It seems Matt Hancock’s bid to be seen as a real person by going on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here may backfire on him as soon as he gets home.
Residents in his Parliamentary constituency aren’t happy:
And Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone reckons she has received dozens of complaints about Hancock’s decision to go to the jungle.
She said she couldn’t investigate because appearing on the show doesn’t breach the Commons Code of Conduct.
But she added: “It raises really important questions about members’ proper activities while they’re supposed to be fulfilling their parliamentary duties and representing their constituents.
“One member of the public contrasted the dignity of veterans on Remembrance Sunday with a former secretary of state… waiting for a buffet of animal genitalia and they wondered what had happened to the dignity of public office.”
So it seems he’ll come back from the rainforest into a storm.
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This video is great fun, so let’s all enjoy Kwasi Kwarteng being discomfited by his own idiocies.
Best bit for This Writer? When someone congratulates the Tory government on its overnight transformation of 10 Downing Street – from a nightclub to a casino.
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New prime minister Liz Truss has apparently squandered her ‘honeymoon’ period by bringing forward a series of unpopular policies – and her MPs have noticed.
And she has made a huge u-turn by caving in to pressure over energy costs.
She can’t be trusted to do what she says and she is ruining the economy.
Are Tory backbenchers willing to put up with this?
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Here’s something that happened after the end of the last Parliamentary session, but that should be raised in the new one.
More than 20,000 people died in care homes because of decisions made by Boris Johnson’s ministers (notably then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock).
Johnson made a statement in Parliament that ministers were not aware of asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 at the time they were ordering that care home residents in hospital should be sent back. The evidence shows it was false.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting claimed this was not true, highlighting a point of order raised by Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire, the shadow leader of the House of Commons.
Speaking to MPs on Thursday, Ms Debbonaire claimed the government was provided with evidence at the beginning of 2020 that pointed to that asymptomatic transmission of the Covid virus.
“On 28 January 2020, advice from Sage on asymptomatic transmission included that ‘early indications imply some is occurring,’” she said. On 24 February, the Lancet published a paper finding that infected individuals can be infectious before they become symptomatic.
“On 13 March, Patrick Vallance told the Today programme that ‘it’s quite likely that there is some degree of asymptomatic transmission’. Yet it wasn’t until 15 April that the government’s guidance was changed to require patients were tested before being discharged to care homes.”
Ms Debbonaire said Johnson might have “inadvertently” misled the House of Commons, but This Writer disagrees.
Either he was briefed on asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19, or he deliberately chose to miss the briefings at one or several of the COBRA meetings that he skipped (due to laziness?) in early 2020. In any case, the responsibility to know the facts fell on Johnson.
Therefore, if he told the Commons that ministers didn’t know about asymptomatic transmission, he was deliberately choosing to mislead MPs. He should be challenged and he should resign.
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After Ian Blackford was ordered out of Parliament in a shameful display by Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, let’s examine just one example in which Boris Johnson “wilfully misled” Parliament.
Here’s a video clip of him saying there was no party in Downing Street on November 13, 2020:
"Was there a party in Downing Street on the 13th November?"
According to Sue Gray’s interim report on alleged Downing Street parties, the police are investigating one such event that happened in the flat where Johnson lives on that date.
The fact that police are investigating suggests very strongly that a party did take place there, and the fact that they are looking for criminal activity also suggests very strongly that the Covid-19 guidance (to which Johnson was referring in the clip) was not followed at all times.
As far as I’m aware, Johnson was not away from the UK at that time, so one presumes he slept in the flat on the night of November 13, 2020 – unless he fell asleep elsewhere in the building, during the party for the departure of Dominic Cummings.
Whichever, it seems clear that Johnson knew what was going on at the time, and would have known he was not telling the truth about it when he answered the question in Parliament.
That’s knowingly misleading MPs, which is an offence under the Ministerial Code.
Where’s his resignation?
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Liz Truss: half a second after this image was captured, she coughed (no, not really).
Queen of Cheese Liz Truss has contracted Covid-19.
It means she will now be unable to visit Ukraine with Boris Johnson, halving the possibility of a major security leak and ensuring that her counterparts in the Ukrainian government won’t catch the disease – from her.
But her fellow Conservative MPs – including Boris Johnson, who is running away to eastern Europe (partly, I think, to get away from the wave of criticism, not just over Partygate but because he smeared Keir Starmer with a falsehood) may have reason to be disappointed in her.
Here is that reason:
Liz Truss has tested positive for covid. She attended the packed meeting of Tory MPs and ministers in Portcullis House this evening, leaving before it finished. She was not wearing a mask.
