Tag Archives: report

Forde Report: Pressure on Keir Starmer mounts

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Keir Starmer: why hasn’t he met Martin Forde KC? What Forde Report measures is Labour implementing, and how? And why is he being so tight-lipped about all this?

Labour leader Keir Starmer is facing more pressure to act on the recommendations of the Forde Report after its author, Martin Forde KC, revealed he had not been contacted since it was published in July last year.

People are drawing awkward conclusions, like this:

Labour seems to be saying that it is acting on the report. Here’s the vice-chair of the NEC equalities committee:

This is the same person’s response to calls for a meeting between Mr Forde and Labour:

It’s not a convincing response because the NEC’s decisions seem liable to be overruled by the party leader whenever he feels like it:

Of course the answer is that Mr Forde requested a meeting, in order to ensure that his recommendations were understood and any further action would be appropriate.

Compounding this, though, is the fact that Labour’s Forde working group asked to meet with him and were rebuffed:

Alongside this, there’s the fact that mainstream media journalists who practically camped on Jeremy Corbyn’s doorstep to ask him about anti-Semitism suddenly found that they didn’t have time to knock on Keir Starmer’s front door over this:

Then there’s the question of the BBC’s attempt to gag Mr Forde by demanding that he “amend” a critical section of his report:

And now other organisations are being brought into the debate, like the Muslim Council of Britain:

Who else will get involved?

Personally, This Writer would like to see representations from Black Lives Matter, if only to see what that group has to say about him describing that organisations as a “moment” and cynically taking the knee as a photo opportunity.

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Why is Keir Starmer ignoring racism and Islamophobia exposed by the Forde Report

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Starmer takes the knee for Black Lives Matter: to him it meant nothing more than a photo opportunity. Black lives don’t matter to him – as we discovered when he attacked the organisation shortly after. Now we find he’s turning a blind eye to racism identified in the report by Martin Forde KC.

Anti-black racism and Islamophobia in the Labour Party, raised by Martin Forde KC in his report to that organisation last summer, has been ignored by party leaders including Keir Starmer.

Starmer has not contacted Forde since he published his report confirming that anti-Semitism and other racism had been a battleground between left- and right-wing factionalists within Labour. It seems this was not what the party leader wanted to hear.

Fortunately for him, very few mainstream media journalists had been interestest either:

Yes – odd, that. Mainstream hacks had been able to doorstep Jeremy Corbyn at the drop of a hat, but Starmer seems uncontactable.

Worse, Starmer seems to have ignored concerns raised by black and minority ethnic figures within his own Parliamentary party:

Here’s some evidence to back up the assertion:

Strange how anti-Semitism against pro-Israel Zionists can be such a vital issue for Starmer, but racism against non-Zionist left-wing Jews, black people and Muslims gets a free pass.

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Months after the Forde Report was published, Labour STILL hasn’t contacted its author about future steps

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Keir Starmer: yet another own goal.

Martin Forde KC, the author of a major report on allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, has said there are serious issues of racism but, since it was published in July, nobody in the organisation has contacted him to discuss what should happen next.

Mr Forde told the Express

he has “anxiety” and “genuine underlying concerns” about “racial issues within the party”.

Referring to Sir Keir’s speech last month, in which the Labour leader said the party will “never again be brought to its knees by racism or bigotry”, Mr Forde said: “It is not a sufficient response to say ‘that was then this is now’.”

He added: “These are serious debates that need to be heard in a respectful context. And I just feel this there’s work to be done.”

His words come after he was interviewed by Middle Eastern broadcaster Al-Jazeera for an episode of its Labour Files documentary series, in which he claimed that the BBC Panorama documentary Is Labour Antisemitic had been “objectively entirely misleading”, and that he had been contacted by BBC representatives who wanted him to “amend” his comments on the show.

Here’s how the Al-Jazeera documentary describes what happened:

The documentary also suggests that Labour leader Keir Starmer has reneged on a promise to party members from ethnic minorities, that he would take the findings of the Forde Report seriously:

You can watch the whole documentary via the link below:

I think I would urge you to do so.

Top barrister attacks media falsehoods about Jeremy Corbyn and the EHRC report

Laughter: I doubt this has been Jeremy Corbyn’s reaction to the latest vain attempts to destroy his reputation, but let’s hope he gets a warm feeling from the fact that the rest of us are laughing at his detractors.

This is what I get for missing Not the Andrew Marr Show.

On Sunday, it featured award-winning human rights lawyer and former legal advisor to the Race Relations Board, Geoffrey Bindman KC, who exposed the failures of both The Guardian and The Observer to report the facts of the EHRC investigation into whether there was “institutional antisemitism” in the Labour Party when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.

