Martin Forde KC, the author of a major report on allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, has said there are serious issues of racism but, since it was published in July, nobody in the organisation has contacted him to discuss what should happen next.
he has “anxiety” and “genuine underlying concerns” about “racial issues within the party”.
Referring to Sir Keir’s speech last month, in which the Labour leader said the party will “never again be brought to its knees by racism or bigotry”, Mr Forde said: “It is not a sufficient response to say ‘that was then this is now’.”
He added: “These are serious debates that need to be heard in a respectful context. And I just feel this there’s work to be done.”
His words come after he was interviewed by Middle Eastern broadcaster Al-Jazeera for an episode of its Labour Files documentary series, in which he claimed that the BBC Panorama documentary Is Labour Antisemitic had been “objectively entirely misleading”, and that he had been contacted by BBC representatives who wanted him to “amend” his comments on the show.
Here’s how the Al-Jazeera documentary describes what happened:
This man was hand picked by Starmer’s Labour to investigate the Labour leaks.
What Martin Forde KC found when he looked under the car bonnet was not what Sir Keir Starmer KC wanted to hear.
The documentary also suggests that Labour leader Keir Starmer has reneged on a promise to party members from ethnic minorities, that he would take the findings of the Forde Report seriously:
Another commitment Starmer broke
This was a one he made to BAME staff in the party about how the Forde report won't be a whitewashed. pic.twitter.com/urDwjEKNjw
The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s decision to whitewash the Labour Party’s disciplinary proceedings seems doubly contradictory when one considers the words of one of that process’s victims, below.
I’m aware that what’s described below isn’t directly related to the party’s policy on anti-Semitism, but it does provide revealing information on the treatment that anybody undergoing this Kafkaesque process is facing.
It seems clear that the current disciplinary process is being used as an excuse for the persecution of people who have done nothing wrong at all – the example below is of a woman who gave an interview to an organisation within the Labour Party. A year later, Keir Starmer’s bully boys and girls summarily proscribed that organisation and expelled anybody who had anything to do with it – even though they could not possibly have known that it would be proscribed at the time of their own contact.
It also seems clear that the appeal process against expulsion simply doesn’t work at all – most probably because it is run by factional party members who are bent on removing left-wingers from the formerly left-wing party.
The effect on the former party members targeted by this victimisation – this persecution – is predictable: their political careers have been harmed, possibly fatally; they have been prevented from carrying out any of the good work they had been doing previously; their reputations have suffered and they have been shunned by people who were previously colleagues; and their personal life and well-being has suffered hugely.
This is a calculated, desired result. Keir Starmer wants people like Pamela Fitzpatrick to suffer.
It is now 14 months since I lodged my appeal against my expulsion from the Labour Party. I was a long standing member of the Party and at the time of my expulsion I was Chair of the Harrow Labour Group, the Labour appointed Chair of the Planning Committee, a Labour councillor
organisation Socialist appeal in May 2020 and in doing so the Party judged me to be in breach of a rule it had created over a year later. I have contacted Labour several times over the past 14 months to ask for an update on my appeal, but I have had no response or acknowledgement
This is not my desired outcome. The letter before claim sets out the impact the unlawful treatment by Labour has had on me. It has resulted in my exclusion from any political positions associated with the Party and has had a profoundly damaging impact on my political career.
members, with a majority of over 100,000. This is a committee that is very close to my heart as I have experienced abuse within the Party and am aware of many other women who have also experienced similar abuse. The position was voluntary and lasted 2 years. I have not been able
activities. This includes going to the Party Conference, any events that are organised, branch meetings, taking part in canvassing, fundraising events. These activities have taken up the majority of my time for many years, but I am no longer able to attend them.
It is uncontroversial that such treatment would also have a negative impact on a person’s personal life and wellbeing, as it has had on me. My heartfelt thanks to all those who have supported me. Solidarity really is the most beautiful of words.
Few rank-and-file party members will be in a position to take the Labour Party to the High Court and seek satisfaction via litigation.
Personally, I think Ms Fitzpatrick should invite other wronged party members to join her, and make it a class action, but that’s a matter for her.
Whatever happens in court, her story serves as an example of StarmerLabour’s authoritarian – if not totalitarian – policy: it is no longer a broad church. Members must service Starmer’s increasingly right-wing demands – or he will harm them.
