How long do you think it’ll take before some know-all writes in to say they don’t bang a gavel in UK courts?
If ordinary people are being fined thousands of pounds for not wearing face masks – without even being told they’re being prosecuted – why are those involved in lockdown-busting Downing Street parties being fined only £50?
Here’s the – usually rabid Tory – Mail:
In the week that the Metropolitan Police issued 20 penalty notices to those who attended lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street and Whitehall, the Mail has discovered that ordinary members of the public are being fined huge sums for failing to pay such penalties, whether deliberately or unwittingly.
The fines are handed out at closed-door hearings on the say-so of a single magistrate — and hundreds of people are receiving them each week.
What is more, they are often not told about the court hearings, making it impossible for them to tell their side of the story or fight the fine.
London magistrates alone have issued more than £1 million in fines for failing to pay Covid fixed-penalty notices, issued for ignoring lockdowns, hosting or attending parties and not wearing masks.
So people are being convicted of breaking Covid-19 rules without having the chance to defend themselves.
Do they receive notice of the fine? Even if they do, it seems they have no chance to contest it before being hit with the penalty notice for failing to pay!
Meanwhile, people who definitely took part in the lockdown-busting Downing Street parties are being issued with fines amounting to just a quarter of what the rest of us are being told to pay.
Not only that, but they definitely knew they were being investigated and definitely received the fixed penalty notices, so even through they are being fined, they are receiving preferential treatment.
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Entitled: Keir Starmer HATES democracy and is doing all he can to remove it from the Labour Party.
Entitled types like Sir Keir always have a back-up plan to destroy democracy when their first one goes wrong, don’t they?
After the trade unions unanimously trashed Starmer’s lie that going back to an ‘electoral college’ voting system in leader elections (he had lied that it would empower the unions when in fact it would hand a huge amount of power to his crony right-wing Labour MPs), he took a different set of proposals to Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC).
It’s not a coincidence that the NEC currently consists mostly of right-wingers just like Starmer after he spent a year filling it with his cronies.
That organisation has wholeheartedly approved Starmer’s new plan to keep left-wing MPs off of leadership election ballots.
He is demanding that any candidate who wants to replace him should have the support of 20 per cent of MPs (according to the BBC; 25 per cent, according to The Guardian), rather than the 10 per cent required now.
This would effectively block out left-wingers before the wider party membership – which is broadly left-wing – could have a chance to vote for the member it supports.
The intention is clear: deprive grassroots members of the chance to have a leader they want, instead forcing them to choose between the least-worst options among right-wing Tory clones. It’s a sure-fire way to empty the party of democratic socialists.
Details are less clear on some of Starmer’s other plans to end democracy within the Labour Party.
He wants to abolish registered supporters, who pay a cut-price rate to show their support for the party and in return are allowed to vote in internal elections.
This would make party membership and participation the province of people who are rich enough to afford the standard membership fee, which isn’t cheap.
But it is not clear whether this was approved by the NEC.
He also wanted people to be in full membership for a longer period before being allowed to vote in leadership contests. This would give his perverted disciplinary system time to weed out the socialists before they had a chance to take part in internal party voting (you won’t be able to call it democracy).
Nobody seems to be saying what’s happened to that.
At local level, Starmer wanted to protect his cronies in the Parliamentary Labour Party by changing the procedure to deselect sitting MPs.
Instead of supporting democratic, open selections in which MPs would have to re-apply for the job in advance of general elections, Starmer wants a presumption that MPs will be re-selected automatically, unless more than half of constituency party members demand a contest.
Finally (as far as we can tell), he wants to restrict the number of policies that may be debated at party conference from 20 down to 12.
The fact that Starmer is proposing any of these ideas is disgusting in itself. No Labour leader should be trying to restrict popular representation.
The possibility that he might get any of them passed by conference is appalling.
Starmer has spent considerable time, in the run-up to the conference, cancelling delegates’ passes on trumped-up disciplinary charges (or security grounds, according to on-the-day reports).
And now it seems he wants to avoid full, properly-counted card voting on crucial issues such as whether his hitman David Evans will be rejected as general secretary.
