The change was announced by the Chancellor in November.
The reduction means many people paying the top rate of tax will still be eligible for Universal Credit (UC), according to an analysis by Policy in Practice, a consultancy group.
They found that people earning up to £148,000 could technically be allowed to claim UC if they had children, rented and had high childcare costs.
My question refers to the fact that the Conservative government means-tests people claiming most benefits. Forgive me if there’s a really obvious reason that I’ve missed. It is this:
Why are people with £16k in savings denied money they need to live, but those earning almost as much per month can now claim benefits on top of that cash?
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The cache of 100,000 WhatsApp messages by Matt Hancock about Covid-19, from 2020, in which he discussed delaying or failing to test people going into care homes from the community, got a thorough airing on the BBC’s Politics Live and in Parliament during Prime Minister’s Questions.
PMQs focused mostly on the fact that information about the government’s behaviour during the Covid crisis is starting to drip out piecemeal, meaning it is now a matter of urgency that the independent inquiry into the response to the pandemic be concluded and report in good time.
The discussion on the talk show was more about the content of the messages – and did, in fact, touch on the fact that these messages all came long after the big decisions about testing for Covid-19 in care homes had already been made.
Hancock had known since February that year that people from the community, coming into homes, were infecting the people living there, and since March that people there were dying of Covid-19.
He chose to do nothing about it until April – and then, as the messages indicate, he didn’t do enough.
So, is this a storm in a teacup?
Judge for yourself:
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Matt Hancock: the current WhatsApp controversy makes it seem he only considered testing people in care homes from April 14, 2020 – but existing information shows he had been ruling it out for around two months (since February) despite mounting deaths.
No wonder Isabel Oakeshott was so liverish on Politics Live – she was about to become the centre of a new Covid-19 controversy.
Ms Oakeshott is the person who leaked 100,000 Matt Hancock WhatsApp messages that seem to suggest he has not been altogether truthful about government plans for Covid-19 testing in care homes during 2020. She had access to them while “helping” him write his memoir.
Spokespeople for Hancock have said the messages have been doctored to present a false impression.
But my recollection is that the controversy at the time had little to do with what these messages say. I made my point on Twitter as follows:
I'm confused about this #MattHancock#Covid19#CareHomes story. At the time, the problem was that people leaving hospital WEREN'T being tested before going into homes and were infecting people there. Workers were also spreading the disease from home to home. #PoliticsLive 1/
3/ Testing in #CareHomes was not put in place at all until April 15, 2020. Advice from SAGE said on February 10 that "there is already sustained transmission in the UK" – in the community, but this was ignored. Official guidance from Feb 25-Mar 12 was … #PoliticsLive
5/ Whatever decisions #MattHancock made, it is clear that #CareHomes were NOT given the resources they needed, when they needed them, and he was responsible for that. He should have sent people to #NightingaleHospitals rather than the homes. #PoliticsLive
So there you have it. Despite advice from SAGE in February 2020 that Covid-19 was already being transmitted between people in the community, Hancock put out official guidance saying there was no such transmission and nobody in a care home was likely to be infected.
Care home staff who moved from one home to another were also not tested, meaning they were able to catch the disease from patients at one home and transmit it to those at any others they visited.
This remained official advice until March 12, 2020, despite the fact that care homes had been recording deaths related to Covid-19 from March 2 onwards – 10 days previously.
The UK only went into lockdown on March 23.
Care homes did not start testing for the disease until April 15 (of people leaving hospital), and regular tests of all staff and residents did not start until July.
Now check this against the current story (I’ll use the BBC version as the Telegraph, which broke this story, is behind a paywall):
Government guidance later mandated tests only for those leaving hospital.
In one message, dated 14 April, Mr Hancock reportedly told aides that Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medial officer for England, had conducted an “evidence review” and recommended “testing of all going into care homes, and segregation whilst awaiting result”.
The message came a day before the publication of Covid-19: Our Action Plan for Adult Social Care, a government document setting out plans to keep the care system functioning during the pandemic.