This is what happens when you elect an incompetent prime minister who then surrounds himself with idiots in order to make unseating him unpalatable to the public.
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Doing a runner: many of us may have one or two metaphorical skeletons in our closet; Boris Johnson has fled the UK with the dead of Covid-19 pursuing him.
Now we know why Boris Johnson went on his holibobs so hastily. Tony (below) is being sarcastic:
For the life of me, I can't work out why johnson chose this week in particular to do a runner to a chum's villa in the sun. pic.twitter.com/NhdkT1OUlt
It's noteworthy that this study, from the cross-party Science and Technology Committee and the Health and Social Care Committee, is being released when Prime Minister Boris Johnson is on holiday.
The Covid Report by MPs is damning. It should lead to prosecutions of leading government ministers – including Johnson – for Corporate Manslaughter (at the very least).
Why are the words 'corporate manslaughter' not yet a major part of the public debate on Covid?
On the other hand, we could have an avalanche of civil lawsuits!
Just a public inquiry? I'm expecting a flood of civil lawsuits. It's indisputable that the Boris Johnson government grossly mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bring ’em on. I hope people group together to make the litigation more easily-affordable. The cases could be huge and the evidence damning.
And Johnson?
He’s staying out of the way until the fuss dies down because he knows if he shows his face around the UK, he’ll face demands for his resignation – from all sides:
If you don’t think this is a resignable matter, I don’t know what to say to you.
If being responsible for thousands of needless deaths isn’t a resigning matter, nothing is.
You can read the report by the Commons Health and Social Care, and Science and Technology committees, here. And there are reports on the report here, here, here and here, and pretty much everywhere you look right now.
Among the report’s findings are:
Boris Johnson could have saved many thousands of people by taking the UK into lockdown earlier.
Boris Johnson could have saved thousands by locking down earlier, report finds https://t.co/OxfcmeKYa2
Instead, Johnson caused a national disaster by pursuing a policy of herd immunity and mass infection:
Two cross-party committees unanimously condemn the government's response to the pandemic. Tens of thousands died unnecessarily as the PM said 'we should just take it on the chin.' A failure to learn from other countries and failure to care for our own citizens. Worst in history. pic.twitter.com/m2QkQHUT7w
Thousands of care home residents died because government ministers never bothered to think about their welfare in a serious way.
NEW: Report by MPs on the Health and Science committees concludes that the government’s response to Covid-19 was one of the worst ever public health failures.
Among the mistakes, the decision to discharge people from hospital to care homes likely killed thousands, it concludes.
My mum was one of those abandoned to her fate in her care home. I was informed of her death by email. Everyone on her floor died #covidhttps://t.co/0jR4cXfb5p
Of course it’s damning that the government treated the elderly as expendable and its actions needlessly cost thousands of lives. Even more damning is that we have all known this for months and the people responsible will face no consequences whatsoever.
The government still doesn’t care. It put up a minister to do the morning media round who had not even bothered to read the Covid-19 report before being asked to comment on it. The results were as you might expect:
Stephen Barcley refuses 11 times to apologise to public for putting their lives at risk, the lost of loved ones and the fact we’re still sending kids to school unprotected. No lessons have or will be learnt by Tories because they do not care 🤬 pic.twitter.com/NmWOdpQine
I feel perhaps not enough is being made of Stephen Barclay’s claim not to have read the select ctte Covid report as it had been released at midnight – when *he was the minister the government chose to put up for this morning’s media round*.
Jeremy Hunt on #r4today speaking to the damming report on the Govt's handling of the pandemic. Given his record as HS, the man clearly has no shame. That is my considered view of his interview.
Jeremy Hunt blaming group think across western world for pandemic mistakes made in the UK. UK has one of the highest death tolls. The UK government delayed lockdown multiple times. They delayed contact tracing, while others acted decisively. Hunt’s explanation doesn’t stack up.
They’re saying nobody warned them about the dangers of asymptomatic transmission:
The risk of asymptomatic transmission was warned of by scientists towards the very beginning of the crisis. By 28 February an early study from China indicated that the coronavirus could be transmitted by asymptomatic carriers
We cannot allow Johnson’s Gov’t to rewrite history
And they all say they followed the scientific advice:
Astonishing to hear ministers still saying they followed scientific advice when they clearly didn’t
The facts speak for themselves. Ignoring advice & delaying second lockdown last autumn led to thousands of unnecessary deaths. Govt can not rewrite history
It’s beyond infuriating to hear Government Ministers constantly say “That’s Hindsight” when never has an outcome, been predicted by so many, so often. This goes for COVID, Brexit, and Northern Ireland. #r4today
Hindsight narrative is gaslighting on a national scale. I remember exactly what it was like in March 2020. The pressure was intense for the government to take action weeks before it did so.
