Reply To: Elections Aftermath: Was our 2019 Vote & the EU Referendum Rigged? #TORYRIG2019


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Kim Sanders-Fisher
Guest

There is now a time lag between the vital weekly governmental scrutiny opportunity that is presented at Prime Minister’s Questions and my comments posted reporting on the highlights of PMQs. This allows time for me to research and evaluate any other relevant supporting or notably conflicting data that is best analysed at the same time during a week when critical details can often get lost in the overkill of Covid 19 news. This was particularly important this week with a number of fixed dates when public policy changes were made documented by the BBC in a later Newsnight broadcast that I have now decided I will post tomorrow. The BBC must have researched and fact-checked before the broadcast so I will include verbatim quotes for comparison and contrast with earlier verbatim statements made at PMQs. I consider this significant evidence of a pattern of deliberate exposure to risk and culpable negligence that I refer to as a “Holocaust in Care.”

At the last PMQs the main focus was on the situation in Care Homes where the Tory Government has had a policy of facilitating the mass culling of our elderly population in this shocking Holocaust in Care, a move that appears to be the Tory “Final Solution” to eliminate the “burden” of Social Care in providing for “economically inactive” pensioners. It is ironic that included among the Tories current target cohort are the hallowed veterans who fought to protect us from the scourge of a genocidal authoritarian dictatorship! Kier Starmer preceded his questions by remarking that, “The Prime Minister said we need to rapidly reverse the awful situation in our care homes – but earlier this year and until the 12th of March the Government’s own official advice was and I’m quoting from it ‘it remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home will become infected’.”

Starmer continued with his first question, “Yesterdays ONS figures showed that at least 40% of all deaths from Covid 19 were in Care Homes. Does the Prime Minister accept that the Government was too slow to protect people in Care Homes?” The PM emphatically denied the accusation in a breathless tirade, “No Mr. Speaker, it wasn’t true that the advice said that and actually we bought to lockdown in Care Homes ahead of the general lockdown and what we’ve seen is a concerted action plan to tackle what is unquestionably the appalling epidemic in Care Holmes and a huge exercise in testing is going on a further 600 million pounds I can announce today for infection control in Care Homes and yes it is absolutely true that the number of casualties has been too high, but I can tell the house that as I told the Right Honourable Gentleman last week and indeed this week the number of outbreaks is down and the number of fatalities in Care Homes is well down. Ther e is much more to do, but we are making progress Mr Speaker.”

Starmer’s rebuttal was swift, “I’m surprised the Prime Minister queried the advice of his own Government up to the 12th of March. I do of course welcome any fall in the recorded numbers and he’s right to reference that, but the Prime Minister must still recognize that the numbers are very high.” These policy decisions are well documented and could provide damning evidence against the Government in a court case. Starmer identified a particular article validating the impact, “The daily Telegraph carried the following quote from a Cardiologist, ‘We discharged no suspected or unknown cases into Care Homes which were unprepared, with no formal warning that patients were infected, no testing available and no PPE to prevent transmission, we actively seeded this into the very population that was most vulnerable.’ Does the PM accept that the Cardiologist is right about this?”

The PM was clearly taken aback by this revelation and responded with insincere accolades, unable to call out the raw truth of the Doctor’s statement without insulting heroic NHS staff he stalled for time saying, “Well Mr. Speaker, I have the utmost respect for all our Medical profession who are doing an extraordinary job in very difficult circumstances.” Boris Johnson then reverted to a diversionary slalom away from the question to brag his way out of providing an answer saying, “but what I can tell the house is that actually the number of discharges from Hospitals into Care Homes went down in March and April and we had a system of testing people going into Care Homes and that testing is now being ramped up across all the 1500 Care Homes in this country.” I doubt these claims would survive a robust fact-check.

Starmer kept up his uncomfortable questioning of the PM asking, “Mr. Speaker, I want to probe the figures the Prime Minister’s given us a little bit further the Office of National Statistics records the average number of deaths in Care Homes in each month. For the last five years the average for April has been just over 8000. This year the number of deaths in Care Homes for April was a staggering 26,000, that’s three times the average,18,000 additional deaths this April. Using the Government figures only 8000 are recorded as Covid deaths; that leaves 10,000 additional and unexplained Care Home deaths this April. Now I know the Government must have looked into this, so can the Prime Minister give us the Governments views on these unexplained deaths?”

