Why would any self-respecting UK citizen vote for this continual erosion of the laws that protect them?
Human Rights Watch have identified a “worrying trend” by the UK government of proposing laws that violate human rights and significantly weaken protections. This is no longer a functioning democracy. It’s a despotic regime. https://t.co/2qkkHADwBQ
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Daniel Kawczynski: this was his justification for bullying his staff.
Here’s Daniel Kawczynski, MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham:
Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski is facing a one-day suspension from the Commons after being found to have broken the rules over an apology he gave for bullying parliamentary staff.
So, not only was he found guilty of bullying his own staff – he has now been found guilty of breaking the rules for apologising about it!
The recommendation has been made by the Commons Standards Committee and follows comments the MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham made before he said sorry last June.
The committee ruled that interviews he gave on local radio and with a newspaper before the required apology in the Commons chamber meant he had failed to comply, as the apology was not “unequivocal”.
In its report, the committee said: “Although he says he was sincere by the time he made the apology to the House, he had that morning effectively undermined the sincerity of that apology by broadcasting the fact that he was making it because he was required to do so and he disagreed with the way the case had been conducted.
I wonder if he expected the government to change the rules for him, as it tried to do for his former North Shropshire colleague, Owen Paterson?
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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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Keir the clueless: if he won’t stand up against liars who present a false impression of the Labour Party, then his version of Labour is not worth your support in any way at all.
It seems Keir Starmer is set to pay out Labour members’ subscriptions and apologise to so-called anti-Semitism whistleblowers, in order to settle a court case that Labour would win – if he fought it.
Why?
What is the aim here, other than to humiliate the party and create a false impression that Labour was in the wrong?
Here’s the story:
Labour is poised to make a formal apology to antisemitism whistleblowers as part of a settlement designed to draw a line under allegations made during the Jeremy Corbyn era, the Guardian has learned.
The whistleblowers sued the party for defamation in the wake of a BBC Panorama investigation last year. No final settlement has been reached but sources said an agreement was imminent, prompting anger from Corbyn allies who accused the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, of capitulating.
Seven of the eight whistleblowers – all former Labour staffers – who featured in the documentary instructed the prominent media lawyer Mark Lewis to take action against the party.
They claimed senior figures had issued statements attacking their reputations and suggesting they had ulterior political and personal motives to undermine the party.
Labour is expected to settle a separate case with the veteran journalist John Ware, who led the Panorama investigation and who sued over a statement by Labour that the BBC had engaged in “deliberate and malicious representations designed to mislead the public” in its broadcast.
If they were justified in their action, then perhaps it would be fair for them to receive an apology and restitution. However:
Any apology will prove controversial among Corbyn loyalists, who questioned whether settling it is a good use of party funds. The Guardian understands legal advice provided to Labour under Corbyn’s leadership suggested the party could win the case.
Labour under Starmer has appeared eager to reach agreements to end ongoing conflicts over the party’s antisemitism crisis.
So on the face of it, Starmer is throwing Labour members’ subscription money away, in order to lie about the way anti-Semitism was handled by these former officers.
And it will be for nothing. Appeasement never stops anybody – it just encourages them to go on accusing and demanding, with each demand being more outrageous.
What impression is Starmer hoping to give?
That Labour is now utterly supine?
That the party will give in and go along with anyone who tries to bully it – like the Tories on the Covid-19 crisis and the sectarian groups among the UK’s Jewish community who demand absolute loyalty to the Israeli government, no matter what atrocities it commits against Palestine?
That Labour is no longer an anti-racist party as it will not defend even its own members who stand up against racism?
That Labour is no longer worthy of support in any way at all?
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How typical of the Tory strategy on Covid-19 that the blood antibody tests that cost them £16 million might not work:
Senior medical specialists have raised concerns about the accuracy of the antibody tests being carried out on NHS staff across the country.
The blood tests – which can tell whether someone has had Covid-19 – were previously described by prime minister Boris Johnson as “game-changing”.
The government has spent £16m buying some 10 million test kits from pharmaceutical giant Abbott and Roche with the first phase of the testing programme assessing NHS and care staff, before being rolled out to the public.
