This being a bank holiday weekend, This Writer is either otherwise occupied or almost totally incapacitated, so I’m putting up material that has interested me – and I hope it interests you. Make of it what you will:
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Carry on polluting: Boris Johnson’s – and Tory in general – short-sightedness means coal-fired power plants will remain open for the foreseeable future. He’s blackmailing us by saying it’s that or power cuts when winter comes.
How fortuitous for fossil fuel profiteers.
Boris Johnson’s government has ordered Britain’s last coal-fired power plants to remain open this winter after predictions warned up to six million households could be affected by power cuts.
The excuse is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but it’s really because successive Tory governments since 2010 have ignored renewable energy sources in favour of helping fossil fuel corporations maintain their profits by stinking up the country with their greenhouse gas pollutants.
Downing Street confirmed a request had been made to keep coal power plants running, which had been scheduled to wind down operations by the autumn.
The move has raised questions about whether plans to slash carbon emissions were still on track, as the heavily polluting fuel source had been due to be phased out.
A Government spokesman has said it was still committed to ending coal power use by 2024.
Yeah, right. And what excuse will they use when 2024 rolls around and it still hasn’t been turned off?
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Sulky: Boris Johnson thought he could gaslight us all with a report on racism that pretended it doesn’t exist in the UK’s government and institutions. He was wrong. Will he grow up, throw it away and make a start on tackling race prejudice? I think we all know the answer to that.
Boris Johnson is facing demands by more than 20,000 people to withdraw a report claiming there’s no institutional racism in the UK.
Instead, they say in an open letter that he should implement recommendations from previous investigations, to combat the institutional racism that Johnson’s report claims isn’t there.
Organisations including Charity So White, Liberty, the National Education Union, The Runnymede Trust and, yes, Black Lives Matter called on Johnson to “repudiate the … findings immediately and withdraw [the] report”.
Recommendations by Johnson’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities included:
Forcing school children from disadvantaged areas into extended school days to catch up on missed learning caused by the Covid-19 lockdown.
Better quality careers advice for children from disadvantaged backgrounds – to be funded by university outreach programmes (This Writer has a few doubts about whether this would happen in any case).
Research on why children from some communities do better than those from others, in order to replicate conditions that help all children succeed (again, this seems unlikely to happen).
Retirement of the acronym BAME because minority ethnic groups should be recognised for their differences rather than their mutual disadvantages (but doesn’t this open them up to discrimination because of those differences, which is exactly what the report should be avoiding?) and an end to unconscious bias training.
People named as contributors to the report have distanced themselves from it, with some saying government representatives used false pretences to secure their participation, or misrepresented their contribution.
An expert on race-related health inequalities said the report used outdated references and notably underplayed the impact of structural racism in health outcomes.
Sir Michael Marmot said there are health differences between races that are not fully explained by class, and so therefore racism must play some role.
And these are just some of the criticisms that have been lined up against Johnson’s report.
That’s why its lame recommendations have been dismissed by the more-than-20,000 signatories of the open letter.
They want recommendations from previously-published reports to be put into practice instead, like:
The Home Office appointing a Migrants Commissioner, develop a programme of cultural change for the department, and establish a race advisory board.
The justice system introducing targets for a more representative workforce, to reduce race-related bias; allowing low-level offenders to “defer” prosecution and opt for a rehabilitation programme before entering a plea; and gathering more data on the ethnicity and religion of offenders.
Firms with more than 50 workers publishing a breakdown of their workforce by race and by how much they are paid (to establish any disparities between the different races).
To be honest, to This Writer, even these ideas seem like pussyfooting around the subject.
Those other reports, and Marmot’s work, and no doubt many others, have already established that the UK’s institutions are racist, and if measures to combat that racism haven’t been devised already, then I have to ask what all these commissions, organisations and pressure groups have been doing with their time.
So let’s have a bit of honesty about the real situation in the UK.
And then let’s have a bit of real action to put the prejudice in the past.
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Nadhim Zahawi: waving the flag and fuddling the dates.
Should we give Nadhim Zahawi the benefit of the doubt for this faux-pas? No!
If it was an honest mistake, we should remind ourselves that Diane Abbott was given no quarter for making one, even after it was revealed that she had been trying to cope with an illness at the time.
You can still see right-wing commenters on the social media referring to it at periodic intervals, and congratulating themselves on their (small) wit for doing it.
Zahawi appears to have no such excuse for this:
In which the Vaccines Minister literally claims the schools are opening at the beginning of March because that’s three weeks after the middle of April pic.twitter.com/UCXAz5YD95
He quite clearly does assert that the Conservative government has calculated that it should be safe to open schools on March 8 because that is three weeks after mid-April, when everybody aged over 50 is expected to have been vaccinated.
