Sunday 25 June

What an extraordinary week it’s been. Many have been very newsworthy, as we’ve seen for years now, but there’s been nothing like this last week. First, we had the unprecedented (and so shameful that it was necessary) Commons debate and vote on the Privileges Committee’s report on whether Boris Johnson did mislead Parliament, the increasing inflation and mortgage crises, then the tragic deaths of those on Titanic sub trip, culminating in the dramatic events in Russia.  Despite the inevitability of some of these developments, this degree of upheaval is destabilizing and not helpful for our mental wellbeing. Many are already very stressed by the cost of living crisis and the strain this can place on health and relationships but it’s difficult to get respite when the disturbance is both inside and outside, both interacting with each other.

There was widespread disbelief on Monday evening at Rishi Sunak’s cowardly avoidance of the Commons debate and his refusal to even admit to an opinion. Despite what we now know some Tories, notably veteran Bill Cash, spoke at length in Johnson’s defence, in this case via a hair splitting legalistic argument which must have sent some attendees to sleep. It was striking that despite so many bullishly declaring in advance that they would vote against the report, a good number didn’t even attend, some being seen arriving at the Conservative Home summer party. It’s worth watching the debate, if only to see the pompous, finger wagging Jacob Rees-Mogg very politely demolished by Committee Chair Harriet Harman, not to mention the tour de force from Labour’s Jess Phillips and Hilary Benn.  It was a resounding result, with 354 MPs voting to approve, while just seven voted against. It will also be interesting to see the imminent additional report of the Committee’s investigation into the contempt of Parliament demonstrated by a number of MPs including Rees-Mogg.

I wonder what the actual process will be of removing Johnson’s parliamentary pass from him. With predictable arrogance, the former PM, on that Monday evening, was giving a speech to the International Democratic Union during which a source said he called the Privileges Committee ‘biased and wilfully ignorant’ and that there was ‘always another innings’. Let’s hope not.

The inflation problem has been getting worse and now the Bank of England’s decision to put interest rates up to 5% has thrown the worlds of many borrowers into turmoil, some saying they feel ‘terrified’. Although there are already some measures to help some borrowers, many do not fall into those categories and face going into further debt and even repossessions. Needless to say, this ideologically intransigent government just continues to spout how important it is to get inflation down, we must ‘hold our nerve’, things will be better in the longer term while not providing any immediate help for the desperate.  We are supposed to feel grateful that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt had a meeting with the banks on Friday, during which he ‘asked’ them (the laissez-faire Tories won’t compel them to act) to see what could be done to help borrowers. Homeowners will be able to switch to an interest-only deal, extend their repayment term temporarily and be assured that speaking to their lenders won’t affect their credit score. (I wonder about that).

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But these wealthy politicians are so out of touch that they just blithely repeat their script during media interviews or make a mickle out of a muckle: Hunt was clearly pleased with himself for saying people can now ‘reach out’/’pick up the phone’ to their lender to discuss their situation with them. Good luck with that as I can well imagine, like with so many services, they will have to wait a long time then work their way through a series of bots first. Meanwhile, Bank of England boss Andrew Bailey, extremely well remunerated himself, is the latest to try reinforcing the myth that wage raises amongst the lowest and middle earners are inflationary. Of course he doesn’t apply that principle to his own. He and others will have to pipe down because recent Office for National Statistics figures have shown that it’s  pay increases ‘for the top 10% of UK earners, including City bosses, have clearly outstripped those for the rest of the workforce and been prime drivers of recent inflation and soaring interest rates’.

Union leaders are up in arms at being blamed for inflation. ‘On Saturday, as anger over pay unfairness and the rising cost of living grew, union leaders rounded on ministers over suggestions they were now ready to overrule the official pay review bodies (PRBs) if they recommended “unsustainable” increases, after the Bank governor’s comments’. They’ve called out the government trying to have it both ways: they habitually hide behind the ‘independent’ pay review bodies but when they don’t like something recommended they threaten to overrule them. ‘Rishi Sunak has staked his credibility on halving inflation by the end of this year, a promise that most economists now believe he may struggle to keep’. Not half, along with his other ‘priorities’, most likely. Meanwhile, as government intransigence hardens, further strikes have been announced by the rail, junior doctors’ and other unions.

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Although the official inflation rate of 9.4% is bad enough, this obscures the much higher inflation rates applying to particular foodstuffs, and last week a useful chart appeared from the ONS with sugar at the top (47.4) but also applying markedly to other, healthier items, eg 46.4% olive oil, 37% eggs and 36.6% cheese. Shocking.

There’s been widespread criticism of Rishi Sunak for his robotic delivery and cowardly avoidance of challenging issues. Parliamentary sketch writer John Crace quotes his frequent flyer – ‘I am delivering on the things that the people want delivering on’, pointing out ‘…except he isn’t. Things are going from bad to worse. Inflation is stubbornly high, mortgages are becoming unaffordable, people are broke, and we’re still waiting on the promise of a government of honesty, integrity and accountability’. An example of his embarrassingly bad communication style was during his visit to an Ikea warehouse, addressing his audience: ‘Hi guys, you might have one or two concerns about inflation. But don’t be because I’m 100% on it. We’re going to get through this’. (Crace: ‘No shit. Most people’s mortgages had just gone up substantially…You and your many millions and the rest of us with bills we can’t all pay’.

Rather than the image of ‘the Goldman Sachs tech bro who is effortlessly competent…. the safest of safe pairs of hands…Almost as if Rish! is on a mission to stop us thinking for ourselves. Because the longer it goes on, the clearer it becomes he is trying to gaslight us. There’s only so much cognitive dissonance anyone can take. Trying to persuade yourself that someone who is demonstrably a bit hopeless is some kind of new-age statesman eventually becomes an impossibility. You have to accept the evidence of your own eyes’.

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Perhaps the most damning criticism came from comedian Ben Elton during today’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, invited along with other panel members to comment on Laura’s interview with Rishi in the no 10 garden. Describing it as ‘an extraordinary, Orwellian, meaningless, evasive word salad’ and noting ‘vanity …. dripping vanity.Everyone wanted to believe, and I sort of believed, maybe he’s kind of a bit more decent. And it turns out, he’s as much of a mendacious, narcissistic sociopath as his previous boss’. It makes a refreshing change to hear from someone prepared to say it how it is rather than the usual wheeling out of platitudes during such programmes.

Rishi also seems unable to announce anything without absurd hyperbole. It’s shameful enough that the NHS Workforce Plan has been delayed so long, apparently to emerge this coming week, but now the PM has to describe it as the ‘biggest workforce expansion plan in the history of the NHS. It will be interesting to see its contents after all this time – it takes seven years to train a doctor so those shortages and plans to ameliorate them can’t just be glossed over. Needless to say, though, when it’s convenient the PM distances himself from whatever appears not to be going well, insisting in his Laura K interview ‘it’s not MY workforce plan, it’s the NHS’s’. Except we can be sure it will suddenly become his if anything is found praiseworthy in there.

Another thing the Prime Minister has been criticized for is allowing the resignation honours of Boris Johnson and quite possibly Liz Truss as well. The House of Lords is already absurdly packed and although there are some very good people there unfortunately there are plenty who are totally unsuited to this or any other honour. We seem to hear of yet another example of Tory corruption on an almost weekly basis and now it’s emerged that Ben Elliot, recently knighted by Johnson, is the subject of allegations of conflict of interest. He’s previously been accused of blurring his business and political activities and it’s now emerged that he helped arrange a Tory fundraiser at the V&A while he was both a trustee of the museum and the party’s chair. We assume such intelligent people know that this is improper conduct so they must contemptuously believe they can get away with it, perhaps not surprisingly given the degree to which Boris Johnson has catalyzed a decline in moral standards. Although Elliot has been accused of tarnishing the reputation of the V&A, their defensive statement makes us wonder how much they have been implicated in this.

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Following massive media coverage we finally heard the tragic news this week that the Titanic sub mission rescue had failed and those on board were pronounced dead. It seems that Titanic enthusiasts will happily pay 250k dollars to ride in OceanGate’s specially-designed submersible vehicle, equipped with 4K video cameras, to visit the remains of the luxury liner 13,000 feet beneath the North Atlantic. Although we offer condolences to those who have lost loved ones, we must surely condemn the blatant disregard for health and safety exhibited by entrepreneur owner Stockton Rush, who apparently is on record as saying ‘At some point, safety just is pure waste. If you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed.’ Although it’s crucial for our development to take risks in life, there are risks and risks and I struggle to have sympathy with those who purposely embark on extreme sports and events, then expect to be rescued at huge public cost, usually.

What’s been pointed out (including by former US President Barack Obama) is the obscenity of the huge media coverage of this event compared with the relatively scant attention paid to the huge loss of life from the Greek migrant ship. ‘Anees Majeed, who lost five relatives in the boat that sank off Greece on 14 June, watched in disbelief and growing anger as a frantic, multimillion-dollar rescue effort played out for five other men lost at sea last week….. There is little hope Majeed’s cousins will ever be found or brought home. The family are tormented by rising evidence that European authorities knew the boat was in trouble but did not intervene’. This article cuts to the two key issues – the contrast between these events couldn’t be starker. The OceanGate rescue target was five men ‘on a trip they had chosen as an adventure, not one they were driven to make out of desperation’ (the migrant ship involved at least 300 deaths) and the victims were mostly at the opposite ends of the social scale. Some media outlets reacted to criticism of their coverage but I thought that of Radio 4’s Today programme added insult to injury, the complacent presenter just introducing a very short interview with one of the Pakistani relatives. During a media interview Obama made the bigger picture point about the harm caused by huge inequality: ‘It’s very difficult to sustain democracy when you have such massive concentrations of wealth’.

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It felt extremely tasteless that Boris used this subject for his second Daily Mail column, taking the insultingly simplistic heroic explorers line eg ‘Harding and his friends died in a cause — pushing out the frontiers of human knowledge and experience — that is typically British, and that fills me with pride’. Social media users were quick to object, one reading: No, Boris Johnson. They weren’t even explorers. They were tourists conned into a deadly descent by a careless man who believed his own hype. And thousands of corpses rot at the bottom of the Mediterranean. That’s real tragedy’.

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Many would have been stunned yesterday by the drama unfolding in Russia and what started looking like a coup by Wagner Group head Prigozhin, who was said to have taken over several cities and to be marching on Moscow. By the evening this had evolved to some kind of agreement between Prigozhin and Putin, with the former exiled to Belarus. But it won’t end there, will it? It opens huge questions about Putin’s leadership, Prigozhin’s future and what this means for Ukraine. I’ve not heard the Trojan Horse label attached to the Wagner supremo, but surely that’s what it is. Without this mercenary force would Putin have been able to prosecute this war for so long? But a force which contained a massive sting in its tail, not surprising given what we’ve heard about Prigozhin’s character. The Observer offers a thumbnail sketch: ‘The man who raised a force against Moscow is a former convict and hotdog seller, notorious for his ruthlessness, violence and cruelty. Born in St Petersburg in 1961, he went to a sporting academy but fell in with petty criminals. Convicted of several violent robberies in 1980, he spent most of his 20s in jail’.

The media mostly seem to believe this represents a humiliation for Putin. The Washington Post cast the past 24 hours as the gravest threat to Putin’s presidency ‘that till now has thrived on Putin’s ability to divide and rule by pitting rival groups against each other and serving as the ultimate arbiter among feuding elites…After more than two decades of autocratic rule, Putin’s hubris has repeatedly clouded his judgment — both in invading Ukraine and in misjudging whether Prigozhin could pose a threat’. The BBC’s Security Correspondent Frank Gardner observed: ‘Have to say, if I were Prigozhin, the mutinous Wagner boss now exiled to Belarus, I’d be staying well clear of upper floor windows or generous cups of tea. Deal or no deal, Putin is not going to forgive him for his ‘treachery and betrayal’. Despite initial hopes, it’s thought to be too early to see whether or not these events will benefit Ukraine.

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Because of such a powerful news agenda this last week, several issues could have slipped under the radar, one being the 7th anniversary of the Brexit referendum. It was chilling to learn that the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, was prevented from flying the EU flag from City Hall because of new planning regulations which would require permission from the local authority. ‘Until 2021 the EU flag had also been among those that did not require permission but the law applying to England was changed as a response to the UK’s departure from the bloc on 31 January 2020. Encouragement was instead issued by ministers at the time to fly the union flag of the UK throughout the year on national government and local authority building. Khan will instead use lights to display the EU flag’s blue and yellow colours on the building to mark the anniversary of the Brexit vote’. How petty any objection sounds but I wonder how hard Khan tried – Newham Council is Labour and it seems unlikely they would have withheld this ‘advertising consent’.

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It’s also been the 75th anniversary of Windrush this weekend, marked by joyful celebrations in some areas, not to mention exhibitions in museums and galleries continuing for some time. There were several events in this area of North London and I absolutely loved the one featuring steel bands – a great atmosphere prevailed, performances clearly enjoyed by participants and spectators alike. Needless to say, the royal PR machine also went to work via the Palace’s commissioning of ten Windrush passenger portraits. King Charles has spoken warmly about his project, framing this programme and exhibition as feelgood fare that will ‘recognise and celebrate the immeasurable difference that they, their children and their grandchildren made to this country’. But one commentator said ‘there’s a jarring disconnect between his positive messaging, delivered while sitting on a golden throne, and the harrowing tales of systemic racism’.

On a lighter note, those who’ve patiently waited for the National Portrait Gallery in London to reopen (it was closed for three years for the second refurb since 2000, something I was surprised was considered necessary) can now step across its threshold. The work cost £41m, key features, we’re told, including ‘slashed stone, daylight galore and doors by Tracey Emin’. The architect describes it as ‘the greatest building Londoners never knew they had. Our job was to open it up, tie its different eras together, and give it a new public face’. It sounds as if they’ve really made the best use of space and existing features using creative remodeling. ‘Inside, a sense of light, space and legibility has been flushed throughout the building, as if it’s undergone a supercharged spring clean, banishing much of the former gloom’. One thing the critics don’t ever seem to talk about though, and one on which I’ve unsuccessfully tried to engage with arts organization, is the cafes and restaurants. It used to be (and maybe still is) that grant funds are issued on the basis of audience development, but audiences are still mostly middle class in these places. Quite apart from entrance fees, the cafes are always so expensive that there’s no way, say, a family of very modest means could afford a drink and biscuit there, let alone a meal. Perhaps one day we’ll see theinnovatory step of a gallery or museum with the usual offering but also with a much humbler café tacked on!  

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Sunday 18 June

How the mighty have fallen, after weeks of speculation over the outcome of the Commons Privileges Committee investigation into Boris Johnson finding what we suspected all along, that he did indeed mislead Parliament and commit other offences besides. Add to that contempt of Parliament for the way he disrespected and abused them, using the furious language of the victim card playing narcissist finally found out and publicly disgraced (‘witch hunt’, stitch up, kangaroo court’ etc – parroted endlessly by his deluded allies). The ‘devastating’ report concluded that Johnson deliberately misled parliament when he repeatedly said that either no Covid rules were broken, or that he had been assured none were broken; deliberately misled the committee by repeating those lies; breached confidence by leaking parts of the report in advance when he resigned on Friday; impugned the committee and by extension undermined the democratic process of parliament and was complicit in the ‘campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the committee’. As Ian Hislop said on Have I Got News For You: ‘Boris Johnson lied at the time to the Commons, he lied about lying later, he lied about whether he lied about the lie, he lied at every point, and ended up calling the Committee liars.’

Not only this but Johnson could be found in further contempt on account of sixteen more gatherings currently being investigated and he’s in yet further trouble for not having consulted ACOBA (Advisory Committee on Business Appointments) in advance of taking up the Daily Mail job. No worries, though, the lying charlatan will have reckoned, as this body has no teeth so isn’t in a position to sanction him. ACOBA has been in the news for good reasons, though: it rejected a government attempt to get Keir Starmer’s appointment of Sue Gray as his Chief of Staff delayed for 18 months. They recommended 6 months of ‘gardening leave’ and she will start in the Autumn.

Downing Street officials confirmed that Covid compliance was ‘a pantomime’ and 4 pm ‘wine time’ Fridays had continued during lockdown and now we have the very damaging footage, posted on the Mirror’s website yesterday, of a party underway in December 2020 at Conservative Party HQ. The party giver, then mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey, is en route to the House of Lords. Surely this shouldn’t be allowed to go ahead now. We also have to ask ourselves why has this footage only emerged now and what else is lurking behind the scenes to be released at an opportune moment?

But what I recall from Johnson’s appearance before the Committee was Chair Harriet Harman’s shocked expression which she couldn’t/didn’t disguise on discovering after repeated questioning (and why had no one done this before??) that the ‘assurances’ Johnson allegedly received that no rules were broken were just from communications staff, ie political appointees rather than officials speaking on authority, therefore ‘flimsy’, as she put it. Not to mention the cynical distancing of this language, heavily implying that the speaker was not present. The Committee said ‘The contempt was all the more serious because it was committed by the prime minister, the most senior member of the government. He misled the house on an issue of the greatest importance to the house and to the public, and did so repeatedly’. This is what the relentless and deluded Johnson apologists don’t seem to get – the magnitude of his offences as PM and the damage inflicted on the democratic process. Simon Clarke was amongst those tweeting their apparent shock at the findings: ‘I am amazed at the harshness of today’s report by the Privileges Committee. I believed Boris before and I believe him today. This punishment is absolutely extraordinary to the point of sheer vindictiveness, and I will vote against this report on Monday’. At a time when so many collusive media interviewers give Tories an easy ride, it was good to see how Victoria Derbyshire made mincemeat of Brendan Clarke-Smith on Newsnight. Well worth catching up with if you haven’t seen it.

David Garfinkel, a spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, said: ‘It’s an utter tragedy that Johnson was in charge when the pandemic struck and he should never be allowed to stand for any form of public office again. His fall from grace must serve as a lesson to other politicians to act with honesty and to serve the public as a whole, that is the only positive that can come from this’.

It’s interesting that, sensing support leaking away and later telling his allies not to stand up for him at Monday’s vote in Parliament, the original sanction would have been 20 days suspension from the House and what made it 90 days was his disrespect and abuse of the Committee, which, alarmingly, resulted in additional security being arranged for the members. Of course, his cowardly resignation means he won’t have to face these measures but there are others. Many of us now believe that his Parliamentary pass should be removed and he shouldn’t be allowed to stand for Parliament again. There’s been plenty of flak directed at Rishi Sunak for yet more weakness in remaining silent about the report and the Monday vote.

What’s almost as interesting is a separate report, due within a fortnight, on the MPs (including Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg) who may have committed contempt in a ‘sustained attempt, seemingly coordinated, to undermine the Privileges Committee’. As we know, Dorries is already hopping mad, claiming to be ‘heartbroken’ at not getting the peerage she was expecting, and is making even more of a fool of herself by demanding WhatsApp messages and other communications relating to this decision when she has no clout to make this happen. As for Rees-Mogg, the self-assured act on his GB News show might be somewhat dented by a report sanctioning him for contempt of Parliament – he who is so keen on quoting chapter and verse of parliamentary process.

