Wow. The “charismatic” Tory MP Nick Fletcher wants a debate in Parliament to blow the lid off the socialist conspiracy of “15-minutes cities” and “20-minute neighbourhoods”.
These are conurbations in which all the facilities on which we rely are available to us within 15 or 20 minutes’ walking or cycling distance.
Apparently it comes in tandem with “Clean Air Zones” and is a plan to restrict people to travelling only within 15 or 20 minutes of their home.
Are these people for real?
Fortunately, it seems not. Fletcher was not the first to come out with this idea, apparently. It’s been put forward by someone called ‘Hatey’ Katie Hopkins, as you can see in the following clip:
What do you think?
No – not about the plan, which is conspiracy-theory lunacy.
About Nick Fletcher and this Katie Hopkins person, and the mentality that comes up with this.
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Rishi Sunak and Nick Robinson: the former chancellor might have scored on rhetoric, but it seems he failed badly on factual accuracy.
Apparently Nick Robinson was supposed to be hosting a debate between Tory leadership candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, but Sunak was the only one who turned up.
How lucky for him that he wasn’t interviewing for the role of village idiot – as the old Two Ronnies (I think) joke has it, he would have been disqualified.
My point, of course, is that his answers suggest he might as well be interviewing for such a role.
Let’s take a look at the BBC’s report of its own interview:
Rishi Sunak has said he would rather lose the Tory leadership race than “win on a false promise”.
In a BBC interview, the former chancellor said he would tell people what “they needed to hear” and stay “true” to his values.
He added the next PM had a “moral responsibility” to support poorer households with payments for energy bills.
And he said rival Liz Truss’s plan for tax cuts would not help the most needy.
He told the BBC’s Nick Robinson he would spend billions of pounds on further targeted payments to pensioners and those on low incomes.
The former chancellor said tax cuts would “not help the millions of people who don’t pay enough tax,” whilst his plan for winter payments would ensure support for those “that most need our help”.
He said it was too early to put a precise figure on the extra payments, or how much they would cost to deliver.
However, he suggested they would compensate for a projected £400 increase in bills compared to predictions earlier this year.
These extra payments would come on top of a £15bn package of payments he announced as chancellor in May.
Pushed on whether the extra payments would cost a “few billion” or more than £10bn, he replied: “It’s much closer to former than the latter.”
He said the “temporary” support would be made by increasing the scale of payments to pensioners and low-income households due in the autumn.
He said his plan to cut VAT on energy bills, announced earlier in the campaign, would ensure people of all incomes receive some help.
So he’d rather lose than win on a false promise, would he? What about a whole slew of inaccurate or uninformed statements?
That’s what a friend of This Site, on Facebook, suggested:
I listened, with a degree of analysis and bewilderment, to tonight’s next PM debate led by some fierce questioning by Nick Robinson. I thought this was a two horse race, but the second one couldn’t be bothered to turn up, that doesn’t bode well Liz Truss.
I listened and whilst he sounded reasonably cogent, his answers on almost everything simply didn’t add up. We are looking down the barrels of massive unaffordable energy bills, he referred vaguely to the £300 winter fuel payment as if it was new, Rishi, it’s been in place for years. He could not offer any explanation over border control, other than to say everyone coming here was illegal, sorry Rishi but we have a process of determining legality only once people have arrived on our shores, so zero points on that one.
He failed miserably on affordability, it was almost as if imposing cuts on energy bill vat was out of scope, there was nothing on how the energy firms’ profits need to be capped, infrastructure investment needs to be put on hold until you have ascertained customer affordability, a fat lot of good if hardly anyone can afford to pay these hugely unaffordable bills, another big fail Rishi. Closing Hinkley Point really didn’t help, would it not have made a whole lot more sense to have had the new one up and running first before shutting down the old? How much more are we paying for supplies from Russia as a result? Perhaps you’d like to include that info on the suppliers extortionate bills?
Sunak’s pledges to the most vulnerable were broken pie crust, almost pathetic I would say. Does he even know the applicable amount for a single person on basic benefit, not even £80 a week, how does that work out Rishi? Let’s do the maths, predicted energy bills of 4K a year from next January, That averages at £76.92 per week, how does that work out Rishi? Another fail I’d say.