A ‘show of hands’ vote would succeed or fail on whether the conference chairperson reckons a majority is for a particular side – but would not take account of the fact that each hand does not carry the same voting weight, as delegates from larger local parties and larger unions represent larger numbers of eligible votes.
None of this is acceptable.
In the name of democracy, let us all hope that Starmer is defeated on every one of these despicable offences to decency.
Priti Patel has been creating prejudiced policies to frustrate or undermine inquiries into the deaths of people held at her immigration detention centres.
That is the ruling of two judges in the immigration court (and be honest, did you even know we had one?) on Wednesday.
It relates to two friends, Ahmed Lawal and Oscar Lucky Okwurime, both from Nigeria, who were in Harmondsworth immigration removal centre when Okwurime was found dead in his cell there on 12 September 2019.
Lawal was a key witness – but the Home Office, run by Priti Patel, tried to have him deported back to Nigeria five days after the death was discovered – before he could provide any evidence.
He took the case to the High Court where a judge halted his removal.
After he gave evidence in person at an inquest in November 2020, a jury found that Okwurime had died unnaturally, as a result of neglect following a subarachnoid haemorrhage, which can rupture due to hypertension. His blood pressure reading on August 22, 2019 showed hypertension.
The jury found that this reading was not taken again due to multiple failures to adhere to healthcare policy.
Given these opportunities to repeat this basic medical test on a vulnerable person, neglect contributed to the death.
So the Home Office was responsible for the death through neglect of a person in its custody – and had tried to deport the vital witness before he was able to give evidence.
Lawal then challenged the Home Office in the immigration court, focusing on whether the home secretary can remove a potential witness to a death in custody before it is clear whether they will be needed as a witness.
The judges found fault, not only with Home Office policy at the time but with two replacement policies:
The judges found that the home secretary’s decision to remove Lawal to Nigeria was unlawful as she had failed to take reasonable steps to secure his evidence relating to Okwurime’s death before starting removal proceedings.
A replacement policy in August 2020 was also found to be unlawful as it failed to identify and take steps to secure the evidence of those who may have relevant information about a death in detention.
The home secretary’s current policy was found to be “legally deficient”. The judges found that the absence of a policy to direct what should happen following a death in immigration detention was unlawful and concluded that there needed to be such a policy.
A spokesperson for the Home Office is reported as saying that it will be “refreshing” its current processes – not changing them, notice.
I suppose we should be grateful that they didn’t say “lessons have been learned”.
I expect we shall soon find that the only lessons learned from this case are how to cover up any further deaths so we don’t find out about them.
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Bad hair day: but we know Johnson insisted on messing it up before his broadcast began, because he thinks it makes him look like a ‘man of the people’.
Boris Johnson is locking down England until mid-February in the hope that the new vaccinations will show their effect by then.
That’s what we can glean from his announcement on January 4.
The alternative is that he has been told to keep everybody isolated until he knows whether the vaccine will work on the new strain of Covid-19.
You won’t have gathered that from what he told us all in his televised announcement, of course. Why would he bother to tell us what’s really going on?
Instead, he concentrated on his (false) claim that this new lockdown is needed because the new Covid variant has been pushing infections – and deaths – through the roof.
We don’t know that this is true. In fact, it is more likely that his silly attempts to tinker with the isolation he has forced on us are responsible for the terrifying increases.
Last year he insisted on having the shortest possible lockdown – starting it too late and ending it too early – because (we think) he needs to keep the economy ticking over for the sake of rich industrialists who donate generously to the Conservatives.
Keir Starmer (according to the same argument) backs him up to the hilt because he is at the beck and call of his own donors.
For clarity, here are the (new) new rules, courtesy of the BBC:
People cannot leave their homes except for certain reasons, like the first lockdown last March
These include essential medical needs, food shopping, exercise and work for those who cannot do so from home
All schools and colleges will close to most pupils from Tuesday with remote learning until February half term
Early years settings such as nurseries will stay open
End-of-year exams will not take place this summer as normal
Elsewhere, university students should not return to campuses and will be taught online
Restaurants can continue to offer food delivery, but takeaway alcohol will be banned
Outdoor sports venues – such as golf courses, tennis courts and outside gyms – must close
But outdoor playgrounds will remain open
Amateur team sports are not allowed, but elite sport such as Premier League football can continue
This Writer watched his announcement and my tweeted responses (and any discussion they prompted) say everything you need to know about what he told us:
Spin spin, lies lies yesterday
Yesterday Schools will open Children are safe Teachers are safe
Oh look, @BorisJohnson is pinning responsibility for his latest disaster on the 'new variant' of #Covid19UK that he has known about since September last year.