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Boris Johnson: the prime minister is pictured participating in a party to mark the departure of Lee Cain from his Downing Street communications job – but according to Acting Met Police Commissioner Sir Stephen House, there is “no clear evidence” that he took part in the rampant Covid-19 rule-breaking there.
A police officer who witnessed “a large number of people” at a “crowded and noisy” party, where “some members of staff drank excessively” did not immediately take action over Covid-19 rule breaches because he was there for security and not to “police what goes on inside the building”, according to Met Police Acting Commissioner Sir Stephen House.
Have you ever read such nonsense? Police officers are sworn to uphold the law at all times, no matter what their stated duties are said to be. Would he have turned a blind eye to burglary, or rape, because he was assigned to “security”?
Apparently the same officer did not feel that a large number of drunken people in a crowded and noisy room breached Covid-19 regulations that strictly prohibited such social gatherings.
It’s no wonder this “acting” Commissioner’s other comments are also shockingly inadequate in the light of this.
House told the London Assembly’s Police and Crime Committee there was “no clear evidence” that Johnson had breached Covid-19 rules many times in Downing Street, despite the very clear photographic evidence of him participating in a party to mark the departure of Lee Cain from Downing Street on November 13, 2020.
This was not a “works gathering”. Far too many people were present and they were socialising and drinking alcohol – as was the prime minister, who gave a speech. The amount of time he spent there was immaterial because the rules in place at the time prohibited all such social events from taking place at all.
At least one attendee was fined for being at this event but there was “no clear evidence” that Boris Johnson was there or took part, according to House.
House also suggested that it was difficult for his officers to work out which gatherings were work-related and which were not. How daft! If alcoholic drinks were visible in the room, then they weren’t work-related. And in any case, if the room was packed with people, meaning they were not at least 2m away from each other in accordance with social distancing rules, they were breaking the law.
House said he was personally involved in the decision-making and was confident in the outcome of the police investigation. That should be enough for us to demand that he surrender his badge.
Is he selling us down the river so he can gain the favour of the top Tories?
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Boozy Johnson: it seems he spent most of the Covid-19 crisis drunk, along with many of the staff at Downing Street – and the Met Police, together with Sue Gray, have been trying to cover-up his wrongdoing.
Isn’t it a shame that Sue Gray’s report into the drunken party culture that prevailed at Downing Street from early 2020 until late 2021 (at least) is so uneven.
Parts of it are thoroughly researched, but other parts – especially, it seems, where Boris Johnson is concerned, are amateurish.
Consider the report’s entry about a gathering in the Downing Street flat on the evening of November 13, 2020.
Ms Gray states that after the announcement that Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain were leaving, a meeting was held in the Number 10 flat to discuss the handling of their departure.
It started at 6pm, involving five special advisors, and Johnson himself turned up at 8pm. Food and alcohol were available and the “discussion” continued into the evening with people leaving at various points.
This was not a works gathering – it was a party.
If it had been a works gathering, then it would have taken place in an office – not the flat. Alcohol would certainly not have been available – have you ever been to a work meeting where booze was being served up to all and sundry? I haven’t! People attend work events to work – not to drink. And everybody would have stayed until the meeting was closed by its chair, if it were a works gathering.
Johnson was getting drunk with his mates in his flat and they simply pretended it was a works gathering to diddle the rules, or so it seems to me. Doesn’t it look that way to you?
Ms Gray’s report states she had to halt her investigation because the police inquiry began, and did not re-start it when the Met had finished their dog’s dinner of a probe because she did not think it was “appropriate or proportionate” to do so.
Is this because she feared that she would expose her boss’s lawbreaking further than it already has been?
I’ve looked in detail at just three events so far. All were parties, and Boris Johnson participated fully in all of them. At those times, he was drunk in charge of the nation – and these were times when the nation needed a sober hand at the helm.
It was a flagrant abuse of power that both the Met Police and Ms Gray seem to have been doing their utmost to cover up. Shame on them – and shame on all of us if we allow them to get away with it.
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Sue Gray’s report on alleged Downing Street parties has been published and is likely to cause further controversy rather than quiet it.
She claims that the very first event she discusses – in which Boris Johnson and others were pictured sitting around a table drinking wine on May 15, 2020, was a legitimate work meeting.
