Tag Archives: phone

The news in tweets: Thursday, July 13, 2023

Martin Lewis: he’s really not happy with Oliver Dowden.

This one’s for all of you who want some real news alongside your daily revelations about “BBC presenter” – or who simply didn’t care about that ‘dead cat’ story.

Martin Lewis corrects the record after Oliver Dowden falsely claimed he supported the Tories

Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis does not take kindly to suggestions that he supports any political party over the others.

So it was only to be expected that, after Oliver Dowden claimed he supported the government on a point in the government’s Mortgage Charter, he would be… miffed.

Here’s what he had to say:

For those of you who can’t (or can’t be bothered to) click on “Show more”, he continued: ‘…benches.”

‘I am party independent. I’ve had constructive conversations with both the Chancellor and the Shadow Chancellor about mortgage support.

‘I do not appreciate being used in party-political spats. It is correct that I support those specific measures in the mortgage charter, mainly as they were my suggestions (so in a way ‘they’re’ supporting what ‘I’ said) and both major parties proposed similar – but that should not be taken as a read-across to favouring any party, even just within the mortgage agenda.’

This Writer wondered, after PMQs, how many falsehoods Dowden would be caught out on in deputy Prime Minister’s Questions this week. I named two at the time.

This is another. How many more were there?

Join the demonstration to save ticket offices

This is happening today (Thursday, July 12, 2023). Information courtesy of the Peace and Justice Project founded by Jeremy Corbyn:

The government’s plans to close 1,000 ticket offices in England – this latest attack on railway workers – puts thousands of jobs at risk and, if these proposed changes go ahead, there will be serious implications on millions of elderly, disabled and vulnerable commuters who rely on the personal touch of a ticket office to arrange and support their travel.

We must resist these closures.

Tomorrow, the RMT is hosting a national day of action, leafleting and speaking to commuters outside train stations up and down the country. And in London there will be a demo outside Kings Cross with speakers including Jeremy Corbyn. Together, we must demand that ticket offices remain open – click here to find your nearest action.

The opposition to these ticket office closures has been immense, with commuters writing in to local papers, posting on social media and making it known that they oppose these closures. The government have also opened a consultation on these closures which closes in just two weeks. If you haven’t already, please fill in the consultation – click here, select your local train station and make your views known.

Write to your MP

You can also write to your MP and ask them to raise this issue in Parliament and support the campaign to save our ticket offices. You can use this letter-writing tool, created by our comrades at the RMT, which only takes a few minutes to fill out. As the consultation period is brief, it is absolutely vital that we ensure this issue is at the very top of the parliamentary agenda in the weeks to come.  Click on the link and demand your MP stands up for railway workers and the millions of commuters who rely on them to support their journeys.

Sign the petition to make sure the Tories stick to the law – and don’t send any refugees to Rwanda

Are we seriously being asked to believe nobody in Boris Johnson’s office or the government knows how to switch on a phone?

Look at this, which I believe is from the Covid Inquiry. Simon Case is the Cabinet Secretary and head of the civil service:

“I thought it was handed over” is legal-speak to avoid actually saying anything.

In fact, we all know the phone wasn’t handed over. Apparently Boris Johnson has a ‘team’, alongside people from – oh dear – the Cabinet Office, trying to switch on ‘Phone 1’, but none of them know how to do it.

They say they fear security breaches, because the phone’s number was public knowledge for 15 years before Johnson twigged that this might be a bad idea and switched it off in April 2021 (if you believe in that sort of thing).

In fact, if anyone interested in breaching the UK’s security wanted to hack that phone, they would have done it long before Johnson got near the “off” switch. Also, any compromising information in it should have been changed long ago. There really is no reason not to simply switch it back on.

Alternatively, since WhatsApp messages aren’t actually stored on the phone anyway, why don’t they all just access the cloud storage that actually does hold that information, as people (including This Writer) have been telling them to do for many months?

While the government was defending itself for painting over mural at one child refugee centre, it was painting over other murals at other centres

This is cruelty for its own sake:

Lords defeat Tory government again over Illegal Migration Bill

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The news in tweets: Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Who thought we could see this again? It perfectly sums up Boris Johnson’s behaviour towards the Covid Inquiry over his mobile phone and the WhatsApp messages therein.

Boris Johnson refuses to hand over mobile phone containing Covid WhatsApps by inquiry deadline

This is more complicated than it seems. If you were to take Carol Vorderman’s tweet at face value…

… you might think she was saying he hasn’t handed over any of the WhatsApp messages he received and sent at that time. This is not true.

