember this was the man who believed anyone in the UK could apply for an Irish passport.
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen on #C4News: “The EU have far more to lose from not having a deal because they sell us so much more and there’s going to [be] huge pressure from the [EU27] members. That’s why Barnier is going to be sidelined.”
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