Rosena Allin-Khan: she has been instrumental in exposing the Tory government’s Covid-19 failures so of course Labour leader Keir Starmer is penalising her.
And you still think Starmer’s not racist?
(Not you; the above is what you could say to anyone trying to justify this.)
Labour row as two Asian women in shadow cabinet lose advisers.
Rosena Allin-Khan and Preet Gill told they must fundraise for personal aides after Keir Starmer’s reshuffle, as the party grapples with insecure finances. #StarmerOut#FordeReporthttps://t.co/P3ysllhveM
But what happened to Labour’s short money? This is the cash given to Opposition parties in Parliament to help them with their costs. There was an attempt to take it away from Labour (Tories are like that – they try to screw the other side any way they can) but it failed, I thought.
So there should be cash for these two MPs to hire all the help they need.
That’s unless Starmer is using the cash for other purposes. I wonder what they are?
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Sajid Javid (left) and Rosena Allin-Khan (right): he’s the Health Secretary but she’s the doctor. And he’s still got the cheek to lecture her.
Tories never learn, do they?
It comes of being rich, entitled (or so they think) and devastatingly ignorant.
So it should come as no surprise that, after an incident in which failure to wear masks in the House of Commons led to a Covid-19 scare, many Tories have gone back to lounging around the Chamber without masks on (presumably on the basis of the Rees-Mogg principle: that you can’t catch Covid-19 from other people if you know them personally).
And when a Labour MP who is a serving NHS doctor pointed this out and asked when Tory backbenchers would start wearing their masks…
We support the re-introduction of mask wearing, but for it to work effectively, the Prime Minister needs to follow suit. Unless this leadership is shown from the very top – Covid will continue to spread. pic.twitter.com/LtDoFcyuRy
And who was the first person to tell Dr Allin-Khan to watch her tone, again?
Enraging to see @sajidjavid telling a woman MP (@DrRosena – who has worked as a doctor through the pandemic) to watch her tone, as did @MattHancock. I doubt he would have said that to a man. These powerful men do not like being challenged by women. #EverydaySexism
Here’s my full question to the Health Secretary today.
Undoubtedly it made for difficult listening and the hostile response reflects that, but it’s the truth, it’s fair to ask questions and frontline workers need their voices heard. pic.twitter.com/3hZBJT3YFx
Hancock was a useless Health Secretary. He knew nothing about his subject and spent the whole of his tenure handing out fat contracts to friends of the Conservative Party and getting nothing in return while the Covid-19 death toll became the worst in the world.
He was kicked out of office for snogging a former college friend he had nepotistically installed as his adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care – possibly for the purpose of snogging her – in contravention of social distancing requirements.
And Javid? As David Osland states above, he’s an investment banker. In addition to suggesting that Dr Allin-Khan’s tone was wrong, he showed that, like Hancock, he doesn’t know how to keep the UK safe from Covid-19:
This morning Javid couldn't explain why Netherlands managed to hold back 2 plane loads of passengers from S Africa & test them all. Whereas the UK allowed all passengers on even more planes that arrived from SA to travel to their homes by any means of transport, without testing
He’s incompetent and the country is not in a mood to tolerate that right now. He’s on borrowed time.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Proud of herself: Helen Whately thought it was really clever of her to belittle a Parliamentary colleague because they happened to be a person of colour who didn’t go to a public school like her.
These Tory MPs really are up themselves, aren’t they?
They seem to think that their 80+ seat majority in Parliament means they can patronise the plebs on the opposite benches.
Stupidly, they think this includes tone-policing people of colour about racism.
Take a look at the video here and the comments attached:
Just pure racism. No other word for it. Thing is, the overwhelming majority of people don't see what happens in our parliament unless the BBC decide it's worthy of a news piece. https://t.co/WbbMQwv0zs
— CrémantCommunarde#WriteToJohnson 🕊️⚖️ 🟠🌤 (@0Calamity) July 22, 2021
(How sad that it was left to a minority political organisation – the Breakthrough Party – to stand up for Labour MPs who were being attacked for not being white public school alumni.)
Most recent offender was Tory talk droid Helen Whately, whose performances indicate that she is programmed with all her responses before being wheeled out to regurgitate them in public at the House of Commons or on TV.
This would explain her failure to announce the NHS three per cent pay deal (she wasn’t programmed to mention it) but not her treatment of Dr Rosena Allin-Khan when that MP challenged her:
Tories tell A&E doctor MP to watch her 'Tone' for second time in barely a year.@Helen_Whately: "I am shocked by some of the language that she uses."
Country is shocked at 160K+ deaths. Over 300K+ infections in the last week. Shocked at the catastrophe they see daily. 🏴☠️ pic.twitter.com/kOGYusXC8Y
— The Churchill Project (@WinstonCProject) July 21, 2021
People are angry:
I’m listening to @DrRosena at The Commons. I’m again absolutely disgusted that @Helen_Whately has just tone policed her. This happened last week to @zarahsultana by Victoria Atkins. What a disgrace. What is it with the Tories wanting Muslim women to lower their tone?