But a letter from academics and clinicians, published in The BMJ, raises concerns about the performance of the tests, the clinical reasoning for them and the cost.
“We have three concerns… Firstly, there is no specific clinical indication for the test on an individual basis. Secondly, the performance of these assays has not yet been assessed to the standard typically required of a novel test. And thirdly, the resource implications are not considered.”
“The assay is being rolled out at an unprecedented pace and scale without adequate assessment, potentially compromising public trust in pathology services in the future.”
The letter adds: “NHS England requires the result to be available in 24 hours. Given that routine testing of patients is neither clinically urgent nor meets a clear public health need, this push to introduce a non-evidence based test for uncertain gains risks inefficient use of scarce resources.”
The experts also warned that a positive or negative test result would not alter how a patient is managed either way and added that a positive result “does not indicate immunity”.
It seems the government has admitted the scientists may have a point.
The Department of Health and Social Care made a statement saying: “We do not currently know how long an antibody response to the virus lasts, nor whether having antibodies means a person cannot transmit it to others.”
Nevertheless, antibody testing “will play an increasingly important role as we move into the next phase of our response to this pandemic”.
Looks like another pointless waste of cash to This Writer. How typical.
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Something smelling fishy? Matt Hancock’s government department seems to have hijacked images of NHS staff to create fake accounts that push lies and propaganda.
How much of this are you going to accept before demanding an end to the deceptions?
Now it seems the Department of Health has created hundreds of fake Twitter accounts, claiming to belong to NHS staff, in order to broadcast support for the government.
If true, this is pure propaganda; your government lying to you about the views of NHS staff.
The scam was cracked by John O’Connell on Twitter:
Can you confirm that '@nhs_susan' here is a creation of the DHSC Communications Team, and not in fact, one of your hardworking staff at the Starfish Ward ?
… we discovered that the real ‘NHS Susan’ is a nurse from Greece:
It appears that @nhs_susan – one of many fake NHS staff accounts uncovered by @jdpoc & seemingly set up at the govt's behest – used the photo of Mia Magklavani, a paediatrics staff nurse from Greece.
It seems Mr O’Connell then discovered a further 127 fake NHS staff accounts. Here’s his Twitter thread about his findings:
The one person has been identified.
Despite the @DHSCgovuk reply to my queries of 'no comment' (and that's all she wrote), that person is a contracted Government employee temporarily assigned to this department.
.@DHSCgovuk are adopting a corporate 'head in the sand' 'fingers in the ears' approach to this matter, hoping it will be swept aside by ongoing news stories of a more serious nature.
After all, who cares about industrial scale misinformation in the face of so many deaths? pic.twitter.com/TBHJQcpDJy
The accounts have now mostly gone, not suspended by Twitter but deleted by the account holder(s) in one simultaneous mass cull a few days ago … At the click of a button.
Which itself, goes to prove the singular control of all the accounts.
When we state 'DHSC', to clarify, this is either directly, or indirectly via a ''Marketing Agency'' set up a few months ago with one client (guess who) and three staff (all ex DHSC). A poor attempt at deniability.
DHSC and various NHS Trusts seem to show no interest in the welfare of the genuine staff members who's identities have been lifted and used for Government Propaganda.
A reminder ; DHSC were fairly offered an opportunity by me, via email and telecon, to address these issues. A chance to 'get ahead' of the story. I was duty bound to offer that to them.
In addition, I recall well how the whistleblower for the Cambridge Analytica scandal was crucified, publicly. I seek to avoid that, as you can imagine.
We, as a team, need to do more work and take legal advice. We do this in our spare time (we all have jobs, mostly)
— Department of Health and Social Care (@DHSCgovuk) April 20, 2020
… but unconvincingly. Remember that the Tories changed their own publicity account’s name to “FactCheckUK” during last year’s election campaign, dishonestly impersonating a genuine fact-checking service to lie about the Labour party.
And why would anybody use a government website to check whether content is harmful, when it’s the government that is accused of creating it?
The danger is that the Tory government is undermining trust in the institutions we need to be able to trust. It is deadly dangerous – but the Tories are playing the fool.
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Labour’s NEC has released a statement of support for Jeremy Corbyn’s preferred policy on Brexit – and the BBC’s Tory-supporting political editor is already doing everything she can to undermine it.