Firstly, it is entirely arbitrary to use the vaccination of the over-50s as a trigger for the reopening of schools. Why not over-40s? Over-30s? Or indeed, over-20s? All are just as likely to be affected.
Secondly – and I come to this last because it’s a biggie! – March 8 is not three weeks after mid-April. That would be May 8. March 8 is around five weeks before mid-April.
So by his own calculations, the minister for Covid-19 vaccination is telling is that his government is planning to reopen schools an entire two months prematurely.
I look forward to hearing his justification for the deaths that will be triggered by this wrong-headed decision to open all schools, too early, rather than experiment with a phased reopening, increasing as evidence recommends – as the other countries of the UK are doing.
Although, no doubt, it will be equally incomprehensible.
Boris Johnson may have an opportunity to correct this cock-up when he officially announces his “roadmap out of lockdown” later today (if that is still going ahead).
That’s if our complicit Tory media remember they have a responsibility to grill him about it.
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Questionable behaviour: the party that once put out the above as an election communication has been gathering information on UK voters by race and religion. What harm do you think they were going to do with it?
Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party bought tools to work out voters’ race and religion and used it for “racial and religious profiling” of 10 million people before the 2019 election, the Information Commissioner’s Office has revealed.
The Open Rights Group has said the data could have been used for “voter suppression techniques”, and referred to Tory Zac Goldsmith’s 2016 London Mayoral campaign, when he was criticised for ethnicity-targeted leaflets aimed at Hindu, Sikh and Tamil voters.
There is no evidence to suggest that the Tories used the information in any specific way in the 2019 election campaign.
The Open Rights Group has released this video, in which ICO staff explain that it was illegal to collect ethnicity data:
But @ICOnews still hasn't explained what else the parties are doing that has broke the law. That's why ORG supporters made an official complaint to ensure the ICO spell this out. pic.twitter.com/IFcyVKjtXD
Cat Smith, Labour’s shadow minister for voter engagement, said the revelation that the party in government – that is due to impose new, discriminatory voter identification laws – had been using illegal means to gather information is serious cause for alarm:
“The Conservative Party’s illegal misuse of ethnic race data – a characteristic protected by law – is deeply concerning.”
“With the government’s discriminatory Voter ID laws due to come into law this year, such racial profiling by the Party that is in charge of upholding our data protection laws raises serious alarm bells.”
Why would the Tories want to gather information that the law forbids them from taking, if not to give themselves an unfair electoral advantage?
What were they planning to do with it?
And why have they not even been punished?
We don’t know whose voter information received this “racial and religious profiling” treatment, so I think we all need to ask the Tories what they have been finding out about us.
We should all send a Subject Access Request to Conservative Central Office, demanding full disclosure of all information they have about us.
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Keir Starmer: if he can’t stop trying to make fools of us, he should keep his mouth shut.
Only a few days ago, Labour’s message was that the best thing for children was to go to their schools – and damn the scientists who said they had become localised Covid-19 petri-dishes!
Then Boris Johnson announced that the rate of infection and death had worsened to such a point that schools had to close after all, and Keir Starmer changed his tune in a flash.
On January 4 – the day Boris Johnson announced the so-called “Lockdown 3”, Starmer’s shadow education secretary Kate Green was saying, “We don’t think schools should close.” See for yourself:
The government has lost control of the virus. That’s why @UKLabour is calling for further restrictions to stop the spread while we roll out the vaccines and keep children learning. pic.twitter.com/GzgxzKqWr5
It makes a mockery of Starmer Labour’s claim that it wants the best for children.
All he has done is follow national developments and try to anticipate the mood of the population. Then he has tried to say what he thinks people want to hear.
It is no way for a politician to behave.
How can we trust someone who will say anything if they think it will win them a few votes?
Once upon a time – not very long ago – Labour had definite principles. It offered policies that were intended to make the United Kingdom a better place for all of its people.
But that was while Jeremy Corbyn led the party.
Before him, Labour had endured 20 years of triangulating schemers who said what they thought the public wanted to hear and then did what they wanted, following policies that made them a shadow of the Conservatives.
Under Starmer, the party has relapsed to that position.
Don’t get me wrong. If the scientific position on schools had changed, then it would have been right for Labour to reflect that.
But it didn’t.
The science has shown that schools are one of the principal means by which Covid-19 can get into the homes of families across the United Kingdom – since before the first lockdown in March 2020. That has not changed at any time since.
Boris Johnson changed his mind about whether schools should open – and Starmer changed right along with him, because he thought that was what the public wanted.
But we don’t.
The UK’s public want politicians who do what is right – not what they think is popular.
Their idea of what is popular is what has killed at least 80,000 of us so far.
As I write this, some English people will have been in the pub for more than 10 hours. I wonder how many of them have caught Covid-19 by now?