The PM scrambled to find an appropriate reply, “Well Mr. Speaker Coronavirus is an appalling disease which afflicts some groups far more than others, I think that the whole country understands that in particular the elderly, and he’s right to draw attention as I’ve said to the tragedy that’s been taking place in Care Homes.” He continued his redundant statement of the obvious saying, “The Office of National Statistics is responsible for producing the data that they have, the Gov has also produced data which not only shows that there has been, as I say a terrible epidemic in Care Homes.” The question remained unanswered as Boris Johnson started into another slalom run of diversionary banter.

The PM reverted to bragging about painfully slow, gradual improvements by continuing his reply saying, “but since the Covid, the Care Homes Action Plan began we are seeing an appreciable and substantial reduction, not just in the number of outbreaks but also in the number of deaths and I want to stress to the House and also to the country that solving the problem in Care Homes is going to be absolutely critical to getting the “R” down not just in Care Homes but across the country is going to be absolutely critical to our ability to move forward as a nation with the steps program that I announced on Sunday. We must exit and we will.” Johnson managed a clear run taking the subject so far in the opposite direction that most will have forgotten the question.

Starmer wasn’t perturbed, determined to drive home his point he elaborated on the unanswered question of unexplained deaths asking, “The Prime Minister says that solving the problem in Care Homes is crucial but that can only happen if the numbers are understood and therefore I was disappointed that the Prime Minister doesn’t have an answer to the pretty obvious question as to what are those 10,000 unexplained deaths.” This was a point that the opposition will hope is picked up by the press, hence the emphasis of Starmer’s rebuttal.

Keir Starmer continued with another question, “Mr. Speaker yesterday the overall figures given by the Government at the Press Conference were those who died of Covid 19 was 32,692 each one a tragedy. For many weeks the Government has compared the UK number against other countries. Last week I showed the PM his own slides showing that the UK now has the highest death total in Europe and the second highest in the world. A version of this slide has been shown at the number 10 Press Conference every day since the 30th of March, that’s seven weeks. Yesterday the Government stopped publishing the international comparisons and the slide’s gone. Why?” A recent Skwawkbox Article elaborated on the issue of the disappearing data slide.

This expectation of transparency really got Boris Johnson rattled and his hesitation showed, “Er, Mr Speaker Er, as, as he knows very well the UK has been going through an unprecedented once in a century epidemic and he seeks to make comparisons with other countries which I’m advised… I’m advised are premature because the correct, the correct and final way of making these comparisons will be when we have all the excess death totals for all the relevant countries. We do not yet have that data… now Mr. Speaker, I’m not going to try to pretend to the House that the figures when they are finally confirmed are anything other than stark and deeply, deeply horrifying this has been an appalling epidemic…”

Johnson needed another triumphant slalom run of diversionary bragging so he continued with, “what I can tell the House is that we are getting those numbers down, the numbers of deaths are coming down, the numbers of Hospital admissions are coming down thanks to the hard work of the British people in reducing the ‘R’.” Certain no one would want to challenge public effort Johnson continued, “Mr. Speaker, in reducing those numbers of fatalities we are now in a position to make some small modest steps to begin to come out of the very restrictive measures that we’ve had. I think people do understand what we’re trying to do as a country and as for the international comparisons that he seeks to draw now, I think he will have to… he will have to contain his impatience.” There were a few pathetic Hear, Hears of support from the Covid depleted Tory benches.

Starmer continued to profess bewilderment saying, “Well I’m baffled, it’s not me seeking to draw the comparisons these are the Government slides that have been used for seven weeks to reassure the public and the problem with the Prime Minister’s answer is that it’s pretty obvious that for seven weeks when we weren’t the highest number in Europe they were using them for comparison purposes and as soon as we hit that unenviable place they’ve been dropped and last week he quoted in defence of Professor Spiegelhalter. What Professor Spiegelhalter said at the weekend was this that we need to think about it we should use other countries to try and learn why our numbers are so high and so dropping the comparison, means dropping the learning and that’s the real risk.”