It’s entirely possible that the Muslims who have become dispossessed – after Keir Starmer turned Labour into a haven for Islamophobes – will now think again before traipsing across to the Tories.
And not just Muslims:
Helen Whately, instead of telling other parties' female Mps to watch their tone, how about you stop stealing public money or your friends, and DO YOUR FUCKING JOB.
— Steve Jones #ProgressiveAlliance (@antoniosteve) July 21, 2021
Its not particularly hard to go give tory dimwit Helen Whately a good schooling, but front line Doctor and shadow health minister Dr Allin- Khan didn't just school her, she skewered her, then filleted her from top to bottom..
Here’s the thing, though: being offended won’t achieve anything. People need to take action. So I have a proposal:
Pre-emptive strikes.
It’s too late for the current session but when Parliament returns in the autumn, every Opposition MP (of whichever party) should append their questions or speeches with the words: “The minister is reminded to moderate [his/her] tone to ensure that it is acceptable.”
They should all do this, all the time – especially during Prime Minister’s Questions.
And they should only relent when a government spokesperson stands up, apologises for the behaviour of ministers like Whately, and promises that they will not try to belittle their Parliamentary colleagues in such a childish way again.
It won’t happen and I don’t know why. Presumably Opposition MPs are masochists?
Dr Allin-Khan is referring to a letter by Holly Lynch, signed by more than 60 Labour MPs, deploring Priti Patel’s decision to deport more people including, it was said, at least one person who was of the Windrush generation or descended from it.
I've written an urgent letter to the Immigration Minister. There are serious concerns that the injustices of Windrush could be repeated. We've asked for answers to a series of urgent questions. pic.twitter.com/5QDNln0y3U
“As a member of the Labour Shadow Cabinet, my role is to intervene in matters related to mental health (because I am the Shadow Minister for Mental Health). Members of the Shadow Cabinet do not speak in debates, sign letters, sign EDMs or intervene in matters which are not related to their role. This rule has been in place for as long as I know, it was the same when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.
“I have noticed that my name was put on a list along with 12 colleagues, suggesting we were the only people not to sign this letter. No member of the Labour Shadow Cabinet signed the letter, indeed, almost three quarters of Labour MPs didn’t sign the letter. Does that mean that they don’t care? No, of course not. Sometimes they miss the deadline to sign, sometimes they can’t sign, sometimes they make representations in different ways. It’s very disappointing that some would single out me and 12 other colleagues, suggesting we were the only ones not to sign – simply to fit their political agenda.
“My background has seen me work in war torn countries, disaster zones and refugee camps helping the world’s most marginalised and vulnerable people. I always care deeply about these issues and to suggest otherwise is incorrect. I’ll continue to liaise with my colleagues in the Home Affairs team with regards to this, and other important issues.”
My recollection is that Dr Allin-Khan is distorting the issue. Shadow Cabinet members weren’t criticised for being the only Labour MPs not to sign and it seems to me that she was deliberately creating a “straw man” argument with a ready-made response (that other Labour MPs also failed to sign).
As for her claim about Shadow Cabinet members:
Maybe that is true.
Perhaps it should change.
It seems Shadow Cabinet members are using their position to avoid expressing opinions on the most important matters of the day – the actions of the Tory government – abrogating their responsibilities as members of Her Majesty’s Opposition.
Meanwhile they line up to vilify members of their own party when they are accused – falsely, as we learned in the case of Jeremy Corbyn – of breaking party rules that are so badly-written that they can be made to mean whatever the current leader desires.
Isn’t that, you know… wrong?
Some people seem to think so:
“As a Shadow Cabinet member, I wasn't able to sign it…”
Oh, and it seems Shad Cab members like Dr Allin-Khan can’t even face the responses their protests attract:
Cowards in the shadow cabinet now avoiding all accountability by muting replies. These people are living in an amoral bubble, and they know it. All Labour MPs should have signed this, as all should have opposed this legislation. How do they sleep at night? @DrRosenahttps://t.co/IV9BwRLrz7
Meanwhile, Home Secretary Priti Patel has taken the opportunity provided by this failure of opposition to attack critics of the flight, saying it involved the deportation of “vile criminals” and was nothing to do with the Windrush scandal.
In that case, why did the flight contain only 13 people after last-minute legal challenges succeeded in gaining a reprieve for 23 others?
Oh, that’s right. As Ms Patel said, it was all the fault of “do-gooders” and “lefty lawyers”.
She comes across as a bad Scooby-Doo villain, after the mask has come off: “I would have got away with it too, if it hadn’t been for you pesky lefty lawyers!”