It seems very likely that the Committee’s recommendations will go through as numerous cowardly Tory MPs are expected to abstain in the free vote because they don’t want to be seen either as allying themselves with Johnson or risking the wrath of their local associations either. Allies of Johnson are even thought to be targeting those endorsing the report for deselection. It will be interesting to see how far they get with that because ‘a snap YouGov survey of more than 3,000 adults on Thursday suggested nearly seven in 10 believed Johnson knowingly misled parliament. That included just over half of voters who backed the Tory party under Johnson in the 2019 general election’. This Monday vote will surely be a fitting present for Johnson on his 59th birthday.

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Commentators have naturally had a field day, including Polly Toynbee, who surely gets it in one. ‘This was indeed the “worst” prime minister, the most unfit and yet, terrible though it is to admit, probably the most important. His short term in office has left the deepest and most enduring legacy that will scar the history books when other leaders are long forgotten. No other prime minister in my lifetime has inflicted such permanent and crippling damage, dividing and diminishing the nation with a Brexit he didn’t even care about.’

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Another worth reading is Jonathan Freedland, who looks at the wider picture of three populist downfalls (Johnson, Trump and the recently deceased Berlusconi) and who reminds us of why this is important (those still adhering simplistically to the ‘cake’ scenario take note): ‘But the damage is great all the same. For both Trump and Johnson are, like Berlusconi in his pomp, tearing away at something precious. It might sound hyperbolic, yet it is not only democracy but civilisation itself that rests on our acceptance of the rule of law… We accept it instead as a system that transcends us and to which we are all subject. It is the only way we can get along, the only way we can live ordered lives. The alternative is brutal violence and competition: the law of the jungle’.

Equally serious but witty with it is Marina Hyde, who observed: ‘The Johnson household will soon effectively contain four babies of various sizes, with the 58-year-old one currently going through what nanny might call “a difficult stage”…Tory MPs need to stop running and face up to what their party enabled, and at least make some profoundly belated attempt to acknowledge that and do the right thing. The parliamentary Conservative party in the majority showed appalling judgment on Johnson, despite mountains of indications it would turn out badly…Anyone who couldn’t see that Boris Johnson would end up behaving like Boris Johnson to the vast detriment of the country and its democratic institutions is too stupid and naive to be in politics’.

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As the polarity between those condemning Boris Johnson and those still defending him still continues, we have to wonder what planet the apologists are on and why are they sticking rigidly to their defensive stance despite such substantial evidence to the contrary. I suspect a mix of three reasons: they’re too proud after all this time to change their view; they still don’t understand (or pretend not to) that Johnson’s lies and  damage he’s inflicted on the country are catastrophic; they’re just as dishonest and cynical as him but aren’t up to adopting Johnson’s tactics.

Meanwhile, in the real world outside Westminster…… you wouldn’t think, would you, given the amount of time and energy taken up with this disgraceful pantomime, that there is a country to run, one mired in debt, inflation, poverty and strikes, not to mention filthy waterways. Heaven knows what those outside the UK are thinking of us. It’s not only the Boris Johnson affair, though that is bad enough, but the Covid Inquiry, where the authority of the Chair, Lady Hallett, is still being challenged by the Cabinet Office refusing to release potentially incriminating WhatsApp messages, even taking the government’s own inquiry to judicial review on this issue. The initial stage is focusing on pandemic preparedness: the Inquiry, which will last till 2026 and cost over £100m, will seek answers to crucial questions around what went wrong with government and health systems responses – this should inform future strategy.

A shocking but unsurprising initial finding is that the government was preoccupied with Brexit when it should have been pandemic planning. Another was the government’s defensively controlling centralised approach and refusal to involve local public health teams – absurd. ‘Meanwhile, lawyers for council directors of public health, who have expertise in handling infectious disease outbreaks, said they were “repeatedly excluded” by central government. The Department of Health and Social Care didn’t have an up-to-date contact list for them, and at the start of the pandemic they found out about new policies only through televised Downing Street 5pm briefings’. The Inquiry also issued a worrying chart of the very fragmented health and social care organisational infrastructure, which must have contributed to the crisis.

And here’s another example of  the use of distancing language we’ve seen with Johnson and his ‘assurances’, Matt Hancock telling the Inquiry: ‘On coming into post as Health Secretary, I was advised that the UK was a world leader in preparations for the pandemic. It did not turn out to be the case’. Surely he should have been more aware himself rather than just relying on ‘advice’.

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Forever weak Rishi Sunak allowed Johnson’s resignation honours to go through, including some absurd examples bringing the entire system into further disrepute. Included are a knighthood for Rees-Mogg and a peerage for a 29 year old very junior Downing Street staffer (Charlotte Owen) whose experience and achievements come nowhere near justifying this award. Of course plenty have speculated as to the nature of the services she performed for Johnson.

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Added to this we had the King’s birthday honours, though many of these are a damn sight more justifiable. The whole system needs reforming: it’s getting to the point where soon there will be no one who doesn’t have one honour or another. These individuals will be the exception rather than the rule.

The UK is in a dreadful mess (Prince Harry had it right when he said in court recently that the UK press and government were at ‘rock bottom’) and many are ‘terrified’ about increasingly unaffordable mortgages, but yesterday we had another bit of pricey pageantry of the kind we’re so good at in the form of the Trooping of the Colour ceremony, including the  massive fly past over Buckingham Palace. Similar for the Coronation pantomime, if this isn’t a shameful example of ‘all fur coat and no knickers’ I don’t know what is. The Tories are in constant blame mode and there’s been a growth in disrespectful labelling of civil servants, teachers and others as ‘the blob’ rather than blaming their own rudderless regime. We may well have to wait till after the next election but it’s been suggested that in order to tackle institutional resistance (eg within the civil service) minister should be able to make political appointments to the service. This sounds rather a dangerous development.

Although I still come across people unaware of the mass sewage dumping around the British coastline, many would-be visitors will surely be deterred from the customary seaside trip during hot weather. But now it’s going even further, taking away people’s livelihoods. Just one example is a Scarborough surfing business owner having to shut up shop because of the repeated red flags appearing on local beaches. ‘But here and across the country, just as Britain’s beaches should be filling up, sewage and pollution are shutting them down. The figures are alarming. Between 15 May and 30 September last year, sewage was dumped into designated bathing waters more than 5,000 times. There were an average of 825 sewage spills every single day into England’s waterways in 2022’. Vastly overpaid water company CEOs talk blithely about their investment in infrastructure, but it’s surely very clear that water should never have been privatised. It’s a horribly exploitative and damaging business model. ‘Meanwhile, the sewage keeps coming. A massive discharge near Blackpool on Tuesday comes after 69,000 such events last year across the UK’s north-west from United Utilities. Yet the company still found the money to pay £300m in dividends to shareholders’.

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If Nadine Dorries does actually resign, Rishi Sunak will soon face the headache of four by-elections, with possibly more to come. The latest Tory MP to resign is David Warburton, who had the Tory whip removed in April 2022 due to drugs and harassment allegations. It’s incomprehensible how MPs are allowed to resign ‘with immediate effect’ or so long after their suspension, leaving their constituents unrepresented. Surely this is another parliamentary procedure which needs changing.

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Predictably, there has been widespread reporting of Boris Johnson’s first Mail column, where he wrote about his unsuccessful experience of the weight loss injection regime. No surprise there, as drugs such as Wegovy can only ever be short term: they don’t get to the social and emotional root causes of overeating, which require psychological work. Johnson’s experiment has coincided with the government’s bullish announcement of a £40m pilot scheme to trial this drug – again a typical Tory short-term measure. ‘Prescriptions are already limited by Nice to two years because no data is yet available on the drug’s long-term impacts. Side-effects include fatigue, dizziness, nausea and vomiting’. How typical of lazy Johnson to tackle his weight using least effort, he who’s now known to be taken by car part of the way on his photo opportunity jogging sessions.

On a brighter note, although we keep hearing that intensive farming and other activities have decimated the UK bird population, it was great news to learn that skylarks a making a recovery from a 75% decline, growing by 10% during the last five years and in some areas by 20%. I saw and heard skylarks for the first time last summer (on the East Lothian coast), a delightful experience it would be great to repeat.

Finally, the cost of living crisis has brought about some interesting developments (at least it seems to be the reason besides the pandemic being cited)….. for example the boom in ice cream parlours. ‘Ice-cream parlours are usually associated with a trip to the seaside but they are coming to a high street near you as a mixture of nostalgia and convenience puts sundaes and posh gelato on the menu all year round. The number of parlours on high streets in England, Scotland and Wales has soared in the past two years, with the tally rising by more than 200 to 1,015, according to analysts the Local Data Company (LDC). The charge has been led by independents as local neighbourhoods benefit from more custom after working and shopping patterns were altered by the Covid pandemic’. I think one parlour owner makes a good point about serving it ‘in a lovely chilled sundae glass’ as the container of any consumable makes a big difference to the experience. It could be less good news for ice cream vans serving the 99, though: launched by Cadbury in 1930, it’s now under threat because the trademark chocolate flakes are now produced in Egypt (!) and they’re too crumbly, often arriving in bits. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Cadbury does to remedy this problem!

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Saturday 3 June

Whenever we think the government can’t get any worse, it does, and these last few weeks have been no exception. It seems there’s no limit to the damage this government is prepared to inflict on this country and its reputation on the world stage in order to get away with corruption and incompetence. Besides the ongoing cost of living crisis, rail and NHS strikes, food inflation running at 20%, we’ve seen Home Secretary Suella Braverman once again escape sanction, this time for trying to evade her driving fine obligations, four MPs claiming parking tickets on expenses (not picked up by the expenses authority IPSA so how many more claims have slipped through its perforated net?), health secretary Steve Barclay finally having to admit the long repeated lie of ‘40 new hospitals’, Rishi Sunak and James Cleverly repeatedly using private jets for often pointless gadabouts, the news that the Queen’s funeral and related events cost £162m and that polluting water companies intend passing onto customers the  £10bn bill for infrastructure investment, which should have been carried out years ago, while they pay large dividends to shareholders and their CEOs benefit from stratospheric salaries.

But the epitome of shame inflicted on this country must be the latest series of events leading to the government, unprecedentedly, taking legal action against its own Covid Inquiry. Following that revealing and car crash interview of Boris Johnson by a bravely persistent Sky journalist at Washington airport last weekend, during which he again denied fresh allegations that there had been gatherings at Chequers during lockdown, the debacle has gathered pace, marked by a series of volte faces. Initially it seemed that Johnson was holding back, then he purported to have handed all his pandemic era WhatsApp messages and notebooks to the Cabinet Office, which then refused to hand them to the Inquiry. Many of us have suspected the dead hand of top civil servant Simon Case in this, as he’s been implicated in a number of dubious interventions but never been brought to book. The theory then was that as Johnson finally accepted that he was skewered, he wanted to bring Sunak and other ‘backstabbers’ down with him. The Thursday 4 pm deadline was passed, nothing further was handed to the Inquiry and the government subsequently announced legal action, citing ministers’ privacy concerns. Not only a completely feeble argument but the entire Cabinet Office stance demonstrates the contempt these people have for due process (the Inquiry chair, Baroness Hallett, clearly has the overarching authority in these matters) and also for the public and those bereaved by Covid.

But it didn’t temporarily stop there: it emerged that Johnson had been advised not to switch on his old phone, the messages couldn’t be made available, so another volte face as he was clearly never genuinely prepared to release this material from before May 2021 to the Inquiry. What many have asked is why this potentially incriminating material is unavailable because usually it is transferred from an old to a new phone. He’s since allegedly asked for advice on accessing its contents although he was originally told that to turn the phone on would be a security risk. How daft and unconvincing is that given these events were now several years ago?

No surprise at this further Johnson skulduggery, which put the government on the spot. Former head of the civil service Lord Kerslake backed Lady Hallett and said there was a “cover-up” going on here “to save embarrassment of ministers”. So now this shameful pantomime limps on because the court could take several weeks to make a judgement. Surely, if the court finds in favour of the government it will make a mockery of the Inquiry and of the thousands who died and raise serious constitutional issues via the flouting of the Chair’s authority. The government had the nerve to say it wouldn’t hand over anything deemed ‘unambiguously irrelevant’ (only redacted material) but this ‘relevance’ is for the Chair to decide, not them. They really struggle to accept that there can be a higher authority than themselves. Sunak then had the nerve to bullishly declare from Moldova, where he was attending the European Political Community summit, that they were supporting the Inquiry and complying with the law: this, when they’re manifestly obstructing it.

This could run and run and meanwhile, the Inquiry has sent Johnson a list of 150 questions and requests for his witness statement. We have to wonder whether the Covid bereaved and the public will ever get the answers they need. Under the headline ‘Kamikaze Boris sets his sights on Sunak revenge’, the Independent’s Tom Peck wrote ‘There is no aspect of politics or public life that is any more than just a game for Johnson, and taking Sunak down with him would certainly count as a victory’.

You couldn’t make up the Cabinet Office’s defence: ‘We consider there to be important issues of principle at stake here, affecting both the rights of individuals and the proper conduct of government (!). The request for unambiguously irrelevant material goes beyond the powers of the inquiry (!!)… It represents an unwarranted intrusion into other aspects of the work of government. It also represents an intrusion into their legitimate expectations of privacy and protection of their personal information’. The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group said the prospect of the Cabinet Office suing the inquiry was ‘absolutely obscene’.

But there’s more – the i newspaper’s Paul Waugh revealed a government plan, a fallback position if the judicial review fails, a Section 19 application, which would prevent the disclosure and publication even of redacted material. Clearly a tactic to rout Johnson – he may be ‘willing’ to disclose material but if this application succeeds (the decision will be on Tuesday, we’re told) it could prevent the publication of anything at all. But just now another twist, in the Cabinet Office writing to Johnson to say that undermining the Inquiry and the government’s position could involve his legal fees (God knows how much this bill now is) not being paid. So now the ball is once more back in Johnson’s court.

Jonathan Freedland summarises how Sunak’s carapace of defending his predecessor was stripped away. ‘Sunak’s reticence has been exposed as self-interested. He wants to keep to a minimum the embarrassments of the Covid era, because they remind many millions of voters exactly when and why they came to despise this government. And, more self-interestedly still, the PM fears that Hallett is about to set a precedent for full disclosure – which means the investigators could soon demand to see every message on his phone….. “There’s never been an inquiry like this,” says the human rights lawyer Adam Wagner, the leading expert on the regime of regulation imposed during the pandemic. ‘This is not a single issue that can be parcelled off. This was a crisis that enveloped the entire government”.

It seems Lady Hallett had already got the government’s number – that their version of ‘unambiguously irrelevant’ (embarrassing stuff they wanted omitted or redacted) was anything but, so she wants to cast her net very wide as the subject of this Inquiry has affected every single one of us in the UK in one form or another. Freedland contends that what initially ‘made’ Sunak (in contrast to Johnson, ie his promise of integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level’) could now well break him too. A tweeter got it in one, though it seems the PM himself believes he’s managing to pull the wool over our eyes. ‘Mr Sunak tried to sell his leadership as a restoration of integrity and capability in office, but his bluff has been called. He cannot exorcise the ghosts of rotten Tory government when he is one of them’. An earthier one said: ‘Boris Johnson leaves a trail of shit wherever he goes and will destroy the Tory party’. Don’t expect to hear this discussed on the BBC – despite the recent resignation of Chairman Richard Sharp, the Tory agenda there is still only too clear to see. For the last 12 hours at least there’s been zero coverage of this massive issue, despite the latest alarming intervention.

https://tinyurl.com/2dxcmp7a

Besides all this Machiavellian manoeuvring, which shockingly but predictably shows not one iota of concern for the Covid victims (and not only the bereaved but the thousands still suffering from Long Covid), there’s alarming news from other quarters. I’ve long wondered what institutions like the police and armed forces think about being expected to step in to cope with public service failures and now we know, at least for Greater London. Met Police new broom Sir Mark Rowley unilaterally announced last week that his officers would no longer be attending mental health calls, as it was taking a disproportionate amount of resources and stopped them getting on with their core work. Health and social care services have been warned that this policy would take effect from 31 August, a ban which will only be waived ‘if a threat to life is feared’.

While various authorities and organisations have either sympathised with the police, been appalled at those with mental health issues being abandoned because of the parlous state of NHS services or can see the crisis from both sides, there’s been the usual lack of nuanced thinking. A key example is who and how is it decided when there might be ‘a threat to life’? I can see this from both sides but as someone who’s long pointed up the terrible underinvestment in mental health services over the years by Tory administrations and the NHS itself, we surely shouldn’t be surprised that with every public service under pressure some will start taking a firm stance against mission creep.

https://tinyurl.com/3vyvcsr7

How long before the ambulance service decides it has to reduce its own mental health response? Recent NHS figures showed that ambulance crews in England are spending 1.8m hours a year – the equivalent of 75,000 days – dealing with patients with mental health problems, a number rising every year and a 24% increase between 2018-19 and 2021-22. The Shadow Minister for Mental Health, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, said the data showed that lack of help for people experiencing mental ill health was adding to the strain on the hard-pressed ambulance service. ‘The National Audit Office reported in February that 1.2 million people were waiting to receive care and treatment from NHS community mental health services. Meanwhile, ambulance services are under such pressure that people in a mental health crisis are enduring waits of almost two and a half hours before a crew turns up to help them’. We’ve long known, though, that demand is going up regardless of underinvestment in services and it’s pretty clear that this is linked to austerity policies, the cost of living crisis and particularly (the theme of this blog) the evidence that we’re on our own.

https://tinyurl.com/mry3f6v6

This government doesn’t provide the psychological ‘holding’ (known as ‘containment’ in psychoanalytic theory) which authorities like governments should be providing, because they see high political office as an opportunity for personal gain rather than the true role as ‘container’ of the public’s anxiety amid numerous crises, some of which are the government’s own making. Essentially, we can’t feel safeguarded or looked after in any way when our government is so manifestly incompetent and corrupt. Every day, people are worn down by the fact that nothing in this country is working, there’s a feeling that systems have broken down or are on their last legs, and those in charge are just letting it happen. Perhaps the worst aspect is that this makes us feel helpless – we can’t even protest because the draconian Public Order Act now allows the arrest of those merely suspected of intention of disruption.