The statement shows that a Labour government would negotiate a new Brexit deal with the EU and put it before the people in a new referendum within six months of coming into office.
This deal, following discussion with industry, trade unions and the EU, would include a new UK-EU customs union, a close relationship with the Single Market, protections of the Good Friday Agreement with no hard border, securing the permanent rights of three million EU nationals in the UK and one million UK nationals in Europe, guarantees of workers’ rights and environmental protections, and membership of key bodies to ensure joint co-operation in areas like climate change, counter-terrorism and medicines.
And Labour would decide how to campaign in a referendum on this deal – or remaining in the EU – after a special one-day party conference, to ensure that the will of party members is upheld.
Here’s the meat of the statement:
Labour will put control of Brexit back in the hands of the people in a new referendum with a real choice between a sensible leave deal or remain.
The NEC further welcomes the role of the Labour Party in Parliament to work cross-party to legislate against crashing out on 31 October. There is no mandate for No Deal.
A Labour government will get Brexit sorted one way or another within six months of coming to power, allowing us to concentrate on all the issues that matter to people most.
A Labour Government would secure a sensible leave deal with the EU within three months, and within six months would put it before the people in a referendum alongside the option to remain.
Jeremy Corbyn is right to say that as a Labour prime minister he would implement the will of the British people in that referendum.
The Labour frontbench has consulted with industry, trade unions and EU leaders and officials on a deal that protects jobs and investment, while respecting the 2016 referendum result.
Labour’s leave deal would include a new UK-EU customs union, a close relationship with the Single Market, protections of the Good Friday Agreement with no hard border, securing the permanent rights of 3 million EU nationals in the UK and 1 million UK nationals in Europe, guarantees of workers’ rights and environmental protections, and membership of key bodies to ensure joint co-operation in areas like climate change, counter-terrorism and medicines.
If people vote to leave on those terms, Labour will deliver that and leave the EU with that negotiated deal. If people vote to remain, Labour would implement that and seek to reform the EU as members. A Labour government will deliver whichever decision is made by the people of the UK.
The NEC believes it is right that the party shall only decide how to campaign in such a referendum – through a one-day special conference, following the election of a Labour Government.
It’s a strong policy, ensuring that the people of the UK have the opportunity to determine their own future – unlike the policies of the Boris Johnson’s Conservatives or Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats.
So of course BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg – who already crashed the BBC switchboard with complaints after she outed a concerned father who challenged Boris Johnson over the collapse of the NHS as a “Labour activist” and told Twitter’s Tories where they could dogpile him – had to try to cause trouble.
In a series of tweets, she claimed that the Labour leadership had emailed the statement to NEC members with a request to get replies in before 1.30pm:
3. Not really sure this is either the kinder, gentler politics or the kind of proper party democracy that excited Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters
But her claim doesn’t take in the realities of conference participation. Was she suggesting that NEC members should have abandoned their commitments to appear, in order to have a meeting about it?
In practice, a round-robin email was the easiest way – and the deadline was late enough that everyone involved would have had time to respond, between conference appearances.
As it was, there was a majority for the statement before midday, so it was released.
So much for the threat that Brexit divisions would overshadow the conference. But how many people will dwell on Ms Kuenssberg’s distortion rather than the facts?
Jeremy Corbyn: He’d be right to appear dumbfounded at the proliferation of fake identities and Twitter accounts dedicated to undermining his standing among supporters.
“I might have remained “soft” Labour but for the perfect storm of Jeremy Corbyn and Brexit. The latter is quite simply anathema to me, not just because I’m the granddaughter of immigrants, but because I believe so strongly in freedom of movement, and that the evidence backs up the overwhelming truth that we are better off in the EU than we can possibly be out of it.
“The Momentum-propelled adulation of Jeremy Corbyn left me cold. I was also increasingly uneasy about the accusations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, and for the first time in my voting life I started to feel politically homeless.
“There has been a steady drumbeat from disgruntled Labour supporters looking to the Lib Dems over the past fortnight. A Lexit, you might call it, but not quite the one Jeremy Corbyn envisaged.