Not a single mention of the housing crisis and unaffordability of extortionate private rental figures, that was a fail on the part of Nick R not not squeeze that one in. The reality is LA’s are paying extortionate amounts to keep people in hotels at around £500 + per week, who benefits from that?
There was so much else, much of it swept under the carpet, but I give credit to Sunak for at least turning up.
This is a person who used to work for Citizens Advice, and continues to help people on a freelance basis; he knows his stuff when it comes to the cost of living, what is affordable and what the poorest people need.
Who does This Writer believe, then – the BBC or my Facebook friend?
It’s not even a choice.
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Boozy Johnson: this is the image everybody is using to illustrate the story about Boris Johnson being pictured with a beer at his birthday party in the Cabinet Office on June 19, 2020 – while the rest of us were stuck in our homes on lockdown. It was actually taken in 2019.
The lies keep being found out, don’t they?
After Boris Johnson was revealed to have attended a birthday party for him in the Cabinet Office on June 19, 2020, when the UK was locked down and all indoor social gatherings were illegal, Downing Street defended him.
“He was there for less than 10 minutes,” a spokeswoman said.
It has now been alleged that Sue Gray has handed the police an image of Johnson holding a can of Estrella beer, taken towards the end of that party, when few people were there, and strangely Downing Street suddenly has nothing to say.
The picture was, apparently, taken by Johnson’s official taxpayer-funded photographer who was said to be documenting the event.
So it seems logical for the police to call in Andrew Parsons (the photographer) and check the data on his camera to find out when the images were taken and how long Johnson was really at the event.
Meanwhile, claims by MPs like Conor Burns that Johnson was “ambushed by a cake” are being disowned – Johnson said he didn’t have one and it seems none of the 300 party images Ms Gray has handed to the police show any cake at all.
Downing Street may be tight-lipped about the situation but former Tory schools minister Nick Gibb hasn’t; he’s the latest MP to submit a letter of “no confidence” in Johnson to the chair of their backbench 1922 committee.
Writing in the Telegraphhe said his constituents were “furious about the double standards” and that “to restore trust, we need to change the prime minister”.
He said Covid restrictions imposed by Johnson were “flagrantly disregarded” in Downing Street, and the PM was inaccurate when, in December, he told the House of Commons there was no party.
“Some argue that eating a few canapes with a glass of prosecco is hardly a reason to resign. But telling the truth matters, and nowhere more so than in the House of Commons where, like a court of law, truth must be told regardless of the personal consequences,” he wrote.
His resignation call follows – and endorses – that of Aaron Bell, who on Monday (January 31) asked if Johnson took him for a fool for following the rules himself – including not hugging his family at his grandmother’s funeral, or going for a cup of tea after the service.
In a statement he published on Twitter, Mr Bell said he had written his “no confidence” letter on January 12 but only submitted it yesterday (February 4) after speaking with local councillors and candidates in his constituency:
I have submitted a letter to Sir Graham Brady.
Please see the statement attached explaining my reasons.
He said he “could not square the Prime Minister’s words from the despatch box with his previous statements to the House before Christmas. Subsequently I have also struggled to reconcile assurances given directly to me with the implications of Sue Gray’s interim findings.”
He added: “The breach of trust that the events in No 10 Downing Street represent, and the manner in which they have been handled, makes his position untenable.”
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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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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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Nicholas Paget-Brown, former leader of Kensington Council, has set up NPB Consulting [Image: Mark Kerrison/Alamy Stock Photo].
Let’s get this straight: The Tory politician who tried to hold a council meeting about the fire at Grenfell Tower in secret – and had to resign because of the ensuing row – is now advising businesses on how to work with councils?
The man who, as leader of Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council, allowed firms to get away with putting dangerous flammable material all over a housing block is now offering advice to firms on how to get what they want?
Does anybody else think it would be a bad idea to associate with him at all?
Still, it does show one thing:
Tories have no shame.
Nicholas Paget-Brown, the former leader of Kensington Council, has set up a consultancy service for organisations who wish to work with local authorities.
Paget-Brown, who was forced to resign last month in the wake of the council’s response to the Grenfell Tower disaster, has set up NPB Consulting.
According to his LinkedIn page, the company offers “policy analysis, seminars, briefings and drafting assistance”.
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