Here’s an example of the quality of our rulers. You’ll have noticed that Rishi Sunak has conveniently been abroad for this or that meeting when various scandals were being aired in the House of Commons, but his deputy, Oliver Dowden, is regarded by the Guardian’s John Crace as a poor replacement even for the robotic Rishi. ‘Oliver Dowden, however, is the perfect fit (as deputy). A man who had never dreamed of being anything so grand as a deputy prime minister. Who would actually have been just as happy in his natural role as a number three or four. A cross between a gentleman’s gentleman and a parody character from a 1970s sitcom’. What a classic description, yet the man (as so many of them) takes himself so seriously. Not that we’ve had to witness him this week as MPs have been in recess yet again. Some may ask how he got to that position and this tweeter put it in a nutshell: ‘This is the aspect of the current crisis that isn’t talked about: the factionalism, purges, and convulsions of the Tory Party have resulted in increasingly overpromoted, underqualified minnows in high office’. It’s also yet more proof that we need an altogether different kind of person going into politics.

https://tinyurl.com/4ccth25t

It seems it’s not only the UK concerned about its public service broadcaster. An acting chair may have been appointed at the BBC to replace disgraced Richard Sharp, but four key executives remain who have long had links to the Conservative Party and who clearly continue to influence the BBC’s editorial policy. And that’s not even counting high profile presenters like Nick Robinson and Justin Webb. No wonder others like Emily Maitlis, Andrew Marr and Jon Sopel felt the need to leave so they could finally speak their minds. As listener numbers for BBC Radio 4’s ‘flagship’ news programmes continue to plummet amid complaints of dumbing down, Tory bias and news censorship via omission, some at the Italian state broadcaster, Rai, have ‘accused Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government of wanting to bend the organisation to its will and “cancel Italy’s antifascism footprints” after a series of high-profile departures…. A source with knowledge of the situation said: ‘Rai has always been influenced by governments, but with the current one there has been a quantum leap. They want to take control of Rai and change the narrative to their way of thinking, and to cancel the antifascism footprints of our country. This will mean weakening Rai and the public service’….. more departures are expected over the coming months’. It’s unfortunate that those only getting their news from the public broadcaster may not see what’s going on or see it as the threat to democracy that it is.

https://tinyurl.com/529zyfuh

In lighter news, it was good to hear that Leighton House, the former home of Victorian artistFrederic Lord Leighton, based in London’s West Kensington, is on the shortlist for the Art Fund’s Museum of the Year. Having visited over the years and recently, following the latest refurb, I can testify to the its nomination. It’s such a striking place, plenty to see, now with shop and stylish cafe so I hope it fares well. The winner will be announced on 12 July and the other competitors are Glasgow’s Burrell Collection, The MAC (Belfast), London’s Natural History Museum and Scapa Flow Museum (Orkney).

https://tinyurl.com/yxxapykk

Finally, The Week reports that Susie Dent, Countdown’s lexicographer, invited her 1.1m followers to nominate the hated words and expressions they would like expunged from the English language. Taking top position was ‘going forward’ (yes!), followed by ‘No disrespect, but…’, ‘like’ used as a filler, ‘reaching out’, ‘basically’ and ‘my bad’. Daily Mail writer Tom Utley added his own: ‘Let me be absolutely clear’ (when the politicians concerned were anything but) and ‘our NHS’. The last is particularly pertinent, I think, as it’s often uttered by cynical politicians in a sanctimonious tone when they are simultaneously underfunding and aiming to privatise this national treasure. Besides ‘going forward’ two expressions which make me cringe every time are ‘pension pot’ and ‘direction of travel’. Any other suggestions?!

Sunday 14 May

Although it seems our politics and public life are always in a state of rapid churn, they can hardly have been more turbulent than during these last few weeks. We’ve had the local elections, during which some ‘local’ Conservatives disingenuously resorted to green branding, the Coronation, progress through Parliament of the Illegal Migration Bill and further unhappiness with the Metropolitan Police, all against a backdrop of continuing transport, teacher and NHS strikes. The Tories did predictably badly at the elections, losing over 1000 councillors and a number of key councils – it got me thinking that a journalist could write a useful article on how things go when the Council changes from Conservative but still retains a high profile Tory MP, as has happened in Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden). An example of this is the Tory MP for Monmouth and Welsh Secretary David T C Davies, who seems to use his weekly column in the Abergavenny Chronicle to lambast the local Labour administrations.

The election results have cast an unflattering light on PM Rishi Sunak, who, rather than questioning his overall strategy, has illogically doubled down on his ‘five priorities’ and continued to parrot them out during every interview. His robotic performance and extravagant choices of transport, not to mention failure to rein in the rebellious wing of his Party and globe trotting predecessor Liz Truss, have raised serious questions as to his fitness for the role. ‘A lot of senior Tories have echoed this “steady Sunak” narrative if only for want of any other tale to tell themselves. We now have evidence from “real votes in real ballot boxes” to tell us what the country thinks. And the answer is that voters are not swallowing Mr Sunak’s sales pitch…. Voters are not going along with his attempt to present himself as somehow detached from the deep damage that his party has done. That’s not his only problem. He’s yet to make any tangible progress on the five-point plan that he produced at the beginning of the year’. And he’s seen as having no vision.

https://tinyurl.com/mrx4aw8d

 ‘For decades, the Tories have perfected the psychological trick of displacing their own negative traits and failures on to their enemies, a device known as projection, often an unconscious process but very deliberate in this case. ‘It’s Sunak’s only hope of staying in power’ opines one commentator. Pathetically, it seems that without genuine strength and heft, the only way the Conservatives can justify themselves is to create a narrative that they represent the ‘real’ Britain and have to constantly do battle with those seeking to undermine it, including the ‘woke, trade unions, civil servants, Brussels bureaucrats and many more. And this is how so many get taken in: ‘Not only does the persistence of an “enemy within” or “new elite” exonerate the Tories’ failures in government – implying that actually existing Conservatism has never been tried and so justifying the seizure of more power – but it also implausibly places the wealthy Tory elite and the proverbial “man on the street” on the same side, jointly opposed to this undemocratic foe’.

It’s this kind of cynical and sinister narrative which led to the ‘we’re all in this together’ mantra when we are nothing of the kind. But hey, if Tories can persuade people we’re all fighting an enemy the real enemy can just carry on regardless. ‘The result is confounding: a ruling class that refuses to take any responsibility for ruling, an elite that enriches its chums while calling their opponents self-serving, a vandal that imagines itself the victim…. But while the Tories may mourn Britain’s decline, so long as they remain in power, they seem happy in their unhappiness, confident that there will always be someone else to blame, someone else to suffer the consequences’.

https://tinyurl.com/pr3nkn2p

One example of Conservatives’ dissatisfaction is party members in Surrey unrepentantly voting for the Lib Dems in the local elections. Although Sunak hasn’t himself gone in heavy on culture wars, they see he’s done nothing to rein in the extreme rhetoric coming from his colleagues on a daily basis when people are struggling with the cost of living crisis. ‘And his apparent inability to personally shape his government trickles into his stance on the economy and immigration, according to these blue wall voters, who think the party had “made fools of themselves despite having so many chances” to restart’.

https://tinyurl.com/399bnyd9

And now Sunak has a fresh attack from right wingers in the form of the Conservative Democratic Organisation and its conference this weekend in Bournemouth, which brought together Boris Johnson supporters even though Johnson himself didn’t attend. You can be sure, though, that he would be orchestrating things behind the scenes. It’s yet another example of defensive organisation dynamics, Tories believing they still have a saviour. Former Home Secretary Priti Patel is amongst senior Tories who spoke at the conference, saying how the current leadership has damaged the party, how they haven’t listened to the grassroots and how they’ve resorted to ‘more state control, more spending, and more taxes’, diverging from what she calls Conservative values and, crime of all crimes, ‘they took down a vote-winning political giant’.

Deluded or what? They insist they’re not a Johnson revivalist organisation, just want to make the party more accountable to the rank and file. Right, except most of the main speakers were noted Johnson supporters, including Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg. A sceptic tweeted: ‘What strikes most forcibly is the juxtaposition of ‘Conservative’ and ‘democratic’ in the CDO title. An oxymoron if ever there was one! There’s nothing ‘democratic’ about Tories they have systematically eroded our democratic rights over their 13 miserable years of malign misrule’. Apparently there were quite a few empty seats at this absurd shindig, so Sunak may not feel too threatened by them, but it’s a nevertheless a significant indicator of the splits and bitterness within his Party.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65579691

Far away from the UK, a disingenuous Jeremy Hunt is desperately trying not to lose face on the G7 stage by saying, despite the latest inflation figures (which won’t yet show the impact on mortgage costs of the latest interest rate raise), the UK economy is growing much faster than could have been expected. Extraordinary that he expects people to believe this when the economy only grew by 0.1% during the first quarter yet shrank by 0.3% in March. Despite the fibs we often hear about the UK being ‘the fastest growing economy in the G7, G 20’ or whatever, the fact is it’s at the bottom of the G7 league, behind Germany, France and the US.

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We’ve long known that theGovernment is deluded as to how we’re seen on the world stage: the German newspaper Die Welt for one sees ‘a nation in steep decline’, due to austerity, galloping inflation, poverty and a broken public services. But some take refuge in ‘nostalgic visions of British greatness’ (aka last weekend’s Coronation). As this weekend the government seeks (as it did with the Coronation) to use Eurovision in order to deflect from bad news in every quarter, one of the first things visitors will encounter is the rail strike: welcome to world beating Britain.

And talking of the Coronation, where do we even start? A BBC Director of News was on Radio 4’s Feedback programme responding to criticism of the BBC’s excessive and sycophantic coverage of this hugely extravagant pantomime on which so many have been anaesthetized and seduced into taking seriously. I believe he’s mistaken to contend that ‘news’ reporting (which did reluctantly include the republican protests) and the ‘ceremonial’ (which focused exclusively on the pomp, ceremony and process) should be separated when in reality they are inseparable. It’s nothing short of absurd and embarrassing that a country in the state this one’s in should spend £250m on this unnecessary event when so many are unable to afford to eat and when Charles could have paid the entire bill himself. It seems that a good number of royalists have not educated themselves about the  Royal Family’s finances and about their interference with the legislative process, both of which have been shrouded in secrecy and do not show them in a good light. And myths are endlessly paraded unchallenged in the media, eg the royals bring in a lot of tourism income (no evidence for this, mainly supposition) and we must stick with the monarchy because we don’t want a politician as president, etc. We do not have to have a politician (could be a ‘national treasure’) so that defuses that argument. If we must have a monarchy, it could be one more akin to those in other European countries, which cost far less and whose members are far less entitled and do not stand on ceremony.

Because of the unsatisfactory nature of our constitutional monarchy, there were politicians mixed up in this, for example ‘Lord President of the Council’ Penny Mordaunt, who was dressed in a strange nun-like blue costume and carrying the reportedly very heavy Sword of State. What was striking before, during and after the event was the amount of coverage of arcane ceremonial roles, some of which had been shared between just a few families for centuries, the minutae of detail on robes and headwear symbolizing this or that and the faux mysticism underpinning the whole business. Totally out of place in the 21st century. The adjectives ‘exciting’ and ‘proud’ had to do a lot of heavy lifting last weekend. But also striking was how tired and glum Charles looked throughout, making no change even for the commemorative photographs. Moreover, quite a few don’t believe Charles and Camilla can pull this off, having nowhere near the dignity, gravitas or stature of Queen Elizabeth . It was noticeable how ‘white’ the Palace balcony looked, a large group (what happened to the ‘slimmed down monarchy’?) from which Princes Harry and Andrew were excluded. Although we knew this in advance it seemed far less reasonable in Harry’s case than Andrew’s. And now Charles has released a photograph of himself with his two heirs, Princes William and George, capturing in one shot privilege and entitlement set to last decades.

I thought the most incisive coverage was by Polly Toynbee and Nesrine Malik, who both cut right through the pretence underpinning this event. Polly alluded to ‘the homemade sign that may have captured the mood of many read simply: “Don’t you think this is a bit silly?” Oh, but this is what we do so well! We invite the world to see us in our lavishly gilded splendour; parading the largest military display for 70 years, as the commentators boasted over and over, so that no visitors would guess our army is a fifth of its size at the last coronation.

The greater the pageant, the more there is to disguise the emptiness of its meaning. All hail to Ruritania at its most gloriously silly!…. The phantasm of monarchy and golden orb strives to keep alive dreams of supremacy we should have let go long ago. All the paraphernalia and regalia, spoon, glove, bracelets and the magic ring that is the “covenant sworn this day between God and king” left the man in the oversized precarious crown looking, well, a bit embarrassed’.

https://tinyurl.com/5mzxec4j

Nesrine Malik usefully drew attention to the cynical narrative being reinforced, one of control and inequality: ‘We have the worst of both worlds: the royal family gives us nothing, and we in turn legitimise it, give it meaning and audience and pay, through subsidies and tax exemptions, for its ability to wow us. The monarchy does provide a service, but not to us. It is to an entire system of political decline and economic inequality that cannot withstand closer scrutiny, and so it must be embellished and cloaked in ceremony…. And so frippery and force combine to make a political position – support for the monarchy – seem like the natural, sacred default. Much like the ceremony itself, which depicts kings and queens as ordained by God and not the people, the purpose of branding these political positions as “traditions” and “ways of life” is to stop us contemplating another way of life’. What says it all is that it was reported that money for food banks was diverted to pay for this extravaganza.

Surely the worst own goal, though, was the appalling conduct of the Met Police in preventing lawful protest and roughly arresting 62 Republic supporters including its head, Graham Smith, who was held for 16 hours. Only four were charged and since then the police seemed to have rowed back and apologized but it gets worse: the police also arrested and held for 13 hours an Australian royalist who just happened to be standing near the protesters, and Met new broom Mark Rowley consistently failed to appear in public to defend these actions, clearly sanctioned by both the government and royals themselves. The fact that Republic had been liaising with the Met Police for months beforehand might make future protesters think twice about such a considerate strategy. The Guardian’s John Crace draws attention to the recklessness of only just having rushed through a draconian Public Order Act, giving no time for the police to prepare officers.

‘Move along. Nothing to see here. Of course you have a right to peaceful protest. Just as I have a right to arrest you if I feel like it. So it would be a good idea for you to move quietly behind this grandstand so that the BBC cameras can’t film you. Not that they would. They know their place. Besides, they will never do another royal event if they do. So move along quietly. Is that a Velcro fastener on your jacket? A belt round your waist? Planning to lock on, are we? Then you’re nicked. God save the king’.

https://tinyurl.com/mr2hk8au

Needless to say, Tories, police representatives and royalists were falling over themselves in the media for days afterwards, clutching at far-fetched straws to justify this disproportionate police action, even saying that the protesters could have caused the horses to bolt and that protesters shouldn’t be allowed to ‘disrupt’ the ‘enjoyment’ of this important occasion: cause them to actually think, more like. So protesters were demonized while footage of the Mall on Sunday showed the whole area strewn with rubbish left behind by ‘well wishers’, which would have cost thousands to clear up.

I’ve long wondered about this so it was gratifying to see Simon Jenkins write a piece about the oft-quoted notion of royal ‘service’: what do they actually mean by it because it seems that their idea bears little relation to what most of us would associate with the term? ‘… the word “service”, which the king and Prince William invoked so often,  sounded like marketing executives toying with a new brand. This has to be better defined if it is to be more than a performative cliché…. Heredity is indefensible as a basis for high office, but it can survive if legitimised by consent. A king should indeed enjoy popular support, or he is nothing. But the question remains: is this popularity more safely guaranteed by unobtrusive moderation or by great congregations of soldiers, golden coaches, screaming jets, pop stars, bishops and God? …. I lost count of the references to God, but there was no mention of parliament or democracy’. As time passes, it will be interesting to see how King Charles’s idea of ‘service’ manifests itself – he keeps being lauded for his work setting up the Prince’s Trust and for his environmental concerns but these stem from many years ago and he surely needs to demonstrate ‘service’ in a different way now he’s ascended to the throne.

https://tinyurl.com/5bm3d5cr

Meanwhile, the BBC, which was also criticised for lack of impartiality when reporting on the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and the funeral, again attracted the ire of Republic, whose head, Graham Smith, recently wrote to David Jordan (BBC director of editorial and policy standards), saying the BBC is not holding the monarchy to account, especially when support for it has declined markedly in recent years. ‘The evidence suggests the BBC not only fails to be impartial, but makes no attempt to be impartial or balanced and, most shockingly, openly colludes with the palace in its coverage. It should be a source of deep shame for all those involved that, instead of such fearless reporting, we have insipid, vacuous and dishonest coverage from a BBC that is fearful of public opprobrium and palace influence. The result of the BBC’s failures is that the coverage serves the interests of a shrinking minority who could reasonably be called royalists. In doing so, they do a disservice to the whole nation’. Needless to say, the BBC’s response was as defensive and dismissive as usual. ‘We believe our reporting is fair and duly impartial, and BBC News always seeks to reflect a range of viewpoints in our Royal coverage’.

https://tinyurl.com/4x2p2m4f

It’s concerning that now the cost of living crisis has almost been normalised in the media and besides ministers and others insisting that their inadequate pay offers to strikers are ‘fair and reasonable’, the Bank of England’s chief economist, Huw Pill, recently urged us to accept that we’re getting poorer. Pill said that ‘we all have to take our share’ but such people still don’t seem to understand that such messages are nonsensical and unjust when they themselves are doing so well. We are definitely not ‘all in this together’. Besides good salaries and pensions, most of them also have considerable private investments, often revealed when a conflict of interest emerges. Left wingers say Pill represents a buck-passing Establishment that has given up and that we need more State intervention, such as a wealth tax and price controls on essentials.

As was clear long ago, this government only seems capable of short-term, reactive and sticking plaster type non-solutions to deep-seated problems. There’s never a grasp of the big picture. Being increasingly aware not only of the NHS waiting list but the crisis in general practice, the government’s latest wheeze is to ‘free up’ 15m more GP appointments over the next 2 years by recruiting pharmacies to take on more responsibility. The government had promised 6000 more GPs when there nearly 1000 fewer but in addition, numerous pharmacies have closed altogether due to shortage of staff and others have had to reduce their hours. Of course there’s also the serious concern that pharmacists are not trained to spot or diagnose conditions, including whether a UTI can be classed as ‘uncomplicated’ so patients could end up going round the houses and coming back again to the GP, during which valuable time has been lost.  Of course this is going to add to the anxiety many patients feel about their health, not knowing if and when they will get help. ‘Prof Kamila Hawthorne, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said the plans included positive steps, but none that were the silver bullet needed “to address the intense workload and workforce pressures GPs and their teams are working under’….. GP shortages now top 4,200 and will double to 8,800 by 2031, according to the Health Foundation’.

https://tinyurl.com/5fca33ws

A new term has been coined to express what many of us feel about this country in its current state: ‘countrybarrassment’. Emma Beddington describes her feelings on viewing the UK through the eyes of her French in-laws: ‘Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to appreciate how bad things are….. It’s all part of a wider spiral of countrybarassment: there’s so much here you can’t stuff in a cupboard and hide from visitors. Rivers running with shit; eight food banks in the supposedly prosperous city where we live; visiting musicians refused entry at the border; school groups no longer able to visit; a country seeking to breach its obligations towards refugees under international law, and to ignore European convention on human rights interim rulings. Like the house, it feels like a personal shame: how have we let it happen? Why aren’t we out on the streets, like the French?’

https://tinyurl.com/323h6fbs

Finally, an interesting article in The Times by Harry Wallop discusses how ‘the hotelification of offices is all the rage’ as a way (instead of hectoring) to lure people back to the workplace, with perks ranging from fruit to fluffy towels. But the one proving popular (ahem, taking the biscuit?) is a revival of what some of us are old enough to remember – the tea trolley – as evidenced by the unmistakeable tinkling of cups and spoons as it makes its way through the floors. This ritual largely disappeared during the 80s but now it’s apparently seen as a ‘fun, retro concept’, harking back to the pre-Starbucks era when the rattle of its wheels would be a signal to down tools and stop for a chat. Wallop reckons this development will be more successful than other interventions from bosses, like bingo nights and wine tastings. Let’s see…. interested to hear about examples. Bring back the trolley!