“Perhaps he should have listened to some of the 700,000 voices on the People’s Vote and Final Say March in October. I was one of them, protesting with the Lib Dems; I joined the party in August after a lifetime of supporting Labour.”
These were the words of Liz Jarvis in The Independent – and perhaps you think she was simply reflecting the feeling of the many Labour members and supporters we are being told are deserting the party because of Jeremy Corbyn’s opaque attitude toward Brexit.
But there’s a problem with the narrative:
Did you know that @LizJarvisUK – who has written this article attacking Jeremy Corbyn – used to work for Rupert Murdoch? She fails to mention this, as she declares her love for the Lib Dems, a party complicit in Tory cuts, Bedroom Tax and homelessness
The appearance of such Twitter accounts – all professing a particular political viewpoint but all lacking followers – is a clear sign that they are fake.
Either they are bots – artificial – or they are run by paid employees of (in this case) Mr Corbyn’s political opponents – not necessarily Conservatives – and dedicated to undermining support for him.
I say again:
If support for Mr Corbyn is draining away because of his attitude to Brexit, why are such filthy, underhand, deceitful and disgusting tactics deemed necessary?
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How can Tories complain about anybody’s attitude to women or minorities when Boris Johnson is Foreign Secretary?
Tory MP Nusrat Ghani reckons she will demand an urgent debate in the House of Commons about the incident in which Clive Lewis used the word “bitch” during a social event connected to the Labour Party, a month ago.
Some of us may find it worth comment that she wants an “urgent” debate about an incident that is a month old and is only being discussed now in order to distract the public from the growing list of the minority Conservative government’s failures. Where’s her demand for an urgent debate on her own government’s failure to support the will of Parliament and suspend the Universal Credit rollout?
Here are her tweets:
Monday will ask for urgent debate from Speaker @HouseofCommons. Clive Lewis used position of power & establishment to undermine parliament. https://t.co/FGSyHKuDlp
Oh, right. Using the word “bitch” implies a lack of respect for women. This Writer can certainly get on board with that – but not with the hypocrisy of saying it after reading an article about Mr Lewis on the Guido Fawkes blog, which has a record of abusing that word:
Interesting that Guido Fawkes says Clive Lewis is pure evil for using the B-word when he uses it openly himself on twitter. #ToryLogicpic.twitter.com/v5fWnPDgpK
The event at which Mr Lewis misspoke was run, presented and owned by women – and no objection was raised at the time. Some have tried to raise indignation because a female voice was heard saying, “This is supposed to be a safe space”. Here’s the owner of that voice:
On top of all the foregoing is the fact that Mr Lewis himself has apologised for his words, which he accepts were completely inappropriate (even though the way they were said ran counter to the misogynistic use that is correctly vilified).
So we’ve established that the fake outrage over Mr Lewis is a storm in a teacup. But a debate could still be useful – to point out the many similar outrages caused by Conservative MPs.
I mean, opponents of the government could raise the obvious policy points:
So Conservative MPs refuse to turn up for a vote on pausing Universal Credit but now they want an “urgent debate” on Clive Lewis calling another man a bitch. #HeadsGone
I'm supporting my friend & colleague @Nus_Ghani on Monday. Unacceptable language & mysogigny from Labour MPs cannot be allowed to continue. https://t.co/lvL7rYB9i2
— Anne-Marie Trevelyan #HandsFaceSpace (@annietrev) October 21, 2017
Where was this Tory MP’s outrage when her colleague Philip Davies filibustered a debate about domestic violence? https://t.co/8SVFcYxdb3
But let’s admit it – the time would be far better-used discussing the transgressions of individual Tories. Aaron Bastani, whose social media organisation Novara hosted the event at which Mr Lewis said his offending words, listed a few possibles – including, for the sake of fairness, one example concerning a Labour MP:
Boris Johnson is worth an article in his own right – and the Metro has obligingly provided one. In it, Yvette Caster comments on his claim that women go to university because “they’ve got to find men to marry”, that female graduates are responsible for rising house prices – and are making it difficult for other families to get housing, that working women should get back to the home because they are responsible for young people’s antisocial behaviour.
There’s this: “Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3.”
I strongly recommend that you visit the article to experience the full horror.
But Mr Johnson isn’t the only Tory transgressor. What about James Heappey?
