Tag Archives: Simon

Tory chairman apologises to civil service for ‘activist blob’ email. Why not Braverman?

Greg Hands: I’d forgotten I had this duff graphic that approximates his image. I suits what he’s done here, though.

Suella Braverman said she wouldn’t apologise to civil servants for saying they blocked her bid to stop Channel migrants coming to the UK in an email to Tory supporters – and she hasn’t.

It was left to party chairman Greg Hands to do it instead.

The email, in Braverman’s name, sent by Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) to party members, said the following:

“We tried to stop the small boats crossings without changing our laws.

“But an activist blob of left wing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour Party blocked us.”

Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA Union, which represents civil servants, stated in a letter to prime minister Rishi Sunak that it was “a direct attack on the integrity and impartiality of the thousands of civil servants who loyally serve the home secretary, doing some of the most complex and difficult work in government”.

Penman also said Braverman may have broken the ministerial code, which says ministers must “uphold the impartiality of the civil service”.

Braverman disowned the email, despite the fact that it went out under her name.

She told Robert Peston: “I didn’t write that email, I didn’t see it and it was an error that it was sent out in my name.”

Nevertheless, her name was attached to it and for that reason alone, she had an apology to make. She should have been paying attention to what was being said in her name. She didn’t.

Instead, we hear that the head of the civil service, Simon Case, has written to the PCS union to say that Hands has apologised for the “error”:

“He assured me that he has already taken action to change procedures in CCHQ to make sure that there is not a repeat of this incident,” the head of the civil service said.

Hands has also “provided his assurance that attacks on the civil service are not part of any standard CCHQ lines”, Case added.

It’s not enough, is it? It’s just a proxy apology from a civil servant to a civil service union. Where’s the full and frank apology and explanation from the Home Secretary?

Source: Simon Case: Conservative Party chair has apologised for ‘activist civil servants’ email

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Hancock WhatsApps: he hid the life-threatening danger of ‘Eat Out to Help Out’

After he served up this little howler – and pushed up Covid-19 infections massively, Rishi Sunak became prime minister. Shouldn’t he – along with Matt Hancock and then-Cabinet Secretary Simon Case – be facing punishment for endangering the lives of many thousands of people?

Eat Out to Die Out, I called it.

The scheme by Rishi Sunak was introduced in July 2020 to get people to eat out. It provided vouchers supporting half the price of the meal – and was initially criticised because many people did not have enough spare cash to support paying for the other half.

But worse was to come when research by the University of Warwick published in December that year showed that the initiative was likely to blame for 17 per cent of infections – one in six outbreaks – between August and early September.

And now we know that Matt Hancock – Health Secretary at the time – knew about it and conspired with then-Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, and Sunak (who is now prime minister, remember) to hide it from us.

Because these then-ministers – and the then-Cabinet Secretary – hid the evidence, Eat Out To Help Out continued for several months and was only shown to have spread the virus much later, when it was too late to do anything about it.

Look at his WhatsApp messages from the summer of 2020:

News outlets like The Independent are reporting that Hancock ridiculed the scheme, calling it “Eat Out to Help The Virus Get About”.

Clearly the scheme should have been halted as soon as the concerns became apparent to Hancock. Instead he made a bad joke about it.

Who knows how many people died because they weren’t told about the danger? And shouldn’t Hancock, Case and Sunak be punished for allowing those deaths to happen?

Quick footnote: the BBC’s big story about the Hancock WhatsApps today is all about his reaction to the publication of a photo showing him kissing then-aide Gina Coladangelo.

Don’t we deserve better service from our public-service news provider? Is it because the BBC’s Chairman, Richard Sharp, is a Tory and a friend to Tories?

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An economist trashes Liz Truss on her policies

Liz Truss and money: she doesn’t understand it and her fiscal policy reflects that.

The Liz Truss Tory administration’s focus on growth is a public relations stunt, it seems, from what an Oxford professor of macroeconomics has to say about it.

Simon Wren-Lewis, who write’s the Mainly Macro blog, has published a harsh critique of Truss’s plan for 2.5 per cent growth.

He says the concentration on building the economy represents a PR departure from previous Tory governments that have let it shrink – but none of her proposed tactics will achieve this strategy goal.

In particular, policies that promote inequality (tax cuts, lifting the cap on bankers’ bonuses, refusing to impose a windfall tax on energy producers) may be based on a notion that greater inequality encourages growth – but this is not true; the evidence suggests no such association or the exact opposite.

Higher inequality, in fact, reduces growth. In contrast, there is a wealth of evidence to show that lower inequality might promote it. Furthermore, fiscal measures that favour the rich were tried by George Osborne and did nothing to stop, but may even have assisted, the last 12 years of UK economic decline.