It's official: our pandemic response was horrendously, shockingly bad. We knew that, but thanks for confirming it.
But I don't buy the defence that herd immunity was the product of well-meaning "fatalistic group think". The tone for this was set by Johnson, who saw himself as
The media seem to be trying to help the government evade responsibility:
Unbelievable! On the day a report by MPs highlights the government’s mistakes in dealing with #COVID19 that led to THOUSANDS of deaths, the BBC’s #r4today have a major interview with Chief Scientific Adviser, Patrick Vallance and they DON’T ask him about this!#BrokenMediapic.twitter.com/uTslXj8ucp
So Richard Madeley has just said majority of people contacting GMB are forgiving of the government for the devastating mistakes this government made at the beginning of the pandemic and since! Well I am not and I suspect majority are not
— Annrj#3.5%#FBPE#Wearamask#NeverEmbracingBrexit (@AnnJarvis13) October 12, 2021
And then we have someone who says he isn’t forgiving the government, despite having given it a free pass for the last 20 months:
Keir Starmer says Boris Johnson should apologise for errors and mismanagement of the Covid pandemic which Keir Starmer consistently supported… pic.twitter.com/Y7g3xy3Qrg
The Tories' initial handling of the pandemic has now been branded Britain's worst-ever public health failure. And Labour's official stance at the time was constructive support for the government.
Clip 1 – Ridge gives Starmer opportunity after opportunity to criticise the government's obvious mistakes. He declines each time.https://t.co/T11VQPCGbb
There are many receipts like this that evidence how Stramer failed to oppose the Tories mishandling of #COVID19 even when their approach was clearly falling apart before all of our eyes. Any attempt to now spin Starmer as some sort of critic of the Tories approach is doomed.
Here’s some opposition. Ah, but the UK rejected him in favour of Boris Johnson in the 2019 election – going for the pandemic megadeath option. And then he resigned as Labour leader and the party voted in the absolute melt you saw in the video above…
People are coming to the end of their collective tether:
A new joint report from two Tory led parliamentary committees on the govt's COVID actions is damning. Lessons learned? Not so much. Worst health failure in UK history? Pretty much. #DamoRants#COVIDReport
Our Pandemic response is still killing people, infecting our children and putting a whole generation at risk to chronic long term illnesses. It's still a disaster, and feels a lot like eugenics.
— 🇵🇸Sir Norman of Sewage Island, KBE 💚🏴☠️ (@Normanjam671) October 12, 2021
Since waking and putting on #r4today I’ve heard that Frost is about to tear up his own Brexit agreement, Sunak has no money left and Johnson has presided over the worst public health disaster in UK history…
Those who predicted austerity would do irreparable harm to this country's social fabric have been vindicated;
Those who voted Remain in 2016 EU referendum have been vindicated;
Those who predicted a UK public health disaster because of lack of preparedness are vindicated…
— Professor Christopher Painter (@PrfChrisPainter) October 12, 2021
We're being mugged in broad daylight 1) our loved ones dying 2) our pensions stolen 3) our NHS privatised 3) our children unprotected 4) Our elderly & vulnerable abandoned 5) The UK diminished & traduced in every way possible How much longer do we sit back & accept this?
I'm running out of steam. The evidence is there that Johnson failed in his handling of the pandemic, yet people still say he did his best. The evidence that Brexit is a disaster is clear, yet people are still supportive of it. What will it take? It's demoralising and exhausting.
when will we rise up? worst COVID performance on the planet & they are actually still murdering us in broad daylight.
no mitigations at all anymore
thousands still dying per month
highest infection rates in kids on the planet
— MarcusFitzsimons Woke Bunny Hugger Green Socialist (@MarcusFitzsimon) October 12, 2021
I notice that Matt Hancock, who was Health Secretary throughout most of the worst mistakes of the Covid crisis, has been appointed UN special envoy to help Covid recovery in Africa. So he’s not likely to be in the UK for the foreseeable future.
Also, in the light of the sex scandal that triggered his ejection from the Cabinet, jokes about Hancock’s new missionary position are likely to proliferate.
So both Johnson and Hancock are away for the duration, and a proper inquiry is about as far away temporally as they are physically.
That brings us back to the possibility of litigation against the government for causing tens of thousands – if not more than 100,000 – preventable deaths.
This could really bring the UK back together – against the government that has failed us all so badly.
