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Public inquiry into Covid must begin now, says senior judge
Well, there’s a turn-up for the books. According to this story (below), Sir Robert Owen will brook no delay: he wants an inquiry now. Sir Robert is, of course, right — but he’s retired and who’s going to take notice of a retired judge? Not Johnson for sure. Neither will he listen to
the Royal College of Nursing, Bob Kerslake, the former head of the civil service under David Cameron, Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, and Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats.
It’s good of Sir Robert to suggest a “duty of candour”, to be put in a charter and applied to all inquiries. But what good would that do? Most of us might assume that a duty of candour is a given — otherwise what’s the use of a sodding inquiry in the first place? And what difference would it make if it was written down? If they want to be candour-free, they will be candour-free:
Lord Justice Cholmondeley-Grimwood: I must remind all parties to this inquiry of their duty of candour throughout these proceedings.
Counsel for the government: My Lord, my clients assure me that they have been working incredibly hard to ensure that candour is at the very heart of their approach.
This perfect example of a lack of candour will continue “throughout these proceedings”, as his Lordship might put it.
Candour excluded.
Government exonerated.
Justice denied.
Public inquiry into Covid must begin now, says senior judge
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/24/public-inquiry-into-covid-must-begin-now-says-senior-judge-sir-robert-owen?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Nothing but facts?
“In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!” — Thomas Gradgrind, in Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
This story (see below) is about GPs in England saying there is an inconsistent supply and distribution of Covid vaccines and that this is causing roll-out problems. Embedded in the story is something I’ve known for a long time.
I’m used to seeing standardised, lying statements from my favourite government department, the Home Office, aimed at calming people’s fears and short-circuiting discontent, when both the fears and the discontent are well founded:
“The United Kingdom has a proud record of providing protection to those fleeing persecution … All those seeking asylum are dealt with on their merits.”
No it hasn’t. No they aren’t. And today, it’s interesting to see evidence that this type of statement is not confined to the Home Office but extends across government:
Jeremy Hunt (Chair of Commons Liaison Committee): “Why are the public not allowed to know anything except the most basic information [about the supply and distribution of vaccines]?”
In reply, Johnson promised the government would publish regional breakdowns “later this week” but admitted they were likely to show wide disparities. When it came to vaccinating the over 80s, he said it was “more than 50%, well over 50% now in the north-east and Yorkshire” but added it was “less good in some other parts of the country”.
This reply (bad news as it clearly was) was not the one he was supposed to give. But not to worry. Whitehall can cope with that. The official answer remains the official answer against all inadvertent blurting out of the truth, and he will be reminded of it when he gets back indoors in case he’s asked the question again. Here’s the official answer (otherwise known in Whitehall as “the truth”):
“Vaccines are being distributed fairly across the UK to ensure the most vulnerable are immunised first and all GPs will continue to receive deliveries as planned.” — Department of Health and Social Care unnameable spokesperson.
Oh good. That’s alright then.
GPs in England say inconsistent supply of Covid vaccine causing roll out issues
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/13/gps-in-england-say-inconsistent-supply-of-covid-vaccine-causing-roll-out-issues?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Re-what?
After the departure of Cummings and Cain, the new buzzword is “reset”. Johnson will be able to reset Downing Street, reset his politics, reset his relationship with his MPs, reset his government and reset policymaking.
Reset.
A clutter of Tory MPs have said it, former cabinet ministers have said it, and anonymous current ones. Journalists are making sure they use it. Andrew Marr will say it. Sajid Javid was said to be favourite for reset minister.
Prediction: it won’t happen (OK, it’s a hostage to fortune, and my impersonations of the prophet Isaiah have never been that good, but still). Johnson won’t stop trying to fix the judges, he will still appoint the nastiest ones to do jobs like the Spycops inquiry (the judge doing that one told counsel for one of the victims that he couldn’t ask the witness any more questions, and if he tried, “I will silence you”). Priti Patel won’t stop vilifying solicitors for doing their jobs defending their clients, and her Home Office will, as in the story below, defy court orders with impunity. The Home Office has always provided a home for lawless thugs, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen them defy a court order with such arrogance, afterwards saying “It’s business as usual”. And the Orwellian language has reached a new height: their housing subcontractor Mears sent one asylum seeker an eviction notice which read: “You need to leave this property by 11 November 2020. We understand it is a key step in your asylum journey.”
Reset? No, it’s “business as usual”.
I think I’ll stay off the news for the rest of today! And it’s raining.