Sunday 23 April

Despite the parliamentary Easter recess there’s been no let up in the turbulence characterizing our socio-political sphere, events (or non-events) scrambling for media attention. That is, if complicit media aren’t instrumental in the increasingly common cover ups. None of this is good for our mental health – it’s one thing for ‘stuff’ to happen but it’s quite another for the government to be so reactive and incompetent that we can’t trust them to deal effectively with any of it. The latest shocking example is the situation of Brits holed up in Sudan as fighting between rival factions intensifies around them. Witnesses have spoken of other nationals being helped by their embassies but of course, nothing from the UK’s own – reminiscent of the exit of Afghanistan and our Foreign Secretary staying put on his beach holiday. Except now, several days later, we hear that one family interviewed by the BBC has been put ‘on a list’ by the UK embassy, though they don’t know what this means. I’m certain we all reassured that Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who so far has been singularly unimpressive in that role, has cut short his visit to New Zealand in order to attend to the Sudan crisis. It seems so far all he’s done is to agree a statement with his French counterpart – no sense of urgency. The media keep featuring Alicia Kearns, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, but where are Cleverly himself and his junior ministers?

Yes, Dominic Raab’s failure has continued in subsequent roles recently fighting for his political life following the investigation of and delivery of the report on allegations of bullying against him. And he’s likely to lose his Surrey seat at the next election. The time which elapsed between delivery of KC Adam Tolley’s report on Thursday and Raab’s resignation on Friday morning rather suggests that the PM gave him the choice of resigning or getting sacked, even though Raab was initially adamant that he wouldn’t go. The report is described as ‘stinging’ but in an effort to reframe this humiliating situation Raab has resorted to attack strategy, suggesting the report is flawed, that in any case it absolved him of all but two of the allegations and, most appallingly, that the problems had only resulted from his own desire to ‘drive reform’ ‘at pace’ and set challenging standards. We certainly saw him pursuing high standards during the Afghanistan exit and the other two ministerial posts he’s had to leave. ‘Dominic Raab has faced more ministerial fluctuations than most: sacked, demoted or resigning from three government jobs’. Civil servants and many others have expressed anger at Sunak’s weakness in effectively allowing Raab to set the media agenda in this way and at Raab’s description of the investigation as a ‘Kafkaesque saga’, blaming ‘activist over-unionised civil servants’ blocking government and ‘targeting ministers’.

Citing the ‘support’ he’s allegedly received, it’s been sickening to witness Raab playing the victim card when he’s been the perpetrator. ‘Above all, a lot of ministers now, are very fearful that the direct challenge that they bring fairly squarely in government may leave them at risk of the same treatment that I’ve had’. It now looks as if Conservative HQ has instructed MPs to post cheerleading tweets defending Raab, trying to massage the story into one of hardworking ministers trying to introduce reforms but being impeded by politically motivated civil servants.

What seems clear is that so many in the commentariat (and in society generally) don’t understand bullying and the damage it can inflict on both mental and physical health. It’s not  a matter of whether the alleged perpetrator intends to cause humiliation and harm, but how it’s experienced by victims, and we can be in no doubt from accounts that Raab caused significant distress wherever he’s worked and there’s no excuse that he would have been unaware of this. The High Court ruled in 2021 (cited by Tolley, pages 10,11,12) conduct can be bullying “whether or not the perpetrator is aware or intends that the conduct is offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting” but we’re still hearing Raab apologists spouting about ‘intent’.

Another key factor is that it took Dave Penman, General Secretary of the senior civil servants union (FDA), to point out to the BBC that the process itself was flawed: it’s highly improper that Raab (but not the civil servants) was allowed access to this report in advance of its publication so he could put his case first and to even write a Telegraph article seeking to exonerate himself. Such a process automatically puts the civil servants who cannot speak up at a disadvantage. If it wasn’t so serious what’s been almost amusing to observe is Raab’s anger at civil servants frustrating his (mostly appalling) plans for ‘reform’ – it doesn’t strike him that they could be deeply disturbed at this government’s ‘direction of travel’, including human rights ‘reform’, hence their perceived need to undermine it.

We now hear of plans to politicize the Civil Service: the Service always was an intended to be politically neutral, but in a clear attempt to prevent what they see as obstruction, Conservative peer Francis Maude is drawing up ‘radical plans to bring in more “politicisation” of Whitehall by allowing ministers greater powers to appoint their own civil servants – including some with overt political affiliations’. This is deeply alarming, not least Maude’s naivety or deliberate cynicism and it echoes the growth of controlling tactics employed by fascist regimes in the past : ‘It is perfectly possible to preserve impartiality and, indeed, improve continuity while allowing ministers more say in appointments…Without material adjustment, there will be more cases like Raab’s when frustrations boil over…We need a much more robust culture, with less groupthink, more rugged disagreement, and the confidence both to offer challenge and to accept it’.

https://tinyurl.com/4288be6p

So then Sunak had to decide on a new Justice Minister and Deputy PM, although he didn’t have to appoint a DPM. Not an easy job given the increasingly shallow pool he has to fish in, but no time has been lost, it seems. Sunak appointed the clone-like Oliver Dowden, who has inexplicably (what is wrong with these people?) just beenreadopted as the Conservative Candidate for Hertsmere, and Alex Chalk (who he?) as Justice Secretary. It seems that one of the reasons for the Dowden appointment was his role in ‘coordinating the government’s response to the strikes’. NB, not resolving the strikes. The ‘response’ has just been refusal to negotiate with the unions.

We’re told that, as a former lawyer who has prosecuted and defended clients in a range of cases, from terrorism charges to fraud, Chalk’s appointment satisfies the demand of some Conservative backbenchers that the role should be occupied by a lawyer. Good to know that Sunak is once again listening to his vociferous backbenchers but this appointment again demonstrates the paucity of the potential field of candidates. Quite a reshuffle as Michelle Donelan will be going on maternity leave soon, necessitating new Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Chloe Smith) and ditto Julia Lopez, who will be replaced by Sir John Whittingdale as a minister of state jointly in the Department of Culture and Department of Science, Innovation and Technology. 

This might feel enough work for one weekend but Sunak will still be digesting the news that he is also under investigation himself for failing to declare his wife’s shares in a childcare company which would have benefited from measures within the 2023 Budget. Sunak said he did declare them but there’s no proof because the register had not yet been published, a year since the previous one. Some commentators have said this looks Sunak look quite like Boris Johnson, aloof and believing the rules don’t apply to him. ‘He also failed to declare an interest when prompted during his appearance in front of the parliamentary liaison committee last month. On the face of it, this seems to breach parliament’s code of conduct, which states: “Members must always be open and frank in declaring any relevant interest in any proceeding of the House or its committees.” The electorate often sees the Tories as the party of the rich, for the rich. By not coming clean straight away, Mr Sunak will have cemented that view’.

https://tinyurl.com/26b43ump

The BBC’s political editor, Chris Mason, once again showed his Tory colours by downplaying the revelations: ‘On the Richter scale of these things, it feels like a rather minor tremor. Think a few loose roof tiles rather than anything much more’. The trouble is that these aren’t the only ‘loose roof tiles’: the very foundations of the Tory government edifice are crumbling by the day, one scandal following hot on the heels of the one before.

https://tinyurl.com/2ysrvbe6

It’s shocking and humiliating for this country (it’s not just about him) that he hosted a Good Friday Agreement gala dinner in Belfast this week when under investigation. Not only that – thereports relating to BBC Chair Richard Sharp (which sound as damning as those in the Raab report) will soon land on Sunak’s desk. One person briefed on the draft findings by Adam Heppinstall KC said the criticisms made it ‘probable but not certain’ that Sharp would have to resign.  Neither the Raab nor the Sharp fates should have ever been the PM’s decision to make, especially given such a conflict of interest in the latter case (Sharp had been Sunak’s boss at Goldman Sachs) but that’s the current arrangement. Absurdly, the BBC can’t cannot remove its own chairman, who is appointed by the government on a four-year term and Sharp will only leave if he either voluntarily resigns or if the government pushes him.

Surely a reason why the role of BBC Chair should not be a political appointment (we’ve seen endless Tory bias during recent years, evidenced most recently by collusive presenters’ gaslighting of union chiefs when they should be pressuring ministers to get round the negotiating table with the junior doctors, nurses, teachers and all the others taking industrial action. Last week the government got a shock they complacently were not expecting, that the RCN had turned down the pay offer they’d balloted on and will now organize more strike action, and worse, this could be coordinated with that of other health unions. This leaves the NHS in a frighteningly dangerous state but instead of faulting the intransigent government, the Tory BBC at least repeatedly attacks union representatives for ‘putting patients’ lives in danger’). Said one tweeter to the Today programme: ‘In his piece re the health dispute Amol Rajan described NHS being ‘plagued’ by strikes. This description runs counter to impartiality, appearing to lay the blame at the door of health unions rather than an intransigent government that has overseen chronic underfunding’.

The Royal College of Nursing has now accused the government of bullying because it has resorted to legal action in order to prevent an imminent nurses’ strike. ‘The formal legal challenge marks an extraordinary escalation of a dispute over the planned strike days’…Steve Barclay said: ‘Following a request from NHS Employers I have regretfully provided notice of my intent to pursue legal action to ask the courts to declare the Royal College of Nursing’s upcoming strike action planned for 30 April to 2 May to be unlawful.’ Barclay is going for a double whammy because it also contains a threat to nurses’ professional status and ability to work: ‘This legal action also seeks to protect nurses who could otherwise be asked to take part in unlawful activity that could in turn put their professional registration at risk and would breach the requirements set out in the nursing code of conduct.” Double whammy and nonsensical own goal because what will he do with so many nurses not allowed to work besides the existing workforce crisis? It’s shameful that the government is incapable of managing its responsibilities, so resorts to the blunt instrument of the law to bludgeon people back to work.

https://tinyurl.com/4acdzp4a

All last weekend and the days which followed we saw one minister after another on the airwaves, especially Jeremy Hunt and Greg Hands (fresh from the local elections campaign trail and much foolish tweeting) parrot that the offer to junior doctors was ‘fair and reasonable’. Apart from the fact that junior doctors’ pay has declined in real terms by 26% over 15 years, and MPs have benefited from a 40% increase in recent times, the repetition of such a sound bite becomes meaningless after a while. Perhaps the most risible thing, though, was the performance of Greg Hands on BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, during which it was clear that he’d scrawled text all over his hands. Afraid of forgetting the script?

As if we hadn’t seen enough scandal in recent years, we’re now hearing about yet more sexual misconduct cases from the business lobbying organization, the CBI, some commentators believing this organization is finished. Despite drafting in a former staffer no doubt as a ‘safe pair of hands’ DG, the CBI has seen the need to suspend its activities until June in the wake of numerous members quitting. These include high profile companies like NatWest, John Lewis, Accenture, Arup, Aviva, BMW, Fidelity International, Jaguar Land Rover, Kingfisher, Phoenix Group, Sage, Tesco and Virgin Media O2. At least the CBI is confronting its problems, unlike the government, but it also begs the question, featured in the media, as to where else these organizations can go. One commentator suggested other bodies like the British Retail Consortium and what about the Institute of Directors? Maybe we just don’t need so many organizations of this type – and perhaps we could do with less business lobbying across the board since we’ve seen it lead to so much corruption.

https://tinyurl.com/5n9ads4v

With things as they are, it’s no surprise that mental ill-health is in the news again. Longstanding underinvestment in NHS services and the faulty way services have developed haven’t even kept pace with steady demand let alone the massive rise in recent years. ‘Mental health issues are becoming the new pandemic with some 6.5 million of us now using antidepressants, up a million over five years. The number of adults reporting a disability has risen by a third in the last decade. The number of children and young people accessing NHS mental health services has surged by 25 per cent in the last two years. Something is going deeply, profoundly and expensively wrong. Our sick note phenomenon is such, now, that the expected cost of paying those on health-related benefits has risen by £8 billion in just four months. The biggest single complaint behind new claims is mental health, and the proportion of successful claims has hit an all-time high. More are now on incapacity benefit (and its successors) than at any time under Labour. So the Tories have recreated the problem they once dedicated themselves to solving.’

Disappointingly and predictably, Nelson doesn’t get that interventions like CBT are of limited use to people with complex issues and those who want to get to the roots of their problems, which CBT does not. And, crucially, he doesn’t ask himself why so many are feeling this strain: for many personal issues will be hugely impacted by the wider sociopolitical context of corrupt and incompetent government (nothing is working), the cost of living crisis, the daily difficulty of getting anything done or resolved and the common phenomenon of hopeless and/or bullying bosses in the workplace. ‘There is so much that can be done. Mental health problems are far from unsolvable: techniques like cognitive behavioural therapy are widely practised and have a strong record of success’. Quite some over-simplification and a particularly dangerous idea is for the DWP to get their own therapists (ahem, doesn’t he know that ‘wellbeing practitioners’ and workforce coaches have been working in job centres for some time?) because therapy should never be tied to an economic agenda. 

https://tinyurl.com/2pcde62z

Drilling down into children’s mental health, there’s the shocking finding that ‘a quarter of a million children in the UK with mental health problems have been denied help by the NHS as it struggles to manage surging case loads against a backdrop of a crisis in child mental health. Some NHS trusts are failing to offer treatment to 60% of those referred by GPs, the research based on Freedom of Information request responses has found’. Besides the children themselves and their families, this situation must be very difficult for GPs and striking that the information had to be elicited via FOI. Trusts have raised the bar at which patients qualify for help so they could be quite unwell and still get no treatment. ‘Former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield said long waits are resulting in only the worst crises being prioritised. She has heard repeated stories of children who had attempted suicide failing to be offered support because they did not meet a threshold of multiple attempts’.

Needless to say, we get the usual bland statements from the DHSC, which don’t actually address the urgent issues: ‘We’re determined to do everything we can to support children and young people with their mental health, no matter their background or location…We’re also working closely with NHS England to introduce new access and waiting time standards for mental health services, ensuring quicker access to high-quality care across the country’. The cynicism of it: introducing new targets won’t ensure availability of treatment.

https://tinyurl.com/bdcuddnu

Just as the media continue trying to whip up ‘excitement’ about the Coronation (one radio 4 ‘news’ programme being exclusively about this event and the monarchy), polls show most Brits don’t care about it. Only 24% care ‘a fair amount’, 9% say they care a great deal but the majority doesn’t care. So many people I know are going away in order to avoid this Coronation ‘fever’, although much of this is confected. Republic CEO Graham Smith was very good value on the above ‘news’ programme, giving articulate and undeniable arguments as to why the monarchy is an outmoded fig leaf which needs to go. The myths around monarchy and its justification really need challenging, eg it brings in a lot of revenue via tourism (it’s actually difficult to find evidence for this and numbers of visitors to the UK have declined significantly following Brexit anyway), and the idea we ‘need’ it for our British identity is a very flawed one. In 2023 we can’t rely on this obsolescent prop to bolster what could be argued is a questionable sense of identity based on inequality and vacuous ceremony. It was interesting to see that Waitrose have marked down their Coronation branded cakes and scones, rather suggesting they’re proving less popular than anticipated.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1758203/king-charles-coronation-yougov-poll

The latest Coronation gimmick, a new crown emoji, has been introduced (we’re told) in a ‘fresh attempt to modernize the Firm’. Oh dear, excruciating. It comes up automatically on Twitter but I wonder how many will choose to use it in texts and WhatsApps etc. But if you really want to get into the spirit of it, a magazine column has supplied some ideas of items which could well find themselves taken to charity shops at some point in the future. These range from a King Charles mug (£23), to a Coronation teapot (£75), a musical biscuit tin (£35) and a light up cushion (£25).

https://tinyurl.com/2p8273mk

On a positive note, we regularly hear about efforts to preserve the natural environment, often led by communities rather than officialdom. A good example of the latter, though, is the news that meadows at 100 historic sites across England will be restored to help put back some of the 97% which have disappeared since the 1930s, a project headed up by English Heritage. One of the best things this time of year, though, is the ‘purple haze’ effect experienced in bluebell woods, especially in quieter locations as opposed to public parks, I find. They are late flowering this year because of the cold and wet spring so far, and I’m told they will be at their best next weekend. At a National Trust site yesterday, I was interested to learn from a companion that despite the Trust only planting the native variety, Spanish ones were present and so also were hybrids. I admit to not minding – I find any bluebells a real tonic!

Sunday 9 April

Happy Easter to everyone…. Many of us will be benefiting from a sunny yet slightly chilly day. It’s a shame that cynical Tories have chosen to misuse this special day by posting the most hypocritical stuff on social media, for example Environment (sewage) minister Therese Coffey’s tweet accompanying a picture of Christ on the cross with ‘The ultimate sacrifice’ – something she knows all about, of course. And today’s picture of the empty cross captioned ‘Resurrexit sicut dixit. Alleluia. Happy Easter’. But it gets even worse: Boris Johnson posted: ‘Happy Easter to everyone today. May your day be filled with joy, laughter, and plenty of chocolate eggs. Let’s take this opportunity to reflect on the hope and renewal that Easter represents, and to be thankful for the blessings in our lives’. Some will be finding it difficult to reflect on hope and renewal given the extent to which he and his colleagues have brought the country down.

What’s also been striking this last week is the number of Tories lauding Margaret Thatcher, perhaps because she’s one of the few points of commonality within the badly split party. Another deluded tweet from Boris Johnson: ‘On the 10th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher’s death, we remember her as a great leader who transformed our country and the Conservative Party. She enabled people to realise their ambitions and build a better life – that is what Conservatism is all about.’ I think many could supply other views on what Conservatism is ‘all about’ with the present incumbents, including incompetence, corruption, environmental damage and racism to mention just a few.