But the rules she herself describes in her report stated that “participating in a gathering of more than two persons in public was prohibited except where the gathering was ‘essential for work purposes’… Social distancing guidance applied, with workplaces required ‘to maintain 2m social distancing wherever possible'”.
Was the gathering “essential for work purposes”? Sue Gray tells us, “the Prime Minister, Martin Reynolds (his Principal Private Secretary), and Dominic Cummings (his senior adviser) were continuing a lengthy meeting that had started in the Prime Minister’s office, before moving to the garden at around 18.00.” Why did they have to meet in person for this meeting? Why were they not socially distanced (you can see from the image above that they are not two metres distant from each other? And crucially, how can it have been a work meeting if there was alcohol provided – and by the prime minister as well?
This Writer has never been to a work meeting at which alcohol was freely available and imbibed by those present.
Those who were there were ignoring social distancing rules that they had imposed.
And there was no reason for them to be in the same space as each other at all.
This was a social gathering, not a works meeting, and Sue Gray has ignored the evidence.
In her favour, Gray criticises those who participated in the events for failing to come forward with full details after her investigation was announced, instead allowing information to become available “piecemeal” as it was revealed by the press. “This is disappointing. Given the piecemeal manner in which events were brought to my attention, it is possible that events took place which were not the subject of investigation.”
This can only be seen as criticism of Boris Johnson as he made it perfectly clear from the start that he would not willingly provide any information about what had happened in Downing Street on his watch.
That’s what This Writer sees after reading just 11 pages into the 60-page report. It seems clear that, like the police before her (or indeed, after her, if this report was in fact written before they started their investigation), Sue Gray has given Boris Johnson every break possible – even if there is damning information in the rest of her report. That is shameful in itself.
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Boris Johnson’s comments about the clothes worn by Muslim women are only part of the huge volume of Islamophobia and racial hatred he has tried to stir up on his own – but the EHRC was happy to let the Tories investigate accusations against their own party and now that report stands revealed to be a whitewash.
An independent (was it?) review into Islamophobia in the Conservative Party has said there is no “institutional” problem – to howls of outrage from the rest of us.
Even though it does report attitudes that make “uncomfortable” reading for Boris Johnson and other Tories, the report is as much a whitewash as the examination of “institutional racism” in the UK, a few weeks ago.
Just like there is no institutional racism in Britain there is no institutional Islamophobia in the Tory party. Who didn't see that coming?
— Bradley Wall 🏳️🌈 🇪🇺🇬🇧🌍 (@BWallArthur) May 25, 2021
The government has been resisting calls for that report to be discredited and scrapped ever since and the Conservative Party must now face the same calls over this.
Here’s the BBC, calmly presenting the Tories in as kind a light as possible (in other words, very dimly):
There is “clear evidence” the Conservatives’ complaints system is “in need of overhaul”, Professor Swaran Singh’s independent review into alleged Islamophobia and discrimination in the Conservative Party said.
It found anti-Muslim views were seen at local association and individual level.
But claims of “institutional racism” were not borne out by evidence of the way complaints were handled.
The report warned it “should make for uncomfortable reading for the party”.
But it also said it found “no evidence the party had… systematically failed any particular community”.
Oh, really?
Let’s go to some of our favourite people on Twitter for their analysis.
Here’s Ash Sarkar, who happens to be a Muslim who has suffered Islamophobia from Conservative Party members:
On the Conservative Islamophobia report: it's an absolute whitewash. Last year, a sitting Conservative councillor (tweeting under the name "CrusaderIan") tweeted expressing the sentiment that I deserve and invite racist abuse. pic.twitter.com/NaKeImQaMY
This man is *still* a Conservative councillor. He's still a member of the party. And he's still tweeting under the name "CrusaderIan" – I wonder what kind of crusade he's referencing there…
A report into Islamophobia in the Conservative Party has just exonerated the Party for institutional racism, but no action has been taken about this tweet by Michael Fabricant. It's almost like they don't take the racist remarks of their own MPs seriously… pic.twitter.com/vnNLYnsvdP
— James Armstrong 🟠⬆️🏳️🌈✊🏾 (@PoliticoTeacher) May 25, 2021
Johnson’s own comment about women wearing the burqa (or burka, spell it how you like) looking like “letterboxes” and “bank robbers” was criticised as “insensitive”. That’s a strange way to spell “racist”!