So get together, people – in your communities, with the care homes where many of your relatives and friends died, online – wherever you can build the strongest possible case against the inept-but-unaccountable fools who caused those deaths… and take your shot. It could be the most important thing any of us do.
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Wishful thinking: we all know Keir Starmer is a closet Tory but it is unlikely that he is among the three Labour MPs allegedly planning to defect to the Conservatives.
Doesn’t it say everything about the Parliamentary Labour Party that Keir Starmer leads, that when its members plan to defect, they decide to go to the Tories?
No self-respecting Labour Party member would ever consider joining the Conservatives. Not if they ever had true Labour values – because Conservative values are poison to traditional Labour beliefs.
The fact that such people are Labour MPs shows just how bad the Tory entryism became under successive leaderships since Tony Blair – and what a shame it is that Jeremy Corbyn was unable to push through compulsory reselection.
These are people who are said to be despairing at Starmer’s failure to close the Conservatives’ lead in the opinion polls – despite the fact that his, and their own, attacks on Labour’s traditional, socialist, membership are directly responsible for this failure.
They are also said to be angry that Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner branded the Tories as “racists” and “scum”. Well, the racism is easily provable…
According to the Mail (sorry),
Party insiders conceded it would be a massive blow to Sir Keir’s already beleaguered leadership.
And it would: it would show that he prefers Conservatives to people with traditional Labour values, and it would suggest that there are far more closet Tories in the PLP.
So This Writer says: let the defections happen – the sooner the better.
With a bit of luck it will persuade other quislings to go back to their true home as well.
And then Labour can select some proper socialists to stand for – and win – their seats at the next general election, because we know voters are tribal.
I only wish one of them turned out to be Keir Starmer himself.
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Apologists for Keir Starmer who reckon he’s easing the way for Tory legislation to make them “own their mistakes” will have a hard time justifying this.
Starmer and his team are working behind the scenes to stop Labour MPs from criticising the Conservatives.
After significant rebellions against one-line Labour whips on the Overseas Operations Bill and the Covert Human Intelligent Sources Bill (the so-called ‘Spycops’ bill that allows government agents to commit crimes including murder, torture and rape), the whips office has broken party protocol to issue written reprimands to the rebels.
The letters stipulate a reprimand period of six months, to be extended to twelve if the recipient continues to break the whip.
They have been shared with Labour’s parliamentary committee – a group of backbench MPs elected by the parliamentary Labour party (PLP), and currently dominated by the right – which will determine whether to inform the MP’s constituency Labour party (CLP), as well as the party’s national executive committee (NEC).
This information could then be considered when an MP seeks reselection ahead of a general election.
“That’s the fear factor,” one MP told Novara Media. “This could impact your reselection [and] it might be over a one-line whip. It’s intimidation plain and simple.”
A number of those who received letters are seeking legal advice from union representatives, the MP added.
But that’s not all.
It seems someone in Starmer’s office has taken it upon themselves to water down criticism of the Tory government’s failure to protect people with disabilities by reducing the disability employment gap and mitigating the effect of the Covid-19 crisis on them, and in its new COVID-19 guidance for people placed in the “clinically extremely vulnerable” group.
Someone in the office of the shadow minister for people with disabilities, Vicky Foxcroft, sent a draft of her comments to John Pring of Disability News Service which differed significantly from the official version of her comments released by the Labour Party.
The changes include the removal of a reference to the “vital” role played by trade unions in protecting disabled people from discrimination, along with any reference to disability discrimination.
Responding to the new pandemic guidance… her official statement said that disabled people were just “anxious” rather than “extremely worried”. Her call for disabled people who might need to shield again needing to be “properly compensated and not left without enough money to survive” had vanished.
This represents a serious policy change from Labour – back to the indifference to anti-disability discrimination that marred the New Labour years and Ed Miliband’s leadership.
People with disabilities can no longer rely on Labour MPs to stand up for them because it seems the party leadership now supports the Tories’ campaign to punish them, just for existing.
Starmer seems determined to let Boris Johnson’s corrupt Tories do whatever they want – harm whoever they want – while threatening to sabotage the careers of anybody in his own ranks who dares to protest.
The big question is: What is to be done about this?
The union Unite has already cut its funding to the Labour Party by 10 per cent, and the decision to remove a supportive reference to trade unions from an official comment could be interpreted as an attack – or even a retaliation. Should that union – and others – cut support for Labour even more?
And what about constituency Labour parties? The threat to MPs – which includes sanctions that could lead to their deselection (to be replaced by right-wingers parachuted in by head office, no doubt – that was Tony Blair’s practice) – is also an indirect attack on the power of members to choose their representatives.