Every attempt to control Covid by the Westminster government has been made too late and half-heartedly, with disastrous consequences for both public health and our ability to plan our lives.
To be honest Mike my vulnerable son in law has been getting his advice direct from health professionals who advised him to shield again back in November. His employer has been brilliant & furloughed him straight away. No thanks to Johnson & his shambolic band. I feel for others
— Sue Barnish Save Lives – Wear a mask 😷 (@SueBarnish) January 4, 2021
Yes. Anyone who was happy to see homeless people die on the streets and happy to allow disabled people to starve as their benefits were unjustly withheld is perfectly happy to have the benefits bill reduced by the deaths of the vulnerable.
You think Boris is doing the best he can? He has literally ONLY JUST resumed the shielding scheme from July. Prior to that, CEV people were FORCED to go to work and play Russian roulette with their lives.
Of course millions more people WON'T die but could be crippled. The people you mention may find themselves having to claim benefits – and being refused!
"I believe that we're entering the last phase of the struggle," says the fool who told us in September (around when he was told about the new #Covid19UK variant) that everything would be back to normal by Christmas 2020. That's @BorisJohnson for you.
So that was what @BorisJohnson had to say – and 12 million people who voted for him cringed with humiliation at having triggered tens of thousands of deaths because he cannot do a single damn thing right. #Covid19UK
He was very matter of fact about it. He's not sorry for any deaths.
— Debz still on Lockdown #FBPE 🇪🇺🌈🌹😷☮️🇵🇸 (@DebWhatford) January 4, 2021
.@KeirStarmer says @UKLabour – the Opposition – will back @BorisJohnson all the way. Not a single word of criticism because Starmer is a pale-blue opportunist who would have done the same as Johnson, to keep his businesspeople donors happy.
.@BorisJohnson – please, YOU stay at home. Pass responsibility for government to somebody competent. That way, YOU might save some lives, although it won't make up for those you have already wasted. #Covid19UK#lockdown
The announcement means some people in England won’t have seen family members and friends in person for nearly a year – more than a year in some cases – by the time the new lockdown ends.
Some are likely to pass away, due to completely different causes from Covid-19, before any reunions can happen. Some have already done so.
It is absolutely tragic, but we must not let the amount of noise circulating around this issue cloud our judgement.
The peril to all of us is extreme because we are being attacked by two killers:
Firstly, the very competent murderer that is being passed from hand to unwitting hand; secondly, the killer-by-incompetence who is managing to wipe us out from Downing Street.
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A face mask: these are mandatory in enclosed spaces in England – but some people are exempt from the rule and anybody trying to bully those people needs to be shown the error of their ways.
Look at this: a woman has received abuse for not wearing a mask while out in England – even though she is exempt.
The problem isn’t just that the abusers don’t understand the rules.
It’s that they don’t care.
They’re using Covid-19 restrictions to bully people – especially disabled people and their carers.
That’s the result of 10 years of unremitting government anti-disablist propaganda.
So not only do they think it is okay to abuse Louise Sharp, of Whitley Bay, for not wearing a mask when she needs to have her face clear to communicate with her autistic daughter; they think they are encouraged to do so.
Ms Sharp ended up having a panic attack and now she simply doesn’t have the confidence to go out.
That’s because of these abusers.
They don’t have the right to question her; it’s none of their business.
Shop staff do, along with others in authority in enclosed spaces – as long as they do it in a polite way that doesn’t assume wrongdoing.
And everyone needs to be aware that some people are exempt from wearing masks, and who those exemptions cover. In England, they are:
Children under the age of 11.
Those unable to put on or wear a face covering because of a physical or mental illness or disability.
People for whom wearing or removing a face covering will cause severe distress.