They really aren't very good with social media are they, they have an MP tell a schoolgirl to Fuck off, that's ok, but go ape over Lewis!
Remember all the right-wing MP and gutter blog outrage over this….? No, me neither. Can't work out what the difference was…. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/LGWjIWaprP
I wrote an article on Vox Political about this – ahem – “gentleman”, along with Tory Nick Harrington who said Ireland could “keep its f’king gypsies”. What charming men!
Moving back to the Cabinet, what about Michael Fallon, who called a journalist a “slut”, although it seems he would be more accurate if he applied the term to himself:
Fallon’s people have denied that he used the word but they would, wouldn’t they (to paraphrase Mandy Rice-Davies’s words about another Tory defence minister, in another scandal)?
And then there’s the deputy chairman of Bermondsey and Southwark Conservative Association, Rupert Myers QC. Journalist Kate Leaver has alleged that he “forced himself” on her – and I hope everybody reading this knows what that means. If it is true, then not only should he be imprisoned but he should be stripped of his Tory membership and dismissed from the bar (of the court – although it seems he should also be banned from reputable drinking establishments):
This incident happened in the House of Commons itself, during a Parliamentary debate. Ms Soubry’s words were not picked up by any of the many microphones in the chamber, but she certainly appears to be using those words.
These are just a few examples of incidents in which, mainly, Conservatives have used their “position of power and establishment” abominably and it could easily be argued that they have undermined Parliament by doing so.
So, yes, Nusrat Ghani – let’s have that debate – and let us use it to expose your Tory colleagues as sexist, misogynist, and criminal vermin.
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The challengers maintained that parliamentary approval and legislation was required for such a fundamental change [Image: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA].
How unexpected! The high court has undermined Theresa May’s authority in a fundamental way.
She has made herself perfectly clear – as Tory prime ministers seem to love saying – that the UK’s departure from the European Union would be triggered by her Tory government, when it was ready.
Now the Lord Chief Justice has told her she is wrong – and in no uncertain terms.
Think about that: A prime minister who does not understand the law.
By what authority does she govern, then?
And, if she is wrong about this, what other mistakes is she making?
This Blog has already pointed out that Mrs May’s ‘Great Repeal Bill’ is in fact nothing of the sort, as it enshrines a multiplicity of EU rules in UK law – rules that we already thought had been approved by Parliament, so the reason is hard to determine.
And we keep hearing about Tory ministers being rebuffed by EU representatives for trying to make deals that are – let’s call them – inappropriate.
They are hedging their bets, as much as they possibly can – and finding that they have much less leeway than they expected.
Now it seems even the British legal system is against these corner-cutting Tories.
The ruling has been handed down in response to the so-called “People’s Challenge” to the government’s Brexit plans, brought by a group including Gina Miller.
To be honest, this is a major surprise as a Northern Irish court had ruled that Parliament need not be asked to trigger Brexit. But it was only ruling on issues relating to Northern Ireland.
Reactions have been as you might expect. Nigel Farage is talking in terms of “betrayal”, suggesting that an attempt to overturn the result of the EU referendum might be on its way – but would face the wrath of the UK’s electorate.
That might be wishful thinking on his part! The electorate has been dealt ample evidence that the arguments for leaving the EU were not worth the time spent to utter them and full Parliamentary scrutiny may highlight these discrepancies even more.
The fact is that the referendum result is now confirmed as merely advisory, though.
Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn has adopted what seems the right attitude to take. He said the government must now take its plans to Parliament and remove the shroud of secrecy that has hung over them ever since the result of the referendum became known.
This could be another source of humiliation for Mrs May as it has long been suspected that she and her ministers don’t have a plan at all.
Parliament alone has the power to trigger Brexit by notifying Brussels of the UK’s intention to leave the European Union, the high court has ruled.
The judgment, delivered by the lord chief justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, is likely to slow the pace of Britain’s departure from the EU and is a huge setback for Theresa May, who had insisted the government alone would decide when to trigger the process.
The Lord Chief Justice said that “the most fundamental rule of the UK constitution is that parliament is sovereign”.
A government spokesman said that ministers would appeal to the supreme court against the decision. The hearing will take place on December 7 – 8.
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