6 February 2022
HM has served 75 years as monarch today – well done Ma’am. Most of us give up before we’ve done 50 years, and we go through several different occupations on the way, but you’ve stuck it out with unfailing grace and charm. You’ve also been a source of inspiration around the world and even the most devout republicans have criticised the monarchy rather than the monarch. What a pity our politicians don’t take their lead from you.
Some Tories still think Boris Johnson has been, and remains, a good prime minister and that he’s not risking damaging the Tory party. One wonders what he’d have to do to risk losing such unswerving loyalty. Cut off babies’ heads perhaps (this example for Dylan fans).
On Tuesday, Johnson was reprimanded by the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, for having answered a question from Keir Starmer about Downing Street rule-breaking with an accusation that Starmer was “a former director of public prosecutions, who spent more time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”. The Sun later quoted Johnson as having said “As far I’m aware, it’s fairly accurate” which translates as “I don’t actually know what happened”.
Five senior members of Downing Street staff resigned last week, including Munira Mirza, one of Johnson’s closest advisers for the last 14 years, who claimed his unfounded attack on Starmer was “scurrilous”. (It is, of course, possible that some of the others resigned because they were at illegal parties and, unlike their boss, felt it would not be right to continue in post.)
The head of the official statistics watchdog also reprimanded Boris Johnson and the Home Secretary for claiming crime has fallen by 14% while forgetting to mention that this excludes the fastest-rising category of crime, fraud and computer misuse. If these categories are included, crime has in fact risen.
Even his own MPs are losing faith and joining those who have already signed letters of ‘no confidence’. One of the latest is Nick Gibb, MP for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, who the Daily Telegraph reported as having said Johnson had been “inaccurate” in his statements to the Commons and his constituents were “furious about the double standards”.
In fact, Starmer had never been involved in the Savile inquiry or the decision not to take any further action but subsequently, as the then Director of Public Prosecutions, he accepted that a good leader delegates decisions but not responsibility and apologised for the failings of his department.
Some of Johnson’s own grief might now be delayed by the Metropolitan police decision that they will now investigate Partygate, just as Sue Gray’s internal report was about to be published. Much of her report is therefore being withheld until the police inquiry is finished, which might buy Johnson a bit more time. Was this coincidence? Perhaps it was just that Sue Gray’s internal inquiry was uncovering so much they hadn’t previously known that the police felt it was better to change their mind so they aren’t embarrassed when Gray’s report is published in full.
Gray’s inquiry procedures were less formal than those the police are required to follow – they must, for example, warn people that they are not under arrest but are being interviewed under caution and they have the right to free legal advice. This includes the UK’s prime minister we’re talking about, possibly being interviewed under caution …
Some of us remember that Harry S Truman, president of the US from 1945 to 1953, famously had a sign on his desk saying “The buck stops here”. Judging by his past performance, the odds against Johnson having the same sign on his desk are astronomical.
It’s understood that Gray’s report didn’t criticise Johnson personally but drew attention to “failures of leadership” within Downing Street and Johnson gave one of his non-apologies that even his closest allies find embarrassing.
Meanwhile, the integrity of the Met itself is in doubt after they promoted an unnamed police officer to sergeant even though he’d been disciplined for sending messages about hitting and raping women.
On Wednesday the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, told Dame Cressida Dick, the Met commissioner, she had to put things right quickly or he would withdraw his confidence in her.
Starmer also came off badly after Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP for Canterbury, said earlier this week she was “considering [her] future in the Party very carefully” after an anonymous Labour Party member had published an article Duffield described as “personal, libellous, nasty and fictional crap”.
The abuse had started last summer when Duffield said that transgender women who were born male should not be allowed into places like domestic violence refuges and women’s prisons. I can see both why she said it, and why LGBT groups were upset by it.
Before the party conference last September, she spoke to Starmer several times and he assured her that the party’s policy was that there should be “a process for self-identification, but I’m equally clear that the equalities legislation applies, and that means that in certain circumstances there can be an exemption.” (Yes, I know you have to read that twice but he is a lawyer.)
Duffield claims that the Kent police, the parliamentary security team and the Speaker’s office had all been helpful but none of the Labour Party, its former and current leaders or its Whips’ office had offered her any help or support since “[she] unexpectedly became an MP 5 years ago.”
While I do wonder about becoming an MP “unexpectedly” (I can think of few things worse than waking one morning to discover I’d suddenly become an MP), her anger and fear are clearly things that Starmer hasn’t taken seriously enough to help her feel safe.
An online safety bill, intended to protect people from harmful content, is expected this spring and might help Duffield and others who are threatened online but there are worries it hasn’t been subject to proper ‘due diligence’. It would inter alia introduce three new criminal offences (proposed by the Law Commission): “sending or posting a message that conveys a threat of serious harm, sending a communication with the intent of causing psychological harm or serious emotional distress, and deliberately sending a false message with the intention of causing harm”.
Encouraging suicide is apparently one of the subjects that could lead to prosecution and the bill is intended to close sites that do this, some of which even supply the necessary drugs. A short (3:40 minutes) BBC video on one of these sites can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-60236776). However, it seems that they may not have consulted organisations like Dignity in Dying or Samaritans and the latter says the bill “isn’t fit for purpose”.
Government incompetence elsewhere has been highlighted (highlit?) by HMRC whose records estimate that £5.8bn of government money has been lost to fraudulent claims for furlough and other business relief schemes and that £4.3bn of this was stolen and is irrecoverable.
The Treasury has since disputed this figure but Lord Agnew of Oulton resigned from his post as anti-fraud minister on Monday, saying oversight of the scheme had been “woeful” and that “schoolboy (sic) errors” had been made by the Covid loans scheme, like loans being given to more than 1,000 companies that hadn’t even been trading when the pandemic started, with many fraudsters claiming the support and then closing their businesses.
In his announcement to the House of Lords, Agnew said “Given that I am the minister for counter-fraud, it would be somewhat dishonest to stay on in that role if I am incapable of doing it properly.”
Agnew had supported Johnson through Brexit, donated large sums to the Conservative party, and been rewarded with a knighthood, then a peerage, before being made a minister. In his spare time, he was also part-owner of an AI consultancy called Faculty which ‘won’ almost £1m of government contracts, some of which came through the ‘VIP’ scheme (which increased the chances of winning a contract tenfold) but this was, of course, not fraud, just capitalist chumocracy.
At least honour remains in a few small corners of parliament: in the Southend West byelection caused by the murder of Sir David Amess, Labour, Liberal Democrats and other mainstream political parties chose not to contest the seat as a mark of respect so the Tory Anna Firth won with 86% of the vote.
A Gary Trudeau cartoon this week showed his Roland B Hedley Jr character, a long-time critic of Tucker Carlson (a right-wing anti-vaxxer Fox News presenter); Hedley tweeted “Encountered Tucker self-vaccinating in men’s room. He swore me to secrecy, but that was after I sent out this tweet.” Well, it made me laugh, but I like silly jokes, and those that need a second’s thought to appreciate.
Lesser Mutterings 