Mr Hancock said the advice represented a “good positive step” and that “we must put into the doc”, to which an aide responded that he had sent the request “to action”.
But later the same day, Mr Hancock messaged again saying he would rather “leave out” a commitment to test everyone entering care homes from the community and “just commit to test & isolate ALL going into care from hospital”.
“I do not think the community commitment adds anything and it muddies the waters,” he said.
A spokesman for Mr Hancock said this followed an operational meeting, where he was advised it was not possible to test everyone entering care homes.
When the care plan was published on 15 April, it said the government would “institute a policy of testing all residents prior to admission to care homes”, but that that would “begin with all those being discharged from hospital”.
It said only that it would “move to” a policy of testing everyone entering care homes from the community.
The WhatsApp messages have it that Hancock was only advised to start testing everybody going into care homes on April 14.
But in fact, SAGE had warned him in February – two months previously – that Covid-19 was already being transmitted in the community, and it is clear that community transmission was considered likely to cause infections within care homes from the government advice that was published on February 25.
And death figures from care homes clearly showed that Covid-19 had caused deaths there from March 2 onwards, so Hancock had no reason to believe that these homes were unaffected.
But he waited nearly two months before doing anything.
The lack of testing kits in sufficient numbers has been blamed for the failure to test everybody who needed it – but this is not an acceptable response. The government had known of the threat since late 2019 but had not bothered to take timely action, and this is the reason too few testing kits were available.
And more than 43,000 people died.
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Lee Anderson (right) with his leader Boris Johnson: Anderson was talking rubbish (as his boss often does) – and expecting the rest of us to eat it, too – according to an expert chef
After Tory MP Lee Anderson claimed it was possible to cook “nutritious meals” for 30p, professional chef Gareth Mason tried it.
The chef, who has 19 years’ experience, set himself the task of cooking seven basic meals that fit within the 30p budget.
Mr Mason made crab stick salad, burgers, spaghetti Napoli, beans on toast, a jacket potato with beans, and a ‘spam fritter’ made from cheap luncheon meat.
His verdict? They were not nutritionally balanced or big enough to sustain an adult:
“I’ve come to the conclusion it’s a load of rubbish,” the head chef at Absolute Bistros in Westhoughton, Lancashire told HullLive.
“These meals I’ve done, as soon as you put any protein or dairy into them, it’s not feasible to do it for 30p.
“If you eat beans on toast for every meal, it might work, but even if you did cheese on toast, the cost of cheese would be more than 30p on its own.
“And you have the cooking cost on top of the cost of the food.”
That last point is right on the nose.
At a time when the cost of the energy needed to cook is rocketing, this overprivileged MP didn’t even have the intelligence to include it in his claim.
And Mr Mason had another thought about Lee Anderson’s disproved theory:
Gareth said while Mr Anderson’s 30p figure may be achievable using batch cooking methods in a professional kitchen, there aren’t many people who have the space or storage required to make it work.
“Has this guy ever eaten a 30p meal in his life? I doubt it,” Gareth asked.
“He’s contradicted himself by having chefs cook the food in a big kitchen with an industrial oven.
“Where does he expect the average person to cook all this food and then freeze it all?”
Where indeed? And freezers don’t work for free.
“You could just about feed yourself, but it’s not going to be healthy or nutritious or get anywhere near the number of calories an average adult needs to function each day,” he said.
“He’s treating people like peasants. Energy prices are going up, people are struggling, the cost of living is on the rise, and what’s their solution? Eat for 30p?
“The cheaper you go, how much rubbish is in the food?
“It will be full of additives and preservatives and all sorts of junk. It’s not fresh, nutritious food that people need to have a healthy diet.”
So there you have it. Lee Anderson’s claims have been definitively disproved.
Remember that, next time a filthy rich Tory MP makes wild claims about what can be achieved with very little, when they’ve never had to face the same restrictions.