Truss’s other big idea is to cut back on regulation. This is nonsense because of Brexit, which has increased red tape exponentially.

And we have a perfect example of how de-regulation hinders growth in her plan to review (read: scrap) anti-obesity measures. As Professor Wren-Lewis states,

it is clear that more obese people implies a greater burden on the NHS, requiring either higher taxes to fund it or a reduction in social welfare as other care is rationed.

Also the reduction of regulations to keep our beaches clean of sewage means more people taking holidays abroad and fewer overseas tourists coming to the UK.

Even the 2.5 per cent growth target is wrong, according to Prof Wren-Lewis; GDP per head is what assists social welfare, not GDP as a whole, so the target is for the wrong thing. It is an empty gesture – like sacking the Treasury’s permanent secretary for no reason other than to show things have changed.

The verdict is that

this decade or more of economic decline will not end by cutting taxes, deregulation, making exporting harder, and increasing inequality.

Either Truss is lying to us while trying to create an extremely short-term bounce that might win an election for her – or she is monumentally stupid. Which do you think it is?

Source: mainly macro: Going for growth?

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No emergency budget to help with cost-of-living crisis

Michael Gove: it seems there won’t be any levelling-UP of opportunity while he’s in charge of it.

The Secretary of State for ‘Levelling Up’ has made a mockery of his title by saying there will be no emergency budget to provide help for families facing financial hardship in the cost-of-living crisis his government has caused.

Michael Gove said Boris Johnson’s claim that Chancellor Rishi Sunak and he “would be saying more about this in the days to come” had been widely misinterpreted:

“The prime minister is right. We will be saying more and doing more in order to help people with the cost of living challenge we face at the moment, but that doesn’t amount to an emergency budget. It is part of the work of government.

“Last night the prime minister convened a group of ministers – we have all done work on some of the things we could do to help. Those policy initiatives will be announced by individual departments in due course as they are worked up.”

And the Secretary of State for Wales, Simon Hart, said

the cost of living crisis was “now the most important challenge” in Britain which he and Cabinet colleagues would be discussing how to solve this week.

“You will hear more probably on Thursday after the Cabinet has met,” he told TalkTV.

This Writer will believe in new measures only when I hear them.

The ideas on the table so far are pathetically weak – cutting the frequency of MOT tests on cars to once every two years, for crying out loud! How is making our roads unsafe going to save money after the collisions start happening?

Put it together with the words of Johnson, Gove and Hart and we see a government that is happy to put us all in an impossible situation, and then delighted to leave us all to find our own way out of it.

Source: PM’s cost of living hint has been ‘over interpreted’, says Gove – and no emergency budget

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Donors who gave Tories £1m between them are handed public health jobs

Sajid Javid: smug Sajid has been challenged to explain what guarantees he has secured to ensure that the new appointees will not use their positions to put private profit over public health.

Look out – the Tories are handing public health jobs to cronies with links to private health investment in their latest lurch towards NHS privatisation.

In March, Oluwole Kolade, a managing partner of Livingbridge, a private equity firm with extensive investments in private healthcare, was made a non-executive director and deputy chair of NHS England for three years.

And Simon Blagden, a chairman of Fujitsu UK, which sued the NHS over a failed IT project, was made a member of the UK Health Security Agency advisory board in April.

How can these be appropriate appointments? They will not support public health because their financial interests lie in the exploitation of health care as a market for making a grubby profit.

Here are some more details:

In just over a decade, Kolade has donated £859,342 to Conservative party headquarters; the party’s London mayoral candidate in 2021, Shaun Bailey; and the party’s branch in Hitchin and Harpenden. About a third of the donations – £300,000 – have been made since Boris Johnson became prime minister.

Kolade is a managing partner of Livingbridge, a private equity firm with extensive investments in private healthcare. Livingbridge’s portfolio includes multiple NHS suppliers, and private dental companies, care providers and fertility firms.

Since 2005, Blagden and companies he is associated with have donated £376,000 to the Conservatives. These include Pietas Ltd, a firm he was director of from 2000 to 2020, and Avre Partnership Limited, which he has been director of since 2014.

He was also a chairman of Fujitsu UK, which sued the NHS over a failed IT project. A parliamentary committee’s inquiry into the debacle in 2013 cited reports that a sum of £700m was sought from the Department of Health.

The government says political activity is not a bar to holding a public appointment and any such activity, including donations, is declared when such an appointment is made.