Anyone assisting someone who relies on lip reading to communicate.
This Writer is unlikely to be accosted by such bullies; if I were to go to places where the mask rule is in effect, I would wear one.
But if I saw someone being – call it what it is – attacked in that way, rest assured I would not walk by and let it happen.
I hope Vox Political readers everywhere would do the same.
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Buddy money: The Tories are using emergency procedures to bypass proper tendering procedures and give huge amounts of public money to their friends.
It’s jobs for the boys, the Old School Tie, and every other example of favouritism you can imagine in the Tory government during the Covid crisis!
They’re using emergency regulations, that allow services to be commissioned quickly, to pass huge amounts of money to their friends.
And apparently there’s a conflict of interest as it seems to involve Eurosceptics working on focus group research related to Brexit – although a Cabinet Office spokesman said this was a bookkeeping issue. Do you believe that?
The Tories are using the Covid-19 crisis to funnel public money away from vital services and into their friends’ bank accounts:
The Cabinet Office has awarded an £840,000 contract to research public opinion about government policies to a company owned by two long-term associates of Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings, without putting the work out for tender.
Public First, a small policy and research company in London, is run by James Frayne, whose work alongside Cummings – the prime minister’s senior adviser – dates back to a Eurosceptic campaign 20 years ago, and Rachel Wolf, a former adviser to Gove who co-wrote the Conservative party’s 2019 election manifesto.
The government justified the absence of a competitive tendering process, which would have enabled other companies to bid, under emergency regulations that allow services to be urgently commissioned in response to the Covid-19 crisis.
However, the Cabinet Office’s public record states that portions of the work, which involved focus group research, related to Brexit rather than Covid-19, a joint investigation by the Guardian and openDemocracy has established.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said this was because of bookkeeping methods, and insisted that, contrary to government records, all the focus group research done by Public First was related to the pandemic.
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Robert Jenrick: while he was presenting press conferences about Covid-19, he has also been mired in an apparent corruption scandal.
Calls for Robert Jenrick to be removed from his role as a housing minister are escalated after he admitted he knew he was saving tycoon Richard Desmond between £30m and £50m by approving plans for a £1 billion development at Westferry, London – in defiance of planning rules.
Desmond subsequently gave the Conservative Party a £12,000 donation, raising questions about this being a “cash-for-favours” scandal.
He insisted ‘all the rules were followed’ over the 1,500-home development in east London.
But he told MPs he knew that the timing of his decision would save the businessman a fortune.
Steve Reed, Labour’s housing spokesman, urged Mr Jenrick to make a full Commons statement, publish all correspondence and ‘disclose all conversations with all Government ministers and officials’.
In response, the Cabinet minister said information relating to the decision has now been passed to Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill.
So he knew he was breaking planning regulations – in fact Jenrick had to quash the planning permission he had granted, as a result of the scandal, and he knew that doing this would benefit the developer, who subsequently rewarded the Tories with a donation. And he isn’t publishing anything.
He still says he’s innocent of wrongdoing, but Jenrick must know how suspicious his behaviour looks.
Indeed, anti-corruption expert Elizabeth David-Barrett, a professor of governance and integrity who is also the director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex, has already said he should have resigned:
“In most previous governments, Robert Jenrick would have resigned well before now.
“The questionable conduct that is tolerated and defended in this current government is creating a dangerous new world in which standards in public life are seen as a concept from the past, and personal patronage and loyalty are now prized higher than combatting corruption.
“Although Robert Jenrick eventually reversed the decision on the Westferry scheme, under threat of legal action, this should not be the end of the matter.
“If there is no subsequent investigation into alleged misconduct, then the message that sends is that ministers can do whatever they like and just reverse the decision if their actions are questioned. The system needs to be preventive and act as a deterrent.”
Fat chance of that, under Boris Johnson!
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The £1bn project on the former Westferry Printworks site on London’s Isle of Dogs was approved in January by Jenrick – a last-minute reprieve after the council and then the independent Planning Inspectorate both deciding it should be refused. They had said it lacked enough affordable housing and conflicted with local conservation policy.
But the housing secretary’s decision came just a day before Tower Hamlets Council approved a new rate for its Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) – a move that would have increased the property owner’s financial liability to the local authority by between £30m and £50m.