Here’s a video clip of him doing it:

So now there’s a highly-distinguished legal analysis opposing these journalists’ unevidenced opinions.

I hear the Guardian has run more anti-Corbyn drivel on its letters page. Where’s the factual accuracy? Or did that leave mainstream newspaper reporting around the same time I did?

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Truss and Kwarteng LIED about independent report on their mini-budget. Should they resign?

It turns out the Office for Budget Responsibility provided Kwasi Kwarteng with a report on his mini-budget plans on September 6, the day he took office as Chancellor.

The OBR offered to update it with any extra information before Kwarteng’s ‘fiscal event’ on September 23 – and would have been able to provide this – but was not asked to do so.

Instead, Kwarteng refused to issue any OBR report on that day – claiming there was not enough time. This appears to have been a lie:

Truss is still refusing to publish the OBR’s assessment of her plans until November 23 – nearly three months after it was written.

So Kwarteng has lied to the nation and Truss has compounded that lie by refusing to rectify it.

And the reason?

The OBR’s report would have damned the plans in the “fiscal event” as economic suicide. Truss and Kwarteng were told what their plans would do, and they produced them anyway. Shouldn’t they resign for deceiving us like this?

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#Carriegate – tell the truth, media hacks: Johnson DID deny trying to get his now-wife a top FO job

The UK’s news sites were full of stories saying Boris Johnson had avoided a question on whether he tried to give his now-wife Carrie a Foreign Office job, at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday (June 22).

This is not true.

Here’s what happened:

Labour MP Chris Elmore asked Johnson: “Has he ever considered the appointment of his current spouse to a government post or to any organisation in the working of the royal households? Be honest, prime minister, yes or no?”

To this, Johnson replied: “I know why the party opposite wants to talk about nonexistent jobs, in the media.”

He was very clearly denying that he had tried to get Mrs Johnson a job by saying that no such job existed.

If, in the future, evidence shows that he did try to get her into a job – that one did, in fact, exist – then he will have lied to Parliament again.

This Writer hopes Parliament’s Privileges committee is paying careful attention and asks the right questions.

Source: PM avoids denying he attempted to get Carrie Johnson top Foreign Office job

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Can Johnson really claim he didn’t know Downing Street parties he attended were illegal?

Boozy Johnson: this is not an image of him at the Downing Street garden party on May 20, 2020 (it was actually taken in 2019) but it serves to suggest his behaviour there quite adequately.

The easy answer to the question in the headline is: no, he should have known his parties broke the law.

I say “his” parties because they were parties at 10 Downing Street, his home and place of work, taking place directly under his nose and that he attended in many instances. They were part of a “party culture” created during his watch.

And I say he should have known they broke the law because he announced to all of us what the law was – and it didn’t allow for social gatherings in a work setting, by the way. Furthermore, evidence in the Sue Gray report shows that his aides certainly did know that these events were legally questionable because they took steps to prevent the press from finding out about them.

Let’s discuss the party in the Downing Street garden on the evening of May 20, 2020 when Covid-19 regulations stated that “participating in a gathering of more than two persons in public was prohibited except where the gathering was ‘essential for work purposes'”, but had been amended to allow “meetings outdoors for exercise or recreation with one person from another household”.

Clearly an after-hours drinks event in the garden of 10 Downing Street, with more than 200 people invited to socialise with each other – even if socially-distanced – would have been a flagrant breach of these regulations.

It would have been a gathering of more than two persons in public that was not essential for work purposes, and it would have been a meeting outdoors between multiple people from more than one other household.

This did not stop Boris Johnson’s principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds, from advertising it by email, while other officials requested that tables be put out by the “Internal Events” team – which This Writer would have thought clearly marks this out as an illegal social occasion.

Alcohol was available at the event – both supplied by officials and also via a request for attendees to “Bring your own booze!”

In total, around 200 staff were invited although it is believed attendance was around 40 – still a massive breach of the regulations at the time.

Here’s the punchline: those arranging the event – including Reynolds – knew it was against the rules because they went to lengths to hide it from members of the media who attended a press conference just before it was due to take place.

According to the Gray Report, a Number 10 special advisor sent this message to Reynolds:

Just to flag that the press conference will probably be finishing around that time, so helpful if people can be mindful of that as speakers and cameras are leaving, not walking around waving bottles of wine etc”.

Martin Reynolds replied:

“Will do my best!….”

The report continues:

A No 10 Director declined the invitation and told the investigation that they had raised with either Martin Reynolds or his office that it was not a good idea.