That’s all very well, but it seems to This Writer that shareholding in private health companies – or in companies that have tried to get contracts in the public health system – indicate a conflict of interest that should indeed bar the candidate (or should I say condidate) from the role.

Source: Two donors who gave Tories £1m between them handed public health jobs

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Partygate: Of course Simon Case has been questioned by police – there was a party in the Cabinet Office

A suitable Case for investigation: Cabinet Secretary Simon Case.

The big question here isn’t why Cabinet Secretary Simon Case has been questioned by police about lockdown-busting Downing Street parties – it’s why anyone would think he would not be.

Case was originally chosen by Boris Johnson to investigate the events, of which 12 out of an alleged 16 are now the subjects of criminal inquiries by the Metropolitan Police.

But after it was revealed that one such party took place in his office, Case stepped down to be replaced by his colleague Sue Gray – raising the obvious question: why didn’t he refuse the job in the first place, if he was implicated?

Following on from this, we may also ask whether Johnson appointed him in the knowledge that he had attended a party himself and it was therefore in Case’s interest to whitewash the whole scandal.

It all stinks to high heaven and low hell.

Sadly, the police inquiry is unlikely to erase much of the stench of corruption from Downing Street and the Cabinet Office.

Their remit is simply to find out who attended these parties and issue penalty notices in accordance with the law that was in force at the time.

They won’t look at any corruption in the corridors of power.

But then, they never do.

Source: Civil service chief Simon Case ‘receives partygate questionnaire from police’

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‘Jew-hate’ scammers send police to harass man over Twitter message

We’ve seen this tactic time and time again from the fakes who pretend there’s a huge rise of anti-Semitism in the UK – particularly focused on the Labour Party.

They take a line from an article or message, out of context, and present it as proof of a campaign of hatred.

So here’s Simon Maginn’s Twitter message: “Attention Jew-hate scammers: you try it on here, you will be confronted and you will lose, publicly. There are more and more of us all the time, we are informed, we are organised, and we are coming for you. Things have changed.”

Perhaps it’s not the most diplomatic message. But then, Mr Maginn has been accused, threatened and otherwise abused by these hate-filled manipulators for a long time, now. After a while, it tends to wear away one’s willingness to use neutral language.

But people who considered themselves to be addressed by his message – in other words, people who deliberately lie that anti-Semitism is more widespread in the UK’s left-wing politics than is actually the case – cut the message down and reported it to the police.

The words they reported?

“We are coming for you.”

Out of context. Misrepresentative. Misleading.

Mr Maginn duly received a call from a member of Sussex Police, labouring under the belief that he was dealing with an offence under the Malicious Communications Act, and was subjected to a “words of advice” sermon.

He has complained to Chief Constable Jo Shiner – and has publicised his complaint on – where else? – Twitter’

In an article, he elaborated:

All any Sussex Police officer had to do was read the tweet and understand what it meant. They could then explain to the complainants that, they might not like it, it might make them angry, but it was perfectly lawful, was not abusive or insulting or threatening, did not mention ‘Jews’ at any point, and was obviously a reference to a long-running political campaign on Twitter, #ItWasAScam, and not a ‘threat’ of an angry mob attacking Jews.

We see ‘evidence’ that is plainly wrenched out of context and wholly misleading, we see a histrionic over-reaction to a perfectly innocent event, we see a fraudulent accusation of antisemitism, we see an immediate and furious demand for action, and we see that action take place.

The scam, in miniature, over just a few hours.

They screamed loud enough, and they got heard. That’s how the scam has operated from the outset, and that’s how it’s continuing to operate.

Personally, I’d like to know what Sussex Police are doing about the people who contacted them to misdirect their attention to an innocent man with a lie.

No innocent people were threatened by Mr Maginn’s tweet, and those guilty of spreading vile lies about innocent people were only under threat of having their lies exposed.

For that, these liars called the police and wasted officers’ valuable time.

Has any action been taken to reprimand them?

Source: So The Police Rang Me Up. About A Tweet…

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#CabinetSecretary investigating #DowningStreetParty QUITS, accused of holding one of his own

Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, who has been ordered to investigate allegations that Christmas parties took place in Downing Street and other areas of government last December, has quit the role after being accused of arranging one such party himself.

And now:

It means the first tweet following is now embarrassingly ironic and the second is more pertinent than it was when it was written:

As for Boris Johnson – well, it never rains but it pours:

How much of this clusterf*ck cascade do we have to witness before the Tories pull the plug on him?

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Did #BorisJohnson’s #DowningStreetParty investigator actually attend it? What about the #police?

No wonder Boris Johnson (right) looks happy: he’s getting Cabinet Secretary Simon Case (left) to investigate the rave-up hosted at his Downing Street residence in 2020. No chance of an honest report there, then!