It seems he tried to excuse himself with the pathetically weak comment that he wouldn’t do it again, now that he is prime minister.
BREAK – Independent review into alleged Islamophobia and discrimination in the Conservative Party has said several interviewees considered Mr Johnson’s language “discriminatory and unacceptable”. pic.twitter.com/39Ds06NwmC
How is that acceptable? He was saying that he still holds his racist, Islamophobic opinions, but he now intends to deceive the public that he doesn’t by choosing not to broadcast them!
Perhaps he feels he should not be picked out for special investigation because he isn’t the first Tory prime minister to be out-and-out racist filth. Theresa May’s “hostile environment”, that gave rise to her racist “go home” advertising vans and the Windrush scandal, springs to mind.
But apparently these historical examples of racism and Islamophobia are still not enough for the Singh review!
They were enough for Russ Jones:
What was it that tipped you off? The "Go Home" vans? The posters in mosques asking people to return where they came from? The PM writing "islamophobia seems natural" and "Islam is the problem", and comparing Muslims to bank robbers? pic.twitter.com/qwpIP9parn
Some in media are spinning the findings of Tory investigation into islamophobia as just one of insensitive language. We’ve had members call for Muslims to be thrown off bridges, sterilised, mosques to be banned, MPs retweet Tommy Robinson, bit more than just bad choice of words.
Interesting to note that the Tory investigation into islamophobia concluded there’s no institutional problem despite the fact that 57% of Conservative Party members had a negative view of Muslims and nearly half believed Islam is a threat to the British way of life.
The review of Tory islamophobia is pathetic. Describing Johnson comments about Muslim women as giving the impression of being “insensitive to Muslim Communities” is insulting. They are racist comments.
Some have seen this as marking the right time for the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to resume its own investigation into Tory Islamophobia, that was called off after the Singh review was announced.
This was rightly criticised at the time because the EHRC point-blank refused to call off its inquiry into Labour anti-Semitism after that party announced an internal review.
So Peter Oborne’s suggestion rings hollow:
This is a massive moment for the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. Will it launch an inquiry into Tory Islamophobia on the back of this report, as it did into Labour anti-semitism? https://t.co/OBFMQWwgu9
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Two-fingered response: your family members died because the Tories didn’t get vital supplies for tackling Covid-19 out in time? Too bad! They were handing the money to their mates and that is all that mattered to them.
Politics has suddenly become so busy that a lot of Tory corruption might get swept under the carpet if we’re not careful – like this example of a person appointed by Boris Johnson to probe David Cameron’s lobbying finding the government innocent of favouritism in awarding Covid contracts to Tory cronies:
The man appointed by Boris Johnson to probe David Cameron’s lobbying has cleared the government of “favouritism” in the award of £17bn in Covid contracts.
City lawyer Nigel Boardman admitted that some government practices, such as a fast-track “VIP” priority system for firms known to MPs and ministers, gave rise to the “suspicion” of bias.
What do you do if there’s a suspicion of wrong doing? You investigate it.
Did he? Doubtful.
The report said he found no evidence of favouritism. But this is a discussion of cases in which Tory cronies with absolutely no experience of providing the relevant services were offered contracts instead of long-established firms that had been doing just that for years.
It is easy to find no evidence if you’re looking the other way.
Rachel Reeves, who is now Shadow Chancellor, had predicted that the report by Boardman – another Tory crony – would be a whitewash. She responded:
“This barely scratches the surface of the conflicts of interest in government procurement, and the deep and troubling pattern of taxpayers’ money being sunk into crony contracts.
“We need a complete overhaul to tackle cronyism, and an urgent end to emergency procurement measures.”
If such measures are still being employed, then yes – they need to stop. Even Boris Johnson is signalling (for all he’s worth, which is not much if you believe the reports) that any emergency is now over.
And we need to be sure that the money-grubbing that led to 150,000 deaths while Tories handed out useless contracts to their useless friends never happens again.
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Tory racists: let’s remember that the government currently claiming there’s no institutional racism in the UK is led by a prime minister who had to apologise for an article claiming black people have lower IQs, then went on to say Muslim women in burqas resemble “bank robbers” and “letterboxes” and told us black people are “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”. His novel 72 Virgins also contains an anti-Semitic trope.