Home Office accused of breaching court order over asylum seeker evictions
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/06/home-office-high-court-asylum-seeker-evictions-coronavirus?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
What can we do?
It would be a good idea to have the words “however”, “but” and “as long as” in mind when considering the new guidelines announced by the prime minister today. This Guardian article (see below) was written before the guidelines were actually published, and is based on the words of the prime minister.
Still, here we go. Here are some first thoughts on what he said:
Can we see family and friends? Yes. Six people will now “be permitted to congregate [an odd, religious-sounding word] in gardens and other private outdoor spaces, instead of just in public spaces. If you’re a bit worried about this, Johnson says “there is no difference in the health risk”. (Presumably like there’s no difference in the health risk between, say, taking someone in a confined space (a car) with an infected person who was displaying symptoms and driving 264 miles with them to another location rather than keeping everybody at home in a larger space where you can practise social distancing.)
Anyway, it’s yes, we can see family and friends. Where’s the “but”? It’s here: we should try, said the prime minister, to avoid seeing people from too many households in quick succession, “so that we can avoid the risk of quick transmission from lots of different families and continue to control the virus”. (So, is the idea that if I see my neighbours from no. 24 today and wait until tomorrow before seeing my neighbours from flat 19B, this is safer than seeing one of them this morning and the other this afternoon? I don’t know. Perhaps we should use FAQs on gov.uk if we’re not sure.) Anyway, this overall more relaxed approach to seeing family and friends applies to the over-70s too. (It’s not clear why this should be: if I still can’t go shopping in a sanitised Sainsbury’s it may also be wise not to go dancing on the grass with 6 of my neighbours, especially without checking where they’ve been for the last 6 weeks or so.)
Can we have a barbecue? Yes. And the “but”? Enter Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty (you may remember him, he’s been quiet recently, what with one thing and another). He provides the “but”: those having a barbecue, he warned, should remember they can spread the virus by passing things from one person to another. Things, eh? Hmm.
Can we go into other people’s homes? No. Yes. The government says socialising inside is not allowed. But here comes a “however”, a prime ministerial “however”, and it’s this: people can go through houses to access back gardens. This doesn’t conjure up a picture of social distancing really, which the Welsh government noticed immediately. They said, OK, but that they would be publishing guidance on how to do this safely. An illustrated guide would be especially helpful, I suppose. Let’s see. If you live in Wales, don’t unlock until you’ve seen it. Oh, and Chris Whitty popped up again. He said it was acceptable for people to use their host’s toilet (perhaps another illustrated guide would be useful).
Can we travel? Yes. People in England can travel as far as they want to take exercise and spend time outside. Is there a “but”? There is indeed: they cannot stay over at people’s houses. The prime minister was firm on that: “We don’t want people to go to other households and stay there. I’m afraid we are not at that stage.” That sounds as if it might have been a rejected line from an earlier draft statement about the behaviour of a particular individual. Saved for future use on other people, I suppose. Still, scattered like gunshot though his words often are, here he was firm.
Can I do non-essential shopping? Yes. Outdoor retail such as markets and car showrooms in England will be allowed to open in England from Monday. Right, although showrooms are indoors, aren’t they? Isn’t that why they’re called “rooms”? Still, best not to quibble. Go to FAQs again.
Can children go to school? Yes. No comment.
My advice? Do none of the above. Especially the dancing and the toilet activity. And don’t send your children to school.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/29/uk-lockdown-rules-what-are-the-key-changes
I was wrong. But my doubts remain
When Labour leader Keir Starmer asked the prime minister merely to lift the NHS surcharge on migrant NHS workers and carers but didn’t call for the abolition of the surcharge on all migrant workers, he was criticised, particularly by Labour Party members (including myself). When Sienna Rodgers, writing in Labour List, suggested that “The party hasn’t retreated policy-wise, it’s just that the new Labour leader reckons he should only pick fights that he has a chance of winning”, I posted: “Sorry, but he’s not going to win it anyway (remember that 80-seat majority).”
I was wrong. He won, not in a vote against an 80-seat majority, but because the resistance to Johnson’s plan encompassed not just the opposition parties in parliament but also a number of Tory MPs, as well as hosts of people outside parliament, including health-care workers, many of whom took to the airwaves and social media in protest. None of them could stomach the cynicism and callousness of Johnson’s response to Starmer’s question. Even Johnson, who has survived many embarrassments and many a scandal in his career, might not have survived the shame of this one. So within hours the U-turn began. There will now be no surcharge on NHS workers, including health workers, porters and cleaners, as well as independent health workers and social care workers.