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Rishi Sunak: after he served up this little howler he pushed up Covid-19 infections massively. Now it seems he wants to repeat this feat by cancelling free Covid testing for people with symptoms – and not even replacing it with tests you have to buy.
Latest Covid figures show 46,025 new cases and 167 deaths, and the UK is the least-vaccinated country in western Europe.
And those are the conditions in which the Tory government has decided it wants to stop free Covid-19 testing for people with symptoms.
The initiative is spearheaded by the Treasury, not the Department for Health – which indicates to This Writer that Rishi Sunak wants to give the money he’s spending on this to more of his big business friends, so they can hide it in tax havens instead. Am I right?
Public health leaders are said to have been “blindsided” by the surprise announcement of the government’s intention, and have argued strongly against it, as you can see if you read the article linked below.
But the current situation means that, after the end of March, people with Covid aren’t likely to know.
If they don’t know, the authorities will be able to deny it, and official numbers will plummet.
But what will the death statistics do? And who will take the blame?
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I’m all right, Jack: like Boris Johnson, This Writer has now had the Covid-19 vaccine booster injection. It won’t stop me catching the Omicron variant so I’m still wearing a mask out and conforming with all the safety procedures recommended here in Wales.
Official figures show a record 183,037 Covid-19 infections were recorded on December 29.
Just announced on the dashboard: 183,037 positive Covid cases across the UK in the last 24 hours 😬
Sadly, that number is likely to be a fraction of the total because the Conservative government that spaffed £37 billion of public money on a privately-run test and trace scheme (that didn’t work) is still utterly unable to provide enough tests – either lateral flow or PCR – for those of us who need them.
No lateral flow tests, no cpr tests available. Do they think if we can’t see the figures, then it’s just not happening?
Worth remembering that both cases and hosp are being underestimated currently – not only because PCR testing has been intermittently unavailable, often for long periods of time, but also because re-infections that made up 13% of cases a wk or so ago aren't being counted in either
Absolutely wild to think that even after throwing £38 billion at privately outsourced Test & Trace, there are currently no PCR tests available anywhere in the country for the public – either walk in or postal.
How many others, like my family member, cannot get tested right now?
Seems to be a media blackout on the fact 37 billion pounds was spent on a private Test & Trace scheme, & public are currently having problems getting hold of LFT, & PCR tests. Where’s the money gone?
This joke of a Government are failing to provide answers as to why no tests are available shortly after they’ve been mandated and just before New Years Eve when everyone will be out mixing together and celebrating. But in all honesty, is anyone surprised?
Why are journos, who were so happy to doorstep Corbyn permanently, not doorstepping Javid to have answers on what's happening with PCR/Lateral Flow Test?
There IS no shortage of lateral flows. Just like there WAS no fuel crisis. Just like there WAS no PPE crisis. Just like there IS no problem with truth in contemporary Britain.
The government’s response has been to provide “out of office” messages.
UK Government has confirmed they will not recall Parliament for covid measures.
The current response to the pandemic is a metaphorical Out of Office email saying “I am currently on annual leave and will deal with your issue when I am back in the office.” pic.twitter.com/1Ztal39JxP
And Boris Johnson disappeared for more than a week. Asked where he had been, he said “Inside the country” – instantly indicating to all of us that he has been raving it up in some foreign holiday destination owned by one of his friends and gifted to him on the sly (again).
“I’ve been in this country, where do you think?” is the “I’m a legitimate businessman” of replies about your recent whereabouts pic.twitter.com/nkEVEoJoGB
Oh but hey! Johnson also offered reassurance by saying nine-tenths of people in intensive care have not had the booster jab:
COVID-19: Boris Johnson says 'up to 90%' in intensive care have not had a booster and urges people to get jabbed | UK News | Sky News https://t.co/yhgGzR0Hkm
Have asked No10 to clarify the 'up to 90pc of patients in ICU are not boosted' figure and spokesman for PM says this is anecdotal evidence from "some NHS Trusts" which Boris Johnson was reflecting.