Sadly, in her case, the significance of the mask is reversed. In Scooby-Doo it was always a fright mask being replaced by the villain’s rather ordinary face. With Ms Patel, it is the genuine, hate-filled, face that is the horror.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
The health minister who is so stupid she said the November lockdown in England could only have been predicted with a crystal ball has struck again.
There’s a reason we call Nadine Dorries “Mad Nad”.
Over the weekend, the woman widely considered to be the stupidist Tory MP – against stiff competition! – admitted that she did not understand the information being received and used by her own department of government; SAGE had demanded a lockdown in September.
Now she has demonstrated that she does not understand that her government’s failure to get to grips with the Covid crisis in any meaningful way over a period of nearly a year is having a devastating effect on the mental health of people working in the NHS and in the care sector.
Labour MP Doctor Rosena Allin-Khan does – and appealed to Dorries no fewer than eight times to join with her in devising a mental health package that has cross-party support. Dorries rejected it in a manner that belittled not only herself but her entire miserable government:
I asked Nadine Dorries 8 times last night, if she would meet me and work cross-party, to discuss a mental health support package for frontline NHS and Care staff.
Given how many times the Government have asked for cross-party support – her response is completely shocking. pic.twitter.com/RJRWrYsiz8
We have a cabinet full of cocksure, deluded amateurs instead of brains, integrity or expertise. And that’s because the likes of the phenomenally f**king thick Nadine Dorries were taken on in the first place for one reason & one reason alone: their rabid fetish for a hard Brexit. https://t.co/9tyPuN2WhQ
This video actually made me feel a bit sick. @DrRosena trying to arrange a cross party consultation to discuss the best way to support thr #mentalhealth of NHS workers & Nadine Dorries (Minister for Mental Health) playing to the gallery for cheap laughs. https://t.co/yI0N5wFGV2
I say that not because the Johnson government has a huge Parliamentary majority – granted to it by a population that was desperate to resolve the Brexit crisis that the Tories had created and gulled by rabidly right-wing mass media into thinking the Tories were the only party that could provide a solution (which is lunacy, if you think about it for just one moment).
The reason condemnation won’t work on Tories like Dorries can be summed up in a simple, well-known saying:
No sense, no feeling.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
If anybody needs to modify their tone, it is Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
He was challenged in the House of Commons to acknowledge that the government’s lack of testing for the coronavirus had led to unnecessary deaths – and he responded by saying the questioner should modify their tone.
That was a big mistake – because the person asking the question was Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, who has been working as a doctor in an Accident & Emergency unit, treating coronavirus patients, while Hancock has been sitting in Downing Street with his thumb up his posterior, making up test results by any means he could.
Here’s the exchange:
Here’s my full question to the Health Secretary today.
Undoubtedly it made for difficult listening and the hostile response reflects that, but it’s the truth, it’s fair to ask questions and frontline workers need their voices heard. pic.twitter.com/3hZBJT3YFx
Dr Allin-Khan later said she would “not watch my tone when dozens of NHS and care staff are dying unnecessarily,” according to Sky News.
And she’s right, by the way – the UK government’s testing strategy has been non-existent.
We’ve heard all sorts of targets, ranging from 250,000 a day to just 10,000 and back up to 100,000. None of them were reached by the Tory government when they were supposed to be.
Last week, Hancock lied to the nation, claiming that he had managed to reach his personal target of 100,000 tests a day by April 30. He had not. His figures included tests that had been mailed out but not used.
And these included multiple tests sent to individual homes with no return address, that subsequently had to be destroyed.
The daily testing total since April 30 has fallen back below 100,000 and you will have noticed that Hancock’s answer in the video clip referred only to a “capacity” of 108,000 tests per day.
That’s less than the number he claimed were carried out on April 30. This wretch just contradicted his own lie!
Worst of all – and underlying this argument – is the fact that the UK’s coronavirus death toll is now the worst in Europe:
The government’s tally of fatalities across the UK reached 29,427 for those who tested positive for coronavirus, exceeding the 29,029 recorded in Italy – until now Europe’s worst-hit country. Italy’s total does not include suspected cases.
Newly released data from the Office for National Statistics showed that 29,648 deaths were registered in England and Wales with Covid-19 mentioned on the death certificate by 2 May. With the addition of the official death figures for Scotland and Northern Ireland, this was calculated to take the UK’s toll to 32,313.
The true figure is likely to be significantly higher due to missed cases and a lag in reporting.
I wonder what the totals look like when differences in population – numbers and composition – are taken into account?
I reckon that would make the UK look much, much worse.
And the liar Matt Hancock wants an NHS doctor to modify her tone.
He has managed to be both unaccountably arrogant and irresponsibly pathetic at the same time.
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.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers) you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. This includes scrolling or continued navigation. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