The story is about “Phone 1” – the telephone he used up until April 2021, but (allegedly) switched off amid claims that it could have been hacked by a foreign power.

Johnson himself reckons he is trying to comply with the Covid Inquiry’s demand for the information but is working with government security officials on a way to turn on the old phone without creating a security emergency.

But here’s the thing: the security breach happened long ago – he switched the phone off (he says) because it emerged that his phone number had been public knowledge for 15 years. Apparently this means it could have been hacked.

In that case, it seems to sane people, he should have left it on and handed it to the security people two years ago, so they could work out what possibly compromising information could have been lifted from it by hostile foreign governments (or even teenage hackers living down the road).

He didn’t do that, so…

Yes. When will that happen?

Oh, and it should be possible to retrieve the WhatsApp messages by other means anyway. Why haven’t these “experts” tried that already?

Government response to ‘Kindertransport’ lord on removal of mural at child refugee centre is shockingly insensitive

Lord Alf Dubs, who was himself once a refugee from a foreign country (Germany before World War II – he was a Jewish child who arrived on the Kindertransport) asked the government why it cruelly ordered that a welcoming mural at a child refugee centre in Kent should be over-painted. Here’s the response:

Jessica Simor is right: it is incredibly insensitive of this Tory lord to tell a fellow peer – who was welcomed into the UK as a child – that national policy is now to make the country as unwelcoming as possible.

It seems the government has regressed – de-civilised – during the last 13 years of Tory misrule.

The big Tory wage lie

Read:

Why would the Tories say wages are rising at record rates?

Could it be to justify their demand that they need to be held down in order to slow inflation?

If so, it’s a false argument – as Richard Burgon makes clear:

Here’s some proof about the corporate profits:

Sainsbury’s wouldn’t be paying its chief executive so much if he wasn’t raking in the Long Green.

So it’s definitely the big profits that are pushing up inflation. And what is the Tory government doing about it?

Look:

And here’s a pertinent comment on that choice:

He’s joined in his crackdown on your livelihood by fellow millionaire Andrew Bailey, head honcho at the Bank of England:

Is this the reason Ed Balls tried to dominate the discussion of George Osborne’s wedding on Monday?

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Labour voting-intentions data can’t help harvesters because it’s probably changed now

Oh dear. It seems a Labour Party system for storing people’s voting intentions may have been compromised by people who may want to use it for mischief.

I write “may” for a good reason.

Here’s the story:

The voting intentions of millions of Britons in local authority wards across the country could have been at risk of misuse as a result of a glitch in the Labour party’s main phone-banking system, the Guardian understands.

Experts had warned that the sensitive data could potentially have been harvested via an automated program and used for targeted election interference by campaign groups or even hostile states.

More than half a million Labour party members have access to the Dialogue system, used by activists to make calls to the public for a variety of reasons, including to ascertain how they are planning to vote.

However, within just a few clicks, the glitch meant that they could also access sensitive information including postcodes, which – when combined with voting intentions – would potentially have allowed them to generate a list of millions of people across Britain.

I wonder how much use it will be.

Depending on when the information was received, and bearing in mind the way the current Labour leadership has behaved, it is entirely possible that a lot of people who said they’d vote Labour have changed their minds.

Similarly, people who said they’d vote for the Tories may also have changed their minds and opted for Keir Starmer’s slightly-less-right-wing party.

And I remember from my time on Labour’s phone banks that a few people said they’d vote one way, and then didn’t.

In fact, I don’t think any of that information can be trusted. Could it ever?

Source: Labour glitch put voting intentions data of millions at risk | Labour | The Guardian

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Smartphone users: did you know your mobile is about to become a siren?

Were you aware of this? I wasn’t!

The first nationwide test of a public warning system that sends alerts to UK mobile phones will take place at 3pm on Sunday 23 April.

The emergency alerts system is designed to broadcast urgent messages in the event of a disaster such as severe flooding, fires or extreme weather.

Mobiles with a 4G or 5G signal will emit a loud siren-like sound, receive a message on their home screen and vibrate for up to 10 seconds.

Here’s the part that really surprises me:

The national test comes 10 years after the Cabinet Office conducted its first successful trials. In 2013 the government concluded that “not only would alerts be seen as a useful service by the public but that it would also be an effective way of getting people to take specific protective action during an emergency”.