Starmer continued, “I want to ask the Prime Minister now about the changes that are coming into effect today. The real concern for many people is childcare.” He went on to quote the mother of a young child apologizing for its length by saying that it reflected queries that all members of the House would have been getting. It was over what they should do about childcare, essentially what exceptions would employers be expected to make for their workers to provide for childcare needs, as both she and her husband were expected back at work while nurseries remained closed. Starmer asked, “What advice would the Prime Minister give her?”

Boris Johnson felt the need to start with a defensive rebuttal, “Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker just on his earlier point about not learning from other countries, nothing could be further from the truth, we are watching intently what is happening in other countries and it is very notable that in some other countries were relaxations have been introduced there is signs of the “R” going up again and that’s a very clear warning to us not to proceed to fast or too recklessly and I hope that people, I hope the country does understand that.” In reality, this Tory Government has made a conscious choice to totally ignore the strong evidence of all of the International experts informing the WHO on best practice with regard to global Pandemic advice and head off in the wrong direction advocating “Herd Immunity.” They are still heading in the wrong direction because Tories never learn lessons.

The PM returned to the more recent question saying, “on the specific point that he rightly raises about people who have anxieties about going back to work when they don’t have adequate childcare, and I think I was very clear with both with him and with the House earlier in the week, that in so far as that people may not be able to go back to work because they don’t have the childcare that they need, then their employers must be understanding and it is clearly as I said an impediment it’s a barrier to your ability to go back to work if you don’t have childcare. I’d be very happy to look at the specific case that he raises if there’s anything more that we can do to shed light on the matter.” If there is no Government mandated protection in place to cover this situation workers know they will be exploited.

Starmer says he is grateful to the Prime Minister for indicating that he’ll look into that particular case, reminding him that it’s one of very many. He moves to another important point saying, “The Prime Minister is asking the country to support decisions that will affect millions of lives, these are not easy decisions, I recognize that they’re very difficult balanced decisions that the Prime Minister and his Government has to make. After the confusion of the last few days gaining public confidence in them is crucial, crucial the Prime Minister said that his decisions were and I quote ‘driven by the science, the data and public health.’ So to give the public confidence in the decisions, can the Prime Minister commit to publishing the scientific advice that his decisions were based on?”

This was a tall order from the most opaque Tory Government in living memory and the PM was determined to avoid any scrutiny evasively saying that, “Now Mr. Speaker, all SAGE advice is published in due course as the Right Honourable Gentleman knows.” With that classic prelude to obfuscation he continued, “and let me be absolutely clear with the House that SAGE has been involved in every stage, and our scientists and our medical officers have been involved in every stage, of preparing this strategy and I want to remind the House that what we are doing is entirely conditional and provisional,” deftly evading the question altogether. It was time for another thrilling slalom run of insincere complements and bragging as Boris Johnson prattled on, “The UK has made a huge amount of progress and the people of this country have worked incredibly hard to get the “R” down; we cannot now go back to square one we can’t risk a second outbreak and we will do everything to avoid that.”

So this was Boris Johnson’s valid excuse for keeping the entire country in the dark, guessing over exactly what scientific advice might be driving the reckless Tory Government’s shambolic policy making that was so radically at odds with the WHO and most other countries? The Prime Minister concluded with his baseless assumptions regarding public understanding and support, “I think that actually when they look at what we’re advocating as the way forward, the Steps Process that we’ve set out, I think people can see exactly what we’re trying to do as a country and they can see that everybody is still required to obey the social distancing laws, the social distancing rules. And after a time the common sense of the British people got us through that first phase of the disease I’m absolutely confident they will get us through the next as well.”

