Tag Archives: Khan

London Mayor announces emergency move to give free school meals to all primary school pupils

Sadiq Khan: he’s feeding London’s school pupils. Isn’t it a shame the Conservative government can’t think up policies that would help the families of London afford to do the same?

What a sad pickle for a country as rich as the UK – that its people can’t even afford to feed their children. Who has all the money?

Labour’s London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced an emergency package of free meals for all primary school pupils in London, to help poverty-stricken families through the Tory-caused cost-of-living crisis.

Here’s the Evening Standard:

210,000 primary and secondary pupils in London … live in households on universal credit but miss out on free school meals – because their household income, excluding benefits, is over the threshold of £7,400 a year.

This low threshold applies irrespective of the number of children in the family and is causing deep hardship among families struggling with the spiralling cost of living.

Some hungry children were so desperate, they were stealing food from the school canteen and supermarkets to eat.

Sadiq Khan’s £130 million scheme will fund the 270,000 state primary school children in London who do not already receive free school meals, of whom an estimated 100,000 live in poverty.

The Mayor, who has repeatedly called on Government to extend free school meals to all children in poverty, said his scheme will be funded out of higher-than-expected business rates and council tax collections and will be for the 2023/2024 academic year only.

So it isn’t permanent, and it looks like it’s only during term time – so we’ll still need the Marcus Rashfords of this world if matters get so tight that children end up starving during the holidays.

And of course it doesn’t help the 100,000 secondary pupils in London, or the 600,000 school pupils outside the capital, who are also facing poverty-triggered hunger.

And I doubt if councils in the UK’s poorer areas will have higher business rates and council tax collections on which to rely.

Interestingly – once again – we are being told that the Tory government’s failure to ensure that our school pupils are properly nourished is harmful to the economy that they still claim to be best-suited to safeguard:

Research by accounting firm PwC published by the Evening Standard has shown that investment in free school meals would yield a net economic benefit to society of £2.45 billion over 20 years.

PwC calculated that the cost would be £6.44 billion over two decades but would lead to benefits in educational attainment, mental and physical health impacts and productivity of £8.9 billion – a net benefit of £2.45bn.

So the Conservative government, once again, has been shown to be deliberately – let’s remember – harming not only our children, but our future livelihoods.

Who voted for them?

And who will ever vote for them again?

Source: Sadiq Khan announces free school meals for all primary school pupils in London | Evening Standard

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Tories deny knowing MP in panel advising on grooming gangs was accused of molesting boy

Khan and can’t: Imran Ahmad Khan with Boris Johnson. The former committed a sex crime against a minor and, because the latter’s party couldn’t be bothered to record a complaint about him, he ended up on a Home Office panel advising the government on ways to stop the sexual exploitation of children. Think about that before voting Tory on May 5.

The Tories have said they did not know Imran Ahmad Khan had been accused of sexually assaulting an under-age boy – even though he had told their press office.

That’s the reason they’re using for giving him a position on a Home Office panel that advised the government about child sexual exploitation by grooming gangs, while his crime was being investigated by police.

Do you believe that?

Boris Johnson was cagey about the subject when he was challenged about it in Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday (April 27, 2022):

 

“I believe the Home Office has already made a statement about it,” he said.

Yes – as follows:

The Home Office was not aware of the allegations against him at the time and he no longer has any involvement with the department.”

This is very odd, because the MP’s victim told a court that he had made a complaint to the Conservatives’ press office days before Imran Ahmad Khan was elected as MP for Wakefield in November 2019.

The Tory Party line?

“We have found no record of this complaint.”

That could be because, as the victim stated to the court,

“I wasn’t taken very seriously.”

He said the woman he spoke to sounded “shocked” and passed him on to someone else who sounded more “stern” and asked if he had any “proof”.

“I said, ‘Yes, there’s a police report’ and she said, ‘Well …’, and that was it.

“I said, ‘I’m going to the police’, and she said, ‘Well, you do that’.”

It seems the Tories didn’t even bother making a record of the conversation and passing it on to the Whips’ office.

And it says much about the quality of Conservative MPs that Imran Ahmad Khan never bothered to mention that he was under investigation by the police and might not be an appropriate choice – or simply recused himself.

Considering the recent revelations that a Tory MP smeared Angela Rayner leading to the ‘Basic Instinct’ Mail story, that 56 MPs are accused of sexual misconduct including three Tory Cabinet ministers, and that a Tory frontbencher was caught watching pornography in the Commons chamber, we should not be surprised.

It seems the Conservative Parliamentary benches are full of sexual deviants.

And it seems they know they can get away with their perversions because nobody in their party ever takes complaints about them seriously. Am I right?