The start of the Easter break was marked much more emphatically than usual by huge queues at Dover, as post-Brexit checks take their toll, but rather than blaming Brexit, the government attributes the problem to ‘the numbers of people wanting to get away’! During their absurdly long recess we can assume numerous MPs and ministers have managed ‘to get away’, often abroad, the Commons Speaker for example being in Aguilla. There have been questions as to where Health Secretary Steve Barclay is, still refusing to come to the table to help avert the junior doctors’ strike schedules for next week, anticipated to seriously put patients’ lives at risk. A junior doctor said on BBC5 Live that doctors’ pay had lost 26% of its value over the last fifteen years and we know they are unprepared to accept the 5% offered to other health unions.

Yet some Tory MPs at least are staying at home, bullishly tweeting from the campaign trail in the run-up to the local elections, boasting about non-achievements and lambasting Labour councils. Rishi Sunak must have been perturbed that one of key cheerleaders, Scott Benton, has not only been caught red-handed breaking lobbying rules but also promising the fake company posing as lobbyists access to ministers not possible ‘outside the realm of politics’ and telling them how gifts could escape detection by underplaying the value at which they have to be declared. ‘He also suggested he was willing to leak sensitive information to, and ask parliamentary questions on behalf of, a fake investment fund, in an exchange recorded during an investigation by The Times’. A tweeter observed: ‘Rishi Sunak must be delighted at this doubling down on dishonesty prior to the  Local Elections. What was that about ‘accountability, professionalism and Integrity’? It seems we’re supposed to be grateful that Benton has referred himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner, which only happened because he was caught. At least he’s had the Tory whip removed but we have to wonder how many more scandals involving Tory MPs are yet to emerge.

https://tinyurl.com/ys3r7kr8

What came from the CBI last week could be considered further evidence (on top of the police, fire and rescue service and others) of how the reckless disregard for rules and decency modelled by Boris Johnson has poisoned the body politic. ‘An investigation into sexual misconduct at one of Britain’s biggest business lobby groups has been widened after new allegations have emerged. The Confederation of British Industry is at the centre of claims published by the Guardian, detailing alleged misconduct by individuals. Law firm Fox Williams is overseeing the expanded investigation’. These are in addition to the allegations made against the DG Tony Danker. Some CBI members are said to be considering their membership: I wonder what they get from it in the first place, apart from (presumably) access to lobbying opportunities.

https://tinyurl.com/bdfchv3j

Earlier this week the media focused heavily (disproportionately, some felt) on the death of Lord Lawson, Margaret Thatcher’s former Chancellor. From the eulogistic coverage and interviews with prominent Conservatives (like Lord Baker, who praised his privatization of BT!) you’d never think that this titan of the political realm was a climate change denier who went to live in France while extolling the benefits of Brexit. And that’s not all: one tweeter commented: ‘No. Lawson will *not* be remembered for paying off debt. He will be remembered for selling our state assets, squandering the North Sea oil money, increasing inequality, and the housing crash of 1988. Not to mention funding climate change denial’.

As if we needed any more alarming news, the Health Service Journal (NB, not the government) has revealed an intention to halve the proposed social care workforce investment, lopping off £250m. As everyone knows, social care is already seriously struggling, some would say broken, so to cut it even further is an untenable false economy especially as it will put even more pressure on the NHS.

The Department of Health and Social Care did not deny the report. A spokesperson said it did not comment on leaks and added: “The government remains committed to the 10-year vision set out in the People at the Heart of Care White Paper and have made good progress on implementing it, including by boosting workforce capacity, digitisation, improving oversight and enhancing the use of data. We will soon publish a plan for adult social care system reform, setting out how we will build on this progress over the next two years.” Having dodged the big social care conundrums for years, Boris Johnson famously promised ‘from the steps of Downing Street’ in 2019 that social care would be fixed once and for all. Now the Department promises a plan ‘soon’??

https://tinyurl.com/35fs253d

What I think is by far the most interesting news item this week is the Guardian’s huge investigation into the Royal Family’s wealth (The Cost of the Crown), the deliberate cultivation of secrecy around this and the evidence that the royals including the Queen interfered with the legislative process which would have brought this to light. Interesting timing, too, given the imminent Coronation and the media’s non-stop brainwashing creation of ‘excitement’ about this event. It seems most of the information painstakingly elicited by the Guardian’s investigators was not in the public domain or was barely accessible, that they were often not helped but explicitly obstructed and the fact that the Royal Family is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act would add significantly to the barriers encountered. ‘At the same time, their finances entered a new era, as well. In 2011, David Cameron’s government replaced the fixed income of the “civil list” with the sovereign grant, which is linked to profits derived from the crown estate – land formally owned by the monarch.

A “golden ratchet” clause ensured that their income would increase in line with the crown estate’s profits, but could never go down. Meanwhile, the government also insisted that income from the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall – the land and property estates which provide a significant share of the royals’ income, and separate to the crown estate – were private money’. This is highly debateable. ‘The royals insist their duchy income is “private” and the government treats it as entirely separate from the sovereign grant, the annual payment the royal family receives from the government to cover its official costs. That too has risen dramatically in recent times, and costs the taxpayer £86m a year…Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the Guardian’s figures for income received from the duchies, which it described as ‘speculative’.

Those who continue to laud the Queen as an exemplar of duty and devotion to public service should now get a wakeup call. ‘Obituaries of Queen Elizabeth II uniformly applauded her calm stewardship of the realm, or her supposed non-interference in British politics. None mentioned another hallmark of her reign: entrenched secrecy, which has given rise to a culture in which the British people are deprived of the most basic information about the monarchy…. In the past three years, official papers uncovered by the Guardian have revealed how the Queen and her advisers repeatedly abused the procedure of crown consent to secretly alter British laws, including, in 1973, as part of a successful bid to conceal her “embarrassing” private wealth from the public’.

https://tinyurl.com/2p84dye8

Polly Toynbee typically wasted no time in identifying what I (and many others, no doubt) see as a major problem, increasingly evident as we approach the Coronation: that people in this country have long been seduced into complying with a state of unconscious feudalism, aided and abetted by sycophantic media including their retinues of ‘royal correspondents’. We’re encouraged to feel grateful when a royal personage comes to our town or village, perhaps the most recent telling example being the Maundy Thursday walkabout in York, which saw the enactment of a tradition going back to the 7th century of handing out coins. Typically, the BBC underplayed the noisy Not My King protest, which was clearly audible inside the Minster, into which Charles and Camilla were quickly ushered. Many are not seeing how this unconscious feudalism encourages a passive mindset which could well explain why, unlike other countries, we don’t rise up against this corrupt government.

‘The trouble with the monarchy is not that it is too powerful but that it is utterly useless, a worthless vacuum shrouded in ceremony. So much is spent on ceremonial trappings to disguise its inner nothingness….All ermine and no knickers is what we’ve got, anyway.

Empty heads that wear the hollow crown are symbols of some of our worst tendencies – the growing weight of nepotism, inequality, privilege and inherited wealth…But there are obvious differences between the King’s finances and anybody else’s – chief among them the fact that much of the income is ultimately derived from the public purse by dint of their birth. It’s curious that many who were persuaded to vote for Brexit, at such a pernicious national cost, in order to reclaim “sovereignty” still seem willing as subjects to cede it without question to their sovereign. That royal prerogative is in turn handed to the prime minister in parliament as absolute power, barring a weak House of Lords’.

Another key question the Guardian is investigating is what contribution the royals make.

‘Yet our attempt to discover precisely what public functions royals have fulfilled in return for all this money is less than straightforward. The palace directed reporters to the Court Circular, the official record of their activities. However, the information is only available in daily editions, with no totals and no way of easily searching what engagements royals have undertaken in recent years. To work this out, we first had to drive to the village of Datchet in Berkshire, and the home of Tim O’Donovan, an amiable retired insurance broker who has spent the past 44 years compiling his own paper records of these engagements; archives that he generously agreed to share’. Is it not astonishing that there’s no proper record of what the ‘working royals’ actually do?  It wouldn’t be surprising, though, if there was such a longstanding sense of entitlement that the idea of doing something in return for such largesse had never crossed royal minds.

Apparently Buckingham Palace argues that the financial arrangements of royals should “remain private, as they would for any other individual”. What an unintelligent stance: the royals are not just individuals but public figures costing the country dear and we have a right to know the amounts involved, how they were acquired and the rationale on which they are disbursed.

It’s probably no coincidence that King Charles is now suddenly supporting the investigation into its links with slavery: the lumbering Palace PR machine has creaked into action, using this other important issue to deflect attention from the Guardian’s other work. The media have obediently swallowed the bait and have reported this widely. ‘Buckingham Palace released the statement after it was contacted by the Guardian about the extensive history of successive British monarchs’ involvement and investment in the enslavement of African people. The Guardian has published a previously unseen document showing the 1689 transfer of £1,000 of shares in the slave-trading Royal African Company to King William III, from Edward Colston, the company’s deputy governor’. Quite a few historians and other experts say this cooperation is a good thing but much more needs to be done.

https://tinyurl.com/3urnd8r6

One thing’s for sure – no one can accuse the Guardian of hypocrisy: the paper is doing its fair share of hair shirt wearing following revelations of its own connections to slavery. ‘In an article published on Tuesday, Katharine Viner, the editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media, writes: “We are facing up to, and apologising for, the fact that our founder and those who funded him drew their wealth from a practice that was a crime against humanity.“As we enter our third century as a news organisation, this awful history must reinforce our determination to use our journalism to expose racism, injustice and inequality, and to hold the powerful to account.” The Guardian has also launched Cotton Capital, a continuing series of journalism exploring the history of transatlantic slavery and its legacies’.

https://tinyurl.com/59eub4cn

This week also saw the 25th anniversary of the groundbreaking Good Friday Agreement, which the i paper says has ‘passed its most stringent test – surviving Brexit and Boris Johnson’, adding ‘The irresponsibility of Johnson and his ministers’ willingness to capsize the GFA was astounding… The biggest reason for celebrating the 25 years of the GFA is that its durability has been tested by Brexit but, despite a battering, it still stands’. The battering alluded to consisted of Boris Johnson’s unsuccessful attempt to ‘play the Orange card’ to undermine the Windsor Framework and the fact that concerns about an upsurge in sectarian violence have largely not been manifested.

‘This outcome was by no means guaranteed, but the fact that the agreement endured is proof that from the beginning it accurately reflected the balance of power within Northern Ireland between the Catholic nationalists and Protestant unionists. It also reflected the balance of power between the chief outside players – the UK, Irish Republic, US and EU. Uncaring Johnson may have been about uprooting the GFA, but he repeatedly found that he had too few cards in his hand to do so successfully’. Let’s hope the GFA continues to do its job.

https://tinyurl.com/4y3aa2dy

Finally, and perhaps good timing given the amount of chocolate and hot cross buns being  consumed this weekend (!) there have been some useful articles recently on the perennial topic of acquiring and maintaining good health, which contain some statements of the obvious. But there’s a reason they may not be initially seem obvious: because it’s a human tendency to reach for short cuts to health benefits, ones which don’t involve much effort on our parts, and the NHS has unintentionally colluded with this from its inception in the ‘cradle to grave’ ethos. By insufficiently investing in and emphasising the importance of preventative health interventions, it’s fostered the passive lack of personal agency framework that problems are only addressed when they’ve occurred, a lot more costly for both the patient and the NHS. ‘While what Attia sets out is mostly about how individuals can transform their chances of extending wellness and resilience into old age, it inevitably strays into big questions about how systems of healthcare are organised, and the thinking that drives them’.

 Peter Attia, the founder of Healthspan, says ‘We can strike big blows against the “four horsemen” of diabetes, cancer, heart disease and dementia by improving our lives in five “tactical domains”: exercise; “nutritional biochemistry” (ie what and how much we eat); sleep; emotional health; and “exogenous molecules” – or, as they are otherwise known, drugs and supplements’…Interestingly, he roughly divides the history of medicine into three eras: although we still rely heavily on Medicine 2.0 (centred on such innovations as the microscope, the discovery of antibiotics and thorough scientific experiments and research)

Attia wants us to move to Medicine 3.0, which “places a far greater emphasis on prevention than treatment”. Generally medicine does not lead us to this important work, for which we must largely take personal responsibility, yet he regularly comes across Silicon Valley folk who neglect the basics like exercise because it’s easier to invest their hopes in some new gene treatment, for example.

Another Holy Grail Attia challenges is the one of longevity when what counts is the quality of someone’s existence. He advises gradual, not sudden changes to one’s lifestyle. Obvious? Yes, but you wouldn’t think so judging by the nature of so many New Year’s Resolutions to get fit, gyms packed out with joiners who drop out weeks later because they’ve set themselves unrealistic goals. ‘Your base system has to be preventive and it has to be preventive early. And by the way, the most beneficial things that you’re going to do to extend lifespan and healthspan don’t actually cost much money…Go exercise! How much does it cost to really educate people to exercise? That doesn’t matter how much money you have’. A pertinent point is also that the NHS is now so underfunded and under-resourced that we can often anyway feel we’re on our own when it comes to looking after our health. But of course it’s not just about our physical health – this interacts with our mental health, which will be more resilient if we invest in the former.  

https://tinyurl.com/ywpcuxxs

One of the key ingredients of ‘healthspan’, Attia believes, is body strength. ‘… if you look at the majority of people over the age of 75 and 80, you’ll be so struck by how many activities they can’t do because they lack strength. It can be as simple as: ‘Why can’t most people at a certain age not even get up off the floor?’ They simply don’t have the strength in their hip muscles’ and it makes quite some difference. ‘….And when you compare strong with not-strong, the survival difference and the mortality difference is in the order of 200%’. On this point it’s interesting to see this example cited in a witty yet serious article about basic things we can do for our health (Stand on one leg – and 16 other life-changing daily moves that will keep your body happy), one of which is getting up from the ground/floor unaided. ‘The ability to rise without assistance is not only a predictor of a longer life (research supports that acing this test correlates to decreases in all causes of mortality and morbidity), it’s an indicator that your body is stable, supple and efficient’.

Some may remember a tv programme a few years ago presented by Angela Rippon, who tested various groups of people attempting this and she was the only one who could: all the others had to use their hands or a prop in order to get up. It’s interesting that this simple-sounding exercise has been proved to be so powerful!

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gs

Sunday 2 April

The House of Commons may have begun its Easter recess (why do MPs ‘need so much holiday?) but you can tell the government started preparing weeks ago for the local government elections: the Illegal Immigration bill going through Parliament has already sparked endless debate about ‘illegal migrants’, but it seems ministers are really ramping up the dog whistle rhetoric, forever trotting out the tired old script about ‘small boats’, ‘smashing the business model of criminal gangs’, and ‘people dying in the Channel’, as if they actually have any humanitarian concern. Of course most people would agree that 51,000 asylum seekers being accommodated in hotels at a cost of more than £6m a day is not acceptable, but consensus stops there. Unable to be specific about the possibility of moving them from hotels to barges, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab’s interview this week on the Today programme was a typical car crash. But this is yet another issue the Conservative Party is split on. Chair of the Defence Select Committee Tobias Ellwood said there is “no functioning process” that allows Afghans to apply for asylum from abroad: ‘This is clearly not who we are as a nation’, but as a Radio 4 listener tweeted: ‘Unfortunately It IS ‘who we are’ under this government’.

Collusive media which conflate ‘illegal immigrants’ with asylum seekers do us a huge disservice, because many won’t bother getting their news from different sources and believe what they’re told. There’s a solid body of opinion which holds that  if there are no safe and legal routes for asylum seekers, then there’s no such thing as ‘illegal immigration’. Media shy Home Secretary Suella Braverman was for once doing the media rounds this morning, on the Laura Kuenssberg programme again presenting the indefensible as acceptable and refusing to accept that Rwanda was anything but a safe country and refusing to respond to the part of the policy which allows Rwanda refugees to come to the UK. All this creation of division, besides the general corruption and lack of leadership in government, is so bad for our mental wellbeing (those seeking help forming an unprecedentedly long waiting list for poorly provided services) but there’s no chance of it changing any time soon.

You couldn’t make it up – the government now warning polluting water companies that they could be fined record amounts when it was this very government which facilitated their sewage dumping in the first place. On average there were 824 spills daily last year, the Independent tells us, shocking in itself, but also a further reminder of how toothless our regulators are despite their CEOs receiving stratospheric salaries. Worse, we have lazy and disengaged ‘ministers’ like Therese Coffey (Environment Secretary) who gives the shortest responses possible to questions and challenges in the House and who glibly dismisses criticism as clearly nothing to do with her.  ‘….Coffey, who has faced calls to resign over the controversy, admitted “more needs to be done” to protect rivers and coastal waters. ‘I want to make sure that regulators have the powers and tools to take tough action against companies that are breaking the rules and to do so more quickly’. Apparently a new Plan for Water will be published shortly, which will set out plans to tackle pollution and boost water supplies. Err, right. What’s crystal clear and has been for ages is that water privatization just does not work.

Unfortunately, it was evident some time ago (it seemed to start with Theresa May) that this con trick of ‘making sure/ensuring’ something usually means the opposite: they have no intention of interrupting the massive profits these companies are making. It’s unacceptably depressing that we can’t just visit a river or coastline without worrying whether it’s one of the dumping sites as so many are. I often wonder how people who moved to the coast during the pandemic feel, especially as they clearly didn’t anticipate a mass return to the workplace within 18 months, let alone this shocking pollution on their doorsteps.

Keir Starmer has accused the government of “turning Britain’s waterways into an open sewer” and the Lib Dems have called for Coffey’s resignation – fat chance of that. The past few years have shown that almost nothing would make any Tory resign. This issue is surely a metaphor for the Tory poisoning of the body politic and of society, which started before Boris Johnson but was severely aggravated by him and didn’t change after he left office.   

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22nd March might now seem a long time ago but it’s likely its effects will be felt for a long time because of the extent of Boris Johnson’s damaging serial dishonesty. I watched the entire Commons Privileges Committee interrogation of the former PM and quite riveting it was, too. Numerous viewers were struck by his extreme arrogance, repeated attempts to undermine the process and to ‘correct’ the chair, Harriet Harman, whose calm throughout was admirable given the provocation. Also surprising and cheering was the forensic questioning by Committee members about his alleged misleading of Parliament, the most impressive of whom was fellow Tory Bernard Jenkin. Johnson looked alternately truculent, angry and even threatening, several times losing his temper, which spoke volumes. I thought four aspects of this process were very clear and alarming: first, this was the kind of questioning which the collusive media and Opposition figures should have been subjecting him to for years but haven’t; second, Johnson’s readiness to blame others for not objecting to the parties, abdicating his own responsibility as PM; third, the emergence only after rigorous questioning of the flimsiness of the ‘assurances’ received eg political advisers rather than civil servants; fourth, his insistence from his tiny bubble that it was ok to have parties as these people had been ‘working very hard’. What planet? However hard some of them may have worked, it won’t be comparable to what NHS and other essential workers had to contend with. And all this partying was going on when millions of people obeyed the rules and couldn’t see loved at end of life or attend a funeral in some cases.