After thanking our NHS Nurses on International Nurses Day Ian Blackford asked, “Mr. Speaker, last week the Prime Minister, in response to my questioning, noted the ability of the Governments of all four Nations to come together and to deliver a very clear message for our people. Events on Sunday could not have been more disastrous from this Government, the Prime Minister has made confusion costly, the devolved administrations shut out, widespread confusion amongst the public and a total disregard from this Government for workers safety. Very sadly we have seen the images of London buses being packed this morning. Mr. Speaker will the Prime Minister accept that the clear message in Scotland is Stay Home to Protect the NHS to Save Lives.”

The PM responded, “Mr. Speaker indeed the message throughout the country is of course that you should stay at home if you can, unless you, unless the specific circumstances that we’ve outlined apply, but I must say I don’t accept the characterization of the cooperation that we’ve had across all four nations that the leader of the SNP makes. In my experience there’s been intense, it’s been going on for days and days, and weeks and weeks, and actually I think if you look at the totality of the measures that we’re taking as a country there is much more that unites us than divides us and we will go forward together.” Johnson said, evoking the sad memory of a courageous Labour MP cut down in her prime due to bigoted far Right hate messages and incitement provoked by Brexit extremists. In view of Boris’s notorious intolerance and total lack of collaboration, it was not an appropriate remark.

Ian Blackford offered a reality check saying, “Mr. Speaker the reality is that the Prime Minister has failed to deliver a clear message and he doesn’t address the point about London buses being packed this morning. The Prime Minister is threatening progress made against the spread of this virus by the general public, who have following the advice to stay at home. The Prime Minister is putting worker’s safety at risk by calling on those who can’t work at home to go to their jobs without any guidance on health and safety.” These chaotic scenes were captured and well documented on Social Media and it made an absolute mockery of the Government’s social distancing strategy. Few if any of the commuters were wearing masks because the Government has insisted that wearing masks is pointless; terrified that the general public will commandeer any of the dwindling PPE supplies. Expect another spike in infections!

Blackford moved on to his second permitted question saying, “only last Monday the Health Secretary launched a test – trace App trial, on Sunday the Prime Minister appeared to leap frog any success with that by announcing easing of restriction! Before any lockdown easing and to avoid undermining the progress made so far the Prime Minister must make sure that there are sufficient levels of testing available and the ability to test, trace, isolate is fully in operation. Why is the Prime Minister throwing weeks of against this virus into jeopardy undermining the work of our outstanding NHS?”

Boris Johnson, caught out by the absurdity of jumping the gun on lockdown, appeared hesitant to reply before returning to London buses, “Er well Mr. Speaker forgive me, he raises the point about London buses… which is quite right and I don’t want to see crowding on mass tran…” Don’t say “mass transit,” there are no masses allowed! Correcting his error, the PM continued, “on public transport, in our capitol or anywhere else, and we’re working very actively with TFL to insure that what we do is, we have more capacity, we discourage people from going to work during the peak and that the operators and in particular TFL lay on, particularly more tubes, more tube trains, when those are necessary throughout the day… and a huge amount of work is being done, we also want to see proper marshalling at stations to prevent crowding of trains.” It was probably considered best not to mention expecting all those poor bastards socially cleansed out of London to walk or cycle for countless hours just to get to and from work.

It was time for another self-congratulatory slalom to avoid criticism over the testing void. The PM longed for support as he began his reply, “I must say that on his point about test, track and trace, the test, track and trace is going to be a huge operation for this entire country…” He needed to drag Blackford into his shambolic plan saying, “and I think actually he should pay tribute the work of those hundreds of thousands of people who are now responsible for massively escalating our test, track and tracing operation.” It was another nauseating round of “don’t you dare insult the people.” Johnson went on to claim, “We now test more than virtually any other country in Europe…” The key word here was “virtually” as this probably referred to “virtual testing” a bit like “your test is in the mail…” I doubt that boast was a true fact, more likely another impressive piece of Boris Shit?

Johnson was swiftly twisting and turning as his bragging rapidly advanced, “and it’s got, the rate of acceleration, the rate of increase, has been very, very sharp indeed and we will go up to 200,000 by the end of the month, but he’s absolutely right that this should be entirely, the success of this program is absolutely vital if we’re to be able to move on to the third step, the second and third steps of our roadmap.” The PM would rather we didn’t notice the reduction in his commitment for the increased level of testing by the end of this month to 200,000; what happened to 250,000? It was time to pull the recalcitrant SNP Ministers into the Tories bogus roadmap against their will. Boris Johnson’s fake majority in Parliament will give the Tories the ability to shut down all of the devolved Governments following crash-out Brexit in a few months time; they will not hesitate to bring the devolved nations to heel.