It might be reasonable to say that, if the number of hospitalisations and deaths has significantly dropped.
Even with a 50% milder variant, population immunity, shorter hospital stays, boosters, HCW isolation exemptions & people with minor ailments staying away from A&E due to Omicron
But with even official infection rates rising exponentially, there will come a day on which hospitals will be overwhelmed again – especially because medical teams are being forced to stay away from work because they can’t get a test result.
My medical timeline is full with personal and colleague examples of healthcare staff unable to get back to work in the NHS
No PCRS No Lat flows
We need action QUICKLY otherwise patients will be the ones who suffer
Which day, do you reckon? New Year’sDay? New Year’s Eve?
Today?
All because a bunch of media hacks told us Jeremy Corbyn was a wrong ‘un after he told them how Boris Johnson was planning to kill the NHS.
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Tory corruption never ends; now they are trying to rig the findings of the forthcoming public inquiry into the mishandling of Test and Trace.
Government outsourcing firm Deloitte has been hired by the Conservative government to prepare a “strategy” for “evidence generation requirements” of the public inquiry into the fiasco.
But Deloitte was involved in Test and Trace. The firm was awarded huge government contracts worth almost £300 million. Consultants were paid £6,000 per day – apparently to do very little – and the company charged the government £1 million per day in fees.
It therefore has a considerable interest in ensuring that the Test and Trace system brought in by the Tory government receives a clean bill of health – even though it was an unmitigated disaster.
Fortunately, Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner is doing her job (unlike her boss Keir Starmer) and has written to Steve Barclay, Tory Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (who, one presumes, commissioned Deloitte to carry out the inquiry work), demanding answers.
As she points out in her letter, “The mismanagement, waste and failure of Test and Trace is well-documented. Up to £37 billion of taxpayers’ money has been wasted on a system that did not control infections and did not prevent future lockdowns.
“[Deloitte] was at the heart of Test and Trace’s operations, and therefore the failure of Test and Trace. It is clearly a conflict of interest for Deloitte to be awarded this contract.”
Here’s her tweet, publishing the letter to the world:
Deloitte consultants were paid £6,000 a day and the company charged the taxpayer £1 million per day in fees for their work on failed Test and Trace.
Now Ministers have given Deloitte another contract preparing the "strategy" for the public inquiry. Cancel this contract now. pic.twitter.com/gkuWh7UtSZ
No matter what Barclay may say about Test and Trace (he’ll probably try to defend it), the central point of the letter is absolutely correct: as a contractor involved in Test and Trace, Deloitte should not have been even considered for a role in the inquiry.
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Master and servant: Owen Paterson with his boss, Peter Fitzgerald of Randox. Funny that… wasn’t Paterson supposed to be working for the people of North Shropshire?
North Shropshire’s Tory MP Owen Paterson has turned out to be as corrupt as they come – using his position as a public representative to boost the private interests of two companies. And it seems thousands of people may have died as a result.
Paterson is set to be punished for corruptly using his Parliamentary position to win contracts for two companies that employ him.
Yes, it is corruption. Yes, it is against Parliamentary rules. He should be booted out of the Palace of Westminster and told never to come back. In a proper, working democracy he would be arrested and sent to prison.
Would you like to know what will actually happen?
He’ll be suspended from Parliament for 30 working days.
That’s right – he gets a month’s extra holiday.
Here’s the report on Sky News:
The committee on standards have recommended that Tory MP Owen Paterson be suspended from the house for 30 sitting days.
This was a serious breach of the MPs rules… as he used his privileged position to benefit two companies… & he has brought the house into disrepute pic.twitter.com/tGjNTqzxdJ
The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone opened an investigation into the MP following accusations he had lobbied on behalf of two companies who employed him.
Her report said he was a paid consultant to Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods and had made approaches to the Food Standards Agency and Department for International Development ministers about the companies.
The commissioner also found Mr Paterson had breached the MPs’ code of conduct by using his parliamentary office on 25 occasions for business meetings with clients between October 2016 and February 2020 and in sending two letters relating to business interests on House of Commons headed notepaper.