That money would have been spent mitigating the impact of the development on the local area, and improving local services. Instead, thanks to Jenrick’s timing, it stayed in the pocket of the developer.
So this was a development proposal that did not meet planning conditions.
It did not provide enough affordable housing.
It conflicted with conservation policy.
It should not have been approved.
But Jenrick stepped in to do just that – and on the day before a new rule was imposed that would have compelled the developer to pay between £30-50 million that would have minimised any harmful impact on the Isle of Dogs.
The money would also have improved local services. All lost, due to this Tory minister’s intervention.
We need to ask who benefits from this decision?
The local authority? No.
People who need affordable housing? No.
The public? Certainly not!
The environment? Don’t make me laugh!
But the developer did.
The land is owned by publisher and former Tory donor Richard Desmond.
The local council – Tower Hamlets – began legal action in March, alleging that the timing of the decision appeared to show bias. It asked the High Court to order the government to disclose documents that, it argued, would show Jenrick was influenced by a desire to help Desmond save money by avoiding the charges.
Faced with the prospect of having to publicly release documents relating to the case, Jenrick accepted his decision letter was “unlawful by reason of apparent bias” and confirmed it was deliberately issued before the new CIL policy could be adopted. He agreed planning permission should be quashed and decided by a different minister.
So the minister admitted interfering in the planning process to grant planning permission to a development that should not have been allowed, and to save a developer connected with a Tory donor from paying extra costs.
This is not the standard of service the public should expect from a government minister.
Should he step down? Should he face disciplinary or legal proceedings for corruption?
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Dominic Cummings’s presumptuous decision to hold a press conference in Downing Street over his decision to break lockdown rules so he could visit his parents should lead to a prosecution for dangerous driving, it seems.
As part of his defence, he claimed that he had driven 30 miles to Barnard Castle because Covid-19 had affected his eyesight and he wanted to see if it was possible for him to drive back to London.
Incidentally:
How amazing that in 16th century dialect Barnard Castle was a euphemism for a pathetic excuse! pic.twitter.com/7c5hV4wLs1
(For those who can’t read images well, it says: “‘Barnard Castle‘ – a Durham dialect term for a coward. It derives from the Northern Rebellion… by the Catholic earls in 1569, when Sir George Bowes refused, despite many opportunities, to leave his fortified position in Barnard Castle to engage in battle. Hence also the expression come, come, that’s Barney Castle, meaning ‘that’s a pathetic excuse’.”)
Driving with impaired eyesight – meaning that a driver cannot look properly – indicates dangerous driving, which is an offence.
#DominicCummings had been ill; his vision had been "weird", so he got into a car and onto the roads – to see if he could bring death onto them? What rubbish!
Indeed, the chairman of the Police Federation took to Twitter to express his concern that anyone hearing Cummings’s excuses should not assume that they can do as he said he did:
As a former road death investigator with Hampshire police I have investigated many serious collisions, including fatalities. Some of these were caused by drivers with impaired vision, this is a serious issue. Do not drive if your eyesight is impaired or you feel unwell.
It’s a microcosm of the entire Cummings scandal – a public servant doing something forbidden to the rest of us because he thinks he is above the rules that govern us all.
If you need information here’s an easy-to-read map of Dominic’s Travels:
There was plenty more of it in his statement, and in his answers to journalists who were on the scene. I commented on a few of these transgressions:
A falsehood. There WERE people in London he could reasonably ask to help. #DominicCummings
If #DominicCummings is denying he was with his parents in their property, that is NOT what Durham Constabulary has told us. I believe the police over the politician.
(In a statement release half an hour before Cummings started his press conference, Durham police said: ““We can confirm that on April 1, an officer from Durham Constabulary spoke to the father of Dominic Cummings. Mr Cummings confirmed that his son, his son’s wife and child were present at the property. He told the officer that his son and son’s wife were displaying symptoms of coronavirus and were self-isolating in part of the property.” Some have claimed that, as “the property” includes three buildings, it was possible for Cummings and his wife to have stayed away from his parents – but unlikely. They would have had to meet up with them to gain access and hand over the child – who could have been a carrier of the disease, remember. Also, we only have Cummings’s word for any of this, and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw his boss.)