Among other issues raised, Conservative Julian smith asked if there would be a more permanent solution for rough sleepers, 90% of whom had been taken off the street in response to the crisis. The PM indulged in self-congratulatory glory that ignored the harsh reality of the escalation of homelessness under a decade of Tory austerity. Liberal Democrat Ed Davey made a pitch for extending the help offered to the Self Employed to which the PM responded by accusing him of attempting to take credit from the Tories over measure they had introduces; I did not het the quip, but a number of MPs were obviously amused by it. Tory MP Dr Jamie Wallis took the opportunity to criticise Labour for their slower release of lockdown in Wales; an attack that the PM eagerly lapped up.

Labour MP John Spellar asked about the returning of nationals from overseas and the dismissive abandonment of those claiming leave to remain in the UK who were experiencing a similar persecution to the Windrush victims. The PM claimed to be “doing best we can.” The SNPs, David Linden was concerned for the welfare of asylum seekers after lockdown created more hardship and insecurity for this group. The PM claimed that no one is being ill treated, but I am not convinced of that with Pretty Patel in charge of their fate. There were the usual number of Tory, “does the Prime Minister agree with me,” self-congratulatory “stroking” non questions that do not warrant documentation.

Hard core Tory Brexiteer Peter Bone started insulting the Electoral Commission for it’s case against the Leave organizations that appears to have now been dropped; he appealed for the PM to leave “Leave” alone and abolish the Electoral Commission. It does not surprise me that the case fell apart since the Electoral Commission is completely toothless: A Watchdog that cannot watch is just a dog! The fabricated majority won via the Covert 2019 Rigged Election now means that the Tories have the absolute control that they need to finally euthanize the dog. In the US Donald Trump is removing regulatory bodies to eliminate his accountability to the American people; expect Boris Johnson to do the same. We need to Rescue our Watchdog before it is too late.

Stewart Hosie from the SNP but in a desperate plea to extend Brexit transition period since it would be negligent to proceed. No, No, No, the PM embraces negligence; his boot will stomp down hard on our neck! Neil Gray also of the SNP protested about businesses who were not living up to their furlough obligations to support workers and asks the PM to set up a furlough appeal process. The PM says he will take up case. Kate Griffiths expressed concerns over vulnerable older NHS staff who should be removed from frontline duties. The PM appears to agree and included BME staff in the cohort of concern. Our solitary Green MP, Caroline Lucas asked the PM to make sure that as we emerge from the current emergency we will not deepen the climate crisis; specifically requesting no Government handouts to polluters. The PM went into meaningless waffle overdrive.

A final intervention from Tory William Wragg was yet another excuse for self-congratulatory stroking as he began by enlisted the PMs agreement in shallow praise of NHS staff, then appealing for Healthcare to return to normal. Boris Johnson started bragging about how they had protected the NHS, without bothering to mention how that had been achieved at the expense of abandoning the elderly to die in Care Homes. As tedious as it is to fully document the endless deliberately devious prevarications of Boris Johnson during Prime Minister’s Questions, I feel it is important in this instance in order to place the PMs statements in the same post as contrasting revelations that could solidify the complicity of this Tory Government in a Court Case. These exact words, as identified within quotation marks, are fully verified as accurate through the official Governmental transcript of Erskine May.

There was a real eye opening segment of on Newsnight later the same day that ties in with Wednesday’s PMQs, but this post is already way too long so I will post it tomorrow. I think the evidence is mounting and this Tory Government is continuing to paint themselves into a corner. The daily Press Briefings are becoming more repetitive with their nauseating propaganda every day. Thanks for posting that Link to alternative SAGE; I need to look over their information to get a glimpse of reality. Keep digging to uncover more material and damning evidence to help secure the removal of this dangerous Government from office; don’t give up the fight.