The big development in the Downing Street Christmas party scandal is that Boris Johnson has tried to kick it into the long grass by announcing an investigation.

These invariably take weeks – time in which Johnson will no doubt hope that the public will forget all about it and he can get back to his day job, stealing our cash and our human rights and selling off our national assets to whoever will give him (him, not the government) the best deal.

And they also invariably whitewash Johnson – to a greater or lesser degree, depending on which of his stooges he hires to lead the inquiry.

The Downing Street party probe is apparently being led by Cabinet Secretary Simon Case – and this presents a corruption dilemma of its own because it is widely believed that he was among those who attended it.

The prime minister’s office has refused to confirm or deny the allegation – which indicates that it is true.

The Daily Mirror‘s Kevin Maguire has joked about it: “If Case went, he can’t head an inquiry although he could supply a guest list.”

Good point – and one that Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick should bear in mind if she can’t find her own copy.

This Site has already pointed out that the Met provides police officers to guard Downing Street at all times and everybody who attends that location must be signed in and out. Therefore the record for December 18, 2020 will show who was at the party.

Dick is said to be considering whether to investigate the party and it is more appropriate for the police to do so than for anybody connected with Boris Johnson in even the remotest way.

Remember: the police are this week prosecuting several people for offences of breaking Tier 3 restrictions in London on the day of the party, including a family in Ilford who allegedly held a party of their own.

If the police really do uphold the law “without fear or favour”, then they must investigate the Downing Street party too. It was a crime – as the other prosecutions show. And crimes are investigated exclusively by the police.

Dick already has a few names on the list of those she should be grilling, starting with those of Allegra Stratton and everybody else on the video clip of a mock press conference, laughing and joking about a rave-up that they enjoyed while everybody else was being driven into misery by their government’s rules.

It seems clear that she should add Mr Case to that list.

And no – Johnson’s attempt to mark his own homework (as these self-investigations are known) is not an excuse to say there’s no need for a criminal investigation.

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Welsh Secretary is whining because he read about UBI experiment online. But is that it, really?

Why so sad, Simon? The Tory Secretary of State for Wales is upset that Universal Basic Income might be tried out in Wales. What if – God forbid – it’s a success?

Simon Hart has made a big mistake, shouting about the Welsh Government’s Universal Basic Income experiment too soon.

He’s all upset because Wales’s First Minister, Mark Drakeford, has announced that the Welsh Government will run a pilot scheme.

He reckons Drakeford jumped the gun by announcing it in a story he read online (this one?*) before talking to the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions, which runs state benefits.

In fact, it seems to This Writer, Hart is the one who’s jumping the gun.

Drakeford, a long-term supporter of UBI, realised before this year’s local elections that he could end up leading an Assembly in which a significant number of members also support it.

In the event, counting himself, 26 of the 60-strong Welsh Assembly want UBI trials.

So he has begun research into that possibility. It clearly hasn’t gone very far because when I ran the story he was seeking expressions of interest from unitary authorities and now he’s talking about giving it to people leaving care.

It is far too early to be talking with the Treasury, DWP or any other official organisations about this because it might not come to anything, despite the good intentions of all concerned.

But being premature isn’t the big mistake I think Simon Hart has made.

His big mistake was showing how much he hates the idea of UBI:

Mr Hart said he agreed with previous comments made by the Welsh economy minister Vaughan Gething in 2018 – when he was health minister – that the idea was “out of touch”.

The UK government, which controls benefits, has said it did not think it would be an incentive to work.

The problem, for Tories, is that in many cases the only incentive to work at the moment is the avoidance of extreme poverty and the threat of death due to benefit deprivation according to – guess what? – Tory rules.

A Universal Basic Income scheme would take away that threat, but would still leave people living at subsistence level.

The difference is that, rather than forcing the worst possible pay and conditions on possible employees and saying, “take it or leave it,” employers would have to start offering genuine incentives for people to take their jobs.

That is anathema to Tories. It means they and their business-oriented friends would end up taking a smaller cut of their firms’ profits, because employees would be able to demand what they’re actually worth.

That’s what Simon Hart revealed to us: he isn’t opposed to UBI because it’s “out of touch” or because of any inter-governmental lack of manners; he hates it because it offers dignity to working people.

And to those without jobs, come to think of it.

*I doubt it, although the tweet that I used came from a source that was new to me. Why can’t the BBC credit social/online media sources that published stories first? Is it some weird neurosis – worry that someone else is doing better news reporting?

Source: Universal basic income: UK government ‘not told’ about Welsh plans – BBC News

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