So – well done Keir.
But Starmer also said later that he was in favour of abolishing the surcharge altogether (or his spokesperson did). So why didn’t his amendment to the Immigration and Social Security Bill say that? And why didn’t he say that at PMQs? Johnson would surely still have performed his U-turn on the health workers’ surcharge, given the widespread opposition to it that emerged everywhere, much of which he provoked by his statement (which turned out not to be true) that abolishing the surcharge for health workers would cost £900m.[1] So I still have to ask the question I asked in my original post: Why not go the whole hog, if he believes in it, and say “scrap the charge altogether”? And I go back to my original post: “Possible answer: he’s scared of the headlines that will say ‘Labour wants to flood Britain with migrants’.” But if that’s the reason, he has simply put off the evil day. If at the next general election the scrapping of the whole surcharge system goes into the Labour manifesto, he will have to face those headlines then and fight furiously against them. If it isn’t in the manifesto, he will have capitulated.
[1] “Figures from the House of Commons Library showed that £917m was raised over four years from all migrants paying the surcharge. The library estimated it would cost about £35m a year to exempt all NHS staff, and more for care workers.” (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/21/johnson-forced-to-drop-nhs-surcharge-for-migrant-health-workers)
School’s back?
It’s “an exercise in chaos theory”, said Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham about the proposal to open schools on 1 June. I know what he means, but it may be more than that. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson claims his concern is for the kids: “The longer that schools are closed, the more children miss out”, he said today. He then raised the emotional temperature:
The poorest children, the most disadvantaged children, the children who do not always have support they need at home, will be the ones who will fall furthest behind if we keep school gates closed. They are the ones who will miss out on the opportunities and chances in life that we want all children to benefit from what teachers and schools deliver for them.
We shouldn’t be fooled. He has conveniently forgotten that the poorest, most disadvantaged children are the creation of successive Tory governments over the past 10 years, a decade during which they imposed public spending cuts, benefit caps, and all the paraphernalia of austerity, the result of which is that “children do not have the support they need”. The only appropriate emotion, faced with his crocodile tears, is anger.
Johnson has said the argument for lifting the lockdown is not based on economics. But it is. The reason the government wants to get the children back to school is that it wants to get the workers back to work. It has nothing to do with the kids’ education and welfare, or with schools being the place where “they are safe and happy”, as Williamson also said today. It’s so that Mummy and Daddy can get back to manufacturing and producing and providing services and making profits for their bosses.
Another question lurks in the shadows to make us question whether Burnham’s chaos theory is a sufficient explanation for the push to end the lockdown. The New Yorker, in an article about the situation in the US, reminds us that some people
who argue for reopening sooner rather than later say that doing so will allow for a “controlled spread” of the disease, in which more people can develop a resistance and the population as a whole can achieve “herd immunity.” One problem with this approach is the projected number of hospitalizations and deaths along the way, which is very high. Another is that the idea assumes that those who have had COVID-19 will, indeed, be immune. But, as the World Health Organization recently warned, it isn’t yet clear how effective or enduring any immunity might be.[1]
I don’t know if there are still people arguing for herd immunity here. There certainly were earlier on, and they were at the heart of government. But if we reject it for the two reasons given in the New Yorker article, we should reject it above all because if we don’t we will be deliberately trying to spread the disease (“allow for a ‘controlled spread’”). A lockdown and social distancing try to reduce the spread. That should be our aim. So let’s not reopen the schools.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/11/the-rush-to-reopen
“No, Mr Speaker, it wasn’t true.” Oh yes it was.
Did Boris Johnson, at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) on 13 April 2020, lie and duck and dive about government advice on covid-19 in care homes?
In light of the high number of deaths in care homes, the allegation by Keir Starmer at PMQs was that
Until 12 March, the Government’s own official advice was [that] “It remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home will become infected.”
Johnson replied:
No, Mr Speaker, it wasn’t true that the advice said that …
Oh yes it was. It did say that. In fact it said it twice, with slightly different wording each time. In a subsequent letter to Starmer, Johnson himself quoted from the official advice, but from a different bit of it, and included the preceding sentence, which Johnson put in bold type although it wasn’t in bold type in the guidance:
This guidance is intended for the current position in the UK where there is currently no transmission of COVID-19 in the community. It is therefore very unlikely that anyone receiving care in a care home or in the community will become infected.