Two more things about this: why did taxpayers have to pay for Johnson’s overpaid lawyers? Why wasn’t his legal aid bill subject to a means test? These questions weren’t asked by the media, of course. When Johnson has ‘earned’ so much in recent months from speaking engagements, it seems obscene that the public has to foot the bill for his Partygate defence but we’re told that this is the norm. Seems to me the norms need challenging. But it could also have been a waste of money for another reason: Johnson quickly went off piste during the proceedings and the expression on Lord Pannick’s face throughout was interesting to watch. ‘You can coach The Convict to within an inch of his life, but you can’t get him to perform to order. This was Boris at his worst. Angry, fidgety, arrogant. His contempt for the committee evident in almost every sentence. Then it was probably always going to be this way. Johnson seldom looks good under pressure…. People died alone while he and the rest of Number 10 partied. Always the lies, though. So it was no surprise that Boris doubled down. A committee session about lying to parliament was dominated by Boris again lying to parliament. At times it felt almost meta. Lying about lying about lying’. It got worse: ‘Johnson now introduced the concept of ‘personal drift’. You started off meaning to socially distance but somehow mysteriously ended up throwing up in bins, falling into flowerbeds or having sex with random strangers. This was all apparently totally normal….. none of his advisers had told him the rules had been broken and because he was too stupid to come to that conclusion on his own. He forgot to mention that his advisers had been hand-picked by him to accommodate his untruths. But by now he was rambling incoherently’. It’s worth reading the whole article.

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A related issue is the clear and dubious involvement of ‘top civil servant’ Simon Case in so many suspect events. So far he’s managed to escape real scrutiny but for how long? Interestingly, he managed to damage Johnson’s defence at the hearing by saying that no ‘assurance’ was given regarding the legality of the parties. ‘The cabinet secretary, Simon Case, has denied giving Boris Johnson any reassurances that Covid rules and guidance were followed at all times in No 10 during the Partygate scandal. In newly released evidence from the Commons Privileges Committee, which is investigating whether the former prime minister deliberately misled MPs over lockdown gatherings, the head of the UK’s home civil service said he was unaware of anyone else in Downing Street giving assurances either’. So who were these ‘advisers’ giving Johnson these ‘assurances’?

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It’s a shame that because of the long Easter recess, we have to wait till May for the Committee to reach its conclusions, which could possibly see ‘Boris’ having to fight a by-election. Needless to say, the usual suspects (like Jacob Rees-Mogg, Priti Patel, Nadine Dorries and others) wasted no time in condemning the process as a ‘witch hunt’, which I thought sounded like contempt of Parliament but, as ever, nothing has been done about it. These deluded people never seem to give up. Soon afterwards we heard about a May 13th conference organised by the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO), the group set up after Johnson was ejected from No 10 by his own party, with the agenda of ‘taking back control’. Their bullish tweets have to be seen to be believed, one asking ‘Have you met our CDO President?  Always fighting for democracy and the members of the party he loves. Thank you Lord Cruddas for all you do’.

Of course there’s been much comment and speculation as to Johnson’s fate, some writers definitely now seeing him as humiliated and finished. Some think that while the former PM refuses to admit any wrongdoing, it is believed he will accept the finding of ‘recklessly misleading Parliament’ (‘only’ a ban from Parliament of 10 days) in order to avoid a potential by-election – how typical, cynical to the end. Another commentator opined that ‘Boris Johnson has become the equivalent of a dated ITV3 rerun…’, this effect being reinforced by the failure of Johnson’s attempted rebellion against the Windsor Framework, which in the event only netted 22 MPs. ‘He must still appear at the Covid-19 inquiry and perhaps he will lead a couple more parliamentary rebellions against his successor. But this was someone whose series has been canned and who now plays largely on channels devoted to repeats. He has become a subplot, a character actor brought back into a new spin-off for guest appearances (minimum fee: £250,000), each slightly less exciting than the last’.

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Meanwhile, the lawlessness, dishonesty and cynicism unleashed by Johnson continues to make itself felt and also filters down to organizations like the police and the fire and rescue service (bullying, harassment, sexism and homophobia etc). It’s evident that many more than before the pandemic don’t see the need to follow rules or behave with integrity any more. On the political front, you’d have thought previous stings would have prevented more from being caught out but no, there’s no limit to the arrogance of even the disgraced, the latest to fall for it being Matt Hancock and Kwasi Kwarteng. ‘The former chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, and former health secretary, Matt Hancock, agreed to work for £10,000 a day to further the interests of a fake South Korean firm after apparently being duped by the campaign group Led by Donkeys’. As usual, when found out these people blame anyone but themselves. It’s also striking that Hancock only seems to communicate through an intermediary these days. ‘Hancock’s spokesperson said he had acted “entirely properly” and criticised what he described as the “illegal publication of a private conversation”. It seems particularly appalling that Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, also attended an online meeting for the fake foreign firm, and, though he didn’t take up the offer himself, offered to put the company in touch with others, suggesting that a rate of £6,000 a day ‘feels about right’. I wonder how many of us think this ‘feels about right’.

At least the Labour Party is promising to address this thorny issue of MPs having second jobs – many believe they should not have. ‘The footage showing his (Hancock’s) rapid response to a question over fees is likely to spark fresh controversy over concerns MPs may be bolstering their finances in ways that may be counter to the interest of the constituents they serve’.

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As the media continue to focus on the Trump indictment, questions continue about the number of politicians and others under investigation here and remaining in post. Dominic Raab continues to pontificate in the Commons and media interviews, there’s still no news about the two investigations into BBC Chair Richard Sharp and we recently heard that although the police have dropped theirs into Tory MP Julian Knight (why dropped??) he still hasn’t had the Party Whip restored, which does nothing to reassure. There are numerous others under investigation but again, no one has been asked to step down for the duration.  Another reason why we need root and branch reform of our parliamentary procedures – and our constitution too.

Despite the claims of some ministers like Kemi Badenoch, who this week boasted ‘we’ve done so much in government’, it seems that energy security and climate change are two more massive fails. ‘The UK is “strikingly unprepared” for the impacts of the climate crisis, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which alluded to a ‘lost decade’ in the UK’s preparedness for the impacts of global warming. And who’s been in charge during this ‘lost decade’?? ‘The CCC, the government’s official climate adviser, said climate damages will inevitably intensify for decades to come. It has warned repeatedly of poor preparation in the past and said government action was now urgently needed to protect people and their homes and livelihoods…. The extreme heatwave in 2022, when temperatures surpassed 40C for the first time, was both an example and a warning, the CCC said. More than 3,000 people died early and 20% of hospital operations were cancelled at the peak of the heatwave, while rail lines buckled, wildfires raged and farmers struggled with drought. The CCC Chief Executive said: ‘The government is not putting together a plan that reflects the scale and the nature of the risks that face the whole country. This is completely critical. There is no option but to adapt to the change in the climate. The question is only whether we do that well by doing it early or wait until later’. Unfortunately, any ‘plan’ the government produces soon seems to reveal itself as hastily cobbled together, a non-plan which doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

What follows is indicative of the government’s news manipulation, implying that really, things are going pretty well, when actually the CCC found that only 5 of the 45 action areas had been properly addressed. ‘A UK government spokesperson said: “We welcome the CCC’s recognition of our progress so far and will factor its recommendations into our updated National Adaptation Programme, which will be published later this year and will ensure we robustly address the full range of climate risks to the UK.”  It’s damaging that the media doesn’t sufficiently challenge ministers on such misleading statements: from the above you’d think everything was pretty much under control – far from it.

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As council tax bills plop onto mats up and down the country local authorities and taxpayers will be delighted by the news that £8m of their money is to be spent on sending a portrait of King Charles to all public bodies, including councils. ‘In a move that drew criticism amid complaints of shrinking budgets across Whitehall and local government, Oliver Dowden, the cabinet office minister, said it was part of plans to celebrate the new reign and bring the nation together’. No surprise that dimwit Dowden was involved in this, he who gives robotic interviews and who ruled last week that use of TikTok would be disallowed on government phones. This government really does specialise in doing gratuitous things that don’t need doing, while ignoring pretty well everything that does. ‘In a move that drew criticism amid complaints of shrinking budgets across Whitehall and local government, Oliver Dowden, the cabinet office minister, said it was part of plans to celebrate the new reign and bring the nation together’. It will take a lot more than this to ‘bring the nation together’.

And what a sickening speech: ‘We have entered a new reign in our history. Now as we unite in preparing for the splendour of the king’s coronation, these new portraits will serve as a visible reminder in buildings up and down the country of the nation’s ultimate public servant. They will help us turn a page in our history together – and pay a fitting tribute to our new sovereign. I am sure the portraits will take pride of place in public buildings across the land’. I can imagine some public bodies might feel like shoving them behind an old radiator, or worse. I don’t know what’s worse: the cynical attempt to piggyback on the Coronation feel good vibe (which exists in some quarters but certainly not all) or the assumption (which the media collude with) that we are all ‘excited’ about the Coronation and see fit to celebrate this massively expensive privilege fest. But it’s not only the media: already some of us will have had the assumption made that we’re keen to celebrate with a street party or other event, as if there’s zero evidence of growing anti-monarchist sentiment.

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A positive story to end on – Finland has been named as the world’s happiest country for the sixth year in a row, based on the UN’s World Happiness Report. I certainly heard good reports from a friend who visited recently. Britain slipped two places to 19th – a bad result in itself but given the plummeting quality of life and what’s been going on here it’s surprising it didn’t slip more. Perhaps now we should look out for a surge in tourists wanting to visit Finland to see what it’s all about!

Have a good Easter!

Sunday 19 March

Another fortnight passes, with no let up in the pace of events, including the publication of the Illegal Migration bill, the Gary Lineker row which followed and which still rumbles on, the Budget and the government appearing to finally settle with the health unions after months of avoidable disruption. ‘… the government ditched its claim that this year’s pay deal could not be reopened and offered a one-off bonus worth up to 8.2%.The offer – which most health unions are recommending to their members – also includes a permanent 5% pay rise from April, with the lowest-paid receiving a bigger boost, to lift minimum pay in the NHS to £11.45 an hour’. But ministers couldn’t even sing from the same songsheet, some saying it wouldn’t be paid for via existing budgets but Dominic Raab for one saying it would. Financing this pay rise out of existing NHS budgets makes a travesty of what they consider a generous offer.

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But could this be the answer? So far I’ve not heard any news coverage of these cuts to social care budgets, a terrible intervention given the rising need for it and workforce problems. Could this be another of those stealth cuts to help finance the NHS pay rise?

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Meanwhile, other strikes including teachers and junior doctors continue, alongside mass demonstrations and marches in UK cities, but if you only get your news from the BBC you’d never know because of their impartiality busting policy of not reporting anything likely to upset the Tory puppet masters.

How quickly things can change: recently Rishi Sunak was being (cautiously, in some quarters) lauded for the Windsor Framework, which provided the basis for much better relations with the EU and went a long way towards resolving the Northern Ireland Protocol problems. But soon after this, progress on UK/EU trade was placed in jeopardy by the publication of the ‘small boats’ migrants policy and of the legislation which could lead to the UK leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. A number of Conservative MPs spoke out against the Illegal Migration Bill but still cravenly voted for it so off it now goes on its parliamentary rounds (theCommons voted 312 to 250, majority 62, to give the Bill a second reading).

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Meanwhile, it’s shockingly biased and cowardly (no surprise there) that Home Secretary Suella Braverman has gone to Rwanda (when there’s no need), accompanied only by carefully selected media, including GB News, excluding the Guardian, Independent and BBC.  This shouldn’t be publicly funded as it smacks of censorship and news manipulation of the kind we’d associate with Russia but, as ever, there’s nothing to stop it. ‘Charity Freedom from Torture labelled it a “showboat trip” after it emerged that the Guardian, the BBC, the Daily Mirror, the Independent and the i newspaper were not invited…. Following the outpouring of support for Gary Lineker and his compassionate stand on behalf of refugees, this government knows it is on the back foot and is once again ramping up the cruelty to distract from their own failures’. It’s interesting she’s excluded the BBC, which, if not previously grasped, the Lineker and ‘lockdown files’ rows demonstrate only too clearly how much the BBC is in this government’s pockets.

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It’s astonishing to me that so many Tory-biased BBC presenters are still plying their trade in the same way after the massive Gary Lineker row, which blew the lid off the longstanding pretence of ‘impartiality’. It seems both the government and the BBC were taken aback by the amount of public and co-presenter support for Lineker and his controversial tweet about the  ‘small boats’ policy, after which the BBC sought to lance the boil and enable Lineker to return to his role by commissioning an ‘independent’ inquiry into the BBC’s impartiality guidelines. It’s not clear whether they realise this is a non-solution which only buys them a bit of time: whatever its (no doubt hair splitting) findings will be, eg suggesting different levels of freedom for different kinds of presenter, nothing at the BBC will change while a) chair Richard Sharp (still under investigation), DG Tim Davie and board member Robbie Gibb are still in post, all Tories influencing the news agenda, b) Tory presenters are made to rein in their personal views and unbalanced treatment of opposition party interviewees c) the BBC undertakes to report all relevant news (at present there’s censorship via omission, eg of massive demonstrations in favour of striking workers) and d) the BBC addresses the disconnect of punishing Lineker when not tackling the naked bias of presenters like Fiona Bruce and Alan Sugar.

Of course the government initially seized on the Lineker row (eg apoplectic members of the Conservative parliamentary party’s Common Sense Group (!) demanding the presenter’s sacking) as this massive distraction from their migrants policy would have been seen as useful at first, but it’s likely this has backfired now there’s further evidence eg via the ‘lockdown files’ of blatant government influence exerted on the BBC. Added to which the latest David Attenborough series (Wild Isles) is having its last episode withheld from broadcast (solely available on Iplayer) because BBC executives feared the wrath of ministers following the national treasure’s expression of threats to our environment.

Last week there were two excellent articles exposing the ‘fiction’ of BBC impartiality. In one, author and broadcaster John Kampfner described an earlier experience of the Corporation’s craven conduct, around the time of the Hutton Inquiry, which had forced out the BBC chairman and director general. ‘To illustrate the story, we chose an old-fashioned television with spindly legs alongside the logo and the words “Broken, Beaten, Cowed”. That was the BBC then: that is the BBC now in the shadow of the Gary Lineker saga…..The Corporation needs clear and consistent rules. But more than anything it must learn to stop cowering before politicians… This is the same organisation that has encouraged much of its best talent to leave because it did not stand up to the government over the licence fee settlement, leaving a hollowed-out newsroom. This is the same organisation that is emasculating its international output, on TV and radio, at a time when Chinese and Russian propaganda organs are expanding fast’.

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A related ‘take’ comes via the Guardian’s Jonathan Liew, who describes what has actually been going on for years beneath the ‘warm and fuzzy image of the BBC that has been bequeathed to us over the generations. This lovable national treasure, informed by the sacred mission of its founder Lord Reith, a humming hive of family entertainment and artistic monuments and the Sports Report theme tune and David Attenborough cuddling gorillas, a place that expresses the best of us and represents all of us’. He won’t be alone in believing that the BBC has never been a truly impartial space. ‘And what, on reflection, did we ever expect from an organisation that owes its very existence to the consent of those in power? What kind of world were the 17 white men who have served as its director general – 12 of them privately educated, 11 of them Oxbridge graduates, eight of them former military personnel – ever going to construct?….. Perhaps the same world in which Andrew Neil can anchor political coverage while being chairman of a rightwing magazine, while the presenter of a football highlights show can be suspended for criticising a rightwing government policy.’

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Unfortunately, we have yet another toothless regulator in Ofcom, illustrated by its Chief Executive, Melanie Dawes, correctly saying that theimpartiality row goes ‘straight to the heart of the BBC’s wider reputation beyond its news and current affairs coverage’, but then carefully sidestepping two important questions put to her. There’s also been criticism this week, initially raised by MP John Nicholson, of what amounts to a breach of broadcasting rules: two Tory MPs interviewing another Tory MP on GB News. What are these ‘regulators’ paid for?

While the aftermath of this row rumbles on (and how long will the inquiry take, let alone the two investigations into BBC chair Richard Sharp?) media attention has naturally focused on the so called ‘back to work Budget’, especially the decision to finally (why has it taken so long?) address the problem of tax on senior doctors’ pension pots causing them to retire prematurely. The predictably stupid and lazy decision to make the measure applicable to all those accruing those colossal pension pots will cost the country much more and benefit the already wealthy than it would have if only they’d done the work of targeting it. As one journalist put it: ‘Even in a budget that sought to rehabilitate the party in the eyes of ordinary people, they couldn’t resist making the rich richer’. Quite staggering that they can’t see that this brings them even further into disrepute.

‘All this may seem perfectly reasonable if you move in circles where everyone has seven-figure retirement funds – maybe you’re a former Goldman Sachs banker married to an heiress, for example – but rather less so to a care worker wondering why nobody’s earmarked £800m a year to stop them and their colleagues leaving for better-paid jobs at Aldi’. What we really need is a wealth tax but fat chance of that under this regime. ‘But imagine how much more could be achieved with a radical rethink of wealth tax – perhaps with proceeds ringfenced to build houses for those who can’t borrow a deposit from the bank of Mum and Dad, which was the big idea glaringly absent from this budget’.

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But that’s not all – one of the striking things was the attempt to help the ‘economically inactive’ back to work (as the government needs your tax and national insurance payments, don’tcha know) in the form of 30 free childcare hours, but the (predictably) dishonest aspect was the expectation of praise for this when, in fact, the scheme won’t start till 2024 at the earliest, when the Conservatives are likely to be out of office. Cynical or what? Even more of a nonsense is zero consideration of where the childcare places are going to come from. These were already in short supply and a number of providers have closed down because of the costs of keeping them going, including energy costs. (According to Ofsted the overall number of childcare providers in England dropped by around 4,000 between March 2021 and March 2022, the largest decline since 2016).

But, as previously discussed here, the issue of the ‘economically inactive’ is multifactoral, and this government again and again has proved itself incapable of big picture thinking. True, they have removed the controversial Work Capability Assessment and childcare is indeed one aspect of the problem. But it’s also the massive NHS waiting list which prevents many in need of treatment returning to work, not to mention lifestyle choices post-pandemic (now we’re much more aware of the passage of time and what’s important) and the prevalence of bullying and incompetent bosses who blight workers’ lives. Instead of just putting up with it, as some may previously have done, more are simply not prepared to further tolerate the undermining of their mental wellbeing. It seems to me quite risky that Hunt has billed this a ‘back to work budget’ as it leaves him and his government wide open to criticism if statistics show that substantial numbers of the ‘inactive’ (around 630,000) don’t pick up the cudgels.