The report noted that there was no immediate financial benefit secured by the two companies-
Oh, really?
The healthcare firm that kept Tory MP Owen Paterson on a six-figure retainer won a £133m contract to produce Covid testing kits without any other company getting the opportunity to bid. That's Britain in 2021.
That would be Randox Health. Perhaps the Commissioner didn’t notice this significant fact because her report only goes as far as February 2020.
Randox was awarded its £133 million contract in March 2020 – and, yes, it was a closed process – unadvertised and with no other companies being asked to bid.
A month later, Paterson was a party to a call between Randox and James Bethell, then the Tory minister responsible for Covid-19 testing supplies.
Randox was hired to supply 2.7 million testing kits – but 750,000 of them were withdrawn after spot checks in July found that some of the kits, supplied by a Chinese manufacturer but sent out by Randox, were not sterile and could therefore be contaminated.
The failure delayed plans to provide regular testing for English care home residents and staff. We later discovered that Tory government failures to protect care homes resulted in around 30,000 unnecessary deaths.
But that was no concern for Randox – its contract was extended for a further six months in October last year. Again, the process was closed – unadvertised, with no other companies permitted to bid.
In fact, it should have been to safeguard the health of the people of the UK – especially, in this case, care home residents and staff. Instead, thousands died – possibly because he vouched for a company that provided substandard testing kits.
And his punishment is a 30-day holiday.
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The caseload and the culprit: every other nation now has far fewer Covid-19 cases because they don’t have a selfish and incompetent government led by selfish incompetent Boris Johnson.
This Writer took a Covid-19 test today. The result was negative, you’ll be pleased to hear.
No, nobody passed on the virus at the successful Festival of Resistance at which I spoke over the weekend.
While I had been there, Mrs Mike had attended a gathering to celebrate her best friend’s granddaughter’s 16th birthday. The day after, the girl’s stepfather tested positive.
Mrs Mike had not been near him but she took a test on Monday, along with her friend. Both came out negative – and this was good, because we were due to attend the funeral of Mrs Mike’s beloved grandfather on Wednesday (yesterday) and she would have been devastated to miss it.
So we attended the event, along with many others (he had been 99 years old and a pillar of the Royal British Legion), and it was only when we were driving back from the crematorium that Mrs Mike received a message from her best friend, that she had taken a second test and it had come out positive.
Imagine the effect on Mrs Mike, who had just attended such a large event, full of senior citizens who are most vulnerable to Covid-19 – and alongside her daughter, who is pregnant. We all wore masks at the ceremonies, but not at the social event between the service and the cremation; and not in the car with my stepdaughter and her fiance, or in their house afterwards.
It is therefore a great relief that neither of us have the virus and could not have passed it on.
Shall we discuss the press conference by that utter maniac Sajid Javid now, in this context?
The day after the official figure – of deaths within 28 days of a positive test – hit 223, its highest level since March, and 43,738 daily cases – which is around the current level of nearly 50k per day – he said infections could more than double to 100,000 per day during the winter.
I think with the highest daily death rate since March, it would be great for access-journalists to maybe ask for a reaction from the PM. Because every one of the 223 people who died in the last 24 hours have people crying right now. And they can't just pretend it's not happening.
That isn’t news; we’ve been hearing it since late summer. The tragedy is that Javid isn’t interested in doing anything about it.
He won’t re-impose restrictions or lockdowns. He says the precautions people take are for them to judge – but my own experience over the last few days shows that people simply are not good judges in that respect.
If Javid expects infections to more-than-double, then it is reasonable to believe he has come to the same conclusion.
Why doesn’t he re-introduce social distancing rules, or even lockdowns, then? He doesn’t care.
His attitude is that his donors have waiting long enough and now they want to start making money again. If people die… too bad.