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Another blunder: Keir Starmer’s insistence on allowing a law that would allow the government to undermine his party has created a rift between him and an ever-increasing number of his MPs.
It is already being labelled as a major rebellion against Keir Starmer’s leadership: 34 Labour MPs defying the party whip to vote against the controversial so-called ‘Spycops’ Bill that would allow government agents to commit crimes.
The real question about it, though, is: why so few?
Labour has been targeted by the so-called Establishment in the UK – probably from its beginnings as a political party. This includes espionage by the nation’s intelligence agencies.
We all know about famous incidents such as the Zinoviev Letter, which contributed to the fall of Ramsay MacDonald’s first Labour government. It was a forged communique allegedly between the government and the Communist government of Russia, written by people whose identities remain uncertain…
… but it was published by the Conservative Daily Mail, and it is widely believed that this was on the urging of the SIS – the intelligence service of the day.
Another famous issue is the MI5 file on Harold Wilson, which was opened when he first entered Parliament in 1945 and recorded his contacts with communists, KGB officers and other Russians.
It was opened because of concerns about his relationships with Eastern European businessmen. Can you imagine MI5 opening a file on Boris Johnson, over his relationships with oligarches from Russia?
Ultimately, none of the information in the file can have amounted to anything because MI5 never tried to use it to undermine him – despite his own paranoia about this in his later years.
Clearly there is a precedent for the security services – which are predominantly staffed by right-wingers – using every resource within their power to find ways of undermining the Labour Party.
And by abstaining on a Bill that allows government agents to commit crimes in order to achieve their aims, 167 Labour MPs including the party’s leader, Keir Starmer, have just handed them another such resource.
It’s undemocratic and dangerous – the kind of legislation created by a dictatorship in order to ensure, by fair means or foul, that no rival organisation can ever topple it.
But some good may come of it accidentally – the possible removal of Starmer as party leader.
Around 20 of his MPs rebelled against his demand to abstain on the Bill’s second reading. Yesterday (October 15), 34 defied his whip – including eight who resigned from front bench roles to do so:
Here are the 34 Labour MPs who voted against the Tories’ Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill tonight.
The law makes it legal for the state to authorise the murder of political opponents.
The fact Keir Starmer whipped Labour to abstain on outright Fascism is truly horrifying. pic.twitter.com/SMvXPDaUNa
It is with regret that I did not vote with my party on the #spycops bill. Joined by a significant number of other Labour MPs. The stakes were too high in my view to abstain. I always remember Nye Bevan who said 'if you sit in the centre of the road you eventually get run over.'
I have voted against the Covert Human Intelligence Sources bill and so have tendered my resignation from my position as Shadow Schools Minister. I wrote to Keir Starmer before the vote. I’d like to thank Keir for having given me the opportunity to serve on Labour’s front bench. pic.twitter.com/9BmfqhciHz
Today I voted against the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill and resigned as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Andy McDonald MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Employment Rights. Please read my statement below. 👇https://t.co/Aw7LQXAcHC
It was an honour to serve as Angela Rayner's PPS and I thank her for the opportunity, but as a lifelong trade unionist and a campaigner for social justice I could see no rationale for a second abstention. I am still totally committed to campaigning for a Labour government.
This evening, I again voted against the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill which I fear undermines our democracy and our commitment to champion human rights. #CHISBill
Much of this can be attributed to Starmer’s own attitude, which suggests that he actually supports the Bill’s demand that government agents be allowed to commit any crime without fear of prosecution for it later – any crime at all, including the murder of the Tories’ political opponents:
this is what 166 Labour MPs have ultimately waved through. A dark day and one that ought to go down in infamy in the history of the British labour movement https://t.co/tGqYwneveJpic.twitter.com/pjt3izkhtm
Discontent with his lack of opposition to the worst Tory government in history is growing, and already there are rumours of a leadership challenge in 2021:
We are once again calling on all socialist Labour MPs to start making preparations for a leadership challenge in 2021. #StarmerOut
Political developments are strange; they don’t happen the way anybody expects – unless that person is very far-sighted indeed.
The Zinoviev Letter led to the fall of a Labour government – but only in a roundabout way. Labour’s vote increased in the general election; it was the collapse of the Liberal vote that allowed the Conservatives their victory.
It would be ironic if now, nearly a century after that attempt to end a socialist government, a piece of legislation that legalises espionage against the party that formed that government actually led to its re-founding as a socialist organisation once again.
That is the only comforting thought I can raise from what is, in all other respects, a disaster for democracy.
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