Why did Mary Wakefield give a false account of all this in her Spectator articles? #DominicCummings
There can be no doubt about the rules we were all told to follow – all of us, including Cummings:
"The guidance doesn't say you've got to just sit there," says #DominicCummings – but that's exactly what we were all led to believe and it is disingenuous of him to say that.
Interesting revisiting this letter from the Prime Minister
– you MUST stay at home – you can only leave home to buy food/medicine,exercise once a day,seek medical attention – these rules MUST be observed. If people break them the police will issue fines
I don't believe this claim that #DominicCummings argued for lockdown. It's just something to say to try to get people on his side now. All the evidence is that he was for "herd immunity" and "if a few old people die, who cares?" or whatever the phrase was.
Cummings said he warned about i.a. corona virus in 2019.
Thing is, he didn't. References to SARS and corona virus were added to his blog post on pandemic risks sometime between April and May of this year. pic.twitter.com/NneonooLoj
“I hope that you don’t mind my informal mode of address but since you were calling all the journalists by their first name I’m assuming that this is acceptable.
“I’d like to summarise my main take-aways from your extraordinary press conference in the garden of No.10 Downing Street. Please excuse me if the points are a bit random, but I think that this resonates rather well with your rambling statement.
“1. The PM’s time is very important, but not apparently anyone else’s. If just 10% of the population spent 30mn waiting for you to appear you’ve just wasted around three million hours of the nation’s time. What were you doing, having a crap?
“2. You don’t possess a smart short-sleeved shirt. I can recommend many charity shops where you can pick one up for less than a fiver.
“3. You tend to panic when your wife is unwell. In view of this, I hope you are in no way involved with national security.
“4. Your family, friends and neighbours in London all hate you.
“5. Your Dad owns a farm with many houses, but not all of them very luxurious.
“6. You have a young niece who is prepared to put her life on the line for you and your family.
“7. Your parents shout in the woods. (I hope I got that one right.)
“8. When you can’t see anything you go for a 30-mile drive to test your eyesight. This tends to make your son want to piss himself, which is quite understandable.
“9. Your wife is a fiction writer.
“10. Any confusion related to this matter is all the fault of the press which persists in reporting on things, most of which have proved to be true, which you refused to confirm or deny for two months.
“11. You had some sort of conversation with Boris but neither of you can remember when that was nor what was said. Let’s hope that’s not the norm for your conversation.
“12. You are a very very important person, critical to the future of this nation, and you wouldn’t dream of resigning. You really couldn’t let your fag Boris down in that way.
“I trust that I’ve captured all the key points. Please do let me know if I’ve missed out anything important.
“Finally, thanks very much for going in to work on a Bank Holiday, I do hope that they are paying you double time.
“Hope to see you up in Durham some time. My family is from that part of the world, but you wouldn’t know them – they mainly worked underground in the pits.”
The comment that Cummings won’t resign because he doesn’t want to let Boris Johnson down is ironic as this scandal has turned out to be ruinous for Johnson’s popularity and for any credibility that his woefully inadequate government has had in handling the Covid crisis.
Interesting that, rather than consider resigning, #DominicCummings thought it was perfectly reasonable to put his employers through a bitterly damaging scandal that is not their fault but his.
As a result, it seems Johnson has lost 20 popularity percentage points in just the four days this scandal has been frothing:
Boris Johnson‘s approval rating has plunged by 20 points in four days, amid the ongoing Dominic Cummings scandal, according to new polling.
Overall government approval turned negative, to -2 per cent, according to data from polling group Savanta ComRes. That represents a drop of 16 points in just a single day.
Mr Johnson’s approval also turned negative as the scandal continued. it dropped from +19 per cent to -1 per cent since Friday, the same data showed.
Public opinion of individual ministers such as Matt Hancock, the health secretary, and chancellor Rishi Sunak also fell. Both ministers publicly backed Mr Cummings over the weekend.
But Cummings won’t face prosecution, nor will he resign. Johnson will do his best to ignore the fact that his advisor’s actions have made it irrevocably clear that they, the ministers who supported them, and the entire Tory government consider themselves to be above the law that they impose on the rest of us.