Source: Ex-Tory MP guilty of molesting boy was on panel advising on grooming gangs | Politics | The Guardian

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One rule for them: the privileges enjoyed by this Tory MP sex offender have been astonishing

Khan and can’t: Imran Ahmad Khan has been convicted of a serious crime – but will his erstwhile boss, that utter incompetent Boris Johnson, also be convicted of a criminal offence before long?

Are the newspapers really sure they have permission to reveal that now ex-Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan is a convicted sex offender?

The lengths to which he – and, it seems, the authorities – went to avoid admitting he was facing charges were phenomenal, and strongly reinforce the prevailing opinion that MPs, and particularly Tories, get preferential treatment:

  • His victim said he wasn’t ‘taken very seriously’ when he made the allegation of sexual assault to the Tory press office days before Khan was elected as MP for Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in the December 2019 general election.
  • Turned away by the Tories, the victim resorted to the police, making a complaint days after Khan was elected. But Khan was sent a questionnaire by Staffordshire Police rather than being interviewed under caution at a station because of “Covid protocols in place at the time”.
  • Neither Staffordshire Police nor the Crown Prosecution Service informed the media or the public when Khan was charged by postal requisition – the point at which suspects in criminal cases are routinely named.
  • His first appearance at Westminster Magistrates’ Court by video link on June 3 last year did not appear on the public or press lists. Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring granted him an interim anonymity order ahead of another unlisted hearing, which the CPS refused to confirm was taking place as well as what charge Khan was facing.
  • He attempted to stop key details of the case – including the age of his victim, his own homosexuality, and even his fondness for a gin and tonic – coming into the public domain.
  • On June 17 last year, Khan argued in court that he should be granted anonymity.
  • Then he tweeted in support of press freedom, retweeting a message by then-foreign secretary Dominic Raab about the situation in Hong Kong. He had previously claimed Extinction Rebellion had constrained press freedom when the protest group blocked a newspaper printing press.
  • His anonymity – unprecedented in a case not involving national security – was only lifted after legal challenges from two media organisations.

Now Khan has been convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old male at a house in Staffordshire in 2008.

Southwark Crown Court heard how Khan forced the teenager to drink gin and tonic, dragged him upstairs, pushed him onto a bed and asked him to watch porn before the attack.

The victim, now 29, told a jury he was left feeling “scared, vulnerable, numb, shocked and surprised” after Khan touched his feet and legs, and came within “a hair’s breadth” of his genitals.

The boy ran to his parents and a police report was made – but no further action was taken at the time because the victim did not want to make a formal complaint.

Of course, now that a court has returned a “guilty” verdict, the Tory Party’s attitude has gone into reverse. Whereas in 2019 the victim wasn’t “taken very seriously”, now Khan has been expelled from the organisation.

He is awaiting sentencing for the offence and if he is imprisoned for more than a year he will be automatically expelled from the House of Commons.

He could also be subjected to the recall process, by which Wakefield constituents may have him removed as their MP.

Labour has already called for him to resign, so the people of Wakefield “can get the representation they deserve”.

This Writer is fine with all of that; whatever is appropriate, I’ll go with it.

But I want to know how the police and courts will be prevented from treating accused MPs as though the law doesn’t apply to them.

Source: Tory MP guilty of sex attack on boy after forcing him to drink gin | Metro News

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Cressida Dick: ‘I did not voluntarily resign’ – but she had to go, didn’t she?

Cressida Dick: she didn’t want to go – but with scandals breaking around her, how could she have stayed?

The departing Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has criticised London Mayor Sadiq Khan on her last day in the job, saying, “I did not voluntarily resign.

But Dame Cressida Dick had to go, didn’t she? Multiple scandals involving officers of that service showed that she was not capable of maintaining order and a standard of behaviour that is expected.

As this LondonWorld article states,

Dame Cressida has spent 40 years in London’s main police force – including five years as its top officer – but quit on February 11 after mounting scandals.

She resigned after Mr Khan expressed his displeasure with her response to widespread public outrage over offensive messages exchanged by a group of officers based at Charing Cross police station.

It was one of a string of controversies that plagued her during her time in the role, alongside the murder of Sarah Everard by then-serving police officer Wayne Couzens and the jailing of two Pcs who took pictures of the bodies of murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman.

There was also criticism of how the force handled the partygate scandal and the Daniel Morgan report which blasted the Met’s failure to tackle corruption.

But during a visit to the Metropolitan Police Specialist Training Centre in Gravesend, Kent, Dick hit out against London Mayor Sadiq Khan:

“The mayor of London is a democratically elected person. He has a job to do, he has certain responsibilities in relation to the Metropolitan Police Service.