Starmer’s quote comes from para. 7 of the guidance: “Face masks”. Johnson’s comes from para. 1. But they say the same thing.
But Johnson’s point seems to be that, because the guidance was “intended for the current position in the UK” (i.e. the date when the guidance was issued, 25 February), there was nothing wrong with the advice. That’s a different answer to the one given at PMQs, obviously, but there’s worse. The guidance was issued on 25 February. On 28 February, the UK confirmed the first covid-19 transmission inside the country.[1] On 4 March, UK officials announced “the biggest one-day increase so far as 34 cases bring the total to 87.”[2] By 10 March, six people had died in the UK and 373 people had tested positive for the virus, including the UK’s junior health minister Nadine Dorries.[3] On 11 March, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak “announced a £12bn package of emergency support to help the UK cope with the expected onslaught from coronavirus.”[4] The guidance was only withdrawn two days later, on 13 March. Till then, the advice that it was “very unlikely that anyone receiving care in a care home or in the community will become infected” was current, operational, and deadly.
So yes, there was a lie in a Commons answer this week, ducking and diving in a letter, and a mounting infection-rate and death-rate among care-home patients and staff.
For the guidance see Guidance for social or community care and residential settings on COVID-19, http://www.gov.uk
[1] British Foreign Policy Group (BFPG), Covid-19 Timeline, http://www.bfpg.co.uk.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
Names will never hurt him
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/19/eu-will-grant-brexit-extension-if-johnson-sends-letter-says-brussels?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Will the EU get Johnson off the hook? Plus – the Queen opens parliament
I saw something today that suggested the EU itself might offer an extension of the deadline to Brexit, apparently without Johnson having to ask for one (which at the moment he is claiming he won’t do, even though he is legally obliged to). This could get him off the hook and save him from a second round of unlawful behaviour. But would he be off the hook if he refused the offer? I can see lawyers making pot loads from this at multiple court hearings, appeals, Scottish appeals, and then Supreme Court rulings, well into next year! But I may be getting too feverish and reading too much into a BBC report. The trouble is, no scenario is too outlandish!
Talking of outlandish, I just saw the opening of parliament: gold coaches, sparkling jewellery, weird outfits, funny hats, and an out-of-tune band. This is the 64th time she’s done it. And she still didn’t laugh! I wanted her to fling off the crown and shout, “Oh come on, bring on the clowns!”
But then, I suppose, they were already there.
This has to stop — before it’s too late
House of Commons Speaker John Bercow was unable to stop Boris Johnson’s inflammatory language on the day, confining his “advice” on restraint to “all colleagues”. It wasn’t “all colleagues” that needed a lecture. It was the prime minister. And the Attorney-General. A double act to end all double acts, promoting division and hatred and provoking violence. Apparently the rules on appropriate parliamentary language allow this. I wrote the following to my Labour MP:
“I watched Boris Johnson’s performance in parliament yesterday with growing horror. His language and, when challenged, his insistence on continuing to use it (and even make it worse) is becoming more frightening. The “Surrender Act” is used to provoke anger and it will in the end provoke violence. From the time of Enoch Powell (and before, of course, but I’m talking about within my memory) whenever provocative language is used the result is an outbreak of violence. The parallel with Powell seems to me appropriate, given their shared racism. When challenged, Johnson simply repeats the insult (in this case going from “the Surrender Act” to “the Intimidation Act” to “the Capitulation Act”. Both Johnson and Geoffrey Cox set up a “Parliament versus the People” narrative, which is really a fascist narrative. I realise that we shouldn’t use that word carelessly, but I agree with the Labour MP (I can’t remember who it was) who did use it yesterday. As people said yesterday, another horror like the murder of Jo Cox could happen as a result of all this.
What can be done? Bercow’s semi-rebukes to Johnson (conveyed through admonitions “to all colleagues”) have no effect. A friend of mine has written to his Tory MP to protest, which seems an excellent idea, particularly if the practice spreads. Can you and others who share the disgust at Johnson’s language and attitude use Urgent Questions to keep up the pressure on Johnson, debates, quoting from constituents’ concerns (you’re welcome to use anything in this email that might be useful) …”
If you have a Tory MP, please write to them. Another friend of mine has signed a petition to his Tory MP. But write to your Labour or LibDem MP too. If you can, start a petition, organise a protest.
Good luck to Bercow’s meeting. But it must point the finger where it has to be pointed—at Johnson.
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