Lee Cain, the then No 10 Director of Communications (a special adviser), also
received the invitation. In response, he emailed Martin Reynolds, No 10 official (1),
and Dominic Cummings at 14.35 on 20 May 2020 stating: “I’m sure it will be fine –
and I applaud the gesture – but a 200 odd person invitation for drinks in the garden
of no 10 is somewhat of a comms risk in the current environment.” Lee Cain says
he subsequently spoke to Martin Reynolds and advised him that the event should
be cancelled. Martin Reynolds does not recall any such conversation. In addition,
Dominic Cummings has also said that he too raised concerns, in writing. We have
not found any documentary evidence of this.

Referring to the event itself, it is clear that – once again – Boris Johnson attended and participated fully:

The Prime Minister attended at approximately 18.00 for around 30 minutes to thank staff before returning to his office with Martin Reynolds for a meeting at 18.30.

So he was there with Martin Reynolds, who knew it was an illegal gathering. He should have known himself that it was an illegal gathering, being the government representative who had explained the rules to the rest of us. But he not only allowed it to happen but attended and spent 30 minutes with the 40 staff there.

The excuse that he only stopped by to thank staff for their work during the Covid crisis doesn’t make sense because it does not take 30 minutes to make a brief speech of thanks. It seems clear that Johnson was himself socialising with staff, adding his own household to all the others that should not have been mixing at that time, according to the rules that he had put in place.

How strange that the Metropolitan Police who investigated this event, and must have known that it was an illegal party attended by the prime minister, chose not to fine him for this flagrant law-breaking! How convenient for them that their Acting Commissioner was able to dismiss this omission simply by declaring that, as far as he was concerned, all the decisions were above-board!

Reynolds, who subsequently had a meeting with Johnson inside 10 Downing Street, sent a WhatsApp message to a special advisor later in the evening, which appears to be about a story in the press:

[Martin Reynolds] [19:36] “Best of luck – a complete non story but better than them focusing on our drinks (which we seem to have got away with).”

In the light of all this evidence, it is not credible for Boris Johnson to claim that he had not fallen foul of rules in the Ministerial Code because he had not broken the law on purpose.

He should have known himself that the event broke his rules because he was the one who laid them down for us all.

His principal private secretary certainly knew that the event broke Johnson’s own rules, and attended the event with Johnson. Considering the contents of his electronic correspondence, it seems extremely unlikely that he did not mention to Johnson that the event was illegal.

Also, if the event was not against the rules, why was everybody involved so tight-lipped about it, to the point of hiding it from the media?

And this is just one of many such parties.

It doesn’t matter what Johnson says – the evidence exposes him as a liar.

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Sue Gray report in depth: how many times was Boris Johnson drunk in charge of a nation?

Boozy Johnson: it seems he spent most of the Covid-19 crisis drunk, along with many of the staff at Downing Street – and the Met Police, together with Sue Gray, have been trying to cover-up his wrongdoing.

Isn’t it a shame that Sue Gray’s report into the drunken party culture that prevailed at Downing Street from early 2020 until late 2021 (at least) is so uneven.

Parts of it are thoroughly researched, but other parts – especially, it seems, where Boris Johnson is concerned, are amateurish.

Consider the report’s entry about a gathering in the Downing Street flat on the evening of November 13, 2020.

Ms Gray states that after the announcement that Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain were leaving, a meeting was held in the Number 10 flat to discuss the handling of their departure.

It started at 6pm, involving five special advisors, and Johnson himself turned up at 8pm. Food and alcohol were available and the “discussion” continued into the evening with people leaving at various points.

This was not a works gathering – it was a party.

If it had been a works gathering, then it would have taken place in an office – not the flat. Alcohol would certainly not have been available – have you ever been to a work meeting where booze was being served up to all and sundry? I haven’t! People attend work events to work – not to drink. And everybody would have stayed until the meeting was closed by its chair, if it were a works gathering.

Johnson was getting drunk with his mates in his flat and they simply pretended it was a works gathering to diddle the rules, or so it seems to me. Doesn’t it look that way to you?

Ms Gray’s report states she had to halt her investigation because the police inquiry began, and did not re-start it when the Met had finished their dog’s dinner of a probe because she did not think it was “appropriate or proportionate” to do so.

Is this because she feared that she would expose her boss’s lawbreaking further than it already has been?

I’ve looked in detail at just three events so far. All were parties, and Boris Johnson participated fully in all of them. At those times, he was drunk in charge of the nation – and these were times when the nation needed a sober hand at the helm.

It was a flagrant abuse of power that both the Met Police and Ms Gray seem to have been doing their utmost to cover up. Shame on them – and shame on all of us if we allow them to get away with it.

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Shame on Sue Gray – it seems she has let Boris Johnson off the hook over Downing Street parties

Sue Gray’s report on alleged Downing Street parties has been published and is likely to cause further controversy rather than quiet it.

She claims that the very first event she discusses – in which Boris Johnson and others were pictured sitting around a table drinking wine on May 15, 2020, was a legitimate work meeting.