“He caused me to say that I would step aside, I did not voluntarily resign. What happened in the run-up to that and subsequently in the last few weeks perhaps, I don’t know, will be looked at by Sir Tom Winsor.”

That means there will be an investigation into her tenure by the Chief Inspector of Constabularies.

This Writer is looking forward to seeing what that investigation discovers.

I have heard whispers that there was opposition to Dick among senior officers in the Met, and that these people may have encouraged unacceptable behaviour among their officers in order to discredit the commissioner.

If that were true, it would be a scandal for them to remain in post while she had been forced out.

Whatever the facts of the matter, the Metropolitan Police currently falls far below the standards expected of the people who supposedly protect us from crime. Far too many of its officers have been habitually committing crimes themselves.

But if the service is riddled with corruption, how can it be restored?

Source: Cressida Dick: Met Police chief hits out at Sadiq Khan on last day saying ‘I did not voluntarily resign’ | LondonWorld

#Labour cash crisis: now #Starmer is cutting MPs’ advisers – starting with #Asian #women

Rosena Allin-Khan: she has been instrumental in exposing the Tory government’s Covid-19 failures so of course Labour leader Keir Starmer is penalising her.

And you still think Starmer’s not racist?

(Not you; the above is what you could say to anyone trying to justify this.)

But what happened to Labour’s short money? This is the cash given to Opposition parties in Parliament to help them with their costs. There was an attempt to take it away from Labour (Tories are like that – they try to screw the other side any way they can) but it failed, I thought.

So there should be cash for these two MPs to hire all the help they need.

That’s unless Starmer is using the cash for other purposes. I wonder what they are?

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Arrogant #SajidJavid admonishes #RosenaAllinKhan over #tone. But where were #Tory MPs’ #masks?

Sajid Javid (left) and Rosena Allin-Khan (right): he’s the Health Secretary but she’s the doctor. And he’s still got the cheek to lecture her.

Tories never learn, do they?

It comes of being rich, entitled (or so they think) and devastatingly ignorant.

So it should come as no surprise that, after an incident in which failure to wear masks in the House of Commons led to a Covid-19 scare, many Tories have gone back to lounging around the Chamber without masks on (presumably on the basis of the Rees-Mogg principle: that you can’t catch Covid-19 from other people if you know them personally).

And when a Labour MP who is a serving NHS doctor pointed this out and asked when Tory backbenchers would start wearing their masks…

The new Health Secretary had the cheek to try to police her “tone”:

Take note of the following:

And who was the first person to tell Dr Allin-Khan to watch her tone, again?

Ah, yes – Matt Hancock.

Hancock was a useless Health Secretary. He knew nothing about his subject and spent the whole of his tenure handing out fat contracts to friends of the Conservative Party and getting nothing in return while the Covid-19 death toll became the worst in the world.

He was kicked out of office for snogging a former college friend he had nepotistically installed as his adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care – possibly for the purpose of snogging her – in contravention of social distancing requirements.

And Javid? As David Osland states above, he’s an investment banker. In addition to suggesting that Dr Allin-Khan’s tone was wrong, he showed that, like Hancock, he doesn’t know how to keep the UK safe from Covid-19:

He’s incompetent and the country is not in a mood to tolerate that right now. He’s on borrowed time.

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Labour is becoming a pit of lies. No wonder everybody is walking away

Sadiq Khan: the train is probably empty because no RMT driver would want to get on one with him in it.

Wasn’t this a desperately disappointing development from Sadiq Khan, just when Tube drivers need support from the London Mayor who belongs to the Party of the Workers?

Tube drivers are striking because Transport for London has ripped up existing agreements and working arrangements for the Night Tube, demanding extra night and weekend working.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch explains: “This strike is about the ripping apart of popular and family friendly agreements that helped make the original Night Tube such a success. Instead the company want to cut costs and lump all drivers into a pool where they can be kicked from pillar to post at the behest of the management.

“We have made every effort in ACAS and direct talks since the off to resolve this dispute but it is clear that LU bosses are driven solely by the bottom line and have no interest whatsoever in the well being of their staff or the service to passengers.

“This strike action, and its serious consequences in the run up to Christmas, was avoidable if the Tube management hadn’t axed dedicated Night Tube staff and perfectly workable arrangements in order to cut staffing numbers and costs.

