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There’s one law for them …
Alok Sharma, the government minister and President of the upcoming COP26 climate change conference, has travelled to 30 countries in the past 7 months. Six of those countries were “red list” countries. And he didn’t have to isolate when he came back.
Did he travel to all those countries? Yes, he did – despite the fact that most foreign travel was banned during this period; despite the fact that “the aviation industry produced 915m tonnes of CO2 in 2019, equivalent to 2% of all human-made CO2 emissions”; and despite the fact that the alternative to travel of virtual meetings and conferences is now common practice everywhere; and despite the fact that he’s President of COP26 and last month said that “we all need to play our part” in taking measures to stop the climate crisis, and encouraged small changes which could make a difference.
So they could, Alok, so they could.
Was he exempt from the requirement to isolate? Is that really true? Yes, it is.
The government’s official Guidance to Crown servants (and that includes Alok) sounds OK to start with:
You need to quarantine in a government approved hotel if you have been in a country on the travel ban red list in the 10 days before you arrive in the UK …
There’s no way out of that, then, is there? Yes, there is. The Guidance goes on to say that if “a relevant department of the UK government has certified that you are not required to do so” then you are not required to do so. This is because you are
a Crown servant or government contractor travelling to the UK for essential government work or returning from such work outside the UK, or
returning from conducting essential state business outside of the UK, or
returning to the UK where this is necessary to facilitate the functioning of a diplomatic mission or consular post of Her Majesty or of a military/other official posting on behalf of Her Majesty.
And they will certify you simply by sending you a letter. Still, Alok might get caught under the next rule:
Even if you do not need to quarantine in a managed quarantine hotel you may still be required to quarantine in the place where you are staying.
However,
You do not need to quarantine in the place where you are staying if a relevant department of the UK government has certified to that end that you are:
a Crown servant or government contractor travelling to the UK for essential government work, or
returning from conducting essential state business outside of the UK, or
returning to the UK where this is necessary to facilitate the functioning of a diplomatic mission or consular post of Her Majesty or of a military/other official posting on behalf of Her Majesty.
Whew! Lucky escape, Alok.
Still, like everybody else, he will still have to be tested for the virus when he gets back to the UK, won’t he? After all:
You are expected to complete tests on day 2 and day 8 where reasonably practicable [after your return] …
However,
you will not need to complete the mandatory testing requirements if a relevant department of the UK government has certified that you are:
a Crown servant or government contractor travelling to the UK for essential government work, or
returning from conducting essential state business outside of the UK
and you do not need to quarantine in a managed quarantine hotel or the place where you are staying as a result.
That must be a relief.
Finally, what about the rules on “covid testing before entering England”? Well, Alok would need to be specifically certified to escape this, but that wouldn’t be a problem. He would just need another letter:
The relevant department of the UK government will issue you with a letter certifying that you fall within one of the categories above and that you are not required to comply with the requirement.
So that’s all done and dusted, then. No quarantine, no testing, go where you like, as often as you like, no problem. Still, our hero did wear a mask on his journeyings apparently, so that’s something.
It was just a mask though. To hide the fact that there’s one law for us, and a whole raft of exemptions for them.
Government Guidance:
The Rebellion must continue
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has tweeted about the climate protesters (see below). A few changes need to be made to his tweet.
In the first paragraph, the phrase “but this is now taking a real toll” should be “and this is now taking a real toll …” (because that is a good, not a bad, thing); the phrase “counter-productive to the cause and our city” should be “good for the cause and our city”.
In the fourth paragraph, the last sentence (“It simply isn’t right to put Londoners’ safety at risk like this”) would be correct if it referred to government complacency about climate change. It doesn’t.
The last paragraph shows that despite saying he shares “the passion about tackling climate change of those protesting” he will do nothing to meet their demands.
So the lesson from Sadiq’s tweet is that the protesters should not “pause”, as some of them have suggested. Instead they should spread the protests further. They should not withdraw from some areas and start “negotiating” – who will they “negotiate” with? – the government is rubbishing them as lawbreakers, Khan says they’re a threat to the safety of Londoners and wants them all to go back to their day jobs, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner just wants them to behave themselves. But the government has to be forced out of its complacency, and the Labour Party must swing behind the protesters and their cause. Without equivocation. No ifs, no buts. Labour MPs should join the protests, including the front bench. Then we may all get somewhere.
Climate change, Trump & Rex Tillerson
“… this company, it has now been documented, knew about climate change as far back as the seventies. According to a groundbreaking investigation by InsideClimate News (nominated for a Pulitzer Prize), Exxon did its own cutting-edge empirical research, taking CO 2 samples off its oil tankers and building state-of-the art climate models that predicted the coming changes such as sea-level rise. It also received warnings from its own senior scientists, including James Black who was categorical in his reports to his employer about the ‘general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels.’ He also wrote that ‘man has a time window of five to 10 years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.’ That was in 1978.“By the time Rex Tillerson took over the job of general manager of the central production division of Exxon USA, these facts had long been known in the company, including the uncomfortable one about how little time remained. Despite this, ExxonMobil has since then lavished more than $30 million on think tanks that systematically spread doubt through the press about the reality of climate science. Mobil (before its merger with Exxon) even took out its own full-page ads in the New York Times casting doubt on the science. ExxonMobil is currently under investigation by the attorneys general of New York, California, and Massachusetts for these alleged deceptions. Because of this campaign of misinformation, promoted by the entire fossil fuel sector, humanity lost key decades when we could have been taking the actions necessary to move to a clean economy—the same decades in which ExxonMobil and others opened up vast frontiers for oil and gas.”
“Within days of taking office, he pushed through the Dakota Access pipeline, cutting off an environmental review and against the powerful opposition of the Standing Rock Sioux. He’s cleared the way to approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta, which Obama rejected in part because of the climate impacts. He has issued an executive order to roll back Obama’s moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands, and has already announced plans to expand oil and gas drilling on the Gulf Coast. He’s also killing Obama’s Clean Power Plan. And as the administration rubber-stamps new fossil fuel projects, they’re getting rid of all kinds of environmental regulations that made digging up and processing this carbon less profitable for companies like ExxonMobil.”
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