In that case – and knowing that similar systems operate in other countries, including the US, Canada, the Netherlands and Japan – one can only ask one obvious question:

Why the 10-year delay?

Source: ‘Sound that could save your life’: UK disaster alert to buzz phones on 23 April | Emergency services | The Guardian

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Is this the reason Rishi Sunak u-turned on attending COP 27? [VIDEO – SATIRE]

If you were wondering why Rishi Sunak suddenly decided to attend the COP 27 climate change summit after all – and you’re not convinced that it was because Boris Johnson said he’d be going, then here’s an alternative (but even less convincing) explanation:

… or IS it less convincing?

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Tory government suppressed hacking of Liz Truss’s phone, it’s claimed – to protect Braverman?

Hacked: the photo is a mock-up – but it’s indicative of her communication skills that she was reckoned not to be able even to hold a phone properly.

Information is valuable – depending on the timing of its release.

Take the claim that Liz Truss had such poor security, as Foreign Secretary, that her phone was hacked around April and hundreds of confidential documents were copied from it – including information about the war in Ukraine and political conversations with Kwasi Kwarteng.

It is being said that the facts were known over the summer but were prevented from becoming public knowledge by Boris Johnson and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case. Why?

Was it to protect Truss while she was making her bid to become prime minister?

That would be corruption of a very high order and all those involved should be punished – if the corrupt UK legal system defines a crime that covers it.

Some details are on the BBC website here – and this is how I found out: I discovered them on Twitter (I was at a family function and not at my desk):

But let’s get back to timing. Why are we learning about this now? Could it be because Home Secretary Suella Braverman is in trouble, after being reappointed to her job despite revelations of multiple security breaches from her own phone?

Some certainly think so…

But these are two very similar stories. Why not combine them and reach the obvious conclusion?

And what do you think that conclusion is?

It’s that Conservative ministers leak like sieves and shouldn’t be anywhere near confidential information. Right?

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Tory activists are calling talk radio phone-ins to attack strikers

LBC and Nick Ferrari should vet their callers a little better, perhaps?

It seems a pro-Tory journalist phoned Ferrari’s radio show to claim that nurses – who are currently being balloted on strike action – should not go out on strike because now is not the time.

She also claimed that nurses are on £27,000 a year and are therefore not hard-up.

In fairness, Ferrari asked, “If not now – when?”

And the journalist caller complained about her own salary and said she would love to earn as much as nurses. I wonder how much she does earn, writing for the Torygraph and the Spectator?

Here’s the clip:

The message is clear: the people in the Tory government know they can’t win any arguments by lying to us about nurses, so they’re putting their stooges up to repeat the lies as though they were members of the public like you.

Beware.

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Are government staff really being ordered to break the law over #DowningStreetParties?

What they want erased: Downing Street staff are being ordered to erase information on their mobile phones relating to the alleged Downing Street lockdown-busting parties. Note that this image from the May 2020 event shows Boris Johnson sitting next to the organiser, Martin Reynolds, with a bottle of wine on the table. And he says he didn’t realise it was a party?

This is damning: it seems staff at 10 Downing Street have been ordered to clear their mobile phones of any information that could suggest lockdown parties were held there. This is a criminal offence.

According to the Independent,

Two sources claim a senior member of staff told them it would be a “good idea” to remove any messages implying they had attended or were even aware of anything that could “look like a party”.

It’s on Twitter too:

For clarity, this is what it means:

Interesting, that.

Boris Johnson claimed he had changed his phone altogether in order to avoid responsibility for failing to pass on WhatsApp messages about the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat. Was that a criminal offence?

And Lord Bethell, the Tory then-minister responsible for awarding Covid-19-related contracts that bypassed the normal procurement system, replaced his mobile phone before it could be searched for information relevant to £85m of deals that are subject to a legal challenge. An offence?

If so, then this former minister and Prime Minister should be subject to prosecution.

Ah, but they’re members of Parliament and therefore above the law, aren’t they?

Downing Street staff aren’t. They should think very carefully before erasing anything from their phones.

In fact, they should probably take their phones to the police.

Experts can easily restore erased material anyway.

Source: No 10 staff told to ‘clean up’ phones amid lockdown party allegations | The Independent

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False positive: Vox Political’s Covid journey was brief… for now

Test results: presumably this is the way my PCR test turned out.

The text message came in just after 7pm yesterday (Wednesday): “Your coronavirus PCR test (or other lab test) result is negative. It’s likely you did not have the virus when the test was done.”