“We warned months ago that slashing two hundred Night Tube Train Driver positions would create a staffing nightmare and LU need to start facing up to that reality and soon. The union remains available for further talks even at this late stage.“

Contrast that with what Sadiq Khan, Labour’s London Mayor, has said about it, and you’ll understand why Unite’s Sharon Graham has tweeted what she did:

Here’s where Khan crossed the line:

It seems the claim was not true:

The letter to Khan states: “Our Lead Organiser for TfL wrote an email to London Underground senior managers… which ended with the words “We are happy to attend ACAS to resolve the dispute. And are available to do so.” We never received a reply to this email.

“Our reps and members have seen the email in which RMT offers to meet at ACAS and are justifiably furious at the complete misrepresentation of our position in the public domain. It is having an incendiary effect. It’s hard for us to understand why you’ve done this and all I can think is that you have been fed an inaccurate line by hawks within TfL.”

The explanation kindly suggested by Mr Lynch in the letter, even if true, wouldn’t let Khan off the hook because he should have checked the facts with the RMT Union.

It’s a terrible position for a Labour politician, in an elected position of authority, to choose. Here’s the better choice:

And here’s what all Labour politicians should be saying about it:

Sadly, the damage has already been done:

And we have identified the heart of the problem:

That’s exactly it. The rot is at the heart of the Labour Party because it is spreading from the leader himself.

Yesterday morning, This Writer’s Twitter feed was full of comments like these:

There are lots of good points in those comments. Probably the most pertinent are those stating that people who want a better country – for everyone rather than just the very rich – don’t owe Labour anything now that it clearly does not have the principles on which it was founded.

Nobody is obliged to vote for Labour. It is Starmer’s – and Khan’s – responsibility to show, by example, that they are worthy of our support.

Starmer’s record since April 2020 – and Khan’s shocking performance over the Night Tube – tell us they aren’t even interested in it.

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‘Machete’ attack in Hyde Park brings racists out against Sadiq Khan – but it’s really Priti Patel’s fault

Tory policy: the ‘stock’, to which Patel’s satirical comment refers, are you and me – ordinary people. Tories don’t think of you as human beings like them, therefore crime against you is of no concern to them at all.

The best law-enforcement in the world won’t stop some crime – and the best way to encourage it is to blame the wrong people for it.

So today, after an individual was attacked by a gang wielding weapons that some have claimed included foot-long knives and a machete, the racist right-wingers were out in force on the social media, blaming London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Policing isn’t his primary function. That job went to Tory Home Secretary Priti Patel. And the fact that there are 20,000 fewer police on your streets is the responsibility of a previous Tory Home Secretary (and later prime minister), Theresa May.

Get your priorities right, or a bad situation will get worse.

Sadly, too many people seem to have their priorities wrong – led by a rabid far-right political activist called Darren Grimes.

This product of a broken culture is a former Brexit campaigner who was nearly fineed £20,000 for breaking electoral spending rules and lying on the declaration form – but was let off after he said the form had confused him.

Is he similarly confused about the questionable politics of his internet platform Reasoned, which seeks to attact people who “hide [their] political views for fear of being called homophobic, a TERF (transphobic], [or] racist”?

It seems to This Writer that such a site will attract exactly that kind of person – especially after he published an interview on that platform in which historian David Starkey said slavery was not genocide, “otherwise there wouldn’t be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain, would there?”

Grimes said he hadn’t “caught” the comment before publishing it, which does not excuse him from the fact that it was published. Perhaps he was just confused about what constitutes racism?

Given the considerable confusion in his past, it seems entirely reasonable for Grimes to be confused about who is responsible for policing in London. Fortunately, we have more rational social media users to put him straight:

Sadly the damage has been done and lunatics are springing up to blame the recently re-elected London Mayor (it seems some of them are smarting that the Tory racist didn’t get in) for an incident that he could not have prevented even if he had all the police in the country at his disposal; they can’t be everywhere.

I know Vox Political readers won’t be fooled by any of this nonsense. But for the benefit of weaker-minded souls who might need help, let’s have a few words from people who understand the situation better than the far-right headbangers:

This Writer just hopes that the hysteria whipped up by right-wing racists hasn’t diverted attention away from the politician who should be telling us why she is allowing this violent crime to happen in one of the UK’s most famous public spaces.

So, what do you have to say for yourself, Priti Patel?

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Was Sadiq Khan’s narrower-than-expected London Mayoral win due to Keir Starmer’s right turn?

Sadiq Khan said unflattering things about then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn after his 2016 London mayoral victory. But at least Corbyn provided Labour policies for the public to support in the poll. Starmer put him in a vacuum and it is a miracle he received as many votes as he did.

Belated congratulations to Sadiq Khan on his re-election to the London Mayoralty.

But isn’t it disturbing that he won by a narrower margin than against Zac Goldsmith in 2016, against an equally inept candidate?