Of course, some people have done very well out of our suffering, let’s not forget:
Ministers helped some of their friends get very, very wealthy off the pandemic. It's a scandal that demands answers. (Our latest with @ByDonkeys) pic.twitter.com/BRM2qol35r
It’s a shocking dereliction of duty by a UK Health Secretary. No doubt he will surround himself with excuses, and with friends in the Tories’ client media to mouth them, but that won’t change the evidence.
I note what he said about people attending parties – but it simply isn’t realistic. People aren’t going to wear masks at such events because they are there specifically to get closer to their friends and loved ones and masks get in the way. It is his job to ensure that people don’t need to – and he simply isn’t doing it.
Instead, he lied that we are closer to normal than we were a few months ago…
'We are a lot closer to normal than we were a few months ago' says @sajidjavid Weekly covid hospital admissions 17 June: 1220 17 Oct: 5250
He said he has secured hundreds of thousands of doses of new antivirals – great! But the UK has a population of 68 million. Who will get those drugs first?
Yay, Javid has secured 480,000 courses of Molnupirav drug to keep the deaths down over winter.
Four million people have had booster injections of Covid-19 vaccines, he said. Why so few?
UK Health Security Agency chief executive Jenny Harries said the number of deaths was moving in the “wrong direction” – which is a curious choice of words. The fact that, after more than a year and a half, there are any deaths at all shows that the UK government’s Covid-19 policy as a whole has been moving in the wrong direction since the start.
And she has contributed to this, of course:
UK lab investigated for false negative Covid tests is not fully accredited.
See who claimed it was accredited? Why Jenny Harries of course. Who else could it have been? https://t.co/CPS574iZdp
Javid said it was still his belief that people in the UK should “learn to live with the virus”. Like MPs will have to, after their disgraceful display of masklessness at Prime Minister’s Questions?
Sajid Javid says people in enclosed spaces should "wear a face mask" and "think about those around them."
And he said contingency measures are in place if the situation becomes “more challenging” – but are not needed yet.
If not now – when? The UK has the highest infection rate, the highest death rate, and the worst government response of any nation in the world! Deaths are at 1,000 per week and have been for months – that’s equivalent to 50,000 per year. The current infection rate means 2.6 million people are likely to contract the virus per year, increasing to a possible 5.2 million – and Javid is happy with that.
That is not the attitude of a Health Secretary but of a homicidal maniac.
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Tempting fate: this is what happened when an HGV driver tried reversing in a Welsh country road. Expect many more such incidents after the Tory changes to HGV driver tests take effect.
The UK’s stupid Tory government has promised to increase the number of HGV driving tests available in order to relieve the current driver shortage – by eliminating a vital element in which drivers must show they can reverse the vehicle.
This Writer knows how valuable the ability to reverse properly is, because I have reported on what happens when it goes wrong.
Very early in my career I reported on an inquest into the death of a man after an HGV reversed into him. I won’t go into the details because they are distressing.
So I am looking forward to the Conservative government guidance that shows how HGV drivers will be able to avoid reversing in the future.
Also eliminated are the “uncoupling and recoupling” element for vehicles with trailers.
The government says these parts of the test take a long time so it’s better not to bother. They’ll do it later… maybe.
Why not do it straight away, at the test that shows drivers are qualified to do it? I don’t believe what these ministers and civil servants are saying.
In addition, car drivers who want to tow a trailer or caravan won’t need to take a test, freeing up a further 30,000 more HGV tests.
The new legislation to make these changes legal is being pushed through by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and the Department for Transport (DfT).
The DfT says the move won’t affect the standard of driving required in order to drive an HGV, while car owners are being encouraged to undertake extra training in order to tow trailers and caravans.
Huh?
If car drivers will need extra training to tow trailers and caravans, then they won’t be qualified to do it… and that implies that the parts removed from HGV tests are also vital. Doesn’t it?
That’s what I’m seeing on the social media:
Hey, about the government taking the reversing element out of the HGV driving test…..look what I just found on the Health and Safety part of the government’s own website: pic.twitter.com/nUKFJ3Y39c
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