So my lateral flow test was a false positive. What a relief – or at least, it would have been if Mrs Mike’s negative result hadn’t come in a couple of minutes earlier. So I was mentally prepared.

And it seems I’m not the only one to have a welcome surprise…

In fact the greatest relief was the fact that I don’t have to put up with texts, emails and phone calls from various Covid-related government organisations.

Oh, the bureaucracy!

I had seven texts from ‘NHSresult’ and three from ‘NHSWALESTTP’ (the track and trace mob).

I also had a phone call from track and trace, who stopped being interested when I started listing people I’d met and places I’d been, and opted to email me a questionnaire instead.

The instructions with the LFT kit said I had to notify the NHS online, so I logged in and went through a lengthy process to identify myself and provide my test result. Then the site told me to order a PCR test for myself and anybody else, meaning I then had to go through the same lengthy identification procedure I’d just been through, plus a new lengthy ID process so I could get a test for Mrs Mike as well.

I then received a further nine emails telling me what to do, what not to do, and where not to do it.

And I had to go online again to fill in that contact tracing questionnaire.

Blimey!

If I’d really had the virus, I wonder whether I would have been up to any of it.

But I don’t have the virus. Or at least, I don’t have that virus.

I do have something, it seems. Don’t know what but the symptoms are persisting.

So, while I don’t have to self-isolate any more (thank goodness!) I’ll be cooling the social life for a while – especially after what I heard about what people who really do have Covid-19 have been doing.

After all, if I don’t have Covid now, I can still catch it any time.

Next time I go to the pub, you’ll know who I am. I’ll be the one wearing two masks, with a cover over his pint, sucking it up through a straw.

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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How will minister be punished for replacing phone before it could be searched?

Lord Bethell: he previously claimed he never used his private accounts for official business so we know he’s a liar. Shouldn’t he be sacked by the Tory government?

The answer is that Lord Bethell probably won’t be punished at all.

But if he were involved in a criminal investigation (and he might as well be – as the awarding of many deals for supply of Personal Protective Equipment to Tory chums and/or donors who were incapable of providing it seems extremely crooked) and he ditched the evidence, he would be charged with a crime.

Here are the facts:

Labour has called for an inquiry into the use of WhatsApp within the government, after it emerged a health minister replaced his mobile phone before it could be searched for information relevant to £85m of deals that are subject to a legal challenge.

James Bethell, who oversaw the award of Covid contracts, is one of those under scrutiny over the way deals for personal protective equipment (PPE) and tests were allocated at the height of the pandemic.

As part of legal proceedings issued by the Good Law Project, the government is expected to disclose Lord Bethell’s correspondence including by email, WhatsApp and SMS relating to the award of £85m of contracts for antibody tests to Abingdon Health.

The secretary of state has a responsibility to preserve and search documents for information relevant to the case from the point at which judicial review proceedings were issued in late 2020, under the government’s “duty of candour”.

However, a witness statement from a government lawyer revealed Bethell replaced his phone in early 2021 and it may no longer be possible to retrieve the information about his dealings with Abingdon, although efforts are being made to recover them from his mobile phone provider.

The statement said Bethell had used his official email account as well as his private email account to send and receive emails relevant to the contracts, and that he had also used his mobile phone for SMS and WhatsApp messages. But it said Bethell had confirmed that about six months ago his phone was broken and replaced and that his new phone did not contain the phone data.

Government lawyers revealed Bethell had not been issued with a “preservation notice” requiring him to save documents because ministers’ official correspondence was routinely saved as a matter of course. However, this did not cover government business conducted by private means.

What does he have to hide?

When they’re under an investigation with legal consequences, people with nothing to fear don’t destroy the evidence.

And Bethell must know that the information will be available by other means – although logically there shouldn’t be anything to stop him from reactivating his WhatsApp, SMS and private email accounts. Why hasn’t he done so?

The fact that government preservation notices don’t cover business conducted by private means, while government ministers are allowed to carry out government business in that way and are trusted to duplicate it into the public system, is a huge opening for corruption.

And it seems clear that this particular minister has exploited it.

Maybe I’m wrong – and I’ll be happy to apologise of Lord Bethell can provide clear proof that he was not responsible for any wrongdoing.

But I won’t hold my breath waiting for it.

Source: Covid contracts: minister replaced phone before it could be searched | Health policy | The Guardian

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