The Tory government has released a report claiming that, despite thousands of cases of casual, institutional racism that we all see every day, the UK should be seen as an “exemplar” of racial equality.
Who do these racist Tory twits think they are going to fool?
The answer to that is obvious – the majority population of white British people who don’t experience racism in their day-to-day lives, many of whom habitually vote Conservative even though it is against their own interests to do so.
You know… the gaslit millions.
The report by the Tory government’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities was scripted by Downing Street and released under what Peter Walker of The Guardian described as “some pretty cynical news management”.
He explained in a short series of tweets:
The précis was also released under a really rare type of embargo called “no approach” – usually only used for things like Queen’s honours etc. Means you can’t gather any reaction before embargo time (midnight in this case). They wanted to avoid *any* response to day 1 coverage.
He concluded: “We just ignored the “no approach” aspect as it seemed weird to not ask expert groups about a major report in their own subject area, and cynical for government press officers to expect this.”
It wasn’t weird at all. He was right the first time: it was an attempt to ensure that coverage of the story would only highlight the positive message – the lie – that your racist Tory government was peddling.
And let’s not have any nit-picking about my reference to these Tories as racist. This report deliberately hides the racism with which UK society is riddled in order to gaslight the gullible into thinking it doesn’t exist. That in itself is racist.
When you see the head of the commission, Tony Sewell, speaking about it, bear in mind that he is distrusted by the minority ethnic community because he has long claimed that institutional racism does not exist.
Johnson chooses advisor who doesn’t believe in structural racism to commission a report to find it doesn’t exist
A summary of the report focused on education, claiming that many students from minority ethnic backgrounds do as well or better than their white peers.
That is not the experience of youngsters who continue to be treated as backward, simply because of the colour of their skin. Read Akala’s book Natives for a ground-level account of what it’s really like.
The Guardian article, having ignored the Tory embargo, features some on-the-nose responses too:
The shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy, told the same programme that disproportionate rates of school exclusion and arrest among black children underlined evidence of an institutional problem. It would roll back progress if the government sought “to downplay or deny the extent of the problem, rather than doing what it should be doing which is getting on the front foot and tackling it,” she said.
A spokesperson for Black Lives Matter UK said that while the report focused on education, “it fails to explore disproportionality in school exclusion, eurocentrism and censorship in the curriculum, or the ongoing attainment gap in higher education.
“We are also disappointed to learn that the report overlooks disproportionality in the criminal justice system – particularly as police racism served as the catalyst for last summer’s protests. Black people in England and Wales are nine times more likely to be imprisoned than their white peers, and yet, four years on, the recommendations from the Lammy review are yet to be implemented.”
Halima Begum, the chief executive of the Runnymede Trust, said: “As we saw in the early days of the pandemic, 60% of the first NHS doctors and nurses to die were from our BAME communities. For Boris Johnson to look the grieving families of those brave dead in the eye and say there is no evidence of institutional racism in the UK is nothing short of a gross offence.
“The facts about institutional racism do not lie, and we note with some surprise that, no matter how much spin the commission puts on its findings, it does in fact concede that we do not live in a post-racist society.”
Maurice Mcleod, the chief executive of Race on the Agenda, described the conclusion of the inquiry as “government level gaslighting” and criticised the summary for claiming communities are being “haunted” by “historic cases” of racism, creating “deep mistrust” in the system that could prove a barrier to success.
He said the implications of the report were that “the reason so many black people don’t get on well in this society is because they are stuck in the past and this makes them mistrustful. So racism isn’t the problem, people talking about racism is the problem.”
“Government level gaslighting” is right – and is a theme that has been taken up on the social media by people who should know:
Racism is inherent within our society and plays out within our society’s power structures.
— Dr Julia Grace Patterson 💙 (@JujuliaGrace) March 31, 2021
Gaslighting in the UK on racism is on an industrial scale. It makes you feel delusional just for calling it out
This report is a whitewash that tries to diminish our experiences. We are not “idealists” or “haunted”. We are victims of real & present institutional racism #r4today
There’s something we can all do in the face of major gaslighting on the level of “institutional racism does not exist”: listen to the people who experience racism as the reality of their lives & help them deal with the moral injury of all this. Make them feel they’re believed.
