Baroness Heather Hallett: the Covid Inquiry she is chairing has started holding its public evidence hearings – and you can watch them.
Never mind the fuss about whether the Tory government is going to submit any relevant evidence to the Covid Inquiry – plenty of other people have, and you can hear it yourself.
The inquiry has begun its public hearings of evidence, and they are being transmitted via YouTube.
You can watch the live feed every day via the Inquiry’s channel. Preliminary hearings are also available to be viewed so it seems likely that these hearings will remain available after they have ended.
Considering all the rubbish that has been spouted about it so far, it seems a good idea that the inquiry’s proceedings are available for everybody to see.
It means we’ll all be able to check the truth (or not) of what the politicians say about it afterwards.
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On the attack: Boris Johnson has unveiled no fewer than 38 Bills and draft Bills that will clamp down hard on the people of the UK while denying any help to deal with the crises facing us.
Boris Johnson his revealed a plan for 38 new laws in the Queen’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament, delivered in her absence by Prince Charles.
The Prince may have been mortified that it fell to him to report such a mess of half-baked ideas, attempts to dodge democracy, and above all failure to address the burning issues facing the people of the United Kingdom due to the incompetence of Johnson’s nearly three years as prime minister (and almost 12 years of Conservative failure in total).
There are no plans to address the cost-of-living crisis that is already crippling the ability of the poorest in society – millions of whom are already having to go without food on a regular basis – and threatening to harm millions more in the future as another increase in energy prices and wider-spread inflation hits families.
The government is putting forward an Energy Security Bill to “accelerate our transition to more secure, more affordable and cleaner homegrown energy supplies”. But this won’t help anybody for many years – and it includes an expansion of dirty nuclear energy that will make the UK a target for disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima, and will fill the country with nuclear waste.
Johnson has claimed that his aim is to build a high-skills, high-pay economy, and that this will protect the population in the future. But he has been criticised for failing to draft an employment bill to protect workers’ rights, thereby leaving them open to exploitation.
On the other hand, there are plans to clamp down on political protest: the Public Order Bill would create a criminal offence, with a maximum sentence of 12 months, of “interfering with key national infrastructure” such as airports, railways and printing presses. This would also make it illegal to obstruct major transport works such as HS2.
Home Secretary Priti Patel says the changes are needed to deal with a “self-indulgent minority who seem to revel in causing mayhem and misery”. Doesn’t that more accurately describe the Conservative government of which she is a member?
And as part of what we’re told are seven Bills to capitalise on opportunities (if you can call them that) created by Brexit, a new Bill of Rights will show how Johnson intends to scrap your human rights and replace them with a series of privileges to be granted you by your Tory overlords, that may be changed whenever they feel like it. It has been suggested that this will not replace primary legislation, though.
A possibly-euphemistic Brexit Freedoms Bill will give the Tories power to change EU laws that were copied into the UK’s statute book after the country left the European Union – which should also ring alarm bells among members of the population who know that this signifies a removal, not expansion, of our freedoms.
Another Bill will set out the framework in which Nadine Dorries will be able to push through her undemocratic plan to privatise Channel 4 – after a government consultation found that 96 per cent of the population don’t want it to happen.
The list goes on and on – but most of the items on it are described in only vague terms. Many of them are plans to relegate certain forms of lawmaking to what’s known as “secondary legislation” – statutory instruments that are signed off by ministers rather than enjoying a democratic vote in Parliament. These may be seen as assaults on democracy and steps toward dictatorship.
You can spot these for yourself in the lists provided by news organisations, for example here,here and here.
Worst of all is the fact that this programme of attacks against you will continue, even if Boris Johnson is removed from power.
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Behind bars: Considering all of the evidence, including his own behaviour in the weeks leading up to the vote on October 19, and Michael Gove’s decision to trigger Operation Yellowhammer, will a Scottish judge put Boris Johnson in prison?
Michael Gove has triggered Operation Yellowhammer – the Tory government’s contingency plan for a “no deal” Brexit, saying we cannot be sure the European Council will grant the Brexit delay that Boris Johnson has requested.
Why would he scaremonger like that? There’s no reason for the European Council to turn down the request.
Or is Mr Gove suggesting that the EU should pay more attention to Mr Johnson’s second letter, which states that he would prefer that a delay should be refused?
Won’t that put Mr Johnson in contempt of court?
He promised the Court of Session in Scotland that he would adhere to the provisions of the so-called Benn Act, meaning he would send a letter requesting a delay if Parliament did not pass his deal on October 19.
He has indeed sent such a letter – although unsigned. He also sent another missive asking the European Council to ignore the first – signed.