But the rules she herself describes in her report stated that “participating in a gathering of more than two persons in public was prohibited except where the gathering was ‘essential for work purposes’… Social distancing guidance applied, with workplaces required ‘to maintain 2m social distancing wherever possible'”.

Was the gathering “essential for work purposes”? Sue Gray tells us, “the Prime Minister, Martin Reynolds (his Principal Private Secretary), and Dominic Cummings (his senior adviser) were continuing a lengthy meeting that had started in the Prime Minister’s office, before moving to the garden at around 18.00.” Why did they have to meet in person for this meeting? Why were they not socially distanced (you can see from the image above that they are not two metres distant from each other? And crucially, how can it have been a work meeting if there was alcohol provided – and by the prime minister as well?

This Writer has never been to a work meeting at which alcohol was freely available and imbibed by those present.

Those who were there were ignoring social distancing rules that they had imposed.

And there was no reason for them to be in the same space as each other at all.

This was a social gathering, not a works meeting, and Sue Gray has ignored the evidence.

In her favour, Gray criticises those who participated in the events for failing to come forward with full details after her investigation was announced, instead allowing information to become available “piecemeal” as it was revealed by the press. “This is disappointing. Given the piecemeal manner in which events were brought to my attention, it is possible that events took place which were not the subject of investigation.”

This can only be seen as criticism of Boris Johnson as he made it perfectly clear from the start that he would not willingly provide any information about what had happened in Downing Street on his watch.

That’s what This Writer sees after reading just 11 pages into the 60-page report. It seems clear that, like the police before her (or indeed, after her, if this report was in fact written before they started their investigation), Sue Gray has given Boris Johnson every break possible – even if there is damning information in the rest of her report. That is shameful in itself.

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Waiting for Sue Gray: here’s what we already know about Boris Johnson’s corruption

Boris Bull****: it seems the prime minister will try to fool us that he has “learned” his “lesson” after receiving a small fine for being at a single Downing Street party, being let off the hook for all the other events he attended, and lying brazenly to Parliament about what was going on. He is simply the most corrupt crook to have infested the highest office in the UK – and that’s saying a lot!

If Boris Johnson hoped the end of the Met Police investigation into parties at Downing Street during Covid-19 lockdowns would take the heat off him, he was mistaken. It has been turned up.

For a start, doubt has been cast on the police inquiry after images emerged of the prime minister taking part in events for which he was not fined. Were the police protecting Johnson because he is the prime minister, or giving him privileges not afforded to low-level civil servants because he could afford expensive lawyers? If so, then they were defying the basic principle of UK law that everybody should be treated equally. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has demanded a detailed explanation.

And former Met Police deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick has weighed in, stating that the public will want to know what more evidence the police needed to give the prime minister a fixed penalty notice, when the photos appear to show beyond reasonable doubt that he should have been issued with one.

People who attended the parties (and were presumably fined for doing so) have told the BBC and others about the party culture at Downing Street during the Covid lockdowns – a culture endorsed by Boris Johnson, they said, suggesting he “wanted to be liked” and for staff to be able to “let their hair down”, and that they felt they had the prime minister’s permission to socialise even it meant breaking the rules because “he was there.”

It’s not surprising that civil servants are starting to speak out: as is now normal in Boris Johnson’s regime, it is the staff and special advisors who have taken the blame for Partygate rather than the politicians who permitted and participated in the parties. A large majority of the 83 people fined by the police were officials, and Johnson’s backroom team has also suffered a “brutal purge” over the last six months.

Cabinet Secretary Simon Case – a close Johnson ally – is safe, though, despite speculation on his future. It seems that after Johnson’s ministers withdrew permission for him to give evidence on Partygate to a committee of MPs, his job is not in danger.

Meanwhile, not a single politician has lost their job. Rishi Sunak simply decided he didn’t feel like stepping down after being fined, and Johnson seems determined to corruptly give himself the all-clear for lying to Parliament, if he is a accused of breaking the Ministerial Code. You see, as prime minister, he is in charge of deciding whether anybody has broken it, including himself.

Tory MPs seem split, though. Environment Secretary George “Useless” Eustice has said he expects “nothing new” to come from the report and that he hopes its publication will allow the government to put the scandal behind it, despite all the loose ends that are still dangling about the lies told by Johnson, the possibility of a Met Police cover-up, and the fact that the Tory government tacitly, if not openly, endorsed the party culture.

But critics are said to be relaunching their bid to oust Johnson by triggering a leadership contest with letters of “no confidence” in him.

And Johnson himself?

According to BBC political editor Chris Mason, he actually has the bare-faced cheek to trot out the tired old lie that “We have learned our lesson”.

What utter Boris Bull****.

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