Here's to all the Super (spreader) Saturdie morons who trust @BorisJohnson and @RishiSunak, and will be putting themselves and everybody else in mortal danger by going to the pub.
People have camped outside and queued up to get into their local drinking establishments – forgetting the 2m social distancing rule in the process, This Writer notices.
— Al Murray – DKMS.ORG.UK (@almurray) July 4, 2020
Admittedly, Johnson has taken precautions. He told everybody to use their “common sense”:
Boris Johnson telling everyone to use their common sense (from 6am) tomorrow while clearly forgetting the same people he is addressing had fist fights for the last 12 pack of Andrex and cleared the supermarket shelves of every single beer and lager, apart from Corona 🤦🏼♀️
The logic seems to be this. 'The infection rate is falling because we're doing certain things. So it's safe now to stop doing the things that are making the infection rate fall.'
So it seems likely that England is cruising towards another peak of infections, on a wave of alcohol – and lies.
Johnson claimed he would not ease lockdown if the ‘R’ rate – the rate at which Covid-19 infections multiply, edged above 1 – that is, one person being infected for every person who already has the disease. But the ‘R’ rate is above 1 now in many parts of England and he hasn’t said a word.
Boris Johnson, May 2020: “If the R goes up again, we will not hesitate to put on the brakes”
I'm old enough to remember when MPs lost their job for a bit of outdoor nooky, or someone finding out they did a line or two of coke at uni. Surreal isn't really the word for living through the normalisation of everyday political manslaughter. https://t.co/SEE625y5ku
(It would make sense – Johnson might be expected to at least try to get back the £48 million he has given to the pub chain.)
Wetherspoons have been given £48.3 million. The ENTIRE music industry is asking for £50 million. One drains the NHS, treats employees like shit and does nothing to boost mental health. The other unites people in the worst of times and boosts mental health. Priorities.
— The Rock Fairy 🤘🏻🧚🏻♀️ (@TheRockFairyHQ) July 3, 2020
The decision to allow pubs to open is like spitting in the face of everybody at the NHS who has worked hard to keep the number of deaths down, despite the Tory government’s continued failure to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) or carry out tests to any recognisable standard (because Johnson was determined to outsource provision of these to private firms that failed us all). NHS staff have protested…
"It's not the time to be opening pubs at 6am"
NHS staff have marched to Downing St in protest of the government's handling of the #COVID19 pandemic.
… but it is impossible to reason with blank stupidity. That’s why this is likely to be accurate:
EXCLUSIVE: List of confirmed opening times for Super Saturday.
11:00 – Red Lion 12:00 – King's Head 13:00 – Royal Oak 14:00 – Rose and Crown 21:00 – NHS Nightingale
— Have I Got News For You (@haveigotnews) July 4, 2020
Of course, some of us might hope that certain people catch the virus, considering the way they have flouted all the other rules of lockdown…
Typhoid Nigel strikes again. Less than 2 weeks after returning from US. Not yet out of quarantine. Illegally infecting a pub near you https://t.co/crJrotlHCm
— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) July 4, 2020
The first claim is demonstrably a lie, as Farage was in Tulsa two weeks ago today. The second claim implicitly misstates the quarantine law in England: there's no "negative test" exception from the obligation to self-isolate for two weeks – https://t.co/I2HF7BOuQghttps://t.co/MQPNhYGpig
But we should all remember that if anybody gets it at all, they will not be to blame. They are, after all, only obeying the instructions of their government.
It might make you feel superior to blame people but the government has said it is safe to go to the pub. If you have a problem with that, you have a problem with government policy.
In a few hours times there will be images of people queued outside of pubs shared widely on here. These people will be accused of being idiots. But all they are doing is following the government line. When the second wave comes it’s the government that must be held accountable.
The government is to blame if there is a second wave, the government is to blame if there is a second wave, the government is to blame if there is a second wave, the government is to blame if there is a second wave, the government is to blame if there is a second wave.
— Helen STAY SAFE Holland (@helenhbristol) July 4, 2020
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Social distancing? If this shot was taken after primary classes returned from lockdown, do you think these kids are at least two metres apart – or the teacher and child in the background?
The Tory government has shelved its plan to fully reopen primary schools before the summer holidays after admitting it is impractical.
Schools are unable to accommodate all their pupils while classes are limited to just 15 pupils – half normal size. Where would the other half go?
It would be impossible to police all the pupils, ensuring that social distancing rules were followed. Have you ever had to spend all day reminding a five-year-old not to do something they really want to do?
And then there’s the fact that pupils simply aren’t turning up. When schools reopened 10 days ago, predictions were that only half of Reception/Year 1 and Year 6 pupils would attend, with parents keeping the rest away due to fears of Covid-19 contagion.