In the years preceding the election, Bailey had been criticised for racism (calling Khan “the Mad Mullah of Londonistan”, criticising celebration of Muslim and Hindu festivals and claiming that British people were being indoctrinated in the cultures of those religions).

He also proposed forcing larger London businesses to drug-test their employees – but with Parliament, dubbed the “corridors of powder” because of the huge “trace” amounts of cocaine that have been found there, exempt.

And he was accused of sexism as well as racism when it emerged that he had stated in 2006 that single girls in inner cities “deliberately become pregnant” in order to secure homes and benefits from the government.

Against such a man, Sadiq Khan gained more than 100,000 fewer votes than against Goldsmith.

I don’t think the drop-off was anything to do with Khan himself – or with his opponent, though.

I think it was about the leadership of Khan’s political party – Labour.

When he was elected in 2016, the people of London were riding high on the election of Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership with a set of genuinely socialist policies that had the potential to transform the UK into a vibrant example for the world.

By 2021, Corbyn’s right-wing opponents in the Labour Party bureaucracy had stabbed him in the back and had him replaced with suit-haircut-and-flag man Keir Starmer, who had promptly ditched all of those transformative policies in favour of an “any way the wind blows” approach.

In the absence of any policy support from his party leadership, it is a miracle Khan received as many votes as he did.

Source: Sadiq Khan wins second term as London mayor despite tighter-than-expected race | The Independent

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Shadow Cabinet member tries to excuse herself over failure to protest ‘Windrush’ deportation flight

Rosena Allin-Khan: no responsibility?

How do we feel about this?

Dr Allin-Khan is referring to a letter by Holly Lynch, signed by more than 60 Labour MPs, deploring Priti Patel’s decision to deport more people including, it was said, at least one person who was of the Windrush generation or descended from it.

On her website, Dr Allin-Khan adds:

“As a member of the Labour Shadow Cabinet, my role is to intervene in matters related to mental health (because I am the Shadow Minister for Mental Health). Members of the Shadow Cabinet do not speak in debates, sign letters, sign EDMs or intervene in matters which are not related to their role. This rule has been in place for as long as I know, it was the same when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.

“I have noticed that my name was put on a list along with 12 colleagues, suggesting we were the only people not to sign this letter. No member of the Labour Shadow Cabinet signed the letter, indeed, almost three quarters of Labour MPs didn’t sign the letter. Does that mean that they don’t care? No, of course not. Sometimes they miss the deadline to sign, sometimes they can’t sign, sometimes they make representations in different ways. It’s very disappointing that some would single out me and 12 other colleagues, suggesting we were the only ones not to sign – simply to fit their political agenda.

“My background has seen me work in war torn countries, disaster zones and refugee camps helping the world’s most marginalised and vulnerable people. I always care deeply about these issues and to suggest otherwise is incorrect. I’ll continue to liaise with my colleagues in the Home Affairs team with regards to this, and other important issues.”

My recollection is that Dr Allin-Khan is distorting the issue. Shadow Cabinet members weren’t criticised for being the only Labour MPs not to sign and it seems to me that she was deliberately creating a “straw man” argument with a ready-made response (that other Labour MPs also failed to sign).

As for her claim about Shadow Cabinet members:

Maybe that is true.

Perhaps it should change.

It seems Shadow Cabinet members are using their position to avoid expressing opinions on the most important matters of the day – the actions of the Tory government – abrogating their responsibilities as members of Her Majesty’s Opposition.

Meanwhile they line up to vilify members of their own party when they are accused – falsely, as we learned in the case of Jeremy Corbyn – of breaking party rules that are so badly-written that they can be made to mean whatever the current leader desires.

Isn’t that, you know… wrong?

Some people seem to think so:

Oh, and it seems Shad Cab members like Dr Allin-Khan can’t even face the responses their protests attract:

Meanwhile, Home Secretary Priti Patel has taken the opportunity provided by this failure of opposition to attack critics of the flight, saying it involved the deportation of “vile criminals” and was nothing to do with the Windrush scandal.

In that case, why did the flight contain only 13 people after last-minute legal challenges succeeded in gaining a reprieve for 23 others?

Oh, that’s right. As Ms Patel said, it was all the fault of “do-gooders” and “lefty lawyers”.

She comes across as a bad Scooby-Doo villain, after the mask has come off: “I would have got away with it too, if it hadn’t been for you pesky lefty lawyers!”

Sadly, in her case, the significance of the mask is reversed. In Scooby-Doo it was always a fright mask being replaced by the villain’s rather ordinary face. With Ms Patel, it is the genuine, hate-filled, face that is the horror.

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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