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An interesting article in the Times spells out what the government constantly overlooks, that many more are suffering poor mental health with very little to help them, when Tory spiel is always about those waiting for physical health treatment. Mental health services have been markedly underfunded for years but, as this author explains, there’s also a danger thanks to the prevalence of biomedical bias that people’s understandable distress at common life events is being unnecessarily and unhelpfully medicalised. This, in turn, has for years boosted the profits of the large pharmaceutical companies, which have a close relationship with the medical profession. This does not excuse the government’s underfunding of services but it does make clear that a much more nuanced understanding of mental wellbeing is needed. What’s appalling is that, besides the normal painful life events people have to navigate, the government has for years added to these via its austerity agenda and by creating such unstable governance.

https://tinyurl.com/ny8tubjh

It could be, too, that there are other unspoken factors underlying the reluctance to return to the workplace, such as (perhaps) the increasing phenomenon of hotdesking in offices. Gone in some places at least are the days when employees could personalise their workstations with photos and the like and leave their desks piled with papers. Desks have to be cleared at the end of each day and stuff put in a pedestal or locker – alien to what many would have been accustomed to. The Week cites a Times article suggesting that ‘silly job titles’ could also be off-putting to returners. ‘A brief trawl through job ads suggests the entire recruitment market is infected with gobbledegook’, eg job titles like ‘productologist’, ‘head storyteller’ and even ‘sandbox manager’ and ‘experience ambassador’. This reminded me of the title on a high profile Twitter account – Chief Purpose and Vision Officer. It would indeed be interesting to know how much returners were deterred by such developments.

I won’t be the only one sad to see the end of the excellent crime series Endeavour, but what will surely keep many glued to their tv screens on Wednesday afternoon at least is the way overdue televised appearance of Boris Johnson before the Commons Privileges Committee, billed as ‘potentially explosive’ by the Observer. It’s expected to last up to five hours but the Committee is only meeting to prepare for half an hour before the start. It seems astonishing that our former Prime Minister, despite all the evidence to the contrary, has apparently worked hard not on constituency business but on preparing a killer dossier (we’re being led to believe) which will prove his innocence. ‘The document, overseen by his lead counsel David Pannick, is set to be published before Wednesday’s five-hour hearing. It is expected to warn the cross-party committee that it will effectively be ripping up parliamentary precedent should it sanction Johnson, who, the document will say, gave his honest views at the time and corrected the record when he learned of wrongdoing’. So now he and his legal team are trying to bully the Committee, adding to his record of misdemeanours.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65001385

Lord Pannick had tried to get permission to speak himself but was turned down. There will be a lot of note passing, no doubt, but much will depend on the capacity of Johnson to think on his feet, something this shambling, bumbling and increasingly inarticulate figure of recent months may well struggle with. But the other astonishing thing is Rishi Sunak ‘giving’ his MPs a free vote if it comes to sanctions being applied – surely, if found guilty of misleading the House, the culprit should be removed from post and a byelection triggered. Yet another reason why we need a new and much firmer set of parliamentary procedures than what pertains now.

https://tinyurl.com/mr4djd3n

It seems hardly a week passes without hearing about yet another Tory being placed under investigation and usually with no timescale being given as to the likely outcome date. The latest is Steve Brine, chair of the Health Select Committee, for allegedly breaking lobbying rules. It’s yet another revelation emerging from the WhatsApp ‘lockdown files’ and how many more are waiting to come out?  ‘WhatsApp messages leaked to the Daily Telegraph had suggested the MP lobbied the head of the NHS in England on behalf of a firm paying him £1,600 a month during the pandemic’. One message to Michael Gove said that he, Brine, had been “trying for months” to convince the NHS to recruit anaesthetists through Remedium, a recruitment company he worked for when parliamentary rules state that MPs must not lobby for an organisation from which they are receiving ‘a reward’ for six months after receiving a payment. In case anyone thinks this is just business as usual for this government, it’s worth remembering that it’s the same offence committed by Owen Paterson, the aftermath of that episode developing a long tail which culminated in the end of Boris Johnson’s administration (I can’t call it ‘premiership’).

https://tinyurl.com/4rruk8du

With one scandal after another and with so many systems and services malfunctioning or grinding to a halt many will be thinking what Shadow Chancellor asked as her Budget response opener, described by the Guardian’s John Crace. ‘She started with a simple question. One that bears being asked repeatedly. Name one thing that works better now than it did 13 years ago. Silence from the Conservative ranks’. And one that speaks volumes.

Finally, on a lighter note, you may have heard it by now but I thought this was a charming story so I wanted to include it. A woman who sadly lost her husband, Peter, in 2018 decided to continue their joint mission to sample a scone in as many National Trust locations as possible. After ten years she has now completed her mission (244 scones) and wrote a blog about it. (I love the blog, though it doesn’t seem to give the option of following – you can click on the properties she visited and read about her experience of them and their scones!).The Metro tells us that Sarah Merker ‘revealed the secret to the best ones’ and not surprisingly, it’s that the item must be fresh, baked that day, then ‘you can hardly go wrong’. Of course this doesn’t sound like rocket science but I suspect quite a few specimens on sale generally don’t fit that bill.

Scones are so popular at National Trust properties that they’re lined up ready for visitors at large venues during the summer and don’t do too badly during the cooler months either. Sarah said there had been one or two bad ones (as we know, some offerings are like concrete) but for her the one that stood out ‘was a Christmas pudding scone with brandy butter at Treasurer’s House in Yorkshire’. That’s certainly novel. A recent article by journalist Adrian Chiles (featured in this blog recently) expressed his aversion to the new varieties of hot cross bun (eg cheese and stout) and for some the same will apply to scones. But I think this was a great 10 year mission and completing it a meaningful tribute to Peter.  

https://tinyurl.com/2b465mek

Sunday 5 March

It’s been yet another turbulent fortnight in politics, accelerating to such a degree that I was put in mind of the name of the 1960s satirical show ‘That was the Week that was’ (some may be old enough even to have heard of it!). This week alone, we’ve seen Rishi Sunak touting his hard wrought Windsor Framework around Westminster and Northern Ireland, trying to garner support for his solution to the increasingly unworkable Northern Ireland deadlock, the shocking if not surprising revelation by Isabel Oakeshott of the Matt Hancock incriminating WhatsApp exchanges during the pandemic and now the news that top civil servant and Partygate investigator Sue Gray has been offered the job of Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff. This has coincided with the release by the Commons Privileges Committee of their preliminary findings on whether Boris Johnson misled Parliament, which indicated there was substantial evidence relating to multiple occasions. All of this news (and much more) is pretty unsettling and not conducive to our mental wellbeing.

I’m no fan of Sunak but it did seem a shame that his efforts to find, with the EU, a way around the deadlock resulted immediately in jealous and deluded Brexit die-hards like ‘Lord’ Frost trying to decry them. Unfortunately for them, senior Tories were split on this too, ERG stalwart Steve Baker for one (with an irony bypass) praising the initiative and saying how the last 7 years of infighting had ruined his mental health. No acknowledgement, naturally, of how the mental wellbeing of many has been severely undermined by all the dishonesty, corruption and incompetence we’ve witnessed on the part of his government. Many tweeters and commentators were struck by four particular aspects of this debate: the hypocrisy of many Tory MPs now seizing on the proposals when they’d previously voted for the Withdrawal Agreement and NI Protocol; the irony of Sunak excitedly talking up this deal on the basis that it offered Northern Ireland access to both markets (an advantage denied to the rest of the UK); the extent to which the government and media still seem in thrall to the hardline DUP, which seems determined never to accept anything; and the suggestion of ‘constitutional impropriety’ emanating from the involvement of King Charles.

A key irritant has also been the attention paid to what Boris Johnson thinks and his inarticulately expressed ‘verdict’ issued on Thursday. Of course he won’t want to vote for a measure completely contradicting his own and he’s still very much working to bring down Sunak, seen as the one who ‘stabbed him in the back’. Surely what’s undeniable is that the UK’s post-Brexit relations with the EU are bound to be complex and in order to accommodate the contradictory factors relating to Northern Ireland, some compromise on both sides will be necessary. Analyses of the small print showed, predictably, that the measures didn’t quite measure up to the promises of Sunak’s bullish sales job, but the proposals demonstrated the significant amount of work and negotiation having taken place and constitute a marked improvement on existing post-Brexit trade procedures. Meanwhile, Johnson and his allies are keen for the Northern Ireland bill currently going through Parliament not to be killed off – no surprise there, as this would be a double whammy for them which their wounded egos would struggle to cope with.

A piece of news I found puzzling was Joe Biden announcing that he was sending an envoy to Northern Ireland, so concerned is he for the protection of the Good Friday Agreement. Surely this has to be agreed via diplomacy: heads of state can’t just send envoys wherever they like without discussion or agreement as this would be a clear breach of that country’s integrity and autonomy.  

The Windsor Framework debate was still going hammer and tongs, with those associated with the original non ‘oven ready deal’ sniping from the sidelines, when a powerful and interestingly timed intervention by Tory journalist Isabel Oakeshott burst onto the scene. She had collaborated with former health secretary Matt Hancock in the writing of his book, Pandemic Diaries, and this week released to the Telegraph a massive tranche (100,000) of WhatsApp messages dating from the Covid era which she had been given access to in her role as co-author. Their predictably incriminating nature, relating to so many policy areas including the decision not to test those being discharged from hospital into care homes, has understandably caused a media storm. During a tempestuous interview with Nick Robinson on Radio 4’s Today programme, Oakeshott strongly defended her actions as being in the public interest, despite, as Robinson reminded her several times, these involving breaking confidentiality and an NDA. What some have suggested sounds the most likely motive: although many sections of the media irresponsibly failed to mention this, she is the partner of Richard Tice, head of right-wing populist Reform UK party, set up in 2021, which is angling to pick up support from those increasingly disillusioned with the Tories. Two other motives are her desire to attack the lockdown policy and to ‘avoid a Covid whitewash’ as the official inquiry is now gathering pace.

Predictably, Matt Hancock played the victim card, complaining of betrayal, and immediately contacted Oakeshott telling her she’d made ‘a big mistake’, which she described as a threatening message. Needless to say, this news shone the spotlight on broader issues, such as inexperienced politicians overruling advice from top scientific and medical officers to suit their political agenda, and the increasing tendency under this administration to govern via WhatsApp, with no minutes taken of meetings and no permanent records kept. Extraordinarily, Radio 4 chose to interview Hancock apologist Lord Jim Bethell about this, who first said this (WhatsApp) is how modern organisations work these days, soon after contradicting himself to say it wasn’t how government worked in terms of serious decisions and things were done properly at all times. An interviewee like this has little credibility, especially given that Bethell was a former health minister who managed to ‘lose’ his mobile phone containing numerous incriminating messages about the corrupt PPE VIP lane.

But the messages also demonstrate what many long suspected: that policy was being made on the hoof and the government was not, as per their mantra, ‘following the science’, especially in the case of the care home hospital discharges. Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, writes: ‘When debating how best to respond to the pandemic, my public health colleagues and I were driven by looking at the latest data, analysing it and presenting detailed advice to ministers. In contrast, Hancock’s messages on testing imply that he was more driven by publicity, and what would make him look good – the phrase “muddies the waters” seems to refer to the perception of a policy, rather than how it would work’. She cites two further examples: the decision to courier a Covid test to one of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s children (different rules for the ‘elite’ and the British public) and ‘the chaotic way in which testing and closures were discussed and implemented’ including the failure to act on Covid before March 2020. ‘…. little planning or preparation went into dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic before late March 2020. ‘….the messages strongly suggest the advice was there – it just wasn’t acted on’.

What a damning verdict this is: ‘By acting too late, and then with its conduct throughout the pandemic, the government let us down during arguably the largest crisis of our generation. Too many people died before their time. Too many health workers worked in unsafe and risky conditions. Repeated lockdowns decimated financial stability for small and medium-sized businesses. Schools were closed in Britain for far too long because preparations weren’t made on how to keep them open safely. Scientists took the brunt of the abuse and anger from the major losers. Ministers and their friends made their own rules and made money during the crisis. And Matt Hancock launched a lucrative media career off the back of it all’.

https://tinyurl.com/3pn57mf9

Every day in the media there have been further revelations about Matt Hancock’s conduct, including knowing that Covid cases were going up in the ill-advised Eat Out to Help Out. The Guardian’s deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot, said:  ‘Matt Hancock admits in this message to Simon Case that he helped cover up rising cases in key areas during Eat Out to Help Out. Strikes me as potentially the biggest revelation yet…’.  But this was before the latest one the media have seized on, that he spent hours with ‘his team’ trying to figure out whether the damaging footage of his office clinch could be justified. And here’s yet another example of Boris Johnson’s disregard for rules applying to everyone else: ‘By his own account, he said that Boris Johnson had assured him he could carry on even though he and Coladangelo had been pictured kissing in his office in breach of his own social-distancing guidelines’. What’s also noticeable about Hancock is that he seems to be communicating through a ‘spokesman’: is he really so cowardly he can’t stand up and use his own voice? We have to wonder what will happen now to his plan for a future in the media, having set up his own tv company.

https://tinyurl.com/ymtmekkd

What’s been sickening to see is how Boris Johnson is still, despite all the evidence against him, trying to defend himself from the issue of whether he misled Parliament, suggesting that no one told him what everyone else sees as parties were not ‘within the rules’. He told Sky News: ‘I believe these events were within the rules. Nobody told me before or after anything to the contrary’ whereupon the interviewer responded: ‘The report has Whatsapps in it from your director of communications saying things like, I’m struggling to see how this is within the rules.”’ What a lack of personal responsibility. Not only that but there’s evidence that  Johnson and his then government tried to impede and delay the committee’s work by withholding or redacting evidence. As a tweeter observed: ‘It’s simply not credible that a former PM, Boris Johnson especially, would not have understood the Covid rules AND they had many advisers, not that anything can be blamed on them. Is there anything he won’t stoop to to get off?’

Johnson allies have been falling over each other trying to discredit Sue Gray and her report (which of course the Privileges Committee will be using), having previously spoken of her very warmly. The choice of vocabulary is interesting, some of them resorting to pomp (like Rees-Mogg) and Johnson himself calling the Sue Gray job offer ‘a peculiarity’ and ‘surreal’. What these people just cannot get their heads round is their clear belief that only they can control the political agenda whereas now Keir Starmer has caught them on the back foot. On Friday Radio 4’s World at One listeners were taken aback that former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries was given 20 minutes of air time to rant about this appointment, making all kinds of unproven allegations such as Starmer and Gray having been friends and talking for a long time, Gray had broken the civil service code and ‘had deep political motivations’, etc. Dorries suggested that as a result of Gray discrediting herself, (as Dorries sees it) the Committee could no longer use the Partygate report in their deliberations about Johnson. One tweeter said: ‘Now we see why Mad Nads and Rees-Mogg are jumping so heavily on the Sue Gray story. It’s a desperate rearguard action to save their boy’. And they’re happy to use the civil service code as a stick when they and their boss have shown scant regard for both breaches of the Ministerial Code and conflict of interest. Roll on 20th March, when Johnson will appear before the televised Committee hearing – could it be the first time in his entitled life that chickens finally come home to roost?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64836425

There’s a splendid evisceration of the former Prime Minister in The Observer by Andrew Rawnsley, who contends that Johnson’s ‘ludicrous claims that he was brought down by a leftwing conspiracy show how frightened he is…. He just can’t stop trying to deceive himself and everyone else about why he was removed because he can no more handle the truth than he can speak it. He is compelled to blame anyone but himself because otherwise he would have to face up to the fatal character flaws that self-incinerated his premiership. He will never find it in himself to accept that the architect of Boris Johnson’s disgrace was Boris Johnson….. His misconduct, his mendacity and his toxicity in the office he so debased – these were the reasons why he was removed. And not by some imaginary “socialist cabal”, but by his own party’. Rawnsley rightly frames people like Dorries and Rees-Mogg for pushing the Boris Johnson rescue attempt, cynically trying to undermine Sue Gray and her report but, even more dangerously, the Privileges Committee itself. It will be interesting to see whether any of Johnson’s pathetic attempts to rewrite history (eg alluding to his having ‘stepped down’ last summer when in fact he clung on like a limpet until he was forced out of office by multiple ministerial resignations) gain any traction. Surely no longer.

https://tinyurl.com/4cv6u2cp

There’s also a growing body of opinion suggesting that the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case should be investigated: he’s been involved in or behind a number of questionable developments including having attended one of the Partygate gatherings himself, was a regular WhatsApp messager with Matt Hancock including ones admitting to purposefully frightening the public about a Covid variant, playing a role in the appointment of Tory donor Richard Sharp to the BBC Chair role and the Boris Johnson loan, and now having accelerated the search by Sue Gray for pastures new after he turned her down for the senior civil service role at the new Department for Energy Security and New Zero.

On the subject of Rees-Mogg, even if you don’t approve of GB News (seemingly the home of has-beens) it’s worth catching a bit of Farage (7 pm Monday to Thursday) and new boy JRM at 8 pm. He comes across very differently from his normal humourless and pompous self and it’s quite amusing to see how he’s obviously been taught some of Farage’s media presenting skills or are they tics?

All of this has brought the delayed Covid Inquiry further under the spotlight, its Terms of Reference only having been agreed last summer. The media have been alluding to the possibility of reduced confidence in this Inquiry, led by Baroness Hallett, partly due to the recent political shenanigans. Lack of confidence could surely also arise from so many inquiries proving to be whitewashes, with no sanction meted out to wrongdoers. Hallett’s undertakings sound very promising, though, as she seems determined to listen to those who suffered and to reject any attempt to influence or undermine the Inquiry. It’s a shame that the taking of evidence for its first investigation (into pandemic preparedness) won’t start until the summer, although preliminary hearings for some of the investigations have already taken place.

https://tinyurl.com/7yxthvu5

Next to all this, the salad vegetable (and more general food) shortages of last weekend’s news seem to have receded somewhat, although they really haven’t and it’s common to see empty shelves. It’s doubtful whether Environment Minister Therese Coffey grasped how ridiculous and out of touch she appeared responding to a key question in the House of Commons (also using terrible English, alluding to ‘aspects of lettuce and tomatoes’) saying that people should instead be ‘cherishing’ home grown items like turnips. The shortages were blamed on bad weather in Spain, at no point was Brexit cited as a factor and unfortunately significant parts of the media collude with this narrative.