In fact, only half of the predicted numbers actually turned up – a quarter of the expected intake.
And still social distancing rules aren’t being followed, if the image accompanying the BBC’s report (a version of which appears above) is indicative.
Most disappointing for This Writer has been the response of the Labour Party to the school reopening plan. Instead of standing up for parents and children across the UK, Red Tory Keir Starmer supported Gavin Williamson and Boris Johnson.
No amount of backtracking by Rebecca Long-Bailey can change that.
Labour should have listened to parents, teachers, and the education unions – all of whom spent weeks warning that the plan was nonsense – but didn’t.
I like the comment by ‘Molly’ in the BBC article: “”Until it is safe for Parliament to sit next to each other and until it’s ‘safe’ to cuddle your own blood mother, then how is it deemed safe to mix your children with numerous other households?”
It is a shambles that the Tory government owns – we must not forget that.
But Labour has lost a lot of confidence by supporting it.
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Uncannily accurate: The Conservative government’s genuine policy towards PIP claimants may as well be as it appears in this cartoon from 2017.
Liz Gumbley’s experience is shocking – and all-too-common.
She suffers from a lifelong progressive illness – multiple sclerosis, which is well-known to be increasingly debilitating.
Unfortunately, her assessment for Personal Independence Payment in 2015 was carried out by a physiotherapist who had no specialist knowledge of the condition.
The interview resulted in her losing the higher daily living rate of the benefit, despite having received it for the previous 17 years under the legacy benefit, Disability Living Allowance.
Apparently the reason she no longer deserved it was that she had been seen lifting a medium-sized handbag in order to retrieve a purse.
From this, the assessor – who had no experience of MS, remember – deduced that she was able to prepare and cook a meal, and disqualified her from receiving the extra cash on the higher daily living rate of PIP.
In fact, as supporting evidence from her own physiotherapist, her MS nurse and her husband demonstrated, Ms Gumbley was at high risk of burning or cutting herself due to cognition problems which meant she had not prepared a meal in five years at the time of the assessment.
Apparently the fact she was well-nourished, well-dressed, clean and of good appearance also counted against her.
She decided not to appeal, in fear that a tribunal would cut her benefit award even further.
The cut she did endure meant she had to cut back on exercise sessions that helped her keep her mobility, and her cognition and sensory problems have also worsened.
The Tory PIP assessment process actually contributes to the worsening of the claimant’s illness.
And the statistics show that Ms Gumbley is not alone in her experience: In a survey of nearly 900 people living with MS in the UK, two thirds (65 per cent) of respondents struggled to complete the PIP application form.
More than half (55 per cent) who had a face-to-face assessment don’t believe their assessor had a good understanding of MS.
And of the respondents who saw a copy of their assessment report, six in 10 (61 per cent) don’t believe it gave an accurate reflection of how MS affects them.
Ms Gumbley is appealing for supporters to sign an open letter to whoever forms the next government, calling for common-sense changes to the PIP assessment process.
She says people need a system they can trust, and should be able to rely on support without being in constant fear of having it taken away.
The MS Society’s open letter to the next UK Government, calling on it to make common sense changes to the PIP assessment process, can be found here.
In conclusion, Ms Gumbley made this cutting observation: “Calling it Personal Independence Payment is ridiculous. They’re not helping you to be independent.
“If you go to your assessment showing you’re ‘independent’ it goes against you.”
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Their partners-in-government, the Northern Irish DUP, have made it abundantly clear that they will not tolerate any hardening of borders between NI and the rest of the UK – and rightly so, in the opinion of This Writer.
But this clashes with the Good Friday Agreement that demands an open border with the Irish Republic; the problem is that the republic is in the EU and the UK must have a hard border with that bloc after Brexit.
So the Tories are preparing to stab the DUP in the back. Typical Tories.
There is no good answer to the issue. Ireland is in the EU and the UK must have a hard border with the EU and an open border with Ireland. It is not possible to resolve this – other than by imposing a hard border between NI and the rest of the UK.
Will this dissolve the agreement between the DUP and the Conservatives? Their pact depends on the NI party supporting the Tories on Brexit and this will not be possible if the Tories go through with the plan being proposed now.
And with the Lords dishing out defeat after defeat for the Tories on the EU Withdrawal Bill, this puts Theresa May and her cronies in a highly tricky situation.
One way or another, it seems the barricades will be going up soon.
A backup plan to impose border checks on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK at ports and airports to avoid a hard border with the Republic of Ireland after Brexit has been drafted by senior civil servants.
Despite the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) angrily rejecting any suggestion of a border “in the Irish Sea”, a leaked paper reveals that officials have been working on a blueprint “to be deployed as necessary in the negotiation process”.
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