And you know what? I think people are right to be angry about that!
So I hope you will all be opening your windows at 8pm today (May 26) to give a resounding “Boo!” for Boris Johnson and all his creepy cronies:
— MrsAitchBee 3.5% #3PointFivePercent #FBPE (@MrsAitchBee) May 24, 2020
POSTSCRIPT: Incidentally, even the act of holding a press conference was against the rules that apply to Cummings:
Para 14 of the code of conduct for special advisers
“Special advisers must not take public part in political controversy, through any form of statement..to the press..and would not normally speak in public for their Minister or the Department”
— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) May 25, 2020
It seems he cannot do anything right.
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Boris Johnson: this is his response to your complaints that Dominic Cummings ignored lockdown rules. What are you going to do about it?
How kind of Boris Johnson to grace us with his presence at the daily Cocid-19 briefing, and explain that Demonic – er, Dominic – Cummings didn’t obey lockdown rules because they weren’t meant for elites like him but for plebs like you.
Okay, he didn’t put it in as many words, but the meaning was clear:
“I’ve concluded that in travelling to find the right kind of childcare… I think he followed the instincts of every father and every parent”
PM Boris Johnson says Dominic Cummings acted “responsibly, legally and with integrity”
He seemed keen to evade the principle question – is it one rule for Tory government elites and another for the rest of us? – but the message was clear:
The message from the Prime Minister seemed very clear:
“Can you imagine having to work with these truth twisters?”
It was up for only 10 minutes, during which it accumulated around 30,000 retweets, and the same number of likes, which is indicative of the strength of feeling, not just in the civil service but in the UK as a whole.
Okay, Johnson had his supporters, but for the wider attitude of the UK public, see Michael Jones’s tweet below:
An insult to those who are bereaved and could not have last moments with their loved ones, and insult to those who had no one close in their final moments as they gasped for breath, an insult to the millions who followed the rules of lockdown, an insult to democracy and decency.
I'm the same. Not for the first time with this and the previous regimes. This does take the coconut though as it is an insult to us all and I won't even vent my thoughts as to what it means for democracy, or even the vestiges thereof.
— oor bonnie blue flag bot#FBPE #FBSI (@45albannach) May 24, 2020
Here’s just one person’s story, corroborating Mr Jones’s conclusion:
“My Aunt died alone in a care home from Covid19. My brother and mother who live locally were not allowed to see her, hold her hand in the last moments or say goodbye. My mother couldn’t attend the funeral, or let me stay with them on my way to the funeral, because Govt guidelines don’t allow it.
“What I have seen today is that I was stupid. I could have just exercised my judgement that it was essential. My sacrifices, my mother’s sacrifices were for nothing. Or maybe if we were rich elites it would have been ok.”
That is the mood of the nation – especially those of use who have lost loved ones and were forbidden from even saying goodbye (and remember, thanks to Johnson’s snivelling incompetence, there have been more than 62,000 of those deaths).
If you have any doubts left, check out the results of my own Twitter poll. At the time of writing, it shows more than 96 per cent of respondents believe the Tories cannot be trusted to handle the UK’s response to the coronavirus pandemic – and they want to do something about it:
Spot of civil disobedience in order I feel. Since we can't trust govt to keep us safe no kids back to school, no people back to work until Cummings gone and test trace and isolate effectively up and running. #trustingmyinstincts
It’s an idea with a lot of merit to it – especially if done to protect ourselves and our children from the consequences of damnfool Tory stupidity.
And it seems to have gained some traction:
We have to still work within the lockdown guidelines or we become as bad as them, so start small and as lockdown lessens ramp up the protest movements to include other things, I'm winging this, if you can't tell.
There’s no downside, for obvious reasons. Any objection can be countered with what I think we should call the “Cummings defence”: that you followed the instincts of every parent.
I’m not going to force anybody into it; this has to be an individual decision by the people involved.
But, obviously, if you don’t do something, you’ll be saying you’re happy to let Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson and all those other slimy creeps do whatever they want and laugh at you. Your choice. Let me know what you’re going to do.
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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