Perhaps worst of all is the fact that this is only one example of the deception coming from your Tory government – which is gaslighting us so heavily that one Twitter user said it was in danger of breaching the Paris Agreement on Climate Change:
British Justice:
• Police handled Sarah Everard Vigil perfectly • Cameron behaving 100% perfectly with hedge fund boss • Boris Johnson 4 year affair was totally legitimate • There is no structural racism in the UK
There is no justice. Just perpetual gaslighting of us all.
You know, I think England might be the gaslighting capital of the world right now.
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza 🏳️🌈 (@TheMendozaWoman) March 31, 2021
But there is an easy way to fight back:
There’s something we can all do in the face of major gaslighting on the level of “institutional racism does not exist”: listen to the people who experience racism as the reality of their lives & help them deal with the moral injury of all this. Make them feel they’re believed.
Downing Street said that the UK should be used as a “model for racial equality”. But how can a country run on white supremacy be a “model for racial equality”. Here are some statistics to show how racism in ingrained in every aspect of our lives in the UK. pic.twitter.com/bI2gasMPLZ
— All Black Lives UK #ENDSARS (@AllBlackLivesUK) March 31, 2021
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Is anybody surprised that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) has cleared the Metropolitan Police of any inappropriate behaviour at the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard?
The review said the force “was justified in adopting the view that the risks of transmitting COVID-19 at the vigil were too great to ignore”.
So that made it reasonable to kettle these people – crowd them into an ever-smaller space, making those risks much greater, did it?
That made it reasonable to arrest these people, did it? Were they crammed like sardines in police vans? Were they crammed like sardines into cells?
Forcing people into close contact with each other seems an extremely odd way to combat a disease that is spread by close contact – especially people who had been very recently injured.
The review said “officers remained calm and professional when subjected to abuse” and “did not act inappropriately or in a heavy handed manner”.
So this wasn’t heavy-handed?
How about this?
Clashes broke out between police and crowds gathering on Clapham Common.
The Metropolitan Police is facing criticism for its handling of the vigil in memory of Sarah Everard.
#BREAKING: Several people arrested at Sarah Everard vigil in Clapham Common, south London; police say vigil is violating coronavirus-related restrictions pic.twitter.com/5lTmiMWmDV
Like many others, I notice that there was no problem with the Duchess of Cambridge attending the event that Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick branded illegal.
Why wasn’t Kate Middleton attacked with a baton and bundled into a White Maria?
Ah, but she attended during daylight. The police didn’t move in and start hurting people until after dark. Now, why was that, do you think?
The report by Sky News makes it clear that the atmosphere did not turn hostile until the police started kettling people. Oh, the cops were telling people to leave, were they? How could they do that when the uniforms were cutting off their ability to go?
The bandstand was soon almost surrounded by officers and the atmosphere started to become more hostile. It was at this point that a number of women appeared to be shoved and people starting shouting at the police.
It seems clear to me that HM Inspectorate of Constabulary came to the conclusion it usually reaches – that the police can do no wrong.
How many attendees at the event were consulted during this review?
None, I’m betting.
No wonder the result was one-sided.
Let’s have a proper, public inquiry – then we’ll hear some uncomfortable facts (but of course, that will never happen).
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Johnson and Arcuri: the IOPC delayed its report into their relationship by months, even after its declared reason for doing so (local elections) was cancelled.
Well, what did we expect?
This Writer has noticed a distinct reluctance on the part of the police to investigate any alleged wrongdoings of government ministers – including and especially the prime minister – ever since I started writing politics.
George Osborne’s paddock is an example that leaps to mind, having written about it again within the past week.
It seems these people – squalid though they may be – are utterly above the law.
So there’s evidence to believe that Johnson had an intimate relationship with Ms Arcuri, then?
But the £126,000 he gave her in three separate deals was entirely appropriate?
And so were the decisions to bring her on three trade missions in 2014 and 2015?
Will the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which carried out this investigation, be taking questions on this decision and defending its findings?
Or will it just stonewall as usual and say “this is what we found, like it or lump it”?
The good news is that the arrival of this decision – several months late, and for no reason after local elections were cancelled – means other inquiries by the London Assembly and the London Mayor’s Office can now get back under way.
Perhaps these organisations will return a more believable verdict than our supposedly-impartial law guardians.
For clarity: if the police have cleared Johnson of criminal behaviour in this matter, I don’t believe a word of it.
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