Today (October 21), Scotland’s most senior judge, Lord Carloway, will rule on whether these actions constitute contempt of court.
Potential punishments could include a fine or even imprisonment.
It is possible that sanctions may be suspended to allow the prime minister to comply with the court’s ruling. But this might be a little difficult as the time for compliance was October 19.
And the fact that Mr Gove has triggered “no deal” preparations in the belief that the EU will not grant an extension, and his boss won’t get Parliament to pass his deal, suggests a belief in an intention to sabotage the Benn Act conditions at the very least.
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Behind bars: If Boris Johnson is lying to the courts, this is where he could find himself.
Well, this is as clear as mud, which is exactly what Boris Johnson is playing in.
Yesterday (October 3) he told us all that his newly-offered version of an EU withdrawal agreement was his last word on the subject and if it was rejected by Parliament or MEPs he would take the UK out of the 28-state bloc without a deal.
This would be a breach of the conditions of the so-called Benn Act, which forbids the UK from leaving without a deal.
On the BBC’s Today programme this morning (October 4), Home Office minister Brandon Lewis said: “From our point of view it’s a final offer… I’ve got to say, to be frank, as the prime minister said, this is our clear final deal. We think it’s a good deal, it’s a fair deal, it delivers both legally and security-wise for both our country here in the UK and obviously our friends in Europe.”
He added that the government would be willing to enter negotiations on smaller points – and claimed that there was a “building majority” of support for the plan in the Commons.
But Mr Johnson’s legal team said the exact opposite in its submissions to a court case today.
Scotland’s highest civil court – the Court of Session’s inner house – is set to hear a case to decide whether a judge could sign a letter calling for Brexit to be delayed, if Mr Johnson refuses to do so. The power to do so is called nobile officium – which Twitter users have humorously abbreviated to #noboff – but judges have already said there is “a question of competence” to do so as this power has never been used over a prime minister.
The government tried to have the case delayed until after October 19 – the date by which, if his deal is rejected, the Benn Act requires such a letter to be sent – but the court ruled that this would not provide enough time to hear the case and send the letter, if necessary.
So now the government has said, in documents sent to the court, that it will send a letter “in the form set out by no later than 19 October 2019”.
He seems to be saying one thing in public and another in private.
And isn’t it illegal to lie to a court – perjury? Could this case put Boris Johnson behind bars, at last?
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Not satire: When we finally get a new Parliamentary session, started with the Queen’s Speech, “Well you’ve really made a mess of it all. Shall I get Philip to drive you home?” is about the minimum Mrs May should expect.
All the prevarication and delay over Brexit has backed Theresa May into a tight corner that could end her government – and not a moment too soon.
And it all revolves around the Queen’s Speech.
Each session of Parliament kicks off with a speech from Her Majesty, written by the government, setting out the agenda for the new session. The current session was expected to be two years long because of the extra work necessary to pass Brexit.
But now everything else on the programme has been handled except Brexit, and there’s no conclusion to that nightmare in sight because bringing it back to Parliament may result in another disastrous defeat, and that would force Mrs May to end the session.
It is certainly time to call an end to what has probably been the most disastrous Parliamentary session in UK history – but the Tories can’t do it because they think it may be electoral suicide.
They don’t think they can get majority support for any new legislative programme, you see. And support for the programme – as laid out in the Queen’s Speech – is the bare minimum requirement for any government to show that Parliament has confidence in it.
Without the confidence of Parliament – well, you can probably guess the rest.
Theresa May leads a minority government that has only ever been able to count on the support of the Commons due to a “confidence and supply” arrangement with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party – but that organisation’s confidence in Mrs May has been in short supply lately and the agreement will expire at the end of the current session. It seems unlikely that it will be renewed without another massive contribution from the magic money tree that the Tories have been telling us all they don’t have.
And Conservatives – including several grandees – are deserting the party due to their own disagreements with the leadership over Brexit and other matters.
So Mrs May is caught in a double-bind.
She can’t keep going because the only thing left is Brexit, and then she’ll have to stop anyway.
But she can’t stop anyway, and start another session, because Parliament will probably force the end of her government with a “no confidence” vote.
So now she is trying to fill up the extra time she thinks she needs with a B-list of weak-sauce Bills that she doesn’t think Parliament would reject.
But the DUP’s Nigel Dodds is already on the record as saying many MPs may not accept that.
She’s unsafe whatever she does, so she is doing nothing. Meanwhile, the UK stagnates. This is what happens when you put a great nation in the hands of a fool, at the head of a party of fools.
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