Turnipgate was trending on Twitter in no time at all. Besides the fact that turnips aren’t easy to find in shops (I only saw some on a market stall) a Radio 4 interview with the former ‘King Turnip’ farmer was testament to the absurdity of her position. Farmer Parry said he’d stopped growing them about six months ago because of the difficulty getting labour, the poor deal offered by supermarkets and (the key one?) turnips weren’t seen as ‘a sexy vegetable’. No wonder, as they’re pretty nasty and anyone talking them up has advised, for example, frying in garlic butter, which would make even cardboard taste half decent. They might at one time have passed muster as an accompaniment to traditional British dishes (including haggis, of course) but they definitely don’t go with most modern cuisine.

https://tinyurl.com/ywbuu3r8

As time passes and parliamentarians are increasingly thinking about the next General Election, it’s interesting to see evidence of both lack of thought and skulduggery on the part of local constituency associations. It’s been suggested that some Tory MPs are being deselected (eg Damian Green) for being ‘disloyal’ to Boris Johnson, yet others like Therese Coffey are inexplicably being reselected despite making a mess of every government job they’ve done. ‘The Conservative MP Damian Green, the former de facto deputy prime minister, has been rejected as the party’s candidate for the newly created Weald of Kent constituency. Despite having served in the House of Commons since 1997, Green was deselected, fuelling speculation that grassroots campaigners are targeting those seen as responsible for Boris Johnson’s exit from No 10’. It will be interesting to see how this plays out regarding other MPs.

Some Tories believe the system of selection/deselection of MPs  needs fundamental reform, but there’s a much wider need than that – for a new and written Constitution and reform of all parliamentary procedures in the light of how many of  them have been abused in recent years. It’s clear that we can no longer rely on the ‘good chaps’ style of government, in which rules are often not explicitly spelt out or enforced. One of the main areas for reform should surely be around members’ attendance, given the examples of Boris Johnson’s frequent holidays and trips to Ukraine, MPs with second and even third jobs who fail to attend the House and vote and peers like Lebedev who rarely attend. Not to mention those taking time out for their own or others’ tv shows.

https://tinyurl.com/4jx3rfny

It seems the Royal Family is in the news every day, too, and not just related to the upcoming Coronation, to which King Charles now plans to break precedent by inviting foreign monarchs. It’s a strange state of affairs when Charles effectively ousts Prince Andrew from Royal Lodge, then evicts Harry and Meghan from Frogmore Cottage in order to accommodate Andrew there. All three are angry and upset at these decisions, but it will cause even more embarrassment to the King that his forever entitled and deluded brother is demanding that he should be given ‘a mansion fit for a king’ and asking for a role in the family’s business such as managing estates. An ‘insider’ told journalists: ‘He’s of the opinion that he is still a senior member of the family, despite not being a working royal and deserves to be treated as such’. Good luck with that.

https://tinyurl.com/mr2hn8yp

What will be of much more concern to most of us is the fast approaching end of the current Energy Price Guarantee discount, which means the average bill of heating our ‘mansions’ will be £3000 a year instead of £2500. The government has been under pressure to extend help to households so it’s good news to hear that Jeremy Hunt will extend support until the end of June. (He couldn’t have the May local elections in his sights, could he??). Apparently Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is hoping that by June the wholesale price of gas will have fallen sufficiently to render the support unnecessary – we can’t bet on that, though, as consumers have already been asking why are my bills so high when the wholesale price has gone down?

Another area of concern is the news, though no surprise, that even though in person visits to British public libraries have increased by 68%, spending on them decreased by 17% last year, down from £11,970  per 1000 people during 2020-2021 to £9,982 during 2021-2022. This again is another false economy by central and local government as libraries don’t just give access to books, crucial for literacy and broader education, they stock numerous other resources and are overlooked information and community hubs, without which we would be the poorer. Important to note, too, that a good number of them also became Warm Banks as the cost of living crisis began to bite. I always find it rather galling when reviewers and others blithely allude to where you can purchase books including the dreaded Amazon when many can’t afford that and you don’t need to. True, it’s harder in some areas that others but unless we value and make use of these marvellous places local authorities could further (as they already do) regard their closure as a safe target for cuts.

https://tinyurl.com/255ea5b6

Finally, picking up a local hairdressing and beauty salon leaflet recently, I was confronted with a list of Botox  and ‘dermal filler’ treatments, eg ‘bunny lines’, ‘downturned’, ‘gummy lines’, ‘smokers lanes’ and ‘pebbled chin’, all of which were priced at £180. A number of viewers currently watching the BBC1’s The Apprentice were struck by how nearly all the female candidates showed obvious signs of ‘work’ having been carried out, especially the one designed to produce ‘trout pout’ and, not for the first time, wonder what it is that makes young women want to look all the same. The samey look seems to require long hair (whether it suits the individual or not), false eyelashes sticking out half a mile, huge eyebrows and artificially plumped up lips. While I’m glad to say that older generations seem to value individuality of appearance, the fact that I’d never heard of the above named ‘treatments’ did remind me of the American short story character Rip Van Winkle. Or should that be Rip Van Wrinkle?!  

Sunday 19 February

Another hefty news fortnight has passed, including the tragic earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the Prime Minister’s Cabinet reshuffle, the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon, controversy over the police handling of the Nicola Bulley (missing mother, now possibly discovered) case and increasing concern over the cost of living crisis with no good news on the energy price cap coming to an end soon. It’s often felt lately that BBC ‘flagship’ news programmes have focused disproportionately on natural disasters in order to follow the political agenda of their bosses by avoiding topics where the government is clearly at fault. This phenomenon has been thrown into clearer focus because of the investigation of BBC Chair Richard Sharp for conflicts of interest regarding his appointment to that role. He cut what one commentator described as a ‘shifty’ figure during his 7 February appearance before the DCMS Select Committee and at one stage outrageously implied that people didn’t care about media bias. Although this has gone quiet during the last week, it’s not looking good for Sharp when so many, including BBC veteran presenter Jonathan Dimbleby, say that he must go. It’s really quite staggering that the BBC chair is still a political appointment: perhaps that could change now it’s been brought out into the open. The Independent reports Marcus Ryder, a former BBC executive, saying that the corporation’s image around the world had been “tainted” by the saga surrounding current boss Richard Sharp – urging No 10 to shake up the appointment process. ‘Rishi Sunak should seriously consider the end of the political appointments process and make it truly independent. It’s so important to be able to say it’s a national broadcaster – not a state broadcaster’.

Rishi Sunak’s government continues to stumble on, looking increasingly fragile, and it sends a powerful message when even former staunch Conservative supporters speak out against it. The Independent reported the views of former CBI President and David Cameron adviser Paul Drechsler, who said ‘Sir Keir Starmer is “winning” the economic argument against Rishi Sunak among Britain’s bosses thanks to a “seismic” change in the party’s image and that high street giants and other top firms now talk with “warmth and optimism” about Labour.

https://tinyurl.com/bdhbrj6a

Amid further rail, NHS and other strikes, the government doubling down on its intransigent position, there was a much publicised effort to boost Sunak’s flagging position via a Cabinet reshuffle, likened by some to rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. Some commentators thought his decision to break the business department into three (Energy Security and Net Zero, Business and Trade and Science, Innovation and Technology) was a sound one and it remains to be seen whether this will enable him to ‘deliver on the government’s priorities’. Others thought it would be a costly upheaval, using up Whitehall time and energy reserves. The reshuffle as a whole did not impress some for two key reasons: no one was sacked and Dominic Raab is still in post despite the substantial allegations against him, and the appointment of Greg Hands as party Chair (it didn’t take the press long to dig up some scandal about him) plus the controversial Lee Anderson as deputy. (A Good Law Project investigation found that the new Tory Chairman, Greg Hands, helped land a £25m PPE deal for a firm linked to Mark Higton – then Chair of Hammersmith Conservatives – despite it having no experience providing protective equipment).

Already infamous for his derogatory remarks about those using food banks, he recently dug himself in much deeper with talk about bringing back hanging. This puts the PM in a difficult position: of course Sunak dissociated himself from this view but at the same time he’d realise it would be a good dog whistle for those on the right of his party. The prime minister’s spokesman admitted the changes will not be a ‘silver bullet’ to address the problems facing the UK but said the moves have been ‘worked on for some time’. The proof of the pudding…..The barrel is being well and truly scraped for people to fill these posts when most of them are disingenuous lightweights.  

But this isn’t the only challenge Sunak faces: besides a possible ERG-initiated rebellion on his Northern Ireland protocol efforts, he is dogged by the antics of his predecessors, Johnson and Truss, the former continuing to strut around on the world stage making pronouncements and the latter, rising, as she might imagine, like a phoenix from the ashes of her trashed reputation in an effort to rehabilitate it. These two challenges have now combined in the form of Boris Johnson ‘warning’ Rishi Sunak that a successful Northern Ireland deal will see the government drop controversial legislation allowing the UK to unilaterally rip up some Brexit arrangements in the region. Like ‘Lord’ Frost complaining bitterly about the Ditchley Park talks (see below), this is much about these individuals relentlessly clinging on to their destructive agendas and the narcissistic wounds experienced as a result of the new regime taking a different line.

This outrageous interference on Johnson’s part might backfire, though, as (perhaps even more controversially) Keir Starmer has offered Labour’s support, releasing Sunak from the obligation he’d otherwise feel to appease ‘the intransigent rump of his own backbenchers’. The absence on Sunak’s part of any effort to keep these loose cannons in check speaks volumes. As does his feeble and incessant demonising of Jeremy Corbyn during PMQs and other Commons debates. It seems this is all they’ve got – this and ‘illegal migrants’ dog whistles.

In attempt, probably, to foster party unity, we hear Sunak has organised an away day for Tory MPs early next month. But it already sounds a bit of a jolly, backbenchers being told: ‘This will be a rare chance for us all to get together, enjoy dinner and share ideas’. He must be hoping that some emerge as commentators generally don’t think his ‘100 day reset’ reshuffle will work and notably not achieve the desired benefits before the next election.

https://tinyurl.com/24mwpbjm

William Hague is the latest senior Conservative to lambast the antics of Truss and Johnson – in a column for The Timeshe condemns the whining, opining that ‘Johnson and Truss should fess up to failure….. leaders who deny any culpability in their downfall have a corrosive effect on their party and the wider electorate’. Too true. Meanwhile Boris Johnson has attracted yet further attention for his intended purchase of a £4m 9 bedroom moated manor house in Oxfordshire, where apparently he fancies his chances of a safe seat (unlike his current marginal Uxbridge one), presumably if the services of the present incumbent can be dispensed with! Surely only in Tory unregulated Britain could this corrupt, disgraced former PM attain such richesse and privilege.

The house does look and sound lovely, dating from the 1600s, with five bathrooms and many period features such as ‘ornate cornicing and open fireplaces’. It also boasts a walled garden, tennis court, outside storage and a double garage. Perhaps if Johnson’s speaking engagements dry up, when people realise what a load of inarticulate rubbish he spouts, we can expect to see this house and garden opened to the public at £50 a ticket (to include tea on the lawn with Boris and Carrie). After all, he is also planning to send his two recently acquired children to independent schools and those fees have to be paid somehow.

https://tinyurl.com/t7pav5w4

As further strike dates are set by the NHS and rail unions, ministers labour the same clichéd defences which cynically aim to pitch the public against the strikers, Steve Barclay ‘warning’  of the thousands of appointment cancellations resulting and Transport Minister Mark Harper lamenting the ‘kick in the teeth for passengers’. But as we know, despite the inconvenience caused, there’s a great deal of public support for the strikers. It seems now the government’s tactic is to make much of settling for next year, as if this precludes the need to address pay for the current year. It will be interesting as well as painful to see how this goes as these union leaders have shown themselves adept at the cut and thrust of media interviews and usually manage to run rings around ministers and presenters.

Still on the theme of the cost of living crisis, which, besides working conditions, is driving the strikers, there’s no let up in the debate about energy prices, which continue to rise as the wholesale price of gas comes down. The boss of Centrica (British Gas ‘parent’) has been challenged over their record profits of £3bn, their policies and the pay package of the CEO, Chris O’Shea. Britain’s largest energy supplier only recently ended its much-criticised forced installation of prepayment meters and, in my view, it was extraordinary that such companies initially claimed that they did not know this was being done in their name. Surely this can be just the trouble with outsourcing work in this way – it needs monitoring, not just allowing sub-contractors full rein. It was only later that feeble regulator Ofgem ‘ordered all energy suppliers to pause the tactic’. But not only this: we’re told that this CEO ‘could land a pay package of more than £3m, including an annual bonus of as much as £1.6m. He waived a £1.1m bonus last year, saying he could not take it “given the hardships faced by our customers”. However, during a call on Thursday morning, O’Shea repeatedly refused to say whether he would do so again’. It still won’t be much comfort to consumers but let’s hope he manages to find his conscience very soon.

https://tinyurl.com/y94fekpp

Hardly a week passes without some revelations confirming the parlous state of mental health services in this country and not surprisingly, demand has rocketed as a result of the pandemic, the cost of living crisis and increasing awareness that we are not being protected by this corrupt and incompetent government. Besides news coverage it’s common to hear these findings confirmed anecdotally amongst our friends and families. Bumping into a neighbour last week, I asked how the children were getting on at school and learned that the teenage daughter was struggling (as many are) with untreated anxiety and this was naturally affecting her ability to cope with the school work. There are long waiting lists in primary care and people’s stretched finances mean it’s harder for many to afford private treatment.

The ‘Secret Psychiatrist’, who works both on inpatient wards and in A&E (in itself a poor environment for anyone experiencing mental health difficulties but there’s no alternative), doesn’t hold back in telling a journalist how things are. This kind of ‘coalface’ picture is never seen by ministers, of course, whose hospital visits are always carefully curated photo opps: remember the one which featured Boris Johnson ‘mopping’ a floor? The clinician points out how dangerous the waiting for treatment can be, adding to the distress already being experienced. ‘The trouble is that waiting is damaging. Those young people are very unwell to start with and their mental health gets worse while they’re waiting. With mental health conditions, the longer you wait for care after first displaying symptoms, the harder you become to treat. While a young person is waiting for treatment they can have difficulty establishing and maintaining friendships, struggle at school and become more and more socially isolated. Their entire life chances can be blighted if their problems aren’t treated urgently and properly’. This represents an alarmingly irrevocable state of affairs, besides the increased risk of self-harm and suicide. Mental health services have long been underfunded in this country and, in my view, primary care resources misdirected, but all we get from the Department of Health when they’re challenged is bland statements about ‘more’ being invested in the NHS. It’s never enough and it’s not the right kind of investment.

https://tinyurl.com/2p9wjkk4

While A&E is not the optimum environment for those experiencing mental health crises, some might feel grateful to actually get into one from their long waits in ambulances outside. It must be terrifying to be inside one of those vehicles, quite possibly in agony, wondering if you’ll ever get inside. It’s shocking thatthe Royal College of Emergency Medicine has estimated that ‘there are 300-500 excess deaths across the UK each week due to overcrowding and long waiting times in emergency departments’. In what’s proving a politician’s technique, denial of authoritative statistics, NHS England said it does not recognise those figures.

Back in the primary care setting, it’s also worrying to learn that, due to more living under severe financial strain, increasing numbers of patients in England (prescriptions are free in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) are asking pharmacists what they can do without and of course this can put their health at risk. No surprise more are doing this, though (also putting pharmacists in a difficult position – could they be held liable for this advice?) as each item costs £9.35 and this mounts up for those taking several different kinds of medication.

Said the senior pharmacist behind the survey: ‘Reducing access to medicines leads to poorer health, time off work, and can result in admissions to hospital, the cost of which must be set against any income gained from prescription charges…Prescription charges are an unfair tax on health, which disadvantages working people on lower incomes who are already struggling with food and energy bills’. As usual the Department of Health counters with a statement about pre-payment certificates, the hard-to-believe suggestion that 89% of items are free anyway and there are special schemes for those on low incomes. The fact that so many are asking their pharmacists for advice suggests that these schemes are not that helpful or many are simply not eligible for them.

https://tinyurl.com/2p8hcx4j

One of the interesting events of the previous week, which managed to escape that much media attention, was the ‘secret’ cross party summit on Brexit failings which took place at the historic Ditchley Park retreat in Oxfordshire. Political attendees included Michael Gove, David Lammy, Michael Howard, Gisela Stuart and Norman Lamont, who were joined by others including representatives from pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline and Goldman Sachs and interestingly, I thought, Tom Scholar, the former Treasury permanent secretary sacked by Liz Truss for being too associated with the ‘Treasury orthodoxy’ she loathes. ‘A source who was there said it was a “constructive meeting” that addressed the problems and opportunities of Brexit but which dwelt heavily on the economic downside to the UK economy at a time of global instability and rising energy prices.

‘The main thrust of it was that Britain is losing out, that Brexit it not delivering, our economy is in a weak position..It was about moving on from leave and remain, and what are the issues we now have to face, and how can we get into the best position in order to have a conversation with the EU about changes to the UK-EU trade and cooperation agreement when that happens…’

A Tory source tried to underplay what must have felt humiliating for the government, saying the reason Gove was present was because he was a director of Ditchley and all such events were ‘cross party’ but it seems pretty clear that this was indeed what has been billed a ‘highly unusual event’, especially given how adversarial politics has become. ‘The highly unusual cross-party nature of the gathering of Brexit opponents – and the seniority of those who agreed to attend – reflects a growing acceptance among politicians in the two main parties, as well as business leaders and civil servants, that Brexit in its current form is damaging the UK economy and reducing its strategic influence in the world’.

https://tinyurl.com/3mzeamye

As news about the Coronation plans continues to emerge, some will be pleased that a national ballot is being held for 10,000 free tickets for the coronation concert at Windsor Castle, but what’s surely wrong is that applicants have to apply in pairs, which discriminates against single applicants. Why on earth do the organisers assume that those interested will be in couples or already have someone to go with? No doubt this is the least of the King’s worries, as he continues to wrestle with the conundrums presented by Harry, Meghan and his brother Andrew. As the King reduces royal expenditure and his allowance will be slashed, Andrew is also worried he could be evicted from his £30m home, Royal Lodge in the grounds of Windsor Castle. A royal source told LBC: ‘He’s not being explicitly kicked out but it’s expected that he won’t be able to afford the maintenance’. When the Queen died Andrew was ‘kicked out’ of a Buckingham Palace flat but apparently the King won’t make his brother homeless. I doubt that is much comfort to this entitled and deeply unpopular individual who will ‘now only have his navy pension to rely on, with business investments not delivering much income’.

https://tinyurl.com/3s3wur6b

Finally, as we hear the positive news of Aldi building two more stories and taking on 6,000 more workers, hotting up the supermarket wars, the hot cross bun (already in the supermarkets, depressingly prematurely) is the latest target of complaints about what we could call variations gone mad. Around Christmas and Easter we’ve got used to cafe chains and supermarkets trying to grab market share by creating multiple variations of regular items (peppermint chocolate latte, anyone?) but now it seems you can get red velvet hot cross buns, cheese, tomato and oregano hot cross buns, salted-caramel blondie hot cross buns and West Country mature cheddar and stout hot cross buns. Journalist Adrian Chiles takes exception to these ‘outrages against this centuries-old tradition’, suggesting, partly in jest possibly, that we bring back legislation of former times which controlled their sale. ‘It’s time to look at this again and stamp out the twisting, which is verging on heretical. Intervention is needed, before we twist ourselves to death’. For starters could we not at least wait till Lent has started before they go on sale??

https://tinyurl.com/335ydmws